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Book. 






THE 



POETICAL WORKS 






LORD BYRON 



WITH A MEMOIR. 



COLLECTED AND ARRANGED WITH NOTES 



SIR WALTER SCOTT, 
LORD JEFFREY, 
PROFESSOR WILSON, 
THOMAS MOORE, 
WILLIAM GIFFORD, 



REV. GEORGE CRABBE, 
BISHOP HEBER, 
J. G. LOCKHART, 
LORD BROUGHTON, 
THOMAS CAMPBELL. 



%m artd ^ompUt^ ^riiti0iu 



^//^ 




PHIIADELPHIA: 

POPvTER AND CO AXES. 



tH 






PHILADELPHIA : 



Press of Hknky B. Ashmead. 



By Transi^r 
JUN 5 ^^07 



CONTENTS, 



PAGE 

MEMOIR, vii 

CHRONOLOGY, xxiii 

CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 

Preface to the First and Second Cantos, . 1 

To lANTHE, . . . . . . . 2 

Canto I., 3 

Canto IL, 19 

Canto III., 33 

Canto IV., 48 

Dedication, 48 

THE GIAOUR : A Fragment of a Turkish 

Tale, 73 

Dedication, 73 

Advertisement, 73 

THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS : A Turkish Tale, 91 
Dedication, 91 

THE CORSAIR: A Tale, . . . .106 
Dedication, 106 

LARA: A Tale, 128 

THE SIEGE OF CORINTH, .... 142 

Dedication, 142 

Advertisement, 142 

PARISINA, . . . . *. . . .155 

Dedication, 155 

Advertisement,. ' 155 

THE PRISONER OF CHILLON : A Fable, 163 
Sonnet to Chillon, 163 

BEPPO: A Venetian Story, . . .169 

MAZEPPA, 183 

Advertisement, 183 

THE ISLAND ; or. Christian and his Com- 
rades, 192 

Advertisement, 192 

MANFRED: A Dramatic Poem, . . .209 

MARINO FALIERO, DOGE OF VENICE: 

An Historical Tragedy, . . .230 
Preface, 230 

HEAVEN AND EARTH : A Mystery, . 



SARDANAPALUS : A Tragedy, 
Dedication, 
Preface, .... 



276 

290 
290 
290 



THE TWO FOSCARI : An Historical Tra- 
gedy, 329 



PAGK 

THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED: A 

Drama, .356 

Advertisement, 356 

CAIN: A Mystery, 374 

Dedication, 374 

Preface, 374 

>» 

WERNER; OR, The Inheritance: A Tra- 
gedy, 404 

Dedication, 404 

Preface, 404 

HOURS OF IDLENESS : A Series of Poems, 

Original and Translated, . . 444 

Dedication, 444 

Preface, 444 

On the Death of a Young Lady, Cousin to 

the Author, and very dear to him, . . 445 

To E , . . . . . . .446 

To D , 446 

.. Epitaph on a Friend, 446 

A Fragment, 447 

On leaving Newstead Abbey, . . . 447 
Lines written in "Letters to an Italian 
Nun and an English Gentleman; by J. 

J.Rousseau: founded on Facts," . . 448 
Answer to the foregoing, addressed to 

Miss , 448 

Adrian's Address to his Soul when Dying, . 448 

Translation from Catullus. Ad Lesbiam, . 448 
Translation of the Epitaph on Virgil and 

Tibullus, by Domitius Marsus, . . . 448 
Imitation of Tibullus. '' Sulpicia ad Cerin- 

thum," 449 

Translation from Catullus. "Lugete, Ve- 
neres, Cupidinesque," &c., . . . 449 
Imitation from Catullus. To Ellen, . . 449 
Translation from Horace. " Justum et te- 
nacem," &c., 449 

From Anacreon. " ®e\<o \eyelv ArpeiSa?," . 449 

From Anacreon. " Meo-owKTtais no6' wpats," . 449 
From the Prometheus Vinctus of ^schylus. 

" MrjSaju.' 6 navTa vejXiav, k. t. \.," . . , 450 

To Emma, 450 

To M. S. G., 451 

To Caroline, 461 

To the Same, 451 

To the Same, 452 

Stanzas to a Lady, with the Poems of Cam- 

oens, 452 

The First Kiss of Love, . . . .452 

( iii ) 



IV 



CONTENTS. 



453 
453 



454 
455 



456 
457 



460 
461 
464 

468 

468 



HOURS OF IDLENESS. 
'"- On a Change of Masters at a great Public 

School, . 

To the Duke of Dorset, . . . . 
Fragment, written shortly after the Mar- 
riage of Miss Chaworth, .... 
Granta. A Medley, . . . . . 
On a distant View of the Village and School 
of Harrow on the Hill, .... 

ToM , 

To Woman, 457 

To M. S. G., 457 

\/ To Mary, on receiving her Picture, . . 457 

To Lesbia, 458 

Lines addressed to a young Lady, who was 
alarmed at the Sound of a Bullet hissing 

near her, 458 

Love's last Adieu, . . . " . . . 459 

Damsetas, 459 

To Marion, 460 

To a Lady who presented to the Author a 

Lock of Hair braided with his Own, 
Oscar of Alva. A Tale, . . . , 
The Episode of Nisus and Euryalus, . 
Translation from the Medea of Euripides 

" 'Epwres VTrep [k^v a.ya.v, k. t. X.," 

Thoughts suggested by a College Examina- 
tion, 

To a beautiful Quaker, 469 

The Cornelian, 469 

An Occasional Prologue to " The Wheel of 

Fortune," 471 

On the Death of Mr. Fox, . . . .471 

The Tear, 472 

Reply to some Verses of J. M. B. Pigot, 

Esq., on the Cruelty of his Mistress, . 472 
To the sighing Strephon, . . . . 473 

To Eliza, 473 

Lachin y Gair, 473 

To Romance, 474 

Answer to some elegant Verses sent by a 
Friend to the Author, complaining that 
one of his Descriptions was rather too 

warmly drawn, 475 

Elegy on Newstead Abbey, .... 475 

Childish Recollections, 478 

Answer to a beautiful Poem, entitled " The 

Common Lot," 

Remembrance,' 

To a Lady who presented the Author with 

the velvet Band which bound her Tresses, 

Lines addressed to the Rev. J. T. Becher, 

on his advising the Author to mix more 

with Society, 

The Death of Calmar and Orla. An Imita 

tion of Macpherson's Ossian, . 
L'Amitie est I'Amour sans Ailes, . 
The Prayer of Nature, .... 
To Edward Noel Long, Esq., 



485 

485 

485 



485 

486 
487 
488 
489 



PAGE 

HOURS OF IDLENESS. 

Oh ! had my fate been join'd with thine, . 490 

I would I were a careless Child, . . . 491 

When I roved a young Highlander, . . 492 

To George, Earl of Delawarr, . . . 493 

To the Earl of Clare, 493 

Lines written beneath an Elm in the Church- 
yard of Harrow, 494 

Article on the " Hours of Idleness," from 

the Edinburgh Review, . . , . 495 

ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEW- 
ERS : A Satiee, . . . . . 497 

Preface, 497 

HINTS FROM HORACE ; being an Allu- 
sion IN English Veese to the Epistle 

" Ad Pisones, de Aete Poetica," . 518 
THE CURSE OF MINERVA, . . . .537 

THE WALTZ : An Apostrophic Hymn, . 541 

To the Publisher, 541 

ODE TO NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE, . 545 
HEBREW MELODIES, . . . . .549 

She walks in Beauty, 549 

The Harp the Monarch Minstrel swept, . 549 

If that high World, 549 

The wild Gazelle, 550 

Oh ! weep for those, 550 

On Jordan's Banks, 550 

Jephthah's Daughter, ..... 550 

Oh ! snatch'd away in Beauty's Bloom, . 551 

My Soul is dark, 551 

I saw thee weep, 551 

Thy Days are done, 551 

Song of Saul before his last Battle, . . 552 

Saul, • . . . 552 

" All is Vanity, saith the Preacher," . . 552 

When Coldness wraps this suffering Clay, . 553 

Vision of Belshazzar, 553 

Sun of the Sleepless, 553 

Were my bosom as false as thou deem'st it 
tobe, . . . . . . . .553 

Herod's Lament for Mariamne, . . . 554 
On the Day of the Destruction of Jerusalem 
by Titus, . . . . . . .554 

By the Rivers of Babylon we sat down and 

wept, 554 

The Destruction of Sennacherib, . . . 554 

A Spirit pass'd before me. From Job, . 555 

DOMESTIC PIECES : 1816, .... 556 

Fare thee Well, 557 

A Sketch, 557 

Stanzas to Augusta. "When all around 

grew drear and dark," .... 558 
Stanzas to Augusta. " Though the Day of 

my Destiny's over," 558 

Epistle to Augusta. " My sister ! my sweet 

sister! if a name," 559 

Lines on hearing that Lady Byron was ill, . 560 



( 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

MONODY ON THE DEATH OF THE EIGHT 
HON. R. B. SHERIDAN, . . . .562 

THE DREAM, 564 

THE LAMENT OF TASSO, .... 567 
Advertisement, 567 

ODE ON VENICE, 572 

THE MORGANTE MAGGIORE OF PULCI, 574 
Advertisement, 574 

THE PROPHECY OF DANTE, . . .592 
Dedication, ...... 592 

Preface, 592 

Canto I., . . . . . . .593 

Canto II., 595 

Canto TIL, 596 

Canto IV., .' 598 

FRANCESCA OF RIMINI, . . . .602 

THE BLUES: A Literary Eclogue, . . 605 

THE VISION OF JUDGMENT, . . .611 

PREFACE, 611 

THE AGE OF BRONZE ; OR, Carmen Secu- 
LARE et Annus haud Mirabilis, . . 629 

OCCASIONAL PIECES : 1807-1824. 

The Adieu. Written under the Impression 

that the Author would soon die, . . 639 

To a vain Lady, 640 

To Anne, . . . . . . .640 

To the Same, . . . . ' . . .641 

To the Author of a Sonnet beginning " Sad 

is my Verse, you say, and yet no Tear," . 641 

On finding a Fan, 641 

Farewell to the Muse, 641 

To an Oak at Newstead, .... 642 

On revisiting Harrow, 642 

Epitaph on John Adams of Southwell, a 

Carrier, who died of Drunkenness, . . 643 

To my Son, 643 

Farewell ! if ever fondest Prayer, . . 643 

Bright be the Place of thy Soul, . . . 643 

When we Two parted, ..... 644 

To a Youthful Friend, 644 

Lines inscribed upon a Cup formed from a 

Skull, 645 

Well, thou art happy ! 645 

Inscription on the Monument of a New- 
foundland Dog, 646 

To a Lady, on being asked my Reason for 

quitting England in the Spring, . . 646 

Remind me not, remind me not, . . . 646 

There was a Time, I need not name, . . 647 

And wilt thou weep when I am low ? . . 647 
Fill the Goblet again. A Song, . . .648 

Stanzas to a Lady, on leaving England, . 648 
Lines to Mr. Hodgson. Written on board 

the Lisbon Packet, 649 



PAGE 

OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

Lines written in an Album at Malta, . . 650 

To Florence, 650 

Stanzas composed during a Thunder-storm, 651 
Stanzas written on passing the Ambraciau 

Gulf, . 652 

The Spell is broke, the Charm is flown ! . 652 
Written after swimming from Sestos to 

Abydos, . . . . . . .652 

Lines in the Travellers' Book at Orcho- 

menus, 653 

Maid of Athens, ere we part, . . . 653 

Substitute for an Epitaph, .... 653 
Translation of the Nurse's Dole in the 

Medea of Euripides, 654 

My Epitaph, 654 

Lines written beneath a picture, . . . 654 
Translation of the famous Greek War Song, 

" Aevre nalSe?" &C., ..... 654 

Translation of the Romaic Song, "Mnevu 

jixe? 't(t' wepi/SdAi," ...... 655 

On Parting, 655 

Epitaph for Joseph Blackett, late Poet and 

Shoemaker, 655 

Farewell to Malta, 656 

To Dives. A Fragment, .... 656 
On Moore's last Operatic Farce, or Farcical 

Opera, 656 

Epistle to a Friend, in answer to some Lines 

exhorting the Author to be cheerful, and 

to " banish care," 657 

To Thyrza. " Without a Stone," &c., . . 657 

Stanzas. " Away, away, ye Notes of Woe," 658 
Stanzas. "One Struggle more, and I am 

free," .658 

Euthanasia. " When Time," &c., . . 659 
Stanzas. " And thou art dead, as young as 

fair," 659 

Stanzas. "If sometimes in the Haunts of 

Men," 660 

On a Cornelian Heart which was broken, . 661 

Lines from the French, » . . . 661 

Lines to a Lady weeping, .... 661 
"The Chain I gave," &c. From the 

Turkish, . . . . . . .661 

Lines written on a Blank Leaf of "The 

Pleasures of Memory," .... 661 
Address, spoken at the opening of Drury 

Lane Theatre, October 10, 1812, . . 662 

Parenthetical Address, by Dr. Plagiary, . 663 
Verses found in a Summer House at Hales 

Owen, 663 

Remember Thee ! Remember Thee ! . . 664 

To Time, 664 

Translation of a Romaic Love Song, . . 664 

Stanzas. " Thou art not False," &c., . . 665 
On being asked what was the "Origin of 

Love," 665 

Stanzas. " Remember him," &c., . . 665 



VI 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

0(^CASIONAL PIECES. 

On Lord Thurlow's Poems, . . . .666 

To Lord Thurlow, 666 

To Thomas Moore. Written the Evening 

before his Visit to Mr. Leigh Hunt in 

Horsemonger-Lane Gaol, .... 666 
Impromptu. " When from the Heart where 

Sorrow sits," 667 

Sonnet, to Genevra, 667 

Sonnet, to the Same, 667 

From the Portuguese. " Tu mi chamas," . 667 

Another Version, 667 

The Devil's Drive. An unfinished Rhap- 
sody, 667 

Windsor Poetics, 668 

Stanzas for Music. " I speak not, I trace 

not," &c., . . . . . . .669 

Address intended to be recited at the Cale- 
donian Meeting, 669 

Fragment of an Epistle to Thomas Moore, . 669 
Condolatory Address to Sarah, Countess of 

Jersey, on the Prince Regent's returning 

her Picture to Mrs. Mee, .... 670 

To Belshazzar, 670 

Elegiac Stanzas on the Death of Sir Peter 

Parker, Bart., 670 

Stanzas for Music. " There's not a Joy the 

, ^-••''%orld can give," &e., . . . .671 

Stanzas for Music. " There be none of 

Beauty's Daughters," .... 671 
On Napoleon's Escape from Elba, . . 672 
Ode from the French. "We do not curse 

thee, Waterloo," 672 

From the French. " Must thou go, my 

glorious Chief?" 673 

On the Star of "The Legion of Honor." 

From the French, 673 

Napoleon's Farewell. From the French, . 674 
Endorsement to the Deed of Separation, in 

the April of 1816, 674 

Darkness, 674 

Churchill's Grave, 675 

Prometheus, 676 

A Fragment. " Could I remount," &c., . 677 
Sonnet to Lake Leman, .... 677 

Romance muy Doloroso del Sitio y Toma 

de Alhama, 677 

A very mournful Ballad on the Siege and 

Conquest of Alhama, .... 677 
Sonetto di Vittorelli. Per Monaca, . . 680 
Translation from Vittorelli. On a Nun, . 680 
Stanzas for Music. " Bright be the place of 

thy Soul," 680 

Stanzas for Music. "They say that Hope 

is Happiness," 680 

To Thomas Moore. " My Bark is on the 

Shore," 680 

On the Bust of Helen by Canova,. . . 681 
Song for the Luddites, ..... 681 



PAOB 

OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

To Thomas Moore. " What are you doing 

now?" 681 

So, we'll go no more a roving, . . .681 

Versicles, 681 

To Mr. Murray. " To hook the Reader," . 682 

Epistle from Mr. Murray to Dr. Polidori, . 682 
Epistle to Mr. Murray. "My dear Mr. 

Murray," &c., . . * . . . .682 

To Mr. Murray. " Strahan, Tonson," &c., . 683 
On the Birth of John William Rizzo 

Hoppner, 683 

Stanzas to the Po, 684 

Sonnet to George the Fourth, on the Re- 
peal of Lord Edward Fitzgerald's For- 
feiture, •. .685 

Epigram from the French of Rulhieres, . 685 

Stanzas. " Could Love for ever," &c., . 685 

On my Wedding Day, 686 

Epitaph for William Pitt, . . . . 6S6 
Epigram. " In digging up your Bones, 

Tom Paine," &c., 686 

Stanzas. " When a Man hath no Freedom 

to fight for at home," &c., . . . .686 
Epigram. "The World is a Bundle of 

Hay," 686 

The Charity Ball, ...... 686 

Epigram on my Wedding Day, . . . 687 

On my Thirty-third Birthday, . . . 687 

Epigram on the Braziers' Company, . . 687 

Martial, Lib. I. Epist. I., . . . . 687 

Bowles and Campbell, 687 

Epigrams on Lord Castlereagh, . . .687 

Epitaph on Lord Castlereagh, . . . 687 

John Keats, 687 

The Conquest. A Fragment, . . . 688 
To Mr. Murray. "For Orford and for 

Waldegrave," &c., 688 

The Irish Avatar, 688 

Stanzas written on the Road between Flor- 
ence and Pisa, 690 

Stanzas to a Hindoo Air, .... 690 

Impromptu. " Beneath Blessington's Eyes," 691 

To the Countess of Blessington, . . . 691 
Stanzas inscribed — " On this day I com- 
plete my Thirt3^-sixth Year," . . .691 

DON JUAN, 

Preface, ....... 692 

Testimonies of Authoes, . . .693 

Dedication, 705 

Preface to Cantos VL, VIL, VIII., . . 801 
Letter to the Editor of " My Grandmother's 

Review," 956 

Some observations upon " Remarks on the 
First and Second Cantos of Don Juan" 
in Blackwood's Magazine, . . . 958 

Appendix, .917 



MEMOIE OF THE AUTHOR. 



# 



The portrait of the most remarkable figure in the literature of this century is still too 
often made up on the principle of putting in all the shadows and leaving out all the lights. 
Not only the facts of his own life, but even the records and traditions of his ancestry, are 
partially selected in this way. It is true, no doubt, that a man's immediate ancestors must 
be supposed to have most influence on his character, and that Byron's immediate ancestors 
were far from being quiet, respectable people. His father. Captain Byron, was a profligate 
ofiicer, whose first wife was a divorced lady with whom he had eloped to France, who married 
a second time only to find the means for paying his debts, and who left his wife as soon as 
her fortune was exhausted. His mother, Catherine Gordon, heiress of Gight in Aberdeen- 
shire, was a fitful and passionate woman, who knew no stable halting-place between the 
extremes of indulgent fondness and vindictive disfavor. His granduncle, whom he suc- 
ceeded in the title, had killed his neighbor and relative, Mr. Chaworth, in a drunken brawl, 
had been tried before the House of Lords on the charge of murder and acquitted, but had 
been so wrought upon by remorse and the sense of public opprobrium, that he shut himself 
up at Newstead, let the place go to ruin, and acquired such a bad repute by his solitary 
excesses that he was known as " the wicked Lord Byron." Even in this wild ancestry it is 
easy to detect the corruption of good things. In other parts of the family line the nobler 
elements are seen running clear and pure. The poet's grandfather, Admiral Byron, " Foul- 
weather Jack," who had as little rest on sea as the poet on land, had the virtues without the 
vices of the race. Farther down the family tree we find the Byrons distinguishing them- 
selves in the field. Seven brothers fought in the battle of Edgehill. None of the family 
would seem to have been stirred by the poetic impulse in the brightest period of lEnglish 
song, but later on, under Charles II., there was a Lord Byron who patronized literature, 
and himself wrote some verses in which he professed — 

" My whole ambition only doth extend 

To gain the name of Stedman's faithful friend." 

Sir Egerton Brydges, however, has found a poetic ancestry for Byron by connecting the 
Byrons of the seventeenth century with the family of Sydney. 

The poverty into which Byron was born, and from which his accession to high rank did 
not free him, had much to do in determining his future career. That he would have written 
verses in whatever circumstances he had been born we may safely believe ; but if he had 
been born in afiiuence we may be certain that, with his impressionable disposition, he would 
never' have been the poet of the Revolution — the most powerful exponent of the modern 
spirit. By the time of his birth (at Holies Street, London, January 22, 1788), his father 
had " squandered the lands o' Gight awa," and his mother was on her way back from the 

vii 



Viii MEMOIE OF THE AUTHOE. 

Continent with a small remnant of her wrecked fortune. Mrs. Byron took up her residence 
in Aberdeen ; and her " lame brat," as she called him in her fits, was sent for a year to a 
private school at five shillings a quarter, and afterwards to the grammar school of the town. 
Many little stories are told of the boy's afiectionate gratitude and venturesome chivaby, as 
well as of his exacting and passionate temper. The sisters Gray, who were his successive 
nurses, found him tractable enough under kind treatment. His mother, whose notions of 
discipline consisted in hurling things at him when he was disobedient, had no authority 
over him ; he met her violence sometimes with sullen resistance, sometimes with defiant 
mockery ; and once, he tells us, they had to wrench from him a knife which he was raising 
to his breast. At school he passed from the first to the fourth class, but with all his ambi- 
tion to excel he was too self-willed to take kindly to prescribed tasks, too emotional for dry * 
intellectual work ; and he probably learned more from Mary Gray, who taught him the 
Psalms and the Bible, than he did from his schoolmaster. Before he left Aberdeen, which 
he did on the death of his granduncle and his accession to the peerage in May, 1798, he 
gave a remarkable proof of the precocious intensity of his affections by falling in love 
with his cousin Mary Duff". So strong a hold did this passion take of him, that six years 
afterwards he nearly went into convulsions on hearing of her marriage. 

When Byron's name was first called in school with the prefix " Dominus," the tradition 
is that he burst into tears, — from pride, M. Taine conjectures, — from pain at the gulf thus 
placed between him and his school-fellows, the Countess Guiccioli. Soon after, his mother, 
who had frequently taken advice for the cure of his lame foot, went with him to Nottingham, 
and placed him under the care of an empiric, who tortured him to no purpose. The torture 
was renewed under the advice of a London physician at Dr. Glennie's school at Dulwich, 
at which he was entered in the summer of 1799 ; and at last the foot, as he wrote to his old 
Scotch nurse, was so far restored that he was able to put on a common boot. He was two 
years with Dr. Glennie, and though he made little progress in his classical studies, he had 
the run of his master's library, and added greatly to his general information. Before he 
left for Harrow he had contracted another passion for his cousin Margaret Parker, so intense 
that he could not sleep nor eat when he was looking forward to meeting her. He went to 
Harrow in 1801, " a wild northern colt," as the head-master said of him, very much behind 
his age in Latin and Greek. This deficiency he never quite overcame, though he worked 
enough to get into the same form with boys of his own age. Antiquarian studies never had 
any charm for him. But though, according to his own account, he was always cricketing, 
rebelling, and getting into mischief, his brain was not idle. Partly to keep up his school 
repute for " general information," he read every history he could lay hands on, and not 
without system either, for he set himself deliberately to know something about every country. 
He also went through all the British classics, both in Johnson and in Anderson, and most 
of the living poets. Few boys left Harrow with such a store of useful learning. Many 
anecdotes are told of the warmth of his friendships at Harrow, and his chivalry in defending 
his juniors. In the vacation of 1803 he again fell in love — this time more seriously, with 
Miss Chaworth, whose grandfather " the wicked Lord Byron " had killed. In the melan- 
choly moods of his after life her rejection of him was often a subject of passionate regret. 

Byron's residence at Cambridge (Trinity College, 1805 to 1808, with interval of a year) 
added little to his knowledge of academical learning. The arts in which he qualified him- 
self to graduate were swimming, riding, fencing, boxing, drinking, gaming, and the other 
occupations of idle undergraduates. When he went up to Cambridge he was wretched, he 



MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. ix 

tells us, partly from leaving Harrow, partly " from some private domestic circumstances of 
different kinds," chiefly, it may be presumed, the want of money ; but his friend Scrope 
Davies lent him large sums, and he lived with a certain reckless happiness which had a 
great deal more to do with his moodiness and melancholy than the libertine excesses with 
which he is popularly credited. Much more important than his residence in Cambridge, as 
bearing on his mental development, was his year's residence at Southwell. From that happy 
period, which saw the serious dawn of his genius, M. Taine has picked out only the unhappy 
violent quarrel with his mother, which was the cause of its termination. His intimacy with 
the Figots, and the expansion of his poetic impulses under their genial encouragement, are 
much more worthy of notice than this culmination of miserable bickerings which he was 
now strong enough to laugh at, when the domestic storm was over. He had scribbled many 
verses at Harrow, but had been too shy to show them to his roystering friends ; and now 
finding for the first time an admiring audience, he put forth his powers in earnest, as he 
could do only under the influence of love or defiance. The result came before the public in 
the Hours of Idleness, published by Kidge of Newark in March, 1807.^ The poems in that 
collection have something of the insipidity of the circumstances that gave them birth, but 
the fact of publication bound him to his vocation to a degree of which he was not at all 
aware. Hitherto his ambition had pointed towards politics as his natural field, and he said 
as much in the somewhat disdainful preface to his poems. Putting his ambition into verse, 
he characteristically compared himself to a slumbering volcano, and longed to burst on the 
world as a Fox or a Chatham. But the Hours of Idleness decided his career for him. 
When he went back to Trinity College he could not help eagerly watching their effect. 
Again and again he wrote to the friendly Miss Pigot to hear how they Avere succeeding. 
He was prepared for defeat, he said, and he promised to take vengeance on adverse critics. 
He was made a new man by the publication ; he had tested public applause, and hungered 
for more of it. It was then that he carefully examined himself, and took stock of his 
acquirements in the very remarkable document dated November 30, 1807, to which we are 
indebted for our knowledge of the extent of his studies. In the midst of his rollicking set 
at Cambridge he was secretly girding up his loins and collecting his powers to make a grand 
struggle for fame. Perhaps no poet was ever drawn out so directly by thirst for public 
honor ; no poet ever appealed so directly to the public eye and heart. He launched himself 
bodily before the world, almost ravenous for sympathy and homage. 

It is generally said that but for the savage attack of the Edinburgh Review in the spring 
of 1808 Byron might never have returned to poetry. But the fact is that the review did 
not appear till a year after the publication of Hours of Idleness, and in the interval Byron, 
for all his farewell to poetry, was " scribbling," as he called it, more furiously than ever. 
" I have written," he wrote to Miss Pigot, six months before the Edinburgh attack, " 214 
pages of a novel ; one poem of 380 lines, to be published (without my name) in a few weeks 
with notes ; 560 lines of Bosworth Field, and 250 lines of another poem in rhyme, besides 
half a dozen smaller pieces. The poem to be published is a satire." This satire was the 
poem which he afterwards converted inta a reply to the Edinburgh Review. He anticipated 
censure, and forearmed himself — always as eager to defy reproof as he was to win applause. 
Apparently he put off publishing his satire till all his critics should have had their say, and 

^ He had previously printed a volume for private circulation, and it is characteristic of his docility, under general 
influences, that he burnt the first impression when Mr. Becher rebuked him for the too warm coloring of one of the poems. 



X MEMOIK OF THE AUTHOR. 

lie should know clearly where to hit. When the attack came it wounded him bitterly ; but 
a friend who called on him at the time thought from the fierce light in his eye that he had 
received a challenge. He was in no hurry to publish ; he worked at leisure, with a confident 
consciousness of his powers, and English Bards and Scotch Reviewers did not make its 
appearance till the spring of 1809. When it did appear the authorship was soon discovered, 
and it was the talk of the town. To us who look back upon it dispassionately, and compare 
its somewhat heavy and mechanical couplets with the exquisite lightness and fitting point of 
its antitype the Dunciad, the satire appears to possess no great force ; but the personalities 
told at the time, when there was a vague unrest in the literary world at the outspoken 
severity and sometimes truculent malice of the Scotch review, and the injured poet had his 
revenge in a general acknowledgment that the objects of his wrath deserved castigation, 
and that the lash was well laid on. 

Soon after the publication of his satire, Byron, in June, 1809, left for his travels on the 
Continent ; and one would have expected that the young lord, with the wreath of triumph 
still fresh on his head after his first literary battle, would have gone on his journey with 
satisfaction and hopeful curiosity. He sailed in deep dejection, with all the bitterness of a 
man who feels himself friendless and solitary, and he returned after two years' wandering 
in Spain, Albania, Greece, Turkey, and Asia Minor, sadder than before. Why was this ? 
Those who identify him with his own Childe Harold are ready with the answer that he had 
lived a life of dissolute pleasure, and was already, at the age of twenty-one, experiencing 
the pains of satiety and exhaustion. But this is not borne out by such scanty light as he 
and his friends have thrown on his life at this period. He himself always protested, both in 
public and private, against being identified with Childe Harold, Childe Harold's manor was 
an old monastic residence ; he left his country in bitter sadness ; in the original MS. his 
name was Childe Burun ; he left behind him a mother and a sister ; and he passed through 
the scenes of Byron's travels. But there the resemblance ends. The resemblance is really 
confined, as the author alleged, to local details. There is no reason to disbelieve what the 
author affirmed, that Childe Harold was a purely fictitious character, " introduced for the 
sake of giving some connection to the piece." To make him what he intended — " a modern 
Timon, perhaps a poetical Zeluco " — the poet drew, no doubt, upon his own gloomier moods ; 
he felt occasionally as he makes Harold feel habitually, but the process was much more 
dramatic than the world, in spite of his protests, took for granted. Byron, with all his 
bitter moods of forlorn despondency, w^as too susceptible a spirit to " stalk in joyless reverie" 
through the south of Europe, as his letters home testify. And we know that his picture of 
the Bacchanalian feasts in the monastery, with " Paphian girls," and " flatterers and 
parasites," is not at all like what actually occurred at Newstead Abbey. There were no 
" laughing dames " there, except the domestics, and the flatterers and parasites were his bosom 
friends, whom he loved with a romantic ardor. They held " high Jinks" there as any young 
men might have done, masqueraded about in monkish habits to be in whimsical conformity 
with the place, practiced pistol-shooting in the old hall, had a wolf and a bear chained at the 
entrance, had the garden dug up in search of concealed treasure, found a skull there, had it 
made into a cup, and passed this cup round after dinner, with the conceit that their mouths 
did it less harm than the worms, and that when its wit had ceased to sparkle, it had better 
be filled with Burgundy to make other wits sparkle than lie rotting in the earth. Byron 
himself was too poor, as Moore has remarked, to keep a harem, had such been his wish. 
He is known to have had a romantic passion for a girl who used to travel with him in 



MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. Xl 

EnglaDd in boy's clothes ; but whoever thinks he was satiated with this poor creature's 
devotion to him should read the concluding stanzas of the second canto of Childe Harold, 
where the poet speaks in his own person, and laments her death in language utterly out of 
keeping with the dark unfeeling mood of his '* modern Timon." One can then understand 
why he should have said that " he would not for worlds be a man like his hero." There is 
really verj little of the personage Childe Harold in the poem ; the poet simply has him by 
his side as a connecting link, while he describes the scenes through which he has passed. In 
the two last cantos, indeed, Byron, angry that the public had identified him with Childe 
Harold, and then more defiant at public opinion, hardly cared to keep up the separation 
between his own character and the pilgrim's ; and in the last canto he avowedly makes them 
coalesce. 

To look for the causes of moodiness and melancholy in material circumstances is a very 
foolish quest ; but we may be certain that insufficiency of this world's money, and the daily 
vexations and insults to which his rank was thereby exposed, had much more to do with 
Byron's youthful gloom than satiety of this world's pleasures. His embarrassed finance^-, 
and the impossibility of securing the respect due to his title, formed a constant source of 
annoyance, put his whole system into a morbid condition, in which every little slight and 
repulse festered and rankled with exaggerated virulence. From the daily humiliations and 
impertinences to which his false position exposed him, aggravated by his jealous and sus- 
picious irritability, he may have turned sometimes to Childe Harold's consolations, " the 
harlot and the bowl," but his nature prompted him rather to forget his vexations in purer 
and worthier objects. Unfortunately for him, such impetuous and passionate affections 
as his could rarely find the response for which he craved. In those few cases where devotion 
was repaid with devotion, the warmth of his gratitude was unbounded ; he loaded poor 
Thyrza's memory with caresses, careless of what the world might say, remembering only that 
the poor girl clung to him with unselfish love ; and he returned his sister's tender regard 
with an ardor and constancy that showed how highly he prized and how eagerly he recipro- 
cated sincere affection. Circumstances that would have fallen lightly on a less sensitive 
man preyed upon his self-torturing spirit. In his dejection he had taken pleasure in the 
romantic notion of collecting the portraits of his friends, and one of them refused to sit, on 
the ground that he could not afford it. Another friend, invited to say good-bye, excused 
himself on the ground that he had to go shopping with his mother. Another prop on which 
he leaned also precipitated him into the Slough of Despond. His ambition pointed to 
political distinction, and having given fair youthful proof of the power he felt to be in him, 
his pride taught him to look for a warm welcome from his party chiefs when he came of age ; 
but on the contrary, there was a haggle over his admission. Lord Carlisle held coldly 
aloof, and he had to wait with savage indignation till the marriage certificate of his grand- 
father was fished up in Cornwall before he could take his seat. This cold but perfectly 
correct and formal indifference added another pang to the bitterness with which he took 
leave of his country. When after two years' absence he returned, still dogged by impecu- 
niosity and the incivilities, real and imagined, that followed in his train, he " found fresh 
cause to roam." Nursed as he had been in superstitions, he could hardly keep from crying 
out that the stars had combined against him, when in the months following his return, friend 
after friend went to the grave. Matthews was drowned in the Cam ; Wingfield died of 
fever at Coimbra ; and he heard of both deaths on the same day. His mother died in the 
same month, and in spite of all their quarrels, he felt the bereavement bitterly. 



XU MEMOIE OF THE AUTHOR. 

But the death which most deeply wounded him came later. Nothing ever racked him 
with sharper anguish than the death of her whom he mourned under the name of Thyrza. 
To know the bitterness of his struggle with this sorrow, we have only to look at what he 
wrote on the day that the news reached him (October 11, 1811); some of his wildest and 
most fiercely misanthropical verse, as well as some of his sweetest and saddest, belongs to 
that blackest of dates in his calendar. It is time that something were done to trace this 
attachment, which has been strangely overlooked by the essayists and biographers, because it 
furnishes an important clue to Byron's character, and is, indeed, of hardly less importance 
than his later attachment to the Countess Guiccioli. Mr. John Morley, in an essay which 
ought to be read by everybody who wishes to form a clear idea of Byron's poetry as a 
revolutionary force in itself and an index to the movement of the time, remarks upon the 
respect which Byron, with all his raillery of the married state in modern society, still shows 
lor the domestic idea. It is against the artificial union, the marriage of convenience, that 
Byron's raillery is directed ; he always upholds singleness of attachment as an ideal, how- 
ever cynically or mournfully he laments its infrequence, and points with laughter or with 
tears at the way in which it is crossed and cut short by circumstances when it does exist. Byron 
is not a railer against matrimony, except as a counterfeit of the natural union of hearts. His 
attachment to Thyrza shows that in this, as in other matters, he was transparently sincere. 
It is commonly taken for granted that his youth before and, indeed, after his marriage 
with Miss Milbanke, was a featureless level of promiscuous debauchery ; but those who look 
more narrowly into the facts cannot fail to see that, whatever may have been the number of 
his " light of loves," — his fugitive passions were innumerable, — and however often he may 
have lapsed into vulgar rakery in bitter despair or reckless wantonness, he was always pining 
for some constant love, and cursing the fate that had denied it to him. This purer sentiment 
was always enshrined in his heart of heart, from his boyhood to the end of his days. Who 
Thyrza was can probably never be known, but in trying to convey the impression that she was 
merely imaginary, probably with the intention of shielding his friend's memory, by declaring 
him innocent of a relationship unsanctioned by society, Moore really did Byron an injustice. 
The poor girl, whoever she was, and however much she was deified after her death by his 
imagination, would really seem to have been his grand passion. Her " dear sacred name " 
his hand, he says years afterwards, would have trembled to write ; he wished it to " rest ever 
unrevealed ;" and when he was questioned by the Countess Guiccioli, he was deeply agitated, 
and begged her not to recur to the subject. We find him in his Journal, with her in his 
memory, writing with contempt of the amours of some of his acquaintances, and scofi&ng at 
the idea of their applying the name of love to favors that could be purchased. She is the 
presiding genius of his series of Eastern Tales ; he has recorded the fact that when he drew 
the portrait of Zuleika his whole soul was full of her memory, and her image was again 
before him when he described the relationship between Zara and the disguised Gulnare. 
Conrad, with all his conscious villainy, had one redeeming passion — " love unchangeable, 
unchanged." The Giaour, too, loved but one ; he learnt that lesson, he said, from the birds ; 
he despised " the fool still prone to range," and " envied not his varied joys." All these 
portraitures of single-hearted devotion are tributes to the memory of Thyrza, the " more 
than friend" commemorated in the second canto of Childe Harold. Medora's song in the 
Corsair, "Deep in my soul that tender secret dwells," though not flawless as a lyric, is one 
of his most beautiful expressions of this mournful sentiment in a subdued key. When we 
realize how bitterly he lamented her death, and how he could not even bear to write her 



MEMOIK OF THE AUTHOR. xiii 

Dame, there seems some reason for believing that the mysterious object of Manfred's lov(' 
and remorse is another of the forms that she took in his imagination. Whoever cares to 
look into the matter will find many little corroborative particulars. It is quite in keeping 
with the morbid self-accusing tendency, the exaggerated moral sensibility, which Byron 
showed all his life through, that he should have been consumed with remorse at a recollection 
which colder-heartiid men of the world bear about with them every day without a pang. 

For some months after his return to England, Byron lived at Newstead very unhappily. 
He wrote that he was growing nervous, " really, wretchedly, ridiculously, fine-ladicaliy 
nervous." He could not arrange his thoughts ; he feared his brain was giving way, and it 
would end in madness. He felt at times a strange tendency to mirth. Sometimes he 
thought of seeking relief in a warfare against society, and he besought one of his friends, 
when he heard of his deepening crimes, to remember the cause. The inconsistency between 
this hunger for sympathy and the reckless ferocity of the resolution shows how distempered 
his mind was by care and sorrow, " like sweet bells jangled, harsh and out of tune." At 
other times he thought more soberly of parliament as a diversion. All his life through, 
however, " most of his convulsions ended in verse." He found occupation in correcting the 
proof-sheets of Childe Harold. He went up to London, not to plunge into a lawless and 
pitiless course of crime, but to enter upon a political career. He spoke two or three times 
in the House of Lords on the Housebreaker's Bill, and a petition for Roman Catholic 
Emancipation, but the publication of Childe Harold put an end at once to his parliamentary 
ambitions. " When Childe Harold was published," he says, " nobody thought of my prose 
afterwards, nor indeed did I." 

It has often been asked what was the cause of the instantaneous and widespread popular- 
ity of Childe Harold, which Byron himself so well expressed in the saying, " I awoke one 
morning and found myself famous." Chief among the secondary causes was the warm 
sympathy between the poet and his readers, the direct interest of his theme for the time. 
In the spring of 1812, England was in the very crisis of a struggle for existence. It was 
just before Napoleon set out for Moscow. An English army was standing on the defensive 
in Portugal, with difficulty holding its own ; the nation was trembling for its safety. The 
dreaded Bonaparte's next movement was uncertain ; it was feared it might be against our 
own shores. Rumor was busy with alarms. All through the country men were arming and 
drilling for self-defence. The heart of England was beating high with patriotic resolution. 

What were our poets doing in the midst of all this ? Scott, then at the head of the 
tuneful brotherhood in popular favor, was celebrating the exploits of William of Deloraine 
and Marmion. Coleridge's Christabel was lying in manuscript. His poetic power was, as 
he said himself, " in a state of suspended animation." Southey was floundering in the dim 
sea of Hindu mythology. Rogers was content with his Pleasures of Memory. Wordsworth 
took a certain meditative interest in public affairs, but his poems, " dedicated to liberty," 
though fine as compositions, have not the fire and sinew, the ardent directness, of popular 
verse. In the earlier stages of the war Campbell had electrified the country with his heart- 
stirring songs ; but by 1812 he had retired from the post of Tyrtseus to become the poet of 
Gertrude of Wyoming. Moore confined himself to political squibs and wanton little lays 
for the boudoir. It was no wonder that, when at last a poet did appear whose impulses 
were not merely literary, who felt in what century he was living, whose artistic creations 
were throbbing with the life of his own age, a crowd at once gathered to hear the new singer. 
There was not a parish of Great Britain in which there was not some household that had a 



XIV MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 

direct personal interest in the scene of the pilgrim's travels — " some friend, some brother 
there." The effect was not confined to England; Byron at once had all Europe as his 
audience, because he spoke to them on a theme in which they were all deeply concerned. 
He spoke to them, too, in language which was not merely a naked expression of their 
most intense feelings; the spell by which he held them was all the stronger that he 
lifted them with the irresistible power of his song above the passing anxieties of the 
moment. Loose and rambling as Childe Harold is, it yet had for the time an unconscious 
art; it entered the absorbing tumult of a hot and feverish struggle, and opened a way in the 
dark clouds gathering over the combatants through which they could see the blue vault and 
the shining stars. If the young poet had only thrown himself forward to ridicule the 
vanity of their struggles, he would most certainly have been spurned aside in the heat of 
the fight with anger and contempt ; but he was far from being a heartless cynic ; his sym- 
pathy with the Spanish peasant, his worship of the scenic wonders of the country, his 
admiration of the heroism of the women, his ardent battle-cry of freedom, burst through 
his thin pretence of cynicism. The pulse of heroism — heroism conscious of the worst that 
could happen, and undismayed by the prospect — beat beneath the garb of the cynic. It 
may have been by unconscious art, but it was not without dramatic propriety, that Byron 
turned his second canto from the battle-fields of Spain and the tremendous figure of war — 

" With blood-red tresses deepening in the sun, 
And death-shot glowing in his fiery hands" — 

to " August Athena," " ancient of days," and the " vanished hero's lofty mound." In that 
terrible time of change, when every state in Europe was shaken to its foundation, there was 
a profound meaning in placing before men's eyes the departed greatness of Greece ; it 
rounded off the troubled scene with dramatic propriety. Even the mournful skepticism of 
Childe Harold was not resented at a time when it lay at the root of every heart to ask. Is 
there a God in heaven to see such desolation, and withhold his hand ? 

The attention of the public once caught by his sympathy with them, it was riveted by 
the theatrical fascination of the character of the pilgrim, whom they persisted in identifying 
with himself. Young, a man of genius, a lord, and unhappy — unhappy with a sorrow that 
could not be repressed — here was a mystery over which speculation could never tire. On 
Byron himself the first efiect of his fame was almost to endanger his poetic gift. He became 
acquainted with Moore, and went into the fashionable world as a " lion." He had never 
been in " society " before, and he took to gay life with all the impressionable facility of his 
character. He was even caught one evening by Mr. Dallas in full court dress ; and though 
he repented and did not go, his contemplated breach of his democratic principles, in grati- 
tude for some kind words from the regent, shows how ductile his character was, and how 
easily he might have been lost to serious poetry if circumstances had not in his youth 
excluded him from the society of his rank. His docility under new influences was shown 
in the frank way in which he retracted hard saying after hard saying of his English Bards, 
and in the fact that though he was sufficiently scornful of the gay world to write the Waltz 
(1813), he strenuously denied the authorship. Yet he soon began to tire of fashionable 
gayeties and to long for solitude. 

Byron's poetic power did not advance in strength during the four years of his connection 
with high life. As he had been led to employ the Spenserian stanza by Campbell's Gertrude 
of Wyoming, which reached his hands just as he was setting out on his travels, he began now 



MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. xv 

to try the metres in which Scott had made his fame. He produced in rapid succession the 
Giaour (May, 1813), the Bride of Abydos (December, 1813), Corsair (January, 1814), Lara 
(August, 1814), Siege of Corinth (January, 1816), Parisina (February, 1816). The best of 
these is the first ; but they were received with an enthusiasm which rose higher and higher 
with each successive publication. It is quite clear that it was against his intention that he 
had been identified with Childe Harold, but it is equally clear that though the self-restrained, 
stern, dark-browed heroes are personifications of only one side of his character, one series 
of moods, and are as unlike as possible to the complete Byron, he was not unwilling that 
they should be accepted as types of himself. There was another reason for this than a 
morbid desire to represent himself as worse than he really was. All Byron's friends from 
his boyhood upwards declare him to have been of a very shy disposition. Never haviog 
been in the fashionable world before the spring of 1812, he was far from being at his ease in 
it ; and he masked his shyness under a haughty and reserved manner. How severe a restraint 
this was on his natural manner may be inferred from the delight with which he escaped from 
it in the society of his boon companions. It galled his vanity to be thus constrained by 
people for whom he had no great respect, and it is impossible to help conjecturing that he 
<K)urted identification with his silent heroes, with their " vital scorn of all," and " chilling 
mystery of mien," in order to supply a romantic explanation of a reserve which was really 
due to unconquerable shyness. The influence of personal vanity on Lord Byron's actions, 
counterbalanced as it was and concealed by an equal w^armth of generous feeling, is all but 
incredible. It was part of that amazing sensitiveness to the impressions of the present 
which was the secret of much of the weakness of his character and much of the power of 
his poetry. 

In November, 1813, Byron proposed for the hand of Miss Milbanke, only daughter of 
Sir Ralph Milbanke, a wealthy baronet, and granddaughter and heiress of Lord Wentworth, 
" an eligible party," he owned in a letter to Moore, though he " did not address her with 
these views." His suit was rejected, but she expressed a desire to correspond wdth him. In 
September, 1814, he made another proposal, which was accepted, and the marriage took 
place on January 2, 1815. ' On 10th December a daughter, named Augusta Ada, was born. 
On 15th January, 1816, Lddy Byron left her husband's house in London on a visit to her 
father at Kirkby Mallory. On the way she wrote an affectionate letter to Byron, beginniug 
" Dear Duck," and signed " Your Pippin." A few days after he heard from her father that 
she had resolved never to return to him, and this intelligence was soon confirmed by a letter 
from herself. In the course of next month a formal deed of separation was drawn up and 
signed. This is Moore's account of the affair. Lady Byron's account, published on the 
appearance of Moore's Life, differs chiefly as regards the part taken by her parents in bring- 
ing about the separation. Byron suspected her mother's influence. Lady Byron took the 
whole responsibility on herself. Before she left town she thought Byron mad, and consulted 
Dr. Baillie. Dr. Baillie persuaded her that this was an illusion. She then told her parents 
that she desired a separation. The grounds on which she desired this were submitted by 
her mother to Dr. Lushington, who wrote that they justified a separation, but advised a 
reconciliation. Then Lady Byron had an interview with Dr. Lushington, and communi- 
cated certain facts, after wdii'ch he declared a reconciliation impossible. A celebrated living 
authoress, who was slightly acquainted with Lady Byron, has, it is w^ell known, made a 
definite statement on this subject, implicating a member of Lord Byron's own family. It 
is enough, however, to say that there is no evidence in support of the statement, and that it 



XVI MEMOIK OF THE AUTHOR. 

is virtually contradicted by Lady Byron's own behavior, as she remained on intimate terms 
with the relative referred to after the separation from her husband. 

The real causes of the separation between Byron and his wife must always remain more 
or less matter of debate, no absolute proof being possible, and disputants reasoning on the 
presumptions according to temperament and prepossession. Byron's own statement that " the 
causes were too simple ever to be found out," probably comes nearest the truth. That their 
tempers were incompatible, that without treating her with deliberate cruelty he tried her 
forbearance in many ways, and behaved as no husband ought to do, that for her own hap- 
piness she had every reason to demand a separation, will readily be believed. After his 
marriage a huge accumulation of debtors began to press their claims ; no less than nine 
executions were put in force in his house during the year ; and Byron, under the indignities 
to which he had daily to submit, acted with an insane violence which might have justified 
any woman in believing that she was not safe under the same roof with him. It would 
have required a very peculiar temper to be compatible with his under the circumstances. 
A placid, good-tempered woman, with strong good sense, and boundless affection, which could 
forget and forgive his most unreasonable outbreaks, might have lived with him happily 
enough, finding in his sunny moods of playfulness and endearment ample compensation for 
his fits of gloominess and violence. But Lady Byron was far from being a woman of that 
mould. A wife who could coldly ask Byron " when he meant to give up his bad habit of 
making verses," possessed a terrible power of annoying such a man ; her perfect self-com- 
mand and imperturbable outward serenity, her power of never forgetting an injury, and 
taking revenge with angelic sweetness and apparent innocence of vindictive intention, must 
have been maddening. The serene way in which she clung to and promoted the maid, Mrs. 
Clermont, in face of Byron's intolerable dislike to the woman, was gall and wormwood to 
him. An even-tempered man might have lived with such a person comfortably on terms of 
mutual politeness ; but for a haughty-tempered, violent, fitful, moody man it would have 
been impossible to find a more incompatible partner. 

Why, at the time of the separation, did not the public look upon Byron and his wife as 
simply an ill-assorted pair who could not agree, and were better to separate ? From the first 
it was rumored that Lady Byron refused to tell the cause of their separation, whence the 
public naturally inferred that it must be too terrible to be revealed, and busied themselves 
inventing and circulating crimes of suitable magnitude. Betribution fell upon Byron for 
his identifying himself with crime-stained buccaneers. The publication, by an indiscreet 
friend, of his Farewell to Lady Byron, and the verses entitled A Sketch, let loose the flood- 
gates of popular indignation in the press. On the Farewell, indeed, there was some differ- 
ence of opinion. A lady correspondent of the Courier declared that " if her husband had 
bidden her such a farewell she could not have helped running into his arms and being 
reconciled immediately." If Lady Byron had been such a woman — we have no right 
to blame her because she was not — the separation, in all probability, would never have 
taken place. The vast majority in English society resented the publication of the Fare- 
well as an unworthy attempt to put his wife in the wrong, by holding up her unforgiving 
temper for public reprobation. We know now that the Farewell was written in all sin- 
cerity and bitterness of heart, with the tears falling on the paper as he wrote, and that it 
was published by the indiscreet zeal of a friend to whom he had sent the verses. The 
fierce attack upon Mrs. Clermont in the Sketch was universally condemned as unmanly. 
The two poems are chiefly interesting now as showing the poet's ungovernable incontinence. 



MEMOIK OF THE AUTHOR XVil 

his passionate craving for sympathy, and the utter distemper of his mind in the bewilder- 
ment of misfortune. 

Byron took final leave of England in April, 1816. From that date the external 
events of his life, down to his memorable interference in the cause of Greek independ- 
ence, present comparatively little variety, and excite comparatively little interest. Nothing 
occurred after this to give a new turn or a new color to his poetic career ; the powerful 
influences which had conspired to torture music out of him were modified by the lapse 
of time, but very little, if at all, by the incidents of his life. The bitter feelings with 
which he left England, the angry sense of injustice and spirit of proud and revengeful defi- 
ance, alternating hysterically with humble self-reproach and generous forgivencFS, passed 
into lighter forms, but they never ceased to rankle. Like Manfred, he asked in vain for 
oblivion. 

In the thick of his troubles, before leaving England, Byron conceived that he had never 
been " in a situation so completely uprooting of present pleasure, or rational life for the 
future." But his going abroad was really a most fortunate step both for his happiness and 
for the exercise of his genius. Abroad he consented to the sale of Newstead, and his income 
enabled him to live without being subject to the constant indignities which were such a 
torture to him at home. There also he found the solitude which he had always desired. 
"Society," he wrote in a letter to Moore, "as now constituted, is fatal to all great original 
undertakings of every kind ;" and in his case certainly this was true. His first place of 
residence abroad was Diodati, a villa in the neighborhood of Geneva. He spent the sum- 
mer there, making two excursions to Switzerland, — one with Hobhouse, a shorter one with 
Shelley, who also was living at Geneva at the time. His travels through Flanders past the 
field of Waterloo appear in the third canto of Childe Harold (May to July, 1816); the 
idea of writing Manfred on his way to Geneva (begun September, 1816, finished February, 
1817) occurred to him on the Jungfrau, where the scene is laid. In November, 1816, he 
removed to Venice, and lived there, with the exception of short visits to Ferrara and Rome, 
till December, 1819, writing fourth canto of Childe Harold (June, 1817), Beppo (October, 
1817), Ode on Venice (July, 1818), first canto of Don Juan (September, 1818), Mazeppa 
(October, 1818), second canto of Don Juan (December, 1818), third and fourth cantos 
(finished November, 1819). The bare catalogue of his literary work shows that the reports 
of the debauchery in which he lived at Venice, and from which he is said to have been 
rescued by the Countess Guiccioli, must be taken with a qualification. His acquaintance 
with this lady began in April, 1819, and a mutual attachment sprang up at once. In 
December, 1819, he removed to Ravenna. In the following month the Countess Guiccioli, 
having separated from her husband, occupied, under her father Count Gamba's presence and 
sanction, a suite of rooms in the same house with Byron at Ravenna; and though the 
families were formally separate, the union was not broken till Byron's departure for Greece. 
When two years later, in 1821, the Gambas, in consequence of their connection with revo- 
lutionary movements, were ordered to quit Ravenna, Byron removed to Pisa, and lived with 
them under the same roof as before. Leigh Hunt, w^ho also was received into Byron's 
house with his wife and children, has given us a somewhat ill-natured but sufficiently faith- 
ful picture of his life here, which was simply that of a busy domesticated literary man, with 
a taste for riding, swimming, and marksmanship. During Byron's residence here Shelley 
was drowned in the Gulf of Spezzia. In September, 1822, the Gambas were ordered by the 
Tuscan government to quit Pisa, and Byron removed with them to Genoa. His life at 



xvm MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 

Genoa has been described with traces of airy malice, but with much vivacity and abundance 
of detail, by Lady Blessington. 

While he lived with the Countess Guiccioli Byron's literary industry was prodigious. 
The following is the list : — Translation of the first canto of Morgante Maggiore, February, 
1820 ; The Prophecy of Dante, March, 1820 ; translation of Francesca de Rimini, March, 
1820 ; Marino Faliero, April to July, 1820 ; fifth canto of Don Juan, October to November, 
1820 ; The Blues, November, 1820 ; Sardanapalus, January to May, 1821 ; Letters on Bowles, 
February and March, 1821 ; The Two Foseari, June to July, 1821 ; Cain, July to Septem- 
ber, 1821 ; Visio7i of Judgment, September, 1821 ; Heaven and Earth, October, 1821 ; 
Werner, November, 1821, to January, 1822 ; Deformed Transformed, begun November, 1821, 
finished August, 1822 ; Don Juan, sixth, seventh, and eighth cantos, February, 1822 ; ninth, 
tenth, and eleventh cantos, August, 1822 ; The Age of Bronze, January, 1823 ; The Island, 
February, 1823 ; Don Juan, twelfth and thirteenth cantos, February, 1823. 

This quiet industrious life, however, did not cure him of his constitutional melancholy 
and restlessness. The curse of his nature was that he exhausted his pleasures too quickly. 
He too soon became dissatisfied with past triumphs. Much as he enjoyed the success of the 
works which poured with such rapidity from his pen, he began to harp on what he might 
have done ; began to think that the tide w^as turning against him in England, and to hunger 
for new distinction. In this spirit, towards the end of 1821 he commenced those negotiations 
for the publication of a journal in England in conjunction with Shelley and Leigh Hunt, 
which ended in the abortive lAberal. The Vision of Judgment, the greatest of modern 
satires, appeared in the first number of the lAberal, in the summer of 1822 ; only three 
more numbers were published. According to Moore, the sign of an intention to take an 
active part in alliance with English Radicalism did more to make Byron unpopular in 
England than the most shocking of his poems. It was fortunate for his popularity that a 
more glorious enterprise ofiered itself to him in the Greek struggle for independence. He 
was brought into connection with this through the London Greek committee, of which he 
was appointed a member in May, 1823. He at once decided to take action, raised 50,000 
crowns, bought an English brig of 120 tons, and sailed from Genoa with arms and ammuni- 
tion in July. The high hopes with which he set out were soon broken down ; the Greeks had 
no plans, and he was compelled to spend five months of inglorious delay at Cephalonia. 
Beaching Missolonghi in December, after a chase by Turkish cruisers, he found dissension 
among the Greek chiefs and insubordination among their followers. He was appointed com- 
mander-in-chief of an expedition against Lepanto, but before anything could be done he 
was seized with fever, and died on the 19th of April, 1824. 

It is yet, perhaps, too soon to hazard a speculation as to the permanence of Byron's 
fame. That he holds a lower place in the opinion of the present generation than of his own, 
so far at least as concerns his own country, is undeniable, and is probably due to the fact 
that poets now are tried by more strictly artistic standards ; verses are judged, proportions 
measured, rare and precious excellences appreciated with the jealous scrutiny and skilled 
recognition of professional workmen. Tried by such standards, Coleridge, Keats, and 
Shelley must be pronounced Byron's superiors. The greatest modern authority on verse, 
Mr. Swinburne, comments justly on Byron's imperfect mastery of his materials : — " One 
native and incurable defect grew up and strengthened side by side with his noblest qualities— 
a feeble and faulty sense of metre. No poet of equal or inferior rank ever had so bad an ear. 
His smoother cadences are often vulgar and facile ; his fresher notes are often incomplete and 



MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. xix 

inharmonious. His verse stumbles £*nd jingles, stammers and halts, where is most need for 
a swift and even pace of musical sound. The rough sonorous changes of the songs in The 
Deformed Transformed rise far higher in harmony, and strike far deeper into the memory, than 
the lax, easy lines in which he at first indulged ; but they slip too readily into notes as weak 
as the rhymeless, tuneless verse in which they are so loosely set, as in a cheap and casual 
frame. The magnificent lyric measures of Heaven and Earth are defaced by the coarse 
obtrusion of short lines and jagged edges — no small offence in a writer of verse." In point 
of metre, too, Byron showed none of the originality which we should expect in a poet who 
delighted in his materials for their own sake. The god of his idolatry was Pope, towards 
whom his sympathies were drawn chiefly by the elder poet's modern and practical point of 
view, and quick interest in passing affairs, and he began by imitating with very indifferent 
success Pope's satiric couplet. But his successes were achieved in more popular measures. 
He was the least possible of an antiquarian poet, whether in matter or in form. His way 
was to take up any measure that struck him as effective, and try his hand on it. Campbell's 
example suggested, the Spenserian stanza ; Scott and Coleridge the rapid octosyllables of his 
Eastern Tales ; and he would never have thought of the ottava rima of Beppo and Don Juan 
but for Frere's Whistlecraft, Whistlecraft appeared in 1817, and the moment it fell into 
his hand Byron recognized the value of the instrument, and lost no time in making it 
his own. 

It was not on the artistic side that Byron's strength lay. Words were far from niggardly 
in their supplies to him ; they flowed in upon him with sufficient readiness for free and direct 
expression ; his thoughts were not blunted, his conceptions were not turned awry by hopeless 
struggling with stubborn material, but language was not pliant in his hands for the finer 
achievements of art. The truth is he felt too deeply to be a poet of the very highest rank ; 
the feeling of the moment took too large and embarrassing a hold of him to leave his hand 
free for triumphs of execution. This interfered both with the perfecting of details and 
with the severe ordering of parts into an artistic whole. In Byron we are always struck 
more with the matter than with the form. It is his theme that absorbs attention, and the 
impetuous vehemence and stormy play of passion with which he hurries it on. This is, 
doubtless, an insecure foundation for lasting fame. The work of a man so keenly alive to 
the impressions of the hour, so closely bound up with his generation, as Byron, runs a risk 
of perishing when the things that most deeply stir that generation have ceased to stir man- 
kind. The secret of his tremendous power was his passionate sympathy with his own time. 
By the accidents of birth and circumstances, he was placed in opposition to the existing 
order of things, and his daring temper made him the exponent of the spirit of revolution. 
He is the greatest modern preacher of "liberty, equality, and fraternity." His little 
aristocratic assumptions were as superficial as his professions of antiquarian poetic loyalty. 
Nothing irritated him more than to deny him any of the privileges of his rank ; but he 
never used the advantage of his social superiority in any of the contests in which he was 
involved, and in his loves and his friendships he showed regard only for the individual. 
He was a warm champion of the established fame of Pope against innovators, but he prac- 
ticed the innovations himself with such effect that he has been called — foolish enough 
phrase, certainly, but intelligible — "the interpreter of Wordsworth to the multitude." 
Abroad, Byron's influence was, from the appearance of Childe Harold, no less conspicuous 
than at home. It has even been said that he was the first Englishman who made English 
literature known throughout Europe. Even such men as Lamartine, who deplored Byron 



XX MEMOIK OF THE AUTHOR. 

as an incarnation of Satan, acknowledged his power ; Lamartine says that Byron was " a 
second Ossian to him," and tells us that he was afraid to read him in his youth lest he 
should be perverted to his beliefs. Heine invited the compliment of being called " the Ger- 
man Byron." He is believed to have largely influenced the revolutionary movement in 
Germany, and he gave a direct stimulus to the liberators of Italy. Byron is the favorite 
poet of our English-speaking fellow subjects in India ; the educated Bengalee knows him by 
heart. On the Continent his influence has rather increased than diminished. Only the 
other year a glowing eulogy of his geuius was written by Castelar, the literary leader of 
republicanism in Spain. At home of late we have been accused of neglecting Byron, and 
the fact is significant. Such stormful and melancholy poetry as his must always be at the 
height of its popularity in times of conflict. The disturbed state of the Continent is more 
favorable to its spirit than the piping times of peace which have prevailed for a generation 
in England. Men who are content with the old things, and men who renounce old things 
with a light heart, can have little affinity with his deep-rooted sadness, his pride of defiant 
struggle, his flashes of defiant merriment: all this seems hysterical, affected, and unreal; 
and unreal it no doubt is, in the sense that the feelings of men under the tension of conflict 
must appear full of false notes to men who look on out of a normal condition of settled 
tranquillity. 

The most hopeful circumstance for the permanence of Byron's name is that he stands at 
the opening of a new era as its largest literary figure. Sooner or later, as new phases of 
thought and sentiment supervene upon the old, his writings must pass out of the catalogue 
of popular literature, but his personality will always fascinate. He is like Hamlet in this 
respect. It may safely be predicted that Byron will not cease to be read till Hamlet has 
ceased to be studied. There is not a little in common between the characters, in spite of 
superficial difference. In the desolation of his youth, in his moodiness, in his distempered 
mobility between the extremes of laughter and tears, in his yearning for sympathy, his 
intensity of friendship, his dark fits of misanthropy, his habit of brooding over the mys- 
teries of life, Byron unconsciously played the character of Hamlet with the world for his 
stage, and left a kindred problem for the wonder of mankind, — a problem which no 
analysis can make clear, and which every one may pray that it be not given to them to 
understand. 

It has often been said that Byron could draw but one character, and that his own. This 
is not more than a half truth. It is true that Byron's genius was more lyrical than dra- 
matic. " Many people," he said himself, " think my talent essentially undraniatic, and I am 
not clear that they are not in the right." But he also said that while he, " like all imagin- 
ative men, embodied himself with the character while he drew it," he did so " not a moment 
after the pen was from off* the paper." The difference between saying that Byron loved to 
picture himself in various circumstances, and that he could not set himself to the artistic 
portraiture of any character in which he was not interested, may not be great, but it is^the 
difference between a true view and a false view of his artistic method. He was undramatic 
in this sense, that his imagination did not enter freely and self-delightedly into various forms 
of life. When Moore thought he had found a beautiful subject for Byron's genius, and 
wrote the details to him, Byron could not enter into the situation. His Monody on Sheridan 
is weak, because it was not spontaneous. But when he found a situation or a character 
which naturally attracted him, and which he was able to understand, his method was not, 
as is implied by the language in which his want of dramatic faculty is often expressed, to 



MEMOIE OF THE AUTHOR. xxi 

bring the situation or the character nearer to his own experience, but he tried to identify 
himself with the life of his subject, and labored at details with almost pre-Kaphaelic 
minuteness. We do right to call him undramatic still, because a dramatic genius is doing 
constantly and by the law of his nature what Byron could only do rarely and with a limited 
range. But it is wrong to say that he was always drawing himself. There are considerable 
intervals between Sardanapalus, Marino Faliero, Alp, Lara, and Manfred, although in those 
and in all his leading characters we are more struck with what they have in common with 
their author, the affinity that led him to deal with their fortunes, than we are with their 
separate individualities. The Countess Guiccioli has given in the case of Marino Faliero a 
good example of the way in which he prepared himself for his work. He was struck with 
the tradition of Faliero's conspiracy in his old age against the state which he had served so 
well in youth and middle age, immediately after his arrival in Venice, but at first he was 
unable to satisfy himself as to the motive. The ordinary histories, which he searched 
through with care, ascribed it to an old man's jealousy of a young wife, but this Byron's 
instinct rejected. He passed hours in the hall of the great council, stared at the record of 
Faliero's decapitation, lingered about the tomb, and called up and realized every recorded 
circumstance of his life, keenly studied the characters of living Venice. It was not till four 
years afterwards that he satisfied himself as to the motive, and the discovery of an old 
document afterwards proved that his reading of history was correct. In other cases he 
showed the same studious care for accuracy, the very opposite of rash and dashing identifi- 
cation of characters with himself. In most of his tales and dramas there is a historical 
basis, and the basis is scrupulously ascertained. He particularly prided himself upon the 
truth of his local coloring. 

The most interesting and complete portrait of Byron is perhaps that drawn by Lady 
Blessington, who saw him at Genoa, a few months before his departure for Greece. It is 
not so £avorable as some, but it is peculiarly valuable because taken from a definite point of 
view, that of a clever woman of the world and practiced critic of appearance and manner. 
" I had fancied him," she says, " taller, with a more dignified and commanding air, and I 
looked in vain for the hero-looking sort of person with whom I had so long identified him 
in imagination. His appearance is, however, highly prepossessing: his head is finely shaped, 
and the forehead open, high, and noble ; his eyes are gray and full of expression, but one is 
visibly larger than the other ; his mouth is the most remarkable feature in his face, the 
upper lip of Grecian shortness', the corners descending, the lips full and finely cut. In 
speaking he shows his teeth very much, and they are white and even, but I observed that 
even in his smile — and he smiles frequently — there is something of a scornful expression in 
his mouth that is evidently natural, and not, as many suppose, affected. . . . His counte- 
nance is full of expression, and changes with the subject of conversation ; it gains on the 
beholder the more it is seen, and leaves an agreeable impression. . . . He is very slightly 
Jarae, and the deformity of his foot is so little remarkable that I am not now aware which 
foot it is. His voice and accent are peculiarly agreeable, but effeminate — clear, harmonious, 
and so distinct that, though his general tone in speaking is rather low than high, not a word 
is lost. ... I had expected to find him a dignified, cold, reserved, and haughty person, 
resembling those mysterious personages he loves to paint in his works, and with whom he 
has been so often identified by the good-natured world, but nothing can be more different ; 
for were I to point out the prominent defect of Lord Byron, I should say it was flippancy, 
and a total want of that natural self-possession and dignity which ought to characterize a 



xxii MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 

man of birth and education." Such, judged by the social standard of his own country, was 
the look and personal manner of the greatest literary power of this century. 



The facts of his life may be studied in Moore's Life, Letters, and Journal of Lord Byron, 
supplemented by Leigh Hunt's Lord Byron and his Contemporaries, Lady Blessington's 
Conversations with Lord Byron, Trelawney's Recollections of Shelley and Byron, and the 
Countess Guiccioli's Lord Byron juge par les temoins de sa vie (translated under the title of 
Recollections of Lord Byron), Numerous allusions to Byron occur in the published memoirs 
of his contemporaries, such as the Shelley Memorials and Crabb Robinson's Diary. Karl 
Elze's biography (translated), although often mistaken in its conception of his character, is 
valuable as a collection of facts. 

W. MiNTO. 






^- t 









THE 



POETICAL WORKS 



OF 



LORD BYRON. 



®f)tltre l^arolD's iPilgrtmage: 



A EOMAUNT. 



L'univers est une esp&ce de livre, dont on n'a lu que la premiere page quand on n'a ru que son pays. J'en ai feuillete un 
assez grand nombre, que j'ai trouve egalement mauvaises. Get examen ne m'a point ete infructueux. Je haissais ma patrie. 
Toutes les impertinences des peuples divers, parmi lesquels j'ai vecu, m'ont reconcilie avec elle. Quand je n'aurais tire 
d'autre bgngfice de mes voyages que celui-U, je n'en regretterais ni les frais ni les fatigues. Lk Cosmopolite.i 



PEEFACE 

TO THE FIRST AND SECOND CANTOS. 

The following poem was written, for the most part, 
amidst the scenes which it attempts to describe. It 
was begun in Albania; and the parts relative to 
Spain and Portugal were composed from the author's 
observations in those countries.^ Thus much it may 
be necessary to state for the correctness of the de- 
scriptions. The scenes attempted to be sketched are 
in Spain, Portugal, Epirus, Acarnania, and Greece. 
There, for the present, the poem stops : its reception 
will determine whether the author may venture to 
conduct his readers to the capital of the East, through 
Ionia and Phrygia: these two cantos are merely 
experimental. 

A fictitious character is introduced for the sake of 
giving some connection to the piece ; which, however, 
makes no pretensions to regularity. It has been sug- 
gested to me by friends, on whose opinions I set a 
high value, that in this fictitious character, " Childe 
Harold," I may incur the suspicion of having in- 
tended some real personage : this I beg leave, once 
for all, to disclaim ; Harold is the child of imagin- 
ation, for the purpose I have stated. In some very 
trivial particulars, and those merely local, there 
might be grounds for such a notion ; but in the main 
points, I should hope, none whatever. 

It is almost superfluous to mention that the ap- 
pellation "Childe," as "Childe Waters," "Childe 



1 Par M. de Montbron, Paris, 1798. Lord Byron some- 
where calls it "an amusing little volume, full of French 
flippancy." 
1 



Childers," &c., is used as more consonant with the 
old structure of versification which I have adopted. 
The "Good Night," in the beginning of the first 
canto, was suggested by "Lord Maxwell's Good 
Night," in the Border Minstrelsy, edited by Mr. Scott. 

With the different poems which have been pub- 
lished on Spanish subjects, there may be found some 
slight coincidence in the first part, which treats of 
the Peninsula, but it can only be casual; as, with 
the exception of a few concluding stanzas, the whole 
of this poem was written in the Levant. 

The stanza of Spenser, according to one of our 
most successful poets, admits of every variety. Dr. 
Beattie makes the following observation : — " Not long 
ago I began a poem in the style and stanza of Spen- 
ser, in which I propose to give full scope to my 
inclination, and be either droll or pathetic, descrip- 
tive or sentimental, tender or satirical, as the humor 
strikes me ; for, if I mistake not, the measure which 
I have adopted admits equally of all these kinds of 
composition." ' Strengthened in my opinion by such 
authority, and by the example of some in the highest 
order of Italian poets, I shall make no apology for 
attempts at similar variations in the following com- 
position ; satisfied that, if they are unsuccessful, their 
failure must be in the execution rather than in the 
design, sanctioned by the practice of Ariosto, Thom- 
son, and Beattie. 

London, February, 1812. 



2 " Byron, Joannini in Albania. Begun Oct. 31, 1809. Con- 
cluded canto 2d, Smyrna, March 28, 1810. Byron."— MS. 

3 Beattie's Letters, 

(1) 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



ADDITION TO THE PREFACE. 

I HAVE now waited till almost all our periodical 
journals have distributed their usual portion of crit- 
icism. To the justice of the generality of their crit- 
icism I have nothing to object : it would ill become 
me to quarrel with their very slight degree of censure, 
when, perhaps, if they had been less kind they had 
been more candid. Returning, therefore, to all and 
each my best thanks for their liberality, on one point 
alone shall I venture an observation. Amongst the 
many objections justly urged to the very indifferent 
character of the "vagrant Childe" (whom, notwith- 
standing many hints to the contrary, I still maintain 
to be a fictitious personage), it has been stated that, 
besides the anachronism, he is very unhiightly, as 
the times of the Knights were times of Love, Honor, 
and so forth. Now, it so happens that the good old 
times, when "I'amour du bon vieux terns, I'amour 
antique " flourished, were the most profligate of all 
possible centuries. Those who have any doubts on 
this subject may consult Sainte-Palaye, passim, and 
more particularly vol. ii. p. 69.^ The vows of chiv- 
alry were no better kept than any other vows what- 
soever; and the songs of the Troubadours were not 
more decent, and certainly much less refined, than 
those of Ovid. The "Cours d' amour, parlemens 
d'amour, ou de court6sie et de gentilesse" had 
much more of love than of courtesy or gentleness. 
See Roland on the same subject with Sainte-Palaye. 
Whatever other objection may be urged to that most 
unamiable personage Childe Harold, he was so far 
perfectly knightly in his attributes — " No waiter, but 
a knight templar." 2 By the by, I fear that Sir Tris- 
trem and Sir Lancelot were no better than they should 
be, although very poetical personages and true knights 
" sans peur," though not " sans reproche." If the sto- 
ry of the institution of the " Garter" be not a fable, 
the knights of that order have for several centuries 
borne the badge of a Countess of Salisbury, of indiffer- 
ent memory. So much for chivalry. Burke need not 
have regretted that its days are over, though Marie- 
Antoinette was quite as chaste as most of those in whose 
honor lances were shivered and knights unhorsed. 

Before the days of Bayard, and down to those of 
Sir Joseph Banks (the most chaste and celebrated of 

1 "Qu'on lise dans I'Auteur du roman de Gerard de Rous- 
sillon en Provengal, les details tr5s-circonstancies dans les- 
quels il entre sur la rgception falte par le Comte Gerard S 
I'ambassadeur du roi Charles; on y verra des particularites 
singuligres, qui donnent une Strange idee des moeurs et de la 
politcsse de ces sificles aussi corrompus qu'ignorans." — Me- 
moires sur VAncienne Chevalerie, par M. de la Curne de Sainte- 
Palaye, Paris, 1781, loc. cit. 

2 The Rovers, or the Double Arrangement. By Canning 
and Frere; first published in the Anti-jacobin, or Weekly 
Examiner. 

3 In one of his early poems— " Childish Recollections"— 
Lord Byron compares himself to the Athenian misanthrope, 
of whose bitter apophthegms many are upon record, though 
no authentic particulars of his life have come down to us :— 



I ancient and modern times), few exceptions will be 
found to this statement; and I fear a little investiga- 
tion will teach us not to regret these monstrous mum- 
meries of the middle ages. 

I now leave " Childe Harold" to live his day, such 
as he is. It had been more agreeable, and certainly 
more easy, to have drawn an amiable character; it 
had been easy to varnish over his faults, to make him 
do more and express less ; but he never was intended 
as an example, further than to show that early per- 
version of mind and morals leads to satiety of past 
pleasures and disappointment in new ones, and that 
even the beauties of nature and the stimulus of 
travel (except ambition, the most powerful of all 
excitements) are lost on a soul so constituted, or 
rather misdirected. Had I proceeded with the poem, 
this character would have deepened as he drew to 
the close ; for the outline which I once meant to fill 
up for him was, with some exceptions, the sketch of 
a modern Timon,^ perhaps a poetical Zeluco.* 
London, 1813. 



TO IANTHE.5 

Not in those climes where I have late been straying, 
Though Beauty long hath there been matchless 

deem'd ; 
Not in those visions to the heart displaying 
Forms which it sighs but to have only dream'd, 
Hath aught like thee in truth or fancy seem'd : 
Nor, having seen thee, shall I vainly seek 
To paint those charms which varied as they beam'd — 
To such as see thee not my words were weak ; 
To those who gaze on thee what language could they 



Ah ! mayst thou ever be what now thou art. 
Nor unbeseem the promise of thy spring, 
As fair in form, as warm yet pure in heart, 
Love's image upon earth without his wing, 
And guileless beyond Hope's imagining ! 
And surely she who now so fondly rears 
Thy youth, in thee, thus hourly brightening, 
Beholds the rainbow of her future years, 
Before whose heavenly hues all sorrow disappears. 

" Weary of love, of life, devoured with spleen, 
I rest a perfect Timon, not nineteen," &c. 
* It was Dr. Moore's object^in this powerful romance (now 
unjustly neglected), to trac/the fatal effects resulting from a 
fond mother's unconditional compliance with the humors 
and passions of an only child. With high advantages of per- 
son, birth, fortune, and ability, Zeluco is represented as mis- 
erable through every scene of life, owing to the spirit of 
unbridled self-indulgence thus pampered in infancy. 

5 The Lady Charlotte Harley, second daughter of Edward 
fifth Earl of Oxford (now Lady Charlotte Bacon), in the au- 
tumn of 1812, when these lines were addressed to her, had not 
completed her eleventh year. Mr. Westall's portrait of the ju- 
venile beauty, painted at Lord Byron's request, is engraved in 
*' Finden's Illustrations of the Life and Works of Lord Byron." 



Canto I. 



CHILDE HAEOLD'S PILGEIMAGE. 



Young Peri ^ of the West ! — 'tis well for me 
My years already doubly number thine ; 
My loveless eye unmoved may gaze on thee, 
And safely view thy ripening beauties shme ; 
Happy, I ne'er shall see them in decline ; 
Happier, that while all younger hearts shall bleed. 
Mine shall escape the doom thine eyes assign 
To those whose admiration shall succeed. 
But mix'd with pangs to Love's even loveliest hours 
decreed. 

Oh ! let that eye, which, wild as the Gazelle's,^ 
Now brightly bold or beautifully shy, 
Wins as it wanders, dazzles where it dwells. 
Glance o'er this page, nor to my verse deny 
That smile for which my breast might vainly sigh, 
Could I to thee be ever more than friend : 
This much, dear maid, accord ; nor question why 
To one so young my strain I would commend. 
But bid me with my wreath one matchless lily blend. 

Such is thy name with this my verse entwined ; 
And long as kinder eyes a look shall cast 
On Harold's page, lanthe's here enshrined 
Shall thus be first beheld, forgotten last : 
My days once number'd, should this homage past 
Attract thy fairy fingers near the lyre 
Of him who hail'd thee, loveliest as thou wast. 
Such is the most my memory may desire ; 
Though more than Hope can claim, could Friendship 
less require ? 



Qtf^iltit J^aroltr's lilgrimage. 



CANTO THE FIRST. 



I. 

Oh, thou ! in Hellas deem'd of heavenly birth, 
Muse ! form'd or fabled at the minstrel's will ! 
Since shamed full oft by later lyres on earth. 
Mine dares not call thee from thy sacred hill : 
Yet there I've wander'd by thy vaunted rill ; 
Yes ! sigh'd o'er Delphi's long-deserted shrine,^ 
Where, save that feeble fountain, all is still ; 
Nor mote my shell awake the weary Nine 
To grace so plain a tale— this lowly lay of mine.* 

1 Peri, the Persian term for a beautiful intermediate order 
of beings, is generally supposed to be another form of our 
own word Fairy. 

2 A species of the antelope. " You have the eyes of a 
gazelle " is considered all over the East as the greatest com- 
pliment that can be paid to a woman. 

3 The little village of Castri stands partly on the site of 
Delphi. Along the path of the mountain, from Chrysso, 
are the remains of sepulchres hewn in and from the rock. 
"One," said the guide, " of a king who broke his neck hunt- 
ing." His majesty had certainly chosen the fittest spot for 
such an achievement, A little above Castri is a cave, sup- 
posed the Pythian, of immense depth ; the upper part of it 



II. 

Whilome in Albion's isle there dwelt a youth, 
Who ne in virtue's ways did take delight ; 
But spent his days in riot most uncouth. 
And vex'd with mirth the drowsy ear of Night. 
Ah me ! in sooth he was a shameless wight, 
Sore given to revel and ungodly glee ; 
Few earthly things found favor in his sight 
Save concubines and carnal companie. 
And flaunting wassailers of high and low degree. 

III. 

Childe Harold^ was he hight : — but whence his name 
And lineage long, it suits me not to say ; 
Suffice it, that perchance they were of fame. 
And had been glorious in another day : 
But one sad losel soils a name for aye, 
However mighty in the olden time ; 
Nor all that heralds rake from coffin'd clay 
Nor florid prose, nor honey' d lies of rhyme, 
Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime. 

IV. 

Childe Harold bask'd him in the noontide sun, 
Disporting there like any other fly ; 
Nor deem'd before his little day was done 
One blast might chill him into misery. 
But long ere scarce a third of his pass'd by, 
Worse than adversity the Childe befell ; 
He felt the fullness of satiety : 
Then loathed he in his native land to dwell, 
Which seem'd to him more lone than Eremite's sad cell. 

V. 

For he through Sin's long labyrinth had run. 
Nor made atonement when he did amiss. 
Had sigh'd to many though he loved but one, 
And that loved one, alas ! could ne'er be his. 
Ah, happy she ! to 'scape from him whose kiss 
Had been pollution unto aught so chaste ; 
Who soon had left her charms for vulgar bliss. 
And spoil'd her goodly lands to gild, his waste. 
Nor calm domestic peace had ever deign'd to taste. 

VI. 

And now Childe Harold was sore sick at heart. 
And from his fellow bacchanals would flee ; 
'Tis said, at times the sullen tear would start, 
But Pride congeal'd the drop within his ee ; 

is paved, and now a cowhouse. On the other side of Castri 
stands a Greek monastery, some way above which Is the 
cleft in the rock, with a range of caverns difficult of ascent, 
and apparently leading to the interior of the mountain— 
probably to the Corycian Cavern mentioned by Pausanias. 
From this part descend the fountain and the " Dews of Cas- 
talie." "We were sprinkled," says Mr. Hobhouse, "with 
the spray of the immortal rill, and here, if anywhere, should 
have felt the poetic inspiration ; we drank deep, too, of the 
spring, but (I can answer for myself) without feeling sen- 
sible of any extraordinary effect." 

4 This stanza is not in the original MS. 

6 " Childe Buron."— MS. 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



CAi^TO I. 



Apart lie stalk' d in joyless reverie, 
And from his native land resolved to go, 
And visit scorching climes beyond the sea ; 
With pleasure drugg'd, he almost long'd for woe, 
And e'en for change of scene would seek the shades 



belc 



VII. 



The Childe departed from his father's hall : 
It was a vast and venerable pile ; 
So old, it seemed only not to fall. 
Yet strength was pillar'd in each massy aisle. 
Monastic dome ! condemn'd to uses vile ! 
Where Superstition once had made her den 
Now Paphian girls were known to sing and smile ; 
And monks might deem their time was come agen, 
If ancient tales say true, nor wrong these holy men. 

VIII. 

Yet oft-times in his maddest mirthful mood 
Strange pangs would flash along Childe Harold's 

brow. 
As if the memory of some deadly feud 
Or disappointed passion lurk'd below : 
But this none knew, nor haply cared to know ; 
For his was not that open, artless soul 
That feels relief by bidding sorrow flow, 
Nor sought he friend to counsel or condole, 
Whate'er this grief mote be, which he could not control. 

IX. 

And none did love him — though to hall and bower 
He gather'd revellers from far and near, 
He knew them flatt'rers of the festal hour ; 
The heartless parasites of present cheer. 
Yea ! none did love him — not his lemans dear — 
But pomp and power alone are woman's care, 
And where these are light Eros finds a feere ; 
Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare, 

And Mammon wins his way where Seraphs might 
despair. 

X. 
Childe Harold had a mother — not forgot. 
Though parting from that mother he did shun; 
A sister whom he loved, but saw her not 
Before his weary pilgrimage begun : 
If friends he had, he bade adieu to none. 
Yet deem not thence his breast a breast of steel : ^ 
Ye, who have known what 'tis to dote upon 
A few dear objects, will in sadness feel 

Such partings break the heart they fondly hope to heal. 

1 In these stanzas, and indeed throughout his works, we 
must not accept too literally Lord Byron's testimony against 
himself. He took a morbid pleasure in darkening every 
shadow of his self-portraiture. His interior at Newstead had, 
no doubt, been in some points loose and irregular enough ; but 
it certainly never exhibited anything of the profuse and Sa- 
tanic luxury which the language in the text might seem to 
indicate. In fact, the narrowness of his means at the time the 
verses refer to would alone have precluded this. His household 
economy, while he remained at the abbey, is known to have 
been conducted on a very moderate scale ; and besides, his usual 



XI. 

His house, his home, his heritage, his lands, 
The laughing dames in whom he did delight,^ 
Whose large blue eyes, fair locks, and snowy hands, 
Might shake the saintship of an anchorite. 
And long had fed his youthful appetite ; 
His goblets brimm'd with every costly wine, 
And all that mote to luxury invite, 
Without a sigh he left to cross the brine. 

And traverse Paynim shores, and pass^arth's central 
line.* -''' -■"~""^- --'-_. 

XII. 
The sails were fill'd, and fair the light winds blew, 
As glad to waft him from his native home ; 
And fast the white rocks faded from his view. 
And soon were lost in circumambient foam : 
And then, it may be, of his wish to roam 
Repented he, but in his bosom slept 
The silent thought, nor from his lips did come 
One word of wail, whilst others sate and wept, 

And to the reckless gales unmanly moaning kept. 

XIII. 
But when the sun was sinking in the sea 
He seized his harp, which he at times could string, 
And strike, albeit with untaught melody. 
When deem'd he no strange ear was listening : 
And now his fingers o'er it he did fling, 
And tuned his farewell in the dim twilight. 
While flew the vessel on her snowy wing. 
And fleeting shores receded from his sight. 
Thus to the elements he pour'd his last " Good Mght."^ 

" Adieu, adieu ! my native shore 

Fades o'er the waters blue ; 
The Night-winds sigh, the breakers roar, 

And shrieks the wild sea-mew. 
Yon Sun that sets upon the sea 

We follow in his flight ; 
Farewell awhile to him and thee, 

My native Land — Good Night ! 

" A few short hours and he will rise 

To give the morrow birth ; 
And I shall hail the main and skies, 

But not my mother earth. 
Deserted is my own good hall. 

Its hearth is desolate ; 
Wild weeds are gathering on the wall ; 

My dog howls at the gate. 

companions, though far from being averse to convivial indul- 
gences, were not only, as Mr. Moore says, " of habits and tastes 
too intellectual for mere vulgar debauchery," but assuredly 
quite incapable of playing the parts of flatterers and parasites. 

2 " Yet deem him not from this with breast of steel,"— MS. 

3 " His house, his home, his vassals, and his lands, 
The Delilahs," &c.— MS. 

4 Lord Byron originally intended to visit India. 

& See *' Lord Maxwell's Good Night," in Scott's Minstrelsy 
of the Scottish Border. Poetical Works, vol. ii. p. 141, ed. 
1834. — "Adieu, madam, my mother dear," &c. — MS. 






Canto I. 



CHILDE HAEOLD'S PILGEIMAGE. 



" Come hither, hither, my little page ! ^ 

Why dost thou weep and wail ? 
Or dost thou dread the billow's rage. 

Or tremble at the gale ? 
But dash the tear-drop from thiue eye ; 

Our ship is swift and strong : 
Our fleetest falcon scarce can fly 

More merrily along. ^ 

" ' Let winds be shrill, let waves roll high, 

I fear not wave nor wind : ^ 
Yet marvel not, Sir Childe, that I 

Am sorrowful in mind ; * 
For I have from my father gone, 

A mother whom I love. 
And have no friend save these alone, 

But thee — and one above. 

" ' My father bless'd me fervently. 

Yet did not much complain ; 
But sorely will my mother sigh 

Till I come back again.' — 
Enough, enough, my little lad ! 

Such tears become thine eye ; 
If I thy guileless bosom had, 

Mine own would not be dry.^ 

" Come hither, hither, my staunch yeoman ! ^ 
Why dost thou look so pale ? 

1 This "little page" was Robert Rushton, the son of one 
of Lord Byron's tenants. " Robert I take with me," says the 
poet, in a letter to his mother; "I like him, because, like 
myself, he seems a friendless animal. TeU his father he is 
well, and doing well." 

2 " Our best goss-hawk can hardly fly 

So merrily along." — MS. 

8 " Oh, master dear ! I do not cry 

From fear of waves or wind." — MS. 

* Seeing that the boy was " sorrowful " at the separation 
from his parents. Lord Byron, on reaching Gibraltar, sent 
him back to England under the care of his old servant Joe 
Murray. " Pray," he says to his mother, " shew the lad every 
kindness, as he is my great favorite." He also wrote a letter 
to the father of the boy which leaves a most favorable im- 
pression of his thoughtfulness and kindliness. " I have," he 
says, "sent Robert home, because the country which I am 
about to travel through is in a state which renders it unsafe, 
particularly for one so young. I allow you to deduct from 
your rent five and twenty pounds a year for his education, 
for three years, provided I do not return before that time, 
and I desire he may be considered as in my sei-vice. He has 
behaved extremely well." 

6 Here follows in the MS. : — 

" My mother is a high-born dame, 

And much misliketh me ; 
She saith my riot bringeth shame 

On all my ancestry. 
I had a sister once I ween. 

Whose tears perhaps will flow ; 
But her fair face I have not seen 

For three long years and moe." 

« William Fletcher, the faithful valet; who, after a service 
of twenty years ("during which," he says, "his Lord was 



Or dost thou dread a French foeman ? 

Or shiver at the gale ? — 
' Deem'st thou I tremble for my life ? 

Sir Childe, I'm not so weak ; 
But thinking on an absent wife 

Will blanch a faithful cheek. 

" ' My spouse and boys dwell near thy hall, 

Along the bordering lake. 
And when they on their father call, 

What answer shall she make ?' — 
Enough, enough, my yeoman good, 

Thy grief let none gainsay ; 
But I, who am of lighter mood, 

Will laugh to flee away J 

" For who would trust the seeming sighs 

Of wife or paramour ? 
Fresh feeres will dry the bright blue eyes 

We late saw streaming o'er.^ 
For pleasures past I do not grieve, 

Nor perils gathering near ; 
My greatest grief is that I leave 

No thing that claims a tear.^ 

" And now I'm in the world alone. 

Upon the wide, wide sea : 
But why should I for others groan, 

When none will sigh for me ? 

more to him than a father"), received the Pilgrim^ s last 
words at Missolonghi, and did not quit his remains until he 
had seen them deposited in the family vault at Hucknall. 
This unsophisticated "yeoman" was a constant source of 
pleasantry to his master : e. g., " Fletcher," he says, in a letter 
to his mother, " is not valiant ; he requires comforts that I 
can dispense with, and sighs for beer, and beef, and tea, and 
his wife, and the devil knows what besides. We were one 
night lost in a thunderstorm, and since nearly wrecked. In 
both cases he was sorely bewildered — from apprehensions of 
famine and banditti in the first and drowning in the second 
instance. His eyes were a little hurt by the lightning, or 
crying, I don't know which. I did what I could to console 
him, but found him incorrigible. He sends six sighs to 
Sally. I shall settle him in a farm; for he has served me 
faithfully, and Sally is a good woman." After all his advent- 
ures by flood and field, short commons included, this humble 
Achates of the poet has now established himself as the keeper 
of an Italian warehouse in Charles Street, Berkeley Square, 
where, if he does not thrive, every one who knows anything 
of his character will say he deserves to do so. 

1 " Enough, enough, my yeoman good, 
All this is well to say ; 
But if I in thy sandals stood, 
I'd laugh to get away."— MS. 

8 " For who would trust a paramour, 
Or e'en a wedded freere, 
Though her blue eyes were streaming o'er. 
And torn her yellow hair?" — MS. 

8 " I leave England without regret — I shall return to it 
without pleasure. I am like Adam, the first convict sen- 
tenced to transportation ; but I have no Eve, and have eaten 
no app'e but what was sour as a crab."— iord B. to Mr. 
Hodgson. 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



Canto I. 



Perchance my dog ^ will whine in vain, 

Till fed by stranger hands ; 
But long ere I come back again 

He'd tear me where he stands.^ 

" With thee, my bark, I'll swiftly go 

Athwart the foaming brine ; 
Nor care what land thou bear'st me to, 

So not again to mine. 
Welcome,' welcome, ye dark blue waves 

And when you fail my sight, 
Welcome, ye deserts, and ye caves ! 

My native Land — Good Night I"^ 

XIV. 

On, on the vessel flies ; the land is gone, 
And winds are rude in Biscay's sleepless bay. 
Four days are sped, but with the fifth, anon. 
New shores descried make every bosom gay ; 
And Cintra's mountain greets them on their 

way. 
And Tagus dashing onward to the deep, 
His fabled golden tribute bent to pay ; 
And soon on board the Lusian pilots leap. 
And steer 'twixt fertile shores where yet few rustics 

reap. 

XV. 

Oh, Christ ! it is a goodly sight to see 
What Heaven hath done for this delicious land : 
What fruits of fragrance blush on every tree ! 
What goodly prospects o'er the hills expand ! 
But man would mar them with an impious hand : 

1 From the following passage in a letter to Mr. Dallas it 
would appear that that gentleman had recommended the 
suppression or alteration of this stanza :— " I do not mean to 
exchange the ninth verse of the 'Good Night.' I have no 
reason to suppose my dog better than his brother brutes, 
mankind ; and Argus we know to be a fable." 

2 Here follows, in the original MS. : — 

" Methinks it would my bosom glad 

To change my proud estate, 
And be again a laughing lad, 

With one beloved playmate. 
Since youth I scarce have pass'd an hour 

Without disgust or pain, 
Except sometimes in Lady's bower, 

Or when the bowl I drain." 

3 Originally the " little page " and the " yeoman " were 
introduced in the following stanzas :— 

" And of his train there was a henchman page, 
A peasant boy, who served his master well ; 
And often would his pranksome prate engage 
Childe Harold's ear, when his proud heart did swell 
With sable thoughts that he disdain'd to tell. 
Then would he sinile on him, and Alwin smiled 
When aught that from his young lips archly fell 
The gloomy film from Harold's eye beguiled, 
And pleased for a glimpse appear'd the woeful Childe. 

Him and one yeoman only did he take 

To travel eastward to a far countrie; 

And, though the boy was grieved to leave the lake 

On whose fair banks he grew from infancy, 



And when the Almighty lifts his fiercest scourge 
'Gainst those who most transgress his high command, 
With treble vengeance will his hot shafts urge 

Gaul's locust host, and earth from fellest foemen 
purge.* 

XVI. 
What beauties doth Lisboa^ first unfold! 
Her image floating on that noble tide. 
Which poets vainly pave with sands of gold,^ 
But now whereon a thousand keels did ride 
Of mighty strength, since Albion was allied. 
And to the Lusians did her aid afibrd : 

, A nation swoln with ignorance and pride, 
Who lick yet loathe the hand that waves the sword 

To save them from the wrath of Gaul's unsparing 
lord.7 

XVII. 
But whoso entereth within this town, 
That, sheening far, celestial seems to be, 
Disconsolate will wander up and down, 
'Mid many things unsightly to strange ee f 
For hut and palace show like filthily : 
The dingy denizens are rear'd in dirt ; 
Ne personage of high or mean degree 
Doth care for cleanness of surtout or shirt ; 

Though shent with Egypt's plague, unkempt, un- 
wash'd, unhurt. 

XVIII. 

Poor, paltry slaves ! yet born 'midst noblest scenes — 
Why, Nature, waste thy wonders on such men ? 
Lo ! Cintra's^ glorious Eden intervenes 
In variegated maze of mount and glen. 

Eftsoons his little heart beat merrily 
With hope of foreign nations to behold. 
And many things right marvellous to see. 
Of which our vaunting voyagers oft have told 
In many a tome as true as Mandeville's of old." 

4 " These Lusian brutes, and earth from worst of wretches 

purge."— MS. 

5 "A friend advises Ulissipont; but Lisboa is the Portu- 
guese word, consequently the best. Ulissipont is pedantic; 
and as I had lugged in Hellas and Eros not long before, there 
would have been something like an aflfectation of Greek 
terms, which I wished to avoid. On the submission of Imsi- 
tania to the Moors, they changed the name of the capital, 
which till then had been Ulisipo, or Lispo ; because, in the 
Arabic alphabet, the letter p is not used. Hence, I believe, 
Lisboa ; whence again the French Lisbonne, and our Lisbon — 
God knows which the earlier corruption !" — Byrbn, MS. 

6 " Which poets, prone to lie, have paved with gold." — MS. 

7 " By comparing this and the thirteen following stanzas 
with the account of his progress which Lord Byron sent 
home to his mother, the reader will see that they are the 
exact echoes of the thoughts which occurred to his mind as 
he went over the spots described." — Moore. 

8 " 'Mid many things that grieve both nose and ee." — MS. 

9 "To make amends for the filthiness of Lisbon, and its 
still filthier inhabitants, the village of Cintra, about fifteen 
miles from the capital, is, perhaps, in every respect the most 
delightful in Europe. It contains beauties of every descrip- 
tion, natural and artificial: palaces and gardens rising in 
the midst of rocks, cataracts, and precipices; convents on 



Canto I. 



CHILDE HAEOLD'S PILGEIMAGE. 



Ah me ! what hand can pencil guide, or pen, 
To follow half on which the eye dilates 
Through views more dazzling unto mortal ken 
Than those whereof such things the bard relates 
Who to the awe-struck world unlock'd Elysium's 
gates ? 

XIX. 

The horrid crags, by toppling convent crown'd. 
The cork-trees hoar that clothe the shaggy steep. 
The mountain moss by scorching skies imbrown'd. 
The sunken glen, whose sunless shrubs must weep, 
The tender azure of the unruffled deep. 
The orange tints that gild the greenest bough. 
The torrents that from cliflf to valley leap, 
The vine on high, the willow branch below, 
MLs'd in one mighty scene, with varied beauty glow. 

XX. 

Then slowly climb the many-winding way, 
And frequent turn to linger as you go, 
From loftier rocks new loveliness survey, 
And rest ye at " Our Lady's house of woe ;" ^ 
Where frugal monks their little relics show, 
And sundry legends to the stranger tell : 
Here impious men have punish'd been, and lo ! 
Deep in yon cave Honorius long did dwell, 
In hope to merit Heaven by making earth a Hell. 

XXI. 

And here and there, as up the crags you spring, 
Mark many rude-carved crosses near the path : 



stupendous heights ; a distant view of the sea and the Tagus ; 
and, besides (though that is a secondary consideration), is 
remarkable as the scene of Sir Hew Dalrymple's convention. 
It unites in itself all the wildness of the western Highlands 
with the verdure of the south of France." — B. to Mrs. Byron, 
1809. 

1 The convent of " Our Lady of Punishment "—Nossa Se- 
Rora de Perm — on the summit of the rock. Below, at some 
distance, is the Cork Convent, where St. Honorius dug his den, 
over which is his epitaph. From the hills the sea adds to the 
beauty of the view. — Note to \st Edition. Since the publication 
of this poem I have been informed of the misapprehension of 
the term Nossa Senora de Pena. It was owing to the want of 
the tilde or mark over the n, which alters the signification of 
the word. With it, Pena signifies a rock ; without it, Pena 
has the sense I adopted. I do not think it necessary to alter 
the passage ; as, though the common acceptation aflBixed to it 
is " Our Lady of the Rock," I may well assume the other sense 
from the severities practiced there.— iVo<e to 2d Edition. 

2 It is a well-known fact that in the year 1809 the assassin- 
ations in the streets of Lisbon and its vicinity were not con- 
fined by the Portuguese to their countrymen, but that Eng- 
lishmen were daily butchered ; and so far from redress being 
obtained, we were requested not to interfere if we perceived 
any compatriot defending himself against his allies. I was 
once stopped in the way to the theatre at eight o'clock in the 
evening, when the streets were not more empty than they 
generally are at that hour, opposite to an open shop, and in 
a carriage with a friend : had we not fortunately been armed, 
I have not the least doubt that we should have " adorned a 
tale" instead of telling one. The crime of assassination is 



Yet deem not these devotion's offering — 
These are memorials frail of murderous wrath : 
For wheresoe'er the shrieking victim hath 
Pour'd forth his blood beneath the assassin's knife. 
Some hand erects a cross of mouldering lath ; 
And grove and glen with thousand such are rife 
Throughout this purple land, where law secures not 
life.2 

XXII. 

On sloping mounds, or in the vale beneath, 
Are domes where whilome kings did make repair ; 
But now the wild flowers round them only breathe ; 
Yet ruin'd splendor still is lingering there. 
And yonder towers the Prince's palace fair : 
There thou too, Vathek ! ^ England's wealthiest son, 
Once form'd thy Paradise, as not aware 
When wanton Wealth her mightiest deeds hath 
done, 
Meek Peace voluptuous lures was ever wont to shun.* 

XXIII. 
Here didst thou dwell, here schemes of pleasure 

plan. 
Beneath yon mountain's ever-beauteous brow : 
But now, as if a thing unblest by Man, 
Thy fairy dwelling is as lone as thou ! 
Here giant weeds a passage scarce allow 
To halls deserted, portals gaping wide : 
Fresh lessons to the thinking bosom, how 
Vain are the pleasaunces on earth supplied ; 
Swept into wrecks anon by Time's ungentle tide ! 



not confined to Portugal ; in Sicily and Malta we are knocked 
on the head at a handsome average nightly, and not a Sicil- 
ian or Maltese is ever punished ! 

3 " Vathek " (says Lord Byron in one of his diaries) " was 
one of the tales I had a very early admiration of. For cor- 
rectness of costume, beauty of description, and power of 
imagination, it far surpasses all European imitations, and 
bears such marks of originality that those who have visited 
the East will find some difficulty in believing it to be more 
than a translation. As an eastern tale even Rasselas must 
bow before it ; his ' happy valley ' will not bear a comparison 
with the ' Hall of Eblis.' "—William Beckford, Esq., son of 
the once celebrated alderman, and heir to his enormous 
wealth, published, at the early age of eighteen, " Memoirs of 
Extraordinary Painters," and in the year after, the roirance 
thus eulogized. After sitting for Hindon in several parlia- 
ments, this gifted person was induced to fix for a time his 
residence in Portugal, where the memory of his magnificence 
was fresh at the period of Lord Byron's pilgrimage. Return- 
ing to England, he realized all the outward shows of Gothic 
grandeur in his unsubstantial pageant of Fonthill Abbey; 
and has more recently been indulging his fancy with another, 
probably not more lasting, monument of architectural caprice, 
in the vicinity of Bath. It is much to be regretted that, after 
a lapse of fifty years, Mr. Beckford's literary reputation 
should continue to rest entirely on his juvenile, however 
remarkable, performances. It is said, however, that he has 
prepared several works for posthumous publication. 

4 " When Wealth and Taste their worst and best have done, 
Meek Peace pollution's lure voluptuous still must shun." — 

MS. 



8 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Canto I. 



XXIV. 

Behold tlie hall where chiefs were late convened ! i 
Oh ! dome displeasing unto British eye ! 
With diadem hight foolscap, lo ! a fiend, 
A little fiend that scofis incessantly, 
There sits in parchment robe array'd, and by 
His side is hung a seal and sable scroll, 
Where blazon'd glare names known to chivalry, 
And sundry signatures adorn the roll, 
Whereat the Urchin points, and laughs with all his 
soul.2 

XXV. 

Convention is the dwarfish demon styled 
That foil'd the knights in Marialva's dome : 
Of brains (if brains they had) he them beguiled. 
And turn'd a nation's shallow joy to gloom. 
Here Folly dash'd to earth the victor's plume. 
And Policy regain'd what arms had lost : 
For chiefs like ours in vain may laurels bloom ! 
Woe to the conqu'ring, not the eonquer'd host. 
Since baffled Triumph droops on Lusitania's coast ! 

XXVI. 

And ever since that martial synod met, 

Britannia sickens, Cintra ! at thy name ; 

And folks in office at the mention fret, 

And fain would blush, if blush they could, for shame. 



1 The Convention of Cintra was signed in the palace of the 
Marchese Marialva. "The armistice, the negotiations, the 
convention itself, and the execution of its provisions, were 
all commenced, conducted, and concluded, at the distance of 
thirty miles from Cintra, with which place they had not the 
slightest connection, political, military, or local; yet Lord 
Byron has gravely asserted, in prose and verse, that the con- 
vention was signed at the Marquis of Marialva's house at 
Cintra; and the author of 'The Diary of an Invalid,' im- 
proving upon the poet's discovery, detected the stains of the 
ink spilt by Junot upon the occasion." — Napier^s History 
oj the Peninsular War. 

2 The passage stood differently in the original MS. Some 
verses which the poet omitted at the entreaty of his friends 
can now offend no one, and may perhaps amuse many: — 

In golden characters right well design'd, 
First on the list appeareth one " Junot ;" 
Then certain other glorious names we find, 
Which rhyme compelleth me to place below : 
Dull victors ! baffled by a vanquish'd foe, 
Wheedled by conynge tongues of laurels due, 
Stand, worthy of each other, in a row- 
Sir Arthur, Harry, and the dizzard Hew 
Dalrymple, seely wight, sore dupe of t'other tew. 



Convention is the dwarfish demon styled 
That foil'd the knights in Marialva's dome: 
Of brains (if brains they had) he them beguiled, 
And turn'd a nation's shallow joy to gloom. 
For well I wot, when first the news did come 
That Vimiera's field by GauJ was lost, 
For paragraph ne paper scarce had room, 
Such pseans teem'd for our triumphant host, 
In Courier, Chronicle, and eke in Morning Post. 

But when Convention sent his handy-work, 

Pens, tongues, feet, hands, combined in wild uproar ; 



How will posterity the deed proclaim ! 
Will not our own and fellow nations sneer, 
To view these champions cheated of their fame. 
By foes in fight o'erthrown, yet victors here. 
Where Scorn her finger points through many a coming 
year? 

XXVII. 

So deem'd the Childe, as o'er the mountains he 
Did take his way in solitary guise : 
Sweet was the scene, yet soon he thought to flee. 
More restless than the swallow in the skies : 
Though here awhile he learn'd to moralize. 
For Meditation fix'd at times on him ; 
And conscious Eeason whisper'd to despise 
His early youth, misspent in maddest whim ; 
But as he gazed on truth his aching eyes grew dim. 

XXVIII. 

To horse ! to horse ! ^ he quits, for ever quits 
A scene of peace, though soothing to his soul : 
Again he rouses from his moping fits, 
But seeks not now the harlot and the bowl. 
Onward he flies, nor fix'd as yet the goal 
Where he shall rest him on his pilgrimage ; 
And o'er him many changing scenes must roll 
Ere toil his thirst for travel can assuage. 
Or he shall calm his breast, or learn experience sage. 



Mayor, aldermen, laid down the uplifted fork ; 
The Bench of Bishops half forgot to snore ; 
Stern Cobbett, who for one whole week forbore 
To question aught, once more with transport leapt, 
And bit his devilish quill agen, and swore 
With foe such treaty never should be kept ; 
Then burst the blatant beast,* and roar'd, and raged, and— 
slept ! 

Thus unto Heaven appeal'd the people : Heaven, 
Which loves the lieges of our gracious king, 
Decreed that, ere our generals were forgiven, 
Inquiry should be held about the thing. 
But Mercy cloak'd the babes beneath her wing ; 
And as they spared our foes, so spared we them ; 
(Where was the pity of our sires for Byng?t) 
Yet knaves, not idiots, should the law condemn ; 
Then live, ye gallant knights! and bless your Judges' 
phlegm ! 

3 "After remaining ten days in Lisbon, we sent our bag- 
gage and part of our servants by sea to Gibraltar, and trav- 
elled on horseback to Seville, a distance of nearly four hun- 
dred miles. The horses are excellent ; we rode seventy miles 
a day. Eggs and wine, and hard beds, are all the accommo- 
dation we found, and, in such torrid weather, quite enough." 
—B. Letters, 1809. 



* "Blatant beast "—a figure for the mob, I think first used by Smollett 
in his " Adventures of an Atom." Horace has the "bellua multornm capi- 
tum ;" in England, fortunately enough, the illustrious mobility have not 
even one. 

t By this query it is not meant that our foolish generals should have been 
shot, but that Byng might have been spared ; though the one suffered and 
the other escaped, probably for Candide's reason, "pour encourager les 
autres." See Croker's "Boswell," vol. i. p. 298; and the Quarterly Re- 
view, vol. xxvii. p. 207, where the question whether the admiral was or was 
not a political martyr is treated at large. 



Canto I. 



CHILDE HAKOLD'S PILGKIMAGE. 



9 



XXIX. 

Yet Mafra shall one moment claim delay, 
Where dwelt of yore the Lusians' luckless queen ; ^ 
And church and court did mingle their array, 
And mass and revel were alternate seen ; 
Lordlings and freres — ill-sorted fry I ween ! 
Blit here the Babylonian whore hath built 2 
A dome, where flaunts she in such glorious sheen, 
That men forget the blood which she hath spilt, 
-And bow the knee to Pomp that loves to varnish guilt. 

XXX. 

O'er vales that teem with fruits, romantic hills 
(Oh, that such hills upheld a freeborn race !), 
Whereon to gaze the eye with joyaunce fills, 
Childe Harold wends through many a pleasant place. 
Though sluggards deem it but a foolish chase. 
And marvel men should quit their easy chair, 
The toilsome way, and long, long league to trace. 
Oh ! there is sweetness in the mountain air, 
And life, that bloated Ease can never hope to share. 

XXXI. 

More bleak to view the hills at length recede. 

And, less luxuriant, smoother vales extend ; 

Immense horizon-bounded plains succeed ! 

Far as the eye discerns, withouten end, 

Spain's realms appear whereon her shepherds tend 

Flocks, whose rich fleece right well the trader 

knows — 
Now must the pastor's arm his lambs defend : 
For Spain is compass'd by unyielding foes, 
And all must shield their all, or share Subjection's 
woes. 

XXXII. 
Where Lusitania and her Sister meet. 
Deem ye what bounds the rival realms divide ? 
Or ere the jealous queens of nations greet, 
Doth Tayo interpose his mighty tide ? 

1 " Her luckless Majesty went subsequently mad ; and Dr. 
Willis, who so dexterously cudgelled kingly pericraniums, 
could make nothing of hers." — Byron MS. The queen 
labored under a melancholy kind of derangement, from 
which she never recovered. She died at the Brazils, in 1816. 

2 The extent of Mafra is prodigious ; it contains a palace, 
convent, and most superb church. The six organs are the 
most beautiful I ever beheld, in point of decoration : we did 
not hear them, but were told that their tones were corre- 
spondent to their splendor. Mafra is termed the Escurial of 
Portugal. "About ten miles to the right of Cintra," says 
Lord Byron in a letter to his mother, " is the palace of Mafra, 
the boast of Portugal, as it might be of any country, in point 
of magnificence without elegance. There is a convent an- 
nexed: the monks, who possess large revenues, are courteous 
enough, and understand Latin, so that we had a long conver- 
sation. They have a large library, and asked me if the Eng- 
lish had any books in their country." Mafra was erected by 
John v., in pursuance of a vow, made in a dangerous fit of 
illness, to found a convent for the use of the poorest friary 
in the kingdom. Upon inquiry, this poorest was found at 
Mafra, where twelve Franciscans lived together in a hut. 
There is a magnificent view of the existing edifice in " Fin- 
den's Illustrations." 



Or dark Sierras rise in craggy pride ? 

Or fence of art, like China's vasty wall ? — 

Ne barrier wall, ne river deep and wide, 

Ne horrid crags, nor mountains dark and tall, 

Rise like the rocks that part Hispania's land from 
Gaul: 

XXXIII. 
But these between a silver streamlet glides. 
And scarce a name distinguisheth the brook. 
Though rival kingdoms press its verdant sides. 
Here leans the idle shepherd on his crook, 
And vacant on the rippling waves doth look. 
That peaceful still 'twixt bitterest foemen flow ; 
For proud each peasant as the noblest duke : 
Well doth the Spanish hind the difference know 

'Twixt him and Lusian slave, the lowest of the low.^ 

XXXIV. 

But ere the mingling bounds have far been pass'd, 
Dark Guadiana rolls his power along* 
In sullen billows, murmuring and vast. 
So noted ancient roundelays among.^ 
Whilome upon his banks did legions throng 
Of Moor and Knight, in mailed splendor drest : 
Here ceased the swift their race, here sunk the strong; 
The Paynim turban and the Christian crest 

Mix'd on the bleeding stream, by floating hosts op- 
press'd. 

XXXV. 
Oh, lovely Spain ! renown'd, romantic land ! 
Where is that standard which Pelagio bore. 
When Cava's traitor sire first calFd the band 
That dyed thy mountain streams with Gothic gore ? ^ 
Where are those bloody banners which of yore 
Waved o'er thy sons, victorious to the gale. 
And drove at last the spoilers to their shore ? 
Red gleam'd the cross, and waned the crescent pale, 

While Afric's echoes thrill'd with Moorish matrons' 
wail. 



3 As I found the Portuguese, so I have characterized them. 
That they are since improved, at least in courage, is evident. 
The late exploits of Lord Wellington have eflfaced the follies 
of Cintra. He has, indeed, done wonders : he has, perhaps, 
changed the character of a nation, reconciled rival super- 
stitions, and baflfled an enemy who never retreated before his 
predecessors. — 1812. \ 

4 " But ere the bounds of Spain have far been pass'd, 
For ever famed in many a noted song." — MS. 

5 Lord Byron seems to have thus early acquired enough 
of Spanish to understand and appreciate the grand body of 
ancient popular poetry— unequalled in Europe— which must 
ever form the pride of that magnificent language. See his 
beautiful version of one of the best of the ballads of the 
Granada war— the " Romance muy doloroso del sitio y toma 
de Alhama." 

6 Count Julian's daughter, the Helen of Spain. Pelagius 
preserved his independence in the fastnesses of the Asturias, 
and the descendants of his followers, after some centuries, 
completed their struggle by the conquest of Granada. "Al- 
most all the Spanish historians, as well as the voice of tradi- 
tion, ascribe the invasion of the Moors to the forcible viola- 
tion by Roderick upon Florinda, called by the Moors Caba 
or Cava. She was the daughter of Count Julian, one of the 



10 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Canto I. 



XXXVI. 

Teems not each ditty with the glorious tale ? 
Ah ! such, alas ! the hero's amplest fate ! 
When granite moulders and when records fail, 
A peasant's plaint prolongs his dubious date. 
Pride ! bend thine eye from heaven to thine estate, 
See how the Mighty shrink into a song ! 
Can Volume, Pillar, Pile, preserve thee great ? 
Or must thou trust Tradition's simple tongue. 

When Flattery sleeps with thee, and History does thee 
wrong ? 

XXXVII. 
Awake, ye sons of Spain ! awake ! advance ! 
Lo ! Chivalry, your ancient goddess, cries. 
But wields not, as of old, her thirsty lance, 
Nor shakes her crimson plumage in the skies : 
Now on the smoke of blazing bolts she flies. 
And speaks in thunder through yon engine's roar : 
In every peal she calls — '' Awake ! arise !" 
Say, is her voice more feeble than of yore. 

When her war-song was heard on Andalusia's shore ? 

XXXVIII. 

Hark ! heard you not those hoofs of dreadful note ? 
Sounds not the clang of conflict on the heath ? 
Saw ye not whom the reeking sabre smote. 
Nor saved your brethren ere they sank beneath 
Tyrants and tyrants' slaves ? — the fires of death, 
The bale-fires, flash on high : — from rock to rock 
Each volley tells that thousands cease to breathe ; 
Death rides upon the sulphury Siroc,i 
Eed Battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock. 

XXXIX. 

Lo ! where the Giant on the mountain stands, 
His blood-red tresses deep'ning in the sun, 
With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands. 
And eye that scorcheth all it glares upon ; 
Eestless it rolls, now fix'd, and now anon 
Flashing afar, — and at his iron feet 
Destruction cowers, to mark what deeds are done ; 
For on this morn three potent nations meet. 
To shed before his shrine the blood he deems most 
sweet. 

XL. 
By Heaven ! it is a splendid sight to see 
(For one who hath no friend, no brother there) 
Their rival scarfs of mix'd embroidery, 
Their various arms that glittter in the air ! 

Gothic monarch's principal lieutenants, who, when the crime 
was perpetrated, was engaged in the defence of Ceuta against 
the Moors. In his indignation at the ingratitude of his sov- 
ereign and the dishonor of his daughter. Count Julian forgot 
the duties of a Christian and a patriot, and, forming an alli- 
ance with Musa, then the Caliph's lieutenant in Africa, he 
countenanced the invasion of Spain by a body of Saracens 
and Africans, commanded by the celebrated Tarik; the 
issue of which was the defeat and death of Roderick, and 
the occupation of almost the whole peninsula by the Moors, 
The Spaniards, in detestation of Florinda's memory, are 
said by Cervantes never to bestow that name upon any 



What gallant war-hounds rouse them from their lair, 
And gnash their fangs, loud yelling for the prey ! 
All join the chase, but few the triumph share ; 
The Grave shall bear the chiefest prize away. 
And Havoc scarce for joy can number their array. 

XLI. 

Three hosts combine to oflFer sacrifice ; 
Three tongues prefer strange orisons on high ; 
Three gaudy standards flout the pale blue skies ; 
The shouts are France, Spain, Albion, Victory I 
The foe, the victim, and the fond ally 
That fights for all, but ever fights in vain, 
Are met — as if at home they could not die — 
To feed the crow on Talavera's plain, 
And fertilize the field that each pretends to gain.* 

XLII. 

There shall they rot — Ambition's honor'd fools ! ^ ' 
Yes, Honor decks the turf that wraps their clay ! 
Vain Sophistry ! in these behold the tools. 
The broken tools, that tyrants cast away 
By myriads, when they dare to pave their way 
With human hearts — to what ? — a dream alone. 
Can despots compass aught that hails their sway ? 
Or call with truth one span of earth their own. 
Save that wherein at last they crumble bone by bone ? 

XLIII. 

Oh, Albuera ! glorious field of grief ! 
As o'er thy plain the Pilgrim prick'd his steed, 
Who could foresee thee, in a si^aee so brief, 
A scene where mingling foes should boast and bleed ! 
Peace to the perish'd ! may the warrior's meed 
And tears of triumph their reward prolong ! 
Till others fall where other chieftains lead 
Thy name shall circle round the gaping throng, 
And shine in worthless lays the theme of transient 



XLIV. 

Enough of Battle's minions ! let them play 
Their game of lives, and barter breath for fame : 
Fame that will scarce re-animate their clay. 
Though thousands fall to deck some single name. 
In sooth 'twere sad to thwart their noble aim 
Who strike, blest hirelings ! for their country's good. 
And die, that living might have proved her shame ; 
Perish'd, perchance, in some domestic feud, 
Or in a narrower sphere wild Ptaj)ine's path pursued. 

human female, reserving if for their dogs." — Siu Walter 
Scott. 

1 " from rock to rock 

Blue columns soar aloft in sulphurous wreath, 
Fragments on fragments in confusion knock." — MS. 

2 See Appendix, Note A. 

» " There let them rot — while rhymers tell the K»ols 
How Honor decks the turf that wraps their clay ! 
Liars avaunt !" — MS. 
* This stanza is not in the original MS. It was written 
at Newstead, in August, 1811, shortly after the battle of 
Albuera. 



Canto I. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 



11 



XLV. 
Full swiftly Harold wends his lonely way 

I Where proud Sevilla i triumphs unsubdued : 
Yet is she free — the spoiler's wish'd-for prey ! 
Soon, soon shall Conquest's fiery foot intrude, 
Blackening her lovely domes with traces rude. 

•Inevitable hour ! 'Gainst fate to strive 
Where Desolation plants her famish'd brood 
Is vain, or Ilion, Tyre, might yet survive, 

And Virtue vanquish all, and Murder cease to thrive. 

XLVI. 
But all unconscious of the coming doom, 
The feast, the song, the revel, here abounds ; 
Strange modes of merriment the hours consume, 
Nor bleed these patriots with their country's wounds ; 
Nor here War's clarion, but Love's rebeck,^ sounds ; 
Here Folly still his votaries inthralls, 
And young-eyed Lewdness walks her midnight 

rounds ; 
Girt with the silent crimes of Capitals, 
Still to the last kind Vice clings to the tott'ring walls. 

XLVII. 

Not so the rustic — with his trembling mate 
He lurks, nor casts his heavy eye afar. 
Lest he should view his vineyard desolate, 
Blasted below the dun hot breath of war. 
No more beneath soft Eve's consenting star 
FandangQ twirls his jocund castanet : 
Ah, monarchs ! could ye taste the mirth ye mar. 
Not in the toils of Glory would ye fret ; 

The hoarse dull drum would sleep, and Man be happy 
yet! 

XLVIII. 
How carols now the lusty muleteer ? 
Of love, romance, devotion, is his lay. 
As whilome he was wont the leagues to cheer, 
His quick bells wildly jingling on the way ? 
No ! as he speeds, he chants " Viva el Rey !" ^ 
And checks his song to execrate Godoy, 
The royal wittol Charles, and curse the day 
When first Spain's queen beheld the black-eyed boy. 

And gore-faced Treason sprung from her adulterate 

joy. 



1 " At Seville we lodged in the house of two Spanish un- 
married ladies, women of character, the eldest a fine woman, 
the youngest pretty. The freedom of manner which is gen- 
eral here astonished me not a little; and in the course of 
further observation I find that reserve is not the character- 
istic of Spanish belles. The eldest honored your unworthy 
son with very particular attention, embracing him with great 
tenderness at parting (I was there but three days), after cut- 
'ting off a lock of his hair, and presenting him with one of 
her own, about three feet in length, which I send, and beg 
you will retain till my return. Her last words were, ' Adios, 
tu hermoso! me gusto mucho' — 'Adieu, you pretty fellow! 
you please me muchy— Lord Byron to his Mother, August, 
1809. 

2 A kind of fiddle, with only two strings, played on by a 
bow, said to have been brought by the Moors into Spain. 



XLIX. 

On yon long, level plain, at distance crown'd 
With crags, whereon those Moorish turrets rest. 
Wide scatter'd hoof-marks dint the wounded ground ; 
And, scathed by fire, the greensward's darken'd vest 
Tells that the foe was Andalusia's guest : 
Here was the camp, the watch-flame, and the host. 
Here the bold peasant storm'd the dragon's nest ; 
Still does he mark it with triumphant boast. 

And points to yonder cliiFs, which oft were won and 
lost. 

L. 
And whomsoe'er along the path you meet 
Bears in his cap the badge of crimson hue. 
Which tells you whom to shun and whom to greet : * 
Woe to the man that walks in public view 
Without of loyalty this token true ! 
Sharp is the knife, and sudden is the stroke ; 
And sorely would the Gallic foeman rue. 
If subtle poniards, wrapt beneath the cloak. 

Could blunt the sabre's edge, or clear the cannon's 
smoke. 

LI. 

At every turn Morena's dusky height 
Sustains aloft the battery's iron load ; 
And, far as mortal eye can compass sight. 
The mountain howitzer, the broken road. 
The bristling palisade, the fosse o'erflow'd. 
The station'd bands, the never-vacant watch. 
The magazine in rocky durance stow'd, 
The holster' d steed beneath the shed of thatch, 
The ball-piled pyramid,^ the ever-blazing match, 

LII. 

Portend the deeds to come : — but he whose nod 
Has tumbled feebler despots from their sway, 
A moment pauseth ere he lifts the rod, 
A little moment deigneth to delay : 
Soon will his legions sweep through these their way ; 
The West must own the Scourger of the world. 
Ah, Spain ! how sad will be thy reckoning-day. 
When soars Gaul's Vulture, with his wings unfurl'd. 
And thou shalt view thy sons in crowds to Hades 
hurl'd ! 



8 "Viva el Rey Fernando !"— Long live King Ferdinand !— 
is the chorus of most of the Spanish patriotic songs. They 
are chiefly in dispraise of the old king Charles, the queen, 
and the Prince of Peace. I have heard many of them : some 
of the airs are beautiful. Don Manuel Godoy, the Principe 
de la Paz, of an ancient but decayed family, was born at Ba- 
dajoz, on the frontiers of Portugal, and was originally in the 
ranks of the Spanish guards, till his person attracted the 
queen's eyes, and raised him to the dukedom of Alcudia, &c. 
&c. It is to this man that the Spaniards universally impute 
the ruin of their country. 

* The red cockade, with " Fernando VII." in the centre. 

5 All who have seen a battery will recollect the pyramidal 
form in which shot and shells are piled. The Sierra Morena 
was fortified in every defile through which I passed in my 
way to Seville. 



12 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



Canto I. 



LIII. 

And must they fall, the young, the proud, the brave, 
To swell one bloated Chief's unwholesome reign ? 
No step between submission and a grave. 
The rise of rapine and the fall of Spain ? 
And doth the Power that man adores ordain 
Their doom, nor heed the suppliant's appeal ? 
Is all that desperate Valor acts in vain ? 
And Counsel sage, and patriotic Zeal, 

The Veteran's skill. Youth's fire, and Manhood's heart 
of steel? 

LIV. 
Is it for this the Spanish maid, aroused. 
Hangs on the willow her unstrung guitar, 
And, all unsex'd, the anlace hath espoused. 
Sung the loud song, and dared the deed of war ? 
And she, whom once the semblance of a scar 
Appall'd, an owlet's larum chill'd with dread. 
Now views the column-scattering bay'net jar, 
The falchion flash, and o'er the yet warm dead 

Stalks with Minerva's step where Mars might quake 
to tread. 

LV. 
Ye who shall marvel when you hear her tale. 
Oh ! had you known her in her softer hour, 
Mark'd her black eye that mocks her coal-black 

veil. 
Heard her light, lively tones in Lady's bower. 
Seen her long locks that foil the painter's power, 
Her fairy form, with more than female grace. 
Scarce would you deem that Saragoza's tower 
Beheld her smile in Danger's Gorgon face. 

Thin the closed ranks, and lead in Glory's fearful 
chase. 

LVI, 
Her lover sinks — she sheds no ill-timed tear ; 
Her chief is slain — she fills his fatal post ; 
Her fellows flee — she checks their base career ; 
The foe retires — she heads the sallying host : 
Who can appease like her a lover's ghost ? 
Who can avenge so well a leader's fall ? 
What maid retrieve when man's flush'd hope is lost ? 
Who hang so fiercely on the flying Gaul, 

Foil'd by a woman's hand before a batter'd wall ? i 

1 Such were the exploits of the Maid of Saragoza, who by 
her valor elevated herself to the highest rank of heroines. 
When the author was at Seville she walked daily on the 
Prado, decorated with medals and orders by command of the 
Junta. The exploits of Augustina, the famous heroine of 
both the sieges of Saragoza, are recorded at length in South- 
ey's History of the Peninsular War. At the time when she 
first attracted notice by mounting a battery where her lover 
had fallen, and working a gun in his room, she was in her 
twenty-second year, exceedingly pretty, and in a soft fem- 
inine style of beauty. She has further had the honor to be 
painted by Wilkie, and alluded to in Wordsworth's Disser- 
tation on the Convention (misnamed) of Cintra, where a 
noble passage concludes in these words : — " Saragoza has ex- 
emplified a melancholy, yea, a dismal truth, yet consolatory 
and full of joy,— that when a people are called suddenly to 
fight for their liberty, and are sorely pressed upon, their best 
field of battle is the floors upon which their children have 



LVII. 

Yet are Spain's maids no race of Amazons, 
But form'd for all the witching arts of love : 
Though thus in arms they emulate her sons. 
And in the horrid phalanx dare to move, 
'Tis but the tender fierceness of the dove. 
Pecking the hand that hovers o'er her mate : 
In softness as in firmness far above 
Remoter females, famed for sickening prate : 
Her mind is nobler sure, her charms perchance as 
great. 

LVIII. 

The seal Love's dimpling finger hath impress'd 
Denotes how soft that chin which bears his touch : ^ 
Her lips, whose kisses pout to leave their nest. 
Bid man be valiant ere he merit such : 
Her glance how wildly beautiful ! how much 
Hath Phoebus woo'd in vain to spoil her cheek. 
Which glows yet smoother from his amorous 

clutch ! 
Who round the North for paler dames would 

seek ? 
How poor their forms appear ! how languid, wan, and 
! 



LIX. 

Match me, ye climes ! which poets love to laud ; 
Match me, ye harems of the land ! where now ^ 

1 istrike my strain, far distant, to applaud 
Beauties that ev'n a cynic must avow ; * 
Match me those Houries, whom ye scarce allow 
To taste the gale lest Love should ride the wind 
With Spain's dark -glancing daughters^ — deign to 

know. 
There your wise Prophet's paradise we find. 
His black-ejed maids of Heaven, angelically kind. 

LX. 

Oh, thou Parnassus ! ^ whom I now survey, 
Not in the phrensy of a dreamer's eye, 
Not in the fabled landscape of a lay. 
But soaring snow-clad through thy native sky, 
In the wild pomp of mountain majesty ! 

played; the chambers where the family of each man has 
slept; upon or under the roofs by which they have been 
sheltered ; in the gardens of their recreation ; in the street 
or in the market-place; before the altars of their temples, 
and among their congregated dwellings, blazing or up- 
rooted." 

2 " Sigilla in mento impressa Amoris digitulo 
Vestigio demonstrant mollitudinum." — AuL. Gel. 

3 This stanza was written in Turkey. 

4 " Beauties that need not fear a broken vow."— MS. 

6 " Long black hair, dark languishing eyes, clear olive 
complexion, and forms more graceful in motion than can be 
conceived by an Englishman, used to the drowsy, listless air 
of his countrywomen, added to the most becoming dress, 
and at the same time the most decent in the world, render a 
Spanish beauty irresistible."— 5. to his Mother, Aug. 1809. 

« These stanzas weise written in Castri (Delphos), at the 
foot of Parnassus, now called Ata/cvpa (Liakura), Dec. 1809. 



Canto I. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 



13 



What marvel if I thus essay to sing ? 
The humblest of thy pilgrims passing by 
Would gladly woo thine Echoes with his string, 
Though from thy heights no more one Muse will wave 
her wing. 

LXI. 

Oft have I dream'd of Thee ! whose glorious name 
Who knows not, knows not man's divinest lore : 
And now I view thee, 'tis, alas ! with shame 
That I in feeblest accents must adore. 
When I recount thy worshippers of yore 
I tremble, and can only bend the knee ; 
Nor raise my voice, nor vainly dare to soar, 
But gaze beneath thy cloudy canopy 
In silent joy to think at last I look on thee ! ^ 

LXII. 

Happier in this than mightiest bards have been, 
Whose fate to distant homes confined their lot. 
Shall I unmoved behold the hallow'd scene, 
Which others rave of, though they know it not ? 
Though here no more Apollo haunts his grot. 
And thou, the Muses' seat, art now their grave,^ 
Some gentle spirit still pervades the spot. 
Sighs in the gale, keeps silence in the cave. 
And glides with glassy foot o'er yon melodious 
wave.3 

LXIII. 

Of thee hereafter. — Ev'n amidst my strain 
I turn'd aside to pay my homage here ; 
Forgot the land, the sons, the maids of Spain ; 
Her fate, to every freeborn bosom dear ; 
And hail'd thee, not perchance without a tear. 
Now to my theme — but from thy holy haunt 
Let me some remnant, some memorial bear ; 
Yield me one leaf of Daphne's deathless plant,* 
Nor let thy votary's hope be deem'd an idle vaunt. 



1 "Upon Parnassus, going to the fountain of Delphi (Cas- 
tri), in 1809, 1 saw a flight of twelve eagles (Hobhouse says 
they were vultures — at least in conversation), and I seized 
the omen. On the day before, I composed the lines to Par- 
nassus (in Childe Harold), and, on beholding the birds, had a 
hope that Apollo had accepted my homage. I have at Icnst 
had the name and fame of a poet during the poetical period 
of life (from twenty to thirty) ; — whether it will last is an- 
other matter : hut I have been a votary of the deity and the 
plrxce, and am grateful for what he has done in my behalf, 
leaving the future in his hands, as I left the past." — B. Diary, 
1821. , 

2 "Casting the eye over the site of ancient Delphi, one 
cannot possibly imagine what has become of the walls of the 
numerous buildings which are mentioned in the history of 
its former magnificence,— buildings which covered two miles 
of ground. "With the exception of the few terraces or sup- 
porting walls, nothing now appears. The various robberies 
by Sylla, Nero, and Constantine, are inconsiderable ; for the 
removal of the statues of bronze and marble and ivory could 
not greatly affect the general appearance of the city. The 
acclivity of the hill, and the foundations being placed on 
rock, without cement, would no doubt render them compar- 



LXIV. 

But ne'er didst thou, fair Mount ! when Greece wa% 

young, 
See round thy giant base a brighter choir, 
Nor e'er did Delphi, when her priestess sung 
The Pythian hymn with more than mortal fire, 
Behold a train more fitting to inspire 
The song of love than Andalusia's maids, 
Nurst in the glowing lap of soft desire : 
Ah ! that to these were given such peaceful shades 
As Greece can still bestow, though Glory fly her glades. 

LXV. 

Fair is proud Seville ; let her country boast 
Her strength, her wealth, her site of ancient days ; ^ 
But Cadiz, rising on the distant coast. 
Calls forth a sweeter, though ignoble praise. 
Ah, Vice ! how soft are thy voluptuous ways ! 
While boyish blood is mantling, who can 'scape 
The fascination of thy magic gaze ? ^ 
A Cherub-hydra round us dost thou gape. 
And mould to every taste thy dear delusive shape. 

LXVI. 

When Paphos fell by Time — accursed Time ! 
The Queen who conquers all must yield to thee — 
The Pleasures fled, but sought as warm a clime ; 
And Venus, constant to her native sea. 
To nought else constant, hither deign'd to flee, 
And fix'd her shrine within these walls of white ; 
Though not to one dome circumscribeth she 
Her worship, but, devoted to her rite, 
A thousand altars rise, for ever blazing bright.^ 

LXVII. 

From morn till night, from night till startled Morn 
Peeps blushing on the revel's laughing crew. 
The song is heard, the rosy garland worn ; 
Devices quaint, and frolics ever new, 



atively easy to be removed or hurled down into the vale 
below ; but the vale exhibits no appearance of accumulation 
of hewn stones, and the modern village could have consumed 
but few. In the course of so many centuries the debris from 
the mountain must have covered up a great deal, and even 
the rubbish itself may have acquired a soil sufficient to con- 
ceal many noble remains from the light of day ; yet we see 
no swellings or risings in the ground, indicating the graves 
of the temples. All therefore is mystery, and the Greeks 
may truly say, ' Where stood the walls of our fathers, scarce 
the mossy tombs remain!'"—^. W. Williams's Travels in 
Greece, vol. ii. p. 254. 

3 " And walks with glassy steps o'er Aganippe's wave."— 
MS. 

* " Some glorious thought to my petition grant."— MS. 

5 Seville was the Hispalis of the Komans. 

6 "The lurking lures of thy enchanting gaze." — MS. 

1 "Cadiz, sweet Cadiz!— it is the first spot in the creation. 
The beauty of its streets and mansions is only excelled by 
the liveliness of its inhabitants. It is a complete Cythera, 
full of the finest women in Spain,— the Cadiz belles being 
the Lancashire witches of their land."— i^ord B. to his Mother, 



14 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto I. 



Tread on each other's kibes. A long adieu 
« He bids to sober joy that here sojourns : 
Nought interrupts the riot, though in lieu 
Of true devotion monkish incense burns, 
And lov.e and prayer unite, or rule the hour by turns .^ 

LXVIII. 

The Sabbath conies, a day of blessed rest : 
What hallows it upon this Christian shore ? 
Lo ! it is sacred to a solemn feast : 
Hark ! heard you not the forest-monarch's roar ? 
Crashing the lance, he snuffs the spouting gore 
Of man and steed, o'erthrown beneath his horn ; 
The throng'd arena shakes with shouts for more ; 
Yells the mad crowd o'er entrails freshly torn, 
Nor shrinks the female eye, nor ev'n affects to mourn. 

LXIX. 

The seventh day this ; the jubilee of man. 
London ! right well thou know'st the day of prayer : 
Then thy spruce citizen, wash'd artisan, 
And smug apprentice gulp their weekly air : 
Thy coach of hackney, whisky, one-horse chair, 
And humblest gig through sundry suburbs whirl ; 
To Hampstead, Brentford, Harrow, make repair ; 
Till the tired jade the wheel forgets to hurl, 
Provoking envious gibe from each pedestrian churl.^ 

LXX. 

Some o'er thy Thamis row the ribbon'd fair, 
Others along the safer turnpike fly ; 
Some Richmond-hill ascend, some scud to Ware, 
And many to the steep of Highgate hie. 
Ask ye, Boeotian shades ! the reason why ? ^ 
'Tis to the worship of the solemn horn, 
Grasp'd in the holy hand of Mystery, 
In whose dread name both men and maids are sworn, 
And consecrate the oath* with draught, and dance 
till morn.^ 

LXXI. 
All have their fooleries — not alike are thine, 
Fair Cadiz, rising o'er the dark blue sea! 
Soon as the matin bell proclaimeth nine, 
Thy saint-adorers count the rosary : 



1 " monkish temples share 

The hours misspent, and all in turns is love and prayer."— MS. 

2 " And droughty then alights, and roars for Roman purl." 

—MS. 

3 This was written at Thebes, and consequently in the best 
situation for asking and answering such a question ; not as 
the birthplace of Pindar, but as the capital of Bceotia, where 
the first riddle was propounded and solved. 

* Lord Byron alludes to a ridiculous custom which for- 
merly prevailed at the public-houses in Highgate, of admin- 
istering a burlesque oath to all travellers of the middling 
rank who stopped there. The party was sworn on a pair of 
horns, fastened, " never to kiss the maid when he could the 
mistress ; never to eat brown bread when he could get white ; 
never to drink small beer when he could get strong," with 



Much is the Virgin teased to shrive them free 
(Well do I ween the only virgin there) 
From crimes as numerous as her beadsmen be ; 
Then to the crowded circus forth they fare : 

Young, old, high, low, at once the same diversion 
share. 

LXXII. 
The lists are oped, the spacious area clear'd. 
Thousands on thousands piled are seated round ; 
Long ere the first loud trumpet's note is heard, 
Ne vacant space for lated wight is found : 
Here dons, grandees, but chiefly dames abound, 
Skill'd in the ogle of a roguish eye. 
Yet ever well inclined to heal the wound ; 
None through their cold disdain are doom'd to die^ 

As moon-struck bards complain, by Love's sad archery. 

LXXIII. 

Hush'd is the din of tongues — on gallant steeds, 
With milk-white crest, gold spur, and light-poised 
Four cavaliers prepare for venturous deeds, [lance. 
And lowly bending to the lists advance ; 
Rich are their scarfs, their chargers featly prance : 
If in the dangerous game they shine to-day, 
The crowd's loud shout and ladies' lovely glance. 
Best prize of better acts, they bear away. 
And all that kings or chiefs e'er gain their toils repay. 

LXXIV. 

In costly sheen and gaudy cloak array'd. 
But all afoot, the light-limb'd Matadore 
Stands in the centre, eager to invade 
The lord of lowing herds ; but not before 
The ground, with cautious tread, is traversed o'er, 
Lest aught unseen should lurk to thwart his speed : 
His arms a dart, he fights aloof, no more 
Can man achieve without the friendly steed — 
Alas ! too oft condemn'd for him to bear and bleed. 

LXXV. 

Thrice sounds the clarion ; lo ! the signal falls, 
The den expands, and Expectation mute 
Gapes round the silent circle's peopled walls. 
Bounds with one lashing spring the mighty brute. 



many other injunctions of the like kind,— to all which was 
added the saving clause, " unless you like it best." 

5 "In thus mixing up the light with the solemn, it was 
the intention of the poet to imitate Ariosto. But it is far 
easier to rise, with grace, from the level of a strain generally 
familiar, into an occasional short burst of pathos or splendor, 
than to interrupt thus a prolonged tone of solemnity by 
any descent into the ludicrous or burlesque. In the former 
case the transition may have the effect of softening or ele- 
vating, while in the latter it almost invariably shocks ; for 
the same reason, perhaps, that a trait of pathos or high feel- 
ing, in comedy, has a peculiar charm, while the intrusion of 
comic scenes into tragedy, however sanctioned among us by 
habit and authority, rarely fails to offend. The poet was 
himself convinced of the failure of the experiment, and in 
none of the succeeding cantos of Childe Harold repeated 
it,"— Moore. 



Canto I. 



CHILDE HAKOLD'S PILGEIMAGE. 



15 



And, wildly staring, spurns, with sounding foot, 
The sand, nor blindly rushes on his foe : 
Here, there, he points his threatening front, to suit 
His first attack, wide waving to and fro 
His angry tail ; red rolls his eye's dilated glow. 

LXXVI. 

Sudden he stops ; his eye is fix'd : away. 
Away, thou heedless boy ! prepare the spear : 
Now is thy time to perish, or display 
The skill that yet may check his mad career. 
With well-timed croupe i the nimble coursers veer ; 
On foams the bull, but not unscathed he goes ; 
Streams from his flank the crimson torrent clear ; 
He flies, he wheels, distracted with his throes ; 
Dart follows dart ; lance, lance ; loud bellowings speak 
his woes. 

LXXVII. 

Again he comes ; not- dart nor lance avail, 
Nor the wild plunging of the tortured horse ; 
Though man and man's avenging arms assail, 
Vain are his weapons, vainer is his force. 
One gallant steed is stretch'd a mangled corse ; 
Another, hideous sight ! unseam'd appears, 
His gory chest unveils life's panting source ; 
Though death-struck, still his feeble frame he rears ; 

Staggering, but stemming all, his lord unharm'd he 
bears. 

LXXVIII. 
Foil'd, bleeding, breathless, furious to the last. 
Full in the centre stands the bull at bay, 
'Mid wounds, and clinging darts, and lances brast, 
And foes disabled in the brutal fray : 
And now the Matadores around him play. 
Shake the red cloak and poise the ready brand : 
Once more through all he bursts his thundering 

way- 
Vain rage ! the mantle quits the conynge hand. 

Wraps his fierce eye — 'tis past — he sinks upon the 
sand ! 2 

LXXIX. 
Where his vast neck just mingles with the spine, 
Sheathed in his form the deadly weapon lies. 
He stops — he starts — disdaining to decline : 
Slowly he falls, amidst triumphant cries. 
Without a groan, Avithout a struggle dies. 



1 " The croupe is a particular leap taught in the ma- 
nfege."— MS. 

2 The reader will do well to compare Lord Byron's ani- 
mated picture of the popular "sport" of the Spanish nation 
with the very circumstantial details contained in the charm- 
ing " Letters of Don Leucadio Doblado " {i. e. the Rev. Blanco 
White), published in 1822. So inveterate was at one time the 
rage of the people for this amusement that even boys mim- 
icked its features in their play. In the slaughter-house 
itself the professional bull-fighter gave public lessons; and 
such was the force of depraved custom that ladies of the 
highest rank were not ashamed to appear amidst the filth 
and horror of the shambles. The Spaniards received this 
sport from the Moors, among whom it was celebrated with 



The decorated car appears — on high 
The corse is piled — sweet sight for vulgar eyes^ — 
Four steeds that spurn the rein, as swift as shy, 
Hurl the dark bulk along, scarce seen in dashing by. 

LXXX. 

Such the ungentle sport that oft invites 
The Spanish maid, and cheers the Spanish swain. 
Nurtured in blood betimes, his heart delights 
In vengeance, gloating on another's pain. 
What private feuds the troubled village stain ! 
Though now one phalanx'd host should meet the 

foe. 
Enough, alas ! in humble homes remain, 
To meditate 'gainst friends the secret blow, 
For some slight cause of wrath, whence life's warm 
stream must flow.* 

LXXXI. 

But Jealousy has fled : his bars, his bolts, 
His wither'd sentinel. Duenna sage ! 
And all whereat the generous soul revolts, 
Which the stern dotard deem'd he could encage, 
Have pass'd to darkness with the vanish'd age. 
Who late so free as Spanish girls were seen 
(Ere War uprose in his volcanic rage). 
With braided tresses bounding o'er the green, 
While on the gay dance shone Night's lover-loving 
Queen ? 

LXXXII. 

Oh ! many a time and oft had Harold loved, 
Or dream'd he loved, since rapture is a dream ; 
But now his wayward bosom was unmoved. 
For not yet had he drunk of Lethe's stream ; 
And lately had he learn'd with truth to deem 
Love has no gift so grateful as his wings : 
How fair, how young, how soft soe'er he seem, 
Full from the fount of Joy's delicious springs ^ 
Some bitter o'er the floAvers its bubbling venom flings.® 

LXXXIII. 

Yet to the beauteous form he was not blind. 
Though now ii moved him as it moves the wise : 
Not that Philosophy on such a mind 
E'er deign'd to bend her chastely-awful eyes : 
But Passion raves itself to rest, or flies : 



great pomp and splendor. See varioits notes to Mr. Lock- 
hart's Collection of Ancient Spanish Ballads. 1822. 

3 " The trophy corse is rear'd— disgusting prize !" 
Or, 

" The corse is rear'd— sparkling the chariot flies." — MS. 

* " The Spaniards are as revengeful as ever. At Santa 
Otella I heard a young peasant threaten to stab a woman (an 
old one to be sure, which mitigates the offence), and was told, 
on expressing some small surprise, that this ethic was by no 
means uncommon."— MS. 

5 " Medio de fonte leporum, 

Surgit amari aliquid quod in ipsis floribus angat,'— Luc. 

6 " Some bitter bubbles up, and e'en on roses stings."— MS. 



16 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Canto I. 



And Vice, tliat digs her own voluptuous tomb, 
Had buried long his hopes, no more to rise : 
Pleasure's pall'd victim ! life-abhorring gloom 
Wrote on his faded brow curst Cain's unresting doom. 

LXXXIV. 

Still he beheld, nor mingled with the throng ; 
But view'd them not with misanthropic hate : 
Fain would he now have join'd the dance, the song ; 
But who may smile that sinks beneath his fate ? 
Nought that he saw his sadness could abate : 
Yet once he struggled 'gainst the demon's sway. 
And as in Beauty's bower he pensive sate, 
Pour'd forth this unpremeditated lay, 
To charms as fair as those that soothed his happier day. 

TO INEZ. 

1. 
Nay, smile not at my sullen brow ; 

Alas ! I cannot smile again : 
Yet Heaven avert that ever thou 

Shouldst weep, and haply weep in vain. 

2. 
And dost thou ask what secret woe 

I bear, corroding joy and youth ? 
And wilt thou vainly seek to know 

A pang, ev'n thou must fail to soothe ? 

3. 

It is not love, it is not hate. 

Nor low Ambition's honors lost. 
That bids me loathe my present state. 

And fly from all I prized the most : 

1 "What Exile from himself can flee? 

To other zones, howe'er remote, 
Still, still pursuing clings to me 
The blight of life— the demon Thought."— MS. 

2 " Written January 25, 1810."— MS. 

3 In place of this song, which was written at Athens, Jan- 
uary 25, 1810, and which contains, as Moore says, "some 
of the dreariest touches of sadness that ever Byron's pen 
let fall," we find in the first draught of the canto the fol- 
lowing : — 

1. 
Oh, never talk again to me 

Of northern climes and British ladies : 
It has not been your lot to see. 

Like me, the lovely Girl of Cadiz. 
Although her eye be not of blue, 

Nor fair her locks, like English lasses, 
How far its own expressive hue 

The languid azure eye surpasses ! 

2. 

Prometheus-like, from heaven she stole 

The fire that through those silken lashes 
In darkest glances seems to roll. 

From eyes that cannot hide their flashes ; 
And as along her bosom steal 

In lengthen'd flow her raven tresses. 
You'd swear each clustering lock could feel, 

And curl'd to give her neck caresses. 



4. 

It is that weariness which springs 
From all I meet, or hear, or see : 

To me no pleasure Beauty brings ; 
Thine eyes have scarce a charm for me. 

5. 

It is that settled, ceaseless gloom 
The fabled Hebrew wanderer bore ; 

That will not look beyond the tomb, 
But cannot hope for rest before. 

(). 
What Exile from himself can flee ? i 

To zones though more and more remote, 
Still, still pursues, where'er I be, 

The blight of life— the demon Thought.2 

7. 
Yet others rapt in pleasure seem. 

And taste of all that I forsake ; 
Oh ! may they still of transport dream, 

And ne'er, at least like me, awake ! 

8. 
Through many a clime 'tis mine to go. 

With many a retrospection curst ; 
And all my solace is to know, 

Whate'er betides, I've known the worst. 

9. 
What is that worst ? Nay, do not ask — 

In pity from the search forbear : 
Smile on — nor venture to unmask 

Man's heart, and view the Hell that's there. 



Our English maids are long to woo, 

And frigid even in possession ; 
And if their charms be fair to view, 

Their lips are slow at Love's confession. 
But, born beneath a brighter sun, 

For love ordain'd the Spanish maid is ; 
And who, when fondly, fairly won, 

Enchants you like the Girl of Cadiz? 



The Spanish maid is no coquette, 

Nor joys to see a lover tremble, 
And if she love, or if she hate, 

Alike she knows not to dissemble. 
Her heart can ne'er be bought or sold— 

Howe'er it beats, it beats sincerely ; 
And though it will not bend to gold, 

'Twill love you long and love you dearly. 



The Spanish girl that meets your love 

Ne'er taunts you with a mock denial, 
For every thought is bent to prove 

Her passion in the hour of trial. 
When thronging foemen menace Spain, 

She dares the deed and shares the danger , 
And should her lover press the plain. 

She hurls the spear, her love's avenger. 




V(''"'',y^^^^^ 






^ihrarg, 



m. 



(r^^ 



:7?i 






Canto I. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 



17 



LXXXV. 

Adieu, fair Cadiz ! yea, a long adieu ! 
Who may forget how well thy walls have stood ? 
When all were changing thou alone wert true, 
First to be free, and last to be subdued : 
And if amidst a scene, a shock so rude, 
Some native blood was seen thy streets to dye, 
A traitor only fell beneath the feud : "■ 
Here all were noble, save Nobility ! 
None hugg'd a conqueror's chain, save fallen Chiv- 
alry ! 

LXXXVI. 

Such be the sons of Spain, and strange her fate ! 
They fight for freedom who were never free, 
A kingless people for a nerveless state ; 
Her vassals combat when their chieftains flee. 
True to the veriest slaves of Treachery : 
Fond of a land which gave them nought but life. 
Pride points the path that leads to Liberty ; 
Back to the struggle, baflled in the strife, 
War, war is still the cry, " War even to the knife !" ^ 



And when, beneath the evening star, 

She mingles in the gay Bolero, 
Or sings, to her attuned guitar, 

Of Christian knight or Moorish hero, 
Or counts her beads, with fairy hand, 

Beneath the twinkling rays of Hesper, 
Or joins devotion's choral band, 

To chant the sweet and hallow'd vesper, — 

7. 
In each her charms the heart must move 

Of all who venture to behold her ; 
Then let not maids less fair reprove 

Because her bosom is not colder. 
Through many a clime 'tis mine to roam, 

Where many a soft and melting maid is, 
But none abroad, and few at home, 

May match the dark-eyed Girl of Cadiz. 

1 Alluding to the conduct and death of Solano, the gov- 
ernor of Cadiz, in May, 1809. 

2 "War to the knife"— Palafox's answer to the French 
general at the siege of Saragoza. In his proclamation, also, 
he stated that should the French commit any robberies, de- 
vastations, and murders, no quarter should be given them. 
The dogs by whom he was beset, he said, scarcely left him 
time to clean his sword from their blood, but they still found 
their grave at Saragoza. All his addresses were in the same 
spirit. "His language," says Mr. Southey, "had the high 
tone and something of the inflation of Spanish romance, 
suiting the character of those to whom it was directed." 
See History of the Peninsular War, vol. iii. p. 152. 

3 The canto, in the original MS., closes with the following 
stanzas : — 

Ye who would more of Spain and Spaniards know, 
Sights, Saints, Antiques, Arts, Anecdotes, and War, 
Go ! hie ye hence to Paternoster Row- 
Art, they not written in the Book of Carr,* 



* Porphyry said that the prophecies of Daniel were ■written after their 
completion, and such may be my fate here ; but it requires no second-sight 
to foretell a tome : the first glimpse of the knight was enough. In a letter 
written from Gibraltar, August 6, 1809, to his friend Hodgson, Lord Byron 
says:—" I have seen Sir John Carr at Seville and Cadiz ; and, like Swift's 



LXXXYII. 

Ye who would more of Spain and Spaniards know. 
Go, read whate'er is writ of bloodiest strife : 
Whate'er keen Vengeance urged on foreign foe 
Can act, is acting there against man's life : 
From flashing scimitar to secret knife. 
War mouldeth there each weapon to his need — 
So may he guard the sister and the wife, 
So may he make each curst oppressor bleed. 
So may such foes deserve the most remorseless deed ! '* 

LXXXVIII. 
Flows there a tear of pity for the dead ? 
Look o'er the ravage of the reeking plain ; 
Look on the hands with female slaughter red ; 
Then to the dogs resign the unburied slain. 
Then to the vulture let each corse remain. 
Albeit unworthy of the prey -bird's maw ; 
Let their bleach'd bones, and blood's unbleaching 

stain, 
Long mark the battle-field with hideous awe : 
Thus only may our sons conceive the scenes we saw ! 



Green Erin's Knight and Europe's wandering star ! 
Then listen, Readers, to the Man of Ink, 
Hear what he did, and sought, and wrote afar ; 
All these are coop'd within one Quarto's brink : 
This borrow, steal, — don't buy,— and tell us what you 
think. 

There may you read, with spectacles on eyes, 
How many Wellesleys did embark for Spain, 
As if therein they meant to colonize ; 
How many troops y-crossed the laughing main 
That ne'er beheld the said return again ; 
How many buildings are in such a place. 
How many leagues from this to yonder plain. 
How many relics each cathedral grace, 
And where Giralda stands on her gigantic base. 

There may you read (oh, Phoebus, save Sir John ! 
That these my words prophetic may not err) 
All that was said, or sung, or lost, or won, 
By vaunting Wellesley or by blundering Frere, 
He that wrote half the " Needy Knife-Grinder." f 
Thus poesy the way to grandeur paves — 
Who would not such diplomatists prefer? 
But cease, my Muse, thy speed some respite craves ; 
Leave Legates to their house, and armies to their 
graves. 

Yet here of Vulpes mention may be made, 
Who for the Junta modell'd sapient laws, 
Taught them to govern ere they were obey'd ; 
Certes, fit teacher to command, because 
His soul Socratic no Xantippe awes ; 
Blest with a dame in Virtue's bosom nurst. 
With her let silent admiration pause ! — 
True to her second husband and her first : 
On such unshaken fame let Satire do its worst. 



barber, have been down on my knees to beg he would not put me into black 
and white." 



t The "Needy Knife-Grinder," in the Anti-jacobin, was a joint pro- 
duction of Messrs. Frere and Canning. 



18 



BYRON'S WOKKS. 



Cajstto I. 



LXXXIX. 

Nor yet, alas ! the dreadful work is done : 
Fresh legions pour adown the Pyrenees ; 
It deepens still, the work is scarce begun, 
Nor mortal eye the distant end foresees. 
Fall'n nations gaze on Spain ; if freed, she frees 
More than her fell Pizarros once enchain' d : 
Strange retribution ! now Columbia's ease 
Repairs the wrongs that Quito's sons sustain'd, 
While o'er the parent clime prowls Murder unre- 
strain'd. 

XC. 

Not all the blood at Talavera shed, 
Not all the marvels of Barossa's fight, 
Not Albuera lavish of the dead. 
Have won for Spain her well-asserted right. 
When shall her Olive-Branch be free from blight ? 
When shall she breathe her from the blushing toil ? 
How many a doubtful day shall sink in night 
Ere the Frank robber turn him from his spoil, 
And Freedom's stranger-tree grow native of the soil ! 

XCI. 

And thou, my friend ! ^ — since unavailing woe 
Bursts from my heart, and mingles with the strain — 
Had the sword laid thee with the mighty low, 
Pride might forbid e'en Friendship to complain : 



1 The Honorable John "Wingfield, of the Guards, who died 
of a fever at Coimbra (May 14, 1811). I had known him ten 
years, the better half of his life, and the happiest part of 
mine. In the short space of one month I have lost her who 
gave me being, and most of those who had made that being 
tolerable. To me the lines of Young are no fiction : — 

" Insatiate archer ! could not one suffice ? 

Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain, 

And thrice ere thrice yon moon had fiU'd her horn." 

I should have ventured a verse to the memory of the late 
Charles Skinner Matthews, Fellow of Downing College, Cam- 
bridge, were he not too much above all praise of mine. His 
powers of mind, shown in the attainment of greater honors, 
against the ablest candidates, than those of any graduate on 
record at Cambridge, have sufficiently established his fame 
on the spot where it was acquired ; while his softer qualities 
live in the recollection of friends who loved him too well to 
envy his superiority. — This and the following stanza were 
added in August, 1811. In one of his school-boy poems, en- 
titled " Childish Recollections," Lord Byron has thus drawn 
the portrait of young Wingfield :— 

" Alonzo ! best and dearesl of my friends. 
Thy name ennobles him who thus commends: 
From this fond tribute thou canst gain no praise ; 
The praise is his who now that tribute pays. 
Oh ! in the promise of thy early youth, 
If hope anticipates the words of truth. 
Some loftier bard shall sing thy glorious name, 
To build his own upon thy deathless fame. 



But thus unlaurell'd to descend in vain, 
By all forgotten save the lonely breast, 
And mix unbleeding with the boasted slain, 
While Glory crowns so many a meaner crest ! 
What hadst thou done to sink so peacefully to rest ? 

XCII. 

Oh, known the earliest, and esteem'd the most!' 
Dear to a heart where nought was left so dear ! 
Though to my hopeless days for ever lost, 
In dreams deny me not to see thee here ! 
And Morn in secret shall renew the tear 
Of Consciousness awaking to her woes. 
And Fancy hover o'er thy bloodless bier. 
Till my frail frame return to whence it rose, 
And mourn'd and mourner lie united in repose. 

XCIII. 

Here is one fytte of Harold's pilgrimage : 
Ye who of him may further seek to know 
Shall find some tidings in a future page. 
If he that rhymeth now may scribble moe. 
Is this too much ? stern Critic ! say not so : 
Patience ! and ye shall hear what he beheld 
In other lands, where he was doom'd to go : 
Lands that contain the monuments of Eld, 
Ere Greece and Grecian arts by barbarous hands were 
queird.3 



Friend of my heart, and foremost of the list 
Of those with whom I lived supremely blest, 
Oft have we drain'd the fount of ancient lore. 
Though drinking deeply, thirsting still for more ; 
Yet when confinement's lingering hour was done, 
Our sports, our studies, and our souls were one. 
In every element, unchanged, the same, 
All, all that brothers should be, but the name." 

Matthews, the idol of Lord Byron at college, was drowned, 
while bathing in the Cam, on the 2d of August. The follow- 
ing passage of a letter from Newstead to his friend Scrope 
Davies, written immediately after the event, bears the im- 
press of strong and even agonized feelings: — "My dearest 
Davies, some curse hangs over me and mine. My mother 
lies a corpse in the house ; one of my best friends is drowned 
in a ditch. What can I say, or think, or do ? I received a 
letter from him the day before yesterday. My dear Scrope, 
if you can spare a moment, do come down to me — I want a 
friend. Matthews's last letter was written on Friday,— on 
Saturday he was not. In ability, who was like Matthews ? 
How did we all shrink before him. You do me but justice in 
saying I would have risked my paltry existence to have pre- 
served his. This very evening did I mean to write, inviting 
him, as I invite you, my very dear friend, to visit me. What 
wiU our poor Hobhouse feel ? His letters breathe but Mat- 
thews. Come to me, Scrope, I am almost desolate — ^left almost 
alone in the world !" — Matthews was the son of John Mat- 
thews, Esq. (the representative of Herefordshire, in the par- 
liament of 1802-6), and brother of the author of ' The Diary 
of an Invalid," also untimely snatched away. 

2 " beloved the most."— MS. 

3 " Dec. 30, 18G9."— MS. 



Canto II. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 



19 



(JTfiiltie ^axoW^ pilgrimage* 



CANTO THE SECOND. 



I. 

Come, blue-eyed maid of heaven ! — but thou, alas ! 
Didst never yet one mortal song inspire — 
Goddess of Wisdom ! here thy temple was, 
And is, despite of war and wasting fire,i 
And years, that bade thy worship to expire : 
But worse than steel, and flame, and ages slow, 
Is the dread sceptre and dominion dire 
Of men who never felt the sacred glow 
That thoughts of thee and thine on polish'd breasts 

bestow. 

II. 
Ancient of days ! august Athena ! ^ where, 
Where are thy men of might ? thy grand in soul ? 
Gone — glimmering through the dream of things 

that were : 
First in the race that led to Glory's goal. 
They won, and pass'd away : is this the whole ? 

1 Part of the Acropolis was destroyed by the explosion of a 
magazine during the Venetian siege. — On the highest part 
of Lycabettus, as Chandler was informed by an eye-witness, 
the Venetians, in 1687, placed four mortars and six pieces of 
cannon, when they battered the Acropolis. One of the bombs 
was fatal to some of the sculpture on the west front of the 
Parthenon. " In 1667," says Mr. Hobhouse, " every antiquity 
of which there is now any trace in the Acropolis, was in a 
tolerable state of preservation. This great temple might, at 
that period, be called entire ;— having been previously a 
Christian church, it was then a mosque, the most beautiful 
in the world. At present, only twenty-nine of the Doric 
columns, some of which no longer support their entablatures, 
and part of the left wall of the cell, remain standing. Those 
of the north side, the angular ones excepted, have all fallen. 
The portion yet standing cannot fail to fill the mind of the 
indifferent spectator with sentiments of astonishment and 
awe ; and the same reflections arise upon the sight even of 
the enormous masses of marble ruins which are spread upon 
the area of the temple. Such scattered fragments will soon 
constitute the sole remains of the Temple of Minerva." 

2 We can all feel, or imagine, the regret with which the 
ruins of cities, once the capitals of empires, are beheld : the 
reflections suggested by such objects are too trite to require 
recapitulation. But never did the littleness of man, and the 
vanity of his very best virtues, of patriotism to exalt, and of 
valor to defend his country, appear more conspicuous than 
in the record of what Athens was, and the certainty of what 
she now is. This theatre of contention between mighty fac- 
tions, of the struggles of orators, the exaltation and deposition 
of tyrants, the triumphs and punishments of generals, is now 
become a scene of petty intrigue and perpetual disturbance, 
between the bickering agents of certain British nobility and 
gentry. " The wild foxes, the owls and serpents in the ruins 
of Babylon," were surely less degrading than such inhabit- 
ants. The Turks have the plea of conquest for their tyranny, 
and the Greeks have only suffered the fortune of war, inci- 
dental to the bravest ; but how are the mighty fallen, when 
two painters contest the privilege of plundering the Parthe- 
non, and triumph in turn, according to the tenor of each 
succeeding finnan ! Sylla could but punish, Philip subdue, 



A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour! 
The warrior's weapon and the sophist's stole 
Are sought in vain, and o'er each mouldering tower, 
Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of 
power. 

III. 

Son of the morning, rise ! approach you here ! 
Come — but molest not yon defenceless urn : 
Look on this spot — a nation's sepulchre ! 
Abode of gods, whose shrines no longer burn. 
Even gods must yield — religions take their turn : 
'Twas Jove's — 'tis Mahomet's — and other creeds 
Will rise with other years, till man shall learn 
Vainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds ; 
Poor child of Doubt and Death, whose hope is built 
on reeds.^ 

IV. 

Bound to the earth, he lifts his eye to heaven — 
Is't not enough, unhappy thing ! to know 
Thou art? Is this a boon so kindly given, 
That being, thou wouldst be again, and go. 
Thou know'st not, reck'st not, to what region, so 

and Xerxes burn Athens; but it remained for the paltry 
antiquarian, and his despicable agents, to render her con- 
temptible as himself and his pursuits. The Parthenon, before 
its destruction in part, by fire during the Venetian siege, had 
been a temple, a church, and a mosque. In each point of 
view it is an object of regard : it changed its worshipper.s ; 
but still it was a place of worship thrice sacred to devotion ; 
its violation is a triple sacrifice. But — 

" Man, proud man, 
Drest in a little brief authority. 
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven 
As make the angels weep." 

3 In the original MS. we find the following note to tbi.s 
and the five following stanzas, which had been prepared for 
publication, but was afterwards withdrawn, "from a fear," 
says the poet, "that it might be considered rather as an 
attack, than a defence of religion :"— " In this age of bigotry, 
when the puritan and priest have changed places, and the 
wretched Catholic is visited with the 'sins of his fathers,' 
even unto generations far beyond the pale of the command- 
ment, the cast of opinion in these stanzas will, doubtless, 
meet with many a contemptuous anathema. But let it be 
remembered, that the spirit they breathe is desponding, not 
sneering, skepticism ; that he who has seen the Greek and 
Moslem superstitions contending for mastery over the former 
shrines of Polytheism — who has left in his own, ' Pharisees, 
thanking God that they are not like publicans and sinners,' 
and Spaniards in theirs, abhorring the heretics, who have 
holpen them in their need— will be not a little bewildered, 
and begin to think, that as only one of them can be right, 
they may, most of them, be wrong. With regard to morals, 
and the eft'ect of religion on mankind, it appears, from all 
historical testimony, to have had less effect in making them 
love their neighbors, than inducing that cordial Christian 
abhorrence, between sectaries and schismatics. The Turks 
and Quakers are the most tolerant: if an Infidel pays his 
heratch to the former, he may pray how, when, and where 
he pleases ; and the mild tenets, and devout demeanor of the 
latter, make their lives the truest commentary on the Ser- 
mon on the Mount." 



20 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto II. 



On earth no more, but mingled with the skies ? 
Still wilt thou dream ^ on future joy and woe ? 
Regard and weigh yon dust before it flies : 
That little urn saith more than thousand homilies. 

V. 

Or burst the vanish'd Hero's lofty mound ; 
Far on the solitary shore he sleeps : ^ 
He fell, and falling nations mourn'd around ; 
But now not one of saddening thousands weejjs. 
Nor warlike worshipper his vigil keeps 
Where demi-gods appear'd, as records tell. 
Remove yon skull from out the scatter'd heaps : 
Is that a temple where a God may dwell ? 
Why ev'n the worm at last disdains her shatter'd cell ! 

VI. 

Look on its broken arch, its ruin'd wall, 
Its chambers desolate, and portals foul : 
Yes, this was once Ambition's airy hall. 
The dome of Thought, the palace of the Soul : 
Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole, 
The gay recess of Wisdom and of Wit, 
And Passion's host, that never brook'd control : 
Can all saint, sage, or sophist ever writ, 
People this lonely tower, this tenement refit ? 

YII. 

Well didst thou speak, Athena's wisest son ! — 
'' All that we know is, nothing can be known." 
Why should we shrink from what we cannot shun ? 
Each hath his pang, but feeble sufferers groan 
With brain -born dreams of evil all their own. 
Pursue what Chance or Fate proclaimeth best ; 
Peace waits us on the shores of Acheron : 
There no forced banquet claims the sated guest, 
But Silence spreads the couch of ever-welcome rest. 

YIII. 

Yet if, as holiest men have deem'd, there be 
A land of souls beyond that sable shore, 

1 " Still wilt thou harp."— MS. 

2 It was not always the custom of the Greeks to burn their 
dead; the greater Ajax, in particular, was interred entire. 
Almost all the chiefs became gods after their decease ; and 
he was indeed neglected, who had not annual games near his 
tomb, or festivals in honor of his memory by his countrymen, 
as Achilles, Brasidas, &c., and at last even Antinous, whose 
death was as heroic as his life was infamous. 

3 In the original MS., for this magnificent stanza we find 
what follows : — 

" Frown not upon me, churlish Priest ! that I 
Look not for life, where life may never be ; 
I am no sneerer at thy phantasy ; 
Thou pitiest me, — alas ! I envy thee. 
Thou bold discoverer in an unknown sea, 
Of happy isles and happier tenants there ; 
I ask thee not to prove a Saddueee ; 
Still dream of Paradise, thou know'st not where, 
But lov'st too well to bid thine erring brother share." 
* Lord Byron wrote this stanza at Newstead, in October, 
1811, on hearing of the death of his Cambridge friend, young 
Eddlestone: "making," he says, "the sixth, within four 



To shame the doctrine of the Saddueee 
And sophists, madly vain of dubious lore; 
How sweet it were in concert to adore 
With those who made our mortal labors light ! 
To hear each voice we fear'd to hear no more ! 
Behold each mighty shade reveal'd to sight. 
The Bactrian, Samian sage, and all who taught the 
right ! 3 

IX. 

There, thou ! — whose love and life together fled 
Have left me here to love and live in vain — 
Twined with my heart, and can I deem thee dead 
When busy Memory flashes on my brain ? 
Well — I will dream that we may meet again, 
And woo the vision to my vacant breast : 
If aught of young Remembrance then remain, 
Be as it may Futurity's behest, 
For me 'twere bliss enough to know thy spirit blest ! * 

X. 

Here let me sit upon this massy stone,^ 
The marble column's yet unshaken base ; 
Here, son of Saturn ! was thy fav'rite throne — ^ 
Mightiest of many such ! Hence let me trace 
The latent grandeur of thy dwelling-place. 
It may not be : nor ev'n can Fancy's eye 
Restore what Time hath labor'd to deface. 
Yet these proud pillars claim no passing sigh ; 
Unmoved the Moslem sits, the light Greek carols by. 

XI. 

But who, of all the plunderers of yon fane 
On high, where Pallas linger'd, loth to flee 
The latest relic of her ancient reign ; 
The last, the worst, dull spoiler, who was he ? 
Blush, Caledonia ! such thy son could be ! 
England ! I joy no child he was of thine : 
Thy freeborn men should spare wliat once was free ; 
Yet they could violate each saddening shrine. 
And bear these altars o'er the long-reluctant brine.' 

months, of friends and relations that I have lost between 
May and the end of August." See post, Hours of Idleness, 
" The Cornelian." 

5 " The thought and the expression," says Professor Clarke 
in a letter to Lord Byron, " are here so truly Petrarch's that 
I would ask you whether you ever read 

' Poi quando '1 vero sgombra 
Quel dolce error pur li medesmo assido, 
Me freddo, pietra morta in pietra viva ; 
In guisa d' uom ch6 pensi e piange e scriva ;' 
thus rendered by Wilmot : 

' But when rude truth destroys 

The loved illusion of the dreamed sweets, 

I sit me down on the cold rugged stone, 

Less cold, less dead than I, and think and weep alone.' " 

6 The temple of Jupiter Olympius, of which sixteen col- 
umns, entirely of marble, yet survive ; originally there were 
one hundred and fifty. These columns, however, are by 
many supposed to have belonged to the Pantheon. 

7 See Appendix to this canto (A) for a note too long to be 
placed here. The ship was wrecked in the Archipelago. 



Canto II. 



CHILDE HAKOLD'S PILGKIMAGE. 



21 



XII. 



But most the modern Plot's ignoble boast, 

To rive what Qoth, and Turk, and Time hath 

spared : 
Cold as the crags upon his native coast,^ 
His mind as barren and his heart as hard, 
Is he whose head conceived, whose hand prepared. 
Aught to displace Athena's poor remains : 
Her sons, too weak the sacred shrine to guard, 
Yet felt some portion of their mother's pains,^ 

And never knew, till then, the weight of Despot's 
chains. 

XIII. 
What ! shall it e'er be said by British tongue, 
Albion was happy in Athena's tears ? 
Though in thy name the slaves her bosom wrung, 
Tell not the deed to blushing Europe's ears ; 
The ocean queen, the free Britannia, bears 
The last poor plunder from a bleeding land : 
Yes, she, whose gen'rous aid her name endears. 
Tore down those remnants with a harpy's hand. 

Which envious Eld forbore, and tyrants left to stand.^ 

XIV. 
Where was thine ^gis, Pallas ! that appall'd 
Stern Alaric and Havoc on their way ? ^ 
Where Peleus' son ? whom Hell in vain inthrall'd, 
His shade from Hades upon that dread day 
Bursting to light in terrible array ! 
What ! could not Pluto spare the chief once more, 
To scare a second robber from his prey ? 
Idly he wander'd on the Stygian shore. 
Nor now preserved the walls he loved to shield before. 

XV. 

Cold is the heart, fair Greece ! that looks on thee, 

Nor feels as lovers o'er the dust they loved ; 

Dull is the eye that will not weep to see 

Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed 

By British hands, which it had best behoved 

To guard those relics ne'er to be restored. 

Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved, 

^ " Cold and accursed as his native coast." — MS. 

2 I cannot resist availing myself of the permission of my 
friend Dr. Clarke, whose name requires no comment with 
the public, but whose sanction will add tenfold weight to my 
testimony, to insert the following extract from a very obliging 
letter of his to me, as a note to the above lines : — " When the 
last <^f the metopes was taken from the Parthenon, and in 
moving of it great part of the superstructure, with one of the 
triglyphs, was thrown down by the workmen whom Lord 
Elgin employed, the Disdar, who beheld the mischief done 
to the building, took his pipe from his mouth, dropped a 
tear, and in a supplicating tone of voice said to Lusieri, 
TeAos! I was present." The Disdar alluded to was the 
father of the present Disdar. 

3 After stanza xiii. the original MS. has the following : — 

" Come then, ye classic Thanes of each degree. 
Dark Hamilton and sullen Aberdeen, 
Come pilfer all the Pilgrim loves to see. 
All that yet consecrates the fading scene : 
Oh ! better were it ye had never been, — 



And once again thy hapless bosom gored, 
And snatch'd thy shrinking Gods to northern climes 
abhorr'd ! 

XVI. 

But where is Harold ? shall I then forget 
To urge the gloomy wanderer o'er the wave ? 
Little reck'd he of all that men regret ; 
No loved one now in feign'd lament could rave ; 
No friend the parting hand extended gave. 
Ere the cold stranger pass'd to other climes : 
Hard is his heart whom charms may not enslave ; 
But Harold felt not as in other times. 
And left without a sigh the land of war and crimes. 

XVII. 

He that has sail'd upon the dark blue sea 
Has view'd at "times, I ween, a full fair sight; 
When the fresh breeze is fair as breeze may be. 
The white sail set, the gallant frigate tight ; 
Masts, spires, and strand retiring to the right. 
The glorious main expanding o'er the bow, 
The convoy spread like wild swans in their flight, 
The dullest sailer wearing bravely now. 
So gayly curl the waves before each dashing prow. 

XVIII. 

And oh, the little warlike world within ! 
The well-reeved guns, the netted canopy,^ 
The hoarse command, the busy humming din. 
When, at a word, the tops are mann'd on high : 
Hark, to the Boatswain's call, the cheering cry ! 
While through the seaman's hand the tackle glides ; 
Or schoolboy Midshipman that, standing by. 
Strains his shrill pipe as good or ill betides. 
And well the docile crew that skillful urchin guides. 

XIX. 

White is the glassy deck, without a stain, 
Where on the watch the staid Lieutenant walks : 
Look on that part which sacred doth remain 
For the lone chieftain, who majestic stalks. 



Nor ye nor Elgin, nor that lesser wight, 
The victim sad of vase-collecting spleen. 
House-furnisher withal, one Thomas hight, — 
Than ye should bear one stone from wrong'd Athena's site. 

" Or will the gentle Dilettanti crew 

Now delegate the task to digging Gell, 

That mighty limner of a bird's-eye view. 

How like to Nature let his volumes tell ; 

Who can with him the folio's limits swell 

With all the Author saw, or said he saw ? 

Who can topographize or delve so well? 

No boaster he, nor impudent and raw. 
His pencil, pen, and shade, alike without a flaw." 

4 According to Zosimus, Minerva and Achilles frightened 
Alaric from the Acropolis ; but others relate that the Gothic 
king was nearly as mischievous as the Scottish peer. See 
Chandler. 

6 To prevent blocks or splinters from falling on deck dur- 
ing action. 



22 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto II. 



Silent and fear'd by all — not oft he talks 
With aught beneath him, if he would preserve 
That strict restraint, which broken, ever balks 
Conquest and Fame : but Britons rarely swerve 
From law, however stern, which tends their strength 
to nerve. 1 

XX. 

Blow ! swiftly blow, thou keel-compelling gale ! 
Till the broad sun withdraws his lessening ray ; 
Then must the pennant-bearer slacken sail, 
That lagging barks may make their lazy way. 
Ah ! grievance sore, and listless dull delay. 
To waste on sluggish hulks the sweetest breeze ! 
What leagues are lost, before the dawn of day. 
Thus loitering pensive on the willing seas, 

The flapping sail haul'd down to halt for logs like 
these ! 

XXI. 
The moon is up ; by Heaven, a lovely eve ! 
Long streams of light o'er dancing waves expand ; 
Now lads on shore may sigh, and maids believe : 
Such be our fate when we return to land ! 
Meantime some rude Arion's restless hand 
Wakes'the brisk harmony that sailors love ; 2 
A circle there of merry listeners stand. 
Or to some well-known measure featly move, 

Thoughtless, as if on shore they still were free to rove. 

XXII. 

Through Calpe's straits survey the steepy shore ; 
Europe and Afric on each other gaze ! 
Lands of the dark-eyed Maid and dusky Moor 
Alike beheld beneath pale Hecate's blaze : 
How softly on the Spanish shore she plays. 
Disclosing rock, and slope, and forest brown. 
Distinct, though darkening with her waning phase ; 
But Mauritania's giant shadows frown, 
From mountain clifi" to coast descending sombre down. 

XXIII. 

'Tis night, when Meditation bids us feel 
We once have loved, though love is at an end : 
The heart, lone mourner of its baffled zeal, 
Though friendless now, will dream it had a friend.^ 
Who with the weight of years would wish to bend. 
When Youth itself survives young Love and Joy ? 
Alas ! when mingling souls forget to blend, 
Death hath but little left him to destroy ! 
Ah, happy years! once more who would not be a 
boy?* 



1 " From Discipline's stern law," &c. — MS. 

2 " Plies the brisk instrument that sailors love."— MS. 

3 " Bleeds the lone heart, once boundless in its zeal, 
And, friendless now, yet dreams it had a friend."— MS. 

* " Ah, happy years ! I would I were once more a boy." — 
MS. 

5 One of Lord Byron's chief delights was, as he himself 
states in one of his journals, after bathing in some retired 
spot, to seat himself on a high rock above the sea, and there 



XXIV. 
Thus bending o'er the vessel's laving side, 
To gaze on Dian's wave-reflected sphere, 
The soul forgets her schemes of hope and pride, 
And flies unconscious o'er each backward year. 
None are so desolate but something dear, 
Dearer than self, possesses or possess'd 
A thought, and claims the homage of a tear ; 
A flashing pang ! of which the weary breast 
Would still, albeit in vain, the heavy heart divest. 

XXV. 

To sit on- rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, 
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene, 
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, 
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been ; 
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, 
With the wild flock that never needs a fold ; 
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean ; 
This is not solitude ; 'tis but to hold 
Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores 
unroll'd. 

XXVI. 

But 'midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, 
To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess. 
And roam along, the world's tired denizen, 
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless ; 
Minions of splendor shrinking from distress ! 
None that, with kindred consciousness endued, 
If we were not, would seem to smile the less. 
Of all that flatter'd, foUow'd, sought, and sued ; 
This is to be alone ; this, this is solitude ! 

XXVII. 
More blest the life of godly eremite, 
Such as on lonely Athos may be seen,^ 
Watching at eve upon the giant height. 
Which looks o'er waves so blue, skies so serene; 
That he who there at such an hour hath been 
Will wistful linger on that hallow'd spot ; 
Then slowly tear him from the 'witching scene, 
Sigh forth one wish that such had been his lot, 
Then turn to hate a world he had almost forgot. 

XXVIII. 
Pass we the long,. unvarying course, the track 
Oft trod, that never leaves a trace behind ; 
Pass we the calm, the gale, the change, the tack, 
And each well-known caprice of wave and wind ; 
Pass we the joys and sorrows sailors find, 



remain for hours, gazing upon the sky and the waters. " He 
led the life," says Sir Egerton Brydges, "as he wrote tlie 
strains, of a true poet. He could sleep, and very frequently 
did sleep, wrapped up in his rough great-coat, on the hard 
boards of a deck, while the winds and the waves were roar- 
ing round him on every side, and could subsist on a crust 
and a glass of water. It would be difficult to persuade me 
that he who is a coxcomb in his manners, and artificial in 
his habits of life, could write good poetry." 



Canto II. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 



2;] 



Coop'd in their winged sea-girt citadel ; 
The foul, the fair, the contrary, the kind. 
As breezes rise and fall and billows swell, 
Till on some jocund morn — lo, land ! and all is well. 

XXIX. 

But not in silence pass Calypso's isles,^ 
The sister tenants of the middle deep ; 
There for the weary still a haven smiles. 
Though the fair goddess long hath ceased to weep, 
And o'er her cliffs a fruitless watch to keep 
For him who dared prefer a mortal bride : 
Here, too, his boy essay'd the dreadful leap 
Stern Mentor urged from high to yonder tide ; 

While thus of both bereft, the nymph-queen doubly 
sigh'd. 

XXX. 
Her reign is past, her gentle glories gone : 
But trust not this : too easy youth, beware ! 
A mortal sovereign holds her dangerous throne, 
And thou mayst find a new Calypso there. 
Sweet Florence ! could another ever share 
This wayward, loveless heart, it would be thine : 
But check'd by every tie, I may not dare 
To cast a worthless ofiering at thy shrine, 

Nor ask so dear a breast to feel one pang for mine. 

XXXI. 

Thus Harold deem'd, as on that lady's eye 
He look'd, and met its beam without a thought 
Save Admiration glancing harmless by : 
Love kept aloof, albeit not far remote, 
Who knew his votary often lost and caught, 
But knew him as his worshipper no more, 
And ne'er again the boy his bosom sought : 
Since now he vainly urged him to adore. 
Well deem'd the little God his ancient sway was o'er. 

XXXII. 
Fair Florence ^ found, in sooth with some amaze. 
One who, 'twas said, still sigh'd to all he saw. 
Withstand, unmoved, the lustre of her gaze. 
Which others hail'd with real or mimic awe. 
Their hope, their doom, their punishment, their law ; 
All that gay Beauty from her bondsmen claims : 
And much she marvell'd that a youth so raw 



1 (roza is said to have been the island of Calypso. " The 
identity of the habitation assigned by poets to the nymph 
Calypso has occasioned much discussion and variety of opin- 
ion. Some place it at Malta, and some at Goza." — Hoare^s 
Classical Tour. 

2 For an account of this accomplished but eccentric lady, 
whose acquaintance the poet formed at Malta, see Miscella- 
neous Poems, September, 1809, "To Florence." "In one so 
imaginative as Lord Byron, who, while he infused so much 
of his life into his poetry, mingled also not a little of poetry 
with his life, it is difficult," says Moore, "in unravelling the 
texture of his feelings, to distinguish at all times between the 
fanciful and the real. His description here, for instance, of 
the unmoved and 'loveless heart' with which he contem- 
plated even the charms of this attractive person is wholly at 



Nor felt, nor feign'd at least, the oft-told flames, 
Which, though sometimes they frown, yet rarely anger 
dames. 

XXXIII. 
Little knew she that seeming marble heart, 
Now mask'd in silence or withheld by pride. 
Was not unskillful in the spoiler's art,^ 
And spread its snares licentious far and wide ; * 
Nor from the base pursuit had turn'd aside. 
As long as aught was worthy to pursue : 
But Harold on such arts no more relied ; 
And had he doted on those eyes so blue. 
Yet never would he join the lover's whining crew. 

XXXIV. 

Not much he kens, I ween, of woman's breast. 
Who thinks that wanton thing is won by sighs ; 
What careth she for hearts when once possess'd ? 
Do proper homage to thine idol's eyes ; 
But not too humbly, or she will despise 
Thee and thy suit, though told in moving tropes : 
Disguise ev'n tenderness, if thou art wise ; 
Brisk Confidence ^ still best with woman copes : 

Pique her and soothe in turn, soon Passion crowns thy 
hopes. 

XXXV. 
'Tis an old lesson ; Time approves it true. 
And those who know it best, deplore it most ; 
When all is won that all desire to woo. 
The paltry prize is hardly worth the cost : 
Youth wasted, minds degraded, honor lost, 
These are thy fruits, successful Passion ! these ! 
If, kindly cruel, early hope is crost, 
Still to the last it rankles, a disease, 

Not to be cured when love itself forgets to please. 

XXXVI. 

Away ! nor let me loiter in my song. 
For we have many a mountain path to tread, 
And many a varied shore to sail along, 
By pensive Sadness, not by Fiction, led — 
Climes, fair withal as ever mortal head 
Imagined in its little schemes of thought ; 
Or e'er in new Utopias were read, 
To teach man what he might be, or he ought ; 
If that corrupted thing could ever such be taught. 



variance with the statements in many of his letters, and, 
above all, with one of the most graceful of his lesser poems, 
addressed to this same lady during a thunder-storm on his 
road to Zitza." 

3 Against this line it is suflficient to set the poet's own 
declaration, in 1821 :— " I am not a Joseph, nor a Scipio, but 
I can safely affirm that I never in my life seduced any 
woman." 

* " "We have here another instance of his propensity to 
self-misrepresentation. However great might have been the 
irregularities of his college life, such phrases as 'the spoil- 
er's art' and 'spreading snares' were in no wise applicable 
to them." — Moore. 



' Brisk Impudence," &c.— MS. 



24 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Canto II. 



XXXVII. 

Dear Nature is the kindest mother still, 
Tiiough always changing in her aspect mild ; 
From her bare bosom let me take my fill, 
Her never- wean'd, though not her favor'd child. 
Oh ! she is fairest in her features wild. 
Where nothing polish'd dares pollute her path : 
To me by day or night she ever smiled. 
Though I have mark'd her when none other hath, 
And sought her more and more, and loved her best 
in wrath. 

XXXVIII. 

Land of Albania ! where Iskander rose, 
Theme of the young, and beacon of the wise, 
And he his namesake, whose oft-bafSed foes 
Shrunk from his deeds of chivalrous emprise : 
Land of Albania ! ^ let me bend mine eyes 
On thee, thou rugged nurse of savage men ! 
The cross descends, thy minarets arise, 
And the pale crescent sparkles in the glen, 
Through many a cypress grove within each city's ken. 



XXXIX. 

Childe Harold sail'd, and pass'd the barren spot 
Where sad Penelope o'erlook'd the wave ; ^ 
And onward view'd the mount, not yet forgot, 
The lover's refuge, and the Lesbian's grave. 
Dark Sappho ! could not verse immortal save 
That breast imbued with such immortal fire ? 
Could she not live who life eternal gave ? 
If life eternal may await the lyre. 
That only Heaven to which Earth's children may 
aspire. 

XL. 

'Twas on a Grecian autumn's gentle eve 
Childe Harold hail'd Leucadia's cape afar ; ^ 
A spot he long'd to see, nor cared to leave : 
Oft did he mark the scenes of vanish'd war, 
Actium, Lepanto, fatal Trafalgar ; * 
Mark them unmoved, for he would not delight 
(Born beneath some remote inglorious star) 
In themes of bloody fray, or gallant fight. 
But loathed the brave's trade, and laugh'd at martial 
wight. 

1 See Appendix to this canto, Note B. 

2 Ithaca. " Sept. 24th," says Mr. Hobhouse, " we were in 
the channel, with Ithaca, then in the hands of the French, 
to the west of us. "We were close to it, and saw a few shrubs 
on a brown heathy land, two little towns in the hills, scat- 
tered amongst trees, and a windmill or two, with a tower on 
the heights. That Ithaca was not very strongly garrisoned 
you will easily believe when I tell, that a month after- 
wards, when the Ionian Islands were invested by a British 
squadron, it was surrendered into the hands of a sergeant 
and seven men." For a very curious account of the state of 
the kingdom of Ulysses in 1816, see Williams's Travels, vol. ii. 
p. 427. 



XLI. 

But when he saw the evening star above 
Leucadia's far-projecting rock of woe. 
And hail'd the last resort of fruitless love, 
He felt, or deem'd he felt, no common glow : 
And as the stately vessel glided slow 
Beneath the shadow of that ancient mount, 
He watch'd the billows' melancholy flow, 
And, sunk albeit in thought as he was wont, 
More placid seem'd his eye, and smooth his pallid 
front.^ 

XLII. 
Morn dawns : and with it stern Albania's hills, 
Dark Suli's rocks, and Pindus' inland peak. 
Robed half in mist, bedew'd with snowy rills, 
Array'd in many a dun and purple streak. 
Arise ; and, as the clouds along them break. 
Disclose the dwelling of the mountaineer ; 
Here roams the wolf, the eagle whets his beak. 
Birds, beasts of prey, and wilder men appear. 
And gathering storms aroun-l convulse the closing 
year. 

XLIII. 

Now Harold felt himself at length alone. 
And bade to Christian tongues a long adieu ; 
Now he adventured on a shore unknown. 
Which all admire, but many dread to view : 
His breast was arm'd 'gainst fate, his wants were 

few; 
Peril he sought not, but ne'er shrank to meet : 
The scene was savage, but the scene was new ; 
This made the ceaseless toil of travel sweet. 
Beat back keen winter's blast, and welcomed summer's 



XLIV. 
Here the red cross, for still the cross is here. 
Though sadly scoff'd at by the circumcised. 
Forgets that pride to pamper'd priesthood dear ; 
Churchman and votary alike despised. 
Foul Superstition ! howsoe'er disguised. 
Idol, saint, virgin, prophet, crescent, cross. 
For whatsoever symbol thou art prized. 
Thou sacerdotal gain, but general loss ! 
Who from true worship's gold can separate thy dross ? 



3 Leucadia, now Santa Maura. From the promontory (the 
Lover's Leap) Sappho is said to have thrown herself. " Sept. 
28th we doubled the promontory of Santa Maura, and saw 
the precipice which the fate of Sappho, the poetry of Ovid, 
and the rocks so formidable to the ancient mariners, have 
made for ever memorable." — Hobhouse. 

4 Actium and Trafalgar need no further mention. The 
battle of Lepanto, equally bloody and considerable, but less 
known, was fought in the Gulf of Patras. Here the author 
of Don Quixote lost his left hand. 

6 "And roused him more from thought than he was wont, 
While Pleasure almost seem'd to smooth his placid 
front."— MS. 



Canto II. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 



25 



XLV. 

Ambracia's gulf behold, where once was lost 
A world for woman, lovely, harmless thing ! 
In yonder rippling bay, their naval host 
Did many a Roman chief and Asian kingi 
To doubtful conflict, certain slaughter bring : 
Look where the second Caesar's trophies rose ! ^ 
Now, like the hands that rear'd them, withering ; 
Imperial anarchs, doubling human woes ! 
God ! was thy globe ordain'd for such to win and lose ? 

XLVI. 
From the dark barriers of that rugged clime, 
Ev'n to the centre of Illyria's vales, 
Childe Harold pass'd o'er many a mount sublime, 
Through lands scarce noticed in historic tales ; 
Yet in famed Attica such lovely dales 
Are rarely seen ; nor can fair Tempe boast 
A charm they know not ; loved Parnassus fails. 
Though classic ground and consecrated most. 
To match some spots that lurk within this lowering 
coast. 

XLVII. 
He pass'd bleak Pindus, Acherusia's lake,^ 
And left the primal city of the land. 
And onwards did his further journey take 
To greet Albania's chief,* whose dread command 
Is lawless law ; for with a bloody hand 
He sways a nation, turbulent and bold ; 
Yet here and there some daring mountain band 
Disdain his power, and from their rocky hold 
Hurl their defiance far, nor yield, unless to gold.^ 



1 It is said, that, on the day previous to the battle of 
Actium, Antony had thirteen kings at his levee. — " To-day" 
(Nov. 12), "I saw the remains of the town of Actium, near 
which Antony lost the world, in a small bay, where two 
frigates could hardly manoeuvre : a broken wall is the sole 
remnant. On another part of the gulf stand the ruins of 
Nicopolis-, built by Augustus, in honor of his victory. — Lord 
Byron to his Mother, 1809. 

- Nicopolis, whose ruins are most extensive, is at some 
distance from Actium, where the wall of the Hippodrome 
survives in a few fragments. These ruins are large masses 
of brickwork, the bricks of which are joined by interstices 
of mortar, as large as the bricks themselves, and equally 
durable. 

3 According to Pouqueville, the lake of Yanina : but Pou- 
queville is always out. 

•* The celebrated Ali Pacha. Of this extraordinary man 
there is an incorrect account in Pouqueville's Travels. — "I 
left Malta in the Spider brig-of-war, on the 21st of September, 
and arrived in eight days at Prevesa. I thence have traversed 
the interior of the province of Albania, on a visit to the 
Pacha, as far as Tcpaleen, his highness's country palace, 
where I stayed three days. The name of the Pacha is Ali, 
and he is considered a man of the finest abilities: he governs 
the whole of Albania (the ancient Illyricum), Epirus, and 
part of Macedonia." — B. to his Mother. 

5 Five thousand Suliotes, among the rocks and in the castle 
of Suli, withstood thirty thousand Albanians for eighteen 
years ; the castle at last was taken by bribery. In this con- 
test there were several acts performed not unworthy of the 
better days of Greece. 



XLVIII. 

Monastic Zitza ! ^ from thy shady brow. 
Thou small but favor'd spot of holy ground ! 
Where'er we gaze, around, above, below. 
What rainbow tints, what magic charms are found I 
Rock, river, forest, mountain, all abound, 
And bluest skies that harmonize the whole : 
Beneath, the distant torrent's rushing sound 
Tells where the volumed cataract doth roll 
Between those hanging rocks, that shock yet please 
the soul. 

XLIX. 

Amidst the grove that crowns yon tufted hill, 
Which, were it not for many a mountain nigh 
Rising in lofty ranks, and loftier still. 
Might well itself be deem'd of dignity. 
The convent's white walls glisten fair on high : 
Here dwells the caloyer,^ nor rude is he. 
Nor niggard of his cheer ; the passer by 
Is welcome still ; nor heedless will he flee 
From hence, if he delight kind Nature's sheen to see. 



Here in the sultriest season let him rest, 
Fresh is the green beneath those aged trees ; 
Here winds of gentlest wing will fan his breast, 
From heaven itself he may inhale the breeze ; 
The plain is far beneath — oh ! let him seize 
Pure pleasure while he can ; the scorching ray 
Here pierceth not, impregnate with disease : 
Then let his length the loitering pilgrim lay, 
And gaze, untired, the morn, the noon, the eve away. 

6 The convent and village of Zitza are four hours' journey 
from Joannina, or Yanina, the capital of the Pachalick. In 
the valley the river Kalamas (once the Acheron) flows, and, 
not far from Zitza, forms a fine cataract. The situation is 
perhaps the finest in Greece, though the approach to Delvin- 
achi and parts of Acarnania and iEtolia may contest the 
palm. Delphi, Parnassus, and, in Attica, even Cape Colonna 
and Port Eaphti, are very inferior; as also every scene in 
Ionia, or the Troad : I am almost inclined to add the approach 
to Constantinople ; but, from the different features of the last, 
a comparison can hardly be made. " Zitza," says the poet's 
companion, " is a village inhabited by Greek peasants. Per- 
haps there is not in the world a more romantic prospect than 
that which is viewed from the summit of the hill. The fore- 
ground is a gentle declivity, terminating on every side in an 
extensive landscape of green hills and dale, enriched with 
vineyards, and dotted with frequent flocks." 

7 The Greek monks are so called.—" We went into the 
monastery," says Mr. Hobhouse, " after some parley with one 
of the monks, through a small door plated with iron, on 
which the marks of violence were very apparent, and which, 
before the country had been tranquillized under the powerful 
government of Ali, had been battered in vain by the troops 
of robbers then, by turns, infesting every district. The prior, 
a humble, meek-mannered man, entertained us in a warm 
chamber with grapes, and a pleasant white wine, not trodden 
out, as he told us, by the feet, but pressed from the grape by 
the hand ; and we were so well pleased with every thing 
about us, that we agreed to lodge with him on our return 
from the Vizier." 



26 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto II. 



LI. 
Dusky and huge, enlarging on the sight, 
Nature's volcanic amphitheatre,^ 
Chimsera's alps extend from left to right : 
Beneath a living valley seems to stir ; [fir 

Flocks play, trees wave, streams flow, the mountain 
Nodding above ; behold black Acheron ! ^ 
Once consecrated to the sepulchre. 
Pluto ! if this be hell I look upon, 

Close shamed Elysium's gates, my shade shall seek for 
none.' 

LII. 
Ne city's towers pollute the lovely view ; 
Unseen is Yanina, though not remote, 
Veil'd by the screen of hills : here men are few, 
Scanty the hamlet, rare the lonely cot : 
But, peering down each precipice, the goat 
Browseth ; and, pensive o'er his scatter'd flock, 
The little shepherd in his white capote* 
Doth lean his boyish form along the rock, 

Or in his cave awaits the tempest's short-lived shock. 

LIII. 

Oh ! where, Dodona ! is thine aged grove. 
Prophetic fount, and oracle divine ? 
What valley echo'd the response of Jove ? 
What trace remaineth of the Thunderer's shrine ? 
All, all forgotten — and shall man repine 
That his frail bonds to fleeting life are broke ? 
Cease, fool ! the fate of gods may well be thine : 
Wouldst thou survive the marble or the oak ? 

When nations, tongues, and worlds must sink beneath 
the stroke ! 

LIV. 
Epirus' bounds recede, and mountains fail ; 
Tired of up-gazing still, the wearied eye 
Reposes gladly on as smooth a vale 
As ever Spring yclad in grassy dye : 
Ev'n on a plain no humble beauties lie. 
Where some bold river breaks the long expanse, 
And woods along the banks are waving high. 
Whose shadows in the glassy waters dance. 

Or with the moonbeam sleep in midnight's solemn 
trance. 



1 The Chimariot mountains appear to have been volcanic. 

2 Now called Kalamas. 

3 " Keep heaven for better souls, my shade," &c. — MS. 
* Albanese cloak. 

° Anciently Mount Tomarus. 

6 The river Laos was full at the time the author passed it ; 
and, immediately above Tepaleen, was to the eye as wide as 
the Thames at Westminster ; at least in the opinion of the 
author and his fellow-traveller. In the summer it must be 
much narrower. It certainly is the finest river in the 
Levant; neither Achelous, Alpheus, Acheron, Scamander, 
nor Cayster, approached it in breadth or beauty. 

7 " Ali Pacha, hearing that an Englishman of rank was in 
his dominions, left orders in Yanina, with the commandant, 
to provide a house, and supply me with every kind of neces- 
sary gratis. 1 rode out on the vizier's horses, and saw the 
palaces of himself and grandsons. I shall never forget the 
singular scene on entering Tepaleen, at five in the afternoon 



LV. 

The sun had sunk behind vast Tomerit,^ 
And Laos wide and fierce came roaring by ; ® 
The shades of wonted night were gathering yet, 
When, down the steep banks winding warily, 
Childe Harold saw, like meteors in the sky, 
The glittering minarets of Tepalen, 
Whose walls o'erlook the stream ; and drawing nigh, 
He heard the busy hum of warrior-men 

Swelling the breeze that sigh'd along the lengthening 
glen.'f 

LVI. 
He pass'd the sacred Haram's silent tower, 
And underneath the wide o'erarching gate 
Survey'd the dwelling of this chief of power, 
Where all around proclaim'd his high estate. 
Amidst no common pomp the despot sate. 
While busy preparation shook the court. 
Slaves, eunuchs, soldiers, guests, and santons wait; 
Within, a palace, and without, a fort : 

Here men of every clime appear to make resort. 

LVII. 

Richly caparison'd, a ready row 
Of armed horse, and many a warlike store, 
Circled the wide-extending court below ; 
Above, strange groups adorn'd the corridor ; 
And oft-times through the area's echoing door, 
Some high-capp'd Tartar spurr'd his steed away : 
The Turk, the Greek, the Albanian, and the Moor, 
Here mingled in their many-hued array, 
While the deep war-drum's sound announced the close 
of day. 

LVIII. 

The wild Albanian kirtled to his knee, 
With shawl-girt head and ornamented gun, 
And gold-embroider'd garments, fair to see ; 
The crimson-scarfed men of Macedon ; 
The Delhi with his cap of terror on. 
And crooked glaive ; the lively, supple Greek ; 
And swarthy Nubia's mutilated son ; 
The bearded Turk, that rarely deigns to speak, 
Master of all around, too potent to be meek, 

(Oct. 11), as the sun was going down. It brought to my 
mind (with some change o{ dress, however) Scott's description 
of Branksome Castle in his Lay, and the feudal system. The 
Albanians in their dresses (the most magnificent in the world, 
consisting of a long white kilt, gold-worked cloak, crimson 
velvet gold-laced jacket and waistcoat, silver-mounted pistols 
and daggers); the Tartars, with their high caps; the Turks 
in their vast pelisses and turbans; the soldiers and black 
slaves with the horses, the former in groups, in an immense 
large open gallery in front of the palace, the latter placed in 
a kind of cloister below it ; two hundred steeds ready capa- 
risoned to move in a moment ; couriers entering or passing 
out with despatches ; the kettle-drums beating ; boys calling 
the hour from the minaret of the mosque ; — altogether, with 
the singular appearance of the building itself, formed a new 
and delightful spectacle to a stranger. I was conducted to a 
very handsome apartment, and my health inquired after by 
the vizier's secretary, ' a la mode Turque.' "— i?. Letters. 



Canto II. 



CHILDE HAEOLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 



27 



LIX. 

Are mix'd conspicuous : some recline in groups, 
Scanning the motley scene that varies round ; 
There some grave Moslem to devotion stoops, 
And some that smoke, and some that play, are 

found ; 
Here the Albanian proudly treads the ground ; 
Half- whispering there the Greek is heard to prate ; 
Hark ! from the mosque the nightly solemn sound, 
The Muezzin's call doth shake the minaret, 
"There is no god but God! — to prayer — lo! God is 

great!"! 

LX. 

Just at this season Ramazani's fast^ 
Through the long day its penance did maintain ; 
But when the lingering twilight hour was past, 
Revel and feast assumed the rule again : 
Now all was bustle, and the menial train 
Prepared and spread the plenteous board within ; 
The vacant gallery now seem'd made in vain, 
But from the chambers came the mingling din, 
As i^age and slave anon were passing out and in. 

LXI. 
Here woman's voice is never heard : apart. 
And scarce permitted, guarded, veil'd, to move, 
She yields to one her person and her heart, 
Tamed to her cage, nor feels a wish to rove : 

1 " On our arrival at Tepaleen, we were lodged in the 
palace. During the night, we were disturbed by the per- 
petual carousal which seemed to be kept up in the gallery, 
and by the drum, and the voice of the ' Muezzin,' or chanter, 
calling the Turks to prayers from the minaret or the mosck 
attached to the palace. The chanter was a boy, and he sang 
out his hymn in a sort of loud melancholy recitative. He 
was a long time repeating the purport of these few words : 
' God most high ! I bear witness, that there is no god but 
God, and Mahomet is his prophet: come to prayer; come to 
the avsylum of salvation; great God! there is no god but 

God !' "— HOBHOUSE. 

2 " We were a little unfortunate in the time we chose for 
travelling, for it was during the Ramazan, or Turkish Lent, 
which fell this year in October, and was hailed at the rising 
of the new moon, on the evening of the 8th, by every demon- 
stration of joy : but although, during this month, the strictest 
abstinence is observed in the daytime, yet with the setting of 
the sun the feasting commences: then is the time for paying 
and receiving visits, and for the amusements of Turkey, 
puppet-shows, jugglers, dancers, and story-tellers." — HoB- 

HOUSE. 

3 "On the th, I was introduced to AH Pacha. I was 
dressed in a full suit of staff uniform, with a very magnificent 
sabre, &c. The vizier received me in a large room paved 
with marble; a fountain was playing in the centre; the 
apartment was surrounded by scarlet ottomans. He received 
me standing, a wonderful compliment from a Mussulman, 
and made me sit down on his right hand. His first question 
was, why, at so early an age, I left my country? He then 
said the English minister. Captain Leake, had told him I 
was of a great family, and desired his respects to my mother ; 
which I now, in the name of Ali Pacha, present to you. He 
said he was certain I was a man of birth, because I had small 
Kurs, curling Lair, and little white hands. He told me to 



For, not unhappy in her master's love, 
And joyful in a mother's gentlest cares. 
Blest cares I all other feelings far above 1 
Herself more sweetly rears the babe she bears, 
Who never quits the breast, no meaner passion shares. 

LXII. 

In marble-paved pavilion, where a spring 
Of living water from the centre rose, 
Whose bubbling did a genial freshness fling, 
And soft voluptuous couches breathed repose, 
Ali reclined, a man of war and woes : ^ 
Yet in his lineaments ye cannot trace, 
While Gentleness her milder radiance throws 
Along that aged venerable face. 
The deeds that lurk beneath, and stain him with 
disgrace. 

LXIII. 

It is not that yon hoary lengthening beard 
111 suits the passions which belong to youth ; * 
Love conquers age — so Hafiz hath averr'd. 
So sings the Teian, and he sings in sooth — 
But crimes that scorn the tender voice of ruth, 
Beseeming all men ill, but most the man 
In years, have mark'd him with a tiger's tooth ; 
Blood follows blood, and, through their mortal 
span. 
In bloodier acts conclude those who with blood began .» 

consider him as a father whilst I was in Turkey, and said ha 
looked on me as his own son. Indeed, he treated me like a 
child, sending me almonds and sugared sherbet, fruit, and 
sweetmeats, twenty times a day. I then, after cofiee and 
pipes, retired." — B. to his Mother. 

* " Delights to mingle with the lip of youth." — MS. 

Mr. Hobhouse describes the vizier as " a short man, about 
five feet five inches in height, and very fat ; possessing a very 
pleasing face, fair and round, with blue quick eyes, not at all 
settled into a Turkish gravity." Dr. Holland happily com- 
pares the spirit which lurked under All's usual exterior, to 
"the fire of a stove, burning fiercely under a smooth and 
polished surface." When the doctor returned from Albania, 
in 1813, he brought a letter from the Pacha to Lord Byron. 
"It is," says the poet, " in Latin, and begins ' Excellentissime, 
necnon Carissime,' and ends about a gun he wants made for 
him. He tells me that, last spring, he took a town, a hostile 
town, where, forty-two years ago, his mother and sisters were 
treated as Miss Cunegunde was by the Bulgarian cavalry. 
He takes the town, selects all the survivors of the exploit — 
children, grand-children, &c., to the tune of six hundred, 
and has them shot before his face. So much for 'dearest 
friend.' " 

6 The fate of Ali was precisely such as the poet antici- 
pated. For a circumstantial account of his assassination, in 
February, 1822, see Walsh's Journey. His head was sent to 
Constantinople, and exhibited at the gates of the seraglio. As 
the name of Ali had made a considerable noise in England, in 
consequence of his negotiations with Sir Thomas Maitland,and 
still more, perhaps, these stanzas of Lord Byron, a merchant 
of Constantinople thought it would be no bad speculation to 
purchase the head and consign it to a London showman; but 
this scheme was defeated by the piety of an old servant of 
the Pacha, who bribed the executioner with a higher price, 
and bestowed decent sepulture on the relic. 



28 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



Canto II. 



LXIV. 

'Mid many things most new to ear and eye 
The Pilgrim rested here his weary feet, 
And gazed around on Moslem luxury,^ 
Till quickly wearied with that spacious seat 
Of Wealth and Wantonness, the choice retreat 
Of sated Grandeur from the city's noise : 
And were it humbler, it in sooth were sweet ; 
But Peace abhorreth artificial joys, 
And Pleasure, leagued with Pomp, the zest of both 
destroys. 

LXV. 

Fierce are Albania's children, yet they lack 
Not virtues,' were those vfrtues more mature. 
Where is the foe that ever saw their back ? 
Who can so well the toil of war endure ? 
Their native fastnesses not more secure 
Than they in doubtful time of troublous need : 
Their wrath how deadly ! but their friendshij) sure. 
When Gratitude or Valor bids them bleed, 
Unshaken rushing on where'er their chief may lead. 

LXVI. 

Childe Harold saw them in their chieftain's tower 
Thronging to war in splendor and success ; 
And after view'd them, when, within their power, 
Himself awhile the victim of distress ; 
That saddening hour when bad men hotlier press : 
But these did shelter him beneath their roof. 
When less barbarians would have cheer' d him less, 
And fellow-countrymen have stood aloof ^ — 
In aught that tries the heart how few withstand the 
proof ! 

LXVII. 
It chanced that adverse winds once drove his bark 
Full on the coast of Suli's shaggy shore. 
When all around was desolate and dark ; 
To land was perilous, to sojourn more ; 
Yet for awhile the mariners forbore, 
Dubious to trust where treachery might lurk : 
At length they ventured forth, though doubting sore 
That those who loathe alike the Frank and Turk 
Might once again renew their ancient butcher-work. 

1 " Childe Harold with the chief held colloquy, 
Yet what they spake it boots not to repeat : 
Converse may little charm strange ear or eye ; 
Albeit he rested on that spacious seat 

Of Moslem luxury," &c.— MS. 

2 Alluding to the wrecfcters of Cornwall. 

3 The Albanian Mussulmans do not abstain from wine, and, 
indeed, very few of the others. 

* Palikar, shortened when addressed to a single person, 
from IlaAtKapi, a general name for a soldier amongst the 
Greeks and Albanese who speak Romaic : it means, properly, 
" a lad." 

6 The following is Mr. Hobhouse's animated description 
of this scene :— " In the evening the gates were secured, and 
preparations were made for feeding our Albanians. A goat 
was killed and roasted whole, and four fires were kindled in 



LXVIII. 

Vain fear ! the Suliotes stretch'd the welcome hand, 
Led them o'er rocks and past the dangerous swamp, 
Kinder than polish'd slaves, though not so bland. 
And piled the hearth, and wrung their garments 

damp. 
And fill'd the bowl, and trimm'd the cheerful lamp, 
And spread their fare ; though homely, all they had : 
Such conduct bears Philanthropy's rare stamp : 
To rest the weary and to soothe the sad. 
Doth lesson happier men, and shames at least the bad. 

LXIX. 

It came to pass, that when he did address 
Himself to quit at length this mountain land, 
Combined marauders half-way barr'd egress, 
And wasted far and near with glaive and brand ; 
And therefore did he take a trusty band 
To traverse Acarnania's forest wide, 
In war well season'd, and with labors tann'd, 
Till he did greet white Achelous' tide. 
And from his further bank ^tolia's wolds espied. 

LXX. 

Where lone Utraikey forms its circling cove. 
And weary waves retire to gleam at rest, 
How brown the foliage of the green hill's grove, 
Nodding at midnight o'er the calm bay's breast, 
As winds come whispering lightly from the west. 
Kissing, not ruffling, the blue deep's serene :- 
Plere Harold was received a welcome guest ; 
Nor did he pass unmoved the gentle scene, 

For many a joy could he from Night's soft presence 
glean. 

LXXI. 
On the smooth shore the night-fires brightly blazed. 
The feast was done, the red wine circling fast,^ 
And he that unawares had there ygazed 
With gaping wonderment had stared aghast ; 
For ere night's midmost, stillest hour was past. 
The native revels of the troop began ; 
Each Palikar ^ his sabre from him cast, 
And bounding hand in hand, man link'd to man, 

Yelling their uncouth dirge, long danced the kirtled 
clan .5 

the yard, round which the soldiers seated themselves in 
parties. After eating and drinking, the greatest part of them 
assembled round the largest of the fires, and, whilst ourselves 
and the elders of the party were seated on the ground, danced 
round the blaze, to their own songs, with astonishing energy. 
All their songs were relations of some robbing exploits. One 
of them, which detained them more than an hour, began 
thus:— 'When we set out from Parga, there were sixty of 
us :' then came the burden of the verse, — 

' Robbers all at Parga ! 

Robbers all at Parga !' 

' KAe(|)Tei9 nore TIapya ! 

KAe<^Teis irore Ilapya !' 
and as they roared out this stave, they whirled round the fire, 
dropped, and rebounded from their knees, and again whirled 
round, as the chorus was again repeated, The rippling of 



Canto II. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 



29 



LXXII. 

Childe Harold at a little distance stood, 
And view'd, but not displeased, the revelry, 
Nor hated harmless mirth, however rude : 
In sooth, it was no vulgar sight to see 
Their barbarous, yet their not indecent, glee ; 
And, as the flames along their faces gleam'd, 
Their gestures nimble, dark eyes flashing free, 
The long wild locks that to their girdles stream'd, 

While thus in concert they this lay half sang, half 
scream 'd : — ^ 

1. 

Tambourgi ! Tambourgi 1 2 thy 'larum afar 

Gives hope to the valiant, and promise of war ; 

All the sons of the mountains arise at the note, 

Chimariot, Illyrian, and dark Suliote ! ^ 

2. 
Oh ! who is more brave than a dark Suliote, 
In his snowy camese and his shaggy capote ? 
To the wolf and the vulture he leaves his wild flock, 
And descends to the plain like the stream from the 
rock. 

3. 
Shall the sons of Chimari, who never forgive 
The fault of a friend, bid an enemy live ? 
Let those guns so unerring such vengeance forego ? 
What mark is so fair as the breast of a foe ? 

4. 
Macedonia sends forth her invincible race ; 
For a time they abandon the cave and the chase , 
But those scarfs of blood-red shall be redder, before 
The sabre is sheathed and the battle is o'eW. 



Then the pirates of Parga that dwell by the waves. 
And teach the pale Franks what it is to be slaves. 
Shall leave on the beach the long galley and oar, 
And track to his covert the captive on shore. 

6. 
I ask not the pleasures that riches supply. 
My sabre shall win what the feeble must buy ; 
Shall win the young bride with her long flowing hair. 
And many a maid from her mother shall tear. 

the waves upon the pebbly margin where we were seated, 
filled up the pauses of the song with a milder, and not more 
monotonous music. The night was very dark ; but, by the 
flashes of the fires, we caught a glimpse of the woods, the 
rocks, and the lake, which, together with the wild appearance 
of the dancers, presented us with a scene that would have 
made a fine picture in the hands of such an artist as the 
author of the Mysteries of Udolpho. As we were acquainted 
with the character of the Albanians, it did not at all diminish 
our pleasure to know that every one of our guard had been 
robbers, and some of them a very short time before. It was 
eleven o'clock before we had retired to our room, at which 
time the Albanians, wrapping themselves up in their capotes, 
went to sleep round the fires." 

1 For a specimen of the Albanian or Arnaout dialect of 
the Illyric, see Appendix to this canto, Note C. 



I love the fair face of the maid in her youth, 
Her caresses shall lull me, her music shall soothe ; 
Let her bring from her chamber the many -toned lyre, 
And sing us a song on the fall of her sire. 



Eemember the moment when Previsa fell,* 
The shrieks of the conquer'd, the conquerors' yell ; 
The roofs that we fired, and the plunder we shared, 
The wealthy we slaughter'd, the lovely we spai-ed. 

9. 
I talk not of mercy, I talk not of fear ; 
He neither must know who would serve the Vizier : 
Since the days of our prophet the crescent ne'er saw 
A chief ever glorious like Ali Pashaw. 

10. 
Dark Muchtar his son to the Danube is sped, 
Let the yellow-hair'd^ Giaours^ view his horse-taiP 

with dread ; 
When his Delhis^ come dashing in blood o'er tlie 

banks. 
How few shall escape from the Muscovite ranks ! 

11. 

Selictar!^ unsheathe then our chief's scimitar: 
Tambourgi ! thy 'larum gives promise of war. 
Ye mountains, that see us descend to the shore, 
Shall view us as victors, or view us no more ! 

LXXIII. 

Fair Greece ! sad relic of departed worth ! ^^ 
Immortal, though no more ; though fallen, great ! 
"Who now shall lead thy scatter'd children forth. 
And long-accustom'd bondage uncreate ? 
Not such thy sons who whilome did await, 
The hopeless warriors of a willing doom. 
In bleak Thermopyla3's sepulchral strait — 
Oh ! Avho that gallant spirit shall resume, 
Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call thee from the 
tomb? 

LXXIV. 
Spirit of Freedom ! when on Phyle's brow ^^ 
Thou sat'st with Thrasybulus and his train, 

2 Drummer. 

3 These stanzas are partly taken from different Albanese 
songs, as far as I was able to make them out by the exposition 
of the Albanese in Komaic and Italian. 

* It was taken by storm from the French. 

5 Yellow is the epithet given to the Russians. 

6 Infidel. 

7 The insignia of a Pacha. 

8 Horsemen, answering to our forlorn hope. 

9 Sword-bearer. 

10 See some Thoughts on the Present State of Greece and 
Turkey, in the Appendix to this canto, Notes D and E. 

11 Phyle, which commands a beautiful view of Athens, has 
still considerable remains. It was seized by Thrasybulus. 
previous to the expulsion of the Thirty. 



30 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto II. 



Couldst thou forebode the dismal hour which now 
Dims the green beauties of thine Attic plain ? 
Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain, 
But every carle can lord it o'er thy land ; 
Nor rise thy sons, but idly rail in vain, 
Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand ; 
From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed, 
unmann'd. 

LXXV. 

In all save form alone, how changed ! and who 
That marks the fire still sparkling in each eye. 
Who but would deem their bosoms burn'd anew 
With thy unquenched beam, lost Liberty ! 
And many dream withal the hour is nigh 
That gives them back their fathers' heritage : 
For foreign arms and aid they fondly sigh, 
Nor solely dare encounter hostile rage, 
Or tear their name defiled from Slavery's mournful 
page. 

LXXVI. 

Hereditary bondsmen ! know ye not 
Who would be free themselves must strike the blow ? 
By their right arms the conquest must be wrought ? 
Will Gaul or Muscovite redress ye ? no ! 
True, they may lay your proud despoilers low, 
But not for you will Freedom's altars flame. 
Shades of the Helots ! triumph o'er your foe ! 
Greece ! change thy lords, thy state is still the same ; 
Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thy years of shame. 

LXXVII. 

The city won for Allah from the Giaour, 
The Giaour from Othman's race again may wrest ; 
And the Serai's impenetrable tower 
Receive the fiery Frank, her former guest ; i 
Or Wahab's rebel brood, who dared divest 
The prophet's 2 tomb of all its pious spoil. 
May wind their path of blood along the West ; 
But ne'er will freedom seek this fated soil. 
But slave succeed to slave through years of endless 
toil. 

1 When taken by the Latins, and retained for several years. 

2 Mecca and Medina were taken some time ago by the 
Wahabees, a sect yearly increasing. 

3 Of Constantinople Lord Byron says : — " I have seen the 
ruins of Athens, of Ephesus, and Delphi ; I have traversed 
great part of Turkey, and many other parts of Europe, and 
some of Asia; but I never beheld a work of nature or art 
which yielded an impression like the prospect on each side 
from the Seven Towers to the end of the Golden Horn." 

* " The view from Constantinople," says Mr. Rose, " which 
appeared intersected by groves of cypress (for such is the 
effect of its great burial-grounds planted with these trees), 
its gilded domes and minarets reflecting the first rays of the 
sun ; the deep blue sea ' in which it glassed itself,' and that 
sea covered with beautiful boats and barges darting in every 
direction in perfect silence, amid sea-fowl who sat at' rest 
upon the waters, all together conveyed such an impression 
as I had never received, and probably never shall again 



LXXVIII. 
Yet mark their mirth — ere lenten days begin. 
That penance which their holy rites prepare 
To shrive from man his weight of mortal sin, 
By daily abstinence and nightly prayer : 
But ere his sackcloth garb Repentance wear, 
Some days of joyaunce are decreed to all. 
To take of pleasaunce each his secret share. 
In motley robe to dance at masking ball. 
And join the mimic train of merry Carnival. 

. LXXIX. 

And whose more rife with merriment than thine, 
Oh, Stamboul ! ^ once the empress of their reign ? 
Though turbans now pollute Sophia's shrine. 
And Greece her very altars eyes in vain : 
(Alas ! her woes will still pervade my strain !) 
Gay were her minstrels once, for free her throng, 
All felt the common joy they now must feign. 
Nor oft I've seen such sight, nor heard such song. 
As woo'd the eye, and thrill'd the Bosphorus along.* 

LXXX. 

Loud was the lightsome tumult on the shore. 
Oft Music changed, but never ceased her tone, 
And timely echo'd back the measured oar. 
And rippling waters made a pleasant moan : 
The Queen of tides on high consenting shone. 
And when a transient breeze swept o'er the wave, 
'Twas, as if darting from her heavenly throne, 
A brighter glance her form reflected gave, 

Till sparkling billows seem'd to light the banks they 
lave. 
* LXXXI. 

Glanced many a light caique along the foam. 
Danced on the shore the daughters of the land, 
Ne thought had man or maid of rest or home, 
While many a languid eye and thrilling hand 
Exchanged the look few bosoms may withstand, 
Or, gently prest, return' d the pressure still : 
Oh, Love ! young Love ! bound in thy rosy band, 
Let sage or cynic prattle as he will. 

These hours, and only these, redeem Life's years of ill ! 



receive, from the view of any other place." The following 
sonnet, by the same author, has been so often quoted that, 
but for its exquisite beauty, we should not have ventured to 
reprint it here :— 

" A glorious form thy shining city wore, 
'Mid cypress thickets of perennial green, 
With minaret and golden dome between, 

While thy sea softly kiss'd its grassy shore : 

Darting across whose blue expanse was seen 
Of sculptured barques and galleys many a score : 
Whence noise was none save that of plashing oar ; 

Nor word was spoke, to break the calm serene. 

Unheard is whisker'd boatman's hail or joke ; 
Who, mute as Sinbad's man of copper, rows. 

And only intermits the sturdy stroke 

When fearless gull too nigh his pinnace goes. 
I, hardly conscious if I dream'd or woke, 

Mark'd that strange piece of action and repose." 



Cajjto II. 



CHILDE HAEOLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 



31 



LXXXII. 
But, midst the throng in merry masquerade, 
Lurk there no hearts that throb with secret pain, 
Even through the closest searment half betray'd ? 
To such the gentle murmurs of the main 
Seem to re-echo all they mourn in vain ; 
To such the gladness of the gamesome crowd 
Is source of wayward thought and stern disdain : 
How do they loathe the laughter idly loud, 
And long to change the robe of revel for the shroud ! 

LXXXIII. . 

This must he feel, the true-born son of Greece, 
If Greece one true-born patriot still can boast : 
Not such as prate of war, but skulk in peace. 
The bondsman's peace, who sighs for all he lost. 
Yet with smooth smile his tyrant can accost. 
And wield the slavish sickle, not the sword : 
Ah, Greece ! they love thee least who owe thee most — 
Their birth, their blood, and that sublime record 
Of hero sires, who shame thy now degenerate horde ! 

LXXXIV. 

When riseth Lacedemon's hardihood. 
When Thebes Epaminondas rears again. 
When Athens' children are with hearts endued, 
When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men, 
Then mayst thou be restored; but not till then. 
A thousand years scarce serve to form a state ; 
An hour may lay it in the dust : and when 
Can man its shatter'd splendor renovate. 
Recall its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate? 

LXXXV, 

And yet how lovely in thine age of woe. 
Land of lost gods and godlike men, art thou ! 
Thy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow,i 
Proclaim thee Nature's varied favorite now : 



1 On many of the mountains, particularly Liakura, the 
snow never is entirely melted, notwithstanding the intense 
heat of the summer; but I never saw it lie on the plains, 
even in winter. 

2 Of Mount Pentelicus, from whence the marble was dug 
that constructed the public edifices of Athens?. The modern 
name is Mount Mendeli. An immense cave, formed by the 
quarries, still remains, and will till the end of time. 

3 In all Attica, if we except Athens itself and Marathon, 
there is no scene more interesting than Cape Colonna. To 
the antiquary and artist, sixteen columns are an inexhaust- 
ible source of observation and design ; to the philosopher, 
the supposed scene of some of Plato's conversations will not 
be unwelcome; and the traveller will be struck with the 
beauty of the prospect over "Isles that crown the ^Egean 
deep:" but for an Englishman Colonna has yet an additional 
interest as the actual spot of Falconer's Shipwreck. Pallas 
and Plato are forgotten in the recollection of Falconer and 
Campbell :— 

" Here in the dead of night, by Lonna's steep, 
Tlie seaman's cry was heard along the deep." 
This temple of Minerva may be seen at sea from a great dis- 
tance. In two journeys which I made, and one voyage, to 
Cape Colonna, the view from either side, by land, was less 
btrikiug than the approach from the isles. lu our second 



Thy fanes, thy temples to thy surface bow, 
Commingling slowly with heroic earth. 
Broke by the share of every rustic plough : 
So perish monuments of mortal birth. 
So perish all in turn, save well-recorded Worth ; 

LXXXVL 

Save where some solitary column mourns 
Above its prostrate brethren of the cave ; ^ 
Save where Tritonia's airy shrine adorns 
Colonna's clifF,^ and gleams along the wave ; 
Save o'er some warrior's half-forgotten grave, 
Where the gray stones and unmolested grass 
Ages, but not oblivion, feebly brave, 
While strangers only not regardless pass. 

Lingering like me, perchance, to gaze, and sigh 
"Alas!" 

LXXXVIL 
Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild ; 
Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields. 
Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled. 
And still his honey' d wealth Hymettus yields ; 
There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds, 
The freeborn wanderer of thy mountain air ; 
Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds. 
Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare ; 

Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair.* 

LXXXVIIL 

Where'er we tread 'tis haunted, holy ground : 
No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould, 
But one vast realm of wonder spreads around. 
And all the Muse's tales seem truly told. 
Till the sense aches with gazing to behold 
The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon : 
Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold 
Defies the power which crush'd thy temples gone : 
Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon. 



land excursion we had a narrow escape from a party of 
Mainotes, concealed in the caverns beneath. We were toJd 
afterwards by one of their prisoners, subsequently ransomed, 
that they were deterred from attacking us by the appear- 
ance of my two Albanians: conjecturing very sagaciously, 
but falsely, that we had a complete guard of these Arnaoyts 
at hand, they remained stationary, and thus saved our party, 
I which was too small to have opposed any effectual resistance. 
Colonna is no less a resort of painters than of pirates; there 
" The hireling artist plants his paltry desk, 
And makes degraded nature picturesque." 

(See Hodgson's Lady Jane Grey, Ac.) 
But there Nature, with the aid of Art, has done that for her- 
self I was fortunate enough to engage a very superior Ger> 
man artist; and hope to renew my acquaintance with this 
and many other Levantine scenes by the arrival of his per- 
formances. 

* " The following passage in Harris's Philosophical Inqui- 
ries contains the pith of this stanza: — 'Notwithstanding the 
various fortunes of Athens as a city, Attica is still famous 
for olives, and Mount Hymettus for honey. Human institu- 
tions perish, but Nature is permanent.' I recollect having 
once pointed out this coincidence to Lord Byron, but he 
assured me that he had never even seen this work ot Ear 
ris's."— MooKE. 



32 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Canto 1 1. 



LXXXIX. 

The sun, the soil, but not the slave, the same ; 
Unchanged in all excejat its foreign lord ; 
Preserves alike its bounds and boundless fame 
The Battle-field, where Persia's victim horde 
First bow'd beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword, 
As on the morn to distant Glory dear, 
"When Marathon became a magic word ; ^ 
Which utter'd, to the hearer's eye appear 
The camp, the host, the fight, the conqueror's career, 

XC. 

The flying Mede, his shaftless broken bow ; 

The fiery Greek, his red pursuing spear ; 

Mountains above. Earth's, Ocean's plain below ; 

Death in the front. Destruction in the rear ! 

Such was the scene — what now remaineth here ? 

What sacred trophy marks the hallow'd ground, 

Recording Freedom's smile and Asia's tear ? 

The rifled urn, the violated mound, 
The dust thy courser's hoof, rude stranger! spurns 
around. 

XCI. 

Yet to the remnants of thy splendor past 

Shall pilgrims, pensive, but unwearied, throng ; 

Long shall the voyager, with th' Ionian blast, 

Hail the bright clime of battle and of song ; 

Long shall thine annals and immortal tongue 

Fill with thy fame the youth of many a shore ; 

Boast of the aged ! lesson of the young ! 

Which sages venerate and bards adore. 
As Pallas and the Muse unveil their awful lore. 

XCII. 

The parted bosom clings to wonted home, 
If aught that's kindred cheer the welcome hearth ; 
He that is lonely, hither let him roam, 
And gaze complacent on congenial earth. 
Greece is no lightsome land of social mirth : 
But he whom Sadness sootheth may abide, 
And scarce regret the region of his birth, 
When wandering slow by Delphi's sacred side, 
Or gazing o'er the plains where Greek and Persian 
died.2 

XCIII. 
Let such approach this consecrated laud, 
And pass in peace along the magic waste ; 
But spare its relics — let no busy hand 
Deface the scenes, already how defaced ! 
Not for such purpose were these altars placed : 
Revere the remnants nations once revered : 
So may our country's name be undisgraced, 

1 " Siste Viator— heroa calcas !" was the epitaph on the 
famous Count Merci;— what then must be our feelings when 
standing on the tumulus of the two hundred (Greeks) who 
fell on Marathon? The principal barrow has recently been 
opened by Fauvel : few or no relics, as vases, &c., were found 
by the excavator. The plain of Marathon was offered to me 
for sale at the sum of sixteen thousand piastres, about nine 
hundred pounds! Alas !— " Expende— quot libras in duce 



So mayst thou prosper where thy youth was rear'd, 
By every honest joy of love and life endear'd ! 

XCIV. 

For thee, who thus in too protracted song 
Hast soothed thine idlesse with inglorious lays, 
Soon shall thy voice be lost amid the throng 
Of louder minstrels in these later days : 
To such resign the strife for fading bays — 
111 may such contest now the spirit move 
Which heeds nor keen reproach nor partial praise. 
Since cold each kinder heart that might approve, 
And none are left to please when none are left to love. 

xcv. 

Thou too art gone, thou loved and lovely one ! 
Whom youth and youth's affections bound to me ; 
Who did for me what none beside have done, 
Nor shrank from one albeit unworthy thee. 
What is my being ? thou hast ceased to be ! 
Nor staid to welcome here thy wanderer home. 
Who mourns o'er hours which we no more shall see — 
Would they had never been, or were to come ! 

Would he had ne'er return'd to find fresh cause to 
roam! 

XCVI. 
Oh ! ever loving, lovely, and beloved ! 
How selfish Sorrow ponders on the past, 
And clings to thoughts noAV better far removed ! 
But Time shall tear thy shadow from me last, [hast ; 
All thou couldst have of mine, stern Death ! thou 
The parent, friend, and now the more than friend ; 
Ne'er yet for one thine arrows flew so fast, 
And grief with grief continuing still to blend, 

Hath snatch'd the little joy that life had yet to lend. 

XCVII. 
Then must I plunge again into the crowd, 
And follow all that Peace disdains to seek ? 
Where Revel calls, and Laughter, vainly loud, 
False to the heart, distorts the hollow cheek, 
To leave the flagging spirit doubly weak ; 
Still o'er the features, which perforce they cheer, 
To feign the pleasure or conceal the pique ? 
Smiles form the channel of a future tear. 
Or raise the writhing lip with ill-dissembled sneer 

XCVIII. 

What is the worst of woes that wait on age ? 
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow ? 
To view each loved one blotted from life's page, 
And be alone on earth, as I am now.^ 



summo — invenies!" — was the dust of Miltiades worth no 
more? It could scarcely have fetched less if sold by weight. 

2 The original MS. closes with this stanza. The rest was 
added while the canto was passing through the press. 

3 This stanza was written October 11, 1811 ; upon which 
day the poet, in a letter to a friend, says,— "I have been 
again shocked with a death, and have lost one very dear to 
me in happier times ; but ' I have almost furgot the taste of 



Canto III. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 



33 



Before the Chastener humbly let me bow, 
O'er hearts divided and o'er hopes destroy'd : 
Roll on, vain days ! full reckless may ye flow, 
Since Time hath reft whate'er my soul enjoy'd. 
And with the ills of Eld mine earlier years alloy'd. 



III. 



" Afin que cette application vous forgat de penser S. autre 
chose ; il n'y a en verite de remMe que celui-15 et le temps." — 
LeUre du Boi de Prusse d D'Aleinbert, Sept. 7, 1776. 



CANTO THE THIRD. 



I. 

Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child ! 
Ada ! ^ sole daughter of my house and heart ? 
When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smiled, 
And then we parted, — not as now we part, 
But with a hope. — 

Awaking with a start. 
The waters heave around me ; and on high 
The winds lift up their voices : I depart, 
Whither I know not ; ^ but the hour's gone by. 
When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad 
mine eye.^ 

II. 

Once more upon the waters ! yet once more ! 
And the waves bound beneath me as a steed 
That knows his rider.* Welcome to their roar ! 
Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead ! 
Though the strain'd mast should quiver as a reed. 
And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale,^ 
Still must I on ; for I am as a weed. 
Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam, to sail 
Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath 
prevail. 

griefi' and 'supped full of horrors,' till I have become callous; 
nor have la tear left for an event which, five years ago, would 
have bowed down my head to the earth. It seems as though 
I were to experience in my youth the greatest misery of age. 
My friends fall around me, and I shall be left a lonely tree 
before I am withered. Other men can always take refuge in 
their families : I have no resource but my own reflections, and 
they present no prospect here or hereafter, except the selfish 
satisfaction of surviving my friends. I am indeed very 
wretched, and you will excuse my saying so, as you know I 
am not apt to cant of sensibility." In reference to this stanza, 
"Surely," said Professor Clarke to the author of the Pursuits 
of Literature, " Lord Byron cannot have experienced such 
keen anguish as these exquisite allusions to what older men 
may have felt seem to denote." " I fear he has," answered 
Matthias ; — " he could not otherwise have written such a 
poem." 

1 In a hitherto unpublished letter dated Verona, November 
6, 1816, Lord Byron says,— "By the way, Ada's name (which 



In my youth's summer I did sing of One, 
The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind ; 
Again I seize the theme, then but begun. 
And bear it with me, as the rushing wind 
Bears the cloud onwards : in that Tale I find 
The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears, 
Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind. 
O'er which all heavily the journeying years 
Plod the last sands of life, — where not a flower appears. 

IV. 

Since my young days of passion— joy, or pain, 
Perchance my heart and harp have lost a string, 
And both may jar : it may be, that in vain 

1 would essay as I have sung to sing. 

Yet, though a dreary strain, to this I cling; 
So that it wean me from the weary dream 
Of selfish grief or gladness — so it fling 
Forgetfulness around me — it shall seem 
To me, though to none else, a not ungrateful theme. 

V. 

He who, grown aged in this world of woe. 
In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life, 
So that no wonder waits him ; nor below 
Can love or sorrow, fame, ambition, strife, 
Cut to his heart again with the keen knife 
Of silent, sharp endurance : he can tell 
Why thought seeks refuge in lone caves, yet rife 
With airy images, and shapes which dwell 
Still unimpair'd, though old, in the soul's haunted cell. 

VI. 

'Tis to create, and in creating live 
A being more intense, that we endow 
With form our fancy, gaining as we give 
The life we image, even as I do now. 
What am I ? Nothing : but not so art thou, 
Soul of my thought ! with whom I traverse earth. 
Invisible but gazing, as I glow 
Mix'd with thy spirit, blended with thy birth, 
And feeling still with thee in my crush'd feelings' 
dearth. 

I found in our pedigree, under King John's reign) is the same 
with that of the sister of Charlemagne, as I read, the other 
day, in a book treating of the Rhine." 

2 Lord Byron quitted England, for the second and last 
time, on the 25th of April, 1816, attended by William Fletcher 
and Robert Rushton, the " yeoman" and " page" of canto i. ; 
his physician, Dr. Polidori ; and a Swiss valet." 

3 " could grieve or glad my gazing eye." — MS. 

* " In the 'Two Noble Kinsmen' of Beaumont and Fletcher, 
we find the following passage :— 
' Oh, never 
Shall we two exercise, like twins of Honor, 
Our arms again, and feel our fiery horses 
lAke proud seas under us.' 
Out of this somewhat forced simile, by a judicious transpo- 
sition of the comparison, and by the substitution of the more 
definite word 'waves' for 'seas,' Lord Byron's clear and 
noble thought has been produced,"— Mooue. 
6 "And the rent canvas tattering."— MS. 



34 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



Canto III. 



VII. 

Yet must I thiuk less wildly : — I have thought 
Too long and darkly, till my brain became, 
In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought, 
A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame : 
And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame. 
My springs of life were poison'd. 'Tis too late ! 
Yet am I changed ; though still enough the same 
In strength to bear what time can not abate. 
And feed on bitter fruits without accusing Fate. 

VIII. 

Something too much of this : — but now 'tis past. 
And the spell closes with its silent seal. 
Long-absent Harold reappears at last ; 
He of the breast which fain no more would feel, 
Wrung with the wounds which kill not, but ne'er 

heal ; 
Yet Time, who changes all, had alter'd him 
In soul and aspect as in age : ^ years steal 
Fire from the mind as vigor from the limb ; 
And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim. 

IX. 

His had been quaff 'd too quickly, and he found 
The dregs were wormwood ; but he fiU'd again, 
And from a purer fount, on holier ground. 
And deem'd its spring perpetual ; but in vain ! 
Still round him clung invisibly a chain 
Which gall'd for ever, fettering though unseen, 
And heavy though it clank'd not ; worn with pain, 
Which pined although it spoke not, and grew keen. 
Entering with every step he took through many a 



X. 

Secure in guarded coldness, he had mix'd 
Again in fancied safety with his kind. 
And deem'd his spirit now so firmly fix'd 
And sheathed with an invulnerable mind. 
That, if no joy, no sorrow lurk'd behind ; 
And he, as one, might 'midst the many stand 
Unheeded, searching through the crowd to find 
Fit speculation ; such as in strange land 
He found in wonder-works of God and Nature's hand, 

1 " The first and second cantos of ' Childe Harold's Pilgrim- 
age' produced, on their appearance in 1812, an eflfect upon 
the public, at least equal to any work which has appeared 
within this or the last century, and placed at once upon 
Lord Byron's head the garland for which other men of 
genius have toiled long, and which they have gained late. 
He was placed pre-eminent among the literary men of his 
country by general acclamation. It was amidst such feelings 
of admiration that he entered the public stage. Every thing 
in his manner, person, and conversation, tended to maintain 
the charm which his genius had flung around him ; and those 
admitted to his conversation, far from finding that the in- 
spired poet sunk into ordinary mortality, felt themselves 
attached to him, not only by many noble qualities, but by 
the interest of a mysterious, undefined, and almost painful 
curiosity. A countenance exquisitely modelled to the ex- 
pression of feeling and passion, and exhibiting the remark- 



XI. 

But who can view the ripen'd rose, nor seek 
To wear it ? who can curiously behold 
The smoothness and the sheen of beauty's cheek, 
Nor feel the heart can never all grow old ? 
Who can contemplate Fame through clouds unfold 
The star which rises o'er her steep, nor climb ? 
Harold, once more within the vortex, roU'd 
On with the giddy circle, chasing Time, 
Yet with a nobler aim than in his youth's fond prime. 

XII. 

But soon he knew himself the most unfit 
Of men to herd with Man ; with whom he held 
Little in common ; untaught to submit 
His thoughts to others, though his soul was quell'd 
In youth by his own thoughts ; still uncompell'd, 
He would not yield dominion of his mind 
To spirits against whom his own rebell'd ; 
Proud though in desolation ; which could find 
A life within itself, j^j breathe without mankind. 



XIII. 

mountains. 



there to him were 



Where rose the 

friends ; 
Where roll'd the ocean, thereon was his home ; 
Where a blue sky, and glowing clime, extends, 
He had the passion and the power to roam ; 
The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam, 
Were unto him companionship ; they spake 
A mutual language, clearer than the tome 
Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake 
For Nature's pages glass'd by sunbeams on the lake. 

XIV. 

Like the Chaldean, he could watch the stars, 
Till he had peopled them with beings bright 
As their own beams ; and earth, and earth-born jars, 
And human frailties, were forgotten quite : 
Could he have kept his spirit to that flight, 
He had been happy ; but this clay will sink 
Its spark immortal, envying it the light, 
To which it mounts, as if to break the link 
That keeps us from yon heaven which woos us to its 
brink. 

able contrast of very dark hair and eyebrows with light and 
expressive eyes, presented to the physiognomist the most in- 
teresting subject for the exercise of his art. The predominat- 
ing expression was that of deep and habitual thought, which 
gave way to the most rapid play of features when he engaged in 
interesting discussion ; so that a brother poet compared them 
to the sculpture of a beautiful alabaster vase, only seen to per- 
fection when lighted up from within. The flashes of mirth, 
gayety, indignation, or satirical dislike, which frequently ani- 
mated Lord Byron's countenance, might, during an evening's 
conversation, be mistaken, by a stranger, for the habitual ex- 
pression, so easily and so happily was it formed for them all; 
but those who had an opportunity of studying his features for 
a length of time, and upon various occasions, both of rest and 
emotion, will agree that their proper language was that of mel- 
ancholy. Sometimes shades of this gloom interrupted even 
his gayest and most happy moments."-— SiK Walter Scott. 



Canto III. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 



35 



XV. 

But in Man's dwellings he became a thing 
Restless and worn, and stern and wearisome, 
Droop'd as a wild-born falcon with dipt wing, 
To whom the boundless air alone were home : 
Then came his fit again, which to o'ercome, 
As eagerly the barr'd-up bird will beat 
His breast and beak against his wiry dome 
Till the blood tinge his plumage, so the heat 
Of his impeded soul would through his bosom eat. 

XVI. 

Self-exiled Harold ^ wanders forth again, 

With naught of hope left, but with less of gloom ; 

The very knowledge that he lived in vain, 

That all was over on this side the tomb, 

Had made Despair a smilingness assume, 

Which, though 'twere wild, — as on the plunder'd 

wreck 
When mariners would madly meet their doom 
With draughts intemperate on the sinking deck, — 
Did yet inspire a cheer, which he forbore to check.2 

XVII. 

Stop ! — for thy tread is on an Empire's dust ! 
An Eartliquake's spoil is sepulchred below ! 
Is the spot mark'd with no colossal bust ? 
Nor column tropliied for triumphal show ? 
None ; but the moral's truth tells simpler so, 
As the ground was before, thus let it be ; — 
How that red rain hath made the harvest grow ! 
And is this all the world has gain'd by thee. 
Thou first and last of fields ! king-making Victory ? 



^ " In the third canto of Childe Harold there is much in- 
equality. The thoughts and images are sometimes labored ; 
but still they are a very great improvement upon the first 
two cantos. Lord Byron here speaks in his own language 
and character, not in the tone of others ; — he is describing, 
not inventing ; therefore he has not, and cannot have, the 
freedom with which fiction is composed. Sometimes he has 
a conciseness which is very powerful, but almost abrupt. 
From trusting himself alone, and working out his own deep- 
burJed thoughts, he now, perhaps, fell into a habit of labor- 
ing, even where there was no occasion to labor. In the first 
sixteen stanzas there is yet a mighty but groaning burst of 
dark and appalling strength. It was unquestionably the un- 
exaggerated picture of a most tempestuous and sombre, but 
magnificent soul !"— Brydges. 

2 " These stanzas, — in which the author, adopting more dis- 
tinctly the character of Childe Harold than in the original 
poem, assigns the cause why he has resumed his Pilgrim's 
staff, when it was hoped he had sat down for life a denizen of 
bis native country, — abound with much moral interest and 
poetical beauty. The commentary through which the mean- 
ing of this melancholy tale is rendered obvious, is still in vivid 
remembrance ; for the errors of those who excel their fellows 
in gifts and accomplishments are not soon forgotten. Those 
scenes, ever most painful to the bosom, were rendered yet 
more so by public discussion ; and it is at least possible that 
amongst those who exclaimed most loudly on this unhappy 
occasion, were some in whose eyes literary superiority exag- 
gerated Lord Byron's offence. The scene may be described 
in a few words -.—the wise condemned — the good regretted— 



XVIII. 

And Harold stands upon this place of skullg. 
The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo ! 
How in an hour the power which gave annuls 
Its gifts, transferring fame as fleeting too ! 
In " pride of place " ^ here last the eagle flew, 
Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain,* 
Pierced by the shaft of banded nations through ; 
Ambition's life and labors all were vain ; 

He wears the shatter'd links of the world's broken 
chain. 

XIX. 
Fit retribution ! Gaul may champ the bit 
And foam in fetters ; — but is Earth more free ? 
Did nations combat to make One submit ; 
Or league to teach all kings true sovereignty ? 
What ! shall reviving Thralldom again be 
The patch'd-up idol of enlighten'd days ? 
Shall we, who struck the Lion down, shall we 
Pay the Wolf homage ? proflering lowly gaze 

And servile knees to thrones ? No ; prove before ye 



praise 



XX. 

If not, o'er one fallen despot boast no more ! 
In vain fair cheeks were furrow'd with hot tears 
For Europe's flowers long rooted up before 
The trampler of her vineyards ; in vain years 
Of death, depopulation, bondage, fears. 
Have all been borne, and broken by the accord 
Of roused-up millions ; all that most endears 
Glory, is when the myrtle wreathes a sword 
Such as Harmodius^ drew on Athens' tyrant lord. 



the multitude, idly or maliciously inquisitive, rushed from 
place to place, gathering gossip, which they mangled and 
exaggerated while they repeated it; and impudence, ever 
ready to hitch itself into notoriety, hooked on, as Falstaff 
enjoins Bardolph, blustered, bullied, and talked of ' pleading 
a cause,' and ' taking a side.' "—Sir Walter Scott. 

3 " Pride of place " is a term of falconry, and means the 
highest pitch of flight. See Macbeth, &c. 

" An eagle towering in his pride of place," &c. 

4 In the original draught of this stanza (which, as well as 
the preceding one, was written after a visit to the field of 
Waterloo), the lines stood — 

" Here his last flight the haughty eagle flew. 
Then tore with bloody beak the fatal plain." 

On seeing these lines, Mr. Eeinagle sketched a spirited 
chained eagle, grasping the earth with his talons. The cir- 
cumstance being mentioned to Lord Byron, he wrote thus to 
a friend at Brussels, — " Reinagle is a better poet and a better 
ornithologist than I am : eagles, and all birds of prey, attack 
with their talons, and not with their beaks; and I have 
altered the line thus ; — 

' Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain.' 

This is, I think, a better line, besides its poetical justice." 

6 See the famous song on Harmodius and Aristogiton. The 
best English translation is in Bland's Anthology, by Mr. (now 
Lord Chief Justice) Denman, — 

" With myrtle my sword will I wreathe," &c. 



^•/> 



.^.^ 



36 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto III. 



XXI. 

There was a sound of revelry by night,^ 
And Belgium's capital had.gather'd then 
Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright 
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men ; 
A thousand hearts beat happily ; and when 
Music arose with its voluptuous swell, 
Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again. 
And all went merry as a marriage-bell ; ^ 
But hush ! hark ! a deep sound strikes like a rising 
knell! 

XXII. 

Did ye not hear it ? — No ; 'twas but the wind. 

Or the car rattling o'er the stony street ; 

On with the dance ! let joy be unconfined ; 

No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure 

meet 
To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet — 
But hark ! that heavy sound breaks in once more, 
As if the clouds its echo would repeat ; 
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before ! 
Arm ! arm ! it is — it is — the cannon's opening roar ! 

XXIII. 

Within a window'd niche of that high hall 
Sate Brunswick's fated chieftain ; he did hear 
That sound the first amidst the festival. 
And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear ; 
And when they smiled because he deem'd it near, 
His heart more truly knew that peal too well 
Which stretch'd his father on a bloody bier,^ 
And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell ; 
He rush'd into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell.* 

XXIV. 

Ah ! then and there was hurrying to and fro. 
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, 
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago 
Blush'd at the praise of their own loveliness ; 

1 " There can be no more remarkable proof of the greatness 
of Lord Byron's genius, than the spirit and interest he has 
contrived to communicate to his picture of the often-drawn 
and difficult scene of the breaking up from Brussels before 
the great battle. It is a trite remark that poets generally 
fail in the representation of great events, vrhere the interest 
is recent, and the particulars are consequently clearly and 
commonly known. It required some courage to venture on 
a theme beset with so many dangers, and deformed with the 
wrecks of so many former adventures. See, however, with 
what easy strength he enters upon it, and with how much 
grace he gradually finds his way back to his own peculiar 
vein of sentiment and diction !" — Jeffrey. 

2 On the night previous to the action, it is said that a ball 
was given at Brussels.— The popular error of the Duke of 
Wellington having been surprised, en the eve of the battle 
of Waterloo, at a ball given by the Duchess of BicJniiond at 
Brussels, was first corrected on authority, in the History of 
Napoleon Buonaparte, which forms a portion of the " Family 
Library." The duke had received intelligence of Napoleon's 
decisive operations, and it was intended to put off" the ball ; 
but, on reflection, it seemed highly important that the people 



And there were sudden partings, such as press 
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs 
Which ne'er might be repeated ; who could guess 
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes. 
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise ! 

XXV. 

And there was mounting in hot haste : the steed, 
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, 
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed. 
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war ; 
And the deep thunder peal on peal afar ; 
And near, the beat of the alarming drum 
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star ; 
While throng'd the citizens with terror dumb, 
Or whispering, with white lips — " The foe ! they 
come ! they come !" 

XXVI. 

And wild and high the " Cameron's gathering" rose \ 
The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills 
Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes : — 
How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills, 
Savage and shrill ! But with the breath which fills 
Their mountain pipe, so fill the mountaineers 
With the fierce native daring which instills 
The stirring memory of a thousand years. 

And Evan's, Donald's ^ fame rings in each clansman's 
ears! 

XXVII. 
And Ardennes 6 waves above them her green leaves, 
Dewy with nature's tear-drops, as they pass, 
Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er'grieves, 
Over the unreturning brave, — alas ! 
Ere evening to be trodden like the grass 
Which now beneath them, but above shall grow 
In its next verdure, when this fiery mass 
Of living valor, rolling on tlie foe 

And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and 
low, 

of Brussels should be kept in ignorance as to the course of 
events, and the duke not only desired tliat the ball should 
proceed, but the general officers received his commands to 
appear at it — each taking care to quit the apartment as 
quietly as possible at ten o'clock, and proceed to join his 
respective division en route. 

3 The father of the Duke of Brunswick, who fell at Quatre 
Bras, received his death-wound at Jena. 

* " This stanza is very grand, even from its total unadorn- 
ment. It is only a versification of the common narratives ; 
but here may well be applied a position of Johnson, that 
'where truth is sufficient to fill the mind, fiction is worse 
than useless.' "— Brydges. 

6 Sir Evan Cameron, and his descendant Donald, the " gentle 
Lochiel " of the " forty-five." 

6 The wood of Soignies is supposed to be a remnant of the 
forest of Ardennes, famous in Boiardo's Orlando, and im- 
mortal in Shakspeare's " As You Like It." It is also celebrated 
in Tacitus, as being the spot of successful defence by the Ger~ 
mans against the Roman encroachments. I have ventured to 
adopt the name connected with nobler associations than those 
of mere slaughter. 



Canto III. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 



37 



XXVIII. 

Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, 

Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay, 

The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife, 

The morn the marshalling in arms, — the day 

Battle's magnificently-stern array ! 

The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which Avhen rent 

The earth is cover'd thick with other clay, 

Which her own clay shall cover, heap'd and pent, 

Rider and horse, — friend, foe, — in one red burial 
blent !i 

XXIX. 
Their praise is hymn'd by loftier harps than mine : 
Yet one I would select from that proud throng. 
Partly because they blend me with his line. 
And partly that I did his sire some wrong,^ 
And partly that bright names will hallow song ; 
And his was of the bravest, and when shower'd 
The death-bolts deadliest the thinn'd files along. 
Even where the thickest of war's tempest lower'd. 

They reach'd no nobler breast than thine, young 
gallant Howard ! ^ 

XXX. 

There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee, 
And mine were nothing had I such to give ; 
But when I stood beneath the fresh green tree. 
Which living waves where thou didst cease to live, 
And saw around me the wide field revive 
With fruits and fertile promise, and the Spring 
Came forth her work of gladness to contrive, 
With all her reckless birds upon the wing, 
I turn'd from all she brought to those she could not 
bring.* 

XXXL 
I turn'd to thee, to thousands, of whom each 
And one as all a ghastly gap did make 
In his own kind and kindred, whom to teach 
Forgetfulness were mercy for their sake ; 
The Archangel's trump, not Glory's, must awake 

1 " C'hilde Harold, though he shuns to celebrate the victory 
of Waterloo, gives us here a most beautiful description of the 
evening which preceded the battle of Quatre Bras, the alarm 
which called out the troops, and the hurry and confusion 
which preceded their march. I am not sure that any verses 
in our language surpass, in vigor and in feeling, this most 
beautiful description."— Sir Walter Scott. 

2 See post, note to English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. 

3 "In the late battles, like all the world, I have lost a con- 
nectTon — poor Frederick Howard, the best of his race. I had 
little intercourse of late years with his family ; but I never 
saw or heard but good of him." — Lord B. to Mr. Moore. 

* My guide from Mont St. Jean over the field seemed intel- 
ligent and accurate. The place where Major Howard fell was 
not far from two tall and solitary trees (there was a third, 
cut down, or shivered in the battle), which stand a few yards 
from each other at a pathway's side. Beneath these he died 
and was buried. The body has since been removed to Eng- 
land. A small hollow for the present marks where it lay, but 
will probably soon be effaced ; the plough has been upon it, 
and the grain is. After pointing out the different spots where 
Picton and other gallant men had perished, the guide said, 
*' Here Major Howard lay : I was near him when wounded." 1 



Those whom they thirst for ; though the sound of 

Fame 
May for a moment soothe, it cannot slake 
The fever of vain longing, and the name 
So honor'd but assumes a stronger, bitterer claim. 

XXXII. 

They mourn, but smile at length; and, smiling, 

mourn : 
The tree will wither long before it fall ; 
The hull drives on, though mast and sail be torn ; 
The roof-tree sinks, but moulders on the hall 
In massy hoariness ; the ruin'd wall 
Stands when its wind-worn battlements are gone ; 
The bars survive the captive they enthrall ; [sun ; 
The day drags through, though storms keep out the 
And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on : 

XXXIII. 

Even as a broken mirror, which the glass 
In every fragment multiplies ; and makes 
A thousand images of one that was. 
The same, and still the more, the more it breaks ; 
And thus the heart will do which not forsakes, 
Living in shatter'd guise ; and still, and cold. 
And bloodless, with its sleepless sorrow aches. 
Yet withers on till all without is old. 
Showing no visible sign, for such things are untold.^ 

XXXIV. 

There is a very life in our despair. 
Vitality of poison, — a quick root 
Which feeds these deadly branches; for it were 
As nothing did we die ; but Life will suit 
Itself to Sorrow's most detested fruit. 
Like to the apples^ on the Dead Sea's shore, 
All ashes to the taste : Did man compute 
Existence by enjoyment, and count o'er 
Such hours 'gainst years of life, — say, would he name 
threescore ? 



told him my relationship, and he seemed then still more anx- 
ious to point out the particular spot and circumstances. The 
place is one of the most marked in the field, from the peculi- 
arity of the two trees above mentioned. I went on horseback 
twice over the field, comparing it with my recollection of simi- 
lar scenes. As a plain, Waterloo seems marked out for the scene 
of some great action, though this may be mere imagination : 
I have viewed with attention those of Platea, Troy, Mantinea, 
Leuctra, Chaeronea, and Marathon ; and the field around Mont 
St. Jean and Hougoumont appears to want little but a better 
cause, and that undefiuable but impressive halo which the 
lapse of ages throws around a celebrated spot, to vie in interest 
with any or all of these, except, perhaps, the last mentioned. 

6 " There is a richness and energy in this passage which is 
peculiar to Lord Byron, among all modern poets,— a throng of 
glowing images, poured forth at once, with a facility and profu- 
sion, which must appear mere wastefulness to more economi- 
cal writers, and a certain negligence and harshness of diction, 
which can belong only to an author who is oppressed with 
the exuberance and rapidity of his conceptions." — Jeffrey. 

6 The (fabled) apples on the brink of the lake Asphaltes 
were said to be fair without, and, within, ashes. Vide Tacitus, 
Histor. lib. v. 7. 



38 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



Canto III. 



XXXV. 

The Psalmist number'd out the years of man : 
They are enough ; and if thy tale be true, 
Thou, who didst grudge him even that fleeting span, 
More than enough, thou fatal Waterloo ! 
Millions of tongues record thee, and anew 
Their children's lips shall echo them, and say — 
" Here, where the sword united nations drew. 
Our countrymen were warring on that day !" 
And this is much, and all which will not pass away. 

XXXVI. 

There sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men, 
Whose spirit, antithetically mixt, 
One moment of the mightiest, and again 
On little objects with like firmness fixt ; 
Extreme in all things ! hadst thou been betwixt. 
Thy throne had still been thine, or never been ; 
For daring made thy rise as fall : thou seek'st 
Even now to reassume the imperial mien. 

And shake again the world, the Thunderer of the 
scene ! 

XXXVII. 
Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou ! 
She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name 
Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds than now 
That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame, 
Who woo'd thee once, thy vassal, and became 
The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert 
A god unto thyself ; nor less the same 
To the astounded kingdoms all inert. 

Who deem'd thee for a time whate'er thou didst assert. 

XXXVIII. 

Oh, more or less than man — in high or low. 
Battling with nations, flying from the field ; 
Now making monarchs' necks thy footstool, now 
More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield ; 
An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild. 
But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor, 
However deeply in men's spirits skill'd, 
Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war, 
Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star. 

XXXIX. 

Yet well thy soul hath brook'd the turning tide 
With that untaught innate philosophy. 
Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride, 
Is gall and wormwood to an enemy. 
When the whole host of hatred stood hard by, 
To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast smiled 
With a sedate and all-enduring eye ; — 
When Fortune fled her spoil'd and favorite child, 
He stood unbow'd beneath the ills upon him piled. 

1 The great error of Napoleon, " if we have writ our annals 
true," was a continued obtrusion on mankind of his want of 
all community of feeling for or with them; perhaps more 
oflfensive to human vanity than the active cruelty of more 
trembling and suspicious tyranny. Such were his speeches 
to public assemblies as well as individuals ; and the single ex- 



XL. 

Sager than in thy fortunes ; for in them 
Ambition steel'd thee on too far to show 
That just habitual scorn, which could contemn 
Men and their thoughts ; 'twas wise to feel, not so 
To wear it ever on thy lip and brow. 
And spurn the instruments thou wert to use 
Till they were turn'd unto thine overthrow : 
'Tis but a worthless world to win or lose ; 
So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who choose. 

XLI. 

If, like a tower upon a headlong rock. 
Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone. 
Such scorn of man had help'd to brave the shock ; 
But men's thoughts were the steps which paved thy 
Their admiration thy best weapon shone ; [throne, 
The part of Philip's son was thine, not then 
(Unless aside thy purple had been thrown) 
Like stern Diogenes to mock at men ; 
For sceptred cynics earth were far too wide a den.i 

XLII. 

But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell, 
And there hath been tiiy bane ; there is a fire 
And motion of the soul which will not dwell 
In its own narrow being, but aspire 
Beyond the fitting medium of desire ; 
And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore, 
Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire 
Of aught but rest ; a fever at the core. 
Fatal to him who bears, to all who ever bore. 

XLIII. 

This makes the madmen who have made men mad 
By their contagion ; Conquerors and Kings, 
Founders of sects and systems, to whom add 
Sophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet things 
Which stir too strongly the soul's secret springs, 
And are themselves the fools to those they fool 
Envied, yet how unenviable ! what stings 
Are theirs ! One breast laid open were a school 

Which would unteach mankind the lust to shine or 
rule: 

XLIV. 
Their breath is agitation, and their life 
A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last, 
And yet so nursed and bigoted to strife. 
That should their days, surviving perils past, 
Melt to calm twilight, they feel overcast 
With sorrow and supineness, and so die : 
Even as a flame unfed, which runs to waste 
With its own flickering, or a sword laid by, 

Which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously. 

pression which he is said to have used on returning to Paris 
after the Russian winter had destroyed his army, rubbing his 
hands over a fire, " This is pleasanter than Moscow," would 
probably alienate more favor from his cause than the de» 
struction and reverses which led to the remark. 



Canto III. 



CHILDE HAEOLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 



39 



XLV. 

He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find 
The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow ; 
He who surpasses or subdues mankind, 
Must look down on the hate of those below. 
Though high above the sun of glory glow, 
And far beneath the earth and ocean spread, 
Bound him are icy rocks, and loudly blow 
Contending tempests on his naked head. 
And thus reward the toils which to those summits led.^ 

XLVI. 
Away with these ! true Wisdom's world will be 
Within its own creation, or in thine, 
Maternal Nature ! for who teems like thee. 
Thus on the banks of thy majestic Rhine ? 
There Harold gazes on a work divine, 
A blending of all beauties ; streams and dells. 
Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain, vine, 
And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells 
From gray but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells. 

XLVII. 

And there they stand, as stands a lofty mind, 
Worn, but unstooping to the baser crowd. 
All tenantless, save to the crannying wind, 
Or holding dark communion with the cloud. 
There was a day when they were young and proud. 
Banners on high, and battles pass'd below ; 
But they who fought are in a bloody shroud, 
And those which waved are shredless dust ere now, 
And the bleak battlements shall bear no future blow. 

XLVIII. 

Beneath these battlements, within those walls. 
Power dwelt amidst her passions ; in proud state 
Each robber chief upheld his armed halls. 
Doing his evil will, nor less elate 
Than mightier heroes of a longer date. 
What want these outlaws ^ conquerors should have 
But History's purchased page to call them great ? 
A wider space, an ornamented grave ? 
Their hopes were not less warm, their souls were full 
as brave. 

XLIX. 
In their baronial feuds and single fields, 
What deeds of prowess unrecorded died ! 
And Love, which lent a blazon to their shields. 
With emblems well devised by amorous pride. 
Through all the mail of iron hearts would glide ; 



1 " This is certainly splendidly written, but we trust it is 
not true. From Macedonia's madman to the Swede— from 
Nimrod to Buonaparte— the hunters of men have pursued 
their sport with as much gayety, and as little remorse, as 
the hunters of other animals ; and have lived as cheerily in 
their days of action, and as comfortably in their repose, as 
the followers of better pursuits. It would be strange, there- 
fore, if the other active but more innocent spirits, whom* 
Lord Byron has here placed in the same predicament, and 
who share all their sources of enjoyment, without the guilt 



But still their flame was fierceness, and drew on 
Keen contest and destruction near allied. 
And many a tower for some fair mischief won, 
Saw the discolor'd Rhine beneath its ruin run. 

L. 

But Thou, exulting and abounding river ! 
Making thy waves a blessing as they flow 
Through banks whose beauty would endure for ever 
Could man but leave thy bright creation so. 
Nor its fair promise from the surface mow 
With the sharp scythe of conflict, — then to see 
Thy valley of sweet waters, were to know 
Earth paved like Heaven ; and to seem such to me, 
Even now what wants thy stream? — that it should 
Lethe be. 

LI. 

A thousand battles have assail'd thy banks. 
But these and half their fame have pass'd away. 
And Slaughter heap'd on high his weltering ranks ; 
Their very graves are gone, and what are they ? 
Thy tide wash'd down the blood of yesterday. 
And all was stainless, and on thy clear stream 
Glass'd with its dancing light the sunny ray ; 
But o'er the blacken'd memory's blighting dream 
Thy waves would vainly roll, all sweeping as they 
seem. 

LIT. 
Thus Harold inly said, and pass'd along, 
Yet not insensibly to all which here 
Awoke the jocund birds to early song 
In glens which might have made even exile dear : 
Though on his brow were graven lines austere. 
And tranquil sternness which had ta'en the place 
Of feelings fierier far but less severe, 
Joy was not always absent from his face, 

But o'er it in such scenes would steal with transient 
trace. 

LIII. 
Nor was all love shut from him, though his days 
Of passion had consumed themselves to dust. 
It is in vain that we would coldly gaze 
On such as smile upon us ; the heart must 
Leap kindly back to kindness, though disgust 
Hath wean'd it from all worldlings : thus he felt. 
For there was soft remembrance, and sweet trust. 
In one fond breast, to which his own would melt. 

And in its tenderer hour on that his bosom dwelt. 



and the hardness which they cannot fail of contracting, 
should be more miserable or more unfriended than those 
splendid curses of their kind; and it would be passing 
strange, and pitiful, if the most precious gifts of Providence 
should produce only unhappiness, and mankind regard with 
hostility their greatest benefactors." — Jeffrey. 

2 " What wants that knave that a king should have ?" was 
King James's question on meeting Johnny Armstrong and 
his followers in full accoutrements. See the ballad. 



40 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



Canto III. 



LIV. 

And he had learn'd to love, — I know not why, 
For this in such as him seems strange of mood, — 
The helpless looks of blooming infancy. 
Even in its earliest nurture ; what subdued. 
To change like this, a mind so far imbued 
With scorn of man, it little boots to know ; 
But thus it was ; and though in solitude 
Small power the nipp'd affections have to grow, 
In him this glow'd when all beside had ceased to glow. 

LV. 

And there was one soft breast, as hath been said, 
Which unto his was bound by stronger ties 
Than the church links withal ; and, though unwed. 
That love was pure, and, far above disguise. 
Had stood the test of mortal enmities 
Still undivided, and cemented more 
By peril, dreaded most in female eyes ; 
But this was firm, and from a foreign shore 
Well to that heart might his these absent greetings 
pour ! 

1. 
The castled crag of Drachenfels ^ 
Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine, 
Whose breast of waters broadly swells 
Between the banks which bear the vine, 
And hills all rich with blossom'd trees. 
And fields which promise corn and wine, 
And scatter'd cities crowning these, 
Whose far white walls along them shine. 
Have strew'd a scene, which I should see 
With double joy wert thou with me. 

2. 
And peasant girls, with deep blue eyes, 
And hands which offer early flowers. 
Walk smiling o'er this paradise ; 
Above, the frequent feudal towers 
Through green leaves lift their walls of gray. 
And many a rock which steeply lowers, 
And noble arch in proud decay. 
Look o'er this vale of vintage-bowers ; 
But one thing want these banks of Bhine, — 
Thy gentle hand to clasp in mine ! 

1 The castle of Drachenfels stands on the highest summit 
of "the Seven Mountains," over the Ehine banks; it is in 
ruins, and connected with some singular traditions. It is 
I he first in view on the road from Bonn, but on the opposite 
side of the river. On this bank, nearly facing it, are the 
remains of another, called the Jew's Castle, and a large cross 
commemorative of the murder of a chief by his brother. 
The number of castles and cities along the course of the 
Rhine on both sides is very great, and their situations re- 
markably beautiful.— These verses were written on the banks 
of the Rhine, in May. The original pencilling is before us. 
It is needless to observe that they were addressed to his sister. 

2 The monument of the young and lamented General Mar- 
coau (killed by a rifle-ball at Alterkirchen, on the last day 
of the fourth year of the French republic) still remains as 
described. The inscriptions on his monument are rather 
too long, and not required: his name was enough; France 



I send the lilies given to me ; 
Though long before thy hand they touch, 
I know that they must wither'd be, 
But yet reject them not as such ; 
For I have cherish'd them as dear, 
Because they yet may meet thine eye, 
And guide thy soul to mine even here, 
When thou behold'st them drooping nigh, 
And know'st them gather'd by the Rhine, 
And offer' d from my heart to thine ! 



The river nobly foams and flows. 
The charm of this enchanted ground. 
And all its thousand turns disclose 
Some fresher beauty varying round : . 
The haughtiest breast its wish might bound 
Through life to dwell delighted here ; 
Nor could on earth a spot be found 
To nature and to me so dear. 
Could thy dear eyes in following mine 
Still sweeten more these banks of Rhine ! 

LVI. 

By Coblentz, on a rise of gentle ground, 
There is a small and simple pyramid, 
Crowning the summit of the verdant mound ; 
Beneath its base are heroes' ashes hid. 
Our enemy's — but let not that forbid 
Honor to Marceau ! o'er whose early tomb 
Tears, big tears, gush'd from the rough soldier's lid, 
Lamenting and yet envying such a doom, 
Falling for France, whose rights he battled to resume. 

LVII. 
Brief, brave, and glorious was his young career, — 
His mourners were two hosts, his friends and foes ; 
And fitly may the stranger lingering here 
Pray for his gallant spirit's bright repose ; 
For he was Freedom's champion, one of those, 
The few in number, who had not o'erstept 
The charter to chastise which she bestows 
On such as wield her weapons ; he had kept 
The whiteness of his soul, and thus men o'er him wept.^ 



adored, and her enemies admired ; both wept over him. His 
funeral was attended by the generals and detachments from 
both armies. In the same grave General Hoche is interred, 
a gallant man also in every sense of the word ; but though 
he distinguished himself greatly in battle, he had not the 
good fortune to die there: his death was attended by sus- 
picions of poison. A separate monument (not over his body, 
which is buried by Marceau's) is raised for him near Ander- 
nach, opposite to which one of his most memorable exploits 
was performed, in throwing a bridge to an island on the 
Rhine. The shape and style arfi different from those of Mar- 
ceau's, and the inscription more simple and pleasing : — " The 
Army of the Sambre and Meuse to its Commander-in-Chief 
Hoche." This is all, and as it should be. Hoche was esteemed 
atmong the first of France's earlier generals, before Buona- 
parte monopolized her triumphs. He was the destined com- 
mander of the invading army of Ireland. 



Canto III. 



CHILDE HAEOLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 



41 



LVIII. 
Here Ehrenbreitstein/ with her shatter'd wall 
Black with the miner's blast, upon her height 
Yet shows of what she was, when shell and ball 
Rebounding idly on her strength did light : 
A tower of victory ! from whence the flight 
Of baffled foes was watch'd along the plain : 
But Peace destroy'd what War could never blight. 
And laid those proud roofs bare to Summer's rain — 
On which the iron shoAver for years had pour'd in vain. 

LIX. 
Adieu to thee, fair Rhine ! How long delighted 
The stranger fain would linger on his way ! 
Thine is a scene alike where souls united 
Or lonely Contemplation thus might stray ; 
And could the ceaseless vultures cease to prey 
On self-condemning bosoms, it were here, 
Where Nature, nor too sombre nor too gay, 
Wild but not rude, awful yet not austere. 
Is to the mellow Earth as Autumn to the year. 

LX. 

Adieu to thee again ! a vain adieu ! 
There can be no farewell to scene like thine ; 
The mind is color' d by thy every hue ; 
And if reluctantly the eyes resign 
Their cherish'd gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine ! ^ 
'Tis with the thankful glance of parting praise ; 
More mighty spots may rise — more glaring shine. 
But none unite in one attaching maze 
The brilliant, fair, and soft, — the glories of old days, 

LXI. 

The negligently grand, the fruitful bloom 
Of coming ripeness, the white city's sheen. 
The rolling stream, the precipice's gloom. 
The forest's growth, and Gothic walls between. 
The wild rocks shaped as they had turrets been 
In mockery of man's art ; and these withal 
A race of faces happy as the scene. 
Whose fertile bounties here extend to all. 
Still springing o'er thy banks, though Empires near 
them fall. 



^ Ehrenbreitstein, i. e., " the broad stone of honor," one of 
the strongest fortresses in Europe, was dismantled and blown 
up by the French at the truce of Leoben. It had been, and 
could only be, reduced by famine or treachery. It yielded to 
the former, aided by surprise. After having seen the fortifi- 
cations of Gibraltar and Malta, it did not much strike by 
comparison; but the situation is commanding. General 
Marceau besieged it in vain for some time ; and I slept in a 
room where I was shown a window at which he is said to 
have been standing observing the progress of the Siege by 
moonlight, when a ball struck immediately below it. 

2 On taking Hockheira, the Austrians, in one part of the 
engagement, got to the brow of the hill, whence they had 
their first view of the Rhine. They instantly halted— not a 
gun was fired— not a voice heard ; but they stood gazing on 
the river with those feelings which the events of the last fif- 
teen years at once called up. Prince Schwartzenberg rode 
up to know the cause of this sudden stop ; then they gave 



LXII. 

But these recede. Above me are the Alps, 
The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls 
Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps. 
And throned Eternity in icy halls 
Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls 
The avalanche — the thunderbolt of snow ! 
All that expands the spirit, yet appalls. 
Gather around these summits, as to show 

How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man 
below. 

LXIII. 
But ere these matchless heights I dare to scan, 
There is a spot should not be pass'd in vain, — 
Morat ! the proud, the patriot field ! where man 
May gaze on ghastly trophies of the slain. 
Nor blush for those who conquer'd on that plain ; 
Here Burgundy bequeathed his tombless host, 
A bony heap, through ages to remain. 
Themselves their monument ; — the Stygian coast 

Unsepulchred they roam'd, and shriek'd each wan- 
dering ghost.^ 

LXIV. 

While Waterloo with Cannse's carnage vies, 
Morat and Marathon twin names shall stand ; 
They were true Glory's stainless victories, 
Won by the unambitious heart and hand 
Of a proud, brotherly, and civic band, 
,A11 unbought champions in no princely cause 
Of vice-entail'd Corruption ; they no land 
Doom'd to bewail the blasphemy of laws 
Making kings' rights divine, by some Draconic clause. 

LXV. 

By a lone wall a lonelier column rears 
A gray and grief-worn aspect of old days ; 
'Tis the last remnant of the wreck of years, 
And looks as with the wild-bewilder'd gaze 
Of one to stone converted by amaze. 
Yet still with consciousness ; and there it stands 
Making a marvel that it not decays, 
When the coeval pride of human hands, 
Levell'd Aventicum,* hath strew'd her subject lands. 

three cheers, rushed after the enemy, and drove them into 
the water. 

3 The chapel is destroyed, and the pyramid of bones dimin- 
ished to a small number by the Burgundian legion in the 
service of France ; who anxiously efl'aced this record of their 
ancestors' less successful invasions. A few still remain, not- 
withstanding the pains taken by the Burgundians for ages 
(all who passed that way removing a bone to their own 
country), and the less justifiable larcenies of the Swiss pos- 
tilions, who carried them off" to sell for knife-handles ; a pur- 
pose for which the whiteness imbibed by the bleaching of 
years had rendered them in great request. Of these relics I 
ventured to bring away as much as may have made a quarter 
of a hero, for which the sole excuse is, that if I had not, the 
next passer by might have perverted them to worse uses than 
the careful preservation which I intend for them. 

* Aventicum, near Morat, was the Roman capital of Hel- 
vetia, where Avenches now stands. 



42 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Canto III. 



LXVI. 

And there — oh ! sweet and sacred be the name ! — 
Julia — the daughter, the devoted — gave 
Her youth to Heaven ; her heart, beneath a claim 
Nearest to Heaven's, broke o'er a father's grave. 
Justice is sworn 'gainst tears, and hers would crave 
The life she lived in ; but the judge was just. 
And then she died on him she could not save. 
Their tomb was simple, and without a bust. 

And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one 
dust.i 

LXVII. 
But these are deeds which should not pass away. 
And names that must not wither, though the earth 
Forgets her empires with a just decay. 
The enslavers and the enslaved, their death and birth; 
The high, the mountain -majesty of worth 
Should be, and shall, survivor of its woe, 
And from its immortality look forth 
In the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow,^ 

Imperishably pure beyond all things below. 

LXVIII. 

Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face,^ 
The mirror where the stars and mountains view 
The stillness of their aspect in each trace 
Its clear depth yields of their far height and hue : 
There is too much of man here, to look through 
With a fit mind the might which I behold ; 
But soon in me shall Loneliness renew < 

Thoughts hid, but not less cherish'd than of old, 
Ere mingling with the herd had penn'd me in their 
fold. 

LXIX. 
To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind : 
All are not fit with them to stir and toil, 

1 Julia Alpinula, a young Aventian priestess, died soon 
after a vain endeavor to save her father, condemned to death 
as a traitor by Aulus Csecina. Her epitaph was discovered 
many years ago ;— it is thus : — " Julia Alpinula : Hie jaceo. 
Infelicis patris infelix proles. Dese Aventise Sacerdos. Exo- 
rare patris necem non potui: Male mori in fatis ille erat. 
Vixi annos xxiii." — I know of no human composition so 
affecting as this, nor a history of deeper interest. These are 
the names and actions which ought not to perish, and to 
which we turn with a true and healthy tenderness, from the 
wretched and glittering detail of a confused mass of conquests 
and battles, with which the mind is roused for a time to a 
false and feverish sympathy, from whence it recurs at length 
with all the nausea consequent on such intoxication. 

2 This is written in the eye of Mont Blanc (June 3, 1816), 
which even at this distance dazzles mine. — (July 20.) I this 
day observed for some time the distinct reflection of Mont 
Blanc and Mont Argenti&re in the calm of the lake, which I 
was crossing in my boat; the distance of these mountains 
from their mirror is sixty miles. 

8 In the exquisite lines which the poet, at this time, 
addressed to his sister, there is the following touching 
stanza :— 

" I did remind thee of our own dear lake. 
By the old hall which may be mine no more. 
Leman's is fair ; but think not I forsake 
The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore : 



Nor is it discontent to keep the mind 
Deep in its fountain, lest it overboil 
In the hot throng, where we become the spoil 
Of our infection, till too late and long 
We may deplore and struggle with the coil. 
In wretched interchange of wrong for wrong 

'Midst a contentious world, striving where none are 
strong. 

LXX. 
There, in a moment, we may plunge our years 
In fatal penitence, and in the blight 
Of our own soul, turn all our blood to tears. 
And color things to come with hues of Night ; 
The race of life becomes a hopeless flight 
To those that walk in darkness : on the sea 
The boldest steer but where their ports invite ; 
But there are wanderers o'er Eternity 

Whose bark drives on and on, and anchor'd ne'er 
shall be. 

LXXI. 
Is it not better, then, to be alone, 
And love Earth only for its earthly sake ? 
By the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone,* 
Or the pure bosom of its nursing lake, 
Which feeds it as a mother who doth make 
A fair but froward infant her own care. 
Kissing its cries away as these awake ; — 
Is it not better thus our lives to wear. 

Than join the crushing crowd, doom'd to inflict or 
bear? 

LXXII. 
I live not in myself, but I become 
Portion of that around me ; and to me 
High mountains are a feeling,^ but the hum 
Of human cities torture : I can see 
Nothing to loathe in nature, save to be 

Sad havoc Time must with my memory make 
Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before ; 
Though, like all things which I have loved, they are 
Resign'd for ever, or divided far." 

4 The color of the Rhone at Geneva is blue, to a depth of 
tint which I have never seen equalled in water, salt or fresh, 
except in the Mediterranean and Archipelago.— See Don 
Juan, c. xiv. st. 87, for a beautiful comparison : — 

" There was no great disparity of years, 
Though much in temper ; but they never clash'd : 

They moved like stars united in their spheres, 
Or like the Rhone by Leman's waters wash'd, 

Where mingled and yet separate appears 
The river from the lake, all bluely dash'd 

Through the serene and placid glassy deep, 

"Which fain would lull its river child to sleep." 

5 " Mr. Hobhouse and myself are just returned from a 
journey of lakes and mountains. We have been to the Grin- 
delwald", and the Jungfrau, and stood on the summit of the 
Wengern Alp ; and seen torrents of 900 feet in fall, and gla- 
ciers of all dimensions ; we have heard shepherds' pipes, and 
avalanches, and looked on the clouds foaming up from the 
valleys below us like the spray of the ocean of hell. Cha- 
mouni, and that which it inherits, we saw a month ago ; 
but, though Mont Blanc is higher, it is not equal in wildness 
to the Jungfrau, the Eighers, the Shreckhorn, and the Rose 
Glaciers."— 5. Letters, Sept, 1816. 



Canto III. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 



43 



A link reluctant in a fleshly chain, 
Class'd among creatures, when the soul can flee. 
And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain 
Of ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain. 

LXXIII. 

And thus I am absorb'd, and this is life : 
I look upon the peopled desert past. 
As on a place of agony and strife. 
Where, for some sin, to sorrow I was cast, 
To act and suffer, but remount at last 
With a fresh pinion ; which I feel to spring, 
Though young, yet waxing vigorous, as the blast 
Which it would cope with, on delighted wing, 

Spurning the clay-cold bonds which round our being 
cling. 

LXXIV. 
And when, at length, the mind shall be all free 
From what it hates in this degraded form, 
Reft of its carnal life, save what shall be 
Existent happier in the fly and worm, — 
When elements to elements conform. 
And dust is as it should be, shall I not 
Feel all I see, less dazzling, but more warm ? 
The bodiless thought ? the Spirit of each spot ? 

Of which, even now, I share at times the immortal 
lot? 

^ LXXV. 
Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part 
Of me and of my soul, as I of them ? 
Is not the love of these deep in my heart 
With a pure passion ? should I not contemn 
All objects, if compared with these? and stem 
A tide of suffering, rather than forego 
Such feelings for the hard and worldly phlegm 
Of those whose eyes are only turn'd below. 

Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts which dare 
not glow ? 

LXXYI. 
But this is not my theme ; and I return 
To that which is immediate, and require 

1 " I have traversed all Rousseau's ground with the ' He- 
loise' before me, and am struck to a degree that I cannot 
express with the force and accuracy of his descriptions, and 
the beauty of their reality. Meillerie, Clarens, and Vevay, 
and the Chateau de Chillon, are places of which I shall say 
little ; because all I could say must fall short of the impres- 
sions they stamp."— jB. Letters. 

2 " It is evident that the impassioned parts of Rousseau's 
romance had made a deep impression upon the feelings of the 
noble poet. The enthusiasm expressed by Lord Byron is no 
small tribute to the power possessed by Jean Jacques over 
the passions : and, to say truth, we needed some such evidence ; 
for, though almost ashamed to avow the truth,— still, like the 
barber of Midas, we must speak or die,— we have never been 
able to feel the interest or discover the merit of this far-famed 
performance. That there is much eloquence in the letters 
we readily admit: there lay Rousseau's strength. But his 
lovers, the celebrated St. Preux and Julie, have, from the 
earliest moment we have heard the tale (which we well re- 
member), down to the present hour, totally failed to interest 
us. There might be some constitutional hardness of heart ; 
but like Lance's pebble-hearted cur, Crab, we remained dry- 



Those who find contemplation in the urn, 
To look on One, whose dust was once all fire, 
A native of the land where I respire 
The clear air for a while — a passing guest. 
Where he became a being, — whose desire 
Was to be glorious ; 'twas a foolish quest. 
The which to gain and keep, he sacrificed all rest. 

LXXVII. 

Here the self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau,^ 
The apostle of affliction, he who threw 
Enchantment over passion, and from woe 
Wrung overwhelming eloquence, first drew 
The breath which made him wretched ; yet he knew 
How to make madness beautiful, and cast 
O'er erring deeds and thoughts a heavenly hue 2 
Of words, like sunbeams, dazzling as they pass'd 
The eyes, which o'er them shed tears feelingly and 
fast. 

LXXVIII. 

His love was' passion's essence — as a tree 
On fire by lightning ; with ethereal flame 
Kindled he was, and blasted ; for to be 
Thus, and enamor'd, were in him the same. 
But his was not the love of living dame. 
Nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams, 
But of ideal beauty, which became 
In him existence, and o'erflowing teems 
Along his burning page, distemper'd though it seems. 

LXXIX. 

This breathed itself to life in Julie, this 
Invested her with all that's wild and sweet ; 
This hallow'd, too, the memorable kiss^ 
Which every morn his fever'd lip would greet, 
From hers, who but with friendship his would meet ; 
But to that gentle touch, through brain and breast 
Flash'd the thrill'd spirit's love-devouring heat ; 
In that absorbing sigh perchance more blest 
Than vulgar minds may be with all they seek possest.* 

eyed while all wept around us. And still, on resuming the 
volume, even now, we can see little in the loves of these two 
tiresome pedants to interest our feelings for either of them. 
To state our opinion in language (see Burke's Reflections) 
much better than our own, we are unfortunate enough to 
regard this far-famed history of philosophical gallantry as an 
' unfashioned, indelicate, sour, gloomy, ferocious medley of 
pedantry and lewdness ; of metaphysical speculations, blend- 
ed with the coarsest sensuality.' "—Sir Walter Scott. 

3 This refers to the account in his " Confessions " of his 
passion for the Comtesse d'Houdetot (the mistress of St. 
Lambert), and his long walk every morning, for the sake of 
the single kiss which was the common salutation of French 
acquaintance. Rousseau's description of his feelings on this 
occasion may be considered as the most passionate, yet not 
impure, description and expression of love that ever kindled 
into words; which, after all, must be felt, from their very 
force, to be inadequate to the delineation : a painting can 
give no sufiicient idea of the ocean. , 1 

* " Lord Byron's character of Rousseau is drawn with great 
force, great power of discrimination, and great eloquence. I 
know not that he says any thing which has not been said 



44 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Canto TII. 



LXXX. 

His life was one long Avar with self-sought foes, 
Or friends by him self-banish'd ; for his mind 
Had grown Suspicion's sanctuary, and chose 
For its own cruel sacrifice the kind, 
'Gainst whom he raged with fury strange and blind. 
But he was phrensied, — wherefore, who may know ? 
Since cause might be which skill could never find ; 
But he was phrensied by disease or woe 

To that worst hitch of all, which wears a reasoning 
show. 

LXXXI. 
For then he was inspired, and from him came, 
As from the Pythian's mystic cave of yore. 
Those oracles which set the world in flame. 
Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more : 
Did he not this for France ? which lay before 
Bow'd to the inborn tyranny of years ? 
Broken and trembling to the yoke she bore, 
Till by the voice of him and his compeers 

Roused up to too much wrath, which follows o'er- 
grown fears ? 

LXXXII. 
They made themselves a fearful monument! 
The wreck of old opinions — things which grew. 
Breathed from the birth of time : the veil they rent. 
And what behind it lay, all earth shall view. 
But good with ill they also overthrew, 
Leaving but ruins, wherewith to rebuild 
Upon the same foundation, and renew 
Dungeons and thrones, which the same hour refill'd. 

As heretofore, because ambition was self-will'd. 

LXXXIII. 

But this will not endure, nor be endured ! 
Mankind have felt their strength, and made it felt. 
They might have used it better, but, allured 
By their new vigor, sternly have they dealt 
On one another ; Pity ceased to melt 
With her once natural charities. But they, 
"Who in oppression's darkness caved had dwelt. 
They were not eagles, nourish'd with the day ; 
What marvel then, at times, if they mistook their prey ? 



before ; — but what he says issues, apparently, from the recesses 
of his own mind. It is a little labored, which, possibly, may 
be caused by the form of the stanza into which it was neces- 
sary to throw it ; but it cannot be doubted that the poet felt 
a sympathy for the enthusiastic tenderness of Rousseau's 
genius, which he could not have recognized with such extreme 
fervor, excejjt from a consciousness of having at least occa- 
sionally experienced similar emotions." — Sir E. Brydges. 

1 During Lord Byron's stay in Switzerland, he took up his 
residence at the Campagne-Diodati, in the village of Coligny. 
It stands at the top of a rapidly descending vineyard ; the 
windows commanding, one way, a noble view of the lake and 
of Geneva ; the other, up the lake. Every evening the poet 
embarked on the lake ; and to the feelings created by these 
excursions we owe these delightful stanzas. Of his mode of 
passyig a day, the following, from his Journal, is a pleasant 
specimen: — 

" September 18. Called. Got up at five. Stopped at Yevay 
two hours. View from the churchyard superb; within it 



LXXXIV. 

What deep wounds ever closed without a scar ? 
The heart's bleed longest, and but heal to wear 
That which disfigures it ; and they who war [bear 
With their own hopes, and have been vanquish'^. 
Silence, but not submission : in his lair 
Fix'd Passion holds his breath, until the hour 
Which shall atone for years ; none need despair : 
It came, it cometh, and will come, — the power 
To punish or forgive — in one we shall be slower. 

LXXXV. 

Clear, placid Leman ! thy contrasted lake, 
With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing 
Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake 
Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring. 
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing 
To waft me from distraction ; once I loved 
Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring 
Sounds sweet as if a Sister's voice reproved, 

That I with stern delights should e'er have been so 
moved. 

LXXXVI, 
It is the hush of night, and all between 
Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, 
Mellow'd and mingling, yet distinctly seen, 
Save darken' d Jura, whose capt heights appear 
Precipitously steep ; and drawi^ near. 
There breathes a living fragrance from the shore, 
Of flowers yet fresh with childhood ; on the ear 
Drops the light drip of the suspended oar, 

Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more ; 

LXXXVII. 

He is an evening reveller, who makes 
His life an infancy, and sings his fill ; 
At intervals, some bird from out the brakes 
Starts into voice a moment, then is still. 
There seems a floating whisper on the h\]\, 
But that is fancy, for the starlight dews 
All silently their tears of love instill. 
Weeping themselves away, till they inf^ise 
Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues.^ 



Ludlow (the regicide's) monument— black marble— long in- 
scription ; Latin, but simple. Near him Broughton (who read 
King Charles's sentence to Charles Stuart) is buried, with a 
queer and rather canting inscription. Ludlow's house shown. 
Walked down to the lake side; servants, carriages, saddle- 
horses,— all set o£f, and left us plant^s Id, by some mistake. 
Hobhouse ran on before, and overtook them. Arrived at 
Clarens. Went to Chillon through scenery worthy of I know 
not whom ; went over the castle again. Met an English party 
in a carriage ; a lady in it fast asleep— fast asleep in the most 
anti-narcotic spot in the world,— excellent ! After a slight 
and short dinner, visited the Chateau dc Clarens. Saw all 
worth seeing, and then descended to the ' Bosquet de Julie,' 
&c. &c. : our guide full of Rousseau, whom he is eternally con- 
founding with St. Preux, and mixing the man and the book. 
Went again as far as Chillon, to revisit the little torrent from 
the hill behind it. The corporal who showed the wonders of 
Chillon was as drunk as Blucher, and (to my mind) as great 
a man : he was deaf also ; and, thinking every one else so, 



Canto III. 



CHILDE HAEOLD'S PILGKIMAGE. 



45 



LXXXVIII. 

Ye stars ! which are the poetry of heaven ! 

If in your bright leaves we would read the fate 

Of men and empires, — 'tis to be forgiven, 

That in our aspirations to be great, 

Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state, 

And claim a kindred with you ; for ye are 

A beauty and a mystery, and create 

In us such love and reverence from afar. 

That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves 
a star. 

LXXXIX 
All heaven and earth are still — though not in sleep, 
But breathless, as we grow when feeling most ; 
And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep : — 
All heaven and earth are still : From the high host 
Of stars, to the lull'd lake and mountain coast. 
All is concentred in a life intense, 
Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, 
But hath a part of being, and a sense 

Of that which is of all Creator and defence. 

XC. 

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt 
In solitude, where we are least alone ; 
A truth, which through our being then doth melt, 
And purifies from self: it is a tone. 
The soul and source of music, which makes known 
Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm, 
Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone, 
Binding all things with beauty ; — 'twould disarm 
The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm. 

XCI. 

Not vainly did the early Persian make 
His altar the high places and the peak 
Of earth-o'ergazing mountains,^ and thus take 
A fit and unwall'd temple, there to seek 
The Spirit, in whose honor shrines are weak, 
Uprear'd of human hands. Come, and compare 
Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek, 
With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air. 
Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy pray'r! 

XCII. 

The sky is changed ! — and such a change ! Oh ni-^-ht, 
. And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, 
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light 
Of a dark eye in woman ! Far a«iong. 
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, 



roared out the legends of the castle so fearfully, that Hob- 
house got out of humor. However, we saw things, from the 
gallows to the dungeons. Sunset reflected in the lake. Nine 
o'clock — going to bed. Have to get up at five to-morrow." 

1 See Appendix, Note F. 

2 The thunder-storm to which these lines refer occurred on 
the 1.3th of June, 1816, at midnight. I have seen, among the 
Acroceraunian mountains of Chimari, several more terrible, 
but none more beautiful. 

5 "This is one of the most beautiful passages of the poem. 



Leaps the live thunder ! Not from one lone cloud, 
But every mountain now hath found a tongue, 
And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, 
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud ' 

XCIIL 

And this is in the night : — Most glorious night 
Thou wert not sent for slumber ! let me be 
A sharer in thy fierce and far delight, — 
A portion of the tempest and of thee ! ^ 
How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea. 
And the big rain comes dancing to the earth ! 
And now again 'tis black, — and now, the glee 
Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain mirth , 
As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birtli.-* 

XCIV. 

How, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between 
Heights which appear as lovers who have parted 
In hate, whose mining depths so intervene. 
That they oan meet no more, though broken- 
hearted ; [thwarted, 
Though in their souls, which thus each other 
Love was the very root of the fond rage 
Which blighted their life's bloom, a^||then de- 
parted : — ^ 
Itself expired, but leaving them an age 
Of years all winters, — war within themselves to wage. 

xcv. 

Now, where the quick Rhone thus hath cleft his way, 
The mightiest of the storms hath ta'en his stand : 
For here, not one, but many, make their play. 
And fling their thunder-bolts from hand to hand, 
Flashing and cast around : of all the band, 
The brightest through these parted hills hath fork'd 
His lightnings, — as if he did understand, 
That in such gaps as desolation work'd, 

There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein 
lurk'd. 

XCVI. 
Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings ! ye ! 
With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul 
To make these felt and feeling, well may be 
Things that have made me watchful ; the far roll 
Of your departing voices, is the knoll 
Of what in me is sleepless, — if I rest.* 
But where of ye, O tempests ! is the goal ? 
Are ye like those within the human breast ? 

Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest ? 



The ' fierce and far delight ' of a thunder-storm is here de- 
scribed in verse almost as vivid as its lightnings. The live 
thunder 'leaping among the rattling crags' — the voice of 
mountains, as if shouting to each other— the plashing of the 
big rain — the gleaming of the wide lake, lighted like a phos- 
phoric sea— present a picture of sublime terror, yet of enjoy- 
ment, often attempted, but never so well, certainly ncvor 
better, brought out in poetry."— Sir Walter Scott. 

* The Journal of his Swiss tour, which Lord Byron kept 
for his sister, closes with the following mournful passage :— • 



46 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Canto III. 



XCYII. 
Could I embody and unbosom now 
That which is most within me, — could I wreak 
My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw 
Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak. 
All that I would have sought, and all I seek. 
Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe — into one word. 
And that one word were Lightning, I would speak ; 
But as it is, I live and die unheard. 

With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a 
sword. 

XCVIII. 
The mom is up again, the dewy morn, 
With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom. 
Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn. 
And living as if earth contain'd no tomb, — 
And glowing into day : we may resume 
The march of our existence ; and thus I, 
Still on thy shores, fair Leman ! may find room 
And food for meditation, nor pass by 

Much, that may give us pause, if ponder'd fittingly. 

XCIX. 

Clarens ! sweet Clarens,i birthplace of deep Love ! 
Thine g^is the young breath of passionate thought ; 
Thy tr^5 take root in Love ; the snows above 
The very Glaciers have his colors caught. 
And sunset into rose-hues sees them wrought 
By rays which sleep there lovingly : the rocks. 
The permanent crags, tell here of Love, who sought 
In them a refuge from the worldly shocks. 

Which stir and sting the soul with hope that woos, 
then mocks. 

C. 
Clarens ! by heavenly feet thy paths are trod, — 

/ Undying Love's, who here ascends a throne 

To which the steps are mountains ; where the god 
Is a pervading life and light, — so shown 
Not on those summits solely, nor alone 
In the still cave and forest ; o'er the flower 
His eye is sparkling, and his breath hath blown. 
His soft and summer breath, whose tender power 

Passes the strength of storms in their most desolate 
hour.2 



" In the weather, for this tour, of thirteen days, I have been 
Tery fortunate— fortunate in a companion " (Mr. Hobhouse) 
— "fortunate in our prospects, and exempt from even the 
little petty accidents and delays which often render journeys 
in a less wild country disappointing. I was disposed to be 
pleased. I am a lover of nature, and an admirer of beauty. 
I can bear fatigue, and welcome privation, and have seen 
some of the noblest views in the world. But in all this,— the 
recollection of bitterness, and more especially of recent and 
more home desolation, which must accompany me through 
life, has preyed upon me here ; and neither the music of the 
shepherd, the crashing of the avalanche, nor the torrent, the 
mountain, the glacier, the forest, nor the cloud, have for one 
moment lightened the weight upon my heart, nor enabled 
me to lose my own wretched identity, in the majesty, and the 
power, and the glory, around, above, and beneath me." 

1 *' Stanzas xcix. to cxv. are exquisite. They have every 



CI. 

All things are here of him ; from the black pines, 
Which are his shade on high, and the loud roar 
Of torrents, where he listeneth, to the vines 
Which slope his green path downward to the shore, 
Where the bow'd waters meet him, and adore. 
Kissing his feet with murmurs ; and the wood, 
Tlie covert of old trees, with trunks all hoar. 
But light leaves, young as joy, stands where it stood, 
Offering to him, and his, a populous solitude, 

CII. 
A populous solitude of bees and birds. 
And fairy-form'd and many-color'd things, 
Who worship him with notes more sweet than words. 
And innocently open their glad wings. 
Fearless and full of life : the gush of springs. 
And fall of lofty fountains, and the bend 
Of stirring branches, and the bud which brings 
The swiftest thought of beauty, here extend. 
Mingling, and made by Love, unto one mighty end, 

CHI. 
He who hath loved not, here would learn that lore, 
And make his heart a spirit ; he who knows 
That tender mystery, will love the more ; 
For this is Love's recess, where vain men's Avoes, 
And the world's waste, have driven him far from 
For 'tis his nature to advance or die ; [those, 

He stands not still, but or decays, or grows 
Into a boundless blessing, which may vie 
With the immortal lights, in its eternity ! 

CIV. 

'Twas not for fiction chose Rousseau this spot, 
Peopling it with affections ; but he found 
It was the scene which passion must allot 
To the mind's purified beings ; 'twas the ground 
Where early Love his Psyche's zone unbound, 
And hallow'd it with loveliness : 'tis lone, 
And wonderful, and deep, and hath a sound, 
And sense, and sight of sweetness ; here the Rhone 
Hath spread himself a couch, the Alps have rear'd a 
throne. 



thing which makes a poetical picture of local and particular 
scenery perfect. They exhibit a miraculous brilliancy and 
force of fancy ; but the very fidelity causes a little constraint 
and labor of language. The poet seems to have been so en- 
grossed by the attention to give vigor and fire to the imagery, 
that he both neglected and disdained to render himself more 
harmonious by diff'user words, which, while they might have 
improved the effect upon the ear, might have weakened the 
impression upon the mind. This mastery over new matter — 
this supply of powers equal not only to an untouched subject, 
but that subject one of peculiar and unequalled grandeur and 
beauty — was sufficient to occupy the strongest poetical facul- 
ties, young as the author was, without adding to it all the 
practical skill of the artist. The stanzas, too, on Voltaire and 
Gibbon are discriminative, sagacious, and just. They are 
among the proofs of that very great variety of talent which 
this canto of Lord Byron exhibits."— SiK E. Brydges. 
2 See Appendix, Note G, 



Canto III. 



CHILDE HAKOLD'S PILGEIMAGE. 



47 



cv. 

Lausanne ! and Ferney ! ye have been the abodes 
Of names which unto you bequeath'd a name ; ^ 
Mortals, who sought and found, by dangerous roads, 
A path to perpetuity of fame : 
They were gigantic minds, and their steep aim 
Was, Titan-like, on daring doubts to pile 
Thoughts which should call down thunder, and the 

flame 
Of Heaven, again assail'd, if Heaven the while 
On man and man's research could deign do more than 

smile. 

CVI. 

f'he one was fire and fickleness, a child 
lost mutable in wishes, but in mind 
A wit as various, — gay, grave, sage, or wild, — 
Historian, bard, philosopher, combined; 
He multiplied himself among mankind. 
The Proteus of their talents : But his own 
Breathed most in ridicule, — which, as the wind. 
Blew where it listed, laying all things prone, — 
Now to o'erthrow a fool, and now to shake a throne. 

CVII. 

The other, deep and slow, exhausting thought, 
And hiving wisdom with each studious year. 
In meditation dwelt, with learning wrought, 
And shaped his weapon with an edge severe, 
Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer ; 
The lord of irony, — that master-spell, 
"Which stung his foes to wrath, which grew from fear, 
And doom'd him to the zealot's ready Hell, 
Which answers to all doubts so eloquently well. 

CVIII. 
Yet, peace be with their ashes, — for by them, 
If merited, the penalty is paid ; 
It is not ours to judge, — far less condemn ; 
The hour must come when such things shall be made 
Known unto all, — or hope and dread allay'd 
By slumber, on one pillow, — in the dust. 
Which, thus much we are sure, must lie decay'd ; 
And when it shall revive, as is our trust, 
'Twill be to be forgiven, or suffer what is just. 

CIX. 
But let me quit man's works, again to read 
His Maker's, spread around me, and suspend 
This page, which from my reveries I feed, 
Until it seems prolonging without end. 
The clouds above me to the white Alps tend, 
And I must pierce them, and survey Avhate'er 
May be permitted, as my steps I bend 
To their most great and growing region, where 
The earth to her embrace compels the powers of air. 

1 Voltaire and Gibbon. 

2 "If it be thus, 

For Banquo's issue have I filed my mindi."— Macbeth. 
' It is said by Rochefoucauld, that " there is always) some- 



cx. 

Italia ! too, Italia ! looking on thee. 
Full flashes on the soul the light of ages. 
Since the fierce Carthaginian almost won thee. 
To the last halo of the chiefs and sages 
Who glorify thy consecrated pages ; 
Thou wert the throne and grave of empires ; still 
The fount at which the panting mind assuages 
Her thirst of knowledge, quaffing there her fill, 
Flows from the eternal source of Rome's imperial hill. 

CXI. 

Thus far have I proceeded in a theme 
Renew'd with no kind auspices ; — to feel 
We are not what we have been, and to deem 
We are not what we should be, — and to steel 
The heart against itself; and to conceal, 
With a proud caution, love, or hate, or aught, — 
Passion or feeling, purpose, grief, or zeal, — 
Which is the tyrant spirit of our thought. 
Is a stern task of soul : — No matter, — it is taught. 

CXII. 
And for these words, thus woven into song. 
It may be that they are a harmless wile, — 
The coloring of the scenes which fleet along, 
Which I would seize, in passing, to beguile 
My breast, or that of others, for a while. 
Fame is the thirst of youth, — but I am not 
So young as to regard men's frown or smile, 
As loss or guerdon of a glorious lot ; 
I stood and stand alone, — remember'd or forgot. 

CXIII. 

I have not loved the world, nor the world me ; 

I have not flatter'd its rank breath, nor bow'd 

To its idolatries a patient knee, — 

Nor coin'd my cheek to smile, — nor cried aloud 
* In worship of an echo ; in the crowd 

They could not deem me one of such ; I stood 

Among them, but not of them ; in a shroud [could, 

Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still 
Had I not filed 2 my mind, which thus itself subdued. 

CXIV. 

I have not loved the world, nor the world me, — 
But let us part fair foes ; I do believe, 
Though I have found them not, that there may be 
Words which are things, — hopes which will not 

deceive. 
And virtues which are merciful, nor weave 
Snares for the failing ; I would also deem 
O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve ; ^ 
That two, or one, are almost what they seem, — 
That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream.* 

thing in the misfortunes of men's best friends not displeasing 
to them." 

* " It is not the temper and talents of the poet, but the use 
to which he puts them, on which his happiness or misery is 



48 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto IV. 



CXV. 

My daughter ! with thy name this song begun ; 
My daughter ! with thy name thus much shall end ; 
I see thee not, — I hear thee not, — but none 
Can be so wrapt in thee ; thou art the friend 
To whom the shadows of far years extend : 
Albeit my brow thou never shouldst behold. 
My voice shall with thy future visions blend, 
And reach into thy heart, — when mine is cold, — 
A token and a tone, even from thy father's mould. 

CXVI. 

To aid thy mind's development, — to watch 
Thy dawn of little joys, — to sit and see 
Almost thy very growth, — to view thee catch 
Knowledge of objects, — wonders yet to thee ! 
To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee. 
And print on thy soft cheek a parent's kiss, — 
This, it should seem, was not reserved for me ; 
Yet this was in my nature : — as it is, 
I know not what is there, yet something like to this. 

CXVII. 
Yet, though dull Hate as duty should be taught, 
I know that thou wilt love me ; though my name 
Should be shut from thee, as a spell still fraught 
With desolation, — and a broken claim : 
Though the grave closed between us, — 'twere the 

same, 
I know that thou wilt love me ; though to drain 
My blood from out thy being were an aim, 
And an attainment, — all would be in vain, — 
Still thou wouldst love me, still that more than life 

retain. 

CXVIII. 
The child of love, — though born in bitterness. 
And nurtured in convulsion. Of thy sire 
These were the elements, — and thine no less. 
As yet such are around thee, — but thy fire 
Shall be more temper'd, and thy hope far higher, 

grounded. A powerful and unbridled imagination is the 
author and architect of its own disappointments. Its fascina^ 
tions, its exaggerated pictures of good and evil, and the 
mental distress to which they give rise, are the natural and 
necessary evils attending on that quick susceptibility of feel- 
ing and fancy incident to the poetical temperament. But the 
Giver of all talents, while he has qualified them each with its 
separate and peculiar alloy, has endowed the owner with the 
power of purifying and refining them. But, as if to moderate 
the arrogance of genius, it is justly and wisely made requisite, 
that he must regulate and tame the fire of his fancy, and de- 
scend from the heights to which she exalts him, in order to 
obtain ease of mind and tranquillity. The materials of hap- 
piness, that is, of such degree of happiness as is consistent 
with our present state, lie around us in profusion. But the 
man of talents must stoop to gather them, otherwise they 
would be beyond the reach of the mass of society, for whose 
benefit, as well as for his. Providence has created them. 
There is no royal and no poetical path to contentment and 
heart's-ease : that by which they are attained is open to all 
classes of mankind, and lies within the most limited range of 
intellect. To narrow our wishes and desires within the scope 



Sweet be thy cradled slumbers ! O'er the sea 
And from the mountains where I now respire, 
Fain would I waft such blessing upon thee, 
As, with a sigh, I deem thou might'st have been to 
me!^ 



dli&iltie Jgaroltr's lilfin'mage» 



CANTO THE FOUETH. 



Visto ho Toscana, Lombardia, Romagna, 
Quel Monte che divide, e quel che serra 
Italia, e un mare e 1' altro, che la bagna. 

Ariosto, Satira iii. 



TO JOHN HOBHOUSE, ESQ., A.M., F.R.S., &c. 

Venice, January 2, 1818. 

My dear Hobhouse, 

After an interval of eight years between the com- 
position of the first and last cantos of Childe Harold, 
the conclusion of the poem is about to be submitted 
to the public. In parting with so old a friend, it is 
not extraordinary that I should recur to one still older 
and better, — to one who has beheld the birth and 
death of the other, and to whom I am far more in- 
debted for the social advantages of an enlightened 
friendship, than — though not ungrateful — I can, or 
could be, to Childe Harold, for any public favor re- 
flected through the poem on the poet, — to one, whom 
I have known long and accompanied far, whom I 
have found wakeful over my sickness and kind in 
my sorrow, glad in my prosperity and firm in my 
adversity, true in counsel and trusty in peril, — to a 
friend often tried and never found wanting ; — to your- 
self. 

In so doing, I recur from fiction to truth ; and in 

of our powers of attainment; to consider our misfortunes, 
however peculiar in their character, as our inevitable share 
in the patrimony of Adam ; to bridle those irritable feelings, 
which ungoverned are sure to become governors ; to shun that 
intensity of galling and self-wounding reflection which our 
poet has so forcibly described in his own burning language :— 

' I have thought 

Too long and darkly, till my brain became, 
In its own eddy, boiling and o'erwrought, 

A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame' 

—to stoop, in short, to the realities of life ; repent if we have 
offended, and pardon if we have been trespassed against ; to 
look on the world less as our foe than as a doubtful and capri- 
cious friend, whose applause we ought as far as possible to 
deserve, but neither to court nor contemn — such seem tlie 
most obvious and certain means of keeping or regaining 
mental tranquillity. 

' Semita certe 

Tranquillae per virtutem patet unica vitse.' " — 

Sir Walter Scott. 

1 " Byron, July 4, 1816. Diodati."— MS. 



Canto IV. 



CHILDE HAEOLD'S PILGEIMAGE. 



49 



dedicating to yoil, in its complete or at least concluded 
state, a poetical work which is the longest, the most 
thoughtful and comprehensive of my compositions, I 
wish to do honor to myself by the record of many 
years' intimacy with a man of learning, of talent, of 
steadiness, and of honor. It is not for minds like 
ours to give or to receive flattery ; yet the praises of 
sincerity have ever been permitted to the voice of 
friendship ; and it is not for you, nor even for others, 
but to relieve a heart which has not elsewhere, or 
lately, been so much accustomed to the encounter of 
good-will as to withstand the shock firmly, that I 
thus attempt to commemorate your good qualities, 
or rather the advantages which I have derived from 
their exertion. Even the recurrence of the date of 
this letter, the anniversary of the most unfortunate 
day of my past existence,^ but which cannot poison 
my future while I retain the resource of your friend- 
ship, and of my own faculties, will henceforth have 
a more agreeable recollection for both, inasmuch as 
it will remind us of this my attempt to thank you for 
an indefatigable regard, such as few men have ex- 
perienced, and no one could experience without 
thinking better of his species and of himself. 

It has been our fortune to traverse together, at 
various periods, the countries of chivalry, history, 
and fable — Spain, Greece, Asia Minor, and Italy; 
and what Athens and Constantinople were to us a 
few years ago, Venice and Rome have been more re- 
cently. The poem also, or the pilgrim, or both, have 
accompanied me from first to last; and perhaps it 
may be a pardonable vanity which induces me to 
reflect with complacency on a composition which in 
some degree connects me with the spot where it was 
produced, and the objects it would fain describe ; and 
however unworthy it may be deemed of those magical 
and memorable abodes, however short it may fall of 
our distant conceptions and immediate impressions, 
yet as a mark of respect for what is venerable, and 
of feeling for what is glorious, it has been to me a 
source of pleasure in the production, and I part with 
it with a kind of regret, which I hardly suspected that 
events could have left me for imaginary objects. 

With regard to the conduct of the last canto, there 
will be found less of the pilgrim than in any of the 
preceding, and that little slightly, if at all, separated 
from the author speaking in his own person. The 
fact is, that I had become weary of drawing a line 
which every one seemed determined not to perceive : 
like the Chinese in Goldsmith's " Citizen of the 
World," whom nobody would believe to be a Chinese, 
it was in vain that I asserted, and imagined that I 
had drawn, a distinction between the author and the 
pilgrim ; and the very anxiety to preserve this differ- 
ence, and disappointment at finding it unavailing, so 
far crushed my efibrts in the composition, that I de- 
termined to abandon it altogether — and have done so. 
The opinions which have been, or may be, formed on 

1 His marriage. 



that subject are now a matter of indifference; the 
work is to depend on itself, and not on the writer ; 
and the author who has no resources in his own mind 
beyond the reputation, transient or permanent, which 
is to arise from his literary efforts, deserves the fate 
of authors. 

In the course of the following canto it was my in- 
tention, either in the text or in the notes, to have 
touched upon the present state of Italian literature, 
and perhaps of manners. But the text, within the 
limits I proposed, I soon found hardly sufficient for 
the labyrinth of external objects, and the consequent 
reflections ; and for the whole of the notes, excepting 
a few of the shortest, I am indebted to yourself, and 
these were necessarily limited to the elucidation of 
the text. 

It is also a delicate, and no very grateful task, to 
dissert upon the literature and manners of a nation 
so dissimilar; and requires an attention and impar- 
tiality which would induce us — though perhaps no 
inattentive observers, nor ignorant of the language or 
customs of the people amongst whom we have re- 
cently abode — to distrust, or at least defer our judg- 
ment, and more narrowly examine our information. 
The state of literary, as well as political party, ap- 
pears to run, or to have run, so high, that for a stranger 
to steer impartially between them is next to impossi- 
ble. It may be enough, then, at least for my purpose, 
to quote from their own beautiful language — "Mi 
pare che in un paese tutto poetico, che vanta la lin- 
gua la piu nobile ed insieme la piu dolce, tutte tutte 
le vie diverse si possono tentare, e che sinche la 
patria di Alfieri e di Monti non ha perduto 1' antico 
valore, in tutte essa dovrebbe essere la prima." Italy 
has great names still — Canova, Monti, Ugo Foscolo, 
Pindemonte, Visconti, Morelli, Cicognara, Albrizzi, 
Mezzophanti, Mai, Mustoxidi, Aglietti, and Vacca, 
will secure to the present generation an honorable 
place in most of the departments of Art, Science, and 
Belles Lettres ; and in some the very highest — Europe 
—the World — has but one Canova. 

It has been somewhere said by Alfieri, that "La 
pianta uomo nasce piu robusta in Italia che in qua- 
lunque altra terra — e che gli stessi atroci delitti che 
vi si commettono ne sono una prova." Without sub- 
scribing to the latter part of his proposition, a dan- 
gerous doctrine, the truth of which may be disputed 
on better grounds, namely, that the Italians are in no 
respect more ferocious than their neighbors, that man 
must be willfully blind, or ignorantly heedless, who 
is not struck with the extraordinary capacity of this 
people, or, if such a word be admissible, their capa- 
bilities, the facility of their acquisitions, the rapidity 
of their conceptions, the fire of their genius, their 
sense of beauty, and, amidst all the disadvantages of 
repeated revolutions, the desolation of battles, and 
the despair of ages, their still unquenched "long- 
ing after immortality," — the immortality of inde- 
pendence. And when we ourselves, in riding round 
the walls of Rome, heard the simple lament of the 



60 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Canto IV. 



laborers' chorus, " Roma ! Roma ! Roma ! Roma non 
e piu come era prima," it was difficult not to contrast 
this melancholy dirge with the bacchanal roar of 
the songs of exultation still yelled from the London 
taverns, over the carnage of Mont St. Jean, and the 
betrayal of Genoa, of Italy, of France, and of the 
world, by men whose conduct you yourself have ex- 
posed in a work worthy of the better days of our 
history. For me, — 

" Non movero mai corda 

Ove la turba di sue ciance assorda." 

What Italy has gained by the late transfer of na- 
tions, it were useless for Englishmen to inquire, till 
it becomes ascertained that England has acquired 
something more than a permanent army and a sus- 
pended Habeas Corpus ; it is enough for them to look 
at home. For what they have done abroad, and espe- 
cially in the South, " Verily they will have their re- 
ward," and at no very distant period. 

Wishing you, my dear Hobhouse, a safe and agree- 
able return to that country whose real welfare can be 
dearer to none than to yourself, I dedicate to you this 
poem in its completed state; and repeat once more 
b-f^w truly I am ever. 

Your obliged 

And affectionate friend, 

BYRON. 



I. 

I STOOD in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs ; * 
A palace and a prison on each hand : 
I saw from out the wave her structures rise 
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand : 
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand 
Around me, and a dying Glory smiles 
O'er the far times, when many a subject land 
Look'd to the winged Lion's marble piles. 
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred 
isles ! 

II. 

She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean," 

Rising with her tiara of proud towers 

At airy distance, with majestic motion, 

A ruler of the waters and their powers : 

And such she was; — her daughters had their 

dowers 
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East 
Pour'd in her lap all gems in sparkling showers. 
In purple was she robed, and of her feast 
Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity increased. 



1 See Appendix, " Historical Notes," No. i. 

2 Sabellicus, describing the appearance of Venice, has made 
use of the above image, which would not be poetical were it 
not true.— "Quo fit ut qui superne urbera cotiteinpletur, tur- 



III. 

In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more,' 
And silent rows the songless gondolier ; 
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore, 
And music meets not always now the ear : 
Those days are gone— but Beauty still is here. 
States fall, arts fade — but Nature doth not die, 
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear, 
The pleasant place of all festivity. 
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy ! 

IV. 

But unto us she hath a spell beyond 
Her name in story, and her long array 
Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond 
Above the dogeless city's vanish'd sway ; 
Ours is a trophy which will not decay 
With the Rialto ; Shylock and the Moor, 
And Pierre, can not be swept or worn away — 
The keystones of the arch ! though all were o'er, 
For us repeopled were the solitary shore. 

V. 

The beings of the mind are not of clay ; 
Essentially immortal, they create 
And multiply in us a brighter ray 
And more beloved existence : that which Fate 
Prohibits to dull life, in this our state 
Of mortal bondage, by these spirits supplied, 
First exiles, then replaces what we hate ; 
Watering the heart whose early flowers have 
died. 
And with a fresher growth replenishing the void. 

VI. 

Such is the refuge of our youth and age, 
The first from Hope, the last from Vacancy ; 
And this worn feeling peojDles many a page, 
And, may be, that which grows beneath mine eye : 
Yet there are things whose strong reality 
Outshines our fairy-land; in shape and hues 
More beautiful than our fantastic sky. 
And the strange constellations which the Muse 
O'er her wild universe is skillful to difiiuse : 

VII. 
I saw or dream'd of such, — but let them go, — 
They came like truth, and disappear'd like dreams ; 
And whatsoe'er they were — are now but so : 
I could replace them if I would ; still teems 
My mind with many a form which aptly seems 
Such as I sought for, and at moments found ; 
Let these too go — for waking Reason deems 
Such overweening phantasies unsound. 
And other voices speak, and other sights surround. 



ritam telluris imaginem medio Oceano figuratam se putet 
inspicere." 

3 See Appendix, " Historical Notes," No. ii. 



Canto IV. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 



51 



VIII. 

I've taught me other tongues — and in strange eyes 
Have made me not a stranger ; to the mind 
Which is itself, no changes bring surprise ; 
Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find 
A country with — ay, or without mankind ; 
Yet was I born where men are proud to be, — 
Not without cause ; and should I leave behind 
The inviolate island of the sage and free, 
And seek me out a home by a remoter sea, 

IX. 

Perhaps I loved it well : and should I lay 
My ashes in a soil which is not mine, 
My spirit shall resume it — if we may 
Unbodied choose a sanctuary. I twine 
My hopes of being remember'd in my line 
With my land's language : if too fond and far 
These aspirations in their scope incline, — 
If my fame should be, as my fortunes are, 
Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar 

X. 

My name from out the temple where the dead 
Are honor' d by the nations — let it be — 
And light the laurels on a loftier head ! 
And be the Spartan's epitaph on me — 
" Sparta hath many a worthier son than he." ^ 
Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need ; 
The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree 
I planted, — they have torn me, — and I bleed : 

I should have known what fruit would spring from 
such a seed. 

XI. 
The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord ; 
And, annual marriage now no more renew'd, 
The Bucentaur lies rotting unrestored, 
Neglected garment of her widowhood ! 
St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood 2 
Stand, but in mockery of his wither'd power. 
Over the proud Place where an Emperor sued, 
And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour 

When Venice was a queen with an unequall'd dower. 

XII. 

The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns — ^ 
An Emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt ; 
Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and chains 
Clank over sceptred cities ; nations melt 
From power's high pinnacle, when they have felt 
The sunshine for a while, and downward go 
Like lauwine loosen'd from the mountain's belt ; 
Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo ! * 
Th' octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe. 



1 The answer of the mother of Brasidas, the Lacedseraon- 
ian general, to the strangers who praised the memory of 
her son. 

2, 3, 4^ 6 See Appendix, " Historical Notes," Nos. iii. iv. 



XIII. 

Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass, 
Their gilded collars glittering in the sun ; 
But is not Doria's menace come to pass ? ^ 
Are they not bridled f — Venice, lost and won, 
Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done, 
Sinks, like a sea-weed, into whence she rose ! 
Better be whelm' d beneath the waves, and shun 
Even in destruction's depth, her foreign foes, 
From whom submission wrings an infamous repose. 

XIV, 

In youth she was all glory, — a new Tyre ; 
Her very by -word sprung from victory, 
The " Planter of the Lion,"^ which through fire 
And blood she bore o'er subject earth and sea; 
Though making many slaves, herself still free. 
And Europe's bulwark 'gainst the Ottomite ; 
Witness Troy's rival, Candia ! Vouch it, ye 
Immortal waves that saw Lepanto's fight ! 
For ye are names no time nor tyranny can blight. 

XV. 

Statues of glass — all shiver'd — the long file 
Of her dead Doges are declined to dust ; 
But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile 
Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust ; 
Their sceptre broken, and their sword in rust, 
Have yielded to the stranger : empty halls. 
Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must 
Too oft remind her who and what inthralls,^ 
Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely walls. 

XVI. 

When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse, 

And fetter'd thousands bore the yoke of war. 

Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse,^ 

Her voice their only ransom from afar : 

See ! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car 

Of the o'ermaster'd victor stops, the reins 

Fall from his hands — his idle scimitar 

Starts from its belt — he rends his captive's chains. 

And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his 
strains. 

XVII. 
Thus, Venice ! if no stronger claim were thine, 
Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot. 
Thy choral memory of the Bard divine. 
Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the knot 
Which ties thee to thy tyrants ; and thy lot 
Is shameful to the nations, — most of all, 
Albion ! to thee : the Ocean queen should not 
Abandon Ocean's children ; in the fall 

Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall. 



« That is, the Lion of St. Mark, the standard of the repub- 
lic, which is the origin of the word Pantaloon — Piantaleone, 
Pantaleon, Pantaloon. 

7 See Appendix, "Historical Notes," No. vii. 

8 The story is told in Plutarch's Life of Nicias. 



52 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Canto IY 



XVIII. 
I loved her from my boyhood ; she to me 
Was as a fairy city of the heart, 
Eising like water-columns from the sea, 
Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart ; 
And Otway, Radcliflfe, Schille'r, Shakspeare's art,i 
Had stamp'd her image in me, and even so. 
Although I found her thus, we did not part. 
Perchance even dearer in her day of woe, 
Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show. 

XIX. 

I can repeople with the past — and of 

The present there is still for eye and thought. 

And meditation chasten'd down, enough ; 

And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought ; 

And of the happiest moments which were wrought 

Within the web of my existence, some 

From thee, fair Venice ! have their colors caught : 

There are some feelings Time cannot benumb, 

Nor Torture shake, or mine would now be cold and 
dumb. 

XX. 
But from their nature will the tannen grow ^ 
Loftiest on loftiest and least shelter'd rocks, 
Rooted in barrenness, where nought below 
Of soil supports them 'gainst the Alpine shocks 
Of eddying storms ; yet springs the trunk, and mocks 
The howling tempest, till its height and frame 
Are worthy of the mountains from whose blocks 
Of bleak, gray granite into life it came, 

And grew a giant tree ; — the mind may grow the same. 

XXI. 

Existence may be borne, and the deep root 
Of life and suflferance make its firm abode 
In bare and desolated bosoms : mute 
The camel labors with the heaviest load. 
And the wolf dies in silence, — not bestow'd 
In vain should such example be ; if they, 
Things of ignoble or of savage mood, 
Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay 
May temper it to bear, — it is but for a day. 

XXII. 

All suiFering doth destroy, or is destroy'd, 

Even by the sufferer ; and, in each event, 

Ends : — Some, with hope replenish'd and rebuoy'd, 

Return to whence they came — with like intent. 

And weave their web again ; some, bow'd and bent, 



1 Venice Preserved ; Mysteries of Udolpho ; the Ghost-Seer, 
or Armenian ; the Merchant of Venice, Othello. 

2 Tannen is the plural of tanne^ a species of fir peculiar to 
the Alps, which only thrives in very rocky parts, where 
scarcely soil sufficient for its nourishment can be found. 
On these spots it grows to a greater height than any other 
mountain tree. 

3 "The whole of this canto is rich in description of Nature. 
The love of Nature now appears as a distinct passion in Lord 



Wax gray and ghastly, withering ere their time, 
And perish with the reed on which they leant ; 
Some seek devotion, toil, war, good, or crime, 
According as their souls were form'd to sink or climb. 

XXIII. 

But ever and anon of griefs subdued 
There comes a token like a scorpion's sting. 
Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued ; 
And slight withal may be the things which bring 
Back on the heart the weight which it would fling 
Aside for ever : it may be a sound — 
A tone of music — summer's eve — or spring — 
A flower — the wind — the ocean — which shall wound, 
Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly 
bound ; 

XXIV. 

And how and why we know not, nor can trace 
Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind. 
But feel the shock renew'd, nor can efface 
The blight and blackening which it leaves behind. 
Which out of things familiar, undesign'd, 
When least we deem of such, calls up to view 
The spectres whom no exorcism can bind, 
The cold — the changed — perchance the dead — anew. 
The mourn'd, the loved, the lost — too manyl^yet 
how few ! 

XXV. 

But my soul wanders ; I demand it back 
To meditate amongst decay, and stand 
A ruin amidst ruins ; there to track 
Fall'n states and buried greatness, o'er a land 
Which was the mightiest in its old command, 
And is the loveliest, and must ever be 
The master-mould of Nature's heavenly liand, 
Wherein were cast the heroic and the free. 
The beautiful, the brave — the lords of earth and sea, 

XXVI. 

The commonwealth of kings, the men of Rome 
And even since, and now, fair Italy ! 
Thou art the garden of the world, the home 
Of all Art yields, and Nature ^ can decree ; 
Even in thy desert, what is like to thee ? 
Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste 
More rich than other climes' fertility ; 
Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced 
With an immaculate charm which can not be defaced. 



Byron's mind. It is a love that does not rest in beholding, 
nor is satisfied with describing, what is before him. It has 
a power and being, blending itself with the poet's very life. 
Though Lord Byron had, with his real eyes, perhaps seen 
more of Nature than ever was before permitted to any great 
poet, yet he never before seemed to open his whole heart to 
her genial impulses. But in this he is changed ; and in this 
canto of Childe Harold he will stand a comparison with the 
best descriptive poets, in this age of descriptive poetry." — 
Wilson. 



Canto IV. 



CHILDE HAKOLD'S PILGEIMAGE. 



53 



XXVII. 

The moon is up, and yet it is not night — 
Sunset divides the sky with her — a sea 
Of glory streams along the Alpine height 
Of blue Friuli's mountains ; Heaven is free 
From clouds, but of all colors seems to be, — 
Melted to one vast Iris of the West, — 
Where the Day joins the past Eternity ; 
AVhile, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest 
Floats through the azure air — an island of the blest ! ^ 

XXVIII. 

A single star is at her side, and reigns 
With her o'er half the lovely heaven ; but still ^ 
Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains 
EolPd o'er the peak of the far Ehsetian hill, 
As Day and Night contending were, until 
Nature reclaim'd her order : — gently flows 
The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instill 
The odorous purple of a new-born rose. 
Which streams upon her stream, and glass'd within 
it glows, 

XXIX. 

Fill'd with the face of heaven, which, from afar. 
Comes down upon the waters ; all its hues, 
From the rich sunset to the rising star, 
Their magical variety diffuse : 
And now they change ; a paler shadow strews 
Its mantle o'er the mountains ; parting day 
Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues 
With a new color as it gasps away. 

The last still loveliest, till — 'tis gone — and all is 
gray. 

XXX. 
There is a tomb in Arqua ; — rear'd in air, 
Pillar'd in their sarcophagus, repose 
The bones of Laura's lover : here repair 
Many familiar with his well-sung woes, 
The pilgrims of his genius. He arose 
To raise a language, and his land reclaim 
From the dull yoke of her barbaric foes : 
Watering the tree which bears his lady's name ^ 

With his melodious tears, he gave himself to fame. 

XXXI. 

They keep his dust in Arqua, where he died ; ' 
The mountain village where his latter days 
Went down the vale of years ; and 'tis their pride — 
An honest pride — and let it be their praise. 



1 The above description may seem fantastical or exagger- 
ated to those who have never seen an Oriental or an Italian 
sky, yet it is but a literal and hardly suflacient delineation of 
an August evening (the 18th), as contemplated in one of 
many rides along the banks of the Brenta, near La Mira. 
2, 8 See Appendix, " Historical Notes," Nos. viii. and ix. 
* " Half way up 

He built his house, whence as by stealth he caught. 
Among the hills, a glimpse of busy life 
That soothed, not stirred."— Rogers. 



To offer to the passing stranger's gaze 
His mansion and his sepulchre ; both plain 
And venerably simple, such as raise 
A feeling more accordant with his strain 
Than if a pyramid form'd his monumental fane. 

XXXII. 

And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt* 
Is one of that complexion which seems made 
For those who their mortality have felt. 
And sought a refuge from their hopes decay'd 
In the deep umbrage of a green hill's shade, 
Which shows a distant prospect far away 
Of busy cities, now in vain display'd. 
For they can lure no further ; and the ray 
Of a bright sun can make sufficient holiday, 

XXXIII. 

Developing the mountains, leaves, and flowers. 
And shining in the brawling brook, where-by, 
Clear as its current, glide the sauntering hours 
With a calm languor, which, though to the eye 
Idlesse it seem, hath its morality. 
If from society we learn to live, 
'Tis solitude should teach us how to die ; 
It hath no flatterers ; vanity can give 
No hollow aid ; alone — man with his God must strive : 

XXXIV. 

Or, it may be, with demons, who impair ^ 
The strength of better thoughts, and seek their prey 
In melancholy bosoms, such as were 
Of moody texture from their earliest day. 
And loved to dwell in darkness and dismay. 
Deeming themselves predestined to a doom 
Which is not of the pangs that pass away ; 
Making the sun like blood, the earth a tomb, 
The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom. 

XXXV. 

Ferrara ! ^ in thy wide and grass-grown streets, 
Whose symmetry was not for solitude. 
There seems as 'twere a curse upon the seats 
Of former sovereigns, and the antique brood 
Of Este, which for many an age made good 
Its strength within thy walls, and was of yore 
Patron or tyrant, as the changing mood 
Of petty power impell'd, of those who wore 
The wreath which Dante's brow alone had worn be- 
fore. 



5 The struggle is to the full as likely to be with demons as 
with our better thoughts. Satan chose the wilderness for the 
temptation of our Saviour; and our unsullied John Locke 
preferred the presence of a child to complete solitude. 

* In April, 1817, Lord Byron visited Ferrara, went over the 
castle, cell, &c., and wrote, a few days after, the Lament of 
Tasso. — " One of the Ferrarese asked me," he says, in a letter 
to a friend, " if I knew ' Lord Byron,' an acquaintance of his, 
now at Naples. I told him ' No !' which was true both ways, 
for I knew not the impostor ; and, in the other, no one knows 



54 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto IV 



XXXVI. 

And Tasso is their glory and their shame. 
Hark to his strain ! and then survey his cell ! 
And see how dearly earn'd Torquato's fame, 
And where Alfonso bade his poet dwell : 
The miserable despot could not quell 
The insulted mind he sought to quench, and blend 
With the surrounding maniacs, in the hell 
Where he had plunged it. Glory without end 
Scatter'd the clouds away — and on that name attend 

XXXVII. 

The tears and praises of all time ; while thine 
Would rot in its oblivion — in the sink 
Of worthless dust, which from thy boasted line 
Is shaken into nothing ; but the link 
Thou formest in his fortunes bids us think 
Of thy poor malice, naming thee with scorn — 
Alfonso ! how thy ducal pageants shrink 
From thee ! if in another station born, 
Scarce fit to be the slave of him thou mad'st to mourn : 

XXXVIII. 

Thou ! form'd to eat, and be despised, and die, 
Even as the beasts that perish, save that thou 
Hadst a more splendid trough, and wider sty : 
He ! with a glory round his furrow'd brow, 
Which emanated then, and dazzles now, 
In face of all his foes, the Cruscan quire. 
And Boileau, whose rash envy could allow ^ 
No strain which shamed his country's creaking 
lyre, 
That whetstone of the teeth — monotony in wire ! 

XXXIX. 

Peace to Torquato's injured shade ! 'twas his 

In life and death to be the mark where Wrong 

Aim'd with her poison'd arrows ; but to miss. 

Oh, victor unsurpass'd in modern song ! 

Each year brings forth its millions ; but how long 

The tide of generations shall roll on, 

And not the whole combined and countless throng 



himself. He stared when told that I was the real Simon 
Pure. Another asked me if I had not translated Tasso. You 
see what Fame is! how accurate! how boundless! I don't 
know how others feel, but I am always the lighter and the 
better looked on when I have got rid of mine. It sits on me 
like armor on the Lord Mayor's champion ; and I got rid of 
all the husk of literature, and the attendant babble, by an- 
swering that I had not translated Tasso, but a namesake 
had ; and, by the blessing of Heav^, I looked so little like a 
poet that every body believed me." 

1 See Appendix, " Historical Notes," No. x. 

2 "^Scott," says Lord Byron, in his MS. Diary for 1821, " is 
certainly the most wonderful writer of the day. His novels 
are a new literature in themselves, and his poetry as good as 
any — if not better (only on an erroneous system) — and only 
ceased to be so popular because the vulgar were tired of 
hearing 'Aristides called the Just,' and Scott the Best, and 
ostracised him. I know no reading to which I fall with such 
alacrity as a work of his. I love him, too, for his manliness 
of character, for the extreme pleasantness of his conversa- 



Compose a mind like thine ? though all in one 
Condensed their scatter'd rays, tliey would not form 
a sun. 

XL. 
Great as thou art, yet parallel'd by those, 
Thy countrymen, before thee born to shine, 
The Bards of Hell and Chivalry : first rose 
The Tuscan father's comedy divine ; 
Then, not unequal to the Florentine, 
The southern Scott,^ the minstrel who call'd forth 
A new creation with his magic line, 
And, like the Ariosto of the North,* 
Sang ladye-love and war, romance and knightly worth. 

XLI. 

The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust* 
The iron crown of laurel's mimick'd leaves ; 
Nor was the ominous element unjust, 
For the true laurel- wreath which Glory weaves 
Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves,^ 
And the false semblance but disgraced his brow ; 
Yet still, if fondly Superstition grieves, 
Know, that the lightning sanctifies below ^ 
Whate'er it strikes ; — yon head is doubly sacred now. 

XLII. 

Italia ! oh, Italia ! thou who hast 
The fatal gift of beauty, which became 
A funeral dower of present woes and past. 
On thy sweet brow is sorrow plough'd by shame, 
And annals graved in characters of flame. 
Oh, God ! that thou wert in thy nakedness 
Less lovely or more powerful, and couldst claim 
Thy right, and awe the robbers back, who press 
To shed thy blood, and drink the tears of thy distress ; 

XLIII. 

Then might'st thou more appall ; or, less desired, 
Be homely and be peaceful, undeplored 
For thy destructive charms ; then, still untired, 
Would not be seen the armed torrents pour'd 
Down the deep Alps ; nor would the hostile horde 



tion, and his good^nature towards myself personally. May 
he prosper! for he deserves it." In a letter written to Sir 
Walter, from Pisa, in 1822, he says :— " I owe to you far more 
than the usual obligation for the courtesies of literature and 
common friendship; for you went out of your way, in 1817, 
to do me a service, when it required not merely kindness, 
but courage, to do so. To have been recorded by you in such 
a manner would have been a proud memorial at any time ; 
but at such a time, when ' all the world and his wife,' as the 
proverb goes, were trying to trample upon me, was some- 
thing still higher to my self-esteem. Had it been a common 
criticism, however eloquent or panegyrical, I should have 
felt pleased and grateful, but not to the extent which the 
extraordinary good-heartedness of the whole proceeding must 
induce in any mind capable of such sensations." 

3 "I do not know whether Scott will like it, but I hav<? 
called him 'the Ariosto of the North' in my text. If he 
should not, say so in time."— iord Byron to Mr. Murrey, Au- 
gust, 1817. 

4, 6, 6 See Appendix, "Historical Notes," Nos. xi. xu. jcm. 



Canto IV 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 



55 



Of many-nation'd spoilers from the Po 
Quaff blood and water ; nor the stranger's sword 
Be thy sad weapon of defence, and so, 
Victor or vanquish'd, thou the slave of friend or 
foe.i 

XLIV. 

Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him,^ 
The Roman friend of Rome's least-mortal mind, 
The friend of Tully : as my bark did skim 
The bright blue waters with a fanning wind, 
Came Megara before me, and behind 
^Egina lay, Piraeus on the right. 
And Corinth on the left ; I lay reclined 
Along the prow, and saw all these unite 
In ruin, even as he had seen the desolate sight ; 

XLV. 

For Time hath not rebuilt them, but uprear'd 
Barbaric dwellings on their shatter'd site. 
Which only make more mourn'd and more en- 
dear' d 
The few last rays of their far-scatter'd light, 
And the crush'd relics of their vanish'd might. 
The Roman saw these tombs in his own age. 
These sepulchres of cities, which excite 
Sad wonder, and his yet surviving page 
The moral lesson bears, drawn from such pilgrimage. 

XLVI. 

That page is now before me, and on mine 
His country's ruin added to the mass 
Of perish'd states he mourn'd in their decline, 
And I in desolation : all that was 
Of then destruction is ; and now, alas ! 
Rome — Rome imperial, bows her to the storm, 
In the same dust and. blackness, and we pass 
The skeleton of her Titanic form,^ 
Wrecks of another world, whose ashes still are warm. 

1 The two stanzas xlii. and xliii. are, with the exception of 
a line or two, a translation of the famous sonnet of Filicaja: 
" Italia, Italia, O tu cui feo la sorte !" 

2 The celebrated letter of Servius Sulpiclus to Cicero, on 
the death of his daughter, describes as it then was, and now 
is, a path which I often traced in Greece, both by sea and 
land, in diflFerent journeys and voyages. "On my return 
from Asia, as I was sailing from ^gina towards Megara, I 
began to contemplate the prospect of the countries around 
me: ^gina was behind, Megara before me; Piraeus on the 
right, Corinth on the left: all which towns, once famous 
and flourishing, now lie overturned and buried in their 
ruins. Upon this sight, I could not but think presently 
within myself, Alas ! how do we poor mortals fret and vex 
ourselves if any of our friends happen to die or be killed, 
whose life is yet so short, when the carcasses of so many 
noble cities lie here exposed before me in one view." — See 
Middleton's Cicero, vol. ii. p. 371. 

3 It is Poggio who, looking from the Capitoline hill upon 
ruined Rome, breaks forth in the exclamation, "Ut nunc 
omni decore nudata, prostrata jacet, instar gigantei cadaveris 
corrupti atque undique exesi." 

♦ See Appendix, " Historical Notes," No. xiv. 

* In 1817, Lord Byron visited Florence, on his way to Rome, 



XLVII. 

Yet, Italy ! through every other land 
Thy wrongs should ring, and shall, from side to side ; 
Mother of Arts ! as once of arms ; thy hand 
Was then our guardian, and is still our guide • 
Parent of our Religion ! whom the wide 
Nations have knelt to for the keys of heaven ! 
Europe, repentant of her parricide. 
Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven, 
Roll the barbarian tide, and sue to be forgiven. 

XLVIII. 

But Arno wins us to the fair white walls. 
Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps 
A softer feeling for her fairy halls. 
Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps 
Her corn, and wine, and oil, and Plenty leaps 
To laughing life, with her redundant horn. 
Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps 
Was modern Luxury of Commerce born, 
And buried Learning rose, redeem'd to a new morn, 

XLIX. 
There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills * 
The air around with beauty ; we inhale 
The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instills 
Part of its immortality ; the veil 
Of heaven is half undrawn ; within the pale 
We stand, and in that form and face behold [fail ; 
What Mind can make, when Nature's self would 
And to the fond idolaters of old 
Envy the innate flash which such a soul could mould : 

L. 

We gaze and turn away, and know not where, 
Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart ^ 
Reels with its fullness ; there — for ever there — 
Chain'd to the chariot of triumphal Art, 
We stand as captives, and would not depart. 

"I remained," he says, "6m< a day : however, I went to the 
two galleries, from which one returns drunk with beauty. The 
Venus is more for admiration than love ; but there are sculp- 
ture and painting, which, for the first time, at all gave me an 
idea of what people mean by their cant about those two most 
artificial of the arts. What struck me most were, the mis- 
tress of Raphael, a portrait; the mistress of Titian, a por- 
trait ; a Venus of Titian in the Medici Gallery ; the Venus ; 
Canova's Venus, also, in the other gallery : Titian's mistress 
is also in the other gallery (that is, in the Pitti Palace gal- 
lery) ; the Parcse of Michael Angelo, a picture ; and the An- 
tinous, the Alexander, and one or two not very decent groups 
in marble ; the Genius of Death, a sleeping figure, &c. &c. I 
also went to the Medici chapel. Fine frippery in great slabs 
of various expensive stones, to commemorate fifty rotten and 
forgotten carcasses. It is unfinished, and will remain so." 
We find the following note of a second visit to the galleries 
in 1821, accompanied by the author of "The Pleasures of 
Memory :" — " My former impressions were confirmed ; but 
there were too many visitors to allow me to feel any thing 
properly. When we were (about thirty or forty) all stuffed 
into the cabinet of gems and knickknackeries, in a corner of 
one of the gallaries, I told Rogers that ' it felt like being in 
the watch-house,' I heard one bold Briton declare to the 



56 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Canto IV. 



Away ! — there need no words, nor terms precise, 
The paltry jargon of the marble mart. 
Where Pedantry gulls Folly — we have eyes : 
Blood — pulse — and breast, confirm the Dardan Shep- 
herd's prize. 

LI. 

Appear'dst thou not to Paris in this guise ? 
Or to more deeply blest Anchises ? or, 
In all thy perfect goddess-ship, when lies 
Before thee thy own vanquish'd Lord of War? 
And gazing in thy face as toward a star, 
Laid on thy lap, his eyes to thee upturn, 
Feeding on thy sweet cheek ! ^ while thy lips are 
With lava kisses melting while they burn, 

Shower'd on his eyelids, brow, and mouth, as from an 
urn? 2 

LIL 
Glowing, and circumfused in speechless love, 
Their full divinity inadequate 
That feeling to express, or to improve, 
The gods become as mortals, and man's fate 
Has moments like their brightest ; but the weight 
Of earth recoils upon us ; — let it go ! 
We can recall such visions, and create, 
From what has been, or might be, things which grow 

Into thy statue's form, and look like gods below. 

LIII. 

I leave to learned fingers and wise hands, 

The artist and his ape,^ to teach and tell 

How well his connoisseurship understands 

The graceful bend, and the voluptuous swell : 

Let these describe the undescribable : 

I would not their vile breath should crisp the stream 

Wherein that image shall for ever dwell ; 



woman on his arm, looking at the Venus of Titian, ' Well, 
now, that is really very fine indeed !' — an observation which, 
like that of the landlord in Joseph Andrews, on 'the cer- 
tainty of death,' was (as the landlord's wife observed) ' ex- 
tremely true.' In the Pitti Palace, I did not omit Goldsmith's 
prescription for a connoisseur, viz. ' that the pictures would 
have been better if the painter had taken more pains, and to 
praise the works of Peter Perugino.' " 

1 O(j>0aX.fx.ovi eerriav. 

*' Atque oculos pascat uterque suos." — Ovm. Amor. lib. ii. 

2 " The delight with which the pilgrim contemplates the 
ancient Greek statues at Florence, and afterwards at Rome, 
is such as might have been expected from any great poet, 
whose youthful mind had, like his, been imbued with those 
classical ideas and associations which afford so many sources 
of pleasure, through every period of life. He has gazed upon 
these masterpieces of art with a more susceptible, and, in 
spite of his disavowal, with a more learned eye, than can be 
traced in the effusions of any poet who had previously ex- 
pressed, in any formal manner, his admiration of their 
beauty. It may appear fanciful to say so ; — but we think the 
genius of Byron is, more than that of any other modern poet, 
akin to that peculiar genius which seems to have been dif- 
fused among all the poets and artists of ancient Greece ; and 
in whose spirit, above all its other wonders, the great speci- 
mens of sculpture seem to have been conceived and executed. 
His creations, whether of beauty or of strength, are all single 



The unruffled mirror of the loveliest dream 
That ever left the sky on the deep soul to beam. 

LIV. 

In Santa Croce's holy precincts lie* 
Ashes which make it holier, dust which is 
Even in itself an immortality. 
Though there were nothing save the past, and this, 
The particle of those sublimities 
Which have relapsed to chaos : — here repose 
Angelo's, Alfieri's bones, and his,^ 
The starry Galileo, with his woes ; 
Here Machiavelli's earth return'd to whence it rose.® 

LV. 

These are four minds, which, like the elements, 

Might furnish forth creation : — Italy ! 

Time, which hath wrong'd thee with ten thousand 

rents 
Of thine imperial garment, shall deny, 
And hath denied, to every other sky, 
Spirits which soar from ruin : — thy decay 
Is still impregnate with divinity, 
Which gilds it with revivifying ray ; 
Such as the great of yore, Canova is to-day. 

LVI. 

But where repose the all Etruscan three — 
Dante, and Petrarch, and, scarce less than they. 
The Bard of Prose, creative spirit ! he 
Of the Hundred Tales of love — where did they lay 
Their bones, distinguish'd from our common clay 
In death as life ? Are they resolved to dust, 
And have their country's marbles nought to say ? 
Could not her quarries furnish forth one bust ? 
Did they not to her breast their filial earth entrust ? 



creations. He requires no grouping to give effect to his 
favorites, or to tell his story. His heroines are solitary sym- 
bols of loveliness, which require no foil ; his heroes stand 
alone as upon marble pedestals, displaying the naked power 
of passion, or the wrapped up and reposing energy of grief. 
The artist who would illustrate, as it is called, the works of 
any of our other poets, must borrow the mimic splendors of 
the pencil. He who would transfer into another vehicle the 
spirit of Byron, must pour the liquid metal, or hew the stub- 
born rock. What he loses in ease, he will gain in power. He 
might draw from Medora, Gulnare, Lara, or Manfred, sub- 
jects for relievos, worth of enthusiasm almost as great as 
Harold has himself displayed on the contemplation of the 
loveliest and the sternest relics of the inimitable genius of 
the Greeks."— Wilson. 

3 Only a week before the poet visited the Florence gallery, 
he wrote thus to a friend :— " I know nothing of painting. 
Depend upon it, of all the arts, it is the most artificial and 
unnatural, and that by which the nonsense of mankind is 
most imposed upon. I never yet saw the picture or the 
statue which came a league within my conception or expecta- 
tion ; but I have seen many mountains, and seas, and rivers, 
and views, and two or three women, who went as far beyond 
it." — Byron Letters. 

4, 6, 6 See Appendix, " Historical Notes," Nos. xv. xvi. xvil. 
— "The church of Santa Croce contains much illustrious 
nothing. The tombs of Machiavelli, Michael Angelo, Galileo, 



Canto IV. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 



57 



LVII. 

Ungrateful Florence ! Dante sleeps afar,i 
Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore : 2 
Thy factions, in their worse than civil war, 
Proscribed the bard whose name for evermore 
Their children's children would in vain adore 
With the remorse of ages ; and the crown ^ 
Which Petrarch's laureate brow supremely wore. 
Upon a far and foreign soil had grown, 

His life, his fame, his grave, though rifled — not thine 
own. 

LVIII. 
Boccaccio to his parent earth bequeath'd* 
His dust, — and lies it not her Great among, 
With many a sweet and solemn requiem breathed 
O'er him who form'd the Tuscan's siren tongue ? 
That music in itself, whose sounds are song. 
The poetry of speech ? No ; — even his tomb 
Uptorn, must bear the hysena bigot's wrong. 
No more amidst the meaner dead find room. 

Nor claim a passing sigh, because it told for whom I 

LIX. 

And Santa Croce wants their mighty dust ; 
Yet for this want more noted, as of yore 
The Csesar's pageant, shorn of Brutus' bust, 
Did but of Rome's best Son remind her more. 
Happier Ravenna ! on thy hoary shore, 
Fortress of falling empire ! honor'd sleeps 
The immortal exile ; — Arqua, too, her store 
Of tuneful relics proudly claims and keeps, 

While Florence vainly begs her banisli'd dead, and 
weeps, 

LX. 
What is her pyramid of precious stones ? ^ 
Of porphyry, jasper, agate, and all hues 
Of gem and marble, to encrust the bones 
Of merchant-dukes ? the momentary dews 
Which, sparkling to the twilight stars, infuse 
Freshness in the green turf that wraps the dead, 
Whose names are mausoleums of the Muse, 
Are gently prest with far more reverent tread 

Than ever paced the slab which paves the princely 
head. 

LXI. 
There be more things to greet the heart and eyes 
In Arno's dome of Art's most princely shrine. 
Where Sculpture with her rainbow sister vies ; 
There be more marvels yet — but not for mine ; 

and Alfieri, make it the Westminster Abbey of Italy. I 
did not admire any of these tombs — beyond their contents. 
That of Alfieri is heavy ; and all of them seem to be over- 
loaded. What is necessary but a bust and name? and per- 
haps a date? the last for the unchronological, of whom I am 
one. But all your allegory and eulogy is infernal, and worse 
than the long wigs of English numskulls upon Roman bodies, 
in the statuary of the reigns of Charles the Second, William, 
and Annie." — Byron Letters, 1817. 

1, 2, 3^ 4 See Appendix, " Historical Notes," Nos. xviii. xix. 
XX. and xxi. 

5 See Appendix, " Historical Notes," No. xxii. 



For I have been accustom'd to entwine 
My thoughts with Nature rather in the fields, 
Than Art in galleries : though a work divine 
Calls for my spirit's homage, yet it yields 
Less than it feels, because the weapon which it wields 

LXIL 

Is of another temper, and I roam 
By Thrasimene's lake, in the defiles 
Fatal to Roman rashness, more at home ; 
For there the Carthaginian's warlike wiles 
Come back before me, as his skill beguiles 
The host between the mountains and the shore, 
Where Courage falls in her despairing files. 
And torrents, swoll'n to rivers with their gore, 

Reek through the sultry plain, with legions scatter'd 
o'er, 

LXIII. 
Like to a forest fell'd by mountain winds ; 
And such the storm of battle on this day. 
And such the frenzy, whose convulsion blinds 
To all save carnage, that, beneath the fray, 
An earthquake reel'd unheededly away ! ® 
None felt stern Nature rocking at his feet. 
And yawning forth a grave for those who lay 
Upon their bucklers for a winding sheet ; 

Such is the absorbing hate when warring nations meet ! 

LXIV. 
The Earth to them was as a rolling bark 
Which bore them to Eternity ; they saw 
The Ocean round, but had no time to mark 
The motions of their vessel ; Nature's law. 
In them suspended, reck'd not of the awe [birds 
Which reigns when mountains tremble, and the 
Plunge in the clouds for refuge and withdraw 
From their down-toppling nests ; and bellowing herds 

Stumble o'er heaving plains, and man's dread hath 
no words. 

LXV. 
Far other scene is Thrasimene now ; 
Her lake a sheet of silver, and her plain 
Rent by no ravage save the gentle plough ; 
Her aged trees rise thick as once the slain 
Lay where their roots are ; but a brook hath ta'en — 
A little rill of scanty stream and bed — 
A name of blood from that day's sanguine rain ; 
And Sanguinetto tells ye where the dead [red.' 

Made the earth wet, and turned the unwilling waters 

6 See Appendix, " Historical Notes," No. xxiii.— An earth- 
quake which shook all Italy occurred during the battle, and 
was unfelt by any of the combatants. 

^ " The lovely peaceful mirror reflected the mountains of 
Monte Pulciana, and the wild fowl skimming its ample sur- 
face, touched the waters with their rapid wings, leaving cir- 
cles and trains of light to glitter in gray repose. As we 
moved along, one set of interesting features yielded to an- 
other, and every change excited new delight. Yet, was it 
not among these tranquil scenes that Hannibal and Flamin- 
ius met? Was not the blush of blood upon the silver lake of 
Thrasimene?"— H. W. Williams. 



58 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto IV. 



LXVI. 

But thou, Clitumnus ! in thy sweetest wave ^ 
Of the most living crystal that was e'er 
The haunt of river nymph, to gaze and lave 
Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost 

rear 
Thy grassy banks whereon the milk-white steer 
Grazes ; the purest god of gentle waters ! 
And most serene of aspect, and most clear ; 
Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughters — 
A mirror and a bath for Beauty's youngest daughters ! 



LXVII. 

And on thy happy shore a Temple 2 still, 
Of small and delicate proportion, keeps, 
Upon a mild declivity of hill, 
Its memory of thee ; beneath it sweeps 
Thy current's calmness ; oft from out it leaps 
The finny darter with the glittering scales, 
Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps ; 
While, chance, some scatter'd water-lily sails 
Down where the shallower wave still tells its bub- 
bling tales. 

LXVIII. 
Pass not unblest the Genius of the place ! 
If through the air a zephyr more serene 
Win to the brow, 'tis his ; and if ye trace 
Along his margin a more eloquent green, 
If on the heart the freshness of the scene 
Sprinkle its coolness, and from the dry dust 
Of weary life a moment lave it clean 
With Nature's baptism, — 'tis to him ye must 
Pay orisons for this suspension of disgust.^ 



1 No boot of travels has omitted to expatiate on the temple 
of the Clitumnus, between Foligno and Spoleto ; and no site, 
or scenery, even in Italy, is more worthy a description. For 
an account of the dilapidation of this temple, the reader is 
referred to " Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of 
Childe Harold," p. 35. 

2 " This pretty little gem stands on the acclivity of a bank 
overlooking its crystal waters, which have their source at the 
distance of some hundred yards towards Spoleto. The tem- 
ple, fronting the river, is of an oblong form, in the Corinth- 
ian order. Four columns support the pediment, the shafts 
of which are covered in spiral lines, and in forms to repre- 
sent the scales of fishes : the bases, too, are richly sculptured. 
Within the building is a chapel, the walls of which are cov- 
ered with many hundred names ; but we saw none which we 
could recognize as British. Can it be that this classical tem- 
ple is seldom visited by our countrymen, though celebrated 
by Dryden and Addison ? To future travellers from Britain 
it will surely be rendered interesting by the beautiful lines 
of Lord Byron, flowing as sweetly as the lovely stream which 
they describe."— H. W. "Williams. 

3 « Perhaps there are no verses in our language of happier 
descriptive power than the two stanzas which characterize 
the Clitumnus. In general poets find it so difficult to leave 
an interesting subject, that they injure the distinctness of 
the description by loading it so as to embarrass, rather than 
excite, the fancy of the reader ; or else, to avoid that fault, 
they confine themselves to cold and abstract generalities. 



LXIX. 

The roar of waters ! — from the headlong height 
Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice ; 
The fall of waters ! rapid as the light 
The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss ; 
The hell of waters ! where they howl and hiss, 
And boil in endless torture ; while the sweat 
Of their great agony, wrung out from this 
Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet 
That gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set, 

LXX. 

And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again 

Returns in an unceasing shower, which round, 

With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain. 

Is an eternal April to the ground. 

Making it all one emerald : — how profound 

The gulf! and how the giant element 

From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound. 

Crushing the clifls, which, downward worn and 

rent 
With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful 

vent 

LXXI. 

To the broad column which rolls on, and shows 

More like the fountain of an infant sea 

Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes 

Of a new world, than only thus to be 

Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly. 

With many windings, through the vale : — Look 

back! 
Lo ! where it comes like an eternity. 
As if to sweep down all things in its track. 
Charming the eye with dread, — a matchless cataract,* 



Byron has, in these stanzas, admirably steered his course be- 
twixt these extremes : while they present the outlines of a 
picture as pure and as brilliant as those of Claude Lorraine, 
the task of filling up the more minute particulars is judic- 
iously left to the imagination of the reader ; and it must be 
dull indeed if it does not supply what the poet has left unsaid, 
or but generally and briefly intimated. While the eye glances 
over the lines, we seem to feel the refreshing coolness of the 
scene — we hear the bubbling tale of the more rapid streams, 
and see the slender proportions of the rural temple reflected 
in the crystal depth of the calm pool."— Sir Walter Scott. 
4 I saw the Cascata del Marmore of Terni twice, at differ- 
ent periods; once from the summit of the precipice, and 
again from the valley below. The lower view is far to be 
preferred, if the traveller has time for one only ; but in any 
point of view, either from above or below, it is worth all the 
cascades and torrents of Switzerland put together : the Stau- 
bach, Reichenbach, Pisse Vache, fall of Arpenaz, &c. are rills 
in comparative appearance. Of the fall of Schaffhausen I 
cannot speak, not yet having seen it.—" The stunning sound, 
the mist, uncertainty, and tremendous depth, bewildered the 
senses for a time, and the eye had little rest from the impet- 
uous and hurrying waters, to search into the mysterious and 
whitened gulf, which presented, through a cloud of spray, 
the apparitions, as it were, of rocks and overhanging wood. 
The wind, however, would sometimes remove for an instant 
this misty veil, and display such a scene of havoc as appalled 
the soul."— H. W. Williams. 



Canto IV. 



CHILDE HAEOLD'S PILGKIMAGE. 



59 



LXXII. 

Horribly beautiful ! but on the verge, 
From side to side, beneath the glittering morn, 
An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge,i 
Like Hope upon a death-bed, and, unworn 
Its steady dyes, while all around is torn 
By the distracted waters, bears serene 
Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn : 
Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene, 
Love watching Madness with unalterable mien. 

LXXIII. 
Once more upon the woody Apennine, 
The infant Alps, which — had I not before 
Gazed on their mightier parents, where the pine 
Sits on more shaggy summits, and where roar^ 
The thundering lauwine — might be worshipp'd 
But I have seen the soaring Jungfrau rear [more ; 
Her never-trodden snow, and seen the hoar 
Glaciers of bleak Mont Blanc both far and near, 
And in Chimari heard the thunder-hills of fear, 

LXXIV. 

Th' Acroceraunian mountains of old name ; 
And on Parnassus seen the eagles fly 
Like spirits of the spot, as 'twere for fame, 
For still they soar'd unutterably high : 
I've look'd on Ida with a Trojan's eye ; 
Athos, Olympus, ^tna. Atlas, made 
These hills seem things of lesser dignity, 
All, save the lone Soracte's height, display'd 
Not now in snow, which asks the lyric Roman's aid 

LXXV. 

For our remembrance, and from out the plain 
Heaves like a long-swept wave about to break, 

1 Of the time, place, and qualities of this kind of iris, the 
reader will see a short account, in a note to Manfred. The 
fall looks so much like " the hell of waters," that Addison 
thought the descent alluded to by the gulf in which Alecto 
plunged into the infernal regions. It is singular enough, 
that two of the finest cascades in Europe should be artificial 
—this of the Velino, and the one at Tivoli. The traveller is 
strongly recommended to trace the Velino, at least as high 
as the little lake, called Pie' di Lvp. The Reatine territory 
was the Italian Tempe (Cicer. Epist. ad Attic, xv. lib. iv.), 
and the ancient naturalists (Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. ii. cap. Ixii.), 
amongst other beautiful varieties, remarked the daily rain- 
bows of the lake Velinus. A scholar of great name has de- 
voted a treatise to this district alone. See Aid. Manut. de 
Reatina Urbe Agroque, ap. Sallengre, Thesaur. torn. i. p. 773. 

2 In the greater part of Switzerland, the avalanches are 
known by the name of lauwine. 

' These stanzas may probably remind the reader of Ensign 
Northerton's remarks : " D— n Homo," &c. ; but the reasons 
for our dislike are not exactly the same. I wish to express, 
that we become tired of the task before we can comprehend 
the beauty ; that we learn by rote before we can get by heart ; 
that the freshness is worn away, and the future pleasure and 
advantage deadened and destroyed, by the didactic antici- 
pation, at an age when we can neither feel nor understand 
the power of compositions which it requires an acquaintance 
with lift;, aa well as Latiu and Greek, to relish, or to reason 



And on the curl hangs pausing : not in vain 
May he, who will, his recollections rake. 
And quote in classic raptures, and awake 
The hills with Latian echoes ; I abhorr'd 
Too much, to conquer for the poet's sake. 
The drill'd dull lesson, forced down word by word^ 
In my repugnant youth, with pleasure to record 

LXXVI. 

Aught that recalls the daily drug which turn'd 
My sickening memory; and, though Time hath 
My mind to meditate what then it learn'd, [taught 
Yet such the fix'd inveteracy wrought 
By the impatience of my early thought, 
That, with the freshness wearing out before 
My mind could relish what it might have sought, 
If free to choose, I cannot now restore 
Its health ; but what it then detested, still abhor. 

LXXVIL 

Then farewell, Horace ! whom I hated so,* 
Not for thy faults, but mine ; it is a curse 
To understand, not feel thy lyric flow. 
To comprehend, but never love thy verse : 
Although no deeper Moralist rehearse 
Our little life, nor Bard prescribe his art. 
Nor livelier Satirist the conscience pierce, 
Awakening^ without wounding the touch'd heart, 
Yet fare thee well — upon Soracte's ridge we part. 

LXXVIII. 
Oh, Rome ! my country ! city of the soul ! 
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee, 
Lone mother of dead empires ! and control 
In their shut breasts their petty misery. 
What are our woes and sufferance ? Come and see 

upon. For the same reason, we never can be aware of the 
fullness of some of the finest passages of Shakspeare (" To be 
or not to be," for instance), from the habit of having them 
hammered into us at eight years old, as an exercise, not of 
mind, but of memory : so that when we are old enough to 
enjoy them, the taste is gone, and the appetite palled. In 
some parts of the continent, young persons are taught from 
more common authors, and do not read the best classics till 
their maturity. I certainly do not speak on this point from 
any pique or aversion towards the place of my education. I 
was not a slow, though an idle boy; and I believe no one 
could, or can be, more attached to Harrow than I have always 
been, and with reason ;— a part of the time passed there was 
the happiest of my life; and my preceptor, the Rev. Dr. 
Joseph Drury, was the best and worthiest friend I ever pos- 
sessed, whose warnings I have remembered but too well, 
though too late when I have erred,— and whose counsels I 
have but followed when I have done well or wisely. If ever 
this imperfect record of my feelings toward him should 
reach his eyes, let it remind him of one who never thinks of 
him but with gratitude and veneration — of one who would 
more gladly boast of having been his pupil, if, by more closely 
following his injunctions, he could reflect any honor upon 
his instructor. 

* " Lord Byron's prepossession against Horace is not with- 
out a parallel. It was not till released from the duty of read- 
ing Virgil as a task, that Gray could feel himself capable of 
enjoying the beauties of that poet."— Moore. 



60 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto IV. 



The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way 
O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye ! 
Whose agonies are evils of a day — 
A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. 

LXXIX. 

The Niobe of nations ! there she stands,^ 
Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe ; 
An empty urn within her wither' d hands, 
Whose holy dust was scatter'd long ago ; 
The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now ; ^ 
The very sepulchres lie tenantless 
Of their heroic dwellers : dost thou flow, 
Old Tiber ! through a marble wilderness ? 
Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress. 

LXXX. 

The Goth, the Christian, Time,War, Flood, and Fire, 
Have dealt upon the seven-hill'd city's pride ; 
She saw her glories star by star expire, 
And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride. 
Where the car climb'd the Capitol ; far and wide 
Temple and tower went down, nor left a site : 
Chaos of ruins ! who shall trace the void. 
O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light. 
And say, " here was, or is," where all is doubly night? 

LXXXI. 

The double night of ages, and of her. 
Night's daughter. Ignorance, hath wrapt and wrap 
All round us ; we but feel our way to err : 
The ocean hath its chart, the stars their map. 
And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap ; 
But Rome is as the desert, where we steer 
Stumbling o'er recollections ; now we clap 
Our hands, and cry " Eureka !" it is clear — 
When but some false mirage of ruin rises near. 

LXXXII. 

Alas ! the lofty city ! and alas ! 
The trebly hundred triumphs ! ^ and the day 
When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass 
The conqueror's sword in bearing fame away ! 
Alas, for TuUy's voice, and Virgil's lay, 

1 " I have been some days in Rome the Wonderful. I am 
delighted with Rom.e. As a whole — ancient and modern — it 
beats Greece, Constantinople, every thing— at least that I 
have ever seen. But I can't describe, because my first im- 
pressions are always strong and confused, and my memory 
selects and reduces them to order, like distance in the land- 
scape, and blends them better, although they may be less 
distinct. I have been on horseback most of the day, all days 
since my arrival. I have been to Albano, its lakes, and to 
the top of the Alban Mount, and to Frescati, Aricia, &c. As 
for the Coliseum, Pantheon, St. Peter's, the Vatican, Palatine, 
&c. &c.— they are quite inconceivable, and must be seen."— 
Byron Letters, May, 1817. 

2 For a comment on this and the two following stanzas, the 
reader may consult " Historical Illustrations," p. 46. 

8 Orosius gives 320 for the number of triumphs. He is fol- 
lowed by Panvinius ; and Panvinius by Mr. Gibbon and the 
modern writers. 



And Livy's pictured page ! — but these shall be 
Her resurrection ; all beside— decay. 
Alas, for Earth, for never shall we see 

That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was 
free! 

LXXXIII. 
Oh thou, whose chariot roU'd on Fortune's wheel, 
Triumphant Sylla ! Thou, who didst subdue 
Thy country's foes ere thou wouldst pause to feel 
The wrath of thy own wrongs, or reap the due 
Of hoarded vengeance till thine eagles flew 
O'er prostrate Asia ; — thou, who with thy frown 
Annihilated senates — Roman, too, 
With all thy vices, for thou didst lay down 

With an atoning smile a more than earthly crown — 

LXXXIV. 

The dictatorial wreath,* — couldst thou divine 
To what would one day dwindle that which made 
Thee more than mortal ? and that so supine 
By aught than Romans Rome should thus be laid ? 
She who was named Eternal, and array'd 
Her warriors but to conquer — she who veil'd 
Earth with her haughty shadow, and display' d, 
Until the o'er-canopied horizon fail'd, 

Her rushing wings — Oh ! she who was Almighty 
hail'd ! 

LXXXV. 
Sylla was first of victors ; but our own 
The sagest of usurpers, Cromwell ; he 
Too swept off senates while he hew'd the throne 
Down to a block — immortal rebel ! See 
What crimes it costs to be a moment free 
And famous through all ages ! but beneath 
His fate the moral lurks of destiny ; 
His day of double victory and death 

Beheld him win two realms, and, happier, yield his 
breath. 

LXXXVI. 

The third of the same moon whose former course 
Had all but crown' d him, on the selfsame day 
Deposed him gently from his throne of force, 
And laid him with the earth's preceding clay .5 

4 Certainly, were it not for these two traits in the life of 
Sylla, alluded to in this stanza, we should regard him as a 
monster unredeemed by any admirable quality. The atone- 
ment of his voluntary resignation of empire may perhaps be 
accepted by us, as it seems to have satisfied the Romans, who 
if they had not respected must have destroyed him. There 
could be no mean, no division of opinion ; they must have all 
thought, like Eucrates, that what had appeared ambition was 
a love of glory, and that what had been mistaken for pride was 
a real grandeur of soul. — " Seigneur, vous changez toutes mes 
idees de la fajon dont je vous vois agir. Je croyais que vous 
aviez de I'ambition, mais aucune amour pour la gloire; je 
voyais bien que votre ame etait haute ; mais je ne soupgonnais 
pas qu'elle fut grande." — Dialogues de Sylla et d^Eucrate. 

6 On the 3d of September Cromwell gained the victory of 
Dunbar : a year afterwards he obtained " his crowning mercy" 
of Worcester ; and a few years after, on the same day, which 
he had ever esteemed the most fortunate for him, died. 



Canto IV. 



CHILDE HAKOLD'S PILGEIMAGE. 



61 



And show'd not Fortune thus how fame and sway, 
And all we deem delightful, and consume 
Our souls to compass through each arduous way, 
Are in her eyes less happy than the tomb ? 

Were they but so in man's, how different were his 
doom ! 

LXXXVII. 
And thou, dread statue ! yet existent in^ 
The austerest form of naked majesty. 
Thou who beheldest, 'mid the assassins' din, 
At thy bathed base the bloody Caesar lie, 
Folding his robe in dying dignity, 
An offering to thine altar from the queen 
Of gods and men, great Nemesis ! did he die, 
And thou, too, perish, Pompey ? have ye been 

Victors of countless kings, or puppets of a scene ? 

LXXXVIII. 

And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Eome ! 2 
She- wolf ! whose brazen-imaged dugs impart 
The milk of conquest yet within the dome 
Where, as a monument of antique art. 
Thou standest : — Mother of the mighty heart, 
"WTiich the great founder suck'd from thy wild teat, 
Scorch'd by the Eoman Jove's ethereal dart. 
And thy limbs black with lightning — dost thou yet 

Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge 
forget? 

LXXXIX. 
Thou dost ; — but all thy foster-babes are dead — 
The men of iron : and the world hath rear'd 
Cities from out their sepulchres : men bled 
In imitation of the things they fear'd. 
And fought and conquer'd, and the same course 

steer'd. 
At apish distance ; but as yet none have, 
Nor could, the same supremacy have near'd. 
Save one vain man, who is not in the grave. 

But, vanquish'd by himself, to his own slaves a slave — 

XC. 

The fool of false dominion — and a kind 
Of bastard Csesar, following him of old 
With steps unequal ; for the Roman's mind 
Was modell'd in a less terrestrial mould,^ 
With passions fiercer, yet a judgment cold, 
And an immortal instinct which redeem'd 
The frailties of a heart so soft, yet bold, 
Aleides with the distaff now he seem'd 
At Cleopatra's feet, — and now himself he beam'd, 

XCI. 
And came — and saw — and conquer'd ! But the man 
Who would have tamed his eagles down to flee, 

1, 2 See Appendix, " Historical Notes," Nos. xxiv. xxv. 

8 See Appendix, " Historical Notes," No. xxvi. 

♦ " Omnes pene veteres ; qui nihil cognosci, nihil 

percepi, nihil sciri posse dixerunt ; angustos sensus ; imbecillos 
animos, brevia curricula vitae ; in profundo veritatera demer- 
sam; epinionibus et institutis omnia teneri; nihil veritati 



Like a train'd falcon, in the Gallic van, 
Which he, in sooth, long led to victory. 
With a deaf heart which never seem'd to be 
A listener to itself, was strangely framed ; 
With but one weakest weakness — vanity. 
Coquettish in ambition — still he aim'd — 
At what? can he avouch — or answer what he 
claim'd ? 

XCII. 

And would be all or nothing — nor could wait 
For the sure grave to level him ; few years 
Had fix'd him with the Csesars in his fate. 
On whom we tread : For this the conqueror rears 
The arch of triumph ! and for this the tears 
And blood of earth flow on as they have flow'd, 
An universal deluge, which appears 
Without an ark for wretched man's abode, 
And ebbs but to reflow ! — Renew thy rainbow, God ! 

XCIII. 

What from this barren being do we reap ? 
Our senses narrow, and our reason frail,* 
Life short, and truth a gem which loves the deep, 
And all things weigh'd in custom's falsest scale ; 
Opinion an omnipotence, — whose veil 
Mantles the earth with darkness, until right 
And wrong are accidents, and men grow pale 
Lest their own judgments should become too 

bright. 
And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have 

too much light. 

XCIV. 
And thus they plod in sluggish misery. 
Rotting from sire to son, and age to age, 
Proud of their trampled nature, and so die. 
Bequeathing their hereditary rage 
To the new race of inborn slaves, who wage 
War for their chains, and rather than be free. 
Bleed gladiator-like, and still engage 
Within the same arena where they see 
Their fellows fall before, like leaves of the same tree. 

xcv. 

I speak not of men's creeds — they rest between 
Man and his Maker — but of things allow'd, 
Averr'd, and known,— and daily, hourly seen— 
The yoke that is upon us doubly bow'd. 
And the intent of tyranny avow'd. 
The edict of Earth's rulers, who are grown 
The apes of him who humbled once the proud. 
And shook them from their slumbers on the throne : 
Too glorious, were this all his mighty arm had done. 

relinqui : deinceps omnia tenebris circumfusa esse dixerunt." 
Academ. 1. 13. The eighteen hundred years which have 
elapsed since Cicero wrote this, have not removed any of the 
imperfections of humanity ; and the complaints of the an- 
cient philosophers may, without injustice or affectation, be 
transcribed in a poem written yesterday. 



62 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto IV. 



XCVI. 

Can tyrants but by tyrants conqner'd be, 
And Freedom find no champion and no child 
Such as Columbia saw arise when she 
Sprung forth a Pallas, arm'd and undefiled ? 
Or must such minds be nourish'd in the wild, 
Deep in the unpruned forest, 'midst the roar 
Of cataracts, where nursing Nature smiled 
On infant Washington ? Has Earth no more 

Such seeds within her breast, or Europe no such 
shore ? 

XCVII. 
But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime, 
And fatal have her Saturnalia been 
To Freedom's cause, in every age and clime ; 
Because the deadly days which we have seen, 
And vile Ambition, that built up between 
Man and his hopes an adamantine wall. 
And the base pageant last upon the scene, 
Are grown the pretext for the eternal thrall 

Which nips life's tree, and dooms man's worst — his 
second fall. 

XCVIII. 

Yet, Freedom ! yet thy banner, torn, but flying. 
Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind ; 
Thy trumpet voice, though broken now and dying. 
The loudest still the tempest leaves behind ; 
Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind, 
Chopp'd by the axe, looks rough and little worth, 
But the sap lasts, — and still the seed we find 
Sown deep, even in the bosom of the North ; 
Bo shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth. 

XCIX. 
There is a stern round tower of other days,i 
Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone, 

, Such as an army's baffled strength delays, 
Standing with half its battlements alone. 
And with two thousand years of ivy grown, 
The garland of eternity, where wave 
The green leaves over all by time o'erthrown ; — 
What was this tower of strength ? within its cave 

What treasure lay so lock'd, so hid? — A woman's 
grave. 

C. 
But who was she, the lady of the dead, 
Tomb'd in a palace ? Was she chaste and fair ? 
Worthy a king's, or more — a Roman's bed ? 
What race of chiefs and heroes did she bear ? 
What daughter of her beauties was the heir ? 



1 Alluding to the tomb of Cecilia Metella, called Capo di 
Bove. See " Historical Illustrations," p. 200. 

2 °0v oi Seol ^i\ov<n.v, ano9vT^<TKei veos' 

To yap ^avelv ovk ato-xpbv, aW ala-xpui? ^avelv, 
Hich. Franc. Phil, Brunck. Poetse Gnoniiei, p. 231, ed. 1784. 

3 " Four words, and two initials, compose the whole of the 
inscription which, whatever was its ancient position, is now 
placed in front of this towering sepulchre : CiECii.i.a: . Q . Cre- 



How lived — how loved — how died she? Was she 

not 
So honor'd — and conspicuously there. 
Where meaner relics must not dare to rot, 
Placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot ? 

CI. 

Was she as those who love their lords, or they 

Who love the lords of others ? such have been 

Even in the olden time, Rome's annals say. 

Was she a matron of Cornelia's mien, 

Or the light air of Egypt's graceful queen, 

Profuse of joy — or 'gainst it did she war 

Inveterate in virtue ? Did she lean 

To the soft side of the heart, or wisely bar 

Love from amongst her griefs ? — for such the affections 
are. 

CII. 
Perchance she died in youth : it may be, bow'd 
With woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb 
That weigh'd upon her gentle dust, a cloud 
Might gather o'er her beauty, and a gloom 
In her dark eye, prophetic of the doom 
Heaven gives its favorites — early death ; yet shed ^ 
A sunset charm around her, and illume, 
With hectic light, the Hesperus of the dead, 

Of her consuming cheek the autumnal leaf-like red. 

cm. 

Perchance she died in age — surviving all. 
Charms, kindred, children — with the silver gray 
On her long tresses, which might yet recall. 
It may be, still a something of the day 
When they were braided, and her proud array 
And lovely form were envied, praised, and eyed 
By Rome — But whither would Conjecture stray ? 
Thus much alone we know — Metella died, 
The wealthiest Roman's wife: Behold his love or 
pride ! 

CIV. 

I know not why — but standing thus by thee 
It seems as if I had thine inmate known, 
Thou Tomb ! and other days come back on me 
With recollected music, though the tone 
Is changed and solemn, like the cloudy groan 
Of dying thunder on the distant wind ; 
Yet could I seat me by this ivied stone 
Till I had bodied forth the heated mind 
Forms from the floating wreck which Ruin leaves 
behind : ^ 



Tici . F . Metella . Crassi. It is more likely to have been 
the pride than the love of Crassus, which raised so superb a 
memorial to a wife, whose name is not mentioned in history, 
unless she be supposed to be that lady whose intimacy with 
Dolabella was so offensive to Tullia, the daughter of Cicero ; 
or she who was divorced by Lentulus Spinther ; or she, per- 
haps the same person, from whose ear the son of JEsopus 
transferred a precious jewel to enrich his daughter." — Hob- 

HOUSK. 



Canto IV. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 



63 



cv. 

Aud from the planks, far shatter'd o'er the rocks, 
Built me a little bark of hope, once more 
To battle with the ocean and the shocks 
Of the loud breakers, and the ceaseless roar 
Which rushes on the solitary shore 
Where all lies founder'd that Mas ever dear : 
But could I gather from the Avave-worn store 
Enough for my rude boat, where should I steer ? 

There woos no home, nor hope, nor life, save what is 
here. 

CVI. 
Then let the winds howl on ! their harmony 
Shall henceforth be my music, and the night 
The sound shall temper with the owlets' cry, 
As I now hear them, in the fading light 
Dim o'er the bird of darkness' native site, 
Answering each other on the Palatine, 
With their large eyes, all glistening gray and bright, 
And sailing pinions. — Upon such a shrine 

What are our petty griefs ? — let me not number mine. 

CVII. 

Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower grown 
Matted and mass'd together, hillocks heap'd [strown 
On what were chambers, arch crush'd, column 
In fragments, choked up vaults, and frescoes steep'd 
In subterranean damps, where the owl peep'd. 
Deeming it midnight : — Temples, baths, or halls? 
Pronounce who can ; for all that Learning reap'd 
From her research hath been, that these are walls — 
Behold the Imperial Mount! 'tis thus the mighty 
falls.i 

CVIII. 
There is the moral of all human tales ; 2 
'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past, 
First Freedom, and then Glory — when that fails. 
Wealth, vice, corruption, — barbarism at last. — 

1 The Palatine is one mass of ruins, particularly on the 
side towards the Circus Maximus. The very soil is formed 
of crumbled brickwork. Nothing has been told, nothing can 
be told, to satisfy the belief of any but a Roman antiquary. 
See " Historical Illustrations," p. 206. — " The voice of Marius 
could not sound more deep and solemn among the ruined 
arches of Carthage, than the strains of the Pilgrim amid the 
broken shrines and fallen statues of her subduer." — Sir 
Walter Scott. 

2 The author of the Life of Cicero, speaking of the opinion 
entertained of Britain by that orator and his contemporary 
Romans, has the following eloquent passage: — "From their 
railleries of this kind, on the barbarity and misery of our 
island, one cannot help reflecting on the surprising fate and 
revolutions of kingdoms: how Rome, once the mistress of the 
world, the seat of arts, empire, and glory, now lies sunk in 
sloth, ignorance, and poverty, enslaved to the most cruel as 
well as to the most contemptible of tyrants, superstition and 
religious imposture; while this remote country, anciently 
the jest and contempt of the polite Romans, is become the 
happy seat of liberty, plenty, and letters; flourishing in all 
the arts and refinements of civil life; yet running perhaps 
the same course which Rome itself had run before it, from 
virtuous industry to wealth ; from wealth to luxury ; from 
luxury to an impatience of discipline, and corruption of 



And History, with all her volumes vast, 
Hath but one page, — 'tis better written here 
Where gorgeous Tyranny hath thus amass'd 
All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear, 

Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask — Away with words ! 
draw near, 

CIX. 
Admire, exult — despise — laugh, weep, — for here 
There is such matter for all feeling : — Man ! 
Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear, 
Ages and realms are crowded in this span, 
This mountain, whose obliterated plan 
The pyramid of empires pinnacled, 
Of Glory's gewgaws shining in the van 
Till the sun's rays with added flame were fill'd ! 

Where are its golden roofs ? where those who dared 
to build ? 

ex. 

Tully was not so eloquent as thou, 
Thou nameless column with the buried base ! 
What are the laurels of the Csesar's brow ? 
Crown me with ivy from his dwelling-place. 
Whose arch or pillar meets me in the face, 
Titus or Trajan's ? No — 'tis that of Time : 
Triumph, arch, pillar, all he doth displace 
Scofiing ; and apostolic statues climb 
To crush the imperial urn, whose ashes slept sublime,^ 

CXI. 

Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Rome, 
And looking to the stars : they had contain'd 
A spirit which with these would find a home. 
The last of those who o'er the whole earth reign'd, 
The Roman globe, for after none sustain'd, 
But yielded back his conquests : — he was more 
Than a mere Alexander, and, unstain'd 
With household blood and wine, serenely wore 
His sovereign virtues — still we Trajan's name adore.* 

morals ; till, by a total degeneracy and loss of virtue, being 
grown ripe for destruction, it fall a prey at last to some hardy 
oppressor, and, with the loss of liberty losing every thing 
that is valuable, sinks gradually again into its original bar- 
barism." See History of the Life of M. TuUius Cicero, sect, 
vi. vol. ii. p. 102. 

3 The column of Trajan is surmounted by St. Peter ; that 
of Aurelius by St. Paul. See " Historical Illustrations," p. 214. 

* Trajan was proverbially the best of the Roman princes 
(Eutrop. 1. viii. c. 5); and it would be easier to find a sov- 
ereign uniting exactly the opposite characteristics, than one 
possessed of all the happy qualities ascribed to this emperor. 
""V\Tien he mounted the throne," says the historian Dion, 
"he was strong in body, he was vigorous in mind; age had 
impaired none of his faculties ; he was altogether free from 
envy and from detraction ; he honored all the good, and he 
advanced them ; and on this account they could not be the 
objects of his fear or of his hate ; he never listened to inform- 
ers ; he gave not way to his anger ; he abstained equally from 
unfair exactions and unjust punishments; he had rather be 
loved as a man than honored as a sovereign ; he was affable 
to his people, respectful to the senate, and universally be- 
loved by both ; he inspired none with dread but the enemies 
.of his country."— Hist. Rom. 1. Ixiii. c. 6, 7. 



64 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



Canto IV« 



CXII. 

Where is the rock of Triumph, tne high place 
Where Eome embraced her heroes ? where the steep 
Tarpeian ? fittest goal of Treason's race, 
The promontory whence the Traitor's Leap 
Cured all ambition. Did the conquerors heap 
Their spoils here ? Yes ; and in yon field below, 
A thousand years of silenced factions sleep — 
The Forum, where the immortal accents glow, 
And still the eloquent air breathes — burns with 
Cicero ! 

CXIII. 

The field of freedom, faction, fame, and blood : 
Here a proud people's passions were exhaled. 
From the first hour of empire in the bud 
To that when farther worlds to conquer fail'd ; 
But long before had Freedom's face been veil'd, 
And Anarchy assumed her attributes ; 
Till every lawless soldier who assail'd 
Trod on the trembling senate's slavish mutes, 
Or raised the venal voice of baser prostitutes. 

CXIV. 

Then turn we to her latest tribune's name. 
From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee, 
Redeemer of dark centuries of shame — 
The friend of Petrarch — hope of Italy — 
Rienzi ! last of Romans ! ^ While the tree 
Of freedom's wither'd trunk puts forth a leaf, 
Even for thy tomb a garland let it be — 
The forum's champion, and the people's chief— 
Her new-born Numa thou — with reign, alas ! too brief. 

cxv. 

Egeria! sweet creation of some heart 2 
Which found no mortal resting-place so fair 
As thine ideal breast ; whate'er thou art 
Or wert, — a young Aurora of the air, 
The nympholepsy of some fond despair ; 
Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth. 
Who found a more than common votary there 
Too much adoring ; whatsoe'er thy birth. 

Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied 
forth. 

CXVI. 
The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled 
With thine Elysian water-drops ; the face 
Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years un wrinkled, 
Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place, 
Whose green, wild margin now no more erase 
Art's works ; nor must the delicate waters sleep, 
Prison'd in marble, bubbling from the base 
Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap 

The rill runs o'er, and round fern, flowers, and ivy 
creep. 



1 The name and exploits of Rienzi must be familiar to the 
reader of Gibbon. Some details and unedited manuscripts, 



CXVII. 

Fantastically tangled : the green hills 
Are clothed with early blossoms, through the grass 
The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills 
Of summer birds sing welcome as ye pass ; 
Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class, 
Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes 
Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass ; 
The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes, 
Kiss'd by the breath of heaven, seems color'd by its 



CXVIII. 
Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover, 
Egeria ! thy all heavenly bosom beating 
For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover ; 
The purple Midnight veil'd that mystic meeting 
With her most starry canopy, and seating 
Thyself by thine adorer, what befell ? 
This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting 
Of an enamor'd Goddess, and the cell 
Haunted by holy Love — the earliest oracle ! 

CXIX. 

And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying. 
Blend a celestial with a human heart ; 
And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighing, 
Share with immortal transports ? could thine art 
Make them indeed immortal, and impart 
The purity of heaven to earthly joys. 
Expel the venom and not blunt the dart — 
The dull satiety which all destroys — 
And root from out the soul the deadly weed which 
cloys ? 

cxx. 

Alas ! our young afiections run to waste, 
Or water but the desert ; whence arise 
But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste. 
Rank at the core, though tempting to the eyes, 
Flowers whose wild odors breathe but agonies, 
And trees whose gums are poisons ; such the plants 
Which spring beneath her steps as Passion flies 
O'er the world's wilderness, and vainly pants 
For some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants. 

CXXI. 

Oh Love ! no habitant of earth thou art — 
An unseen seraph, we believe in thee, — 
A faith whose. martyrs are the broken heart, — • 
But nev«r yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see 
The naked eye, thy form, as it should be ; 
The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven. 
Even with its own desiring phantasy, 
And to a thought such shape and image given. 
As haunts the unquench'd soul — parch'd — ^wearied — 
wrung — and riven. 



relative to this unhappy hero, will be seen in the " Historical 
Illustrations of the Fourth Canto," p, 248. 
2 See Appendix, " Historical Notes," No. xxvii. 



Canto IV. 



CHILDE HAEOLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 



65 



CXXII. 

Of its own beauty is the inind diseased, 
And fevers into false creation : — where, 
Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized ? 
In him alon^. Can Nature show so fair ? 
Where are the charms and virtues which we dare 
Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men, 
The unreach'd Paradise of our despair. 
Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen, 
And overpowers the page where it would bloom again ? 

CXXIII. 

Who loves, raves — 'tis youth's frenzy — but the cure 
Is bitterer still, as charm by charm unwinds 
Which robed our idols, and we see too sure 
Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's 
Ideal shape of such ; yet still it binds 
The fatal spell, and still it draws us on, 
Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds ; 
The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun. 
Seems ever near the prize, — wealthiest when most 
undone. 

CXXIV. 

We wither from our youth, we gasp away — 
Sick — sick ; unfound the boon — unslaked the thirst, 
Though to the last, in verge of our decay, 
Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first — 
But all too late, — so we are doubly curst. 
Love, fame, ambition, avarice — 'tis the same. 
Each idle — and all ill — and none the worst — 
For all are meteors with a different name. 
And Death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame. 

CXXV. 

Few — none — find what they love or could have loved, 
Though accident, blind contact, and the strong 
Necessity of loving, have removed 
Antipathies — but to recur, ere long, 
Envenom'd with irrevocable wrong ; 
And Circumstance, that unspiritual god 
And miscreator, makes and helps along 
Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod. 
Whose touch turns Hope to dust, — the dust we all 
have trod. 

CXXVI. 
Our life is a false nature — 'tis not in 
The harmony of things, — this hard decree, 
This uneradicable taint of sin, 
This boundless upas, this all-blasting tree. 
Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches be 

1 "At all events," says the author of the Academical Ques- 
tions, " I trust, whatever may be the fate of my own specu- 
lations, that philosophy will regain that estimation which it 
ought to possess. The free and philosophic spirit of our 
nation has been the theme of admiration to the world. This 
was the proud distinction of Englishmen, and the luminous 
source of all their glory. Shall we then forget the manly 
and dignified sentiments of our ancestors, to prate in the 
language of the mother or the nurse about our good old prej- 
5 



The skies which rain their plagues on men like 

dew — 
Disease, death, bondage — all the woes we see. 
And worse, the woes we see not — which throb 
through 
The immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new. 

CXXVII. 

Yet let us ponder boldly — 'tis a base ^ 

Abandonment of reason to resign 

Our right of thought — our last and only place 

Of refuge ; this, at least, shall still be mine : 

Though from our birth the faculty divine 

Is chain'd and tortured — cabin'd, cribb'd, confined. 

And bred in darkness, lest the truth should shine 

Too brightly on the unprepared mind, 

The beam pours in, for time and skill will couch the 
blind. 

CXXVIII. 
Arches on arches ! as it were that Rome, 
Collecting the chief trophies of her line. 
Would build up all her triumphs in one dome. 
Her Coliseum stands ; the moonbeams shine 
As 'twere its natural torches, for divine 
Should be the light which streams here, to illume 
This long-explored but still exhaustless mine 
Of contemplation ; and the azure gloom 

Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume 

CXXIX. 

Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven, 
Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument. 
And shadows forth its glory. There is given 
Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent, 
A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant 
His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power 
And magic in the ruin'd battlement. 
For which the palace of the present hour 
Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower. 

cxxx. 

Oh Time ! the beautifier of the dead, 
Adorner of the ruin, comforter 
And only healer when the heart hath bled — 
Time ! the corrector where our judgments err, 
The test of truth, love, — sole philosopher, 
For all beside are sophists^ from thy thrift, * 
Which never loses though it doth defer — 
Time, the avenger! unto thee I lift 
My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a 
gift: 



udices? This is not the way to defend the cause of truth. It 
was not thus that our fkthers maintained it in the brilliant 
periods of our history. Prejudice may be trusted to guard 
the outworks for a short space of time, while Reason slum- 
bers in the citadel ; but if the latter sink into a lethargy, 
the former will quickly erect a standard for herself. Philos- 
ophy, wisdom, and liberty support each other: he who will 
not reason is a bigot ; he who cannot, is a fool ; and he who 
dai;es not, is a slaA^^v' ' "N^L i. pref. p. 14, 15, 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Canto TV. 



CXXXI. 

Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrine 
And temple more divinely desolate, 
Among thy mightier offerings here are mine. 
Ruins of years — though few, yet full of fate : — 
If thou hast ever seen me too elate. 
Hear me not ; but if calmly I have borne 
Good, and reserved my pride against the hate 
Which shall not whelm me, let me not have worn 
This iron in my soul in vain — shall they not mourn ? 

CXXXII. 

And thou, who never yet of human wrong 
Left the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis ! ^ 
Here, where the ancient paid thee homage long — 
Thou who didst call the Furies from the abyss, 
And round Orestes bade them howl and hiss 
For that unnatural retribution — just. 
Had it but been from hands less near — in this 
Thy former realm, I call thee from the dust ! 
Dost thou not hear my heart ? — Awake ! thou shalt, 
and must. 

CXXXIII. 

It is not that I may not have incurr'd 

For my ancestral faults or mine the wound 

I bleed withal, and, had it been conferr'd 

With a just weapon, it had flow'd unbound ; 

But now my blood shall not sink in the ground ; 

To thee I do devote it — thou shalt take 

The vengeance, which shall yet be sought and found. 

Which if / have not taken for the sake 

But let that pass — I sleep, but thou shalt yet awake. 

CXXXIV. 

And if my voice break forth, 'tis not that now 
I shrink from what is suffer'd : let him speak 
Who hath beheld decline upon my brow. 
Or seen my mind's convulsion leave it weak ; 
But in this page a record will I seek. 
Not in the air shall these my words disperse, 
Though I be ashes ; a far hour shall wreak 
The deep prophetic fullness of this verse. 
And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse ! 

cxxxv. 

That curse shall be Forgiveness. — Have I not — 
Hear me, my mother Earth ! behold it. Heaven ! — 
Have I not had to wrestle with my lot ? 
Have I not suffer'd things to be forgiven ? 
Have I not had my brain sear'd, my heart riven, 
Hopes sapp'd, name blighted. Life's life lied away? 
And only not to desperation driven, 

1 See Appendix, " Historical Notes," No. xxviii. 

2 Between stanzas cxxxv. and cxxxvi, we find in the orig- 
inal MS. the following :— 

" If to forgive be heaping coals of fire— 
As God hath spoken — on the heads of foes, 
Mine should be a volcano, and rise higher 
Than, o'er the Titans crush'd, Olympus rose, 



Because not altogether of such clay 
As rots into the souls of those whom I survey. 

CXXXVI. 

From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy. 
Have I not seen what human things could do? 
From the loud roar of foaming calumny 
To the small whisper of the as paltry few, 
And subtler venom of the reptile crew, 
The Janus glance of whose significant eye. 
Learning to lie with silence, would seem true, 
And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh, 
Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy .2 

CXXXVII. 

But I have lived, and have not lived in vain : 
My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire, 
And my frame perish even in conquering pain ; 
But there is that within me which shall tire 
Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire ; 
Something unearthly, which they deem not of, 
Like the remember'd tune of a mute lyre. 
Shall on their soften'd spirits sink, and move 
In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love. 

CXXXVIII. 
The seal is set. — Now welcome, thou dread power ! 
Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which here 
Walk'st in the shadow of the midnight hour 
With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear ; 
Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear 
Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene 
Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear 
That- we become a part of what has been. 
And grow unto the spot, all-seeing but unseen. 

CXXXIX. 

And here the buzz of eager nations ran, 
In murmur'd pity, or loud-roar'd applause. 
As man was slaughter'd by his fellow man. 
And wherefore slaughter'd ? wherefore, but because 
Such were the bloody Circus' genial laws, 
And the imperial pleasure. — Wherefore not? 
What matters where we fall to fill the maws 
Of worms — on battle-plains or listed spot ? 
Both are but theatres where the chief actors rot. 

CXL. 

I see before me the Gladiator lie : 

He leans upon his hand — his manly brow 

Consents to death, but conquers agony. 

And his droop'd head sinks gradually low — 

And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow 

Or Athens soars, or blazing Etna glows : — 
True, they who stung were creeping things ; but what 
Than serpents' teeth inflicts with deadlier throes ? 
The Lion may be goaded by the Gnat. — 
Who sucks the slumberer's blood?— The Eajr''^?— ^^- ^he 
Bat." 



Canto IV. 



CHILDE HAEOLD'S PILGEIMAGE. 



67 



From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, 
Like the first of a thunder-shower ; and now 
The arena swims around him — he is gone. 

Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch 
who won. 

CXLI. 
He heard it, but he heeded not — his eyes 
Were with his heart, and that was far away ; ^ 
He reck'd not of the life he lost nor prize. 
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay. 
There were his young barbarians all at play, 
There was their Dacian mother— he, their sire, 
Butcher'd to make a Koman holiday 2 — 
All this rush'd with his blood— Shall he expire 

And unavenged ?— Arise ! ye Goths, and glut your ire ! 

CXLII. 

But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam ; 
And here, where buzzing nations choked the ways, 
And roar'd or murmur' d like a mountain stream 
Dashing or winding as its torrent strays ; 
Here, where the Eoman million's blame or praise 
Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd,^ 
My voice sounds much — and fall the stars' faint rays 
On the arena void — seats crush'd — walls bow'd — 

And galleries where my steps seem echoes strangely 
loud. 

CXLIII. 
A ruin — yet what ruin ! from its mass 
Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been rear'd ; 
Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass, 
And marvel where the spoil could have appear'd. 
Hath it indeed been plunder'd, or but clear'd ? 
Alas ! developed, opens the decay, 
Wlien the colossal fabric's form is near'd : 
It will not bear the brightness of the day, 

W^hich streams too mucli on all years, man, have reft 
away. 

CXLIV. 
But when the rising moon begins to climb 
Its topmost arch, and gently pauses there ; 

1 Whether the wonderful statue which suggested this im- 
age be a laquearian gladiator, which, in spite of Winkel- 
mann's criticism, has been stoutly maintained; or whether 
it be a Greek herald, as that great antiquary positively as- 
serted;* or whether it is to be thought a Spartan or bar- 
barian shield-bearer, according to the opinion of his Italian 
editor; it must assuredly seem a co/py of that masterpiece of 
Ctesilaus which represented " a wounded man dying, who 
perfectly expressed what there remained of life in him." 
Montfaucon and Maffei thought it the identical statue ; but 
that statue was of bronze. The Gladiator was once in the 
Villa Ludovizi, and was bought by Clement XII. The right 
ai-m is an entire restoration of Michael Angelo. 

2, 8 See Appendix, " Historical Notes," Nos. xxix. xxx. 

* Suetonius informs us that Julius Csesar was particularly 



• Either Polifontes, herald of Laius, killed by (Edipus; or Cepreas, her- 
ald of Euritheua, killed by the Athenians when he endeavored to drag the 
Heraclidse from the altar of mercy, and in whose honor they instituted 
annual games, continued to the time of Hadrian ; or Anthemocritus, the 
Athenian herald, killed by the Megarenses, who never recovered the impi- 
ety. See Storia delle Arti, &c., torn. ii. pag. 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, lib. x. 
cap. ii. 



When the stars twinkle through the loops of time, 
And the low night-breeze waves along the air 
The garland-forest, which the gray walls wear, 
Like laurels on the bald first Csesar's head ; * 
When the light shines serene but doth not glare, 
Then in this magic circle raise the dead : 

Heroes have trod this spot — 'tis on their dust ye 
tread. 

CXLV. 
" While stands the Coliseum, Eome shall stand ;5 
When falls the Coliseum, Eome shall fall ; [land 
And when Eome falls — the World." From our own 
Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall 
In Saxon times, which we are wont to call 
Ancient ; and these three mortal things are still 
On their foundations, and unalter'd all ; 
Eome and her Euin past Eedemption's skill. 

The World, the same wide den — of thieves, or what 
ye will. 

CXLVI. 
Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime — 
Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods, 
From Jove to Jesus — spared and blest by time ; ^ 
Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods 
Arch, empire, each thing round thee, and man plods 
His way through thorns to ashes — glorious dome ! 
Shalt thou not last ? Time's scythe and tyrants' rods 
Shiver upon thee — sanctuary and home 

Of art and piety — Pantheon ! — pride of Eome ! 

CXLVII. 

Eelic of nobler days, and noblest arts ! 
Despoil'd yet perfect, with thy circle spreads 
A holiness appealing to all hearts — 
To art a model ; and to him who treads 
Eome for the sake of ages. Glory sheds 
Her light through thy sole aperture ; to those 
Who worship, here are altars for their beads ; 
And they who feel for genius may repose 
Their eyes on honor'd forms, whose busts around 
them close.'' 

gratified by that decree of the senate which enabled him to 
wear a wreath of laurel on all occasions. He was anxious, 
not to show that he was the conqueror of the world, but to 
hide that he was bald. A stranger in Eome would hardly 
have guessed at the motive, nor should we without the help 
of the historian. 

6 This is quoted in the " Decline and Fall of the Koman 
Empire," as a proof that the Coliseum was entire when seen 
by the Anglo-Saxon pilgrims at the end of the seventh, or 
the beginning of the eighth, century. A notice on the Coli- 
seum may be seen in the " Historical Illustrations," p. 263. 

6 " Though plundered of all its brass except the ring which 
was necessary to preserve the aperture above; though ex- 
posed to repeated fires; though sometimes flooded by the 
river, and always open to the rain, no monument of equal 
antiquity is so well preserved as this rotundo. It passed 
with little alteration from the Pagan into the present wot 
ship; and so convenient were its niches for the Christian 
altar that Michael Angelo, ever studious of ancient beauty, 
introduced their design as a model for the Catholic church." 
—FbrsytKs Italy, p. 137, 2d edit, 

7 The Pantheon has been made a receptacle for the busts 



68 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Canto IV. 



CXLVIII. 
There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear light i 
"What do I gaze on ? Nothing : Look again ! 
Two forms are slowly shadow'd on my sight — 
Two insulated phantoms of the brain : 
It is not so ; . I see them full and plain — 
An old man, and a female young and fair. 
Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose vein 
The blood is nectar : — but what doth she there, 
With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare ? 

CXLIX. 
Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life. 
Where on the heart and from the heart we took 
Our first and sweetest nurture, when the wife. 
Blest into mother, in the innocent look, 
Or even the piping cry of lips that brook 
No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives 
Man knows not, when from out its cradled nook 
She sees her little bud put forth its leaves — 

What may the fruit be yet ? — I know not — Cain was 
Eve's. 

CL. 
But here youth offers to old age the food, " 

The milk of his own gift : it is her sire 
To whom she renders back the debt of blood 
Born with her birth. No ; he shall not expire 
While in those warm and lovely veins the fire 
Of health and holy feeling can provide 
Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises higher 
Than Egypt's river : — from that gentle side 

Drink, drink and live, old man ! Heaven's realm holds 
no such tide. 

CLI. 

The starry fable of the milky way 

Has not thy story's purity ; it is 

A constellation of a sweeter ray, 

And sacred Nature triumphs more in this 

Reverse of her decree, than in the abyss 

Where sparkle distant worlds : — Oh, holiest nurse ! 

No drop of that clear stream its way shall miss 



of modern great, or, at least, distinguished men. The flood 
of light which once fell through the large orb above on the 
whole circle of divinities, now shines on a numerous assem- 
blage of mortals, some one or two of whom have been almost 
deified by the veneration of their countrymen. For a notice 
of the Pantheon, see " Historical Illustrations," p. 287. 

1 This and the three next stanzas allude to the story of the 
Roman daughter, which is recalled to the traveller by the 
site, or pretended site, of that adventure, now shown at the 
church of St. Nicholas in Careers. The diflBculties attending 
the full belief of the tale are stated in " Historical Illustra- 
tions," p. 295. 

2 The castle of St. Angelo. See " Historical Illustrations." 
2 This and the six next stanzas have a reference to the 

church of St. Peter's. For a measurement of the compara- 
tive length of this basilica and the other great churches of 
Europe, see the pavement of St. Peter's, and the Classical 
Tour through Italy, vol. ii. p. 125 el seq. ch. iv. 

* " I remember very well," says Sir Joshua Reynolds, " ray 
own disappointment when I first visited the Vatican ; but on 



To thy sire's heart, replenishing its source 
With life, as our freed souls rejoin the universe. 

CLII. 

Turn to the mole which Hadrian rear'd on high,' 

Imperial mimic of old Egypt's piles. 

Colossal copyist of deformity. 

Whose travell'd phantasy from the far Nile's 

Enormous model, doom'd the artist's toils 

To build for giants, and for his vain earth. 

His shrunken ashes, raise this dome : How smiles 

The gazer's eye with philosophic mirth. 

To view the huge design which sprung from such a 
birth ! 

CLIII. 
But lo ! the dome — the vast and wondrous dome,^ 
To which Diana's marvel was a cell — 
Christ's mighty shrine above his martyr's tomb ! 
I have beheld the Ephesian's miracle — 
Its columns strew the wilderness, and dwell 
The hyena and the jackal in their shade ; 
I have beheld Sophia's bright roofs swell 
Their glittering mass i' the sun, and have survey'd 

Its sanctuary the while the usurping Moslem pray'd ; 

CLIV. 

But thou, of temples old, or altars new, 
Standest alone — with nothing like to thee- • 
Worthiest of God, the holy and the true. 
Since Zion's desolation, when that he 
Forsook his former city, what could be, 
Of earthly structures, in his honor piled. 
Of a sublimer aspect ? Majesty, 
Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty, all are aisled 
In this eternal ark of worship undefiled. 

CLV. 
Enter : its grandeur overwhelms thee not ; * 
And why ? it is not lessen'd ; but thy mind, 
Expanded by the genius of the spot, 
Has grown colossal, and can only find 
A fit abode wherein appear enshrined 



confessing my feelings to a brother student, of whose ingen- 
uousness I had a high opinion, he acknowledged that the 
works of Raphael had the same effect on him, or rather that 
they did not produce the effect which he expected. This was 
a great relief to my mind; and, on inquiring further of other 
students, I found that those persons only who, from natural 
imbecility, appeared to be incapable of relishing those divine 
performances, made pretensions to instantaneous raptures on 
first beholding them. My not relishing them as I was con- 
scious I ought to have done, was one of the most huni^l'ating 
circumstances that ever happened to me ; I found myself in 
the midst of works executed upon principles with which I 
was unacquainted: I felt my ignorance, and stood abashed. 
All the indigested notions of painting which I had brought 
with me from England, where the art was in the lowest state 
it had ever been in, were to be totally done away and erad- 
icated from my mind. It was necessary, as it is expressed on 
a very solemn occasion, that I should become as a little child. 
Notwithstanding my disappointment, I proceeded to copy 
some of those excellent works. I viewed them again and 



Canto IV. 



CHILDE HAKOLD'S PILGEIMAGE. 



69 



Thy hopes of immortality ; and thou 
Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined. 
See thy God face to face, as thou dost now 
His Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by his brow. 

CLVI. 

Thou movest — but increasing with the advance. 

Like climbing some great Alp, which still doth rise, 

Deceived by its gigantic elegance ; 

Vastness which grows — but grows to harmonize — 

All musical in its immensities ; 

Rich marbles — richer painting — shrines where 

flame 
The lamps of gold — and haughty dome which vies 
In air with Earth's chief structures, though their 

frame 
Sits on the firm-set ground — and this the clouds must 

claim. 

CLVII. 
Thou seest not all ; but piecemeal thou must break, 
To separate contemplation, the great whole ; 
And as the ocean many bays will make 
That ask the eye — so here condense thy soul 
To more immediate objects, and control 
Thy thoughts until thy mind hath got by heart 
Its eloquent proportions, and unroll 
In mighty graduations, part by part. 
The glory which at once upon thee did not dart, 

CLVIII. 

Not by its fault— but thine : Our outward sense 
Is but of gradual grasp — and as it is 
That what we have of feeling most intense 
Outstrips our faint expression ; even so this 
Outshining and o'erwhelming edifice 
Fools our fond gaze, and, greatest of the great, 
Defies at first our nature's littleness. 
Till, growing with its growth, we thus dilate 
Our spirits to the size of that they contemplate. 

CLIX. 
Then pause, and be enlighten'd ; there is more 
In such a survey than the sating gaze 
Of wonder pleased, or awe which would adore 
The worship of the place, or the mere praise 
Of art and its great masters, who could raise 
What former time, nor skill, nor thought could plan ; 
The fountain of sublimity displays 
Its depth, and thence may draw the mind of man 
Its golden sands, and learn what great conceptions can. 

CLX. 

Or, turning to the Vatican, go see 

Laocoon's torture dignifying pain — 

A father's love and mortal's agony 

With an immortal's patience blending : — Vain 



again ; I even affected to feel their merit and admire them 
more than I really did. In a short time a new taste and a 
new perception began to dawn upon me, and I was convinced 



The struggle ; vain, against the coiling strain, 
And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp, 
The old man's clench ; the long envenom'd chain 
Rivets the living links, — the enormous asp 
Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp. 

CLXI. 

Or view the Lord of the unerring bow, 
The God of life, and poesy, and light — 
The Sun in human limbs array'd, and brow 
All radiant from his triumph in the fight ; 
The shaft hath just been shot — the arrow bright 
With an immortal's vengeance ; in his eye 
And nostril beautiful disdain, and might 
And majesty, flash their full lightnings by, 
Developing in that one glance the Deity. 

CLXII. 

But in his delicate form — a dream of Love, 
Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast 
Long'd for a deathless lover from above. 
And madden'd in that vision — are exprest 
All that ideal beauty ever bless'd 
The mind with in its most unearthly mood. 
When each conception was a heavenly guest — 
A ray of immortality — and stood 
Starlike, around, until they gather'd to a god ! 

CLXIIL 

And if it be Prometheus stole from Heaven 
The fire which we endure, it was repaid 
By him to whom the energy was given 
Which this poetic marble hath array'd 
With an eternal glory — which, if made 
By human hands, is not of human thought ; 
And Time himself hath hallow'd it, nor laid 
One ringlet in the dust — nor hath it caught 
A tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which 
'twas wrought. 

CLXIV. 

But where is he, the Pilgrim of my song, 
The being who upheld it through the past ? 
Methinks he cometh late and tarries long. 
He is no more — these breathings are his last ; 
His wanderings done, his visions ebbing fast. 
And he himself as nothing : — if he was 
Aught but a phantasy, and could be class'd 
With forms which live and suffer— let that pass— 
His shadow fades away into Destruction's mass, 

CLXV. 

Which gathers shadow, substance, life, and all 
That we inherit, in its mortal shroud. 
And spreads the dim and universal pall [cloud 

Through which all things grow phantoms ; and the 



that I had originally formed a false opinion of the perfection 
of the art, and that this great painter was well entitled to the 
high rank which he holds in the admiration of the world," 



70 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Canto IV. 



Between us sinks and all which ever glow'd, 
Till Glory's self is twilight, and displays 
A melancholy halo scarce allow'd 
To hover on the verge of darkness ; rays 
Sadder than saddest night, for they distract the gaze, 

CLXVI. 

And send us prying into the abyss, 
To gather what we shall be when the frame 
Shall be resolved to something less than this 
Its wretched essence ; and to dream of fame. 
And wipe the dust from off the idle name 
We never more shall hear, — but never more. 
Oh, happier thought ! can we be made the same : 
It is enough in sooth that once we bore 
These fardels of the heart— the heart whose sweat 
was gore. 

CLXVII. 
Hark ! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds, 
A long low distant murmur of dread sound, 
Such as arises when a nation bleeds 
With some deep and immedicable wound ; 
Through storm and darkness yawns the rending 

ground. 
The gulf is thick with phantoms, but the chief 
Seems royal still, though with her head discrown'd, 
And pale, but lovely, with maternal grief 
She clasps a babe, to whom her breast yields no relief. 

CLXVIII. 
Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou ? 
Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead ? 
Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low 
Some less majestic, less beloved head ? 
In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled, 
The mother of a moment, o'er thy boy. 
Death hush'd that pang for ever : with thee fled 
The present happiness and promised joy 
Which fill'd the imperial isles so full it seem'd to cloy. 

CLXIX. 

Peasants bring forth in safety. — Can it be, 
Oh thou that wert so happy, so adored ! 
Those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee. 
And Freedom's heart, grown heavy, cease to hoard 
Her many griefs for One ? for she had pour'd 
Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head 
Beheld her Iris. — Thou, too, lonely lord. 
And desolate consort — vainly wert thou wed ! 
The husband of a year ! the father of the dead ! 



1 " The death of the Princess Charlotte has been a shock 
even here (Venice), and must have been an earthquake at 
home. The fate of this poor girl is melancholy in every 
respect ; dying at twenty or so, in childbed— of a boy too, a 
present princess and future queen, and just as she began to 
be happy, and to enjoy herself, and the hopes which she in- 
spired. I feel sorry in every respect."— ^j/r-on Letters. 

2 Mary died on the scaflfold ; Elizabeth of a broken heart ; 
Charles V. a hermit ; Louis XIV. a bankrupt in means and 



CLXX. 

Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made ; 
Thy bridal's fruit is ashes : in the dust 
The fair-hair'd Daughter of the Isles is laid, 
The love of millions ! How we did entrust 
Futurity to her ! and, though it must 
Darken above our bones, yet fondly deem'd 
Our children should obey her child, and bless'd 
Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seem'd 
Like stars to shepherds' eyes :— 'twas but a meteor 
beam'd. 

CLXXI. 

Woe unto us, not her ; i for she sleeps well : 
The fickle reek of popular breath, the tongue 
Of hollow counsel, the false oracle. 
Which from the birth of monarchy hath rung 
Its knell in princely ears, till the o'erstrung 
Nations have arm'd in madness, the strange fate ^ 
Which tumbles mightiest sovereigns, and hath flung 
Against their blind omnipotence a weight 

Within the opposing scale, which crushes soon or 
late, — 

CLXXII. 
These might have been her destiny ; but no. 
Our hearts deny it : and so young, so fair, 
Good without effort, great without a foe ; 
But now a bride and mother — and now there ! 
How many ties did that stern moment tear ! 
From thy Sire's to his humblest subject's breast 
Is link'd the electric chain of that despair, 
Whose shock was as an earthquake's, and opprest 

The land which loved thee so that none could love 
thee best. 

CLXXIII. 
Lo, Nemi ! ^ navell'd in the woody hills 
So far, that the uprooting wind which tears 
The oak from his foundation, and which spills 
The ocean o'er its boundary, and bears 
Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares 
The oval mirror of thy glassy lake ; 
And, calm as cherish'd hate, its surface wears 
A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake. 

All coil'd into itself and round, as sleeps the snake. 

CLXXIV. 

And near Albano's scarce divided waves 
Shine from a sister valley ; — and afar 
The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves 
The Latian coast where sprung the Epic war, 
" Arms and the Man," whose reascending star 



glory ; Cromwell of anxiety ; and, " the greatest is behind," 
Napoleon lives a prisoner. To these sovereigns a long but 
superfluous list might be added of names equally illustrious 
and unhappy. 

3 The village of Nemi was near the Arician retreat of 
Egeria, and, from the shades which embosomed the temple 
of Diana, has preserved to this day its distinctive appellation 
of The Orove. Nemi is but an evening's ride from the com- 
fortable inn of Albano. 



Canto IV. 



CHILDE HAEOLD'S PILGKIMAGE. 



71 



Rose o'er an empire : — but beneath thy right 
TuUy reposed from Rome ;— and where yon bar 
Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight, 
The Sabine farm was till'd, the weary bard's delight.^ 

CLXXV. 

But I forget. — My Pilgrim's shrine is won, 
And he and I must part, — so let it be, — 
His task and mine alike are nearly done ; 
Yet once more let us look upon the sea : 
The midland ocean breaks on him and me, 
And from the Alban Mount we now behold 
Our friend of youth, that Ocean, which when we 
Beheld it last by Calpe's rock unfold 
Those waves, we foUow'd on till the dark Euxine 
roll'd 

CLXXVI. 
Upon the blue Symplegades : long years, — 
Long, though not very many, — since have done 
Their work on both; some suffering and some 

tears 
Have left us nearly where we had begun : 
Yet not in vain our mortal race hath run ; 
We have had our reward — and it is here, — 
That we can yet feel gladden'd by the sun. 
And reap from earth, sea, joy almost as dear 
As if there were no man to trouble what is clear. 

CLXXVII. 

Oh ! that the Desert were my dwelling-place, 
With one fair Spirit for my minister, 
That I might all forget the human race, 
And, hating no one, love but only her ! 
Ye elements ! — in whose ennobling stir 
I feel myself exalted — Can ye not 
Accord me such a being ? Do I err 
In deeming such inhabit many a spot ? 
Though with them to converse can rarely be our 
lot. 

CLXXVIII. 

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, 
There is a rapture on the lonely shore, 
There is society, where none intrudes. 
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar : 
I love not Man the less, but Nature more. 
From these our interviews, in which I steal 
From all I may be, or have been before. 



1 The whole declivity of the Alban hill is of unrivalled 
beauty, and from the convent on the highest point, which 
has succeeded to the temple of the Latian Jupiter, the pros- 
pect embraces all the objects alluded to in this stanza ; the 
Mediterranean ; the whole scene of the latter half of the 
vEneid, and the coast from beyond the mouth of the Tiber 
to the headland of Circaeum and the Cape of Terracina.— See 
Appendix, " Historical Notes," No. xxxi. 

* When Lord Byron wrote this stanza, he had, no doubt, 
the following passage in Boswell's Johnson floating on his 
mind :— " Dining one day with General Paoli, and talking of 



To mingle with the Universe, and feel 
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal. 

CLXXIX. 
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean — roll ! 
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ; 
Man marks the earth with ruin— his control 
Stops with the shore ; — upon the watery plain 
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own. 
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain. 
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, 
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown. 

CLXXX. 

His steps are not upon thy paths, — thy fields 

Are not a spoil for him, — thou dost arise 

And shake him from thee; the vile strength he 

wields 
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, 
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies. 
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray 
And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies 
His petty hope in some near port or bay. 
And dashest him again to earth: — there let him 
lay. 

CLXXXI. 

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls 
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake. 
And monarchs tremble in their capitals. 
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make 
Their clay creator the vain title take 
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war ; 
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, 
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar 
Alike the Armada's pride or spoils of Trafalgar. 

CLXXXII. 

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee— 
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they ? "^ 
Thy waters wash'd them power while they were 

free. 
And many a tyrant since ; their shores obey 
The stranger, slave, or savage ; their decay 
Has dried up realms to deserts : — not so thou ; — 
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play — 
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow — 
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou roUest now. 



his projected journey to Italy,— 'A man,' said Johnson, 'who 
has not been in Italy is always conscious of an inferiority, 
from his not having seen what it is expected a man should 
see. The grand object of all travelling is to see the shores 
of the Mediterranean. On those shores were the four great 
empires of the world: the Assyrian, the Persian, the Gre- 
cian, and the Roman. All our religion, almost all our law, 
almost all our arts, almost all that sets us above savages, has 
come to us from the shores of the Mediterranean.' The gen- 
eral observed that 'The Mediterranean' would be a noble 
subject for a poem." — Life of Johnson, vol. v. p. 145, ed. 1835. 



72 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Canto IV. 



CLXXXIII. 

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form 
Glasses itself in tempests ; in all time, 
Calm or convulsed — in breeze, or gale, or storm. 
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime 
Dark-heaving ; — boundless, endless, and sublime — 
The image of Eternity — the throne 
Of the Invisible ; even from out thy slime 
The monsters of the deep are made ; each zone 
Obeys thee ; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. 

CLXXXIV. 

And I have loved thee. Ocean ! i and my joy 
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be 
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward : from a boy 
I wanton' d with thy breakers — they to me 
Were a delight ; and if the freshening sea 
Made them a terror — 'twas a pleasing fear, 
For I was as it were a child of thee, 
And trusted to thy billows far and near, 
And laid my hand upon thy mane — as I do here. 



1 " This passage would-, perhaps, be read without emotion, 
if we did not know that Lord Byron was here describing his 
actual feelings and habits, and that this was an unaffected 
picture of his propensities and amusements even from child- 
hood, — when he listened to the roar and watched the bursts 
of the northern ocean on the tempestuous shores of Aber- 
deenshire. It was a fearful and violent change at the age of 
ten years to be separated from this congenial solitude, — this 
independence so suited to his haughty and contemplative 
spirit, — this rude grandeur of nature, — and thrown among 
the mere worldly-minded and selfish ferocity, the affected 
polish and repelling coxcombry, of a great public school. 
How many thousand times did the moody, sullen, and indig- 
nant boy wish himself back to the keen air and boisterous 
billows that broke lonely upon the simple and soul-invigor- 
ating haunts of his childhood! How did he prefer some 
ghost-story; some tale of second-sight; some relation of 
Robin Hood's feats ; some harrowing narrative of buccaneer- 
exploits, to all of Horace, and Virgil, and Homer, that was 
dinned into his repulsive spirit ! To the shock of this change 
is, I suspect, to be traced much of the eccentricity of Lord 
Byron's future life. This fourth canto is the fruit of a mind 
which had stored itself with great care and toil, and had di- 
gested with profound reflection and intense vigor what it 
had learned : the sentiments are not such as lie on the sur- 
face, but could only be awakened by long meditation. Who- 
ever reads it, and is not impressed with the many grand vir- 



CLXXXV. 

My task is done ^ — my song hath ceased — my theme 
Has died into an echo ; it is fit 
The spell should break of this protracted dream. 
The torch shall be extinguish'd which hath lit 
My midnight lamp — and what is writ, is writ, — 
Would it were worthier ! but I am not now 
That which I have been — and my visions flit 
Less palpably before me — and the glow 
Which in my spirit dwelt is fluttering, faint, and low. 

CLXXXVI. 

Farewell ! a word that must be, and hath been — 
A sound which makes us linger ; — yet — farewell ! 
Ye ! who have traced the Pilgrim to the scene 
Which is his last, if in your memories dwell 
A thought which once was his, if on ye swell 
A single recollection, not in vain 
He wore his sandal-shoon and scallop-shell ; 
Farewell ! with him alone may rest the pain. 
If such there were — with you, the moral of his strain ! 



tues as well as gigantic powers of the mind that wrote it, 
seems to me to afford a proof both of insensibility of heart 
and great stupidity of intellect."— Sir E. Brydges. 

2 " It was a thought worthy of the great spirit of Byron, 
after exhibiting to us his Pilgrim amidst all the most strik- 
ing scenes of earthly grandeur and earthly decay, — after 
teaching us, like him, to sicken over the mutability, and 
vanity, and emptiness of human greatness, to conduct him 
and us at last to the borders of ' the Great Deep.' It is there 
that we may perceive an image of the awful and unchange- 
able abyss of eternity, into whose bosom so much has sunk, 
and all shall one day sink, — of that eternity wherein the 
scorn and the contempt of man, and the melancholy of great 
and the fretting of little minds, shall be at rest for ever. No 
one, but a true poet of man and of nature, would have dared 
to frame such a termination for such a pilgrimage. The 
image of the wanderer may well be associated, for a time, 
with the rock of Calpe, the shattered temples of Athens, or 
the gigantic fragments of Rome ; but when we wish to think 
of this dark personification as of a thing which is, where can 
we so well imagine him to have his daily haunt as by the 
roaring of the waves ? It was thus that Homer represented 
Achilles in his moments of ungovernable and inconsolable 
grief for the loss of Patroclus. It was thus he chose to depict 
the paternal despair of Chriseus— 

B^ 6' dxewv Trapa Stj'a TroAv^AotVfioto SaAao-aijs." — 

Wilson. 



2ri)e (ffiiaour: 

A FKAGMENT OF A TUEKISH TALE.i 



" One fatal remembrance— one sorrow that throws 
Its bleak shade alike o'er our joys and our woes — 
To which Life nothing darker nor brighter can bring, 
For which joy hath no balm— and affliction no sting." 

Moore. 



SAMUEL EOGERS, Esq., 

AS A SLIGHT BUT MOST SINCERE TOKEN OP ADMIRATION FOR HIS GENIUS, 
RESPECT FOR HIS CHARACTER, AND GRATITUDE FOR HIS FRIENDSHIP, 

THIS PRODUCTION IS INSCRIBED, 



London, May, 1813 



BY HIS OBLIGED AND AFFECTIONATE SERVANT, 

BYRON. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

The tale which these disjointed fragments present, 
is founded upon circumstances now less common in 
the East than formerly; either because the ladies 
are more circumspect than in the "olden time," or 
because the Christians have better fortune, or less 
enterprise. The story, when entire, contained the 
adventures of a female slave, who was thrown, in 
the Mussulman manner, into the sea for infidelity, 
and avenged by a young Venetian, her lover, at the 
time the Seven Islands were possessed by the Re- 
public of Venice, and soon after the Arnauts were 
beaten back from the Morea, which they had ravaged 
for some time subsequent to the Russian invasion. 
The desertion of the Mainotes, on being refused the 
plunder of Misitra, led to the abandonment of that 
enterprise, and to the desolation of the Morea, during 

1 The Giaour was published in May, 1813, and abundantly 
sustained the impression created by the two first cantos of 
Childe Harold. It is obvious that in this, the first of his 
romantic narratives, Lord Byron's versification reflects the 
admiration he always avowed for Mr. Coleridge's Christa- 
bel, — the irregular rhythm of which had already been adopt- 
ed in the Lay of the Last Minstrel. The fragmentary style 
of the composition was suggested by the then new and pop- 
ular Columbus of Mr. Rogers. As to the subject, it was not 
merely by recent travel that the author had familiarized 
himself with Turkish history. "Old Knolles," he said at 
Missolonghi, a few weeks before his death, " was one of the 
first books that gave me pleasure when a child ; and I believe 
it had much influence on my future wishes to visit the Le- 
vant, and gave, perhaps, the Oriental coloring which is ob- 
served in my poetry." In the margin of his copy of Mr. Dis- 
raeli's Essay on the Literary Character, we find the following 
note :— " Knolles, Cantemir, De Tott, Lady M. W. Montague, 
Hawkins's translation from Mignot's History of the Turks, 
the Arabian Nights— all travels or histories, or books upon 
the East, I could meet with, I had read, as well as Ricaut, 
before I was ten years old." 



which the cruelty exercised on all sides was unparal- 
leled even in the annals of the faithful.^ 



No breath of air to break the wave 
That rolls below the Athenian's grave, 
That tomb ^ which, gleaming o'er the cliff, 
First greets the homeward-veering skiff, 
High o'er the land he saved in vain ; 
When shall such hero live again ? 



Fair clime ! * where every season smiles 
Benignant o'er those blessed isles, 
Which, seen from far Colonna's height, 
Make glad the heart that hails the sight. 
And lend to loneliness delight. 

2 An event in which Lord Byron was personally concerned 
undoubtedly supplied the groundwork of this tale ; but for 
the story, so circumstantially put forth, of his having him- 
self been the lover of this female slave, there is no founda- 
tion. The girl whose life the poet saved at Athens was not, 
we are assured by Sir John Hobhouse, an object of his lord- 
ship's attachment, but of that of his Turkish servant. For 
the Marquis of Sligo's account of the affair, see Moore's 
Notices. 

3 A tomb above the rocks on the promontory, by some 
supposed the sepulchre of Themistocles.— " There are," says 
Cumberland, in his Observer, "a few lines by Plato, upon 
the tomb of Themistocles, which have a turn of elegant and 
pathetic simplicity in them, that deserves a better transla- 
tion than I can give : — 

' By the sea's margin, on the watery strand. 
Thy monument, Themistocles, shall stand : 
By this directed to thy native shore, 
The merchant shall convey his freighted store ; 
And when our fleets are summon'd to the fight, 
Athens shall conquer with thy tomb in sight,' " 

4 "Of the beautiful flow of Byron's fancy," says Moore 

(73) 



74 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



There, mildly dimpling, Ocean's cheek 
Reflects the tints of many a peak 
Caught by the laughing tides that lave 
These Edens of the eastern wave : 
And if at times a transient breeze 
Break the blue crystal of the seas. 
Or sweep one blossom from the trees, 
How welcome is each gentle air 
That wakes and wafts the odors there ! 
For there — the Rose o'er crag or vale. 
Sultana of the Nightingale,^ 
The maid for whom his melody, 
His thousand songs are heard on high, 
Blooms blushing to her lover's tale : 
His queen, the garden queen, his Rose, 
Unbent by winds, unchill'd by snows, 
Far from the winters of the west. 
By every breeze and season blest. 
Returns the sweets by Nature given 
In softest incense back to heaven ; 
And grateful yields that smiling sky 
Her fairest hue and fragrant sigh. 
And many a summer flower is there, 
And many a shade that love might share, 
And many a grotto, meant for rest. 
That holds the pirate for a guest ; 
Whose bark in sheltering cove below 
Lurks for the passing peaceful prow, 
Till the gay mariner's guitar ^ 
Is heard, and seen the evening star ; 
Then stealing with the muffled oar, 
Far shaded by the rocky shore, 



"when its sources were once opened on any subject, the 
Giaour aflFords one of the most remarkable instances: this 
poem having accumulated under his hand, both in printing 
and through successive editions, till from four hundred 
lines, of which it consisted in its first copy, it at present 
amounts to fourteen hundred. The plan, indeed, which he 
had adopted, of a series of fragments, — a set of ' Orient pearls 
at random strung,'— left him free to introduce, without ref- 
erence to more than the general complexion of his story, 
whatever sentiments or images his fancy, in its excursions, 
could collect ; and how little fettered he was by any regard 
to connection in these additions appears from a note which 
pwjcompanied his own copy of this paragraph, in which he 
says: — 'I have not yet fixed the place of insertion for the 
following lines, but will when I see you — as I have no copy.' 
Even into this new passage, rich as it was at first, his fancy 
afterwards poured a fresh infusion." — The value of these 
after-touches of the master may be appreciated by comparing 
the following verses, from his original draft of this para- 
graph, with the form which they now wear : — 

" Fair clime ! where ceaseless summer smiles 

Benignant o'er those blessed isles. 

Which, seen from far Colonna's height, 

Make glad the heart that hails the sight, 

And give to loneliness delight. 

There shine the bright abodes ye seek, 

Like dimples upon Ocean's cheek, 

So smiling round the waters lave 

These Edens of the eastern wave. 

Or if, at times, the transient breeze 

Break the smooth crystal of the seas. 

Or brush one blossom from the trees, 



Rush the night-prowlers on the prey, 

And turn to groans his roundelay. 

Strange — that where Nature loved to trace. 

As if for gods, a dwelling place, 

And every charm and grace hath mix'd 

Within the paradise she fix'd. 

There man, enamor'd of distress. 

Should mar it into wilderness. 

And trample, brute-like, o'er each flower 

That tasks not one laborious hour; 

Nor claims the culture of his hand 

To bloom along the fairy land. 

But springs as to preclude his care, 

And sweetly woos him — but to spare ! 

Strange — that where all is peace beside. 

There passion riots in her pride. 

And lust and rapine wildly reign 

To darken o'er the fair domain. 

It is as though the fiends prevail' d 

Against the seraphs they assail'd, 

And, fix'd on heavenly thrones, should dwell 

The freed inheritors of hell ; 

So soft the scene, so form'd for joy. 

So curst the tyrants that destroy ! 



He who hath bent him o'er the dead^ 
Ere the first day of death is fled. 
The first dark day of nothingness. 
The last of danger and distress 
(Before Decay's efiacing fingers 
Have swept the lines where beauty lingers), 



How grateful is the gentle air 

That waves and wafts the fragrance there." 

The whole of this passage, from line 7 down to line 167, 
"Who heard it first had cause to grieve," was not in the 
first edition. 

1 The attachment of the nightingale to the rose is a well- 
known Persian fable. If I mistake not, the "Bulbul of a 
thousand tales" is one of his appellations. Thus, Mesihi, as 
translated by Sir William Jones :— 

" Come, charming maid ! and hear thy poet sing. 
Thyself the rose, and he the bird of spring : 
Love bids him sing, and Love will be obey'd. 
Be gay : too soon the flowers of spring will fade." 

2 The guitar is the constant amusement of the Greek sailor 
by night : with a steady fair wind, and during a calm, it is 
accompanied always by the voice, and often by dancing. 

8 " If once the public notice is drawn to a poet, the talents 
he exhibits on a nearer view, the weight his mind carries 
with it in his every-day intercourse, somehow or other, are 
reflected around on his compositions, and co-operate in giving 
a collateral force to their impression on the public. To this 
we must assign some part of the impression made by the 
'Giaour.' The thirty-five lines beginning 'He who hath 
bent him o'er the dead ' are so beautiful, so original, and so 
utterly beyond the reach of any one whose poetical genius 
was not very decided, and very rich, that they alone, under 
the circumstances explained, were sufficient to secure cele- 
brity to this poem."— SiK E. Bkydges. 



THE GIAOUR. 



75 



And mark'd the mild angelic air, 

The rapture of repose that's there,i 

The fix'd yet tender traits that streak 

The languor of the placid cheek, 

And— but for that sad shrouded eye, 
That fires not, wins not, weeps not, now, 
And but for that chill, changeless brow, 

Where cold Obstruction's apathy 2 

Appalls the gazing mourner's heart, 

As if to him it could impart 

The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon ; 

Yes, but for these, and these alone, 

Some moments, ay, one treacherous hour, 

He still might doubt the tyrant's power ; 

So fair, so calm, so softly seal'd. 

The first, last look by death reveal'd ! ^ 

Such is the aspect of this shore ; 

'Tis Greece, but living Greece no more ! * 

So coldly sweet, so deadly fair. 

We start, for soul is wanting there. 

Hers is the loveliness in death. 

That parts not quite with parting breath ; 

But beauty with that fearful bloom, 

That hue which haunts it to the tomb, 

Expression's last receding ray, 

A gilded halo hovering round decay. 

The farewell beam of Feeling pass'd away ! 
Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth. 
Which gleams, but warms no more its cherish'd 
earth ! ^ 

Clime of the unforgotten brave ! ^ 
Whose land from plain to mountain cave 
Was Freedom's home or Glory's grave ! 
Shrine of the mighty ! can it be. 
That this is all remains of thee ? 
- Approach, thou craven crouching slave : 

Say, is not this Thermopylae ? 
These waters blue that round you lave, 

Oh servile ofispring of the free — 
Pronounce what sea, what shore is this ? 
The gulf, the rock of Salamis ! 

1 " And mark'd the almost dreaming air 

Which speaks the sweet repose that's there." — MS. 

2 " Ay, but to die and go we know not where, 
To lie in cold obstruction." — 

'•j Measure for Measure, act iii. sc. 1. 

3 I trust that few of my readers have ever had an oppor- 
tunity of witnessing what is here attempted in description ; 
but those who have will probably retain a painful remem- 
brance of that singular beauty which pervades, with few ex- 
ceptions, the features of the dead, a few hours, and but for a 
few hours, after "the spirit is not there." It is to be re- 
marked in cases of violent death by gun-shot wounds, the 
expression is always that of languor, whatever the natural 
energy of the sufferer's character : but in death from a stab 
the countenance preserves its traits of feeling or ferocity, and 
the mind its bias, to the last. 

« "In Dallaway's Constantinople, a book which Lord Byron 
is not unlikely to have consulted, I find a passage quoted from 
Gillies's History of Greece, which contains, perhaps, the first 
seed of the thought thus expanded into full perfection by 



These scenes, their story not unknown, 
Arise, and make again your own ; 
Snatch from the ashes of your sires 
The embers of their former fires ; 
And he who in the strife expires 
Will add to theirs a name of fear 
That Tyranny shall quake to hear. 
And leave his sons a hope, a fame, 
They too will rather die than shame : 
For Freedom's battle once begun, 
Bequeath'd by bleeding Sire to Son, 
Though baffled oft is ever won. 
Bear witness, Greece, thy living page ! 
Attest it many a deathless age ! 
While kings, in dusty darkness hid, 
Have left a nameless pyramid. 
Thy heroes, though the general doom 
Hath swept the column from their tomb, 
A mightier monument command. 
The mountains of their native land ! 
There points thy Muse to stranger's eye 
The graves of those that cannot die ! 
'Twere long to tell, and sad to trace, 
Each step from splendor to disgrace ; 
Enough — no foreign foe could quell 
Thy soul, till from itself it fell ; 
Yes ! Self-abasement paved the way 
To villain-bonds and despot sway. 

What can he tell who treads thy shore? 

No legend of thine olden time. 
No theme on which the Muse might soar 
High as thine own in days of yore. 

When man was worthy of thy clime. 
The hearts within thy valleys bred. 
The fiery souls that might have led 

Thy sons to deeds sublime. 
Now crawl from cradle to the grave. 
Slaves — nay, the bondsmen of a slave,'^ 

And callous, save to crime ; 
Stain'd with each evil that pollutes 
Mankind, where least above the brutes ; 



genius : — ' The present state of Greece compared to the fin- 
cient, is the silent obscurity of the grave contrasted with the 
vivid lustre of active life.' " — Mooke. 

5 " There is infinite beauty and effect, though of a painful 
and almost oppressive character, in this extraordinary pas- 
sage ; in which the author has illustrated the beautiful, but 
still and melancholy aspect of the once busy and glorious 
shores of Greece, by an image more true, more mournful, and 
more exquisitely finished, than any that we can recollect in 
the whole compass of poetry." — Jeffrey. 

6 From this line to the conclusion of the paragraph, tho 
MS. is written in a hurried and almost illegible hand, as if 
these splendid lines had been poured forth in one continuous 
burst of poetic feeling, which would hardly allow time for the 
hand to follow the rapid flow of the imagination. 

T Athens is the property of the Kislar Aga (the slave of the 
seraglio and guardian of the women), who appoints the "Way- 
wode. A pander and eunuch— these are not polite, yet true 
appellations — now yoverns the governor of Athens 1 



76 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 






Without even savage virtue blest, 
Without one free or valiant breast, 
Still to the neighboring ports they waft 
Proverbial wiles, and ancient craft ; 
In this the subtle Greek is found. 
For this, and this alone, renown'd. 
In vain might Liberty invoke 
The spirit to its bondage broke, 
Or raise the neck that courts the yoke : 
No more her sorrows I bewail. 
Yet this will be a mournful tale. 
And they who listen may believe, 
Who heard it first had cause to grieve. 

Far, dark, along the blue sea glancing, 
The shadows of the rocks advancing 
Start on the fisher's eye like boat , 

Of island pirate or Mainote ; 
And fearful for his light caique, 
He shuns the near but doubtful creek : 
Though worn and weary with his toil, 
And cumber'd with his scaly spoil, 
Slowly, yet strongly, plies the oar, 
Till Port Leone's safer shore 
Eecieives him by the lovely light 
That best becomes an Eastern night. 
****** 

Who thundering comes on blackest steed,i 
With slacken'd bit and hoof of speed ? 
Beneath the clattering iron's sound 
The cavern'd echoes wake around 
In lash for lash, and bound for bound ; 
The foam that streaks the courser's side 
Seems gather'd from the ocean tide : 
Though weary waves are sunk to rest, 
There's none within his rider's breast ; 
And though to-morrow's tempest lower, 
'Tis calmer than thy heart, young Giaour ! 2 

1 know thee not, I loathe thy race. 
But in thy lineaments I trace 

What time shall strengthen, not efiace : 
Though young and pale, that sallow front 
Is scathed by fiery passion's brunt ; 
Though bent on earth thine evil eye. 
As meteor-like thou glidest by. 
Eight well I view and deem thee one 
Whom Othman's sons should slay or shun. 

^ " The reciter of the tale is a Turkish fisherman, who has 
been employed during the day in the gulf of ^gina, and in 
the evening, apprehensive of the Mainote pirates who infest 
the coast of Attica, lands with his boat on the harbor of 
Port Leone, the ancient Piraeus. He becomes the eye-witness 
of nearly all the incidents in the story, and in one of them is 
a principal agent. It is to his feelings, and particularly to 
his religious prejudices, that we are indebted for some of the 
most forcible and splendid parts of the poem."— George Ellis. 

2 In Dr. Clarke's Travels, this word, which means Infidel, 
is always written according to its English pronunciation, 
Djour. Lord Byron adopted the Italian spelling usual among 
the Franks of the Levant. 



On — on he hasten'd, and he drew 
My gaze of wonder as he flew : 
Though like a demon of the night 
He pass'd, and vanish'd from my sight, 
His aspect and his air impress'd 
A troubled memory on my breast, 
And long upon my startled ear 
Eung his dark courser's hoofs of fear. 
He spurs his steed ; he nears the steep, 
That, jutting, shadows o'er the deep ; 
He winds around ; he hurries by ; 
The rock relieves him from mine eye ; 
For well I ween unwelcome he 
Whose glance is fix'd on those that flee ; 
And not a star but shines too bright 
On him who takes such timeless flight. 
He wound along ; but ere he pass'd 
One glance he snatch'd, as if his last, 
A moment check'd his wheeling steed, 
A moment breathed him from his speed, 
A moment on his stirrup stood — 
Why looks he o'er the olive wood ? 
The crescent glimmers on the hill. 
The Mosque's high lamps are quivering still : 
Though too remote for sound to wake 
In echoes of the far tophaike,^ 
The flashes of each joyous peal 
Are seen to prove the Moslem's zeal. 
To-night, set Ehamazani's sun ; 
To-night, the Bairam feast's begun ; 
To-night — but who and what art thou, 
Of foreign garb and fearful brow ? 
And what are these to thine or thee. 
That thou shouldst either pause or flee ? 

He stood — some dread was on his face, 
Soon Hatred settled in its place : 
It rose not with the reddening flush 
Of transient Anger's hasty blush,* 
But pale as marble o'er the tomb, 
Whose ghastly whiteness aids its gloom. 
His brow was bent, his eye was glazed ; 
He raised his arm, and fiercely raised. 
And sternly shook his hand on high. 
As doubting to return or fly ; 
Impatient of his flight delay'd. 
Here loud his raven charger neigh'd — 
Down glanced that hand, and grasp'd his blade ; ^ 

8 " Tophaike," musket.— The Bairam is announced by the 
cannon at sunset ; the illumination of the mosques, and the 
firing of all kinds of small arms, loaded with hall, proclaim it 
during the night. 

* "Hasty blush." — For Msty, all the editions till the 
twelfth read "darkening blush." On the back of a copy of 
the eleventh. Lord Byron has written, "Why did not the 
printer attend to the solitary correction so repeatedly made? 
I have no copy of this, and desire to have none till my request 
is complied with." 

6 " Then turned it swiftly to his blade, 
As loud his raven charger neigh'd." — MS. 



THE GIAOUK. 



77 



That sound had burst his waking dream, 

As Slumber starts at owlet's scream. 

The spur hath lanced his courser's sides ; 

Away, away, for life he rides : 

Swift as the hurl'd on high jerreed* 

Springs to the touch his startled steed ; 

The rock is doubled, and the shore 

Shakes with the clattering tramp no more ; 

The crag is won, no more is seen 

His Christian crest and haughty mien.2 

'Twas but an instant he restrain'd 

That fiery barb so sternly rein'd ; ^ 

'Twas but a moment that he stood, 

Then sped as if by death pursued : 

But in that instant o'er his soul 

Winters of Memory seem'd to roll, 

And gather in that drop of time 

A life of pain, an age of crime. 

O'er him who loves, or hates, or fears. 

Such moment pours the grief of years ; 

What felt he then, at once opprest 

By all that most distracts the breast ? 

That pause, which ponder'd o'er his fate, 

Oh, who its dreary length shall date ! 

Though in Time's record nearly nought, 

It was Eternity to Thought ! 

For infinite as boundless space 

The thought that Conscience must embrace. 

Which in itself can comprehend 

Woe without name, or hope, or end. 

The hour is past, the Giaour is gone ; 
And did he fly or fall alone ? * 
Woe to that hour he came or went ! 
The curse for Hassan's sin was sent 
To turn a palace to a tomb : 
He came, he went, like the simoom,^ 
That harbinger of fate and gloom, 

1 Jerreed, or Djerrid, a blunted Turkish javelin, which is 
darted from horseback with great force and precision. It is 
a favorite exercise of the Mussulmans ; but I know not if it 
can be called a manly one, since the most expert in the art 
are the Black Eunuchs of Constantinople. I think, next to 
these, a Mamlouk at Smyrna was the most skillful that came 
within my observation. 

2 " Every gesture of the impetuous horseman is full of anx- 
iety and passion. In the midst of his career, whilst in full 
view of the astonished spectator, he suddenly checks his 
steed, and rising on his stirrup, surveys, with a look of ago- 
nizing impatience, the distant city illuminated for the feast of 
P.airam ; then pale with anger, raises his arm as if in menace 
of an invisible enemy ; but awakened from his trance of pas- 
sion by the neighing of his charger, again hurries forward 
and disappears."— George Ellis. 

^ " 'Twas but an instant, though so long 
When thus dilated in my song." — MS. 

♦ " But neither fled nor fell alone."— MS. 

5 The blast of the desert, fatal to every thing living, and 
often alluded to in eastern poetry / — Abyssinian Bruce gives, 
perhaps, the liveliest account of the aj pearance and effects of 
the suffocating blast of the Desert:—" At eleven o'clock," he 
says, " while we contemplated with great pleasure the rug- 
ged top of Cbiggre, to which we were fast approaching, and 



Beneath whose widely -wasting breath 
The very cypress droops to death — 
Dark tree, still sad when others' grief is fled, 
The only constant mourner o'er the dead ! 

The steed is vanish'd from the stall ; 
No serf is seen in Hassan's hall ; 
The lonely spider's thin gray pall 
Waves slowly widening o'er the wall ; ® 
The bat builds in his Haram bower, 
And in the fortress of his power 
The owl usurps the beacon-tower ; 
The wild-dog howls o'er the fountain's brim, 
With baffled thirst, and famine, grim ; "^ 
For the stream has shrunk from its marble bed, 
Where the weeds and the desolate dust are 



'Twas sweet of yore to see it play 

And chase the sultriness of day, 

As springing high the silver dew 

In whirls fantastically flew, 

And flung luxurious coolness round 

The air, and verdure o'er the ground. 

'Twas sweet, when cloudless stars were bright, 

To view the wave of watery light, 

And hear its melody by night. 

And oft had Hassan's Childhood play'd 

Around the verge of that cascade ; 

And oft upon his mother's breast 

That sound had harmonized his rest ; 

And oft had Hassan's Youth along 

Its bank been soothed by Beauty's song ; 

And softer seem'd each melting tone 

Of Music mingled with its own. 

But ne'er shall Hassan's Age repose 

Along the brink at twilight's close : 

The stream that fiU'd that font is fled — 

The blood that warm'd his heart is shed I ^ 



where we were to solace ourselves with plenty of good wat;'r, 
Idris, our guide, cried out with a loud voice, 'Fall upon 
your faces, for here is the simoom.' I saw from the south- 
east a haze come, in color like the purple part of the rain- 
bow, but not so compressed or thick. It did not occupy 
twenty yards in breadth, and was about twelve feet high from 
the ground. It was a kind of blush upon the air, and it, 
moved very rapidly; for I scarce could turn to fall upon the 
ground, with my head to the northward, when I felt the heat 
of its current plainly upon my face. We all lay flat on the 
ground as if dead, till Idris told us it was blown over. The 
meteor, or purple haze, which I saw was, indeed, passed, but 
the light air, which still blew, was of a heat to threaten suf- 
focation. For my part, I found distinctly in my breast that I 
had imbibed a part of it ; nor was I free from an asthmatic 
sensation till I had been some months in Italy, at the baths 
of Poretta, near two years afterwards."— See Bruce's Life and 
Travels, p. 470, edit. 1830. 

6 "The lonely spider's thin gray pall 

Is curtain'd on the splendid wall." — MS. 
^ " The wild-dog howls o'er the fountain's brink, 

But vainly tells his tongue to drink."— MS. 
8 " For thirsty fox and jackal gaunt 

May vainly for its waters pant." — MS. 



78 



BYRON'S WOEKS. 



And here no more shall human voice 

Be heard to rage, regret, rejoice. 

The last sad note that swell'd the gale 

Was woman's wildest funeral wail : 

That quench'd in silence, all is still, 

But the lattice that flaps when the wind is shrill : 

Though raves the gust, and floods the rain, 

No hand shall close its clasp again.i 

On desert sands 'twere joy to scan 

The rudest steps of fellow man, 

So here the very voice of Grief 

Might wake an Echo like relief— 

At least 'twould say, "All are not gone ; 

There lingers Life, though but in one " — 

For many a gilded chamber's there. 

Which solitude might well forbear ; ^ 

Within that dome as yet Decay 

Hath slowly work'd her cankering way — 

But gloom is gather'd o'er the gate. 

Nor there the Fakir's self will wait ; 

Nor there will wandering Dervise stay, 

For bounty cheers not his delay ; 

Nor there will weary stranger halt 

To bless the sacred " bread and salt." ^ 

Alike must Wealth and Poverty 

Pass heedless and unheeded by. 

For Courtesy and Pity died 

With Hassan on the mountain side ; 

His roof, that refuge unto men, 

Is Desolation's hungry den. 

The guest flies the hall, and the vassal from 

labor, 
Since his turban was cleft by the infidel's sabre ! * 



I hear the sound of coming feet. 
But not a voice mine ear to greet ; 
More near— each turban I can scan, 
And silver-sheathed ataghan ; 5 

1 " This part of the narrative not only contains much bril- 
liant and just description, but is managed with unusual taste. 
The fisherman has, hitherto, related nothing more than the 
extraordinary phenomenon which had excited his curiosity, 
and of which it is his immediate object to explain the cause 
to his hearers ; but instead of proceeding to do so, he stops 
to vent his execrations on the Giaour, to describe the solitude 
of Hassan's once luxurious haram, and to lament the un- 
timely death of the owner, and of Leila, together with the 
cessation of that hospitality which they had uniformly expe- 
rienced. He reveals, as if unintentionally and unconsciously, 
the catastrophe of his story ; but he thus prepares his appeal 
to the sympathy of his audience, without much diminishing 
their suspense." — George Ellis. 

2 " I have just recollected an alteration you may make in 
the proof. Among the lines on Hassan's serai, is this— 

' Unmeet for solitude to share.' 
Now, to share implies more than one, and Solitude is a single 
gentleman ; it must be thus — 

' For many a gilded chamber's there, 

Which solitude might well forbear ;' 

and so on. "Will you adopt this correction? and pray accept 

a Stilton cheese from me for your trouble. — P. S. I leave this 

to your discretion : if any body thinks the old line a good 



The foremost of the band is seen 

An Emir by his garb of green : ^ 

" Ho ! who art thou ?"— " This low salam' 

Replies of Moslem faith I am." — 

" The burthen ye so gently bear 

Seems one that claims your utmost care. 

And, doubtless, holds some precious freight, 

My humble bark would gladly wait." 

" Thou speakest sooth ; thy skifi* unmoor, 
And waft us from the silent shore ; 
Nay, leave the sail still furl'd, and ply 
The nearest oar that's scatter'd by. 
And midway to those rocks where sleep 
The channell'd waters dark and deep, 
Rest from your task — so — bravely done. 
Our course has been right swiftly run ; 
Yet 'tis the longest voyage, I trow, 
That one of— * « * * 

* * * * *- *" 

Sullen it plunged, and slowly sank, 
The calm wave rippled to the bank ; 
I watch'd it as it sank, methought 
Some motion from the current caught 
Bestirr'd it more, — 'twas but the beam 
That checker'd o'er the living stream 
I gazed, till vanishing from view. 
Like lessening pebble it withdrew ; 
Still less and less, a speck of white 
That gemm'd the tide, then mock'd the sight ; 
And all its hidden secrets sleep. 
Known but to Genii of the deep. 
Which, trembling in their coral caves, 
They dare not whisper to the waves. 



As rising on its purple wing 
The insect-queen 8 of eastern spring, 

one, or the cheese a bad one, don't accept of e\t\vQr."— Byron 
Letters, Stilton, Oct. 3, 1813. 

3 To partake of food, to break bread and salt with your 
host, insures the safety of the guest; even though an enemy, 
his person from that moment is sacred. 

* I need hardly observe, that Charity and Hospitality are 
the first duties enjoined by Mahomet; and to say truth, very 
generally practiced by his disciples. The first praise that 
can be bestowed on a chief, is a panegyric on his bounty ; the 
next, on bis valor. 

5 The ataghan, a long dagger worn with pistols in the belt, 
in a metal scabbard, generally of silver; and, among the 
wealthier, gilt, or of gold. 

6 Green is the privileged color of the prophet's nunierous 
pretended descendants; with them, as here, faith (Lhe family 
inheritance) is supposed to supersede the necessity of good 
works : they are the worst of a very indifferent brood. 

7 " Salam aleikoum ! aleikoum salam !" peace be with you ; 
be with you peace— the salutation reserved for the faithful :— 
to a Christian, "Urlarula," a good journey ; or " Saban hire- 
sem, saban serula ;" good morn, good even ; and sometimes, 
" May your end be happy ;" are the usual salutes. 

8 The blue-winged butterfly of Kashmeer, the most rare 
and beautiful of the species. 



THE GIAOUE. 



79 



O'er emerald meadows of Kashmeer 
Invites the young pursuer near, 
And leads him on from flower to flower 
A weary chase and wasted hour, 
Then leaves him, as it soars on high, 
With panting heart and tearful eye : 
So Beauty lures the full-grown child, 
With hue as bright, and wing as wild ; 
A chase of idle hopes and fears, 
Begun in folly, closed in tears. j 
If won, to equal ills betray'd,i 
I Woe waits the insect and the maid ; | 
I A life of pain, the loss of peace, 
) From infant's play, and man's caprice : 

The lovely toy so fiercely sought 
I Hath lost its charm by being caught, 
For every touch that woo'd its stay 
Hath brush'd its brightest hues away, 
Till charm, and hue, and beauty gone, 
'Tis left to fly or fall alone. 
With wounded wing, or bleeding breast, 
Ah ! where shall either victim rest ? 
Can this with faded pinion soar 
From rose to tulip as before ? 
Or Beauty, blighted in an hour. 
Find joy within her broken bower ? 
No : gayer insects fluttering by 
Ne'er droop the wing o'er those that die. 
And lovelier things have mercy shown 
To every failing but their own, 
I And every woe a tear can claim i 
I Except an erring sister's shame. / 



The Mind, that broods o'er guilty woes. 

Is like the Scorpion girt by fire,^ 
In circle narrowing as it glows,^ 
The flames around their captive close. 
Till inly search'd by thousand throes. 

And maddening in her ire. 
One sad and sole relief she knows. 
The sting she nourish'd for her foes. 
Whose venom never yet was vain, 
Gives but one pang, and cures all pain. 
And darts into her desperate brain : 
So do the dark in soul expire. 
Or live like Scorpion girt by fire ; * 

1 " If caught, to fate alike betray'd."— MS. 

2 Mr. Dallas says, that Lord Byron assured him that the 
paragraph containing the simile of the scorpion was imagined 
In his Bleep. It forms, therefore, a pendant to the " psycho- 
logical curiosity," beginning with those exquisitely musical 
lines : — 

" A damsel with a dulcimer 

In vision once I saw ; 
It was an Abyssinian maid," &c. 

The whole of which, Mr. Coleridge says, was composed by 
him during a siesta. 
8 » The gathering flames around her close."— MS. 



So writhes the mind Eemorse hath riven,* 
Unfit for earth, undoom'd for heaven. 
Darkness above, despair beneath, 
Around it flame, within it death ! 



Black Hassan from the Haram flies. 
Nor bends on woman's form his eyes ; 
The unwonted chase each hour employs, 
Yet shares he not the hunter's joys. 
Not thus was Hassan wont to fly 
When Leila dwelt in his Serai. 
Doth Leila there no longer dwell ? 
That tale can only Hassan tell : 
Strange rumors in our city say 
Upon that eve she fled away 
When Ehamazan's^ last sun was set, 
And flashing from each minaret 
Millions of lamps proclaim'd the feast 
Of Bairam through the boundless East. 
'Twas then she went as to the bath, 
Which Hassan vainly search'd in wrath ; 
For she was flown her master's rage 
In likeness of a Georgian page, 
And far beyond the Moslem's power 
Had wrong'd him with the faithless Giaour. 
Somewhat of this had Hassan deem'd ; 
But still so fond, so fair she seem'd, 
Too well he trusted to the slave 
Whose treachery deserved a grave : 
And on that eve had gone to mosque. 
And thence to feast in his kiosk. 
Such is the tale his Nubians tell. 
Who did not watch their charge too well ; 
But others say, that on that night, 
By pale Phingari's "^ trembling light, 
The Giaour upon his jet-black steed 
Was seen, but seen alone, to speed 
With bloody spur along the shore. 
Nor maid nor page behind him bore. 
****** 



Her eye's dark charm 'twere vain to tell. 
But gaze on that of the Gazelle, 
It will assist thy fancy well ; 
As large, as languishingly dark, 
But Soul beam'd forth in every spark 

* Alluding to the dubious suicide of the scorpion, so placed 
for experiment by gentle philosophers. Some maintain that 
the position of the sting, when turned towards the head, is 
merely a convulsive movement; but others have actually 
brought in the verdict "Felo de se." The scorpions are 
surely interested in a speedy decision of the question ; as if 
once fairly establislud as insect Catos, they will probably be 
allowed to live as long as they think proper, without being 
martyred for the sake of an hypothesis. 

6 " So writhes the mind by conscience riven." — MS, 

6 The cannon at sunset close the Rhamazan. See ante, p. 
76, note. 

7 Phingari, the moon. 



80 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



That darted from beneath the lid, 

Bright as the jewel of Giamschid.* 

Yea, Soul^ and should our prophet say 

That form Avas nought but breathing clay, 

By Alia ! I would answer nay ; 

Though on Al-Sirat's 2 arch I stood, 

Which totters o'er the fiery flood, 

With Paradise within my view, 

And all his Houris^ beckoning through. 

Oh ! who young Leila's glance could read 

And keep that portion of his creed. 

Which saith that woman is but dust, 

A soulless toy for tyrant's lust? ^ 

On her might Muftis gaze, and own 

That through her eye the Immortal shone ; 

On her fair cheek's unfading hue 

The young pomegranate's ^ blossoms strew 

Their bloom in blushes ever new ; 

Her hair in hyacinthine^ flow, 

When left to roll its folds below, 

As 'midst her handmaids in the hall 

She stood superior to them all, 

Hath swept the marble where her feet 

Gleam'd whiter than the mountain sleet 

Ere from the cloud that gave it birth 

It fell, and caught one stain of earth. 

The cygnet nobly walks the water ; 

So moved on earth Circassia's daughter, 

The loveliest bird of Franguestan ! '' 

As rears her crest the ruffled Swan, 

And spurns the wave with wings of pride, 
When pass the steps of stranger man 

Along the banks that bound her tide ; 
Thus rose fair Leila's whiter neck : — 
Thus arm'd with beauty would she check 
Intrusion's glance, till Folly's gaze 
Shrunk from the charms it meant to praise. 
Thus high and graceful was her gait ; 
Her heart as tender to her mate ; 



1 The celebrated fabulous ruby of Sultan Giamschid, the 
embellisher of Istakhar; from its splendor, named Scheb- 
gorag, " the torch of night ;" also " the cup of the sun," &c. 
In the first edition, "Giamschid" was written as a word of 
three syllables ; so D'Herbelot has it ; but I am told Richard- 
son reduces it to a dissyllable, and writes " Jamsliid." I have 
left in the text the orthography of the one with the pronun- 
ciation of the other. — "In the first edition, Lord Byron had 
used this word as a trisyllable,—' Bright as the gem of Giam- 
schid,' — but, on my remarking to him, upon the authority of 
Richardson's Persian Dictionary, that this was inoorrect, he 
altered it to ' Bright as the ruby of Giamschid.' On seeing 
this, however, I wrote to him, that as the comparison of his 
heroine's eye to a ruby might unluckily call up the idea of 
its being bloodshot, he had better change the line to ' Bright 
as the jewel of Giamschid ;' which he accordingly did, in the 
following edition."— Moore. 

2 Al-Sirat, the bridge of breadth, narrower than the thread 
of a famished spider, and sharper than the edge of a swoid, 
over which the Mussulmans must skate into Paradise, to 
which it is the only entrance ; but this is not the worst, the 
river beneath being hell itself, into which, as may be expected, 
the unskillful and tender of foot contrive to tumble with a 



Her mate — stern Hassan, Vho was he ? 
Alas ! that name was not for thee ! 

* * -s- * -» * 

Stern Hassan hath a journey ta'en 
With twenty vassals in his train, 
Each arm'd, as best becomes a man, 
With arquebuss and ataghan ; 
The chief before, as deck'd for war, 
Bears in his belt the scimitar 
Stain'd with the best of Arnaut blood, 
When in the pass the rebels stood, 
And few return'd to tell the tale 
Of what befell in Fame's vale. 
The pistols which his girdle bore 
Were those that once a pasha wore. 
Which still, though gemm'd and boss'd with gold, 
Even robbers tremble to behold. 
'Tis said he goes to woo a bride 
More true than her who left his side ; 
The faithless slave that broke her bower, 
And, worth than faithless, for a Giaour ! 

* * * * *. * 

The sun's last rays are on the hill. 
And sparkle in the fountain rill. 
Whose welcome waters, cool and clear, 
Draw blessings from the mountaineer : 
Here may the loitering merchant Greek 
Find that repose 'twere vain to seek 
In cities lodged too near his lord. 
And trembling for his secret hoard — 
Here may he rest where none can see, 
In crowds a slave, in deserts free ; 
And with forbidden wine may stain 
The bowl a Moslem must not drain. 

* * * * * » 

The foremost Tartar's in the gap. 
Conspicuous by his yellow cap ; 



" facilis descensus Averni," not very pleasing in prospect to 
the next passenger. There is a shorter cut downwards for 
the Jews and Christians. 

3 The virgins of Paradise, called from their large black 
eyes, Hur al oyun. An intercourse with these, according to 
the institution of Mahomet, is to constitute the principal 
felicity of the faithful. Not formed of clay, like mortal women, 
they are adorned with unfading charms, and deemed to pos- 
sess the celestial privilege of an eternal youth. See D'Herbe- 
lot, and Sale's Koran. 

4 A vulgar error : the Koran allots at least a third of Para- 
dise to well-behaved women ; but by far the greater number 
of Mussulmans interpret the text their own way, and exclude 
their moieties from heaven. Being enemies to Platonics, they 
cannot discern "any fitness of things" in the souls of the 
other sex, conceiving them to be superseded by the Houris. 

5 An Oriental simile, which may, perhaps, though fairly 
stolen, be deemed " plus Arabe qu'en Arable." 

6 Hyacinthine, in Arabic " Sunbul ;" as common a thought 
in the eastern poets as it was among the Greeks. 

V " Franguestan," Circassia. 



THE GIAOUR. 



81 



The rest in lengthening line the while 
Wind slowly through the long defile : 
Above, the mountain rears a peak, 
Where vultures whet the thirsty beak. 
And theirs may be a feast to-night, 
Shall tempt them down ere morrow's light ; 
Beneath, a river's wintry stream 
Has shrunk before the summer beam, 
And left a channel bleak and bare, 
Save shrubs that spring to perish there : 
Each side the midway path there lay 
Small broken crags of granite clay. 
By time, or mountain lightning, riven 
From summits clad in mists of heaven ; 
For where is he that hath beheld 
The peak of Liakura unveil'd ? 



They reach the grove of pine at last : 
" Bismillah ! ^ now the peril's past ; 
For yonder view the opening plain, 
And there we'll prick our steeds amain :" 
The Chiaus spake, and as he said, 
A bullet whistled o'er his head ; 
The foremost Tartar bites the ground ! ^ 

Scarce had they time to check the rein, 
Swift from their steeds the riders bound ; 

But three shall never mount again : 
Unseen the foes that gave the wound. 

The dying ask revenge in vain. 
With steel unsheath'd, and carbine bent, 
Some o'er their courser's harness leant, 

Half shelter'd by the steed ; 
Some fly behind the nearest rock, 
And there await the coming shock, 

Nor tamely stand to bleed 
Beneath the shaft of foes unseen. 
Who dare not quit their craggy screen. 
Stern Hassan only from his horse 
Disdains to light, and keeps his course 
Till fiery flashes in the van 
Proclaim too sure the robber-clan 
Have well secured the only way 
Could now avail the promised prey ; 
Then curl'd his very beard ^ with ire, 
And glared his eye with fiercer fire : 
" Though far and near the bullets hiss, 
I've 'scaped a bloodier hour than this." 
And now the foe their covert quit. 
And call his vassals to submit : 



1 Bismillah—" In the name of God ;" the commencement 
of all the chapters of the Koran but one, and of prayer and 
thanksgiving. 

2 " Scarce had they time to check the rein, 
The foremost Tartar bites the plain."— MS. 

3 A phenomenon not uncommon with an angry Mussul- 
man. In 1809, the Capitan Pacha's whiskers at a diplomatic 
audience were no less lively with indignation than a tiger 
cat's, to the horror of all the dragomans; the portentous 

6 



But Hassan's frown and furious word 
Are dreaded more than hostile sword, 
Nor of his little band a man 
Resign'd carbine or ataghan, 
Nor raised the craven cry, Amaun ! * 
In fuller sight, more near and near, 
The lately ambush'd foes appear, 
And, issuing from the grove, advance 
Some who on battle-charger prance. 
Who leads them on with foreign brand. 
Far flashing in his red right hand ? 
" 'Tis he ! 'tis he ! I know him now ; 
I know him by his pallid brow ; 
I know him by the evil eye & 
That aids his envious treachery ; 
I know him by his jet-black barb : 
Though now array'd in Arnaut garb. 
Apostate from his own vile faith, 
It shall not save him from the death : 
'Tis he ! well met in any hour, 
Lost Leila's love, accursed Giaour!" 

As rolls the river into ocean. 
In sable torrent wildly streaming ; 

As the sea-tide's opposing motion. 
In azure column proudly gleaming. 
Beats back the current many a rood, 
In curling foam and mingling flood, 
While eddying whirl, and breaking wave. 
Roused by the blast of winter, rave ; 
Through sparkling spray, in thundering clash, 
The lightnings of the waters flash 
In awful whiteness o'er the shore. 
That shines and shakes beneath the roar ; 
Thus — as the stream and ocean greet. 
With waves that madden as they meet — 
Thus join the bands, whom mutual wrong. 
And fate, and fury, drive along. 
The bickering sabres' shivering jar ; 

And pealing wide or ringing near 

Its echoes on the throbbing ear. 
The death-shot hissing from afar ; 
The shock, the shout, the groan of war. 

Reverberate along that vale, 

More suited to the shepherd's tale : 
Though few the numbers — theirs the strife 
That neither spares nor speaks for life ! ^ 
Ah ! fondly youthful hearts can press, 
To seize and share the fond caress ; 
But Love itself could never pant 
For all that Beauty sighs to grant 



mustachios twisted, they stood erect of their own accord, and 
were expected every moment to change their color, but at 
last condescended to subside, which, probably, saved more 
heads than they contained hairs. 

* "Amaun," quarter, pardon. 

6 The " evil eye," a common superstition in the Levant, 
and of which the imaginary effects are yet very singular ou 
those who conceive themselves affected. 

« " That neither gives nor asks for life."— MS. 



82 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Witli half the fervor Hate bestows 
Upon the last embrace of foes, 
When grappling in the fight they fold 
Those arms that ne'er shall loose their hold : 
Friends meet to part ; Love laughs at faith ; 
True foes, once met, are join'd till death ! 



With sabre shiver'd to the hilt, 

Yet di'ipping with the blood he sj^ilt ; 

Yet strain'd within the sever'd hand 

Which quivers round that faithless brand; 

His turban far behind him roll'd, 

And cleft in twain its firmest fold ; 

His flowing robe hy falchion torn. 

And crimson as those clouds of morn 

That, streak'd with dusky red, portend 

The day shall have a stormy end ; 

A stain on every bush that bore 

A fragment of his palampore,i 

His breast with wounds unnumber'd riven, 

His back to earth, his face to heaven, 

Fall'n Hassan lies — his unclosed eye 

Yet lowering on his enemy, 

As if the hour that seal'd his fate 

Surviving left his quenchless hate ; 

And o'er him bends that foe with brow 

As dark as his that bled below. — 

****** 



" Yes, Leila sleeps beneath the wave, 
But his shall be a redder grave ; 
Her spirit pointed well the steel 
Which taught that felon heart to feel. 
He call'd the Prophet, but his power 
Was vain against the vengeful Giaour : 
He call'd on Alia — but the word 
Arose unheeded or unheard. 
Thou Paynim fool ! could Leila's prayer 
Be pass'd, and thine accorded there ? 
I watch'd my time, I leagued with these, 
The traitor in his turn to seize ; 

1 The flowered shawls generally worn by persons of rank, 

2 This beautiful passage first appeared in the fifth edition, 
" If you send more proofs," writes Lord Byron to Mr, Murray 
(August 10, 1813), " I shall never finish this infernal story, 
JScce signum — thirty-three more lines enclosed ! — to the utter 
discomfiture of the printer, and, I fear, not to your advan- 
tage." 

3 " The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried 
through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? 
why tarry the wheels of his chariot ?"— Judges, c, v. v. 28. 

* In the original draft — 

" His mother look'd from the lattice high, 

With throbbing heart and eager eye ; 
The browsing camel bells are tinkling, 
And the last beam of twilight twinkling, 

'Tis eve ; his train should now be nigh. 

She could not rest in her garden bower, 

And gazed through the loop of his steepest tower. 



My wrath is wreak'd, the deed is done, 
And now I go — but go alone." 

****** 
****** 

The browsing camels' bells are tinkling :* 
His Mother look'd from her lattice high^ — 

She saw the dews of eve besprinkling 
The pasture green beneath her eye. 

She saw the planets faintly twinkling : 
" 'Tis twilight — sure his train is nigh."* 
She could not rest in the garden-bower, 
But gazed through the grate of his steepest tower : 
" Why comes he not? his steeds are fleet, 
Nor shrink they from the summer heat ; 
Why sends not the Bridegroom his promised gift; ? 
Is his heart more cold, or his barb less swift ? 
Oh, false reproach ! yon Tartar now 
Has gain'd our nearest mountain's brow. 
And warily the steep descends. 
And now within the valley bends , 
And he bears the gift at his saddle-bow — 
How could I deem his courser slow ? 
Eight well my largess shall repay 
His welcome speed and weary way." 

The Tartar lighted at the gate, 

But scarce upheld his fainting weight :& 

His swarthy visage spake distress. 

But this might be from weariness ; 

His garb with sanguine spots was dyed. 

But these might be from his courser's side ; 

He drew the token from his vest — 

Angel of Death ! 'tis Hassan's cloven crest ! 

His calpac ^ rent — his caftan red — 

" Lady, a fearful bride thy son hath wed : 

Me, not from mercy, did they spare. 

But this empurpled pledge to bear. 

Peace to the brave ! whose blood is spilt : 

Woe to the Giaour ! for his the guilt." 



A turban "^ carved in coarsest stone, 
A pillar with rank weeds o'ergrown, 

'Why comes he not? his steeds are fleet, 
And well are they train'd to the summer's heat.' " 
Another copy begins— 

" The browsing camel bells are tinkling, 
And the first beam of evening twinkling ; 
His mother look'd from her lattice high, 
With throbbing breast and eager eye— 
' 'Tis twilight— sure his train is nigh,' " 

5 " The Tartar sped beneath the gate, 

And flung to earth his fainting weight."— MS. 

6 The calpac is the solid cap or centre part of the head- 
dress ; the shawl is wound round it, and forms the turban. 

7 The turban, pillar, and inscriptive verse, decorate the 
tombs of the Osmanlies, whether in the cemetery or the wil- 
derness. In the mountains you frequently pass similar me- 
mentos ; and on inquiry you are informed that they record 
some victim of rebellion, plunder, or revenge. 



THE GIAOUK. 



83 



Whereon can now be scarcely read 
The Koran verse that mourns the dead, 
Point out the spot where Hassan fell 
A victim in that lonely dell. 
There sleeps as true an Osmanlie 
As e'er at Mecca bent the knee ; 
As ever scorn'd forbidden wine, 
Or pray'd with face towards the shrine, 
In orisons resumed anew 
At solemn sound of " Alia Hu I" ^ 
Yet died he by a stranger's hand. 
And stranger in his native land ; 
Yet died he as in arms he stood, 
And unavenged, at least in blood. 
. But him the maids of Paradise 

Impatient to their halls invite. 
And the dark heaven of Houris' eyes 

On him shall glance for ever bright ; 
They come — their kerchiefs green they wave,^ 
And welcome with a kiss the brave ! 
Who falls in battle 'gainst a Giaour 
Is worthiest an immortal bower. 
****** 

But thou, false Infidel ! shalt writhe 
Beneath avenging Monkir's^ scythe; 
And from its torment 'scape alone 
To wander round lost Eblis' * throne ; 
And fire unquench'd, unquenchable, 
Around, within, thy heart shall dwell ; 
Nor ear can hear nor tongue can tell 
The tortures of that inward hell ! 
But first, on earth as Vampire^ sent, 
Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent : 

1 " Alia Hu !" the concluding words of the muezzin's call 
to prayer from the highest gallery on the exterior of the 
minaret. On a still evening, when the muezzin has a fine 
voice, which is frequently the case, the effect is solemn and 
heautiful beyond all the bells in Christendom. Valid, the 
son of Abdalmalek, was the first who erected a minaret or 
turret ; and this he placed on the grand mosque at Damascus, 
for the muezzin, or crier, to announce from it the hour of 
prayer. The practice is kept to this day. See D'Herbelot. 

2 The following is part of a battle song of the Turks : — 
" I see — I see a dark-eyed girl of Paradise, and she waves a 
handkerchief, a kerchief of green ; and cries aloud, ' Come, 
kiss me, for I love thee,' " &c. 

3 Monkir and Nekir are the inquisitors of the dead, before 
whom the corpse undergoes a slight noviciate and preparatory 
training for damnation. If the answers are none of the clear- 
est, he is hauled up with a scythe and thumped down with a 
red-hot mace till properly seasoned, with a variety of subsid- 
iary probations. The office of these angels is no sinecure; 
there are but two, and the number of orthodox deceased being 
in a small proportion to the remainder, their hands are al- 
ways full. See Relig. Ceremon. and Sale's Koran. 

* Eblls, the Oriental Prince of Darkness. — D'Herbelot 
supposes this title to have been a corruption of the Greek 
MaSoXoi. According to Arabian mythology, Eblis has suffered 
a degradation from his primeval rank for having refused to 
worship Adam, in conformity to the supreme command ; al- 
leging, in justification of his refusal, that himself had been 
formed of ethereal fire, whilst Adam was only a creature of 
clay. See Koran. 



Then ghastly haunt thy native place. 
And suck the blood of all thy race ; 
There from thy daughter, sister, wife, 
At midnight drain the stream of life ; 
Yet loathe the banquet which perforce 
Must feed thy livid living corse : 
Thy victims ere they yet expire 
Shall know the demon for their sire, 
As cursing thee, thou cursing them. 
Thy flowers are wither'd on the stem. 
But one that for thy crime must fall. 
The youngest, most beloved of all. 
Shall bless thee with a father's name — 
That word shall wrap thy heart in flame ! 
Yet must thou end thy task, and mark 
Her cheek's last tinge, her eye's last spark, 
And the last glassy glance must view 
Which freezes o'er its lifeless blue ; 
Then with unhallow'd hand shalt tear 
The tresses of her yellow hair, 
Of which in life a lock when shorn 
Afiection's fondest pledge was worn. 
But now is borne away by thee. 
Memorial of thine agony ! 
Wet with thine own best blood shall drip^ 
Thy gnashing tooth and haggard lip ; 
Then stalking to thy sullen grave. 
Go — and with Ghouls and Afrits rave ; 
Till these in horror shrink away 
From spectre more accursed than they ! "^ 



" How name ye yon lone Caloyer ? 
His features I have scann'd before 

6 The Vampire superstition is still general in the Levant. 
Honest Tournefort tells a long story, which Mr. Southey, in 
the notes on Thalaba, quotes, about these " Vroucolochas," as 
he calls them. The Romaic term is " Vardoulacha." I recol- 
lect a whole family being terrified by the scream of a child, 
which they imagined must proceed from such a visitation. 
The Greeks never mention the word without horror. I find 
that " Broucolokas" is an old legitimate Hellenic appella- 
tion — at least is so applied to Arsenius, who, according to the 
Greeks, was after his death animated by the Devil. — The 
moderns, however, use the word I mention. 

6 The freshness of the face, and the wetness of the lip with 
blood, are the never-failing signs of a Vampire. The stories 
told in Hungary and Greece of these foul feeders are singular, 
and some of them most incredibly attested. 

7 "With the death of Hassan, or with his interment on the 
place where he fell, or with some moral reflections on his 
fate, we may presume that the original narrator concluded 
the tale of which Lord Byron has professed to give us a frag- 
ment. But every reader, we are sure, will agree with us in 
thinking, that the interest excited by the catastrophe is 
greatly heightened in the modem poem ; and that the impre- 
cations of the Turk against the 'accursed Giaour' are in- 
troduced with great judgment, and contribute much to the 
dramatic effect of the narrative. The remainder of the poem, 
we think, would have been more properly printed as a second 
canto; because a total change of scene, and a chasm of no 
less than six years in the series of events, can scarcely fail to 
occasion some little confusion in the mind of the reader."— 
George Ellis. 



84 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



In mine own and : 'tis many a year, 
Since, dashing by the lonely shore, 
I saw him urge as fleet a steed 
As ever served a horseman's need. 
But once I saw that face, yet then 
It was so mark'd with inward pain, 
I could not pass it by again ; 
It breathes the same dark spirit now, 
As death were stamp'd upon his brow.'' 



" 'Tis twice three years at summer tide 
Since first among our freres he came ; 
And here it soothes him to abide 

For some dark deed he will not name. 
But never at our vesper prayer, 
Nor e'er before confession chair 
Kneels he, nor recks he when arise 
Incense or anthem to the skies, 
But broods within his cell alone. 
His faith and race alike unknown. 
The sea from Paynim land he crost, 
And here ascended from the coast ; 
Yet seems he not of Othman race, 
But only Christian in his face : 
I'd judge him some stray renegade, 
Eepentant of the change he made. 
Save that he shuns our holy shrine. 
Nor tastes the sacred bread and wine. 
Great largess to these walls he brought, 
And thus our abbot's favor bought ; 
But were I prior, not a day 
Should brook such stranger's further stay, 
Or pent within our penance cell 
Should doom him there for aye to dwell. 
Much in his visions mutters he 
Of maiden whelm'd beneath the sea ; * 
Of sabres clashing, foemen flying. 
Wrongs avenged, and Moslem dying. 
On cliff he hath been known to stand, 
And rave as to some bloody hand 
Fresh sever'd from its parent limb, 
Invisible to all but him. 
Which beckons onward to his grave. 
And lures to leap into the wave." 



Dark and unearthly is the scowl 2 
That glares beneath his dusky cowl : 
The flash of that dilating eye 
Reveals too much of times gone by ; 
Though varying, indistinct its hue, 
Oft will his glance the gazer rue, 
For in it lurks that nameless spell. 
Which speaks, itself unspeakable, 



1 " Of foreign maiden lost at sea."— MS. 
2 The remaining lines, about five hundred in number, 
were, with the exception of the last sixteen, all added to the 



A spirit yet unquell'd and high. 

That claims and keeps ascendency ; 

And like the bird whose pinions quake, 

But cannot fly the gazing snake. 

Will others quail beneath his look. 

Nor 'scape the glance they scarce can brook. 

From him the half-affrighted Friar 

When met alone would fain retire, 

As if that eye and bitter smile 

Transferr'd to others fear and guile : 

Not oft to smile descendeth he. 

And when he doth, 'tis sad to see 

That he but mocks at Misery. 

How that pale lip will curl and quiver ! 

Then fix once more as if for ever • 

As if his sorrow or disdain 

Forbade him e'er to smile again. 

Well were it so — such ghastly mirth 

From joyaunce ne'er derived its birth. 

But sadder still it were to trace 

What once were feelings in that face : 

Time hath not yet the features fix'd. 

But brighter traits with evil mix'd ; 

And there are hues not always faded. 

Which speak a mind not all degraded 

Even by the crimes through which it waded : 

The common crowd but see the gloom 

Of wayward deeds, and fitting doom ; 

The close observer can espy 

A noble soul, and lineage high : 

Alas ! though both bestow'd in vain. 

Which Grief could change, and Guilt could stain, 

It was no vulgar tenement 

To which such lofty gifts were lent, 

And still with little less than dread 

On such the sight is riveted. 

The roofless cot, decay'd and rent, 

Will scarce delay the passer by ; 
The tower by war or tempest bent. 
While yet may frown one battlement. 

Demands and daunts the stranger's eye ; 
Each ivied arch, and pillar lone. 
Pleads haughtily for glories gone ! 

" His floating robe around him folding, 
Slow sweeps he through the column'd aisle ; 

With dread beheld, with gloom beholding 
The rites that sanctity the pile. 

But when the anthem shakes the choir. 

And kneel the monks, his steps retire ; 

By yonder lone and wavering torch 

His aspect glares within the porch ; 

There will he pause till all is done — 

And hear the prayer, but utter none. 

See — by the half-illumined wall^ 

His hood fly back, his dark hair fall, 



poem, either during its first progress through the press, or in : 
subsequent editions. 
3 " Behold— as turns he from the wall."— MS. 



THE GIAOUR 



86 



That pale brow wildly wreathing round, 

As if the Gorgon there had bound 

The sablest of the serpent-braid 

That o'er her fearful forehead stray'd : 

For he declines the convent oath, 

And leaves those locks unhallow'd growth, 

But wears our garb in all beside ; 

And, not from piety but pride, 

Gives wealth to walls that never heard 

Of his one holy vow nor word. 

Lo ! — mark ye, as the harmony 

Peals louder praises to the sky, 

That livid cheek, that stony air 

Of mix'd defiance and despair ! 

Saint Francis, keep him from the shrine ! 

Else may we dread the wrath divine 

Made manifest by awful sign. 

If ever evil angel bore 

The form of mortal, such he wore : 

By all my hope of sins forgiven. 

Such looks are not of earth nor heaven V* 

To love the softest hearts are prone, 

But such can ne'er be all his own ; 

Too timid in his woes to share. 

Too meek to meet, or brave despair ; 

And sterner hearts alone may feel 

The wound that time can never heal. 

The rugged metal of the mine 

Must burn before its surface shine,i 

But plunged within the furnace-flame. 

It bends and melts — though still the same ; ' 

Then temper'd to thy want, or will, 

'Twill serve thee to defend or kill ; 

A breastplate for thine hour of need, 

Or blade to bid thy foeman bleed ; 

But if a dagger's form it bear. 

Let those who shape its edge, beware ! 

Thus passion's fire, and woman's art, 

Can turn and tame the sterner heart ; 

From these its form and tone are ta'en, 

And what they make it, must remain, 

But break — before it bend again. 

****** 

If solitude succeed to grief. 
Release from pain is slight relief; 
The vacant bosom's wilderness 
Might thank the pang that made it less. 



1 " Must burn before it smite or shine." — MS. 

2 Seeing himself accused of having, in this passage, too 
closely imitated Crabbe, Lord Byron wrote to a friend — "I 
have read the British Review, and really think the writer in 
most points very right. The only mortifying thing is, the 
accusation of imitation. Crabbe's passage I never saw ; and 
Scott I no further meant to follow than in his lyric measure, 
which is Gray's, Milton's, and any one's who likes it. The 
Giaour Is certainly a bad character, but not dangerous; and 
I think his fate and his feelings will meet with few prose- 



We loathe what none are left to share : 
Even bliss — 'twere woe alone to bear ; 
The heart once thus left desolate 
Must fly at last for ease — to hate. 
It is as if the dead could feel 
The icy worm around them steal, 
And shudder, as the reptiles creep 
To revel o'er their rotting sleep. 
Without the power to scare away 
The cold consumers of their clay ' 
It is as if the desert bird,^ 

Whose beak unlocks her bosom's stream 

To still her famish'd nestlings' scream. 
Nor mourns a life to them transferr'd, 
Should rend her rash devoted breast, 
And find them flown her empty nest. 
The keenest pangs the wretched find 

Are rapture to the dreary void, 
The leafless desert of the mind. 

The waste of feelings unemploy'd. 
Who would be doom'd to gaze upon 
A sky without a cloud or sun ? 
Less hideous far the tempest's roar 
Than ne'er to brave the billows more — 
Thrown, when the war of winds is o'er, 
A lonely wreck on fortune's shore, 
'Mid sullen calm, and silent bay. 
Unseen to drop by dull decay ; — 
Better to sink beneath the shock 
Than moulder piecemeal on the rock 



" Father ! thy days have pass'd in peace, 

'Mid counted beads, and countless prayer ; 
To bid the sins of others cease, 

Thyself without a crime or care. 
Save transient ills that all must bear, 
Has been thy lot from youth to age ; 
And thou wilt bless thee from the rage 
Of passions fierce and uncontroll'd. 
Such as thy penitents unfold. 
Whose secret sins and sorrows rest 
Within thy pure and pitying breast. 
My days, though few, have pass'd below 
In much of joy, but more of woe ; 
Yet still, in hours of love or strife, 
I've 'scaped the weariness of life : 
Now leagued with friends, now girt by foes, 
loathed the languor of repose. 



lytes." The following are the lines of Crabbe which Lord 
Byron is charged with having imitated : — 

" These are like wax— apply them to the fire, 
Melting, they take the impression you desire ; 
Easy to mould and fashion as you please, 
And again moulded with an equal ease ; 
Like smelted iron these the forms retain, 
But once impress'd will never melt again." — 

Ordbhe's Works, vol. v. p. 163, ed. 1834. 
8 The pelican is, I believe, the bird so libelled, by the im- 
putation of feeding her chickens with her blood. 



86 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Now nothing left to love or hate, 
No more with hope or pride elate, 
I'd rather be the thing that crawls 
Most noxious o'er a dungeon's walls, 
Than pass my dull, unvarying days, 
Condemn'd to meditate and gaze. 
Yet, lurks a wish within my breast 
For rest — ^but not to feel 'tis rest. 
Soon shall my fate that wish fulfill ; 

And I shall sleep without the dream 
Of what I was, and would be still, 

Dark as to thee my deeds may seem : i 
My memory now is but the tomb 
Of joys long dead ; my hope, their doom : 
Though better to have died with those 
Than bear a life of lingering woes. 
My spirit shrunk not to sustain 
The searching throes of ceaseless pain ; 
Nor sought the self-accorded grave 
Of ancient fool and modern knave : 
Yet death I have not fear'd to meet ; 
And in the field it had been sweet," 
Had danger woo'd me on to move j 
The slave of glory, not of love. /--. 
I've braved it — not for honor's boast j) 
I smile at laurels won or lost ; .> 
To such let others carve their way. 
For high renown, or hireling pay : 
But place again before my eyes 
Aught that I deem a worthy prize — 
The maid I love, the man I hate — 
And I will hunt the steps of fate, 
To save or slay^ as these require. 
Through rending steel, and rolling fire : 
Nor needst thou doubt this speech from one 
Who would but do — what he hath done. 
Death is but what the haughty brave. 
The weak must bear, the wretch must crave ; 
Then let Life go to him who gave : 
I have not quail'd to danger's brow 
When high and happy — need I nowf 



" I loved her. Friar ! nay, adored — 
But these are words that all can use — 

I proved it more in deed than word ; 

There's blood upon that dinted sword, 
A stain its steel can never lose : 



1 " Though Hope hath long withdrawn her beam." — MS. 

2 This superstition of a second hearing (for I never met 
with downright second-sight in the East) fell once under my 
own observation. On my third journey to Cape Colonna, 
early in 1811, as we passed through the defile that leads from 
the hamlet between Keratia and Colonna, I observed Dervish 
Tahiri riding rather out of the path, and leaning his head 
upon his hand, as if in pain. I rode up and inquired. " "We 
are in peril," he answered. " What peril ? we are not now 
in Albania, nor in the passes to Ephesus, Messalunghi, or 
Lepanto ; there are plenty of us, well armed, and the Cho- 
riates have not courage to be thieves." — " True, Affendi ; but 



'Twas shed for her, who died for me, 

It warm'd the heart of one abhorr'd : 
Nay, start not — no — nor bend thy knee, 

Nor 'midst my sins such act record ; 
Thou will absolve me from the deed. 
For he was hostile to thy creed ! 
The very name of Nazarene 
Was wormwood to his Paynim spleen. 
Ungrateful fool ! since but for brands 
Well wielded in some hardy hands. 
And wounds by Galileans given. 
The surest pass to Turkish heaven. 
For him his Houris still might wait 
Impatient at the Prophet's gate. 
/I loved her — ^love will find its way 
Through paths where wolves would fear to 

prey ; 
And if it dares enough, 'twere hard 
If passion met not some reward — 
No matter how, or where, or why, 
I did not vainly seek, nor sigh : 
Yet sometimes, with remorse, in vain 
I wish she had not loved again. 
She died — I dare not tell thee how ; 
But look — 'tis written on my brow ! 
There read of Cain the curse and crime. 
In characters unworn by time : 
Still, ere thou dost condemn me, pause ; 
Not mine the act, though I the cause. 
Yet did he but what I had done 
Had she been false to more than one. 
Faithless to him, he gave the blow ; 
But true to me, I laid him low : 
Howe'er deserved her doom might be. 
Her treachery was truth to me ; 
To me she gave her heart, that all 
Which tyranny can ne'er enthrall ; 
And I, alas ! too late to save ! 
Yet all I then could give, I gave, 
'Twas some relief, our foe a grave. 
His death sits lightly ; but her fate 
Has made me — what thou well mayst hate. 

His doom was seal'd — he knew it well, 
Warn'd by the voice of stern Taheer, 
Deep in whose darkly boding ear 2 
The death-shot peal'd of murder near. 

As filed the troop to where they fell ! 
He died too in the battle broil, 
A time that heeds nor pain nor toil ; 



nevertheless the shot is ringing in my ears." — "The shot! 
not a tophaike has been fired this morning."— "I hear it 
notwithstanding — Bom— Bom— as plainly as I hear your 
voice." — " Psha !" — " As you please, Affendi ; if it is written, 
so will it be."— I left this quick-eared predestinarian, and 
rode up to Basili, his Christian compatriot, whose ears, 
though not at all prophetic, by no means relished the intel- 
ligence. "We all arrived at Colonna, remained some hours, 
and returned leisurely, saying a variety of brilliant things, 
in more languages than spoiled the building of Babel, upon 
the mistaken seer. Eomaic, Arnaout, Turkish, Italian, and 
English were all exercised, in various conceits, upon the 



THE GIAOUK. 



87 



One cry to Mahomet for aid, 

One prayer to Alia all he made : 

He knew and cross'd me in the fray — 

I gazed npon him where he lay, 

And watch'd his spirit ebb away : 

Though pierced like pard by hunters' steel, 

He felt not half that now I feel. 

I search'd, but vainly search'd, to find 

The workings of a wounded mind ; 

Each feature of that sullen corse 

Betray'd his rage, but no remorse. 

Oh, what had Vengeance given to trace 

Despair upon his dying face ! 

The late repentance of that hour, 

When Penitence hath lost her power 

To tear one terror from the grave. 

And will not soothe, and cannot save. 

* i-> * « * * 

" The cold in clime are cold in blood. 

Their love can scarce deserve the name ; 
But mine was like a lava flood 

That boils in iEtna's breast of flame. 
I cannot prate in puling strain 
Of ladye-love, and beauty's chain : 
If changing cheek, and scorching vein,i 
Lips taught to writhe, but not complain. 
If bursting heart, and madd'ning brain. 



unfortunate Mussulman. While we were contemplating the 
beautiful prospect, Dervish was occupied about the columns. 
I thought he was deranged into an antiquarian, and asked 
him if he had become a " Palao-easiro" man. "No," said he, 
"but these pillars will be useful in making a stand;" and 
added other remarks, which at least evinced his own belief 
in his troublesome faculty of fore-hearing. On our return to 
Athens we heard from Leong (a prisoner set ashore some 
days after) of the intended attack of the Mainotes, men- 
tioned, with the cause of its not taking place, in the notes to 
Childe Harold, canto 2d. I was at some pains to question 
the man, and he described the dresses, arms, and marks of 
the horses of our party so accurately that, with other cir- 
cumstances, we could not doubt of his having been in " vil- 
lainous company," and ourselves in a bad. neighborhood. 
Dervish became a soothsayer for life, and I dare say is now 
hearing more musketry than ever will be fired, to the great 
refreshment of the Arnaouts of Berat, and his native mount- 
ains. I shall mention one trait more of this singular race. 
In March, 1811, a remarkably stout and active Arnaout came 
(I believe the fiftieth on the same errand) to offer himself as 
an attendant, which was declined: "Well, Affendi," quoth 
he, "may you live! — you would have found me useful. I 
shall leave the town for the hills to-morrow ; in the winter I 
return, perhaps you will then receive me." Dervish, who 
was present, remarked as a thing •f course, and of no conse- 
quence, "In the mean time he will join the Klephtes" (rob- 
bers), which was true to the letter. If not cut off, they come 
down in the winter, and pass it unmolested in some town, 
where they are often as well known as their exploits. 

1 " I cannot prate in puling strain 
Of bursting heart and maddening brain, 
And fire that raged in every vein."— MS. 

> " Even now alone, yet undismay'd, — 
I know no friend and ask no aid." — MS. 

' " These, in our opinion, are the most beautiful passages 



And daring deed, and vengeful steel, 
And all that I have felt, and feel. 
Betoken love — that love was mine. 
And shown by many a bitter sign. 
'Tis true, I could not whine nor sigh, 
I knew but to obtain or die. 
I die — but first I have possess'd. 
And come what may, I have been bless'd. 
Shall I the doom I sought upbraid ? 
No — reft of all, yet undismay'd,^ 
But for the thought of Leila slain. 
Give me the pleasure with the pain, 
So would I live and love again. 
I grieve, but not, my holy guide ! 
For him who dies, but her who died : 
She sleeps beneath the wandering wave — 
Ah ! had she but an earthly grave. 
This breaking heart and throbbing head 
Should seek and share her narrow bed.* 
She was a form of life and light. 
That, seen, became a part of sight ; 
And rose, where'er I turned mine eye, 
The Morning-star of Memory ! 

"Yes, Love indeed is light from heaven;* 
A spark of that immortal fire 

With angels shared, by Alia given, 
To lift from earth our low desire.^ 



of the poem ; and some of them of a beauty which it would 
not be easy to eclipse by many citations in the language." — 
Jeffrey. 

4 The hundred and twenty-six lines which follow, down 
to " Tell me no more of fancy's gleam," first appeared in the 
fifth edition. In returning the proof to Mr. Murray, Lord 
Byron says: — "I have, but with some difliculty, not added 
any more to this snake of a poem, which has been lengthen- 
ing its rattles every month. It is now fearfully long, being 
more than a canto and a half of Childe Harold. The last 
lines Hodgson likes. It is not often that he does ; and when 
he don't, he tells me with great energy, and I fret, and alter. 
I have thrown them in to soften the ferocity of our Infidel ; 
and, for a dying man, have given him a good deal to say for 
himself. Do you know any body who can stop— I mean, 
point— commas, and so forth? for I am, I hear, a sad hand at 
your punctuation." 

& Among the Giaour MSS. is the first draught of this pas- 
sage, which we subjoin : — 

"Yes,^ r doth spring^ 

> Love indeed -I descend Y from heaven : 
If J (be born J 

{immortal ^ 
eternal > fire, 
celestial J 
To human hearts in mercy given, 

To lift from earth our low desire. 
A feeling from the Godhead caught, 

To wean from self j ^^^^ [ sordid thought; 

Devotion sends the soul above, 

But Heaven itself descends to love. 
Yet marvel not, if they who love ' 

This present joy, this future hope, 

Which taught them with all ill to cope, 
In madness, then, their fate accuse — 



88 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Devotion wafts the mind above, 

But Heaven itself descends in love ; 

A feeling from the Godhead caught, 

To wean from self each sordid thought ; 

A Ray of him who form'd the whole ; 

A Glory circling round the soul ! 

I grant my love imperfect, all 

That mortals by the name miscall ; 

Then deem it evil, what thou wilt ; 

But say, oh say, hers was not guilt ! 

She was my life's unerring light : 

That quench'd, what beam shall break my 

night?! 
Oh ! would it shone to lead me still, 
Although to death or deadliest ill ! 
Why marvel ye, if they who lose 

This present joy, this future hope, / 

No more with sorrow meekly cope ; 
In phrensy then their fate accuse : 
In madness do those fearful deeds 

That seem to add but guilt to woe ? 
Alas ! the breast that inly bleeds 

Hath nought to dread from outward blow ; 
Who falls from all he knows of bliss, 
Cares little into what abyss. 
Fierce as the gloomy vulture's now 

To thee, old man, my deeds appear : 
I read abhorrence on thy brow, 

And this too was I born to bear ! 
'Tis true, that, like that bird of prey, 
With havoc have I mark'd my way : 
But this was taught me by the dove, 
To die — and know no second love. 
This lesson yet hath man to learn. 
Taught by the thing he dares to spurn : 
The bird that sings within the brake, 
The swan that swims upon the lake. 
One mate, and one alone, will take. 
And let the fool still prone to range,* 
And sneer on all who cannot change, 
Partake his jest with boasting boys ; 
I envy not his varied joys. 
But deem such feeble, heartless man 
Less than yon solitary swan ; 
Far, far beneath the shallow maid 
He left believing and betray'd. 
Such shame at least was never mine — 
Leila ! each thought was only thine ! 
My good, my guilt, my weal, my woe, 
My hope on high — my all below. 

In madness do those fearful deeds 



That seem 



f to add but guilt to "» 



1 but to augment their j 
Alas! the |^^^^^*| that inly bleeds 

Has nought to dread from outward foe," &c. 

1 " 'Tis quench'd, and I am lost in night." — MS. 

2 " And let the light, inconstant fool 
That sneers his coxcomb ridicule." — MS. 

3 The monk's sermon is omitted. It seems to have had so 
little effect upon the patient, that it could have no hopes 



Earth holds no other like to thee. 
Or, if it doth, in vain for me : 
For worlds I dare not view the dame 
Resembling thee, yet not the same. 
The very crimes that mar my youth, 
This bed of death — attest my truth ! 
'Tis all too late — thou wert, thou art 
The cherish'd madness of my heart ! 

" And she was lost — and yet I breathed. 

But not the breath of human life : 
A serpent round my heart was wreathed. 

And stung my every thought to strife. 
Alike all time, abhorr'd all place. 
Shuddering I shrunk from Nature's face. 
Where every hue that charm'd before 
The blackness of my bosom wore. 
The rest thou dost already know. 
And all my sins, and half my woe. 
But talk no more of penitence ; 
Thou seest I soon shall part from hence : 
And if thy holy tale were true. 
The deed that's done canst thou undo ? 
Think me not thankless — but this grief 
Looks not to priesthood for relief.^ 
My soul's estate in secret guess : * 
But wouldst thou pity more, say less. 
When thou canst bid my Leila live, 
Then will I sue thee to forgive ; 
Then plead my cause in that high place 
Where purchased masses proffer grace. 
Go, when the hunter's hand hath wrung 
From forest cave her shrieking young, 
And calm the lonely lioness : 
But soothe not — mock not my distress ! 

" In earlier days, and calmer hours. 

When heart with heart delights to blend, 
Where bloom my native valley's bowers,^ 

I had — ^Ah ! have I now ? — a friend I 
To him this pledge I charge thee send. 

Memorial of a youthful vow ; 
I would remind him of my end : ^ 

Though souls absorb'd like mine allow 
Brief thought to distant friendship's claim. 
Yet dear to him my blighted name. 
'Tis strange — he prophesied my doom. 

And I have smiled — I then could smile — 
When Prudence would his voice assume, 

And warn — I reck'd not what — the while : 

from the reader. It may be sufficient to say, that it was of a 
customary length (as may be perceived from the interruptions 
and uneasiness of the patient), and was delivered in the usual 
tone of all orthodox preachers. 

4 " but this grief 

In truth is not for thy relief; 

My state thy thought can never guess." — MS. 
6 " Where rise my native city's towers."— MS. 
6 " I have no heart to love him nov, 

And 'tis but to declare my end." — MS. 



THE GIAOUR. 



89 



But now remembrance whispers o'er 
Those accents scarcely mark'd before. 
Say — that his bodings came to pass, 

And he will start to hear their truth, 

And wish his words had not been sooth : 
Tell him, unheeding as I was. 

Through many a busy bitter scene 

Of all our golden youth had been. 
In pain, my faltering tongue had tried 
To bless his memory ere I died ; 
But Heaven in wrath would turn away, 
If Guilt should for the guiltless pray. 
I do not ask him not to blame. 
Too gentle he to wound my name ; 
And what have I to do with fame ? 
I do not ask him not to mourn. 
Such cold request might sound like scorn ; 
And what than friendship's manly tear 
May better grace a brother's bier ? 
But bear this ring, his own of old. 
And tell him — what thou dost behold ! 
The wither'd frame, the ruin'd mind, 
The wrack by passion left behind, 
A shrivell'd scroll, a scatter'd leaf, 
Sear'd by the autumn blast of grief! 
****** 

" Tell me no more of fancy's gleam, 
No, father, no, 'twas not a dream ; 
Alas ! the dreamer first must sleep, 
I only watch'd, and wish'd to weep ; 
But could not, for my burning brow 
Throbb'd to the very brain as now : 
I wish'd but for a single tear. 
As something welcome, new, and dear ; 
I wish'd it then, I wish it still ; 
Despair is stronger than my will. 
"Waste not thine orison, despair ^ 
Is mightier than thy pious prayer : 
I would not, if I might, be blest ; 
I want no paradise, but rest. 
'Twas then, I tell thee, father ! then 
I saw her ; yes, she lived again ; 
And shining in her white symar,^ 
As through yon pale gray cloud the star 
Which now I gaze on, as on her. 
Who look'd and looks far lovelier ; 
Dimly I view its trembling spark ; ' 
To-morrow's night shall be more dark ; 
And I, before its rays appear. 
That lifeless thing the living fear. 

1 " Nay, kneel not, father, rise— despair," &c.— MS. 

2 " Symar," a shroud. 

3 " Which now I view with trembling spark."— MS. 

* The circumstance to which the above story relates was 
not very uncommon in Turkey. A few years ago the wife 
of Muchtar Pacha complained to his father of his son's sup- 
posed infidelity ; he asked with whom, and she had the bar- 
barity to give in a list of the twelve handsomest women in 
Yanina. They were seized, fastened up in sacks, and drowned 



I wander, father I for my soul 
Is fleeting towards the final goal. 
I saw her, friar ! and I rose 
Forgetful of our former woes ; 
And rushing from my couch, I dart, 
And clasp her to my desperate heart ; 
I clasp — what is it that I clasp ? 
No breathing form within my grasp, 
No heart that beats reply to mine. 
Yet, Leila ! yet the form is thine ! 
And art thou, dearest, changed so much, 
As meet my eye, yet mock my touch ? 
Ah ! were thy beauties e'er so cold, 
I care not ; so my arms enfold 
The all they ever wish'd to hold. 
Alas ! around a shadow prest, 
They shrink upon my lonely breast ; 
Yet still 'tis there I In silence stands, 
And beckons with beseeching hands ! 
With braided hair, and bright black eye- 
I knew 'twas false — she could not die I 
But he is dead ! within the dell 
I saw him buried where he fell ; 
He comes not, for he cannot break 
From earth ; why then art thou awake ? 
They told me wild waves roU'd above 
The face I view, the form I love ; 
They told me — 'twas a hideous tale ! 
I'd tell it, but my tongue would fail : 
If true, and from thine ocean cave 
Thou com'st to claim a calmer grave, 
Oh ! pass thy dewy fingers o'er 
This brow, that then will burn no more ; 
Or place them on my hopeless heart : 
But, shape or shade ! whate'er thou art. 
In mercy ne'er again depart ! 
Or farther with thee bear my soul 
Than winds can waft or waters roll I 

7^ 7^ y^ ^ ^ ^ 



" Such is my name, and such my tale. 

Confessor ! to thy secret ear 
I breathe the sorrows I bewail. 

And thank thee for the generous tear 
This glazing eye could never shed. 
Then lay me with the humblest dead. 
And, save the cross above my head, 
Be neither name nor emblem spread, 
By prying stranger to be read. 
Or stay the passing pilgrim's tread." * 



in the lake the same night ! One of the guards who was pres- 
ent informed me that not one of the victims uttered a cry, or 
showed a symptom of terror at so sudden a " wrench from all 
we know, from all we love." The fate of Phrosine, the fair- 
est of this sacrifice, is the subject of many a Romaic and Ar- 
naout ditty. The story in the text is one told of a young 
Venetian many years ago, and now nearly forgotten. I 
heard it by accident recited by one of the coffee-house story- 
tellers who abound in the Levant, and sing or recite their 



90 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



He pass'd — nor of his name and race 
Hath left a token or a trace, 
Save what the father must not say 



narratives. The additions and interpolations by the trans- 
lator will be easily distinguished from the rest, by the want 
of Eastern imagery ; and I regret that my memory has re- 
tained so few fragments of the original. For the contents of 
some of the notes I am indebted partly to D'Herbelot, and 
partly to that most Eastern, and, as Mr. Weber justly entitles 
it, "sublime tale," the "Caliph Vathek." I do not know 
from what source the author of that singular volume may 
have drawn his materials; some of his incidents are to be 
found in the " Biblioth&que Orientale;" but for correctness 
of costume, beauty of description, and power of imagination, 
it far surpasses all European imitations; and bears such 
marks of originality, that those who have visited the East 
will find some difficulty in believing it to be more than a 
translation. As an Eastern tale, even Easselas must bow 
before it ; his " Happy Valley » will not bear a comparison 
with the " Hall of Eblis." 



Who shrived him on his dying day : 
This broken tale was all we knew ^ 
Of her he loved, or him he slew.^ 



1 " Nor whether most he mourn'd none knew, 
For her he loved, or him he slew."— MS. 

2 " In this poem, which was published after the two first 
cantos of Childe Harold, Lord Byron began to show his pow- 
ers. He had now received encouragement which set free his 
daring hands, and gave his strokes their natural force. Here, 
then, we first find passages of a tone peculiar to Lord Byron ; 
but still this appearance was not uniform : he often returned 
to his trammels, and reminds us of the manner of some favor- 
ite predecessor ; among these, I think we sometimes catch the 
notes of Sir Walter Scott. But the internal tempest— the 
deep passion, sometimes buried, and sometimes blazing from 
some incidental touch — the intensity of agonizing reflec- 
tion, which will always distinguish Lord Byron from other 
writers— now began to display themselves."— Sir Egekton 
Brydges. 



i 
I 



2rf)e Btitre of ^fegDos 



A TURKISH TALE. 



" Had we never loved so kindly, 
Had we never loved so blindly, 
Never met or never parted, 
"We had ne'er been broken-hearted," 

BUENS. 



THE RIGHT HONORABLE LORD HOLLAND, 

THIS TALE IS INSCRIBED, 
WITH EVERY SENTIMENT OF REGARD AND RESPECT, 

BY HIS GRATEFULLY OBLIGED AND SINCERE FRIEND, 

BYKON. 



CJe I3ritie of Eigtios,' 



CANTO THE FIRST. 



I. 
Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle ^ 

Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime? 
Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle, 

Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime ! 
Know ye the land of the cedar and vine. 
Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine : 
Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppress'd with 

perfume. 
Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gul* in her bloom ; 
Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit. 
And the voice of the nightingale never is mute : 

1 The Bride of Abydos was published in the beginning of 
December, 1813. The mood of mind in which it was struck 
oflf is thus stated by Lord Byron, in a letter to Mr. Gifford: — 
" You have been good enough to look at a thing of mine in 
MS. — a Turkish story— and I should feel gratified if you 
would do it the same favor in its probationary state of print- 
ing. It was written, I cannot say for amusement, nor 
' obliged by hunger and request of friends,' but in a state of 
mind, from circumstances which occasionally occur to 'us 
youth,' that rendered it necessary for me to apply my mind 
to something, anything, but reality ; and under this not very 
brilliant inspiration it was composed. Send it either to the 
flames, or 

' A hundred hawkers' load, 

On wings of winds to fly or fall abroad.' 
It deserves no better than the first, as the work of a week, 
and scribbled ' stans pede in uno ' (by the bye, the only foot I 
have to stand on) ; and I promise never to trouble you again 
under forty cantos, and a voyage between each." 



Where the tints of the earth, and the hues of the sky, 
In color though varied, in beauty may vie. 
And the purple of ocean is deepest in dye ; 
Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine. 
And all, save the spirit of man, is divine ? 
'Tis the clime of the East ; 'tis the land of the Sun — 
Can he smile on such deeds as his children have done ? ^ 
Oh ! wild as the accents of lovers' farewell 
Are the hearts which they bear, and the tales which 
they tell. 

II. * 

Begirt with many a gallant slave, 
Apparell'd as becomes the brave, 
Awaiting each his lord's behest 
To guide his steps, or guard his rest, 
Old Giafiir sate in his Divan : 

Deep thought was in his aged eye ; 
And though the face of Mussulman 
Not oft betrays to standers by 

2 " Murray tells me that Croker asked him why the thing 
is called the Bride of Abydos. It is an awkward question, 
being unanswerable : she is not a bride ; only about to be one. 
I don't wonder at his finding out the Bull ; but the detection 
is too late to do any good. I was a great fool to have made 
it, and am ashamed of not being an Irishman." — Byron Diary, 
Dec. 6, 1813. 

3 To the Bride of Abydos, Lord Byron made many addi- 
tions during its progress through the press, amounting to 
about two hundred lines ; and, as in the case of the Giaour, 
the passages so added will be seen to be some of the most 
splendid in the whole poem. These opening lines, which are 
among the new insertions, are supposed to have been sug- 
gested by a song of Goethe's — . 

" Kennst du das Land wo die citronen bliihn." 
4"Glil,"therose. 

6 " Souls made of fire, and children of the Sun, 
With whom revenge is virtue."— Young's Revenge. 

(91) 



92 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Canto I. 



The mind within, well skill'd to hide 
All but unconquerable pride, 
His pensive cheek and pondering brow 
Did more than he was wont avow. 

III. 

"Let the chamber be clear'd." — The train dis- 
appear'd — 

" Now call me the chief of the Haram guard." 
With Giaffir is none but his only son. 

And the Nubian awaiting the sire's award. 

" Haroun — when all the crowd that wait 

Are pass'd beyond the outer gate 

(Woe to the head whose eye beheld 

My child Zuleika's face unveil'd !), 

Hence, lead my daughter from her tower ; 

Her fate is fix'd this very hour : 

Yet not to her repeat my thought 

By me alone be duty taught !" 

" Pacha ! to hear is to obey." 
No more must slave to despot say — 
Then to the tower had ta'en his way, 
But here young Selim silence brake. 

First lowly rendering reverence meet ; 
And downcast look'd, and gently spake, 

Still standing at the Pacha's feet : 
For son of Moslem must expire, 
Ere dare to sit before his sire ! 

" Father ! for fear that thou shouldst chide 
My sister, or her sable guide. 
Know — for the fault, if fault there be, 
Was mine, then fall thy frowns on me — 
So lovelily the morning shone, 

That — let the old and weary sleep — 
I could not ; and to view alone 

The fairest scenes of land and deep. 
With none to listen and reply 
To thoughts with which my heart beat high 
Were irksome — for whate'er my mood, 
In sooth I love not solitude ; 
I on Zuleika's slumber broke. 

And, as thou knowest that for me 

Soon turns the Haram's grating key 
Before the guardian slaves awoke 
We to the cypress groves had flown, 
And made earth, main, and heaven our own ! 
There linger'd we, beguiled too long 
With Mejnoun's tale, or Sadi's song ; i 
Till I, who heard the deep tambour 2 
Beat thy Divan's approaching hour. 
To thee, and to my duty true, 
Warn'd by the sound, to greet thee flew : 
But there Zuleika wanders yet — 
Nay, Father, rage not— nor forget 
That none can pierce that secret bower 
But those who watch the women's tower." 



1 Mejnoun and Leila, the Romeo and Juliet of the East. 
Sadi, the moral poet of Persia. 



IV. 

" Son of a slave " — the Pacha said — 

" From unbelieving mother bred. 

Vain were a father's hope to see 

Aught that beseems a man in thee. 

Thou, when thine arm should bend the bow, 

And hurl the dart, and curb the steed. 

Thou, Greek in soul if not in creed. 
Must pore where babbling waters flow. 
And watch unfolding roses blow. 
Would that yon orb, whose matin glow 
Thy listless eyes so much admire. 
Would lend thee something of his fire ! 
Thou, who wouldst see this battlement 
By Christian cannon piecemeal rent ; 
Nay, tamely view old Stambol's wall 
Before the dogs of Moscow fall. 
Nor strike one stroke for life and death 
Against the curs of Nazareth ! 
Go — let thy less than woman's hand 
Assume the distaff*— not the brand. 
But, Haroun ! — to my daughter speed : 
And hark — of thine own head take heed — 
If thus Zuleika oft takes wing — 
Thou seest yon bow — it hath a string !" 

V. 

No sound from Selim's lip was heard, 

At least that met old Giaffir's ear. 
But every frown and every word 
Pierced keener than a Christian's sword. 

" Son of a slave ! — reproach'd with fear ! 

Those gibes had cost another dear. 
Son of a slave ! — and who my sire ?" 

Thus held his thoughts their dark career ; 
And glances ev'n of more than ire 

Flash forth, then faintly disappear. 
Old Giaffir gazed upon his son 

And started ; for within his eye 
He read how much his wrath had done ; 
He saw rebellion there begun : 

" Come hither, boy — what, no reply ? 

1 mark thee — and I know thee too ; 
But there be deeds thou dar'st not do . 
But if thy beard had manlier length. 
And if thy hand had skill and strength, 
I'd joy to see thee break a lance. 
Albeit against my own, perchance.' 

As sneeringly these accents fell. 
On Selim's eye he fiercely gazed : 

That eye return'd him glance for glance. 
And proudly to his sire's was raised. 

Till Giaffir's quail'd and shrunk askance — 
And why — he felt, but durst not tell. 
" Much I misdoubt this wayward boy 
Will one day work me more annoy : 

2 Turkish drum, which sounds at sunrise, noon, and twi- 
light. 



Canto I. 



THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS. 



93 



I never loved him from his birth, 

And — but his arm is little worth, 

And scarcely in the chase could cope 

With timid fawn or antelope, 

Far less would venture into strife 

Where man contends for lame and life — 

I would not trust that look or tone : 

No — nor the blood so near my own. 

That blood — he hath not heard — no more — 

I'll watch him closer than before. 

He is an Arab ^ to my sight, 

Or Christian crouching in the fight — 

But hark ! — I hear Zuleika's voice ; 

Like Houris' hymn it meets mine ear : 
She is the offspring of my choice ; 

Oh ! more than ev'n her mother dear, 
With all to hope, and nought to fear — 
My Peri ! ever welcome here ! 
Sweet, as the desert fountain's wave 
To lips just cool'd in time to save — 

Such to my longing sight art thou ; 
Nor can they waft to Mecca's shrine 
More thanks for life, ithan I for thine, 

Who blest thy birth, and bless thee now." 

VI. 

Fair, as the first that fell of womankind. 

When on that dread yet lovely serpent smiling. 
Whose image then was stamp'd upon her mind — 

But once beguiled — and ever more beguiling ; 
Dazzling, as that, oh ! too transcendent vision 

To Sorrow's phantom-peopled slumber given, 
When heart meets heart again in dreams Elysian, 

And paints the lost on Earth revived in Heaven 
Soft, as the memory of buried love ; 
Pure, as the prayer which Childhood wafts above. 



1 The Turks abhor the Arabs (who return the compliment 
a hundred-fold) even more than they hate the Christians. 

2 These twelve fine lines were added in the course of printing. 

3 This expression has met with objections. I will not refer 
to " Him who hath not Music in his soul," but merely request 
the reader to recollect, for ten seconds, the features of the 
woman whom he believes to be the most beautiful ; and, if 
he then does not comprehend fully what is feebly expressed 
in the above line, I shall be sorry for us both. For an elo- 
quent passage in the latest work of the first female writer of 
this, perhaps of any age, on the analogy (and the immediate 
comparison excited by that analogy) between " painting and 
music," see vol. iii. cap. 10, De l'Allemagne. And is not 
this connection still stronger with the original than the copy? 
with the coloring of Nature than of Art? After all, this is 
rather to be felt than described ; still I think there are some 
who will understand it, at least they would have done had 
they beheld the countenance whose speaking harmony sug- 
gested the idea; for this passage is not drawn from imagina- 
tion but memory, that mirror which Affliction dashes to the 
earth, and looking down upon the fragments, only beholds 
the reflection multiplied !—" This morning, a very pretty 
billet from the Stagl. She has been pleased to be pleased 
with my slight eulogy in the note annexed to the 'Bride.' 
This is to be accounted for in several ways; — firstly, all 
women like all, or any praise ; secondly, this was unexpected, 
because I have never courted her ; and, thirdly, as Scrub says, 



Was she — the daughter of the rude old Chief, 
Who met the maid with tears — but not of grief. 

Who hath not proved how feebly words essay ^ 
To fix one spark of Beauty's heavenly ray ? 
Who doth not feel, until his failing sight 
Faints into dimness with its own delight, 
His changing cheek, his sinking heart confess 
The might — the majesty of Loveliness? 
Such was Zuleika — such around her shone 
The nameless charms unmark'd by her alone — 
The light of love, the purity of grace, 
The mind, the Music ^ breathing from her face,* 
The heart whose softness harmonized the whole, 
And oh ! that eye was in itself a Soul ! 

Her graceful arms in meekness bending 
Across her gently -budding breast ; 

At one kind word those arms extending 
To clasp the neck of him who blest 
f" His child caressing and carest, 
Zuleika came — and Giaffir felt 
His purpose half within him melt : 
Not that against her fancied weal 
His heart though stern could ever feel ; 
Affection chain'd her to that heart ; 
Ambition tore the links apart. 

VII. 

" Zuleika ! child of gentleness ! 

How dear this very day must tell, 
When I forget my own distress. 

In losing what I love so well. 

To bid thee with another dwell : 

Another ! and a braver man 

Was never seen in battle's van. 



those who have been all their lives regularly praised by regu- 
lar critics, like a little variety, and are glad when any one 
goes out of his way to say a civil thing ; and fourthly, she is a 
very good-natured creature, which is the best reason, aftm 
all, and, perhaps, the only one." — B. Diary, Dec. 7, 1813. 

4 " Among the imputed plagiarisms so industriously hunted 
out in his writings, this line has been, with somewhat more 
plausibility than is frequent in such charges, included ; the 
lyric poet Lovelace having, it seems, written 'The melody 
and music of her face.' Sir Thomas Browne, too, in his Re- 
ligio Medici, says, 'There is music even in beauty.' The 
coincidence, n6 doubt, is worth observing, and the task of 
' tracking thus a favorite writer in the snow (as Dryden ex- 
presses it) of others,' is sometimes not unamusing; but to 
those who found upon such resemblances a general charge of 
plagiarism, we may apply what Sir Walter Scott says : — ' It is 
a favorite theme of laborious dullness to trace such coinci- 
dences, because they appear to reduce genius of the higher 
order to the usual standard of humanity, and of course to 
bring the author nearer to a level with his critics.' It is not 
only curious, but instructive, to trace the progress of this 
passage to its present state of finish. Having at first written— 

' Mind on her lip and music on her face,' 
he afterwards altered it to — 

'The mind of music breathing in her face,'— 
but this not satisfying him, the next step of correction brought 
the line to what it is at present. "—Moore. 



94 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Canto I>. 



We Moslem reek not much of blood : 

But yet the line of Carasman i 
Unchanged, unchangeable hath stood 

First of the bold Timariot bands 
That won and well can keep their lands. 
Enough that he who comes to woo 
Is kinsman of the Bey Oglou : 
His years need scarce a thought employ : 
I would not have thee wed a boy. 
And thou shalt have a noble dower : 
And his and my united power 
Will laugh to scorn the death-firman, 
Which others tremble but to scan, 
And teach the messenger 2 what fate 
The bearer of such boon may wait. 
And now thou know'st thy father's will, 

All that thy sex hath need to know : 
'Twas mine to teach obedience still — 

The way to love, thy lord may show." 

VIII. 
In silence bow'd the virgin's head ; 

And if her eye was fiU'd with tears 
That stifled feeling dare not shed, 
And changed her cheek from pale to red, 

And red to pale, as through her ears 
Those winged words like arrows sped. 

What could such be but maiden fears ? 
So bright the tear in Beauty's eye. 
Love half regrets to kiss it dry ; 
So sweet the blush of Bashfulness, 
iEven Pity scarce can wish it less 1 

Whate'er it was the sire forgot ; 

Or if remember'd, mark'd it not ; 

Thrice clapp'd his hands, and call'd his 
Eesign'd his gem-adorn'd chibouque,* 

And mounting featly for the mead. 
With Maugrabee^ and Mamaluke, 
His way amid his Delis took,® 



1 Carasman Oglou, or Kara Osman Oglu, is the principal 
landowner in Turkey; he governs Magnesia: those who, by 
a kind of feudal tenure, possess land on condition of service, 
are called Timariots : they serve as Spahis, according to the 
extent of territory, and bring a certain number into the field, 
generally cavalry. 

2 When a Pacha is sufficiently strong to resist, the single 
messenger, who is always the first bearer of the order for his 
death, is strangled instead, and sometimes five or six, one 
after the other, on the same errand, by command of the re- 
fractory patient ; if, on the contrary, he is weak or loyal, he 
bows, kisses the Sultan's respectable signature, and is bow- 
strung with great complacency. In 1810, several of these 
presents were exhibited in the niche of the Seraglio gate; 
among others, the head of the; Pacha of Bagdat, a brave young 
man, cut off by treachery, after a desperate resistance. 

» Clapping of the hands calls the servants. The Turks hate 
a superfluous expenditure of voice, and they have no bells. 

4 " Chibouque," the Turkish pipe, of which the amber 
mouth-piece, and sometimes the ball which contains the leaf, 
is adorned with precious stones, if in possession of the wealth- 
ier order. 



To witness many an active deed 
With sabre keen, or blunt jerreed. 
The Kislar only and his Moors 
Watch well the Haram's massy doors. 

IX. 

His head was leant upon his hand, 
His eye look'd o'er the dark blue water 

That swiftly glides and gently swells 

Between the winding Dardanelles ; 

But yet he saw nor sea nor strand. 

Nor even his Pacha's turban^d band 
Mix in the game of mimic slaughter, 

Careering cleave the folded felf 

With sabre stroke right sharply dealt ; 

Nor mark'd the javelin-darting crowd, 

Nor heard their Ollahs^ wild and loud — 
He thought but of old Giaffir's daughter ! • 

X. 

No word from Selim's bosom broke ; 

One sigh Zuleika's thought bespoke : 

Still gazed he through the lattice grate, 

Pale, mute, and mournfully sedate. 

To him Zuleika's eye was turn'd, 

But little from his aspect learn'd : 

Equal her grief, yet not the same ; 

Her heart confess'd a gentler flame : 

But yet that heart, alarm'd or weak. 

She knew not why, forbade to speak. 

Yet speak she must — but when essay ? 

" How strange he thus should turn away I 

Not thus we e'er before have met ; 

Nor thus shall be our parting yet." 

Thrice paced she slowly through the room, 
And watch'd his eye — it still was fix'd : 
She snatch'd the urn wherein was mix'd 

The Persian Atar-gul's^ perfume, 

And sprinkled all its odors o'er 

The pictured roof i*' and marble floor : 

5 " Maugrabee," Moorish mercenaries. 

6 " Delis," bravos who form the forlorn hope of the cavalry, 
and always begin the action. 

7 A twisted fold of felt is used for scimitar practice by the 
Turks, and few but Mussulman arms can cut through it at a 
single stroke : sometimes a tough turban is used for the same 
purpose. The jerreed is a game of blunt javelins, animated 
and graceful. 

8 " Ollahs," Alia il Allah, the " Leilies," as the Spanish 
poets call them, the sound is Ollah ; a cry of which the Turks, 
for a silent people, are somewhat profuse, particularly during 
the jerreed, or in the chase, but mostly in battle. Their ani- 
mation in the field, and gravity in the chamber, with their 
pipes and comboloios, form an amusing contrast. 

• " Atar-gul," ottar of roses. The Persian is the finest. 

10 The ceilings and wainscots, or rather walls, of the Mus- 
sulman apartments are generally painted, in great houses, 
with one eternal and highly colored view of Constantinople, 
wherein the principal feature is a noble contempt of per- 
spective ; below, arms, scimitars, «fec., are in general fancifully 
and not inelegantly disposed. 




EuiLm\r^\^A. 



j 






Canto I. 



THE BEIDE OF ABYDOS. 



95 



The drops, that through his glittering vest 
The playful girl's appeal address'd, 
Unheeded o'er his bosom flew, 
As if that breast were marble too. 
" What, sullen yet? it must not be — 
Oh ! gentle Selim, this from thee !" 
She saw in curious order set 

The fairest flowers of eastern land — 
" He loved them once ; may touch them yet, 

If offer'd by Zuleika's hand." 
The childish thought was hardly breathed 
Before the rose was pluck'd and wreathed ; 
The next fond moment saw her seat 
Her fairy form at Selim's feet : 
" This rose to calm my brother's cares 
A message from the BulbuP bears: 
It says to-night he will prolong 
For Selim's ear his sweetest song ; 
And though his note is somewhat sad, 
He'll try for once a strain more glad. 
With some faint hope his alter'd lay 
May sing these gloomy thoughts away. 

XI. 

"What! not receive my foolish flower? 

Nay, then I am indeed unblest : 
On me can thus thy forehead lower ? 

And know'st thou not who loves thee best ? 
Oh, Selim dear ! oh, more than dearest ! 
Say, is it me thou hat'st or fearest ? 
Come, lay thy head upon my breast, 
And I will kiss thee into rest. 
Since words of mine, and songs must fail, 
Ev'n from my fabled nightingale. 
I knew our sire at times was stern. 
But this from thee had yet to learn : 
Too well I know he loves thee not ; 
But is Zuleika's love forgot? 
Ah ! deem I right ? the Pacha's plan — 
This kinsman Bey of Carasman 
Perhaps may prove some foe of thine. 
If so, I swear by Mecca's shrine, — 
If shrines that ne'er approach allow 
To woman's step admit her vow, — 
Without thy free consent, command, 
The Sultan should not have my hand ! « 
Think'st thou that I could bear to part 
With thee, and learn to halve my heart ? 
Ah ! were I sever'd from thy side. 
Where were thy friend — and who my guide ? 
Years have not seen, Time shall not see 
The hour that tears my soul from thee : 
Even Azrael,2 from his deadly quiver 

When flies that shaft, and fly it must, 

1 It has been much doubted whether the notes of this 
" Lover of the rose" are sad or merry ; and Mr. Fox's remarks 
on the subject have provoked some learned controversy as to 
the opinions of the ancients on the subject. I dare not ven- 
ture a conjecture on the point, though a little inclined to the 
" errare mallem," &c., ij Mr. Fox was mistaken. 



That parts all else, shall doom for ever 
Our hearts to undivided dust !" 

XII. 

He lived — he breathed — he moved — he felt ; 
He raised the maid from where she knelt ; 
His trance was gone — his keen eye shone 
With thoughts that long in darkness dwelt ; 
With thoughts that burn — in rays that melt. 
As the stream late conceal'd 

By the fringe of its willows. 
When it rushes reveal'd 

In the light of its billows ; 
As the bolt bursts on high 

From the black cloud that bound it, 
Flash'd the soul of that eye 

Through the long lashes round it. 
A war-horse at the trumpet's sound, 
A lion roused by heedless hound, 
A tyrant waked to sudden strife 
By graze of ill-directed knife, 
Starts not to more convulsive life 
Than he, who heard that vow, display'd. 
And all, before repress'd, betray'd : 
" Now thou art mine, for ever mine, 
With life to keep, and scarce with life resign ; 
Now thou art mine, — that sacred oath. 
Though sworn by one, hath bound us both. 
Yes, fondly, wisely hast thou done ; 
That vow hath saved more heads than one ; 
But blench not thou — thy simplest tress 
Claims more from me than tenderness ; 
I would not wrong the slenderest hair 
That clusters round thy forehead fair. 
For all the treasures buried far 
W^ithin the caves of Istakar.^ 
This morning clouds upon me lower'd, 
Eeproaches on my head were shower'd, 
And Giaffir almost call'd me coward ! 
Now I have motive to be brave ; 
The son of his neglected slave, 
Nay, start not, 'twas the term he gave, 
May show, though little apt to vaunt, 
A heart his words nor deeds can daunt. 
His son, indeed ! — yet, thanks to thee. 
Perchance I am, at least shall be ; 
But let our plighted secret vow 
Be only known to us as now. 
I know the wretch who dares demand 
From Giaffir thy reluctant hand ; 
More ill-got wealth, a meaner soul 
Holds not a Musselim's* control : 
Was he not bred in Egripo ? ^ 
A viler race let Israel show ; 

2 " Azrael," the angel of death. 

8 The treasures of the Pre-Adamite Sultans. See D'Herbe- 
lot, article Istakar. 

4 " Musselim," a governor, the next in rank after a Pacha, 
a Way wode is the third ; and then come the Agas. 

6 " Egripo," the Negropont. According to the proverb, the 



96 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Canto I 



But let that pass — to none be told 

Our oath ; the rest shall time unfold. 

To me and mine leave Osman Bey ; 

I've partisans for peril's day : 

Think not I am what I appear ; 

I've arms, and friends, and vengeance near." 



XIII. 

" Think not thou art what thou appearest ! 

My Selim, thou art sadly changed : 
This morn I saw thee gentlest, dearest ; 

But now thou'rt from thyself estranged. 
My love thou surely knew'st before, 
It ne'er was less, nor can be more. 
To see thee, hear thee, near thee stay, 

And hate the night I know not why, 
Save that we meet not but by day ; 

With thee to live, with thee to die, 

I dare not to my hope deny : 
Thy cheek, thine eyes, thy lips to kiss, 
Like this — and this— no more than this ; 
For, Allah ! sure thy lips are flame : 

What fever in thy veins is flushing ? 
My own have nearly caught the same, 

At least I feel my cheek, too, blushing. 
To soothe thy sickness, watch thy health, 
Partake, but never waste thy wealth, 
Or stand with smiles unmurmuring by, 
And lighten half thy poverty ; 
Do all but close thy dying eye, 
For that I could not live to try ; 
To these alone my thoughts aspire : 
More can I do ? or thou require ? 
But, Selim, thou must answer why 
We need so much of mystery ? 
The cause I cannot dream nor tell, 
But be it, since thou say'st 'tis well ; 
Yet what thou mean'st by * arms ' and ' friends, 
Beyond my weaker sense extends. 
I meant that Giaffir should have heard 

The very vow I plighted thee ; 
His wrath would not revoke my word : 

But surely he would leave me free. 

Can this fond wish seem strange in me, 
To be what I have ever been ? 
What other hath Zuleika seen 
From simple childhood's earliest hour ? 

What other can she seek to see 
Than thee, companion of her bower, 

The partner of her infancy ? 
These cherish'd thoughts, with life begun, 

Say, why must I no more avow ? 
What change is wrought to make me shun 

The truth ; my pride, and thine till now ? 
To meet the gaze of stranger's eyes 
Our law, our creed, our God denies ; 



Turks of Egripo, the Jews of Salonica, and the Greeks of 
Athens, are the worst of their respective races. 



Nor shall one wandering thought of mine 

At such, our Prophet's will, repine : 

No ! happier made by that decree, 

He left me all in leaving thee. 

Deep were my anguish, thus compell'd 

To wed with one I ne'er beheld : 

This wherefore should I not reveal ? 

Why wilt thou urge me to conceal ? 

I know the Pacha's haughty mood 

To thee hath never boded good ; 

And he so often storms at nought, 

Allah ! forbid that e'er he ought ! 

And why I know not, but within 

My heart concealment weighs like sin. 

If then such secrecy be crime, 

And such it feels while lurking here ; 
Oh, Selim ! tell me yet in time. 

Nor leave me thus to thoughts of fear. 
Ah ! yonder see the Tchocadar,i 
My father leaves the mimic war ; 
I tremble now to meet his eye — 
Say, Selim, canst thou tell me why ?" 



XIV. 

" Zuleika — to thy tower's retreat 

Betake thee — Giaffir I can greet : 

And now with him I fain must prate 

Of firmans, impost, levies, state. 

There's fearful news from Danube's banks, 

Our Vizier nobly thins his ranks, 

For which the Giaour may give him thanks ! 

Our Sultan hath a shorter way 

Such costly triumph to repay. 

But, mark me, when the twilight drum 
Hath warn'd the troops to food and sleep, 

Unto thy cell will Selim come : 
Then softly from the Haram creep 
Where we may wander by the deep : 
Our garden-battlements are steep ; 

Nor these will rash intruder climb 

To list our words, or stint our time ; 

And if he doth, I want not steel 

Which some have felt, and more may feel. 

Then shalt thou learn of Selim more 

Than thou hast heard or thought before : 

Trust me, Zuleika — fear not me ! 

Thou know'st I hold a Haram key." 

" Fear thee, my Selim ! ne'er till now 
Did word like this—" 

" Delay not thou ; 
I keep the key — and Haroun's guard 
Have some, and hope of more reward. 
To-night, Zuleika, thou shalt hear 
My tale, my purpose, and my fear : 
I am not, love ! what I appear." 



1 " Tchocadar," one of the attendants who precedes a man 
of authority. 



Canto II. 



THE BEIDE OF ABYDOS. 



97 



Ci&e ^titit of Itigtiois. 



CANTO THE SECOND. 



I. 

The winds are high on Helle's wave, 

As on that night of stormy water 
When Love, who sent, forgot to save 
The young, the beautiful, the brave. 

The lonely hope of Sestos' daughter. 
Oh ! when alone along the sky 
Her turret-torch was blazing high, 
Though rising gale, and breaking foam, 
And shrieking sea-birds warn'd him home ; 
And clouds aloft and tides below. 
With signs and sounds, forbade to go. 
He could not see, he would not hear. 
Or sound or sign foreboding fear ; 
His eye but saw that light of love, 
The only star it hail'd above ; 
His ear but rang with Hero's song, 
" Ye waves, divide not lovers long !" — 
That tale is old, but love anew 
May nerve young hearts to prove as true. 

n. 

The winds are high, and Helle's tide 
Rolls darkly heaving to the main ; 
And Night's descending shadows hide 

That field with blood bedew'd in vain, 
The desert of old Priam's pride ; 
The tombs, sole relics of his reign. 
All — save immortal dreams that could beguile 
The blind old man of Scio's rocky isle ! 

ni. 

Oh ! yet — for there my steps have been ; 

These feet have press'd the sacred shore. 
These limbs that buoyant wave hath borne- 
Minstrel I with thee to muse, to mourn. 

To trace again those fields of yore, 

^ The wrangling about this epithet, "the broad Hellespont" 
or the •' boundless Hellespont," whether it means one or the 
other, or what it means at all, has been beyond all possibility 
of detail. I have even heard it disputed on the spot ; and not 
foreseeing a speedy conclusion to the controversy, amused 
myself with swimming across it in the mean time ; and pro- 
bably may again, before the point is settled. Indeed, the 
question as to the truth of "Ihe tale of Troy divine" still 
continues much of it resting upon the talismanic word 
airetpos: probably Homer had the same notion of distance 
that a coquette has of time ; and when he talks of boundle.ss, 
means half a mile ; as the latter, by a like figure, when she 
says eternal attachment, simply specifies three weeks. 

2 Before his Persian invasion, and crowned the altar with 

laurel, &c. He was afterwards imitated by Caracalla in his 

race. It is believed that the last also poisoned a friend, named 

Festus, for the sake of new Patroclan games. I have seen the 

7 



Believing every hillock green 

Contains no fabled hero's ashes. 
And that around the undoubted scene 

Thine own "broad Hellespont "^ still dashes, 
Be long my lot ! and cold were he 
Who there could gaze denying thee ! 

IV. 

The night hath closed on Helle's stream, 

Nor yet hath risen on Ida's hill 
That moon, which shone on his high theme : 
No warrior chides her peaceful beam. 

But conscious shepherds bless it still. 
Their flocks are grazing on the mound 

Of him who felt the Cardan's arrow : 
That mighty heap of gather'd ground 
Which Ammon's son ran proudly round,''' 
By nations raised, by monarchs crown'd, 

Is now a lone and nameless barrow ! 

Within — thy dwelling-place how narrow ! 
Without — can only strangers breathe 
The name of him that was beneath : 
Dust long outlasts the storied stone ; 
But Thou — thy very dust is gone ! 

V. 

Late, late to-night will Dian cheer 

The swain, and chase the boatman's fear ; 

Till then — no beacon on the clifi" 

May shape the course of struggling skiff; 

The scatter' d lights that skirt the bay. 

All, one by one, have died away ; 

The only lamp of this lone hour 

Is glimmering in Zuleika's tower. 

Yes ! there is light in that lone chamber, 

And o'er her silken Ottoman 
Are thrown the fragrant beads of amber, 

O'er which her fairy fingers ran ; ^ 
Near these, with emerald rays beset 
(How could she thus that gem forget?). 
Her mother's sainted amulet,* 
Whereon engraved the Koorsee text, 
Could smooth this life, and win the next ; 

sheep feeding on the tombs of ^sietes and Antilochus : the 
first is in the centre of the plain. 

3 When rubbed, the amber is susceptible of a perfume, 
which is slight, but not disagreeable. On discovering that, 
in some of the early copies, the all-important monosyllable 
"no<" had been omitted. Lord Byron wrote to Mr. Murray,— 
" There is a diabolical mistake which must be corrected ; it is 
the omission of 'no^' before disagreeable, in the note on the 
amber rosary. This is really horrible, and nearly as bad as 
the stumble of mine at the threshold— I mean the mi\momer 
of Bride. Pray do not let a copy go without the ' not :' it is 
nonsense, and worse than nonsense. I wish the printer was 
saddled with a vampire." 

* The belief in amulets engraved on gems, or enclosed in 
gold boxes, containing scraps from the Koran, worn round 
the neck, wrist, or arm, is still universal in the East. The 
Koorsee (throne) verse in the second cap. of the Koran de- 
scribes the attributes of the Most High, and is engraved in 



98 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Canto II. 



And by ner comboloio ^ lies 
A Koran of illumined dyes ; 
And many a bright emblazon'd rhyme 
By Persian scribes redeem'd from time ; 
And o'er those scrolls, not oft so mute, 
Reclines her now neglected lute ; 
And round her lamp of fretted gold 
Bloom flowers in urns of China's mould ; 
The richest work of Iran's loom. 
And Sheeraz' tribute of perfume ; 
All that can eye or sense delight 

Are gather' d in that gorgeous room : 

But yet it hath an air of gloom. 
She, of this Peri cell the sprite, 
What (loth she hence, and on so rude a night? 



VI. 

Wrapt in the darkest sable vest. 

Which none save noblest Moslem wear, 
To guard from winds of heaven the breast 

As heaven itself to Selim dear, 
With cautious steps the thicket threading, 

And starting oft, as through the glade 

The gust its hollow moanings made. 
Till on the smoother pathway treading, 
More free her timid bosom beat. 

The maid pursued her silent guide ; 
And though her terror urged retreat. 

How could she quit her Selim's side ? 

How teach her tender lips to chide ? 

VII. 

They reach'd at length a grotto, hewn 

By nature, but enlarged by art. 
Where oft her lute she wont to tune, 

And oft her Koran conn'd apart ; 
And oft in youthful reverie 
She dream'd what Paradise might be : 
Where woman's parted soul shall go 
Her Prophet had disdain'd to show ; 
But Selim's mansion was secure, 
Nor deem'd she, could he long endure 
His bower in other worlds of bliss 
Without her, most beloved in this ! 
Oh ! who so dear with him could dwell ? 
What Houri soothe him half so well ? 

VIII. 

Since last she visited the spot 

Some change seem'd wrought within the grot : 



tliis manner, and v'orn by the pious, as the most esteemed 
and sublime of uU sentences. 

1 " Comboloio," a Turkish rosary. The MSS,, particularly 
those of the Persians, are richly adorned and illuminated. 
The Greek females are kept in utter ignorance ; but many of 
the Turkish girls are highly accomplished, though not actu- 
ally qualified for a Christian coterie. Perhaps some of our own 
"blues" might not be worse for bleaching. 



It might be only that the night 
Disguised things seen by better light : 
That brazen lamp but dimly threw 
A ray of no celestial hue ; 
But in a nook within the cell 
Her eye on stranger objects fell. 
There arms were piled, not such as wield 
The turban'd Delis in the field ; 
But brands of foreign blade and hilt. 
And one was red — perchance with guilt I 
Ah ! how without can blood be spilt? 
A cup too on the board was set 
That did not seem to hold sherbet. 
What may this mean ? she turn'd to see 
Her Selim—" Oh ! can this be he?" 

IX. 

His robe of pride was thrown aside, 

His brow no high-crown'd turban bore, 
But in its stead a shawl of red. 

Wreathed lightly round, his temples wore : 
That dagger, on whose hilt the gem 
Were worthy of a diadem. 
No longer glitter'd at his waist. 
Where pistols unadorn'd were braced ; 
And from his belt a sabre swung. 
And from his shoulder loosely hung 
The cloak of white, the thin capote 
That decks the wandering Candiote ; 
Beneath — his golden-plated vest 
Clung like a cuirass to his breast ; 
The greaves below his knee that wound 
With silvery scales were sheathed and bound. 
But were it not that high command 
Spake in his eye, and tone, and hand. 
All that a careless eye could see 
In him was some young Galiong^e.^ 

X. 

" I said I was not what I seem'd ; 

And now thou seest my words were true : 
I have a tale thou hast not dream'd. 

If sooth — its truth must others rue. 
My story now 'twere vain to hide, 
I must not see thee Osman's bride : 
But had not thine own lips declared 
How much of that young heart I shared, 
I could not, must not, yet have shown 
The darker secret of my own. 
In this I speak not now of love ; 
That, let time, truth, and peril prove : 



2 " Galiongee," or Galiongi, a sailor, that is, a Turkish 
sailor ; the Greeks navigate, the Turks work the guns. Their 
dress is picturesque ; and I have seen the Capitan Pacha more 
than once wearing it as a kind of incog. Their legs, however, 
are generally naked. The buskins described in the text as 
sheathed behind with silver are those of an Arnaut robber, 
who was my host (he had quitted the profession) at his Pyrgo, 
near Gastouni in the Morea; they were plated in scales one 
over the other, like the back of an armadillo. 



Caxto IL 



THE BEIDE OF ABYDOS. 



99 



But first — Oh ! never Trecl another — 
Zuleika ! I am not thy brother !" 

XI. 

" Oh ! not my brother ! — yet unsay — 

God ! am I left alone on earth 
To mourn — I dare not curse — the day * 

That saw my solitary birth ? 
Oh ! thou wilt love me now no more ! 

My sinking heart foreboded ill ; 
But know me all I was before, 

Thy sister — friend — Zuleika still. 
Thou ledd'st me here perchance to kill ; 

If thou hast cause for vengeance, see ! 
My breast is oiFer'd — take thy fill ! 

Far better with the dead to be 

Than live thus nothing now to thee ! 
Perhaps far worse, for now I know 
Why Giaffir always seem'd thy foe ; 
And I, alas ! am Giatfir's child, 
For whom thou wert contemn'd, reviled. 
If not thy sister — wouldst thou save 
My life, oh ! bid me be thy slave !" 



XII. 

" My slave, Zuleika ! — nay, I'm thine : 

But, gentle love, this transport calm, 
Thy lot shall yet be link'd with mine ; 
I swear it by our Prophet's shrine, 

And be that thought thy sorrow's balm. 
So may the Koran 2 verse display 'd 
Upon its steel direct my blade. 
In danger's hour to guard us both. 
As I preserve that awful oath ! 
The name in which thy heart hath prided 

Must change; but, my Zuleika, know. 
That tie is widen'd, not divided, 

Although thy Sire's my deadliest foe. 
My father was to Giaffir all 

That Selim late was deem'd to thee ; 
That brother wrought a brother's fall, 

But spared, at least, my infancy ; 
And lull'd me with a vain deceit 
That yet a like return may meet. 

1 " To curse— if I could curse— the day." — MS. 

2 The characters on all Turkish scimitars contain some- 
times the name of the place of their manufacture, but more 
generally a text from the Koran, in letters of gold. Amongst 
those in my possession is one with a blade of singular con- 
struction ; it is very broad, and the edge notched into ser- 
pentine curves like the ripple of water, or the wavering of 
flame. I asked the Armenian who sold it, what possible use 
such a figure could add : he said, in Italian, that he did not 
know ; but the Mussulmans had an idea that those of this 
form gave a severer wound ; and liked it because it was " piu 
feroce." I did not much admire the reason, but bought it for 
its peculiarity. 

3 It is to be observed, that every allusion to any thing or 
personage in the Old Testament, such as the Ark, or Cain, is 
equally the privilege of Mussulman and Jew: indeed, the 
former profess to be much better acquainted with the lives. 



He rear'd me, not with tender help, 

But like the nephew of a Cain ; ^ 
He watch'd me like a lion's whelp. 

That gnaws and yet may break his chain. 

My father's blood in every vein 
Is boiling ; but for thy dear sake 
No present vengeance will I take ; 

Though here I must no more remain. 
But first, beloved Zuleika ! hear 
How Giaffir wrought this deed of fear. 

XIII. 

" How first their strife to rancor grew. 

If love or envy made them foes. 
It matters little if I knew ; 
In fiery spirits, slights, though few 

And thoughtless, will disturb repose. 
In war Abdallah's arm was strong, 
Remember'd yet in Bosniac song, 
And Paswan's* rebel hordes attest 
How little love they bore such guest : 
His death is all I need relate. 
The stern effect of Giaffir's hate ; 
And how my birth disclosed to me, 
Whate'er beside it makes, hath made me free. 

XIV. 

" When Pas wan, after years of strife, 
At last for power, but first for life. 
In Widdin's walls too proudly sate. 
Our Pachas rallied round the state ; 
Nor last nor least in high command, 
Each brother led a separate band ; 
They gave their horse-tails ^ to the wind, 

And mustering in Sophia's plain 
Their tents were pitch'd, their post assign'd ; 

To one, alas ! assign'd in vain ! 
What need of words ? the deadly bowl. 

By Giaffir's order drugg'd and given, 
With venom subtle as his soul, 

Dismiss'd Abdallah's hence to heaven. 
Reclined and feverish in the bath. 

He, when the hunter's sport was up. 
But little deem'd a brother's wrath 

To qiiench his thirst had such a cup : 

true and fabulous, of the patriarchs, than is warranted by our 
own sacred writ ; and not content with Adam, they have a 
biography of Pre-Adamites. Solomon is the monarch of all 
necromancy, and Moses a prophet inferior only to Christ and 
Mahomet. Zuleika is the Persian name of Potiphar's wife; 
and her amour with Joseph constitutes one of the finest poems 
in their language. It is, therefore, no violation of custom to 
put the names of Cain, or Noah, into the mouth of a Moslem. 
Some doubt having been expressed by Mr. Murray, as to the 
propriety of putting the name of Cain into the mouth of a 
^Mussulman, Lord Byron sent him the preceding note — " for 
the benefit of the ignorant." " I don't care one lump of 
sugar," he says, " for my poetry ; but for my costume, and my 
correctness on those points, I will combat lustily." 

* Paswan Oglou, the rebel of Widdin ; who, for the last 
years of his life, set the whole power of the Porte at defiance. 

5 " Horse-tail," the standard of a Pacha. 



100 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Canto II. 



The bowl a bribed attendant bore ; 

He drank one draught/ nor needed more ! 

It" thoTi my tale, Zuleika, doubt, 

Call Haroun — he can tell it out. 

XV. 

"The deed once done, and Paswan's feud 
In part suppress'd, though ne'er subdued, 

Abdallah's Pachalic was gain'd : — 
Thou know'st not what in our Divan 
Can wealth procure for worse than man — 

Abdallah's honors were obtain'd 
By him a brother's murder stain'd ; 
'Tis true, the purchase nearly drain'd 
His ill-got treasure, soon replaced. 
Wouldst question whence ? Survey the waste, 
And ask the squalid peasant how 
His gains repay his broiling brow ! — 
AVhy me the stern usurper spared, 
Why thus with me his palace shared, 
I know not. Shame, regret, remorse, 
And little fear from infant's force;' 
Besides, adoption as a son 
By him whom Heaven accorded none, 
Or some unknown cabal, caprice, 
Preserved me thus ; — but not in peace : 
He cannot curb his haughty mood, 
Nor I forgive a father's blood. 

• XVI. 

" Within thy father's house are foes ; 

Not all who break his bread are true : 
To these should I my birth disclose, 

His days, his very hours were few : 
They only want a heart to lead, 
A hand to point them to the deed. 
But Haroun only knows, or knew 

This tale, whose close is almost nigh : 
He in Abdallah's palace grew. 

And held that post in his Serai 

Which holds he here— he saw him die : 
But what could single slavery do ? 
Avenge his lord ? alas ! too late ; 
Or save his son from such a fate ? 
He chose the last, and when elate 

With foes subdued, or friends betray'd. 
Proud Giafiir in high triumph sate. 
He led me helpless to his gate. 

And not in vain it seems essay'd 

To save the life for which he pray'd. 
The knowledge of my birth secured 

From all and each, but most from me ; 
Thus Giaffir's safety was insured. 

Removed he too from Roumelie 
To this our Asiatic side. 
Far from our seats by Danube's tide. 



1 Giaffir, Pacha of Argyro Castro, or Scutari, I am not sure 
which, was actually taken off by the Albanian Ali, in the 
manner described in the text. Ali Pacha, while I was in the 
country, married the daughter of his victim, some years after 



With none but Haroun, who retains 
Such knowledge — and that Nubian feels 

A tyrant's secrets are but chains, 
From wliich the captive gladly steals. 
And this and more to me reveals : 
Such still to guilt just Allah sends — 
Slaves, tools, accomplices — no friends ! 

XVII. 

" All this, Zuleika, harshly sounds ; 

But harsher still my tale must be : 
Howe'er my tongue thy softness wounds, 

Yet I must prove all truth to thee. 

I saw thee start this garb to see, 
Yet is it one I oft have worn. 

And long must wear : this Galiongee, 
To whom thy plighted vow is sworn. 

Is leader of those pirate hordes. 

Whose laws and lives are on their swords ; 
To hear whose desolating tale 
Would make thy waning cheek more pale : 
Those arms thou seest my band have brought, 
The hands that wield are not remote ; 
This cup too for the rugged knaves 

Is fill'd — once quaff 'd, they ne'er repine: 
Our Prophet might forgive the slaves ; 

They're only infidels in wine. 



XVIII. 

" What could I be ? Proscribed at home, 

And taunted to a wish to roam ; 

And listless left — for GiaflEir's fear 

Denied the courser and the spear — 

Though oft — Oh, Mahomet ! how oft ! — 

In full Divan the despot scofF'd, 

As if my weak unwilling hand 

Refused the bridle or the brand : 

He ever went to war alone. 

And pent me here untried — unknowii ; 

To Haroun's care with women left, 

By hope unblest, of fame bereft, 

While thou — whose softness long eiidear'd. 

Though it unmann'd me, still had oheer'd— 

To Brusa's walls for safety sent, 

Awaitedst there the field's event. 

Haroun, who saw my spirit pining 

Beneath inaction's sluggish yoke. 
His captive, though with dread resigning. 

My thralldom for a season brolie, 
On promise to return before 
The day when Giafiir's charge was o'er. 
'Tis vain — my tongue cannot impart 
My almost drunkenness of heart. 
When first this liberated eye 
Survey'd Earth, Ocean, Sun, and Sky, 

the event had taken place at a bath in Sophia, or Adrianople. 
The poison was mixed in the cup of coffee, which is presented 
before the sherbet by the bath-keeper, after dressing. 



Canto IT. 



THE BKIDE OF ABYDOS. 



101 



As if my spirit pierced them through, 
And all their inmost wonders knew ! 
One word alone can paint to thee 
That more than feeling — I was Free ! 
E'en for thy presence ceased to pine ; . 
The World — nay, Heaven itself was mine ! 

XIX. 

" The shallop of a trusty Moor 
Convey'd me from this idle shore ; 
I long'd to see the isles that gem 
Old Ocean's purple diadem : 
I sought by turns, and saw them all ; ^ 

But when and where I join'd the crew, 
With whom I'm pledged to rise or fall. 

When all that we design to do 
Is done, 'twill then be time more meet 
To tell thee, when the tale's complete. 

XX. 

" 'Tis true, they are a lawless brood. 
But rough in form, nor mild in mood ; 
And every creed, and every race, 
With them hath found — may find a jolace ; 
But open speech, and ready hand, 
Obedience to their chief's command ; 
A soul for every enterprise, 
That never sees with terror's eyes; 
Friendship for each, and faith to all. 
And vengeance vow'd for those who fall, 
Have made them fitting instruments 
For more than ev'n my own intents. 
And some — and I have studied all 

Distinguish'd from the vulgar rank, 
But chiefly to my council call 

The wisdom of the cautious Frank — 
And some to higher thoughts aspire. 

The last of Lambro's ^ patriots there 

Anticipated freedom share ; 
And oft around the cavern fire 

1 The Turkish notions of almost all islands are confined to 
the Archipelago, the sea alluded to. 

2 Lambro Canzani, a Greek, famous for his efforts in 1789- 
90, for the independence of his country. Abandoned by the 
Russians, he became a pirate, and the Archipelago was the 
scene of his enterprises. He is said to be still alive at Peters- 
burg. He and Riga are the two most celebrated of the Greek 
revolutionists. 

3 "Rayahs," all who pay the capitation tax, called the 
"Hf- tch." 

* This first of voyages is one of the few with which the 
Mussulmans profess much acquaintance. 

5 The wandering life of the Arabs, Tartars, and Turkomans, 
will bd found well detailed in any book of Eastern travels. 
That it possesses a charm peculiar to itself, cannot be denied. 
A young French renegado confessed to Chateaubriand, that 
he never found himself alone, galloping in the desert, without 
a sensation approaching to rapture, which was indescribable. 

« " The longest, as well as most splendid of those passages, 
with which the perusal of his own strains, during revision, 
inspired him, was that rich flow of eloquent feeling which 
follows the couplet,—' Thou, my Zuleika, share and bless my 
bark,' &c. — a strain of poetry, which, for energy and tender- 



On visionary schemes debate, 
To snatch the Rayahs ^ from their fate. 
So let them ease their hearts with prate 
Of equal rights, which man ne'er knew ; 
I have a love for freedom too. 
Ay ! let me like the ocean Patriarch * roam, 
Or only know on land the Tartar's home ! ^ 
My tent on shore, my galley on the sea, 
Are more than cities and Serais to me : 
Borne by my steed, or wafted by my sail. 
Across the desert, or before the gale, 
Bound where thou wilt, my barb ! or glide, my 

prow! 
But be the star that guides the wanderer. Thou ! 
Thou, my Zuleika, share and bless my bark ; 
The Dove of peace and promise to mine ark ! ^ 
Or, since that hope denied in worlds of strife, 
Be thou the rainbow to the storms of life ! 
The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, 
And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray ! "^ 
Blest — as the Muezzin's strain from Mecca's wall 
To pilgrims pure and prostrate at his call ; 
Soft— as the melody of youthful days. 
That steals the trembling tear of speechless praise ; 
Dear — as his native song to Exile's ears. 
Shall sound each tone thy long-loved voice endears. 
For thee in those bright isles is built a bower 
Blooming as Aden ^ in its earliest hour. 
A thousand swords, with Selim's heart and hand. 
Wait — wave — defend — destroy — at thy command ! 
Girt by my band, Zuleika at my side, 
The spoil of nations shall bedeck my bride. 
The Haram's languid years of listless ease 
Are well resign'd for cares — for joys like these : 
Not blind to fate, I see, where'er I rove, 
Unnumber'd perils, — but one only love ! 
Yet well my toils shall that fond breast repay. 
Though fortune frown, or falser friends betray. 
How dear the dream in darkest hours of ill. 
Should all be changed, to find thee faithful still ! 

ness of thought, for music of versification, and selectness of 
diction, has, throughout the greater portion of it, but few 
rivals in either ancient or modern song." — MooRE. 

7 Originally written thus — 

" And tints to-morrow with \ . , V ray." 

The following note being annexed: — "Mr. Murray, choose 
which of the two epithets, ' fancied,' or ' airy,' may be best ; 
or if neither will do, tell me, and I will dream another." In 
a subsequent letter, he says : — " Instead of— 

'And tints to-morrow Avith a fancied ray,' 
print — 

' And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray ;' 
or— 

' And j ^] ^ I the hope of morning with its ray ;' 

or — 

' And gilds to-morrow's hope with heavenly ray.' 
I wish you would ask Mr. Giflbrd which of them is best ; or 
rather not worst." 

8 " Jannat al Aden," the perpetual abode, the Mussulman 
paradise. 



102 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Canto II. 



Be but thy soul, like Selim's, firmly shown ; 

To thee be Selim's tender as thine own ; 

To soothe each sorrow, share in each delight. 

Blend every thought, do all — but disunite ! 

Once free, 'tis mine our horde again to guide ; 

Friends to each other, foes to aught beside : ^ 

Yet there we follow but the bent assign'd 

By fatal Nature to man's warring kind : 

Mark ! where his carnage and his conquests cease ! 

He makes a solitude, and calls it — peace ! 

I, like the rest, must use my skill or strength. 

But ask no land beyond my sabre's length : 

Power sways but by division — her resource 

The blest alternative of fraud or force ! 

Ours be the last ; in time deceit may come, 

When cities cage us in a social home : 

There ev'n thy soul might err — how oft the heart 

Corruption shakes which peril could not part ! 

And woman, more than man, when death or woe, 

Or even Disgrace, would lay her lover low. 

Sunk in the lap of Luxury will shame — 

Away suspicion ! — not Zuleika's name ! 

But life is hazard at the best ; and here 

No more remains to win, and much to fear : 

Yes, fear ! — the doubt, the dread of losing thee, 

By Osman's power, and Giaffir's stern decree. 

That dread shall vanish with the favoring gale. 

Which Love to-night hath promised to my sail : 

No danger daunts the pair his smile hath blest. 

Their steps still roving, but their hearts at rest. 

With thee all toils are sweet, each clime hath charms ; 

Earth — sea alike — our world within our arms ! 

Ay — let the loud winds whistle o'er the deck. 

So that those arms cling closer round my neck : 

The deepest murmur of this lip shall be,^ 

No sigh for safety, but a prayer for thee ! 

The war of elements no fears impart 

To Love, whose deadliest bane is human Art : 

There lie the only rocks our course can check : 

Here moments menace — there are years of wreck ! 

But hence, ye thoughts that rise in Horror's shajje ! 

This hour bestows, or ever bars escape. 

Few words remain of mine my tale to close ; 

Of thine but one to waft us from our foes ; 

Yea — foes — to me will Giaffir's hate decline ? 

And is not Osman, who would part us, thine ? 

XXI. 

" His head and faith from dotibt and death 

Eeturn'd in time my guard to save ; 

Few heard, none told, that o'er the wave 
From isle to isle I roved the while : 

1 " You wanted some reflections ; and I send you, per Selvm, 
eighteen lines in decent couplets, of a pensive, if not an efM- 
cal, tendency. One more revise, positively the last, if de- 
cently done — at any rate, the ^ewultimate. Mr. Canning's 
approbation, I need not say, makes me proud.* To make 



* Mr. Canning's note was as follows :— " I received the books, and among 
them, the ' Bride of Abydos.' It is very, very beautiful. Lord Byron 
(when I met him, one day, at a dinner at Mr. Ward's) was so kind as to 



And since, though parted from my band, 

Too seldom now I leave the land. 

No deed they've done, nor deed shall do, 

Ere I have heard and doom'd it too : 

I form the plan, decree the spoil, 

'Tis fit I oftener share the toil. 

But now too long I've held thine ear; 

Time presses, floats my bark, and here 

We leave behind but hate and fear. 

To-morrow Osman with his train 

Arrives — to-night must break thy chain : 

And wouldst thou save that haughty Bey, — 

Perchance, his life who gave thee thine, — 
With me this hour away — away ! 

But yet, though thou art plighted mine, 
Wouldst thou recall thy willing vow, 
Appall'd by truths imparted now, 
Here rest I — not to see thee wed : 
But be that peril on my head !" 

XXII. 

Zuleika, mute and motionless. 

Stood like that statue of distress, 

When, her last hope for ever gone, 

The mother harden'd into stone ; 

All in the maid that eye could see 

Was but a younger Niob6. 

But ere her lip, or even her eye, 

Essay'd to speak, or look reply. 

Beneath the garden's wicket porch 

Far flash'd on high a blazing torch ! 

Another — and another — and another — 

"Oh! fly — no more — ^yet now my more than 

brother!" 
Far, wide, through every thicket spread 
The fearful lights are gleaming red ; 
Nor these alone — for each right hand 
Is ready with a sheathless brand. 
Tliey part, pursue, return, and wheel. 
With searching flambeau, shining steel ; 
And last of all, his sabre waving. 
Stern Giaffir in his fury raving : 
And now almost they touch the cave — 
Oh ! must that grot be Selim's grave ? 

XXIII. 

Dauntless he stood — " 'Tis come — soon past- 
One kiss, Zuleika — 'tis my last : 

But yet my band not far from shore 
May hear this signal, see the flash ; 
■ Yet now too few — the attempt were rash : 

No matter — yet one efibrt more." 

you some amends for eternally pestering you with alterations. 
I send you Cobbett, — to coniirm your orthodoxy." — Lord B. 
to Mr. Murray. 

2 " Then if my lip once murmurs, it must be." — MS. 



promise to give me a copy of it. I mention this, not to save my purchase, 
but because I should be really flattered by the present." 



M 



Canto II. 



THE BEIDE OF ABYDOS. 



103 



Fortli to the cavern mouth he stept ; 

His pistol's echo rang on high. 
Zuleika started not, nor wept, 

Despair benumb'd her breast and eye ! — 
" They hear me not, or if they ply 
Their oars, 'tis but to see me die ; 
That sound hath drawn my foes more nigh. 
Then forth, my father's scimitar. 
Thou ne'er hast seen less equal war ! 
Farewell, Zuleika ! — sweet ! retire : 

Yet stay within — here linger safe, 

At thee his rage will only chafe. 
Stir not — lest even to thee perchance 
Some erring blade or ball should glance. 
Fear'st thou for him ? — may I expire 
If in this strife I seek thy sire ! 
No — though by him that poison pour'd ; 
No — though again he call me coward ! 
But tamely shall I meet their steel ? 
No — as each crest save his may feel !" 

XXIV. 

One bound he made, and gain'd the sand : 

Already at his feet hath sunk 
The foremost of the prying band, 

A gasping head, a quivering trunk : 
Another falls — but round him close 
A swarming circle of his foes ; 
From right to left his path he cleft. 

And almost met the meeting wave : 
His boat appears — not five oars' length — 
His comrades strain with desperate strength — 

Oh ! are they yet in time to save ? 
His feet the foremost breakers lave ; 
His band are plunging in the bay, 
Their sabres glitter through the spray ; 
Wet — wild — unwearied to the strand 
They struggle — now they touch the land ! 
They come — 'tis but to add to slaughter — 
His heart's best blood is on the water. 

XXV. 

Escaped from shot, unharm'd by steel, 

Or scarcely grazed its force to feel, 

Had Selim won, betray'd, beset. 

To where the strand and billows met ; 

There as his last step left the land. 

And the last death-blow dealt his hand — 

Ah ! wherefore did he turn to look 

For her his eye but sought in vain ? 
That pause, that fatal gaze he took. 

Hath doom'd his death, or fix'd his chain. 
Sad proof, in peril and in pain. 
How late will Lover's hope remain ! 
His back was to the dashing spray ; 
Behind, but close, his comrades lay, 

1 " While the Salsette lay off the Dardanelles, Lord Byron 
saw the body of a man who had been executed by being cast 
into the sea, floating on the stream to and fro with the trem- 
bling of the water, which gave to its arms the effect of scaring 



When, at the instant, hiss'd the ball — 

" So may the foes of Giaffir fall !" 

WJiose voice is heard ? whose carbine rang ? 

W^hose bullet through the night-air sang. 

Too nearly, deadly aim'd to err ? 

'Tis thine — Abdallah's Murderer ! 

The father slowly rued thy hate. 

The son hath found a quicker fate : 

Fast from his breast the blood is bubbling, 

The whiteness of the sea-foam troubling — 

If aught his lips essay'd to groan. 

The rushing billows choked the tone ! 

XXVI. 

Morn slowly rolls the clouds away ; 

Few trophies of the fight are there : 
The shouts that shook the midnight bay 
Are silent ; but some signs of fray 

That strand of strife may bear, 
And fragments of each shiver'd brand ; 
Steps stamp'd ; and dash'd into the sand 
The print of many a struggling hand 

May there be mark'd ; nor far remote 

A broken torch, an oarless boat ; 
And tangled on the weeds that heap 
The beach where shelving to the deep 

There lies a white capote ! 
'Tis rent in twain — one dark-red stain 
The wave yet ripples o'er in vain ; 

But where is he who wore ? 
Ye ! who would o'er his relics weep, 
Go, seek them where the surges sweep 
Their burthen round Sigseum's steep 

And cast on Lemnos' shore : 
The sea-birds shriek above the prey, 
O'er which their hungry beaks delay. 
As shaken on his restless pillow. 
His head heaves with the heaving billow ; 
That hand, whose motion is not life. 
Yet feebly seems to menace strife, 
Flung by the tossing tide on high, 

Then levell'd with the wave^ — 
What recks it, though that corse shall lie 

Within a living grave ? 
The bird that tears that prostrate form 
Hath only robb'd the meaner worm ; 
The only heart, the only eye 
Had bled or wept to see him die. 
Had seen those scatter'd limbs composed. 

And mourn'd above his turban-stone,^ 
That heart hath burst — that eye was closed — 

Yea — closed before his own ! 

XXVII. 
By Helle's stream there is a voice of wail ! 
And woman's eye is wet — man's cheek is pale : 

away several sea-fowl that were hovering to devour. This 
incident has been strikingly depicted."— Galt. 

2 A turban is carved in stone above the graves of men 
only. 



104 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



CA2fT0 II 



Zulcika I last of Giaffir's race, 
Thy destined lord is come too late : 

He sees not — ne'er shall see thy face ! 
Can he not hear 

The loud Wul-wulleh ^ warn his distant ear ? 
Thy handmaids weeping at the gate, 
The Koran-chanters of the hymn of fate. 
The silent slaves with folded arms that wait, 

Sighs in the hall, and shrieks upon the gale, 
Tell him thy tale ! 

Thou didst not view thy Selim fall ! 

That fearful moment when he left the cave 
Thy heart grew chill : 

He was thy hope— thy joy — thy love — thine all — 
And that last thought on him thou couldst not save 
Sufficed to kill ; 

Burst forth in one wild cry — and all was still. 
Peace to thy broken heart, and virgin grave ! 

Ah, happy I but of life to lose the worst ! 

That grief — though deep — though fatal — was thy first ! 

Thrice happy I ne'er to feel nor fear the force 

Of absence, shame, pride, hate, revenge, remorse ! 

And, oh ! that pang where more than madness lies ! 

The worm that will not sleep — and never dies ; 

Thought of the gloomy day and ghastly night. 

That dreads the darkness, and yet loathes the light. 

That winds around, and tears the quivering heart ! 

Ah ! wherefore not consume it — and depart I 

AVoe to thee, rash and unrelenting chief ! 
Vainly thou heap'st the dust upon thy head, 
Vainly the sackcloth o'er thy limbs dost spread : 
By that same hand Abdallah — Selim bled. 

Xow let it tear thy beard in idle grief: 

Thy pride of heart, thy bride for Osman's bed, 

She, whom thy Sultan had but seen to wed. 
Thy Daughter's dead I 
Hope of thine age, thy twilight's lonely beam. 
The Star hath set that shone on Helle's stream. 

What quench'd its ray? — the blood that thou hast 
shed ! 

Hark ! to the hurried question of Despair : 

"Where is my child?" — an Echo answers — 
"Where?" 2 

XXVIII. 

Within the place of thousand tombs 
That shine beneath, while dark above 



1 The death-song of the Turkish women. The " silent 
slaves" are the men, whose notions of decorum forbid com- 
plaint in public. 

2 " I came to the place of my birth, and cried, ' The friends 
of my youth, where are they?' and an Echo answered, 
' Where are they ?' "—From an Arabic MS. The above quo- 
tation (from which the idea in the text is taken) must be 
already familiar to every reader : it is given in the first anno- 
tation, p. 67, of " The Pleasures of Memory ;" a poem so well 
known as to render a reference almost superfluous ; but to 
whose pages all will be delighted to recur. 

3 "And airy tongues that syllable men's names." — Milton. 
For a belief that the souls of the dead inhabit the form of 

birds, we need not travel to the East. Lord Lyttelton's ghost 



The sad but living cypress glooms 

And withers not, though branch and leaf 
Are stamp'd with an eternal grief. 

Like early unrequited Love, 
One spot exists, which ever blooms, 

Ev'u in that deadly grove — 
A single rose is shedding there 

Its lonely lustre, meek and pale : 
It looks as planted by Despair — 

So white — so faint — the slightest gale 
Might whirl the leaves on high ; 

And yet, though storms and blight assail. 
And hands more rude than wintry sky 

May wring it from the stem — in vain — 

To-morrow sees it bloom again : 
The stalk some spirit gently rears, 
And waters with celestial tears ; 

For well may maids of Helle deem 
That this can be no earthly flower, 
Which mocks the tempest's withering hour, 
And buds unshelter'd by a bower ; 
Nor droops, though Spring refuse her shower, 

Nor woos the summer beam : 
To it the livelong night there sings 

A bird unseen — but not remote : 
Invisible his airy wings. 
But soft as harp that Hcfuri strings 

His long entrancing note ! 
It were the Bulbul ; but his throat. 

Though mournful, potirs not such a strain : 
For they who listen cannot leave 
The spot, but linger there and grieve, 

As if they loved in vain ! 
And yet so sweet the tears they shed, 
'Tis sorrow so unmix'd with dread. 
They scarce can bear the morn to break 

That melancholy spell. 
And longer yet would weep and wake. 

He sings so wild and well I 
But when the day-blush bursts from high. 
Expires that magic melody. 
And some have been who could believe 
(So fondly youthful dreams deceive, 

Yet harsh be they that blame). 
That note so piercing and profound 
Will shape and syllable ^ its sound 

Into Zuleika's name.* 



story, the belief of the Duchess of Kindal, that Gteorge I. flew 
into her window in the shape of a raven Csee Orford's Eemi- 
niscences), and many other instances, bring this superstition 
nearer home. The most singular was the whim of a Wor- 
cester lady, who, believing her daughter to exist in the shape 
of a singing bird, literally furnished her pew in the cathedral 
with cages full of the kind ; and as she was rich, and a bene- 
factress in beautifying the church, no objection was made to 
her harmless folly. For this anecdote, see Orford's Letters. 

4 " The heroine of this poem, the blooming Zuleika, is all 
purity and loveliness. Never was a faultless character more 
delicately or more justly delineated. Her piety, her intelli- 
gence, her strict sense of duty, and her undeviating love of 
truth, appear to have been originally blended in her mind, 



Canto II. 



THE BRIDE OF ABYBOS. 



105 



'Tis from her cypress' summit heard, 
That melts in air the liquid word : 
'Tis from her lowly virgin earth 
That white rose takes its tender birth. 
There late was laid a marble stone ; 
Eve saw it placed — the Morrow gone ! 
It was no mortal arm that bore 
That deep-fix'd pillar to the shore ; 
For there, as Helle's legends tell, 
Next mom 'twas found where Selim fell 



rather than inculcated by education. She is always natural, 
always attractive, always affectionate ; and it must be admit- 
ted that her affections are not unworthily bestowed. Selim, 
while an orphan and dependent, is never degraded by calam- 
ity ; when better hopes are presented to him, his buoyant 
spirit rises with his expectations ; he is enterprising, with no 
more rashness than becomes his youth ; and when disap- 
pointed in the success of a well-concerted project, he meets, 
with intrepidity, the fate to which he is exposed through his 
own generous forbearance. To us, ' The Bride of Abydos ' 
appears to be, in every respect, superior to 'The Giaour,' 
though, in point of diction, it has been, perhaps, less warmly 
admired. We will not argue this point, but will simply ob- 
serve, that what is read with ease is generally read with rapid- 
ity ; and that many beauties of style which escape observa- 
tion in a simple and connected narrative, would be forced on 
the reader's attention by abrupt and perplexing transitions. 



Lash'd by the tumbling tide, whose wave 

Denied his bones a holier grave : 
And there by night, reclined, 'tis said. 
Is seen a ghastly turban 'd head : 
And hence extended by the billow, 
'Tis named the " Pirate-phantom's pillow!" 
Where first it lay that mourning flower 
Hath flourish'd ; flourisheth this hour. 

Alone and dewy, coldly pure and pale ; 

As weeping Beauty's cheek at Sorrow's tale ! ^ 



It is only when a traveller is obliged to stop on his journey, 
that he is disposed to examine and admire the prospect." — 
George Ellis. 

1 " The ' Bride,' such as it is, is my first entire composition 
of any length (except the Satire, and be d — d to it), for the 
' Giaour ' is but a string of passages, and ' Childe Harold ' is, 
and I rather think always will be, unconcluded. It was pub- 
lished on Thursday, the 2d of December ; but how it is liked, 
I know not. Whether it succeeds or not, is no fault of the 
public, against whom I can have no complaint. But I am 
much more indebted to the tale than I can ever be to the 
most important reader ; as it wrung my thoughts from reality 
to imagination; from selfish regrets to vivid recollections; 
and recalled me to a country replete with the brightest and 
darkest, but always most lively colors of my memory."— 
Byron Diary, Dec, 5, 1813. 



^i)t (Korsair: 

A TALE.i 



■ I suoi pensieri in lui dormir non ponno." 

Tasso, Gerusalemme Liberaia, canto x. 



TO THOMAS MOOEE, ESQ. 

My dear Mooee, 

I DEDICATE to you the last production with which 
I shall trespass on public patience, and your indul- 
gence, for some years ; and I own that I feel anxious 
to avail myself of this latest and only opportunity 
of adorning my pages with a name, consecrated by 
unshaken public principle, and the most undoubted 
and various talents. While Ireland ranks you among 
the firmest of her patriots ; while you stand alone 
the first of her bards in her estimation, and Britain 
repeats and ratifies the decree, permit one, whose 
only regret, since our first acquaintance, has been 
the years he had lost before it commenced, to add the 
humble but sincere sufii-age of friendship to the voice 
of more than one nation. It will at least prove to 
you, that I have neither forgotten the gratification 
derived from your society, nor abandoned the pros- 
pect of its reward, whenever your leisure or inclina- 
tion allows you to atone to your friends for too long 
an absence. It is said among those friends, I trust 
truly, that you are engaged in the composition of a 
poem whose scene will be laid in the East : none can 
do those scenes so much justice. The wrongs of your 
own country ,2 the magnificent and fiery spirit of her 
sons, the beauty and feeling of her daughters, may 
there be found ; and Collins, when he denominated his 
Oriental his Irish Eclogues, was not aware how true, 
at least, was a part of his parallel. Your imagination 
will create a warmer sun, and less clouded sky ; but 



1 "The Corsair" was begun on the 18th, and finished on 
the 31st, of December, 1813 ; a rapidity of composition which, 
taking into consideration the extraordinary beauty of the 
poem, is, perhaps, unparalleled in the literary history of the 
country. Lord Byron states it to have been written "con 
amove, and very much from existence." In the original MS. 
the chief female character was called Prancesca, in whose 
person the author meant to delineate one of his acquaint- 
ance ; but, while the work was at press, he changed the name 
to Medora. 

2 This political allusion having been objected to by a 
friend, Lord Byron sent a second dedication to Mr. Moore, 
with a request that he would " take his choice." It ran as 
follows : 

^'January 7, 1814. 
"My dear Moore, 
" I had written to you a long letter of dedication, which I 
(106) 



wildness, tenderness, and originality, are part of your 
national claim of Oriental descent, to which you have 
already thus far proved your title more clearly than 
the most zealous of your country's antiquarians. 

May I add a few words on a subject on which all 
men are supposed to be fluent, and none agreeable ? — 
Self. I have written much, and j^ublished more than 
enough to demand a longer silence than I now medi- 
tate ; but, for some years to come, it is my intention 
to tempt no further the award of "Gods, men, nor 
columns." In the present composition I have at- 
tempted not the most difficult, but, perhaps, the best 
adapted measure to our language, the good old and 
now neglected heroic couplet. The stanza of Spenser 
is perhaps too slow and dignified for narrative ; 
though, I confess, it is the measure most after my 
own heart: Scott alone,^ of the present generation, 
has hitherto completely triumphed over the fatal 
facility of the octo-syllabic verse ; and this is not the 
least victory of his fertile and mighty genius : in blank 
verse, Milton, Thomson, and our dramatists, are the 
beacons that shine along the deep, but warn us from 
the rough and barren rock on which they are kindled. 
The heroic couplet is not the most popular measure 
certainly ; but as I did not deviate into the other from 
a wish to flatter what is called public opinion, I shall 
quit it without further apology, and take my chance 
once more with that versification, in which I have 
hitherto published nothing but compositions whose 
former circulation is part of my present, and will be 
of my future, regret. 



suppress, because, though it contained something relating to 
you, which every one had been glad to hear, yet there was 
too much about politics, and poesy, and all things whatso- 
ever, ending with that topic on which most men are fluent, 
and none very amusing— orae's self. It might have? been re- 
written ; but to what purpose? My praise could add nothing 
to your well-earned and firmly established fame ; and with 
my most hearty admiration of your talents, and delight in 
your conversation, you are already acquainted. In availing 
myself of your friendly permission to inscribe this poem to 
you, I can only wish the oflering were as worthy your ac- 
ceptance, as your regard is dear to 

" Yours, most affectionately and faithfully, 

" Byron." 
3 After the words " Scott alone," Lord Byron had inserted, 
in a parenthesis — " He will excuse the 'Jlfr.' — we do not say 
Mr, Caesar." 



f^e 



cf 



Canto I. 



THE CORSAIR. 



107 



With regard to my story, and stories in general, 
I should have been glad to have rendered my per- 
sonages more perfect and amiable, if possible, inas- 
much as I have been sometimes criticised, and con- 
sidered no less responsible for their deeds and qualities 
than if all had been personal. Be it so — if I have 
deviated into the gloomy vanity of " drawing from 
self," the pictures are probably like, since they are 
unfavorable ; and if not, those who know me are 
undeceived, and those who do not, I have little in- 
terest in undeceiving. I have no particular desire 
that any but my acquaintance should think the author 
better than the beings of his imagining ; but I cannot 
help a little surprise, and perhaps amusement, at some 
odd critical exceptions in the present instance, when 
I see several bards (far more deserving I allow) in 
very reputable plight, and quite exempted from all 
participation in the faults of those heroes, who, 
nevertheless, might be found with little more mo- 
rality than "The Giaour," and perhaps — ^but no — I 
must admit Childe Harold to be a veiy repulsive 
personage ; and as to his identity, those who like it 
must give him whatever " alias" they please.^ 

If, however, it were worth while to remove the 
impression, it might be of some service to me, that 
the man who is alike the delight of his readers and 
his friends, the poet of all circles, and the idol of 
his own, permits me here and elsewhere to sub- 
scribe myself. 

Most truly, 

And affectionately, 

His obedient servant, 

BYRON. 

January 2, 1814. 



CJe (^axmix. 



CANTO THE FIEST. 



" nessun maggior dolore, 

Che ricordarsi del tempo felice 

NcUa miseria, " — Dante. 



I. 

" O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea, 
Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free. 
Far as the breeze can bear, the l)illows foam. 
Survey our empire, and behold our home ! 
These are our realms, no limits to their sway — 
Our flag the sceptre all who meet obey. 
Ours the wild life in tumult still to range 
From toil to rest, and joy in every change. 

1 " It is difficult to say whether we are to receive this pas- 
sage as an admission or a denial of the opinion to which it 
refers ; but Lord Byron certainly did the public injustice, if 
he supposed it imputed to him the criminal actions with 
which many of his heroes were stained. Men no more ex- 
pected to meet in Lord Byron the Corsair, who 'knew him- 
self a villain,' than they looked for the hypocrisy of Kehama 



Oh, who can tell ? not thou, luxurious slave ! 
Whose soul would sicken o'er the heaving wave ; 
Not thou, vain lord of wantonness and ease ! 
Whom slumber soothes not — pleasure cannot please^ 
Oh, who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried. 
And danced in triumph o'er the waters wide. 
The exulting sense — the pulse's maddening play, 
That thrills the wanderer of that trackless way ? 
That for itself can woo the approaching fight, 
And turn what some deem danger to delight ; 
That seeks what cravens shun with more than zeal, 
And where the feebler faint can only feel — 
Feel — to the rising bosom's inmost core, 
Its hoj)e awaken and its spirit soar ? 
No dread of death if with us die our foes — 
Save that it seems even duller than repose : 
Come when it will — we snatch the life of life — 
When lost — what recks it — by disease or strife ? 
Let him who ci'awls enamor'd of decay. 
Cling to his couch, and sicken years away : 
Heave his thick breath, and shake his palsied 

head; 
Ours — the fresh turf, and not the feverish bed. 
While gasp by gasp he falters forth his soul. 
Ours with one pang — one bound — escapes control. 
His corse may boast its urn and narrow cave, 
And they who loath'd his life may gild his grave : 
Ours are the tears, though few, sincerely shed, 
When Ocean shrouds and sepulchres our dead. 
For us, even banquets fond regret supply 
In the red cup that crowns our memory ; 
And the brief epitaph in danger's day, 
When those who win at length divide the prey. 
And cry. Remembrance saddening o'er each brow, 
How had the brave who fell exulted now .'" 

II. 

Such were the notes that from the Pirate's isle, 

Around the kindling watch-fire rang the while : 

Such were the sounds that thrill'd the rocks along, 

And unto ears as rugged seem'd a song ! 

In scatter'd groups upon the golden sand, 

They game — carouse — converse — or whet the brand : 

Select the arms — to each his blade assign, 

And careless eye the blood that dims its shine ; 

Repair the boat, replace the helm or oar. 

While others straggling muse along the shore; 

For the wild bird the busy springes set. 

Or spread beneath the sun the dripping net ; 

Gaze where some distant sail a speck supplies, 

With all the thirsting eye of Enterprise ; 

Tell o'er the tales of many a night of toil. 

And marvel where they next shall seize a spoil : 

on the shores of the Derwent Water, or the profligacy of 
Marmion on the banks of the Tweed."— Sir Walter 
Scott. 

2 The time in this poem may seem too short for the occur- 
rences, but the whole of the ^gean isles are within a few 
hoi/rs' sail of the continent, and the reader must be kind 
enough to take the wind as I have often found it. 



108 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



Canto I. 



No matter where — their chief's allotment this ; 

Theirs, to believe no prey nor plan amiss. 

But who that Chief ? his name on every shore 

Is famed and fear'd — they ask and know no more. 

With these he mingles not but to command ; 

Few are his words, but keen his eye and hand. 

Ne'er seasons he with mirth their jovial mess, 

But they forgive his silence for success. 

Ne'er for his lip the purpling cup they fill, 

That goblet passes him untasted still — 

And for his fare — the rudest of his crew 

Would that, in turn, have pass'd untasted too ; 

Earth's coarsest bread, the garden's homeliest roots, 

And scarce the summer luxury of fruits, 

His short repast in humbleness supply 

With all a hermit's board would scarce deny. 

But while he shuns the grosser joys of sense. 

His mind seems nourish'd by that abstinence. 

" Steer to that shore !" — they sail. " Do this !" — 

'tis done : 
" Now form and follow me !" — the spoil is won. 
Thus prompt his accents and his actions still. 
And all obey and few inquire his will ; 
To such, brief answer and contemptuous eye 
Convey reproof, nor further deign reply. 

III. 

'* A sail ! — a sail !" — a promised prize to Hope ! 

Her nation — flag — how speaks the telescope ? 

No prize, alas ! — but yet a welcome sail : 

The blood-red signal glitters in the gale. 

Yes — she is ours — a home-returning bark — 

Blow fair, thou breeze ! — she anchors ere the dark. 

Already doubled is the cape — our bay 

Receives that prow which proudly spurns the spray. 

How gloriously her gallant course she goes ! 

Her white wings flying — never from her foes — 

She walks the waters like a thing of life, 

And seems to dare the elements to strife. 

Who would not brave the battle-fire — the wreck — 

To move the monarch of her peopled deck ? 

IV. 

Hoarse o'er her side the rustling cable rings ; 

The sails are furl'd ; and anchoring round she swings ; 

And gathering loiterers on the land discern 

Her boat descending from the latticed stern. 

'Tis mann'd — the oars keep concert to the strand. 

Till grates her keel upon the shallow sand. 

Hail to the welcome shout ! — the friendly speech ! 

When hand grasps hand uniting on the beach ; 

The smile, the question, and the quick reply, 

And the heart's promise of festivity ! 

V. 

The tidings spread, and gathering grows the crowd ; 
The hum of voices, and the laughter loud. 
And woman's gentler anxious tone is heard — 
Friends' — husbands' — lovers' names in each dear 
word : 



" Oh ! are they safe? we ask not of success — 
But shall we see them ? will their accents bless ? 
From where the battle roars — the billows chafe — 
They doubtless boldly did — but who are safe ? 
Here let them haste to gladden and surprise. 
And kiss the doubt from these delighted eyes !" 

VI. 

" Where is our chief? for him we bear report — 

And doubt that joy — which hails our coming — short. 

Yet thus sincere — 'tis cheering, though so brief; 

But, Juan ! instant guide us to our chief: 

Our greeting paid, we'll feast on our return. 

And all shall hear what each may wish to learn." 

Ascending slowly by the rock-hewn way, 

To where his watch-tower beetles o'er the bay, 

By bushy brake, and wild flowers blossoming. 

And freshness breathing from each silver spring. 

Whose scatter'd streams from granite basins burst, 

Leap into life, and sparkling woo your thirst ; 

From crag to clifl" they mount — Near yonder cave, 

What lonely straggler looks along the wave ? 

In pensive posture leaning on the brand. 

Not oft a resting-staff to that red hand ? 

*' 'Tis he — 'tis Conrad — here — as wont — alone ; 

On — Juan ! — on — and make our purpose known. 

The bark he views — and tell him we would greet 

His ear with tidings he must quickly meet : 

We dare not yet approach — thou know'st his mood, 

When strange or uninvited steps intrude." 

VII. 

Him Juan sought, and told of their intent; — 
He spake not — but a sign express'd assent. 
These Juan calls — they come — to their salute 
He bends him slightly, but his lij)s are mute. 
" These letters. Chief, are from the Greek — the spy, 
Who still proclaims our spoil or peril nigh : 
Whate'er his tidings, we can well report [short. 

Much that" — " Peace, peace !" — he cuts their prating 
Wondering they turn, abash'd, while each to each 
Conjecture whispers in his muttering speech : -., 
They watch his glance with many a stealing look, 
To gather how that eye the tidings took ; 
But, this as if he guess'd, with head aside. 
Perchance from some emotion, doubt, or pride, 
He read the scroll — " My tablets, Juan, hark — 
Where is Gonsalvo ?" 

" In the anchor'd bark." 
" There let him stay — to him this order bear — 
Back to your duty — for my course prepare : 
Myself this enterprise to-night will share." 
" To-night, Lord Conrad ?" 

" Ay ! at set of sun : 
The breeze will freshen when the day is done. 
My corselet, cloak — one hour and we are gone. 
Sling on thy bugle — see that free from rust 
Mycarbine-lock springs worthy of my trust; 
Be the edge sharpen'd of my boarding-brand. 
And give its guard more room to fit my hand. 



Canto I. 



THE COKSAIR. 



109 



This let the armorer with speed dispose ; 
Last time, it more fatigued my arm than foes : 
Mark that the signal-gun be duly fired, 
To tell us when the hour of stay's expired." 

VIII. 
They make obeisance, and retire in haste. 
Too soon to seek again the watery waste : 
Yet they repine not — so that Conrad guides ; 
And who dare question aught that he decides ? 
That man of loneliness and mystery, 
Scarce seen to smile, and seldom heard to sigh ; 
Whose name appalls the fiercest of his crew, 
And tints each swarthy cheek with sallower hue ; 
Still sways their souls with that commanding art 
That dazzles, leads, yet chills the vulgar heart. 
Wliat is that spell, that thus his lawless train 
Confess and envy, yet ojijiose in vain ? 
What should it be, that thus their faith can bind? 
The power of Thought — the magic of the Mind ! 
Link'd with success, assumed and kept with skill, 
That moulds another's weakness to its will ; 
Wields with their hands, but, still to these unknown, 
Makes even their mightiest deeds appear his own. 
Such hath it been — shall be — beneath the sun 
The many still must labor for the one ! 
'Tis Nature's doom — but let the wretch who toils 
Accuse not, hate not Mm who wears the spoils. 
Oh ! if he knew the weight of splendid chains, 
How light the balance of his humbler pains ! 

IX. 

Unlike the heroes of each ancient race. 
Demons in act, but Gods at least in face. 



1 " In the features of Conrad, those who have looked upon 
Lord Byron will recognize some likeness; and the ascetic 
regimen which the noble poet himself observed, was no less 
marked in the preceding description of Conrad's fare. To 
what are we to ascribe the singular peculiarity which induced 
an author of such talent, and so well skilled in tracing the 
darker impressions which guilt and remorse leave on the 
human character, so frequently to aflBx features peculiar to 
himself to the robbers and corsairs which he sketched with a 
pencil as forcible as that of Salvator ? More than one answer 
may be returned to this question ; nor do we pretend to s%y 
whi fh is best warranted by the facts. The practice may arise 
from a temperament which radical and constitutional melan- 
choly had, as in the case of Hamlet, predisposed to identify 
its owner with scenes of that deep and amazing interest which 
arises from the stings of conscience contending with the 
stubborn energy of pride, and delighting to be placed in sup- 
posed situations of guilt and danger, as some men love in- 
stinctively to tread the giddy edge of a precipice, or, holding 
by .some frail twig, to stoop forward over the abyss into which 
the dark torrent discharges itself. Or, it may be that these 
disguises were assumed capriciously, as a man might choose 
the cloak, poniard, and dark lantern of a bravo, for his dis- 
guise at a masquerade. Or, feeling his own powers in painting 
the sombre and the horrible, Lord Byron a.ssumed in his fer- 
vor the very semblance of the characters he describes ; like an 
actor who presents on the stage at once his own person and 
the tragic character with which for the time he is invested. 
Nor is it altogether incompatible with his character to be- 



In Conrad's form seems little to admire, 

Though his dark eyebrow shades a glance of fire : 

Robust but not Herculean — to the sight 

No giant frame sets forth his common height ; 

Yet, in the whole, who paused to look again, 

Saw more than marks the crowd of vulgar men ; i 

They gaze and marvel how — and still confess 

That thus it is, but why they cannot guess. 

Sunburnt his cheek, his forehead high and pale 

The sable curls in wild profusion veil ; 

And oft perforce his rising lip reveals 

The haughtier thought it curbs, but scarce conceals. 

Though smooth his voice, and calm his general 

mien, 
Still seems there something he would not have seen : 
His features' deepening lines and varying hue 
At times attracted, yet perplex'd the view. 
As if within that murkiness of mind 
Work'd feelings fearful, and yet undefined ; 
Such might it be — that none could truly tell- 
Too close inquiry his stern glance would quell. 
There breathe but few whose aspect might defy 
The full encounter of his searching eye : 
He had the skill, when Cunning's gaze would 

seek 
To probe his heart and watch his changing cheek. 
At once the observer's purpose to espy, 
And on himself roll back his scrutiny. 
Lest he to Conrad rather should betray 
Some secret thought, than drag that chief's to day. 
There was a laughing Devil in his sneer. 
That raised emotions both of rage and fear ; 
And where his frown of hatred darkly fell, 
Hope withering fled— and Mercy sigh'd farewell ! ^ 



lieve that, in contempt of the criticisms which, on this 
account, had attended 'Childe Harold,' he was determined 
to sliow to the public how little he was affected by them, and 
how effectually it was in his power to compel attention and 
respect, even when imparting a portion of his own likeness 
and his own peculiarities to pirates and outlaws."— Sir "Wal- 
ter Scott. ^ 

2 That Conrad is a character not altogether out of nature, 
I shall attempt to prove by some historical coincidences 
which I have met with since writing " The Corsair :" — 

" Eccelin, prisonnier," dit Rolandini, " s'enfermoit dans un 
silence menacant ; il fixoit sur la terre son regard feroce, et ne 
donnoit point d'essor S. sa profoude indignation. De toutes 
partes cependant les soldats et les peuples accouroient; lis 
vouloient voir cet homme, jadis si puissant, et la joie univer- 
selle gclatoit de toutes partes. * * * Eccelin 

etoit d'une petite taille; mais tout I'aspcct de sa personne, 
tons ses mouvemens, indiquoient un soldat. Son langage 
etoit, amer, son dgportement superbe — et par son seul regard, 
il faisoit trembler les [)lus hardis."— /Siwiondi, tome iii. p. 219. 

Again, "Gisericus (Genseric, king of the Vandals, the con- 
queror of both Carthage and Rome), statura mediocris, et equi 
casu claudicans, animo profundus, sermone rarus, luxuriae 
contemptor, ira turbidus, habendi cupidus, ad solicitandas 
gentes providentissimus," &c., &c. — Jornandes de Rebus Ge- 
ticis, c. 33. 

I beg leave to quote these gloomy realities to keep in coun- 
tenance my Giaour and Corsair. 



110 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Canto I. 



X. 

Slight are the outward signs of evil thought, 
Within — Avithin — 'twas there the spirit wrought ! 
Love shoAvs all changes — Hate, Ambition, Guile, 
Betray no further than the bitter smile ; 
The lip's least curl, the lightest paleness thrown 
Along the govern'd aspect, speak alone 
Of deeper passions ; and to judge their mien, 
He, who would see, must be himself unseen. 
Then — with the hurried tread, the upward eye, 
The clenched hand, the pause of agony. 
That listens, starting, lest the step too near 
Approach intrusive on that mood of fear : 
Then — with each feature working from the heart. 
With feelings loosed to strengthen — not depart : 
That rise — convulse — contend — that freeze or glow, 
Flush in the cheek, or damp upon the brow ; 
Then — Stranger ! if thou canst, and tremblest not. 
Behold his soul — the rest that soothes his lot ! 
Mark — how that lone and blighted bosom sears 
The scathing thought of execrated years ! 
Behold — but who hath seen, or e'er shall see, 
Man as himself— the secret spirit free ? 



XI. 

Yet was not Conrad thus by Nature sent 

To lead the guilty — ^guilt's worst instrument — 

His soul was changed, before his deeds had driven 

Him forth to war with man and forfeit heaven. 

Warp'd by the world in Disappointment's school. 

In words too wise, in conduct there a fool ; 

Too firm to yield, and far too proud to stoop, 

Doom'd by his very virtues for a dupe, 

He cursed those virtues as the cause of ill. 

And not the traitors who betray'd him still ; 

Nor deem'd that gifts bestowed on better men 

Had left him joy, and means to give again. 

Fear'd — shunn'd — belied — ere youth had lost her 

force, 
He hated man too much to feel remorse, 
And thought the voice of wrath a sacred call. 
To pay the injuries of some on all. 
He knew himself a villain — but he deem'd 
The rest no better than the thing he seem'd ; 
And scorn'd the best as hypocrites who hid 
Those deeds the bolder spirit plainly did. 
He knew himself detested, but he knew 
The hearts that loath'd him, crouch'd and dreaded 

too. 
Lone, wild, and strange, he stood alike exempt 
From all affection and from all contempt : 
His name could sadden, and his acts surprise j 
But they that fear'd him dared not to despise : 
Man spurns the worm, but pauses ere he wake 
The slumbering venom of the folded snake : 
The first may turn — but not avenge the blow ; 
The last expires — but leaves no living foe ; 
Fast to the doom'd offender's form it clings. 
And he may crush— not conquer— still it stings ! 



XII. 

None are all evil — quickening round his heart, 

One softer feeling would not yet depart ; 

Oft co^ild he sneer at others as beguiled 

By passions worthy of a fool or child ; 

Yet 'gainst that passion vainly still he strove, 

And even in him it asks the name of Love ! 

Yes, it was love — unchangeable — unchanged. 

Felt but for one from whom he never ranged ; 

Though fairest captives daily met his eye, 

He shunn'd, nor sought, but coldly pass'd them by ; 

Though many a beauty droop'd in prison'd bower, 

None ever sooth' d his most unguarded hour. 

Yes — it was Love — if thoughts of tenderness. 

Tried in temptation, strengthen'd by distress. 

Unmoved by absence, firm in every clime, 

And yet — oh, more than all ! — untired by time ; 

Which nor defeated hope, nor baffled wile. 

Could render sullen were she near to smile. 

Nor rage could fire, nor sickness fret to vent 

On her one murmur of his discontent ; 

Which still would meet with joy, with calmness part, 

Lest that his look of grief should reach her heart ; 

Which nought removed, nor menaced to remove — 

If there be love in mortals — this was love ! 

He was a villain — ay, reproaches shower 

On him — but not the passion, nor its power, 

Which only proved, all other virtues gone. 

Not guilt itself could quench this loveliest one ! 



XIII. 

He paused a moment — till his hastening men 
Pass'd the first winding downward to the glen. 
" Strange tidings ! — many a peril have I pass'd, 
Nor know I why this next appears the last ! 
Yet so my heart forebodes, but must not fear, 
Nor shall my followers find me falter here. 
'Tis rash to meet, but surer death to wait 
Till here they hunt us to undoubted fate ; 
And, if my plan but hold, and Fortune smile. 
We'll farnish mourners for our funeral pile. 
Ay, let them slumber — peaceful be their dreams ! 
Morn ne'er awoke them with such brilliant beams 
As kindle high to-night (but blow, thou breeze !) 
To warm these slow avengers of the seas. 
Now to Medora — Oh ! my sinking heart. 
Long may her own be lighter than thou art ! 
Yet was I brave — mean boast where all are brave ! 
Ev'n insects sting for aught they seek to save. 
This common courage which with brutes we share, 
That owes its deadliest efforts to despair, 
Small merit claims — but 'twas my nobler hope 
To teach my few with numbers still to cope ; 
Long have I led them — not to vainly bleed ; 
No medium now — we perish or succeed ; 
So let it be — it irks not me to die ; 
But thus to urge them whence they cannot fly. 
My lot hath long had little of my care. 
But chafes my pride thus baffled in the snare : 



Canto I. 



THE CORSAIK. 



Ill 



Is this my skill ? my craft ? to set at last 
Hope, power, and life upon a single cast ? 
Oh, Fate ! — accuse thy folly, not thy fate ! 
She may redeem thee still, nor yet too late." 

XIV. 
Thus with himself communion held he, till 
He reach'd the summit of his tower-crown'd hill : 
There at the portal paused — for wild and soft 
He heard those accents never heard too oft ; 
Through the high lattice far yet sweet they rung, 
And these the notes his bird of beauty sung : 

1. 
" Deep in my soul that tender secret dwells. 

Lonely and lost to light for evermore, 
Save when to thine my heart responsive swells, 

Then trembles into silence as before. 

2. 
" There, in its centre, a sepulchral lamp 

Burns the slow flame, eternal — but unseen ; 
Which not the darkness of despair can damp, 

Though vain its ray as it had never been. 

3. 
" Remember me — Oh ! pass not thou my grave 

AVithout one thought whose relics there recline ; 
The only pang my bosom dare not brave 

Must be to find forgetfulness in thine. 

4. 
" My fondest — faintest — latest accents hear — 

Grief for the dead not virtue can reprove ; 
Then give me all I ever ask'd — a tear, 

The first — last — sole reward of so much love !" 

He pass'd the portal— cross'd the corridor, 

And reach'd the chamber as the strain gave o'er: 

" My own Medora ! sure thy song is sad — " 

" In Conrad's absence wouldst thou have it glad? 

"Without thine ear to listen to my lay. 

Still must my song my thoughts, my soul betray : 

Still must each accent to my bosom suit, 

My heart unhush'd — although my lips were mute ! 

Oh ! many a night on this lone couch reclined. 

My dreaming fear with storms hath wing'd the wind. 

And deera'd the breath that faintly fann'd thy sail 

The murmuring prelude of the ruder gale ; 

Though soft, it seem'd tlie low prophetic dirge. 

That mourn'd thee floating on the savage surge ; 

Still would I rise to rouse the beacon fire. 

Lest spies less true should let the blaze expire ; 

^ " Lord Byron has made a fine use of the gentleness and 
submission of the females of these regions, as contrasted with 
the lordly pride and martial ferocity of the men ; and though 
we susjjoct he has lent them more soul than of right belongs 
to them, as well as more delicacy and reflection ; yet, there is 
something so true to female nature in general, in his reprc- 



And many a restless hour outwatch'd each star, 
And morning came — and still thou wert afar. 
Oh ! how the chill blast on my bosom blew. 
And day broke dreary on my troubled view, 
And still I gazed and gazed— and not a prow 
Was granted to my tears— my truth — my vow ! 
At length — 'twas noon — I hail'd and blest the mast 
That met my sight— it near'd — Alas ! it pass'd ! 
Another came — Oh God I 'twas thine at last ! 
Would that those days were over ! wilt thou ne'er, 
My Conrad ! learn the joys of peace to share ? 
Sure thou hast more than wealth, and many a home 
As bright as this invites us not to roam : 
Thou know'st it is not peril that I fear, 
I only tremble when thou art not here ; 
Then not for mine, but that far dearer life, 
Which flies from love and languishes for strife — 
How strange that heart, to me so tender still, 
Should war with nature and its better will !" ^ 

"Yea, strange indeed— that heart hath long been 

changed ; 
Worm-like 'twas trampled — adder-like avenged. 
Without one hope on earth beyond thy love, 
And scarce a glimpse of mercy from above. 
Yet the same feeling which thou dost condemn, 
My very love to thee is hate to them, 
So closely mingling here, that disentwined, 
I cease to love thee when I love mankind : 
Yet dread not this — the proof of all the past 
Assures the future that my love will last ; 
But — oh, Medora ! nerve thy gentler heart : 
This hour again — but not for long — we part." 

" This hour we part ! — my heart foreboded this : 

Thus ever fade my fairy dreams of bliss. 

This hour — it cannot be — this hour away ! 

Yon bark hath hardly anchor'd in the bay : 

Her consort still is absent, and her crew 

Have need of rest before they toil anew : 

My love ! thou mock'st my weakness ; and wouldst 

steel 
My breast before the time when it must feel ; 
But trifle now no more with my distress. 
Such mirth hath less of play than bitterness. 
Be silent, Conrad! — dearest! come and share 
The feast these hands delighted to prepare ; 
Light toil ! to cull and dress thy fi-ugal fare I 
See, I have pluck'd the fruit that promised best, 
And where not sure, perplex'd, but pleased, I guess'd 
At such as seem'd the fairest ; thrice the hill 
My steps have wound to try the coolest rill ; 
Yes ! thy sherbet to-night will sweetly flow, 
See how it sparkles in its vase of snow ! 

sentations of this sort, and so much of the Oriental softness 
and acquiescence in his particular delineations, that it is 
scarcely possible to refuse the picture the praise of being char- 
acteristic and harmonious, as well as eminently sweet and 
beautiful in itself."— Jeffrey, 



112 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto I. 



The grape's gay juice thy bosom never cheers ; 
Thou more than Moslem when the cup appears : 
Think not I mean to chide— for I rejoice 
What others deem a penance is thy choice. 
But come, the board is spread ; our silver lamp 
Is trimm'd, and heeds not the sirocco's damp : 
Then shall my handmaids while the time along, 
And join with me the dance, or wake the song ; 
Or my guitar, which still thou lov'st to hear. 
Shall soothe or lull— or, should it vex thine ear. 
We'll turn the tale, by Ariosto told. 
Of fair Olympia loved and left of old.^ 
Why, thou wert worse than he who broke his 

vow 
To that lost damsel, shouldst thou leave me now ; 
Or even that traitor chief— I've seen thee smile, 
When the clear sky show'd Ariadne's Isle, 
Which I have pointed from these cliffs the while : 
And thus, half sportive, half in fear, I said, 
Lest time should raise that doubt to more than 

dread, 
Thus Conrad, too, will quit me for the main ; 
And he deceived me — for — he came again !" 

" Again — again — and oft again — my love ! 

If there be life below, and hope above, 

He will return — but now, the moments bring 

The time of parting with redoubled wing : 

The why — the where — what boots it now to tell ? 

Since all must end in that wild word— farewell ! 

Yet would I fain— did time allow— disclose — 

Fear not — these are no formidable foes ; 

And here shall watch a more than wonted guard. 

For sudden siege and long defence prepared : 

Nor be thou lonely— though thy lord's away, 

Our matrons and thy handmaids with thee stay : 

And this thy comfort— that, when next we meet, 

Security shall make repose more SAveet. 

List !— 'tis the bugle " — Juan shrilly blew — 

" One kiss — one more — another — Oh ! Adieu !" 

She rose — she sprung — she clung to his embrace, 
Till his heart heaved beneath her hidden fdce : 
He dared not raise to his that deep-blue eye, 
Which downcast droop'd in tearless agony. 
Her long fair hair lay floating o'er his arms. 
In all the wildness of dishevell'd charms ; 
Scarce beat that bosom where his image d^velt 
So full — that feeling seem'd almost unfelt ! 
Hark — peals the thunder of the signal-gun ! 
It told 'twas sunset — and he cursed that sun. 
Again — again — that form he madly press'd. 
Which mutely clasp'd, imploringly caress'd ! 
And tottering to the couch his bride he bore, 
One moment gazed — as if to gaze no more ; 
Felt that for him earth held but her alone, 
Kiss'd her cold forehead — turn'd — is Conrad gone ? 



1 Orlando Furioso, canto x. 



XV. 

"And is he gone?" — on sudden solitude 

How oft that fearful question will intrude ! 

" 'Twas but an instant past — and here he stood ! 

And now" — without the portal's porch she rush'd, 

And then at length her tears in freedom gush'd ; 

Big — bright — and fast, unknown to her they fell ; 

But still her lips refused to send — " Farewell !" 

For in that word — that fatal word — howe'er 

We promise — hope — believe — there breathes despair. 

O'er every, feature of that still, pale face. 

Had sorrow fix'd what time can ne'er erase : 

The tender blue of that large loving eye 

Grew frozen with its gaze on vacancy. 

Till — Oh, how far ! — it caught a glimpse of him, 

And then it flow'd — and phrensied seem'd to swim, 

Through those long, dark, and glistening lashes dew'd 

With drops of sadness oft to be renew'd. 

" He's gone !" — against her heart that hand is driven. 

Convulsed and quick — then gently raised to heaven : 

She look'd and saw the heaving of the main ; 

The white sail set — she dared not look again ; 

But turn'd with sickening soul within the gate — 

** It is no dream— and I am desolate !" 2 



XVI. 

From crag to crag descending, swiftly sped 

Stern Conrad down, nor once he turn'd his head ; 

But shrunk whene'er the windings of his way 

Forced on his eye what he would not survey. 

His lone but lovely dwelling on the steep, 

That hail'd him first when homeward from the deep : 

And she — the dim and melancholy star, 

Whose ray of beauty reach'd him from afar, 

On her he must not gaze, he must not think. 

There he might rest — but on Destruction's brink : 

Yet once almost he stopp'd — and nearly gave 

His fate to chance, his projects to the wave : 

But no — it must not be— a worthy chief 

May melt, but not betray to w^^man's grief. 

He sees his bark, he notes boAv lair the wind. 

And sternly gathers all his might of mind : 

Again he hurries on — and as ho hears 

The clang of tumult vibrate on his ears, 

The busy sounds, the bustle of the shore, 

The shout, the signal, and the dashing oar ; 

As marks his eye the seaboy on the mast, 

The anchors rise, the sails unfurling fast, 

The waving kerchiefs of the crowd that urge 

That mute adieu to those who stem the surge • 

And more than all, his blood-red flag aloft, 

He marvell'd how his heart could seem so soft. 

Fire in his glance, and wildness in his breast. 

He feels of all his former self possest ; 

He bounds — he flies — until his footstej^s reach 

The verge where ends the cliff, begins the beach, 

2 " We do not know anything in poetry more beautiful or 
touching than this picture of their parting."— Jeffrey. 




f. SupTuuTcff 



'^y.OmW/^y 



^/A.y/^^:^/'i 



Zi^/Y/ 



•.i 



Canto II. 



THE CORSAIR. 



113 



There checks his speed ; but pauses less to breathe 
The breezy freshness of the deep beneath, 
Than there his wonted statelier step renew ; 
Nor rush, disturb'd by haste, to vulgar view : 
For well had Conrad learn'd to curb the crowd, 
By arts that veil, and oft preserve the proud ; 
His was the lofty port, the distant mien, 
That seems to shun the sight — and awes if seen : 
The solemn aspect, and the high-born eye, 
That checks low mirth, but lacks not courtesy ; 
All these he wielded to command assent : 
But where he wish'd to win, so well unbent. 
That kindness cancell'd fear in those who heard, 
And others' gifts show'd mean beside his word. 
When echo'd to the heart as from his own 
His deep yet tender melody of tone : 
But such was foreign to his wonted mood, 
He cared not what he soften 'd, but subdued : 
The evil passions of his youth had made 
Him value less who loved— than what obey'd. 

XVII. 

Around him mustering ranged his ready guard. 
Before him Juan stands — " Are all prepared ?" 

" They are — nay more — embark'd : the latest boat 

Waits but my chief " 

" My sword, and my capote." 
Soon firmly girded on, and lightly slung. 
His belt and cloak were o'er his shoulders flung : 
" Call Pedro here !" He comes — and Conrad bends. 
With all the courtesy he deign'd his friends ; 
" Receive these tablets, and peruse with care, 
Words of high trust and truth are graven there ; 
Double the guard, and when Anselmo's bark 
Arrives, let him alike these orders mark : 
In three days (serve the breeze) the sun shall shine 
On our return — till then all peace be thine !" 
This said, his brother Pirate's hand he wrung. 
Then to his boat with haughty gesture sprung. 
Flash'd the dipt oars, and sparkling with the stroke, 
Around the waves* phosphoric ^ brightness broke ; 
They gain the vessel — on the deck he stands, — 
Shrieks the shrill whistle — ply the busy hands — 
He marks how well the ship her helm obeys, 
How gallant all her crew — and deigns to praise. 
His eyes of pride to young Gonsalvo turn — 
Why doth he start, and inly seem to mourn ? 
Alas ! those eyes beheld his rocky tower. 
And live a moment o'er the parting hour ; 
She — his Medora — did she mark the prow ? 
Ah ! never loved he half so much as now ! 
But much must yet be done ere dawn of day — 
Again he mans himself and turns away ; 
Down to the cabin with Gonsalvo bends. 
And there unfolds his plan — his means — and ends : 



1 By night, particularly in a warm latitude, every stroke of 
the oar, every motion of the boat or ship, is followed by a 
slight flash like sheet lightning from the water. 



Before them burns the lamp, and spreads the 

chart, 
And all that speaks and aids the naval art ; 
They to the midnight watch protract debate ; 
To anxious eyes what hour is ever late ? 
Meantime, the steady breeze serenely blew. 
And fast and falcon-like the vessel flew ; 
Pass'd the high headlands of each clustering isle. 
To gain their port — long — long ere morning smile : 
And soon the night-glass through the narrow bay 
Discovers where the Pacha's galleys lay. 
Count they each sail — and. mark how there supine 
The lights in vain o'er heedless Moslem shine. 
Secure, unnoted, Conrad's prow pass'd by. 
And anchor'd where his ambush meant to lie ; 
Screen'd from espial by the jutting cape. 
That rears on high its rude fantastic shape. 
Then rose his band to duty— not from sleep— 
Equipp'd for deeds alike on land or deep ; 
While lean'd their leader o'er the fretting flood. 
And calmly talk'd— and yet he talk'd of blood! 



Efjt (Korsair, 



CANTO THE SECOND. 



" Conosceste i dubiosi desiri ?"— Dante. 

I. 

In Coron's bay floats many a galley light. 
Through Coron's lattices the lamps are bright, . 
For Seyd, the Pacha, makes a feast to-night : 
A feast for promised triumph yet to come. 
When he shall drag the fetter'd Rovers hora« ; : 
This hath he sworn by Allah and his sword,. 
And faithful to his tirman and his word. 
His summon'd prows collect along the coast, . 
And great the gathering crews, and loud the boast 
Already shared the captives and the prize. 
Though far the distant foe they thus despise ; 
'Tis but to sail — no doubt to-morrow's Sun 
Will see the Pirates bound — their haven won ! 
Meantime the watch may slumber, if they will. 
Nor only wake to war, but dreaming kill. 
Though all, who can, disperse on shore and seek 
To flesh their glowing valor on the Greek ; 
How well such deed becomes the turban'd brave- 
To bare the sabre's edge before a slave I 
Infest his dwelling— but forbear to slay. 
Their arms are strong, yet merciful to-day. 
And do not deign to smite because they may ! 
Unless some gay caprice suggests the blow, 
To keep in practice for the coming foe. 
Revel and rout the evening hours beguile. 
And they who wish to wear a head must smile ; 



114 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Canto II. 



For Moslem mouths produce their choicest cheer, 
And hoard their curses, till the coast is clear. 

II. 

High in his hall reclines the turban'd Seyd ; 
Around — the bearded chiefs he came to lead. 
Removed the banquet, and the last pilaff- 
Forbidden draughts, 'tis said, he dared to quaff, 
Though to the rest the sober berry's juiced 
The slaves bear round for rigid Moslems' use ; 
The long chibouques ^ dissolving cloud supply, 
While dance the Almas ^ to wild minstrelsy. 
The rising morn will view the chiefs embark ; 
But waves are somewhat treacherous in the dark : 
And revellers may more securely sleep 
On silken couch than o'er the rugged deep : 
Feast there who can — nor combat till they must, 
And less tcr conquest than to Korans trust : 
And yet the numbers crowded in his host 
Might M^arrant more than even the Pacha's boast. 

III. 
With cautious reverence from the outer gate 
Slow stalks the slave, whose office there to wait. 
Bows his bent head — his hand salutes the floor. 
Ere yet his tongue the trusted tidings bore : 
"A captive Dervise, from the pirate's nest 
Escaped, is here — himself would tell the rest."* 
He took the sign from Seyd's assenting eye, 
And led the holy man in silence nigh. 
His arms were folded on his dark-green vest, 
His step was feeble, and his look deprest ; 
Yet worn he seem'd of hardship more than years. 
And pale his cheek with penance, not from fears. 
Vow'd to his God — his sable locks he wore. 
And these his lofty cap rose proudly o'er : 
Around his form his loose long robe was thrown. 
And wrapt a breast bestow'd on heaven alone ; 
Submissive, yet with self-possession mann'd. 
He calmly met the curious eyes that scann'd ; 
And question of his coming fain would seek, 
Before the Pacha's will allow'd to speak. 

IV. 

*' Whence com'st thou, Dervise ?" 

" From the outlaw's den, 
A fugitive — " 

"Thy capture where and when?" 
" From Scalanovo's port to Scio's isle. 
The Saick was bound ; but Allah did not smile 
Upon our course— the Moslem merchant's gains 
The Rovers won ; our limbs have worn their chains. 
I had no death to fear, nor wealth to boast. 
Beyond the wandering freedom which I lost ; 

1 Coffee. 2 «' Chibouque," pipe. 3 Dancing girls. 

* It has been observed, that Conrad's entering disguised as 
a spy is out of nature. Perhaps so. I find something not 
unlike it in history: — " Anxious to explore with his own eyes 
the state of the Vandals, Majorian ventured, after disguising 
the color of his hair, to visit Carthage in the character of his 



At length a fisher's humble boat by night 
Afforded hope, and offer'd chance of flight ; 
I seized the hour, and find my safety here — 
With thee— most mighty Pacha ! who can fear?" 

" How speed the outlaws ? stand they well prepared. 
Their plunder'd wealth, and robber's rock, to guard ? 
Dream they of this our preparation, doom'd 
To view with fire their scorpion nest consumed ?" 

" Pacha ! the fetter'd captive's mourning eye, 
That weeps for flight, but ill can play the spy ; 
I only heard the reckless waters roar, 
Those waves that would not bear me from the 

shore ; 
I only mark'd the glorious sun and sky. 
Too bright — too blue — for my captivity ; 
And felt — that all which Freedom's bosom cheers, 
Must break my chain before it dried my tears. 
This mayst thou judge, at least, from my escape, 
They little deem of aught in peril's shape ; 
Else vainly had I pray'd or sought the chance 
That leads me here — if eyed with vigilance : 
The careless guard that did not see me fly 
May watch as idly when thy power is nigh. 
Pacha !— my limbs are faint— and nature craves 
Food for my hunger, rest from tossing waves : . 
Permit my absence — peace be with thee ! Peace 
With all around ! — now grant repose — release." 

" Stay, Dervise ! I have more to question — stay, 
I do command thee — sit — dost hear ? — obey ! 
More I must ask, and food the slaves shall bring ; 
Thou shalt not pine where all are banqueting : 
The supper done — prepare thee to reply, 
Clearly and full — I love not mystery." 

'Twere vain to guess what shook the pious man, 
Who look'd not lovingly on that Divan ; 
Nor show'd high relish for the banquet prest, 
And less respect for every fellow guest. 
'Twas but a moment's peevish hectic pass'd 
Along his cheek, and tranquillized as fast : 
He sate him down in silence, and his look 
Resumed the calmness which before forsook : 
The feast was usher'd in — but sumptuous fare 
He shunn'd as if some poison mingled there. 
For one so long condemn'd to toil and fast, 
Methinks he strangely spares the rich repast. 

" What ails thee, Dervise ? eat— dost thou suppose 
This feast a Christian's ? or my friends thy foes ? 
Why dost thou shun the salt ? that sacred pledge, 
Which, once partaken, blunts the sabre's edge. 



own ambassador ; and Genseric was afterwards mortified by 
the discovery, that he had entertained and dismissed the em- 
peror of the Komans. Such an anecdote may be rejected as 
an improbable fiction ; but it is a fiction which would not have 
been imagined unless in the life of a hero."— -See Gibbon's 
Decline and Fall, vol. vi. p. 180. 



Canto II. 



THE COESAIE. 



115 



Makes ey*n contending tribes in peace unite, 
And hated hosts seem brethren to the siglit!" 

" Salt seasons dainties — and my food is still 
The humblest root, my drink the simplest rill ; 
And my stern xow and order's ^ laws oppose 
To break or mingle bread with friends or foes ; 
It may seem strange — if there be aught to dread, 
That peril rests upon my single head ; 
But for thy sway — nay more — thy Sultan's throne, 
I taste nor bread nor banquet — save alone ; 
Infringed our order's rule, the Prophet's rage 
To Mecca's dome might bar my pilgrimage." 

" Well — as thou wilt — ascetic as thou art — 

One question answer ; then in peace depart. 

How many ? — Ha ! it cannot sure be day ? 

What star — what sun is bursting on the bay ? 

It shines a lake of fire ! — away — away ! 

Ho ! treachery ! my guards ! my scimitar ! 

The galleys feed the flames — and I afar ! 

Accursed Dervise ! — these thy tidings — thou [now !" 

Some villain spy — seize — cleave him — slay him 

Up rose the Dervise with that burst of light. 
Nor less his change of form appall'd the sight ; 
Up rose that Dervise — not in saintly garb. 
But like a warrior bounding on his barb, 
Dash'd his high cap, and tore his robe away — 
Shone his mail'd breast, and flash'd his sabre's ray ! 
His close but glittering casque, and sable plume. 
More glittering eye, and black brow's sabler gloom, 
Glared on the Moslems' eyes some Afrit sprite, 
AV'hose demon death-blow left no hope for fight. 
The wild confusion, and the swarthy glow 
Of flames on high, and torches from below ; 
The shriek of terror, and the mingling yell — 
For swords begin to clash, and shouts to swell — 
Flung o'er that spot of earth the air of hell ! 
Distracted, to and fro, the flying slaves 
Behold but bloody shore and fiery waves ; 
Nought heeded they the Pacha's angry cry. 
They seize that Dervise !— seize on Zatanai ! 2 
He saw their terror — check'd the first despair 
That urged him but to stand and perish there, 
Since far too early and too well obey'd. 
The flame was kindled ere the signal made ; 
He saw their terror — from his baldric drew 
His bugle — brief the blast — but shrilly blew; 
'Tis answer'd — " Well ye speed, my gallant crew! 
Why did I doubt their quickness of career? 
And deem design had left me single here ?" 
Sweeps his long arm — that sabre's whirling sway 
Sheds fast atonement for its first delay ; 
Completes his fury what their fear begun. 
And makes the many basely quail to one. 



1 The Dervises are in colleges, and of different orders, as 
the monks. 2 " Zatanai," Satan. 

3 A common and not very novel eflfect of Mussulman anger. 



The cloven turbans o'er the chamber spread. 
And scarce an arm dare rise to guard its head : 
Even Seyd, convulsed, o'erwhelm'd, with rage, sur- 
prise, 
Retreats before him, though he still defies. 
No craven he — and yet he dreads the blow, 
So much Confusion magnifies his foe ! 
His blazing galleys still distract his sight. 
He tore his beard, and foaming fled the fight ; ' 
For now the pirates pass'd the Haram gate, 
And burst within — and it were death to wait : 
Where wild Amazement shrieking — kneeling — 

throws 
The sword aside — in vain — the blood o'erflows ! 
The Corsairs pouring, haste to where within 
Invited Conrad's bugle, and the din 
Of groaning victims, and wild cries for life, 
Proclaim'd how well he did the work of strife. 
They shout to find him grim and lonely there, 
A glutted tiger mangling in his lair ! 
But short their greeting — shorter his reply — 
*' 'Tis well — but Seyd escapes — and he must die — 
Much hath been done — but more remains to do — 
Their galleys blaze— why not their city too ?" 

V. 

Quick at the word they seized him each a torch. 

And fire the dome from minaret to porch. 

A stern delight was fix'd in Conrad's eye, 

But sudden sunk — for on his ear the cry 

Of women struck, and like a deadly knell 

Knock'd at that heart unmoved by battle's yell. 

" Oh ! burst the Haram — wrong not on your lives 

One female form — remember — we have wives. 

On them such outrage Vengeance will repay ; 

Man is our foe, and such 'tis ours to slay : 

But still we spared — must spare the weaker prey. 

Oh ! I forgot — but Heaven will not forgive 

If at my word the helpless cease to live ; 

Follow who will — I go — we yet have time 

Our souls to lighten of at least a crime." 

He climbs the crackling stair — he bursts the door, 

Nor feels his feet glow scorching with the floor ; 

His breath choked gasping with the volumed 

smoke. 
But still from room to room his way he broke. 
They search — they flnd— they save : with lusty arms 
Each bears a prize of unregarded charms ; 
Calm their loud fears ; sustain their sinking frames 
With all the care defenceless beauty claims : 
So well could Conrad tame their fiercest mood. 
And check the very hands with gore imbrued. 
But who is she ? whom Conrad's arms convey 
From reeking pile and combat's wreck away — 
Who but the love of him he dooms to bleed ; 
The Haram queen — but still the slave of Seyd I 



See Prince Eugene's Memoirs, page 24. "The Seraskier re- 
ceived a wound in the thigh ; he plucked up his beard by the 
roots, because he was obliged to quit the field." 



116 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Canto II. 



VI. 

Brief time had Conrad now to greet Gulnare,^ 

Few words to reassure the trembling fair ; 

For in that pause compassion snatch'd from war, 

The foe before retiring, fast and far, 

With wonder saw their footsteps unpursued, 

First slowlier fled — then rallied — tlien withstood. 

This Seyd perceives, then first perceives how few, 

Compared with his, the Corsair's roving crew, 

And blushes o'er his error, as he eyes 

The ruin wrought by panic and surprise. 

Allah il Allah ! Vengeance swells the cry — 

Shame mounts to rage that must atone or die ! 

And flame for flame and blood for blood must tell, 

The tide of triumph ebbs that flow'd too well — 

When wrath returns to renovated strife, 

And those who fought for conquest strike for life. 

Conrad beheld the danger — he beheld 

His followers faint by freshening foes repell'd : 

" One effort — one — to break the circling host!" 

They form — unite — charge — waver — all is lost ! 

Within a narrower ring compress'd, beset. 

Hopeless, not heartless, strive and struggle yet — 

Ah ! now they fight in firmest file no more, 

Hemm'd in — cut off— cleft down — and trampled o'er ; 

But each strikes singly, silently, and home, 

And sinks outwearied rather than o'ercome. 

His last faint quittance rendering with his breath, 

Till the blade glimmers in the grasp of death ! 

VII. 

But first, ere came the rallying host to blows. 
And rank to rank, and hand to hand oppose, 
Gulnare and all her Haram handmaids freed, 
Safe in the dome of one who held their creed, 
By Conrad's mandate safely were bestow'd, 
And dried those tears for life and fame that flow'd : 
And when that dark-eyed lady, young Gulnare, 
Eecall'd those thoughts late wandering in despair, 
Much did she marvel o'er the courtesy 
That smooth'd his accents ; soften'd in his eye : 
'Twas strange — that robber thus with gore bedew'd 
Seem'd gentler then than Seyd in fondest mood. 
The Pacha woo'd as if he deem'd the slave 
Must seem delighted with the heart he gave ; 
The Corsair vow'd protection, sooth'd affright, 
As if his homage were a woman's right. 
" The wish is wrong — nay, worse for female — vain : 
Yet much I long to view that chief again ; 
If but to thank for, what my fear forgot, 
The life — my loving lord remember'd not!" 

VIII. 

And him she saw, where thickest carnage spread. 
But gather'd breathing from the happier dead ; 
Far from his band, and battling with a host 
That deem right dearly won the field he lost, 

1 Gulnare, a female name ; it means, literally, the flower of 
the pomegranate. 



Fell'd — bleeding — baffled of the death he sought, 

And snatch'd to expiate all the ills he wrought; 

Preserved to linger and to live in vain. 

While Vengeance ponder'd o'er nev/ plans of pain, 

And stanch'd the blood she saves to shed again — 

But drop for drop, for Seyd's unglutted eye 

Would doom him ever dying— ne'er to die ! 

Can this be he ? triumphant late she saw, 

When his red hand's wild gesture waved, a law ! 

'Tis he indeed — disarm'd but undeprest. 

His sole regret the life he still possest ; 

His wounds too slight, though taken with that will, 

Which would have kiss'd the hand that then could 

kill. 
Oh were there none, of all the many given. 
To send his soul — he scarcely ask'd to heaven ? 
Must he alone of all retain his breath. 
Who more than all had striven and struck for death ? 
He deeply felt — what mortal hearts must feel. 
When thus reversed on faithless fortune's wheel. 
For crimes committed, and the victor's threat 
Of lingering tortures to repay the debt — 
He deeply, darkly felt ; but evil pride 
That led to perpetrate — now serves to hide. 
Still in his stern and self-collected mien 
A conqueror's more than captive's air is seen. 
Though faint with wasting toil and stiffening wound, 
But few that saw — so calmly gazed around : 
Though the far shouting of the distant crowd, 
Their tremors o'er, rose insolently loud. 
The better warriors who beheld him near. 
Insulted not the foe who taught them fear ; 
And the grim guards that to his durance led, 
In silence eyed him with a secret dread. 

IX. 

The Leech was sent — but not in mercy — there, 

To note how much the life yet left could bear ; 

He found enough to load with heaviest chain, 

And promise feeling for the wrench of pain ; 

To-morrow — yea — to-morrow's evening sun 

Will sinking see impalement's pangs begun. 

And rising with the wonted blush of morn 

Behold how well or ill those pangs are borne. 

Of torments this the longest and the worst, 

Which adds all other agony to thirst, 

That day by day death still forbears to slake, 

While famish'd vultures flit around the stake. 

" Oh ! water — water !" — smiling Hate denies 

The victim's prayer — for if he drinks he dies.. 

This was his doom : — the Leech, the guard were gone, 

And left proud Conrad fetter'd and alone. 

X. 

'Twere vain to paint to what his feelings grew — 
It even were doubtful if their victim knew. 
There is a war, a chaos of the mind, 
When all its elements convulsed — combined — 
Lie dark and jarring with perturbed force, 
And gnashing with impenitent Kemorse— 




///r /-"/•/.>//- 



I fk ^-r^"^'' 



Canto II. 



THE CORSAIR. 



117 



That juggling fiend — who never spake before — 
But cries " I warn'd thee !" when the deed is o'er. 
Vain voice ! the spirit burning but unbent, 
May writhe — rebel — the weak alone repent ! 
Even in that lonely hour when most it feels, 
And, to itself, all — all that self reveals, 
No single passion, and no ruling thought 
That leaves the rest as once unseen, unsought ; 
But the wild prospect when the soul reviews, 
All rushing through their thousand avenues. 
Ambition's dreams expiring, love's regret, 
Endanger'd glory, life itself beset ; 
The joy untasted, the contempt or hate 
'Gainst those who fain would triumph in our fate ; 
The hopeless j)ast, the hasting future driven 
Too quickly on to guess of hell or heaven ; 
Deeds, thoughts, and words, perhaps remember'd 

not 
So keenly till that hour, but ne'er forgot ; 
Things light or lovely in their acted time. 
But now to stern reflection each a crime ; 
The withering sense of evil unreveal'd. 
Not cankering less because the more conceal'd — 
All, in a word, from which all eyes must start. 
That opening sepulchre — the naked heart 
Bares with its buried woes, till Pride awake. 
To snatch the mirror from the soul — and break. 
Ay — Pride can veil, and Courage brave it all, — 
All— all— before— beyond — the deadliest fall. 
Each hath some fear, and he who least betrays, 
The only hypocrite deserving praise : 
Not the loud recreant wretch who boasts and flies ; 
But he who looks on death — and silent dies. 
So steel'd by pondering o'er his far career. 
He half-way meets him should he menace near ! 

XI. 

In the high chamber of his highest tower 
Sate Conrad, fetter'd in the Pacha's power. \^,- 
His palace perish'd in the flame— this fort 
Contain'd at once his captive and his court. 
Not much could Conrad of his sentence blame. 
His foe, if vanquish'd, had but shared the same :— 
Alone he sate — in solitude had scann'd 
His guilty bosom, but that breast he mann'd : 
One thought alone he could not— dared not meet— 
" Oh, how these tidings will Medora greet ?" 
Then — only then — his clanking hands he raised, 
And strain 'd with rage the chain on which he 

gazed ; 
But soon he found — or feign'd— or dream'd relief, 
And smiled in self-derision of his grief. 
" And now come torture when it will — or may, 
More need of rest to nerve me for the day !" 
This said, with languor to his mat he crept, 
And, whatsoe'er his visions, quickly slept. 
'Twas hardly midnight when that fray begun. 
For Conrad's plans matured, at once were done : 
And Havoc loathes so much the waste of time. 
She scarce had left an uncommitted crime. 



One hour beheld him since the tide he stemm'd — 
Disguised — discover'd — conquering — ta'en — con- 

demn'd — 
A chief on land — an outlaw on the deep — * 
Destroying — saving — prison'd — and asleep ! 

XII. 

He slept in calmest seeming — for his breath 

Was hush'd so deep — Ah ! happy if in death ! 

He slept — Who o'er his placid slumber bends ? 

His foes are gone — and here he hath no friends ; 

Is it some seraph sent to grant him grace ? 

No, 'tis an earthly form with heavenly face ! 

Its white arm raised a lamp — yet gently hid. 

Lest the ray flash abruptly on the lid 

Of that closed eye, which opens but to pain, 

And once unclosed — but once may close again. 

That form, with eye so dark, and cheek so fair. 

And auburn waves of gemm'd and braided hair ; 

With shape of fairy lightness — naked foot. 

That shines like snow, and falls on earth as mute — 

Through guards and dunnest night how came it there ? 

Ah ! rather ask what will not woman dare ? 

AV^hom youth and pity lead like thee, Gulnare ! 

She could not sleep — and while the Pacha's rest 

In muttering dreams yet saw his pirate-guest, 

She left his side — his signet-ring she bore. 

Which oft in sport adorn'd her hand before — 

And with it, scarcely question'd, won her way 

Through drowsy guards that must that sign obey. 

Worn out with toil, and tired with changing blows, 

Their eyes had envied Conrad his repose ; 

And chill and nodding at the turret door. 

They stretch their listless limbs, and watch no more ; 

Just raised their heads to hail the signet-ring, 

Nor ask or what or who the sign may bring. 

XIII. 

She gazed in wonder, " Can he calmly sleep, 
While other eyes his fall or ravage weep ? 
And mine in restlessness are wandering here — 
What sudden spell hath made this man so dear ? 
True — 'tis to him my life, and more, I owe, '^ 

And me and mine he spared from worse than woe : 
'Tis late to think — but soft — his slumber breaks — 
How heavily he sighs ! — he starts— awakes !" 

He raised his head — and dazzled with the light. 

His eye seem'd dubious if it saw aright : 

He moved his hand — the grating of his chain 

Too harshly told him that he lived again. 

" What is that form ? if not a shape of air, 

Methinks my jailer's face shows wondrous fair!" 

" Pirate ! thou know'st me not — but I am one, 
Grateful for deeds thou hast too rarely done ; 
Look on me — and remember her, thy hand 
Snatch'd from the flames, and thy more fearful band. 
I come through darkness — and I scarce know why — 
Yet not to hurt — I would not see thee die." 



118 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Canto II. 



" If so, kind lady ! thine the only eye 

That would not here in that gay hope delight : 

Theirs is the chance — and let them use their right. 

But still I thank their courtesy or thine, 

Tliat would confess me at so fair a shrine !" 

Strange though it seem — yet with extremest grief 

Is link'd a mirth — it doth not bring relief— 

That playfulness of Sorrow ne'er beguiles, 

And smiles in bitterness — but still it smiles ; 

And sometimes with the wisest and the best, 

Till even the scaffold ^ echoes with their jest ! 

Yet not the joy to which it seems akin — 

It may deceive all hearts, save that within. 

Whate'er it was that flash'd on Conrad, now 

A laughing wildness half unbent his brow : 

And these his accents had a sound of mirth, 

As if the last he could enjoy on earth ; 

Yet 'gainst his nature — for through that short life. 

Few thoughts had he to spare from gloom and strife. 

XIV. 

" Corsair ! thy doom is named — ^but I have power 

To soothe the Pacha in his weaker hour. 

Thee would I spare — nay more — would save thee 

now. 
But this — time — hope — nor even thy strength allow 
But all I can, I will : at least, delay 
The sentence that remits thee scarce a day. 
More now were ruin — even thyself were loth 
The vain attempt should bring but doom to both." 

" Yes ! — loth indeed : — my soul is nerved to all, 

Or fall'n too low to fear a further fall : 

Tempt not thyself with peril — me with hope 

Of flight from foes with whom I could not cope : 

Unfit to vanquish — shall I meanly fly. 

The one of all my band that would not die ? 

Yet there is one to whom my memory clings. 

Till to these eyes her own wild softness springs. 

My sole resources in the path I trod 

Were these — my bark — my sword — my love — my God ! 

The last I left in youth — he leaves me now — 

And Man but works his will to lay me low. 

I have no thought to mock his throne with prayer 

Wrung from the coward crouching of despair ; 

It is enough — I breathe — and I can bear. 

My sword is shaken from the worthless hand 

That might have better kept so true a brand ; 

My bark is sunk or captive — but my love — 

For her in sooth my voice would mount above 

Oh ! she is all that still to earth can bind — 

And this will break a heart so more than kind, 

And blight a form — till thine appear'd, Gulnare ! 

Mine eye ne'er ask'd if others were as fair." 



1 In Sir Thomas More, for instance, on the scaffold, and 
Anne Boleyn, in the Tower, when, grasping her neck, she 
remarked, that it " was too slender to trouble the headsman 
much." During one part of the French Eevolution, it bg,- 



" Thou lov'st another then ? — but what to me 
Is this — 'tis nothing — nothing e'er can be : 
But yet — thou lov'st — and — Oh ! I envy those 
Whose hearts on hearts as faithful can repose, 
Who never feel the void — the wandering thought 
That sighs o'er visions — such as mine hath wrought." 

" Lady — methought thy love was his, for whom 
This arm redeem'd thee from a fiery tomb." 

" My love stern Seyd's ! Oh — No — No — not my love — 

Yet much this heart, that strives no more, once strove 

To meet his passion — but it would not be. 

I felt — I feel — loves dwells with — with the free. 

I am a slave, a favor'd slave at best. 

To share his splendor, and seem very blest ! 

Oft must my soul the question undergo. 

Of—' Dost thou love ?' and burn to answer, ' No !' 

Oh ! hard it is that fondness to sustain, 

And struggle not to feel averse in vain ; 

But harder still the heart's recoil to bear, 

And hide from one— perhaps another there. 

He takes the hand I give not — nor withhold — 

Its pulse nor check'd — nor quicken'd — calmly cold : 

And when resign'd, it drops a lifeless weight 

From one I never loved enough to hate. 

No warmth these lips return by his imprest, 

And chill'd remembrance shudders o'er the rest. 

Yes — had I ever proved that passion's zeal, 

The' change to hatred were at least to feel : 

But still — he goes unmourn'd — returns unsought— 

And oft when present — absent from my thought. 

Or when reflection comes — and come it must — 

I fear that henceforth 'twill but bring disgust ; 

I am his slave — but, in despite of pride, 

'Twere worse than bondage to become his bride. 

Oh ! that this dotage of his breast would cease : 

Or seek another and give mine release. 

But yesterday — I could have said, to peace ! 

Yes — if unwonted fondness now I feign, 

Remember — captive ! 'tis to break thy chain ; 

Repay the life that to thy hand I owe ; 

To give thee back to all endear' d below. 

Who share such love as I can never know. 

Farewell — morn breaks — and I must now away : 

'Twill cost me dear — but dread no death to-day !" 

XV. 

She press'd his fetter'd fingers to her heart, 

And bow'd her head, and turn'd her to depart, 

And noiseless as a lovely dream is gone. 

And was she here ? and is he now alone ? 

What gem hath dropp'd and sparkles o'er his chain ? 

The tear most sacred, shed for others' pain. 

That starts at once — bright — pure — from Pity's mine. 

Already polish'd by the hand divine ! 



came a fashion to leave some "mot" as a legacy; and the 
quantity of facetious last words spoken during that period 
would form a melancholy jest-book of a considerable size. 



Canto III. 



THE CORSAIR 



119 



Oh ! too convincing— dangerously dear— 

In woman's eye the unanswerable tear ! 

That weapon of her weakness she can wield, 

To save, subdue — at once her spear and shield : 

Avoid it — Virtue ebbs and Wisdom errs, 

Too fondly gazing on that grief of hers I 

What lost a world, and bade a hero fly ? 

The timid tear in Cleopatra's eye. 

Yet be the soft triumvir's fault forgiven ; 

By this — how many lose not earth — but heaven ! 

Consign their souls to man's eternal foe, 

And seal their own to spare some wanton's woe ! 

XVI. 
'Tis morn — and o'er his alter'd features play 
The beams — without the hope of yesterday. 
What shall he be ere night ? perchance a thing, 
O'er which the raven flaps'her funeral wing. 
By his closed eye unheeded and unfelt ; 
Wliile sets that sun, and dews of evening melt. 
Chill — wet — and misty round each stiffen'd limb, 
Refreshing earth — reviving all but him ! 



Cf)e arorgair. 



CANTO THE THIRD. 



" Come vedi— ancor non m' abbandona."— Dante. 

I. 

Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run,i 

Along Morea's hills the setting sun ; 

Not, as in Northern climes, obscurely bright, 

But one unclouded blaze of living light ! 

O'er the hush'd deep the yellow beam he throws. 

Gilds the green wave, that trembles as it glows, 

On old ^gina's rock, and Idra's isle. 

The god of gladness sheds his parting smile ; 

O'er his own regions lingering, loves to shinej 

Though there his altars are no more divine. 

Descending fast, the mountain shadows kiss 

Thy glorious gulf, unconquer'd Salamis ! 



1 The opening lines, as far as section ii., have, perhaps, little 
business here, and were annexed to an unpublished (though 
printed) poem; but they were written on the spot, in the 
spring of 1811, and— I scarce know why— the reader must 
excuse their appearance here — if he can. — See post, "Curse 
of Minerva." 

2 Socrates drank the hemlock a .short time before sunset 
(the hour of execution), notwithstanding the entreaties of 
his di.sciples to wait till the sun went do\^n. 

8 The twilight in Greece is much longor than in our own 
country: the days in winter are longer, but in summer of 
shorter duration. 

* The kiosk is a Turkish summer-hou.se: the palm is with- 
out the present walls of Athens, not far from the temple of 



Their azure arches through the long expanse 
More deeply purpled meet his mellowing glance. 
And tenderest tints, along their summits driven, 
Mark his gay course, and own the hues of heaven ; 
Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep. 
Behind his Delphian cliff he sinks to sleep. 

On such an eve, his palest beam he cast, 
When — Athens ! here thy Wisest look'd his last. 
How watch'd thy better sons his farewell ray. 
That closed their murder'd sage's ^ latest day ! 
Not yet — not yet — Sol pauses on the hill — 
The precious hour of parting lingers still ; 
But sad his light to agonizing eyes, 
And dark the mountain's once delightful dyes : 
Gloom o'er the lovely land he seem'd to pour, 
The land, where Phoebus never frown'd before ; 
But ere he sank below Cithseron's head. 
The cup of woe was quaff 'd — the spirit fled; 
The soul of him who scorn'd to fear or fly — 
Who lived and died, as none can live or die ! 

But lo ! from high Hymettus to the plain. 
The queen of night asserts her silent reign.' 
No murky vapor, herald of the storm, 
Hides her fair face, nor girds her glowing form ; 
With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams 

play, 
There the white column greets her grateful ray. 
And, bright around with quivering beams beset, 
Her emblem sparkles o'er the minaret : 
The groves of olive scatter' d dark and wide, 
Where meek Cephisus pours his scanty tide. 
The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque, 
The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk,* 
And, dun and sombre 'mid the holy calm, 
Near Theseus' fane yon solitary palm. 
All tinged with varied hues arrest the eye — 
And dull were his that pass'd them heedless by. 

Again the ^Egean, heard no more afar, 
Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war ; 
Again his waves in milder tints unfold 
Their long array of sapphire and of gold, 
Mix'd with the shades of many a distant isle. 
That frown — where gentler ocean seems to smile.^ 



Theseus, between which and the tree the wall intervenes. 
Cephisus' stream is indeed scanty, and Ilissus has no stream 
at all. 

6 "Of the brilliant skies and variegated landscapes of 
Greece every one has formed to himself a general notion, 
from having contemplated them through the hazy atmo- 
sphere of some prose narration ; but, in Lord Byron's poetry, 
every image is distinct and glowing, as if it were illuminated 
by its native sunshine; and, in the figures which people the 
landscape, we behold not only the general form and costume, 
but the countenance, and the attitude, and the play of feat- 
ures and of gesture accompanying, and indicating, the sud- 
den impulses of momentary feelings. The magic of coloring 
by which this is efifected is, perhaps, the most striking evi- 
dence of Lord Byron's talent." — Georok Ellis. 



120 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto III. 



II. 

Is ot now my theme — why turn my thoughts to thee ? 

Oh ! who can look along thy native sea, 

Nor dwell upon thy name, whate'er the tale, 

So much its magic must o'er all prevail ? 

Who that heheld that Sun upon thee set, 

Fair Athens ! could thine evening face forget ? 

Not he — whose heart nor time nor distance frees, 

Spell-bound within the clustering Cyclades ! 

Nor seems this homage foreign to his strain. 

His Corsair's isle was once thine own domain — 

Would that with freedom it were thine again ! 

III. 

The Sun hath sunk — and, darker than the night, 
Sinks with its beam upon the beacon height 
Medora's heart — the third day's come and gone — 
With it he comes not — sends not — faithless one ! 
The wind was fair though light; and storms were 

none. 
Last eve Anselmo's bark return'd, and yet 
His only tidings that they had not met ! 
Though wild, as now, far different were the tale 
Had Conrad waited for that single sail. 

The night-breeze freshens— she that day had pass'd 
In watching all that Hope proclaim'd a mast ; 
Sadly she sate — on high — Impatience bore 
At last her footsteps to the midnight shore. 
And there she wander'd, heedless of the spray 
That dash'd her garments oft, and warn'd away : 
She saw not — felt not this — nor dared depart. 
Nor deem'd it cold — her chill was at her heart ; 
Till grew such certainty from that suspense — 
His very sight had shock'd from life or sense ! 

It came at last — a sad and shatter'd boat. 

Whose inmates first beheld whom first they sought ; 

Some bleeding — all most wretched — these the few — 

Scarce knew they how escaped — this all they knew. 

In silence, darkling, each appear'd to wait 

His fellow's mournful guess at Conrad's fate : 

Something they would have said ; but seem'd to fear 

To trust their accents to Medora's ear. 

She saw at once, yet sunk not — trembled not — 

Beneath that grief, that loneliness of lot. 

Within that meek fair form, were feelings high, 

That deem'd not till they found their energy. 

While yet was Hope— they soften'd — flutter' d— wept — 

All lost — that softness died not — but it slept ; 

And o'er its slumber rose that Strength which said, 

""With nothing left to love — there's nought to dread." 

'Tis more than nature's ; like the burning might 

Delirium gathers from the fever's height. 

" Silent, you stand — nor would I hear you tell 

What -speak not — breathe not — for I know it well — 

1 The whole of this section was added in the course of 
printing. 



Yet would I ask — almost my lip denies 

The — quick your answer — tell me where he lies." 

" Lady ! we know not — scarce with life we fled ; 

But here is one denies that he is dead : 

He saw him bound ; and bleeding — but alive." 



'twas in vain to strive — 
-each thought — till then with- 



She heard no further- 
So throbb'd each vein- 
stood; 
Her own dark soul — these words at once subdued : 
She totters — falls — and senseless had the wave 
Perchance but snatch'd her from another grave ; 
But that with hands though rude, yet weeping 

eyes. 
They yield such aid as Pity's haste supplies : 
Dash o'er her deathlike cheek the ocean dew, 
Eaise — fan — sustain — till life returns anew ; 
Awake her handmaids, with the matrons leave 
That fainting form o'er which they gaze and grieve ; 
Then seek Anselmo's cavern, to report 
The tale too tedious — when the triumph short. 

IV. 

In that wild council words wax'd warm and strange, 
With thoughts of ransom, rescue, and revenge ; 
All, save repose or flight : still lingering there 
Breathed Conrad's spirit, and forbade despair ; 
Whate'er his fate — the breasts he form'd and led 
Will^save him living, or appease him dead. 
Woe to his foes ! there yet survive a few, 
Whose deeds are daring, as their hearts are true. 



Within the Haram's secret chamber sate ^ 

Stern Seyd, still pondering o'er his Captive's fate* 

Plis thoughts on love and hate alternate dwell, 

Now with Gulnare, and now in Conrad's cell ; 

Here at his feet the lovely slave reclined 

Surveys his brow — would soothe his gloom of mind ; 

While many an anxious glance her large dark eye 

Sends in its idle search for sympathy. 

His only bends in seeming o'er his beads,^ 

But inly views his victim as he bleeds. 

" Pacha ! the day is thine ; and on thy crest 
Sits Triumph — Conrad taken — fall'n the rest ! 
His doom is fix'd— he dies ; and well his fate 
Was earn'd — yet much too worthless for thy hate : 
Methinks, a short release, for ransom told 
With all his treasure, not unwisely sold ; 
Report speaks largely of his pirate hoard — 
Would that of this my Pacha were the lord I 
While baffled, weaken'd by this fatal fray — 
Watch'd — follow'd — he were then an easier prey ; 
But once cut off—the remnant of his band 
Embark their wealth, and seek a safer strand." 



2 The comboloio, or Mahometan rosary ; the beads are in 
number ninety-nine. 



Canto III. 



THE COESAIR. 



121 



" Gulnare ! — if for each drop of blood a gem 

Were offer'd rich as Stamboul's diadem ; 

If for each hair of his a massy mine 

Of virgin ore should supplicating shine ; 

If all our Arab tales divulge or dream 

Of wealth were here — that gold should not redeem ! 

It had not now redeem'd a single hour, 

But that I know him fetter'd, iu my power ; 

And, thirsting for revenge, I ponder still 

On pangs that longest rack, and latest kill." 

" Nay, Seyd ! — I seek not to restrain thy rage, 
Too justly moved for mercy to assuage ; 
My thoughts were only to secure for thee 
His riches — thus released, he were not free : 
Disabled, shorn of half his might and band, 
His capture could but wait thy first command." 

*• Ills capture could! — and shall I then resign 
One day to him — the wretcli already mine ? 
Release my foe ! — at whose remonstrance ? — thine ! 
Fair suitor ! — to thy virtuous gratitude. 
That thus repays this Giaour's relenting mood, 
"Which thee and thine alone of all could spare. 
No doubt — regardless if the prize were fair. 
My thanks and praise alike are due — now hear ! 
I have a counsel for thy gentler ear : 
I do mistrust thee, woman ! and each word 
Of thine stamps truth on all Suspicion heard. 
Borne in his arms through fire from yon Serai — 
Say, wert thou lingering there with him to fly ? 
Thou needst not answer — thy confession speaks, 
Already reddening on thy guilty cheeks ; 
Then, lovely dame, bethink thee ! and beware : 
'Tis not his life alone may claim such care ! 
Another word and — nay — I need no more. 
Accursed was the moment when he bore 
Thee from the flames, which better far — but no — 
I then had mourn'd thee with a lover's woe — 
Now 'tis thy lord that warns — deceitful thing ! 
Know'st thou that I can clip thy wanton wing? 
In words alone I am not wont to chafe : 
Look to thyself— nor deem thy falsehood safe !" 

He rose— and slowly, sternly thence withdrew. 
Rage in his eye and threats in his adieu : 
Ah ! little reck'd that chief of womanhood — 
Which frowns ne'er quell'd, nor menaces subdued : 
And little deem'd he what thy heart, Gulnare! 
When soft could feel, and when incensed could 

dare. 
His doubts appear'd to wrong — nor yet she knew 
How deep the root from whence compassion grew — 
She was a slave — from such may captives claim 
A fellow-feeling, differing but in name ; 
Still half unconscious — heedless of his wrath. 
Again she ventured on the dangerous path. 
Again his rage repell'd — until arose 
That strife of thought, the source of woman's 

woes! 



VI. 

Meanwhile — long anxious — weary — still — the same 

Roll'd day and night — his soul could terror tame — 

This fearful interval of doubt and dread. 

When every hour might doom him worse than dead, 

When every step that echo'd by the gate 

Might entering lead where axe and stake await ; 

When every voice that grated on his ear 

Might be the last that he could ever hear ; 

Could terror tame — that spirit stern and high 

Had proved unwilling as unfit to die ; 

'Twas worn — perhaps decay'd — yet silent bore 

That conflict, deadlier far than all before : 

The heat of fight, the hurry of the gale, 

Leave scarce one thought inert enough to quail ; 

But bound and fix'd in fetter'd solitude. 

To pine, the prey of every changing mood ; 

To gaze on thine own heart ; and meditate 

Irrevocable faults, and coming fate — 

Too late the last to shun — the first to mend — 

To count the hours that struggle to thine end, 

With not a friend to animate, and tell 

To other ears that death became thee well ; 

Around thee foes to forge the ready lie. 

And blot life's latest scene with calumny ; 

Before thee tortures, which the soul can dare. 

Yet doubts how well the shrinking flesh may bear ; 

But deeply feels a single cry would shame. 

To valor's praise thy last and dearest claim ; 

The life thou leav'st below, denied above 

By kind monopolists of heavenly love ; 

And more than doubtful paradise — thy heaven 

Of earthly hope — thy loved one from thee riven. 

Such were the thoughts that outlaw must sustain, 

And govern pangs surpassing mortal pain : 

And those sustain'd he — boots it well or ill ? 

Since not to sink beneath, is something still ! 



VII. 

The first day pass'd — he saw not her — Gulnare — 

The second — third — and still she came not there ; 

But what her words avouch'd, her charms had done. 

Or else he had not seen another sun. 

The fourth day roll'd along, and with the night. 

Came storm and darkness in their mingling might. 

Oh ! how he listen'd to the rushing deep. 

That ne'er till now so broke upon his sleep ; 

And his wild spirit wilder wishes sent. 

Roused by the roar of his own element ! 

Oft had he ridden on that winged wave. 

And loved its roughness for the speed it gave ; 

And now its dashing echo'd on his ear, 

A long-known voice — alas! too vainly near! 

Loud sung the wind above ; and, doubly loud, 

Shook o'er his turret cell the thunder-cloud ; 

And flash'd the lightning by the latticed bar, 

To him more genial than the midnight star : 

Close to the glimmering grate he dragg'd his chain ; 

And hoj>ed that peril might not prove in vain. 



122 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto III. 



He raised his iron hand to Heaven, and pray'd 
One pitying flash to mar the form it made : ^ 
His steel and impious prayer attract alike — 
The storm roll'd onward, and disdain'd to strike ; 
Its peal wax'd fainter — ceased — he felt alone. 
As if some faithless friend had spurn'd his groan ! 



VIII. 

The midnight pass'd — and to the massy door 
A light step came — it paused — it moved once more ; 
Slow turns the grating bolt and sullen key : 
'Tis as his heart foreboded — that fair she ! 
Whate'er her sins, to him a guardian saint, 
And beauteous still as hermit's hope can paint ; 
Yet changed since last within that cell she came, 
More pale her cheek, more tremulous her frame : 
On him she cast her dark and hurried eye. 
Which spoke before her accents — " Thou must die ! 
Yes, thou must die — there is but one resource, 
The last — the worst — if torture were not worse." 

" Lady ! I look to none— my lips proclaim 
What last proclaim'd they — Conrad still the same : 
Why shouldst thou seek an outlaw's life to spare, 
And change the sentence I deserve to bear ? 
Well have I earn'd — nor here alone — the meed 
Of Seyd's revenge, by many a lawless deed." 

" Why should I seek? because — Oh! didst thou not 
Redeem my life from worse than slavery's lot ? 
Why should I seek ? — hath misery made thee blind 
To the fond workings of a woman's mind ? 
And must I say ? albeit my heart rebel 
With all that woman feels, but should not tell — 
Because — despite thy crimes — that heart is moved : 
It fear'd thee — thank'd thee — pitied — maddeu'd- 

loved. 
Reply not, tell not now thy tale again. 
Thou lov'st another — and I love in vain : 
Though fond as mine her bosom, form more fair, 
I rush through peril which she would not dare. 
If that thy heart to hers were truly dear. 
Were I thine own — thou wert not lonely here : 
An outlaw's spouse — and leave her lord to roam ! 
What hath such gentle dame to do with home ? 
But speak not now — o'er thine and o'er my head 
Hangs the keen sabre by a single thread ; 
If thou hast courage still, and wouldst be free, 
Receive this poniard — rise — and follow me !" 



1 " By the way — I have a charge against you. As the great 
Mr. Dennis roared out on a similar occasion, ' By G — d, that 
is my thunder !' — so do I exclaim, ' This is my lightning !' I 
allude to a speech of Ivan's, in the scene with Petrowna and 
the Empress, where the thought, and almost expression, are 
similar to Conrad's in the third canto of the Corsair. I, how- 
ever, do not say this to accuse you, but to except myself from 
suspicion ; as there is a priority of six months' publication, 
on my part, between the appearance of that composition and 
of your tragedies."— Zrord Byron to Mr, Sotheby, Sept. 25, 1815. 



" Ay — in my chains ! my steps will gently tread, 
With these adornments, o'er each slumbering head ! 
Thou hast forgot — is this a garb for flight? 
Or is that instrument more fit for fight?" 

" Misdoubting Corsair ! I have gain'd the guard, 

Ripe for revolt, and greedy for reward. 

A single word of mine removes that chain : 

Without some aid how here could I remain ? 

Well, since we met, hath sped my busy time, 

If in aught evil, for thy sake the crime : 

The crime — 'tis none to punish those of Seyd. 

That hated tyrant, Conrad — he must bleed ! 

I see thee shudder — but my soul is changed — 

Wrong'd, spurn'd, reviled — and it shall be avenged — 

Accused of what till now my heart disdain'd — 

Too faithful, though to bitter bondage chain'd. 

Yes, smile ! — but he had little cause to sneer, 

I was not treacherous then — nor thou too dear : 

But he has said it — and the jealous well, 

Those tyrants, teasing, tempting to rebel, 

Deserve the fate their fretting lips foretell. 

I never loved — he bought me — somewhat high — 

Since with me came a heart he could not buy. 

I was a slave unmurmuring ; he hath said, 

But for his rescue I with thee had fled. 

'Twas false thou know'st — but let such augurs rue, 

Their words are omens insult renders true. 

Nor was thy respite granted to my prayer ; 

This fleeting grace was only to prepare 

New torments for thy life, and my despair. 

Mine too he threatens ; but his dotage still 

Would fain reserve me for his lordly will : 

When wearier of these fleeting charms and me, 

There yawns the sack — and yonder rolls the sea ! 

What, am I then a toy for dotard's play, 

To wear but till the gilding frets away ? 

I saw thee — loved thee — owe thee all — would save^ 

If but to show how grateful is a slave. 

But had he not thus menaced fame and life 

(And well he keeps his oaths pronounced in strife), 

I still had saved thee — but the Pacha spared. 

Now I am all thine own — for all prepared : 

Thou lov'st me not — nor know'st — or but the worst. 

Alas ! this love — that hatred are the first — 

Oh ! couldst thou prove my truth, thou wouldst not 

start. 
Nor fear the fire that lights an Eastern heart ; 
'Tis now the beacon of thy safety — now 
It points within the port a Mainote prow : 

The following are the lines in Mr. Sotheby's tragedy : — 

— '■ " And I have leapt 

In transport from my flinty couch, to welcome 
The thunder as it burst upon my roof ; 
And beckon'd to the lightning, as it flash'd 
And sparkled on these fetters." 

Notwithstanding Lord Byron's precaution, the coincidence 
in question was cited against him, some years after, in a 
periodical journal. 



Canto III. 



THE CORSAIR. 



But in one chamber, where our path must lead, 
There sleeps— he must not wake— the oppressor 
Seyd !" 

" Gulnare — Gulnare — I never felt till now 

My abject fortune, wither'd fame so low : 

Seyd is mine enemy : had swept my band 

From earth with ruthless but with open hand, 

And therefore came I, in my bark of war, 

To smite the smiter with the scimitar; 

Such is my weapon — not the secret knife — 

Who spares a woman's seeks not slumber's life. 

Thine saved I gladly, lady — not for this ; 

Let me not deem that mercy shown amiss. 

Now fare thee well — more peace be with thy breast ! 

Night wears apace— my last of earthly rest!" 

" Rest ! rest ! by sunrise must thy sinews shake. 

And thy limbs writhe around the ready stake. 

I heard the order — saw — I will not see — 

If thou wilt i;)erish, I will fall with thee. 

My life — my love — my hatred — all below 

Are on this cast — Corsair ! 'tis but a blow ! 

Without it flight were idle — how evade 

His sure pursuit ? my wrongs too unrepaid, 

My youth disgraced — the long, long wasted years, 

One blow shall cancel with our future fears ; 

But since the dagger suits thee less than brand, 

I'll try the firmness of a female hand. 

The guards are gain'd — one moment all were o'er — 

Corsair ! we meet in safety or no more ; 

If errs my feeble hand, the morning cloud 

Will hover o'er thy scaffold, and my shroud." 

IX. 

She turn'd, and vanish'd ere he could reply, 

But his glance follow'd far with eager eye ; 

And gathering, as he could, the links that bound 

His form, to curl their length, and curb their sound, 

Since bar and bolt no more his steps preclude, 

He, fast as fetter'd limbs allow, pursued. 

'Twas dark and winding, and he knew not where 

That passage led ; nor lamp nor guard was there : 

He sees a dusky glimmering — shall he seek 

Or shun that ray so indistinct and weak ? 

Chance guides his steps — a freshness seems to bear 

Full on his brow, as if from morning air — 

He reach'd an open gallery — on his eye 

Gleam'd the last star of night, the clearing sky : 

Yet scarcely heeded these — another light 

From a lone chamber struck upon his sight. 

Towards it he moved ; a scarcely closing door 

Reveal'd the ray within, but nothing more. 

With hasty step a figure outward pass'd, 

Then paused — and turn'd— and paused — 'tis she at 

last ! 
No poniard in that hand — no sign of ill — 
" Thanks to that softening heart — she could not kill !" 
Again he look'd, the wildness of her eye 
Starts from the day abrupt and fearfully. 



She stopp'd— threw back her dark far-floating hair, 
That nearly veil'd her face and bosom fair. 
As if she late had bent her leaning head 
Above some object of her doubt or dread. 
They meet — upon her brow — unknown — forgot — 
Her hurrying hand had left— 'twas but a spot — 
Its hue was all he saw, and scarce withstood — 
Oh ! slight but certain pledge of crime — 'tis blood ! 



He had seen battle — he had brooded lone 

O'er promised pangs to sentenced guilt foreshown ; 

He had been tempted — chasten'd— and the chain 

Yet on his arms might ever there remain : 

But ne'er from strife— captivity — remorse— 

From all his feelings in their inmost force — 

So thrill'd — so shudder'd every creeping vein. 

As now they froze before that purple stain. 

That spot of blood, that light but guilty streak. 

Had banish'd all the beauty from her cheek ! 

Blood he had view'd — could view unmoved — but then 

It flow'd in combat, or was shed by men ! 

XI. 

" 'Tis done — he nearly waked — but it is done. 
Corsair ! he perish'd — thou art dearly won. 
All words would now be vain — away — away ! 
Our bark is tossing — 'tis already day. 
The few gain'd over, now are wholly mine, 
And these thy yet surviving band shall join : 
Anon my voice shall vindicate my hand, 
When once our sail forsakes this hated strand." 

XII. 

She clapp'd her hands — and through the gallery pour, 

Equipp'd for flight, her vassals — Greek and Moor ; 

Silent but quick they stoop, his chains unbind ; 

Once more his limbs are free as mountain wind ! 

But on his heavy heart such sadness sate, 

As if they there transferr'd that iron weight. 

No words are utter'd — at her sign, a door 

Reveals the secret passage to the shore : 

The city lies behind — they speed, they reach 

The glad waves dancing on the yellow beach ; 

And Conrad following, at her beck, obey'd, 

Nor cared he now if rescued or betray'd ; 

Resistance were as useless as if Seyd 

Yet lived to view the doom his ire decreed. 

XIII. 

Embark'd, the sail unfurl'd, the light breeze blew— 

How much had Conrad's memory to review ! 

Sunk he in contemplation, till the cape 

Where last he anchor'd rear'd its giant shape. 

Ah ! — since that fatal night, though brief the time, 

Had swept an age of terror, grief, and crime. 

As its far shadow frown'd above the mast, 

He veil'd his face, and sorrow'd as he pass'd ; 

He thought of all — Gonsalvo and his band, 

His fleeting triunij)h and his failing hand; 



124 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Canto III. 



He thought on her afar, his lonely bride : 
He turn'd and saw — Gulnare, the homicide ! 

XIV. 

She watch'd his features till she could not bear 
Their freezing aspect and averted air, 
And that strange fierceness foreign to her eye, 
Fell quench'd in tears, too late to shed or dry. 
She knelt beside him and his hand she press'd, 
" Thou mayst forgive though Allah's self detest ; 
But for that deed of darkness what wert thou ? 
Reproach me — but not yet — Oh ! spare me now ! 
I am not what I seem — this fearful night 
My brain bewilder'd — do not madden quite ! 
If I had never loved — though less my guilt, 
Thou hadst not lived to — hate me — if thou wilt." 

XV. 

She wrongs his thoughts, they more himself upbraid 

Than her, though undesign'd, the wretch he made ; 

But speechless all, deep, dark, and unexprest, 

They bleed within that silent cell — his breast. 

Still onward, fair the breeze, nor rough the surge. 

The blue waves sport around the stern they urge ; 

Far on the horizon's verge appears a speck, 

A spot — a mast — a sail — an armed deck ! 

Their little bark her men of watch descry, 

And ampler canvas woos the wind from high ; 

She bears her down majestically near. 

Speed on her prow, and terror in her tier ; 

A flash is seen — the ball beyond their bow 

Booms harmless, hissing to the deep below. 

Up rose keen Conrad from his silent trance, 

A long, long absent gladness in his glance ; 

" 'Tis mine — my blood-red flag ! again — again — 

I am not all deserted on the main !" 

They own the signal, answer to the hail. 

Hoist out the boat at once, and slacken sail. 

" 'Tis Conrad ! Conrad !" shouting from the deck, 

Command nor duty could their transport check ! 

With light alacrity and gaze of pride, 

They view him mount once more his vessel's side ; 

A smile relaxing in each rugged face. 

Their arms can scarce forbear a rough embrace. 

He, half forgetting danger and defeat. 

Returns their greeting as a chief may greet, 

Wrings with a cordial grasp Anselmo's hand, 

And feels he yet can conquer and command ! 

XVI. 

These greetings o'er, the feelings that o'erflow. 
Yet grieve to win him back without a blow ; 
They sail'd prepared for vengeance — had they 

known 
A woman's hand secured that deed her own, 
She were their queen — less scrupulous are they 
Than haughty Conrad how they win their way. 

1 " I have added a section for Gulnare,, to fill up the part- 
ing, and dismiss her more ceremoniously. If Mr, Giffbrd or 



With many an asking smile, and wondering stare, 
They whisper round, and gaze upon Gulnare ; 
And her, at once above — beneath her sex, 
Whom blood appall'd not, their regards perplex. 
To Conrad turns her faint imploring eye. 
She drops her veil, and stands in silence by ; 
Her arms are meekly folded on that breast. 
Which — Conrad safe — to fate resign'd the rest. 
Though worse than frenzy could that bosom fill, 
Extreme in love or hate, in good or ill, 
The worst of crimes had left her woman still ! 

XVII. 

This Conrad mark'd, and felt — ah ! could he less ? ^ — 

Hate of that deed — but grief for her distress ; 

What she has done no tears can wash away, 

And Heaven must punish on its angry day : 

But — it was done : he knew, whate'er her guilt, 

For him that poniard smote, that blood was spilt ; 

And he was free ! — and she for him had given 

Her all on earth, and more than all in heaven ! 

And now he turn'd him to that dark-eyed slave. 

Whose brow was bow'd beneath the glance he gave, 

Who now seem'd changed and humbled, faint and 

But varying oft the color of her cheek [meek, 

To deeper shades of paleness — all its red 

That fearful spot which stain'd it from the dead ! 

He took that hand — it trembled — now too late — 

So soft in love — so wildly nerved in hate ; 

He clasp'd that hand — it trembled — and his own 

Had lost its firmness, and his voice its tone. 

" Gulnare !" — but she replied not — " dear Gulnare !" 

She raised her eye — her only answer there — 

At once she sought and sunk in his embrace : 

If he had driven her from that resting-place. 

His had been more or less than mortal heart, — 

But — good or ill — it bade her not depart. 

Perchance, but for the bodings of his breast, 

His latest virtue then had join'd the rest. 

Yet even Medora might forgive the kiss 

That ask'd from form so fair no more than this, 

The first, the last that Frailty stole from Faith — 

To lips where Love had lavish'd all his breath, 

To lips — whose broken sighs such fragrance fling, 

As he had fann'd them freshly with his wing ! 

XVIII. 

They gain by twilight's hour their lonely isle. 
To them the very rocks appear to smile ; 
The haven hums with many a cheering sound, 
The beacons blaze their wonted stations round. 
The boats are darting o'er the curly bay. 
And sportive dolphins bend them through the spray ; 
Even the hoarse sea-bird's shrill, discordant shriek 
Greets like the welcome of his tuneless beak ! 
Beneath each lamp that through its lattice gleams, 
Their fancy paints the friends that trim the beams. 



you dislike, 'tis but a sponge and another midnight," — Lord 
Byrortr to Mr. Murray, Jan. 11, 1814. 



Canto III. 



THE CORSAIR. 



125 



Oh ! what can sanctify the joys of home, I 

Like Hope's gay glance from Ocean's troubled foam ? 

XIX. 

The lights are high on beacon and from bower, 

And 'midst them Conrad seeks Medora's tower : 

He looks in vain — 'tis strange — and all remark, 

Amid so many, hers alone is dark. 

'Tis strange — of yore its welcome never fail'd, 

Nor now, perchance, extinguish'd, only veil'd. 

With the first boat descends he for the shore. 

And looks impatient on the lingering oar. 

Oh ! for a wing beyond the falcon's flight, 

To bear him like an arrow to that height ! 

With the first pause the resting rowers gave. 

He waits not — looks not — leaps into the wave, 

Strives through the surge, bestrides the beach, and 

high 
Ascends the path familiar to his eye. 

He reach'd his turret door — he paused — no sound 
Broke from within ; and all was night around. 
He knock'd, and loudly — footstep nor reply 
Announced that any heard or deem'd him nigh ; 
He knock'd — but faintly — for his trembling hand 
Refused to aid his hea^^y heart's demand. 
The portal opens — 'tis a well-known face — 
But not the form he panted to embrace. 
Its lips are silent — twice his own essay'd. 
And fail'd to frame the question they delay'd ; 
He snatch'd the lamp — its light will answer all — 
It quits his grasp, expiring in the fall. 
He would not wait for tliat reviving ray — 
As soon could he have linger'd there for day ; 
But, glimmering through the dusky corridor. 
Another chequers o'er the shadow'd floor; 
His steps the chamber gain — his eyes behold 
All that his heart believed not— yet foretold ! 

XX. 

He turn'd not — spoke not — sunk not — fix'd his look, 

Aud set the anxious frame that lately shook : 

He gazed — how long we gaze despite of pain, 

And know, but dare not own, we gaze in vain ! 

In life itself she was so still and fair, 

That death with gentler a.spect wither'd there ; 

And the cold flowers ^ her colder hand contain'd, 

Jn that last grasp as tenderly were strain'd 

As if she scarcely felt, but feign'd a sleep, 

And made it almost mockery yet to weep : 

The long dark hishes fringed her lids of snow, 

And veil'd— thought shrinks from all that lurk'd 

below — 
Oh ! o'er the eye Death most exerts his might, 
An<l hurls the spirit from her throne of light; 
Sinks those blue orbs in that long last eclipse. 
But spares, as yet, the charm around her lips— 

1 In the Levant it is the custom to strew flowers on the 
bodies of the dead, and in the hands of young persons to 
place a nosegay. 



Yet, yet they seem as they forbore to smile, 
And wish'd repose — but only for a while ; 
But the white shroud, and each extended tress, 
Long — fair — but spread in utter lifelessness. 
Which, late the sport of every summer wind, 
Escaped the baffled wreath that strove to bind ; 
These — and the pale pure cheek, became the bier- 
But she is nothing — wherefore is he here ? 

XXL 

He ask'd no question — all were answer'd now 
By the first glance on that still — marble brow. 
It was enough — she died — what reck'd it how ? 
The love of youth, the hope of better years, 
The source of softest wishes, tendercst fears. 
The only living thing he could not hate, 
Was reft at once — and he deserved his fate, 
But did not feel it less ; — the good explore, 
For peace, those realms where guilt can never 

soar: 
The proud — the wayward — who have fix'd below 
Their joy, and find this earth enough for woe. 
Lose in that one their all — perchance a mite — 
But who in patience parts with all delight ? 
Full many a stoic eye and aspect stern 
Mask hearts where grief hath little left to learn ; 
And many a withering thought lies hid, not lost, 
In smiles that least befit who wear them most. 

XXII. 

By those, that deepest feel, is ill exprest 
The indistinctness of the sufiering breast ; 
Where thousand thoughts begin to end in one, 
Which seeks from all the refuge found in none ; 
No words suffice the secret soul to show. 
For Truth denies all eloquence to Woe. 
On Conrad's stricken soul exhaustion prest, 
And stupor almost lull'd it into rest; 
So feeble now — his mother's softness crept 
To those wild eyes, which like an infant's wept : 
It was the very weakness of his brain. 
Which thus confess'd without relieving pain. 
None saw his trickling tears — perchance, if seen, 
That useless flood of grief had never been : 
Nor long they flow'd — he dried them to depart, 
In helpless — hopeless — brokenness of heart : 
The sun goes forth — but Conrad's day is dim ; 
And the night cometh — ne'er to pass from him. 
There is no darkness like the cloud of mind. 
On Grief's vain eye — the blindest of the blind ! 
Which may not — dare not see — but turns aside 
To blackest shade — nor will endure a guide ! 

XXIII. 

His heart was form'd for softness — warp'd to 

wrong ; ^ 
Betray'd too early, and beguiled too long ; 

« These sixteen hnes are not in the original MS. 



126 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Canto III. 



Each feeling pure — as falls the dropping dew 

Within the grot; like that had harden'd too ; 

Less clear, perchance, its earthly trials pass'd, 

But sunk, and chilPd, and petrified at last. 

Yet tempests wear, and lightning cleaves the rock, 

If such his heart, so shatter'd it the shock. 

There grew one flower beneath its rugged brow. 

Though dark the shade — it shelter'd — saved till now. 

The thunder came — that bolt hath blasted both, 

The Granite's firmness, and the Lily's growth : 

The gentle plant hath left no leaf to tell 

Its tale, but shrunk and wither'd where it fell ; 

And of its cold protector, blacken round 

But shiver'd fragments on the barren ground ! 

XXIV. 

'Tis morn — to venture on his lonely hour 

Few dare ; though now Anselmo sought his tower. 



1 That the point of honor which is represented in one in- 
stance of Conrad's character has not been carried beyond the 
bounds of probability, may perhaps be in some degree con- 
firmed by the following anecdote of a brother buccaneer in 
the year 1814: — "Our readers have all seen the account of 
the enterprise against the pirates of Barrataria ; but few, we 
believe, were informed of the situation, history, or nature of 
that establishment. For the information of such as were un- 
acquainted with it, we have procured from a friend the fol- 
lowing interesting narrative of the main facts, of which he 
has personal knowledge, and which cannot fail to interest 
some of our readers. Barrataria is a bay, or a narrow arm 
of the Gulf of Mexico ; it runs through a rich but very flat 
country, until it reaches within a mile of the Mississippi river, 
fifteen miles below the city of New Orleans. The bay has 
branches almost innumerable, in which persons can lie con- 
cealed from the severest scrutiny. It communicates with 
three lakes which lie on the southwest side, and these, with 
the lake of the same name, and which lies contiguous to the 
sea, where there is an island formed by the two arms of this 
lake and the sea. The east and west points of this island 
were fortified, in the year 1811, by a band of pirates, under 
the command of one Monsieur La Fitte. A large majority 
of these outlaws are of that class of the population of the 
State of Louisiana who fled from the island of St. Domingo 
during the troubles there, and took refuge in the island of 
Cuba; and when the last war between France and Spain 
commenced, they were compelled to leave that island with 
the short notice of a few days. Without ceremony, they 
entered the United States, the most of them the State of Lou- 
isiana, with all the negroes they had possessed in Cuba. 
They were notified by the governor of that State of the clause 
in the constitution which forbade the importation of slaves ; 
but, at the same time, received the assurance of the governor 
that he would obtain, if possible, the approbation of the gen- 
eral government for their retaining this property. The 
island of Barrataria is situated about lat. 29 deg. 15 min.. Ion. 
92,30 ; and is as remarkable for its health as for the superior 
scale and shell fish with which its waters abound. The chief 
of this horde, like Charles de Moor, had mixed with his many 
vices some virtues. In the year 1813, this party had, from its 
turpitude and boldness, claimed the attention of the governor 
of Louisiana ; and to break up the establishment, he thought 
proper to strike at the head. He therefore offered a reward 
of $500 for the head of Monsieur La Fitte, who was well 
known to the inhabitants of the city of New Orleans, from 
his immediate connection, and his once having been a fencing- 
master in that city of great reputation, which art he learnt 
In Buonaparte's army, where he was a captain. The reward 



He was not there — nor seen along the shore ; 
Ere night, alarm'd, their isle is traversed o'er : 
Another morn — another bids them seek, 
And shout his name till echo waxeth weak ; 
Mount — grotto— cavern — valley search'd in vain, 
They find on shore a sea-boat's broken chain : 
Their hope revives — they follow o'er the main. 
'Tis idle all — moons roll on moons away. 
And Conrad comes not — came not since that day : 
Nor trace, nor tidings of his doom declare 
Where lives his grief, or perish'd his despair ! 
Long mourn'd his band whom none could mo 

beside ; 
And fair the monument they gave his bride : 
For him they raise not the recording stone — 
His death yet dubious, deeds too widely known ; 
He left a Corsair's name to other times, 
Link'd with one virtue,^ and a thousand crimes.^ 



which was offered by the governor for the head of La Fitte 
was answered by the offer of a reward from the latter of 
$15,000 for the head of the governor. The governor ordered 
out a company to march from the city to La Fitte's island, 
and to burn and destroy all the property, and to bring to the 
city of New Orleans all his banditti. This company, under 
the command of a man who had been the intimate associate 
of this bold captain, approached very near to the fortified 
island, before he saw a man, or heard a sound, until he heard 
a whistle, not unlike a boatswain's call. Then it was he 
found himself surrounded by armed men who had emerged 
from the secret avenues which led into Bayou. Here it was 
that the modern Charles de Moor developed his few noble 
traits ; for to this man who had come to destroy his life and 
all that was dear to him, he not only spared his life, but 
offered him that which would have made the honest soldier 
easy for the remainder of his days ; which was indignantly 
refused. He then, with the approbation of his captor, re- 
turned to the city. This circumstance, and some concomitant 
events, proved that this band of pirates was not to be taken 
by land. Our naval force having always been small in that 
quarter, exertions for the destruction of this illicit establish- 
ment could not be expected from them until augmented ; for 
an oflS.cer of the navy, with most of the gunboats on that 
station, had to retreat from an overwhelming force of La 
Fitte's. So soon as the augmentation of the navy author- 
ized an attack, one was made ; the overthrow of this banditti 
has been the result ; and now this almost invulnerable point 
and key to New Orleans is clear of an enemy, it is to be 
hoped the government will hold it by a strong military 
- force." — American Newspaper. 

In Noble's continuation of Granger's Biographical History 
there is a singular passage in his account of Archbishop 
Blackbourne; and as in some measure connected with the 
profession of the hero of the foregoing poem, I cannot resist 
the temptation of extracting it. " There is something mys- 
terious in the history and character of Dr. Blackbourne. 
The former is but imperfectly known ; and report has even 
asserted he was a buccaneer ; and that one of his brethren in 
that profession having asked, on his arrival in England, what 
had become of his old chum, Blackbourne, was answered, He 
is Archbishop of York. We are informed, that Blackbourne 
was installed sub-dean of Exeter in 1694, which office he re- 
signed in 1702 ; but after his successor Lewis Barnet's death, 
in 1704, he regained it. In the following year he became 
dean, and in 1714, held with it the archdeanery of Cornwall. 
He was consecrated bishop of Exeter, February 24, 1716 ; and 
translated to York, November 28, 1724, as a reward, accord- 
ing to court scandal, for uniting George I. to the Duchess of 



Canto III. 



THE COKSAIK. 



127 



Muuster. This, however, appears to have been an unfounded 
calumny. As archbishop he behaved with great prudence, 
and was equally respectable as the guardian of the revenues 
of the see. Rumor whispered he retained the vices of his 
youth, and that a passion for the fair sex formed an item in 
the list of his weaknesses ; but so far from being convicted 
by seventy witnesses, he does not appear to have been di- 
rectly criminated by one. In short, I look upon these asper- 
sions as the effects of mere malice. How is it possible a 
buccaneer should have been so good a scholar as Blackbourne 
certainly was? He who had so jierfoct a knowledge of the 
classics (particularly of the Greek tragedians), as to be able 
to read them with the same ease as he could Shakspeare, 
must have taken great pains to acquire the learned languages ; 
and have had both leisure and good masters. But he was 
undoubtedly educated at Christ Church College, Oxford. He 
is allowed to have been a pleasant man ; this, however, was 
turned against him by its being said, ' he gained more hearts 
than souls.' " 

" The only voice that could soothe the passions of the sav- 
age ( Alphonso III.) was that of an amiable and virtuous wife, 
the sole object of his love; the voice of Donna Isabella, the 
daughter of the Duke of Savoy, and the granddaughter of 
Philip II., King of Spain. Her dying words sunk deep into 
his memory; his fierce spirit melted into tears; and after the 
lai^t embrace, Alphonso retired into his chamber to bewail his 



irreparable loss, and to meditate on the vanity of human 
life." — Gibbon's Miscellaneotis Works, vol. iii. p. 473. 

3 " In * The Corsair,' Lord Byron first felt himself at full 
liberty ; and then all at once he shows the unbroken stream 
of his native eloquence, of rapid narrative, of vigorous and 
intense, yet unforced imagery, sentiment, and thought; of 
extraordinary elasticity, transparency, purity, ease, and har- 
mony of language ; of an arrangement of words, never trite, 
yet always simple and flowing ;— in such a perfect expression 
of ideas, always impressive, generally pointed, frequently pas- 
sionate, and often new, that it is perspicuity itself, with not a 
superfluous word, and not a word out of its natural place."— 
Sir E. Brydges. "'The Corsair' is written in the regular 
heroic couplet, with a spirit, freedom, and variety of tone, of 
which, notwithstanding the example of Dryden, we scarcely 
believed that measure susceptible. It was yet to be proved 
that this, the most ponderous and stately verse in our lan- 
guage, could be accommodated to the variations of a tale of 
passion and of pity, and to all the breaks, starts, and transi- 
tions of an adventurous and dramatic narration. This experi- 
ment Lord Byron has made, with equal boldness and success ; 
and has satisfied us, that the oldest and most respectable 
measure that is known amongst us, is at least as flexible as 
any other, and capable, in the hands of a master, of vibra- 
tions as strong and rapid as those of a lighter structure." — 
Jeffrey. 



Eata: 



A TALE. 



ILara, 



CANTO THE FIRST. 



The Serfs 2 are glad through Lara's wide domain, 
And Slavery half forgets her feudal chain ; 
He, their unhoped, but unforgotten lord, 
The long self-exiled chieftain, is restored : 
There be bright faces in the busy hall. 
Bowls on the board, and banners on the wall ; 
Far checkering o'er the pictured window, plays 
The unwonted fagots' hospitable blaze ; 

1 A few days after lie had put the finishing hand to the 
" Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte," Lord Byron adopted the most 
extraordinary resolution that, perhaps, ever entered into the 
mind of an author of any celebrity. Annoyed at the tone of 
disparagement in which his assailants — not content with 
blackening his moral and social character — now affected to 
speak of his genius, and somewhat mortified, there is reason 
to believe, by finding that his own friends dreaded the eflfects 
of constant publication on his ultimate fame, he came to the 
determination, not only to print no more in future, but to pur- 
chase back the whole of his past copyrights, and suppress 
every line he had ever written. "With this view, on the 29th 
of April, he actually enclosed his publisher a draft for the 
money. " For all this," he said, " it might be as well to assign 
some reason : I have none to give, except my own caprice, 
and I do not consider the circumstance of consequence 
enough to require explanation." An appeal, however, from 
Mr. Murray, to his good-nature and con'^-ideratencss, brought, 
in eight and forty hours, the following reply:— "If your 
present note is serious, and it really would be inconvenient, 
there is an end of the matter: tear my draft, and go on as 
usual : that I was perfectly serious, in wishing to suppress all 
future publication, is true ; but certainly not to interfere with 
the convenience of others, and more particularly your own." 

The following passages in his Diary depict the state of 
Lord Byron's mind at this period : — " Murray h as had a letter 
from his brother bibliopole of Edinburgh, who says, 'he is 
lucky in having such a poet' — something as if one was a 
pack-horse, or 'ass, or anything that is his;' or like Mrs. 
Packwood, who replied to some inquiry after the Odes on 
Razors, ' Laws, sir, we keeps a poet.' The same illustrious 
Edinburgh bookseller once sent an order for books, poesy, 
and cookery, with this agreeable postscript— ' The Harold 
and Cookery are much wanted.' Such is fame ! and, after till, 
quite as good as any other ' life in others' breath.' 'Tis much 
the same to divide purchasers with Hannah Glasse or Han- 
nah More."—" March 17th, Redde the ' Quarrels of Authors,' 
a new work by that most entertaining and researching 
writer, Disraeli. They seem to be an irritable set, and I 
(128) 



And gay retainers gather round the hearth, 

With tongues all loudness, and with eyes all mirth. 

II. 
The chief of Lara is return'd again : 
And why had Lara cross'd the bounding main ? 
Left by his sire, too young such loss to know, 
Lord of himself, — that heritage of woe, 
That fearful empire which the human breast 
But holds to rob the heart within of rest ! — 
With none to check, and few to point in time 
The thousand paths that slope the way to crime ; 
Then, when he most required commandment, 

then 
Had Lara's daring boyhood govern'd men. 

wish .myself well out of it. 'I'll not march through Coven- 
try with them, that's flat.' What the devil had I to do with 
the scribbling? It is too late to inquire, and all regret is 
useless. But an it were to do again— I should write again, I 
suppose. Such is human nature, at least my share of it ;— 
though I shall think better of myself if I have sense to stop 
now. If I have a wife, and that wife has a son, I will bring 
up mine heir in the most anti-poetical way — make him a 
lawyer, or pirate, or anything. But if he writes, too, I shall 
be sure he is none of mine, and will cut him off with a Bank 
token."—" April 19. I will keep no further journal ; and, to 
prevent me from returning, like a dog, to the vomit of mem- 
ory, I tear out the remaining leaves of this volume. ' Oh. 
fool ! I shall go mad.' " 

These extracts are from the Diary of March and April, 1814. 
Before the end of May he had begun the composition of 
" Lara," which has been almost universally considered as the 
continuation of " The Corsair." This poem was published 
anonymously in the following August, in the same volume 
with Mr. Eogers's elegant tale of " Jacqueline ;" an unnatural 
and unintelligible conjunction, which, however, gave rise to 
some pretty good jokes. " I believe," says Lord Byron, in 
one of his letters, " I told you of Larry and Jacquy. A friend 
of mine — at least a friend of his — was reading said Larry 
and Jacquy in a Brighton coach. A passenger took up the 
book and queried as to the author. The proprietor said, 
' there were iwo ;' — to which the answer of the unknown was, 
' Ay, ay, — a joint concern, I suppose, summot like Sternhold 
and Hopkins.' Is not this excellent? I would not have 
missed the 'vile comparison' to have escaped being the 'Ar- 
cades ambo et cantare pares.' " 

2 The reader is apprised, that the name of Lara being 
Spanish, and no circumstance of local and natural description 
fixing the scene or hero of the poem to any country or age, 
the word " Serf," which could not be correctly applied to the 
lower classes in Spain, who were never vassals of the soil, 
has nevertheless been employed to designate the followers of 
our fictitious chieftain. — Lord Byron elsewhere intimates 
that he meant Lara for a chief of the Morea. 



Canto I. 



LARA. 



129 



It skills not, boots not step by step to trace 
His youth through all the mazes of its race; 
Short was the course his restlessness had run, 
But long enough to leave him half undone.^ 

III. 

And Lara left in youth his father-land ; 
But from the hour he waved his parting hand, 
Each trace wax'd fainter of his course, till all 
Had nearly ceased his memory to recall. 
His sire was dust, his vassals could declare, 
'Twas all they knew, that Lara was not there ; 
Nor sent, nor came he, till conjecture grew 
Cold in the many, anxious in the few. 
His hall scarce echoes with his wonted name, 
His portrait darkens in its fading frame. 
Another chief consoled his destined bride, 
The young forgot him, and the old had died ; 
" Yet doth he live !" exclaims the impatient heir. 
And sighs for sables which he must not wear. 
A hundred scutcheons deck with gloomy grace 
The Laras' last and longest dwelling-place; 
But one is absent from the mouldering file. 
That now were welcome in that Gothic pile. 

IV. 
He comes at last in sudden loneliness. 
And whence they know not, why they need not 

guess; 
They more might marvel, when the greeting's o'er. 
Not that he came, but came not long before : 
No train is his beyond a single page. 
Of foreign aspect, and of tender age. 
Years had roll'd on, and fast they speed away 
To those that wander as to those that stay ; 
But lack of tidings from another clime 
Had lent a flagging r^ing to weary Time. 
They see, they recognize, yet almost deem 
The present dubious, or the past a dream. 



1 " Lord Byron's own tale is partly told in this section."— 
Sir Walter Scott. 

« " It is a remarkable property of the poetry of Lord Byron 
that although his manner is frequently varied,— although he 
appears to have assumed for an occasion the characteristic 
stanza and style of several contemporaries, — yet not only is 
his poetry marked in every instance by the strongest cast of 
originality, but in some leading particulars, and especially in 
the character of his heroes, each story so closely resembled 
the other, that, managed by a writer of less power, the effect 
would have been an unpleasant monotony. All, or almost 
all, his heroes have somewhat the attributes of Childe Har- 
old: — all, or almost all, have minds which seem at variance 
with their fortunes, and exhibit high and poignant feelings 
of pain and pleasure ; a keen sense of what is noble and hon- 
orable; and an equally keen 8u«ceptibility of injustice or 
injury, under the garb of stoicism or contempt of mankind. 
The strength of early passion, and the glow of youthful feel- 
ing, are uniformly paintod as chilled or subdued by a train 
of early imprudences or of darker guilt, and the sense of 
enjoyment tarnished, by too intimate an acquaintance with 
the vanity of human wishes. These general attributes mark 



He lives, nor yet is past his manhood's prime. 
Though sear'd by toil, and something touch'd by 

time ; 
His faults, whate'er they were, if scarce forgot. 
Might be untaught him by his varied lot ; 
Nor good nor ill of late were known, his name 
Might yet uphold his patrimonial fame ; 
His soul in youth was haughty, but his sins 
No more than pleasure from the stripling wins ; 
And such, if not yet harden'd in their course. 
Might be redeem'd, nor ask a long remorse. 



And they indeed were changed — 'tis quickly seen, 
Whate'er he be, 'twas not what he had been : 
That brow in furrow'd lines had fix'd at last. 
And spake of passions, but of passion past : 
The pride, but not the fire, of early days. 
Coldness of mien, and ca^relessness of praise ; 
A high demeanor, and a glance that took 
Their thoughts from others by a single look ; 
And that sarcastic levity of tongue. 
The stinging of a heart the world hath stung,^ 
That darts in seeming playfulness around. 
And makes those feel that will not own the wound 
All these seem'd his, and something more beneath 
Than glance could well reveal, or accent breathe. 
Ambition, glory, love, the common aim, 
That some can conquer, and that all would claim, 
Within his breast appear'd no more to strive. 
Yet seem'd as lately they had been alive ; 
And some deep feeling it were vain to trace 
At moments lighten'd o'er his livid face. 

VI. 

Not much he loved long question of the past, 
Nor told of wondrous wilds^ and deserts vast^ 
In those far lands where he had wander'd lone. 
And — as himself would have it seem — unknown ; 



the stern features of all Lord Byron's heroes, from those 
which are shaded by the scalloped hat of the illustrious Pil- 
grim, to those which lurk under the turban of ; Alp the Ken- 
egade. It was reserved to him to present the same character 
on the public stage again and again, varied only by the exer- 
tions of that powerful genius which, searching the springs of 
passion and of feeling in their innermost recesses, knew how 
to combine their operations, so tliat the interest was eter- 
nally varying, and never abated, although the most import- 
ant personage of the drama retained the same lineaments. 
It will one day be considered as not the least remarkable lit- 
erary phenomenon of this age, that during a period of four 
years, notwithstanding the quantity of distinguished poet- 
ical talent of which we may be permitted to boast, a single 
author— and he managing his pen with the careless and neg- 
ligent ease of a man of quality, and choosing for his theme 
subjects 80 very similar, and personages bearing so close a 
resemblance to each other— did, in despite of tliese circum- 
stances, of the unamiable attributes with which he usually 
invested his heroes, and of the proverbial fickleness of the 
])ublic, maintain the ascendency in their favor which he had 
acquired by his first matured production. So, however, it 
indisputably has been."— Sir Walter Scott. 



130 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Canto I. 



Yet these in vain his eye could scarcely scan, 
Nor glean experience from his fellow man ; 
But what he had beheld he shunn'd to show, 
As hardly worth a stranger's care to know ; 
If still more prying such inquiry grew, 
His brow fell darker, and his words more few. 

VII. 

Not unrejoiced to see him once again. 
Warm was his welcome to the haunts of men ; 
Born of high lineage, link'd in high command, 
He mingled with the magnates of his land ; 
Join'd the carousals of the great and gay, 
And saw them smile or sigh their hours away ; i 
But still he only saw, and did not share. 
The common pleasure or the general care ; 
He did not follow what they all pursued. 
With hope still baffled, still to be renew'd ; 
Nor shadowy honor, nor substantial gain. 
Nor beauty's preference, and the rival's pain : 
Around him some mysterious circle thrown 
Repell'd approach, and show'd him still alone ; 
Upon his eye sat something of reproof. 
That kept at least frivolity aloof; 
And things more timid that beheld him near, 
In silence gazed, or whisper'd mutual fear ; 
And they the wiser, friendlier few confess'd 
They deem'd him better than his air express'd. 

VIII. 

'Twas strange— in youth all action and all life, 
Burning for pleasure, not averse from strife ; 
Woman — the field — the ocean — all that gave 
Promise of gladness, peril of a grave. 
In turn he tried — he ransack'd all below, 
And found his recompense in joy or woe. 
No tame, trite medium ; for his feelings sought 
In that intenseness an escape from thought : 
The tempest of his heart in scorn had gazed 
On that the feebler elements had raised ; 
The rapture of his heart had look'd on high, 
And ask'd if greater dwelt beyond the sky : 
Chain'd to excess, the slave of each extreme. 
How woke he from the wildness of that dream ? 
Alas ! he told not — but he did awake 
To curse the wither'd heart that would not break. 

IX. 

Books, for his volume heretofore was Man, 

With eye more curious he appear'd to scan, 

And oft, in sudden mood, for many a day. 

From all communion he would start away : 

And then, his rarely call'd attendants said, [tread 

Through night's long hours would sound his hurried 

O'er the dark gallery, where his fathers frown'd 

In rude but antique portraiture around : 



1 "This description of Lara, suddenly and unexpectedly 
i-oturned from distant travels, and reassuming his station in 
the society of his own country, has strong points of resem- 



They heard, but whisper'd — ^Hhat must not be 

known — 
The sound of words less earthly than his own. 
Yes, they who chose might smile, but some had seen 
They scarce knew what, but more than should have 

been. 
Why gazed he so upon the ghastly head 
Which hands profane had gather'd from the dead. 
That still beside his open'd volume lay, 
As if to startle all save him away ? 
Why slept he not when others were at rest ? 
Why heard no music, and received no guest ? 
All was not well, they deem'd — but where the wrong ? 
Some knew perchance — but 'twere a tale too long ; 
And such besides were too discreetly wise, 
To more than hint their knowledge in surmise ; 
But if they would — they could " — around the board 
Thus Lara's vassals prattled of their lord. 

X. 

It was the night — and Lara's glassy stream 

The stars are studding, each with imaged beam ; 

So calm, the waters scarcely seem to stray, 

And yet they glide like happiness away ; 

Reflecting far and fairy-like from high 

The immortal lights that live along the sky : 

Its banks are fringed with many a goodly tree, 

And flowers the fairest that may feast the bee ; 

Such in her chaplet infant Dian wove, 

And Innocence would offer to her love. 

These deck the shore ; the waves their channel make 

In windings bright and mazy like the snake. 

All was so still, so soft in earth and air, 

You scarce would start to meet a spirit there ; 

Secure that nought of evil could delight 

To walk in such a scene, on such a night ! 

It was a moment only for the good : 

So Lara deem'd, nor longer there he stood, 

But turn'd in silence to his castle gate ; 

Such scene his soul no more could contemplate ; 

Such scene reminded him of other days. 

Of skies more cloudless, moons of purer blaze, 

Of nights more soft and frequent, hearts that now — 

No — no — the storm may beat upon his brow, 

Unfelt — unsparing — but a night like this, 

A night of beauty, mock'd such breast as his. 

XL 

He turn'd within his solitary hall. 
And his high shadow shot along the wall : 
There were the painted forms of other times, 
'Twas all they left of virtues or of crimes, 
Save vague tradition ; and the gloomy vaults 
That hid their dust, their foibles, and their faults ; 
And half a column of the pompous page. 
That speeds the specious tale from age to age ; 



blance to the part which the author himself seemed occa- 
sionally to bear amid the scenes where the great mingle with 
the fair."— Sir Walter Scott. 



Canto I. 



LARA. 



131 



Where historj^'s pen its praise or blame supplies, 
And lies like tx-uth, and still most truly lies. 
He wandering mused, and as the moonbeam shone 
Through the dim lattice o'er the floor of stone, 
And the high fretted roof, and saints, that there 
O'er Gothic windows knelt in pictured prayer, 
Reflected in fantastic figures grew, 
Like life, but not like mortal life, to view : 
His bristling locks of sable, brow of gloom, 
And the wide waving of his shaken plume, 
Glanced like a spectre's attributes, and gave 
His aspect all that terror gives the grave. 

XII. 

'Twas midnight — all was slumber; the lone light 
Dimm'd in the lamp, as loth to break the night. 
Hark ! there be murmurs heard in Lara's hall — 
A sound — a voice — a shriek — a fearful call ! 
A long, loud shriek — and silence — did they hear 
That frantic echo burst the sleeping ear ? 
They heard and rose, and, tremulously brave, 
Rush where the sound invoked their aid to save ; 
They come with half-lit tapers in their hands. 
And snatch'd in startled haste unbelted brands. 

XIII. 

Cold as the marble where his length was laid. 

Pale as the beam that o'er his features play'd. 

Was Lara stretch'd ; his half-drawn sabre near, 

Dropp'd it should seem in more than nature's fear ; 

Yet he was firm, or had been firm till now. 

And still defiance knit his gather'd brow; 

Though mix'd with terror, senseless as he lay. 

There lived upon his lip the wish to slay ; 

Some half-form'd threat in utterance there had died. 

Some imprecation of despairing pride ; 

His eye was almost seal'd, but not forsook. 

Even in its trance, the gladiator's look. 

That oft awake his aspect could disclose. 

And now was fix'd in horrible repose. [speaks. 

They raise him — bear him : — hush ! he breathes, he 

The swarthy blush recolors in his cheeks. 

His lip resumes its red, his eye, though dim, 

Rolls wide and wild, each slowly quivering limb 

Reoalls its function, but his words are strung 

In terms that seem not of his native tongue ; 

Distinct but strange, enough they understand 

To deem them accents of another land ; 

And such they were, and meant to meet an ear 

That hears him not — alas ! that cannot hear ! 

XIV. 
His page approach'd, and he alone appear'd 
To know the import of the words they heard ; 
And, by the changes of his cheek and brow. 
They were not such a.s Lara should avow, 
'or he interpret, — yet with less surprise 
Than those around their chieftain's state he eyes, 
But Lara's prostrate form he bent beside. 
And in that tongue which seem'd his own replied ; 



And Lara heeds those tones that gently seem 
To soothe away the horrors of his dream — 
If dream it were that thus could overthrow 
A breast that needed not ideal woe. 

XV. 

Whate'er his frenzy dream'd or eye beheld, 
If yet remember'd ne'er to be reveal'd. 
Rests at his heart : the custom'd morning came, 
And breathed new vigor in his shaken frame ; 
And solace sought he none from priest nor leech, 
And soon the same in movement and in speech. 
As heretofoi'e he fill'd the passing hours, 
Nor less he smiles, nor more his forehead lowers. 
Than these were wont ; and if the coming night 
Appear'd less welcome now to Lara's sight. 
He to his marvelling vassals show'd it not. 
Whose shuddering proved their fear was less forgot. 
In trembling pairs (alone they dared not) crawl 
The astonish'd slaves, and shun the fated hall : 
The waving banner, and the clapping door. 
The rustling tapestry, and the echoing floor ; 
The long dim shadows of surrounding trees. 
The flapping bat, the night song of the breeze ; 
Aught they behold or hear their thought appalls, 
As evening saddens o'er the dark gray walls. 

XVI. 

Vain thought ! that hour of ne'er unravell'd gloom 

Came not again, or Lara could assume 

A seeming of forgetfulness, that made 

His vassals more amazed nor less afraid. 

Had memory vanish'd then with sense restored ? 

Since word, nor look, nor gesture of their lord 

Betray'd a feeling that recall'd to these 

That fever'd moment of his mind's disease. 

Was it a dream ? was his the voice that spoke 

Those strange wild accents ; his the cry that broke 

Their slumber ? his the oppress'd, o'erlabor'd heart 

That ceased to beat, the look that made them start? 

Could he who thus had suffer'd so forget. 

When such as saw that sufiering shudder yet ? 

Or did that silence prove his memory fix'd 

Too deep for words, indelible, unmix'd 

In that corroding secrecy which gnaws 

The heart to show the efiect, but not the cause ? 

Not so in him ; his breast had buried both. 

Nor common gazers could discern the growth 

Of thoughts that mortal lips must leave half told ; 

They choke the feeble words that would unfold. 

XVII. 
In him inexplicably mix'd appear'd 
Much to be loved and hated, sought and fear'd ; 
Opinion varying o'er his hidden lot. 
In praise or railing ne'er his name forgot : 
His silence form'd a theme for others' prate — [fate. 
They guess'd — they gazed — they fain would know his 
What had he been? what was he, thus unknown, 
Who walk'd their world, his lineage only known? 



132 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Canto I. 



A hater of his kind ? yet some would say, 

With them he could seem gay amidst the gay ; 

But own'd that smile, if oft observed and near. 

Waned in its mirth, and wither'd to a sneer ; 

That smile might reach his lip, but pass'd not by, 

None e'er could trace its laughter to his eye ; 

Yet there was softness too in his regard, 

At times, a heart as not by nature hard. 

But once perceived, his spirit seem'd to chide 

Such weakness, as unworthy of its pride, 

And steel'd itself, as scorning to redeem 

One doubt from others' half withheld esteem ; 

In self-inflicted penance of a breast 

Which tenderness might once have wrung from rest ; 

In vigilance of grief that would compel 

The soul to hate for having loved too well. 

XVIII. 

There was in him a vital scorn of all : 

As if the worst had fall'n which could befall, 

He stood a stranger in this breathing world, 

An erring spirit from another hurl'd ; 

A thing of dark imaginings, that shaped 

By choice the perils he by chance escaped ; 

But 'scaped in vain, for in their memory yet 

His mind would half exult and half regret : 

With more capacity for love than earth 

Bestows on most of mortal mould and birth, 

His early dreams of good outstripp'd the truth, 

And troubled manhood foUow'd baffled youth ; 

With thought of years in phantom chase misspent. 

And wasted powers for better purpose lent ; 

And fiery passions that had pour'd their wrath 

In hurried desolation o'er his path. 

And left the better feelings all at strife 

In wild reflection o'er his stormy life ; 

But haughty still, and loth himself to blame, 

He call'd on Nature's self to share the shame, 

And charged all faults upon the fleshy form 

She gave to clog the soul, and feast the worm ; 

Till he at last confounded good and ill. 

And half mistook for fate the acts of will : 

Too high for common selfishness, he could 

At times resign his own for others' good, 

But not in pity, not because he ought. 

But in some strange perversity of thought. 

That sway'd him onward with a secret pride 

To do what few or none would do beside ; 

And this same impulse would, in tempting time. 

Mislead his spirit equally to crime ; 

So much he soar'd beyond, or sunk beneath, 

The men with whom he felt condemn'd to breathe. 

And long'd by good or ill to separate 

Himself from all who shared his mortal state ; 

His mind abhorring this, had fix'd her throne 

Far from the world, in regions of her own : 

Thus coldly passing all that pass'd below. 

His blood in temperate seeming now would flow : 

Ah ! happier if it ne'er with guilt had glow'd. 

But ever in that icy smoothness flow'd ! 



'Tis true, with other men their path he walk'd. 
And like the rest in seeming did and talk'd. 
Nor outraged Eeason's rules by flaw nor start, 
His madness was not of the head, but heart ; 
And rarely wander'd in his speech, or drew 
His thoughts so forth as to offend the view. 

XIX. 

With all that chilling mystery of mien. 
And seeming gladness to remain unseen, 
He had (if 'twere not nature's boon) an art 
Of fixing memory on another's heart : 
It was not love perchance — nor hate — nor aught 
That words can image to express the thought ; 
But they who saw him did not see in vain, 
And once beheld, would ask of him again : 
And those to whom he spake remember'd well. 
And on the words, however light, would dwell : 
None knew nor how, nor why, but he entwined 
Himself perforce around the hearer's mind ; 
There he was stamp'd, in liking, or in hate, 
If greeted once ; however brief the date 
That friendship, pity, or aversion knew, 
Still there within the inmost thought he grew. 
You could not penetrate his soul, but found, 
Despite your wonder, to your own he wound ; 
His presence haunted still ; and from the breast 
He forced an all unwilling interest : 
Vain was the struggle in that mental net, 
His spirit seem'd to dare you to forget. 

XX. 

There is a festival, where knights and dames, 
And aught that wealth or lofty lineage claims, 
Appear — a high-born and a welcome guest 
To Otho's hall came Lara with the rest. 
The long carousal shakes the illumined hall. 
Well speeds alike the banquet and the ball ; 
And the gay dance of bounding Beauty's train 
Links grace and harmony in happiest chain : 
Blest are the early hearts and gentle hands 
That mingle there in well-according bands ; 
It is a sight the careful brow might smooth, 
And make Age smile, and dream itself to youth, 
And Youth forget such hour was j)ast on earth, 
So springs the exulting bosom to that mirth ! 

XXI. 

And Lara gazed on these, sedately glad, 
His brow belied him if his soul was sad ; 
And his glance follow'd fast each fluttering fair, 
Whose steps of lightness woke no echo there : 
He lean'd against the lofty pillar nigh, 
With folded arms and long attentive eye, 
Nor mark'd a glance so sternly fix'd on his — 
111 brook'd high Lara scrutiny like this : 
At length he caught it — 'tis a face unknown. 
But seems as searching his, and his alone ; 
Prying and dark, a stranger's by his mien. 
Who still till now had gazed on him unseen : 



Canto I. 



LAKA. 



133 



At length encountering meets the mutual gaze 

Of keen inquiry, and of mute amaze ; 

On Lara's glance emotion gathering grew, 

As if distrusting that the stranger threw ; 

Along the stranger's aspect, fix'd and stern, 

Flash'd more than thence the vulgar eye could learn. 

XXII. 
" 'Tis he !" the stranger cried, and those that heard 
Re-echo'd fast and far the whisper'd word, 
" 'Tis he !" — " 'Tis who?" they question far and near. 
Till louder accents rung on Lara's ear ; 
So widely spread, few bosoms well could brook 
The general marvel, or that single look : 
But Lara stirr'd not, changed not, the surprise 
That sprung at first to his arrested eyes 
Seem'd now subsided, neither sunk nor raised 
Glanced his eye round, though still the stranger gazed ; 
And drawing nigh, exclaim'd, with haughty sneer, 
" 'Tis he ! — how came he thence ? — what doth he 
here ?" 

XXIII. 
It were too much for Lara to pass by 
Such questions, so repeated fierce and high ; 
"With look collected, but with accent cold, 
More mildly firm than petulantly bold, 
He turn'd, and met the inquisitorial tone — 
" My name is Lara ! — when thine own is known, 
Doubt not my fitting answer to requite 
The unlook'd for courtesy of such a knight. 
'Tis Lara ! — farther wouldst thou mark or ask ? 
I shun no question, and I wear no mask." 

" Thou shunn'st no question ! Ponder — is there none 
Thy heart must answer, though thine ear would shun ? 
And deem'st thou me unknown too ? Gaze again ! 
At least thy memoiy was not given in vain. 
Oh ! never canst thou cancel half her debt, 
Eternity forbids thee to forget." 
With slow and searching glance upon his face 
Grew Lara's eyes, but nothing there could trace 
They knew, or chose to know — with dubious look 
He deign'd no answer, but his head he shook. 
And lialf contemptuous turn'd to pass away ; 
But the stern stranger motion'd him to stay. 
" A word ! — I charge thee stay, and answer here 
To one, who, wert thou noble, were thy peer. 
But as thou wast and art — nay, frown not, lord, 
If false, 'tis easy to disprove the word — 
But us thou wast and art, on thee looks down, 
Distrusts thy smiles, but shakes not at thy frown. 

Art thou not he ? whose deeds " 

" Whate'er I be. 
Words wild as these, accusers like to thee, 
I list no further ; those with whom they weigh 
May hear the rest, nor venture to gainsay 
The wondrous tale no doubt thy tongue can tell, 
Which thus begins so courteously and well. 
Let Otho cherish here his polish'd guest, 
To him my thanks and thoughts shall be express'd." 



And here their wondering host hath interposed — 
" Whate'er there be between you undisclosed. 
This is no time nor fitting place to mar 
The mirthful meeting with a wordy war. 
If thou. Sir Ezzelin, hast aught to show 
Which it befits Count Lara's ear to know, 
To-morrow, here, or elsewhere, as may best 
Beseem your mutual judgment, speak the rest ; 
I pledge myself for thee, as not unknown. 
Though, like- Count Lara, now return'd alone 
From other lands, almost a stranger grown ; 
And if from Lara's blood and gentle birth 
I augur right of courage and of worth. 
He will not that untainted line belie, 
Nor aught that knighthood may accord, deny." 

" To-morrow be it," Ezzelin replied, 

" And here our several worth and truth be tried : 

I gage my life, my falchion to attest 

My words, so may I mingle with the blest !" 

What answers Lara ? to its centre shrunk 

His soul, in deep abstraction sudden sunk ; 

The words of many, and the eyes of all 

That there were gather'd, seem'd on him to fall ; 

But his were silent, his appear'd to stray 

In far forgetfulness away — away — 

Alas ! that heedlessness of all around 

Bespoke remembrance only too profound. 

XXIV. 

" To-morrow ! — ay, to-morrow !" further word 

Than those repeated none from Lara heard : 

Upon his brow no outward passion spoke ; 

From his large eye no flashing anger broke ; 

Yet there was something fix'd in that low tone, 

Which show'd resolve, determined, though unknown. 

He seized his cloak — his head he slightly bow'd, 

And passing Ezzelin, he left the crowd ; 

And, as he pass'd him, smiling met the frown 

With which that chieftain's brow would bear him 

down: 
It was nor smile of mirth, nor struggling pride 
That curbs to scorn the wrath it cannot hide ; 
But that of one in his own heart secure 
Of all that he would do, or could endure. 
Could this mean peace ? the calmness of the good ? 
Or guilt grown old in desperate hardihood ? 
Alas ! too like in confidence are each, 
For man to trust to mortal look or speech ; 
From deeds, and deeds alone, may he discern 
Truths which it wrings the unpracticed heart to 

learn. 

XXV. 

And Lara call'd his page, and went his way — 
"Well could that stripling word or sign obey : 
His only follower from those climes afar. 
Where the soul glows beneath a brighter star ; 
For Lara left the shore from whence he sprung, 
In duty patient, and sedate though young ; 



134 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Canto I. 



Silent as him he served, his faith appears 
Above his station, and beyond his years. 
Though not unknown the tongue of Lara's land, 
In such from him he rarely heard command ; 
Bat fleet his step, and clear his tones would come. 
When Lara's lip breathed forth the words of home : 
Those accents, as his native mountains dear, 
Awake their absent echoes in his ear, 
Friends', kindred's, parents', wonted voice recall, 
Now lost, abjured, for one — his friend, his all : 
For him earth now disclosed no other guide ; 
What marvel then he rarely left his side ? 

XXVI. 

Light was his form, and darkly delicate 

That brow whereon his native sun had sate, 

But had not marr'd, though in his beams he grew, 

The cheek where oft the unbidden blush shone 

through ; 
Yet not such blush as mounts when health would 

show 
All the heart's hue in that delighted glow ; 
But 'twas a hectic tint of secret care 
That for a burning moment fever'd there ; 
And the wild sparkle of his eye seem'd caught 
From high, and lighten'd with electric thought. 
Though its black orb those long low lashes' fringe 
Had temper'd with a melancholy tinge ; 
Yet less of sorrow than of pride was there. 
Or, if 'twere grief, a grief that none should share : 
And pleased not him the sports that please his age, 
The tricks of youth, the frolics of the page ; 
For hours on Lara he would fix his glance, 
As all-forgotten in that watchful trance ; 
And from his chief withdrawn, he wander'd lone, 
Brief were his answers, and his questions none ; 
His walk the wood, his sport some foreign book ; 
His resting-place the bank that curbs the brook ; 
He seem'd, like him he served, to live apart 
From all that lures the eye, and fills the heart ; 
To know no brotherhood, and take from earth 
No gift beyond that bitter boon— our birth. 

XXVII. 
If aught he loved, 'twas Lara ; but was shown 
His faith in reverence and in deeds alone ; 
In mute attention ; and his care, which guess'd 
Each wish, fulfiU'd it ere the tongue express'd. 
Still there was haughtiness in all he did, 
A spirit deep that brook'd not to be chid ; 
His zeal, though more than that of servile hands, 
In act alone obeys, his air commands ; 
As if 'twas Lara's less than his desire 
That thus he served, but surely not for hire. 
Slight were the tasks enjoin'd him by his lord. 
To hold the stirrup, or to bear the sword ; 
To tune his lute, or, if he will'd it more, 
On tomes of other times and tongues to pore ; 
But ne'er to mingle with the menial train. 
To whom he show'd nor deference nor disdain, 



But that well-worn reserve which proved he knew 

No sympathy with that familiar crew : 

His soul, whate'er his station or his stem, 

Could bow to Lara, not descend to them. 

Of higher birth he seem'd, and better days. 

Nor mark of vulgar toil that hand betrays. 

So femininely white it might bespeak 

Another sex, when match'd with that smooth cheek. 

But for his garb, and something in his gaze, 

More wild and high than woman's eye betrays ; 

A latent fierceness that far more became 

His fiery climate than his tender frame : 

True, in his words it broke not from his breast, 

But from his aspect might be more than guess'd. 

Kaled his name, though rumor said he bore 

Another ere he left his mountain-shore ; 

For sometimes he would hear, however nigh. 

That name repeated loud without reply. 

As unfamiliar, or, if roused again. 

Start to the sound, as but remember'd then ; 

Unless 'twas Lara's wonted voice that spake. 

For then, ear, eyes, and heart would all awake. 

XXVIII. 

He had look'd down upon the festive hall. 

And mark'd that sudden strife so mark'd of all ; 

And when the crowd around and near him told 

Their wonder at the calmness of the bold. 

Their marvel how the high-born Lara bore 

Such insult from a stranger, doubly sore. 

The color of young Kaled went and came, 

The lip of ashes, and the cheek of flame ; 

And o'er his brow the dampening heart-drops threw 

The sickening iciness of that cold dew, 

That rises as the busy bosom sinks 

With heavy thoughts from which reflection shrinks. 

Yes — there be things which we must dream and dare 

And execute ere thought be half aware : 

Whate'er might Kaled's be, it was enow 

To seal his lip, but agonize his brow. 

He gazed on Ezzelin till Lara cast 

That sidelong smile upon the knight he pass'd ; 

When Kaled saw that smile his visage fell, 

As if on something recognized right well ; 

His memory read in such a meaning more 

Than Lara's aspect unto others wore : 

Forward he sprung — a moment, both were gone, 

And all within that hall seem'd left alone ; 

Each had so fix'd his eye on Lara's mien. 

All had so mix'd their feelings with that scene. 

That when his long dark shadow through the porch 

No more relieves the glare of yon high torch, 

Each pulse beats quicker, and all bosoms seem 

To bound as doubting from too black a dream, 

Such as we know is false, yet dread in sooth, 

Because the worst is ever nearest truth. 

And they are gone — but Ezzelin is there. 

With thoughtful visage and imperious air ; 

But long remain'd not ; ere an hour expired. 

He waved his hand to Otho, and retired. 



Canto II. 



LARA. 



135 



XXIX. 

The crowd are gone, the revellers at rest ; 

The courteous host, and all-approving guest, 

Again to that accustom'd couch must creep 

Wliere joy subsides, and sorrow sighs to sleep, 

And man, o'erlabor'd with his being's strife, 

Shrinks to that sweet forgetfulness of life : 

There lie love's feverish hope, and cunning's guile, 

Hate's working brain, and luU'd ambition's wile • 

O'er each vain eye oblivion's pinions wave. 

And quench'd existence crouches in a grave. 

What better name may slumber's bed become ? 

Night's sepulchre, the universal home. 

Where weakness, strength, vice, virtue, sunk supine, 

Alike in naked helplessness recline ; 

Glad for a while to heave unconscious breath, 

Yet wake to wrestle with the dread of death. 

And shun, though day but dawn on ills increased, 

That sleep, the loveliest, since it dreams the least. / 



Eata* 



CANTO THE SECOND.^ 



I. 

XiGHT wanes— the vapors round the mountains 

curl'd 
Melt into morn, and Light awakes the world. 
Man has another day to swell the past. 
And lead him near to little, but his last ; 
But mighty Nature bounds as from her birth, 
The sun is in the heavens, and life on earth ; 
Flowers in the valley, splendor in the beam, 
Health on the gale, and freshness in the stream. 
Immortal man ! behold her glories shine, 
And cry, exulting inly, " They are thine !" 
Gaze on, while yet thy gladden'd eye may see ; 
A morrow comes when they are not for thee : 
And grieve what may above thy senseless bier, 
Nor earth nor sky will yield a single tear ; 
Nor cloud shall gather more, nor leaf shall fall, 
Xor gale breathe forth one sigh for thee, for all ; 
IJut creeping things shall revel in their spoil, 
And fit thy clay to fertilize the soil. 

II. 

Tis mom — 'tis noon — assembled in the hall. 
The gather'd chieftains come to Otho's call ; 
'TLs now the promised hour, that must proclaim 
The life or death of Lara's future fame : 



1 " Lord Byron seems to have taken a whimsical pleasure 
in disappointing, by his second canto, most of the expecta- 
tions which he had excited by the first. For, without the 
resuscitation of Sir Ezzelin, Lara's mysterious vision in his 
antique hall becomes a mere useless piece of lumber, inappli- 
cable to any intcllij,'ible purpose. The character of Medora, 
whom we had been satisfied to behold very contentedly do- 



When Ezzelin his charge may here unfold, 
And whatsoe'er the tale, it must be told. 
His faith was pledged, and Lara's promise given. 
To meet it in the eye of man and heaven. 
Why comes he not ? Such truths to be divulged, 
Methinks the accuser's rest is long indulged. 

III. 

The hour is past, and Lara too is there. 
With self-confiding, coldly patient air ; 
Why conies not Ezzelin ? The hour is past, 
And murmurs rise, and Otho's brow's o'ercast. 
" I know my friend ! his faith I cannot fear. 
If yet he be on earth, expect him here ; 
The roof that held him in the valley stands 
Between my own and noble Lara's lands ; 
My halls from such a guest had honor gain'd, 
Nor had Sir Ezzelin his host disdain'd. 
But that some previous proof forbade his stay. 
And urged him to prepare against to-day ; 
The word I pledged for his I pledge again. 
Or will myself redeem his knighthood's stain." 

He ceased— and Lara answer' d, " I am here 

To lend at thy demand a listening ear 

To tales of evil from a stranger's tongue. 

Whose words already might my heart have wrung, 

But that I deem'd him scarcely less than mad. 

Or, at the worst, a foe ignobly bad. 

I know him not — but me it seems he knew 

In lands where — but I must not trifle too : 

Produce this babbler — or redeem the pledge ; 

Here in thy hold, and with thy falchion's edge." 

Proud Otho on the instant, reddening, threw 
His glove on earth, and forth his sabre flew. 
" The last alternative befits me best, 
And thus I answer for mine absent guest." 

With cheek unchanging from its sallow gloom. 

However near his own or other's tomb ; 

With hand, whose almost careless coolness spoke 

Its grasp well used to deal the sabre-stroke ; 

With eye, though calm, determined not to spare. 

Did Lara too his willing weapon bare. 

In vain the circling chieftains round them closed, 

For Otho's frenzy would not be oj^j^osed ; 

And from his lips those words of insult fell — 

His sword is good who can maintain them well. 

IV. 
Short was the conflict; furious, blindly rash, 
Vain Otho gave his bosom to the gash : 



mesticated in the Pirate's Island, without inquiring whence 
or why she had emigrated thither, is, by means of some mys- 
terious relation between her and Sir Ezzelin, involved in very 
disagreeable ambiguity; — and, further, the high-minded and 
generous Conrad, who had preferred death and torture to life 
and liberty, if purchased by a nightly murder, is degraded 
into a vile and cowardly assassin." — Geoiige Ellis. 



136 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Canto II. 



He bled, and fell ; but not with deadly wound, 

Stretch'd by a dexterous sleight along the ground. 

" Demand thy life !" He answer'd not : and then 

From that red floor he ne'er had risen again, 

For Lara's brow upon the moment grew 

Almost to blackness in its demon hue ; 

And fiercer shook his angry falchion now 

Than when his foe's was levell'd at his brow ; 

Then all was stern collectedness and art, 

Now rose the unleaven'd hatred of his heart ; 

So little sparing to the foe he fell'd, 

That when the approaching crowd his arm withheld, 

He almost turn'd the thirsty point on those 

Who thus for mercy dared to interpose ; 

But to a moment's thought that purpose bent ; 

Yet look'd he on him still with eye intent, 

As if he loathed the ineffectual strife 

That left a foe, howe'er o'ercome, with life ; 

As if to search how far the wound he gave 

Had sent its victim onward to his grave. 

V. 

They raised the bleeding Otho, and the Leech 
Forbade all present question, sign, and speech ; 
The others met within a neighboring hall. 
And he, incensed, and heedless of them all, 
The cause and conqueror in this sudden fray, 
In haughty silence slowly strode away ; 
He back'd his steed, his homeward path he took, 
Nor cast on Otho's towers a single look. 

VI. 

But wheiie was he ? that meteor of a night, 
Who menaced but to disappear with light. 
Where was this Ezzelin ? who came and went, 
To leave no other trace of his intent. 
He left the dome of Otho long ere morn, 
In darkness, yet so well the path was worn 
He could not miss it : near his dwelling lay ; 
But there he was not, and with coming day 
Came fast inquiry, which unfolded nought 
Except the absence of the chief it sought. 
A chamber tenantless, a steed at rest. 
His host alarm'd, his murmuring squires distress'd : 
Their search extends along, around the path. 
In dread to meet the marks of prowlers' wrath : 
But none are there, and not a brake hath borne 
Nor gout of blood, nor shred of mantle torn ; 
Nor fall nor struggle hath defaced the grass. 
Which still retains a mark where murder was : 
Nor dabbling fingers left to tell the tale, 
The bitter print of each convulsive nail. 
When agonized hands that cease to guard. 
Wound in that pang the smoothness of the sward. 
Some such had been, if here a life was reft, 
But these were not ; and doubting hope is left ; 
And strange suspicion, whispering Lara's name, 
Now daily mutters o'er his blacken'd fame ; 
Then sudden silent when his form appear'd, 
Awaits the absence of the thing it fear'd 



Again its wonted wondering to renew, 
And dye conjecture with a darker hue. 

VII. 

Days roll along, and Otho's wounds are heal'd, 
But not his pride ; and hate no more conceal'd : 
He was a man of power, and Lara's foe. 
The friend of all who sought to work him woe, 
And from his country's justice now demands 
Account of Ezzelin at Lara's hands. 
Who else than Lara could have cause to fear 
His presence ? who had made him disappear, 
If not the man on whom his menaced charge 
Had sate too deeply were he left at large ? 
The general rumor ignorantly loud, 
The mystery dearest to the curious crowd ; 
The seeming friendlessness of him who strove 
To win no confidence, and wake no love ; / 
The sweeping fierceness which his soul betray'd, 
The skill with which he wielded his keen blade ; 
Where had his arm unwarlike caught that art ? 
Where had that fierceness grown upon his heart ? 
For it was not the blind capricious rage 
A word can kindle and a word assuage ; 
But the deep working of a soul unmix'd 
With aught of pity where its wrath had fix'd ; 
Such as long power and overgorged success 
Concentrates into all that's merciless : 
These, link'd with that desire which ever sways 
Mankind, the rather to condemn than praise, 
'Gainst Lara gathering raised at length a storm. 
Such as himself might fear, and foes would form, 
And he must answer for the absent head 
Of one that haunts him still, alive or dead. 

VIII. 

Within that land was many a malcontent. 
Who cursed the tyranny to which he bent ; 
That soil full many a wringing despot saw, 
Who work'd his wantonness in form of law ; 
Long war without and frequent broil within 
Had made a path for blood and giant sin, 
That waited but a signal to begin 
New havoc, such as civil discord blends, 
Which knows no neuter, owns but foes or 

friends ; 
Fix'd in his feudal fortress each was lord, 
In word and deed obey'd, in soul abhorr'd. 
Thus Lara had inherited his lands. 
And with them pining hearts and sluggish hands ; 
But that long absence from his native clime 
Had left him stainless of oppression's crime, 
And now, diverted by his milder sway, 
All dread by slow degrees had worn away. 
The menials felt their usu^ awe alone. 
But more for him than them that fear was grown ; 
They deem'd him now unhappy, though at first 
Their evil judgment augur'd of the worst, 
And each long restless night, and silent mood, 
Was traced to sickness, fed by solitude : 



Canto II. 



LAKA. 



137 



And though his lonely habits threw of late 

Gloom o'er his chamber, cheerful was his gate ; 

For thence the wretched ne'er unsoothed withdrew, 

For them, at least, his soul compassion knew. 

Cold to the great, contemptuous to the high. 

The humble pass'd not his unheeding eye ; 

Much he would speak not, but beneath his roof 

They found asylum oft, and ne'er reproof. 

And they who watch'd might mark that, day by day. 

Some new retainers gather'd to his sway ; 

But most of late, since Ezzelin was lost, 

He play'd the courteous lord and bounteous host : 

Perchance his strife witli Otho made him dread 

Some snare prepared for his obnoxious head ; 

What^'er his view, his favor more obtains 

AVith these, the people, than his fellow thanes. 

If this were policy, so far 'twas sound, 

The million judged but of him as they found ; 

From him, by steiiner chiefs to exile driven, 

They but required a shelter, and 'twas given. 

By him no peasant mourn'd his rifled cot, 

And scarce the Serf could murmur o'er his lot; 

"With him old avarice found its hoard secure, 

"With him contempt forbore to mock the poor ; 

Youth present cheer and promised recompense 

Detain'd, till all too late to part from thence : 

To hate he offer'd, with the coming change, 

The deep reversion of delay'd revenge ; 

To love, long baffled by the unequal match. 

The well-won charms success was sure to snatch. 

All now was ripe, he waits but to proclaim 

That slavery nothing which was still a name. 

The moment came, the hour when Otho thought 

Secure at last the vengeance which he sought : 

His summons found the destined criminal 

Begirt by thousands in his swarming hall. 

Fresh from their feudal fetters newly riven, 

Defying earth, and confident of heaven. 

That morning he had freed the soil-bound slaves 

"Who dig no land for tyrants but their graves ! 

Such is their cry — some watchword for the fight 

Must vindicate the wrong, and warp the right : 

Religion — freedom — vengeance — what you will, 

A word's enough to raise mankind to kill ; 

Some factious phrase by cunning caught and spread, 

That guilt may reign, and wolves and worms be fed. 

IX. 
Throughout that clime the feudal chiefs had gain'd 
Such sway, their infant monarch hardly reign'd ; 
Now was the liour for faction's rebel growth, 
The Serfs contemn'd the one, and hated both : 
They waited but a leader, and they found 
One to their cause inseparably bound ; 
By circumstance compell'd to plunge again. 
In self-defence, amidst the strife of men. 
Cut oflF by some mysterious fate from those 
"Whom birth and nature meant not for his foes, 
Had Lara from that night, to him accurst. 
Prepared to meet, but not alone, the worst : 



Some reason urged, whate'er it was, to shun 
Inquiry into deeds at distance done ; 
By mingling with his own the cause of all, 
E'en if he fail'd, he still delay'd his fall. 
The sullen calm tliat long his bosom kept, 
j The storm that once had spent itself and slept. 



Roused by events that seem'd foredoom'd to urge 
His gloomy fortunes to their utmost verge. 
Burst forth, and made him all he once had been, 
And is again ; he only changed the scene. 
Light care had he for life, and less for fame. 
But not less fitted for the desperate game : 
He deem'd himself mark'd out for others' hate, 
And mock'd at ruin so they shared his fate. 
What cared he for the freedom of the crowd ? 
He raised the humble but to bend the proud. 
He had hoped quiet in his sullen lair. 
But man and destiny beset him there : 
Inured to hunters, he was found at bay ; 
And they must kill, they cannot snare the prey. 
Stern, unambitious, silent, he had been 
Henceforth a calm spectator of life's scene ; 
But dragg'd again upon the arena, stood 
A leader not unequal to the feud ; 
In voice — mien — gesture — savage nature spoke, 
And from his eye the gladiator broke. 

X. 

What boots the oft-repeated tale of strife. 

The feast of vultures, and the waste of life ? 

The varying fortune of each separate field. 

The fierce that vanquish, and the faint that yield ? 

The smoking ruin, and the crumbled wall ? 

In this the struggle was the same with all ; 

Save that distemper'd passions lent their force 

In bitterness that banish'd all remorse. 

None sued, for Mercy knew her cry was vain. 

The captive died upon the battle-slain : 

In either cause, one rage alone possess'd 

The empire of the alternate victor's breast; 

And they that smote for freedom or for sway, 

Deem'd few were slain, while more remain'd to slay. 

It was too late to cheek the wasting brand. 

And Desolation reap'd the famish'd land ; 

The torch was lighted, and the flame was spread, 

And Carnage smiled upon her daily dead. 

XI. 

Fresh with the nerve the new-born impulse strung, 

The first success to Lara's numbers clung : 

But that vain victory hath ruin'd all ; 

They form no longer to their leader's call : 

In blind confusion on the foe they press. 

And think to snatch is to secure success. 

The lust of booty, and the thirst of hate. 

Lure on the broken brigands to their fate : 

In vain he doth whate'er a chief may do. 

To check the headlong fury of that crew : 

In vain their stubborn ardor he would tame. 

The hand that kindles cannot quench the flame ^ 



138 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



Canto II. 



The wary foe alone hath turn'd their mood, 
And shown their rashness to that erring brood : 
The feign'd retreat, the nightly ambuscade, 
The daily harass, and the fight delay' d, 
The long privation of the hoped supply. 
The tentless rest beneath the humid sky, 
The stubborn wall that mocks the leaguer's art, 
And palls the patience of his baffled heart, 
Of these they had not deem'd : the battle-day 
They could encounter as a veteran may ; 
But more preferr'd the fury of the strife. 
And present death, to hourly suflfering life : 
And famine wrings, and fever sweeps away 
His numbers melting fast from their array ; 
Intemperate triumph fades to discontent. 
And Lara's soul alone seems still unbent : 
But few remain to aid his voice and hand. 
And thousands dwindled to a scanty band : 
Desperate, though few, the last and best remain'd 
To mourn the discipline they late disdain'd. 
One hope survives, the frontier is not far. 
And thence they may escape from native war ; 
And bear within them to the neighboring state 
An exile's sorrows, or an outlaw's hate : 
Hard is the task their father-land to quit, 
But harder still to perish or submit. 

XII. 

It is resolved — they march — consenting Night 
Guides with her star their dim and torchless flight : 
Already they perceive its tranquil beam 
Sleep on the surface of the barrier stream ; 
Already they descry — Is yon the bank ? 
Away ! 'tis lined with many a hostile rank. 
Eeturn or fly ! — What glitters in the rear ? 
'Tis Otho's banner — the pursuer's spear ! 
Are those the shepherds' fires upon the height ? 
Alas ! they blaze too widely for the flight : 
Cut ofi" from hope, and compass'd in the toil. 
Less blood perchance hath bought a richer spoil ! 

XIII, 

A moment's pause — 'tis but to breathe their band. 
Or shall they onward press, or here withstand ? 
It matters little — if they charge the foes 
Who by their border-stream their march oppose, 
Some few, perchance, may break and pass the line, 
However link'd to baffle such design. 
" The charge be ours ! to wait for their assault 
Were fate well worthy of a coward's halt." 
Forth flies each sabre, rein'd is every steed. 
And the next word shall scarce outstrip the deed : 
In the next tone of Lara's gathering breath 
How many shall but hear the voice of death ! 

XIV. 

His blade is bared, — in him there is an air 
As deep, but far too tranquil for despair ; 
A something of indifference more than then 
Becomes the bravest, if they feel for men. 



He turn'd his eye on Kaled, ever near. 

And still too faithful to betray one fear ; 

Perchance 'twas but the moon's dim twilight threw 

Along his aspect an unwonted hue 

Of mournful paleness, whose deep tint express'd 

The truth, and not the terror of his breast. 

This Lara mark'd, and laid his hand on his : 

It trembled not in such an hour as this ; 

His lip was silent, scarcely beat his heart, 

His eye alone proclaim'd, " We will not part ! 

Thy band may perish, or thy friends may flee, 

Farewell to life, but not adieu to thee !" 

The word hath pass'd his lips, and onward driven, 
Pours the link'd band through ranks asunder riven ; 
Well has each steed obey'd the armed heel. 
And flash the scimitars, and rings the steel ; 
Outnumber'd, not outbraved, they still oppose 
Despair to daring, and a front to foes ; 
And blood is mingled with the dashing stream, 
Which runs all redly till the morning beam. 

XV. 

Commanding, aiding, animating all. 

Where foe appear'd to press, or friend to fall. 

Cheers Lara's voice, and waves or strikes his steel, 

Inspiring hope himself had ceased to feel. 

None fled, for well they knew that -flight were 

vain; 
But those that waver turn to smite again. 
While yet they find the firmest of the foe 
Eecoil before their leader's look and blow : 
Now girt with numbers, now almost alone, 
He foils their ranks, or reunites his own ; 
Himself he spared not — once they seem'd to fly — 
Now was the time, he waved his hand on high. 
And shook — Why sudden droops that plumed crest ? 
The shaft is sped — the arrow's in his breast ! 
That fatal gesture left the unguarded side. 
And Death has stricken down yon arm of pride. 
The word of triumph fainted from his tongue ; 
That hand, so raised, how droopingly it hung ! 
But yet the sword instinctively retains. 
Though from its fellow shrink the falling reins ; 
These Kaled snatches : dizzy with the blow. 
And senseless bending o'er his saddle-bow. 
Perceives not Lara that his anxious page 
Beguiles his charger from the combat's rage : 
Meantime his followers charge, and charge again ; 
Too mix'd the slayers now to heed the slain ! 

XVI. 

Day glimmers on the dying and the dead, 
The cloven cuirass, and the helmless head ; 
The war-horse masterless is on the earth. 
And that last gasp hath burst his bloody girth ; 
And near, yet quivering with what life remain'd, 
The heel that urged him and the hand that rein'd; 
And some too near that rolling torrent lie. 
Whose waters mock the lip of those that die ; 



l.'ANTO II. 



LARA. 



139 



That panting thirst which scorches in the breath 
Of those that die the soldier's fiery death, 
In vain impels the burning mouth to crave 
One drop— the last — to cool it for the grave ; 
"With feeble and convulsive eftbrt swept, 
Their limbs along the crimson'd turf have crept ; 
The faint remains of life such struggles waste. 
But yet they reach the stream, and bend to taste : 
They feel its freshness, and almost partake — 
Why pause ? No further thirst have they to slake — 
It is unquench'd, and yet they feel it not; 
It was an agony — but now forgot ! 

XVII. 

Beneath a lime, remoter from the scene, 

"Where but for him that strife had never been, 

A breathing but devoted warrior lay : 

'Twas Lara bleeding fast from life away. 

His follower once, and now his only guide. 

Kneels Kaled watchful o'er his welling side. 

And with his scarf would stanch the tides that rush. 

With each convulsion, in a blacker gush ; 

And then, as his faint breathing waxes low. 

In feebler, not less fatal tricklings flow : 

He scarce can speak, but motions him 'tis vain. 

And merely adds another throb to pain. 

He clasps the hand that pang which w^ould assuage, 

And sadly smiles his thanks to that dark page. 

Who nothing fears, nor feels, nor heeds, nor sees. 

Save that damp brow which rests upon his knees ; 

Save that pale aspect, where the eye, though dim. 

Held all the light that shone on earth for him. 

XVIII. 

The foe arrives, who long had search'd the field. 
Their triumph nought till Lara too should yield : 
They would remove him, but they see 'twere vain, 
And he regards them with a calm disdain, 
That rose to reconcile him with his fate. 
And that escape to death from living hate : 
And Otho comes, and leaping from his steed. 
Looks on the bleeding foe that made him bleed, 
And questions of his state ; he answers not, 
Scarce glances on him as on one forgot. 
And turns to Kaled : — each remaining word 
They understood not, if distinctly heard ; 
His dying tones are in that other tongue. 
To which some strange remembrance wildly clung. 
They spake of other scenes, but wliat — is known 
To Kaled, whom their meaning reach'd alone ; 
And he replied, though faintly, to their sound. 
While gazed the rest in dumb amazement round : ' 
They seem'd even then — that twain — unto the last 
To half forget the present in the past ; 



1 "The death of Lara is, hy far, the finest passage in the 
poem, and is fully equal to any thing else which the author 
ever wrote. The physical horror of the event, though de- 
scrihed with a terrible force and fidelity, is both relieved 
and enhanced by the beautiful pictures of mental energy 



To share between themselves some separate fate, 
Whose darkness none beside should penetrate. 

XIX. 

Their words though faint were many — from the tone 
Their import those who heard could judge alone ; 
From this, you might have deem'd young Kaled's 

death 
More near than Lara's by his voice and breath, 
So sad, so deep, and hesitating broke 
The accents his scarce-moving pale lips spoke ; 
But Lara's voice, though low, at first was clear 
And calm, till murmuring death gasp'd hoarsely near. 
But from his visage little could we guess, 
So unrepentant, dark, and passionless, 
Save that when struggling nearer to his last. 
Upon that page his eye was kindly cast ; 
And once, as Kaled's answering accents ceased, 
Rose Lara's hand, and pointed to the East : 
Whether (as then the breaking sun from high 
Holl'd back the clouds) the morrow caught his eye. 
Or that 'twas chance, or some remember'd scene, 
That raised his arm to point w^iere such had been. 
Scarce Kaled seem'd to know, but turn'd away, 
As if his heart abhorr'd that coming day. 
And shrunk his glance before that morning light. 
To look on Lara's brow — where all grew night. 
Yet sense seem'd left, though better were its loss ; 
For when one near display'd the absolving cross. 
And profler'd to his touch the holy bead. 
Of which his parting soul might own the need, 
He look'd upon it with an eye profane, 
And smiled — Heaven pardon ! if 'twere with disdain : 
And Kaled, though he spoke not, nor withdrew 
From Lara's face his fix'd despairing view. 
With brow repulsive, and with gesture swift, 
Flung back the hand which held the sacred gift, 
As if such but disturb'd the expiring man. 
Nor seem'd to know his life but then began, 
That life of Immortality, secure 
To none, save them whose faith in Christ is sure. 

XX. 

But gasping heaved the breath that Lara drew. 

And dull the film along his dim eye grew ; 

His limbs stretch'd fluttering, and his head droop'd 

o'er 
The weak yet still untiring knee that bore ; 
He press'd the hand he held ujDon his heart — 
It beats no more, but Kaled will not part 
With the cold grasp, but feels, and feels in vain. 
For that faint throb which answers not again. 
" It beats I" — Away, thou dreamer! he is gone — , 
It once was Lara which thou look'st upon.i 



and affection with which it is combined. The whole sequel 
of the poem is written with equal vigor and feeling, and may 
be put in competition with any thing that poetry has pro- 
duced, in, point either of pathos or energy." — Jeffrey. 



140 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Canto II. 



XXI. 

He gazed, as if not yet had pass'd away 

The haughty spirit of that humble clay ; 

And those around have roused him from his trance, 

But cannot tear from thence his fixed glance ; 

And when, in raising him from where he bore 

Within his arms the form that felt no more. 

He saw the head his breast would still sustain, 

EoU down like earth to earth upon the plain ; 

He did not dash himself thereby, nor tear 

The glossy tendrils of his raven hair. 

But strove to stand and gaze, but reel'd and fell, 

Scarce breathing more than that he loved so well. 

Than that he loved ! Oh ! never yet beneath 

The breast of man such trusty love may breathe ! 

That trying moment hath at once reveal'd 

The secret long and yet but half conceal'd ; 

In baring to revive that lifeless breast. 

Its grief seem'd ended, but the sex confess'd ; 

And life return'd, and Kaled felt no shame — 

What now to her was Womanhood or Fame ? 

XXII. 

And Lara sleeps not where his fathers sleep, 
But where he died his grave was dug as deep ; 
Nor is his mortal slumber less profound, 
Though priest nor bless'd, nor marble deck'd the 

mound ; 
And he was mourn'd by one whose quiet grief. 
Less loud, outlasts a people's for their chief 

1 The event in this section was suggested by the descrip- 
tion of the death, or rather burial, of the Duke of Gandia. 
The most interesting and particular account of it is given by 
Burchard, and is in substance as follows: — "On the eighth 
day of June, the Cardinal of Valenza and the Duke of Gan- 
dia, sons of the pope, supped with their mother, Vanozza, 
near the church of 8. Pietro ad vincula; several other per- 
sons being present at the entertainment. A late hour ap- 
proaching, and the cardinal having reminded his brother 
that it was time to return to the apostolic palace, they 
mounted their horses or mules, with only a few attendants, 
and proceeded together as far as the palace of Cardinal As- 
canio Sforza, when the duke informed the cardinal that, 
before he returned home, he had to pay a visit of pleasure. 
Dismissing therefore all his attendants, excepting his staffi- 
ero, or footman, and a person in a mask, who had paid him a 
visit whilst at supper, and who, during the space of a month 
or thereabouts, previous to this time, had called upon him 
almost daily, at the apostolic palace, he took this person 
behind him on his mule, and proceeded to the street of the 
Jews, where he quitted his servant, directing him to remain 
there until a certain hour; when, if he did not return, he 
might repair to the palace. The duke then seated the person 
in the mask behind him, and rode, I know not whither ; but 
in that night he was assassinated, and thrown into the river. 
The servant, after having been dismissed, was also assaulted 
and mortally wounded ; and although he was attended with 
great care, yet such was his situation, that he could give no 
intelligible account of what had befallen his master. In the 
morning, the duke not having returned to the palace, his 
servants began to be alarmed ; and one of them informed the 
pontiff of the evening excursion of his sons, and that the 
duke had not yet made his appearance. This gave the pope 
no small anxiety ; but he conjectured that the duke had been 
attracted by some courtesan to pass the night with her, and, 



Vain was all question ask'd her of the past, 

And vain e'en menace— silent to the last ; 

She told nor whence, nor why she left behind 

Her all for one who seem'd but little kind. 

Why did she love him ? Curious fool ! — be still — 

Is human love the growth of human will ? 

To her he might be gentleness : the stern 

Have deeper thoughts than your dull eyes discern. 

And when they love, your smilers guess not how 

Beats the strong heart, though less the lips avow. 

They were not common links, that form'd the chain 

That bound to Lara Kaled's heart and brain ; 

But that wild tale she brook'd not to unfold. 

And seal'd is now each lip that could have told. 

XXIII. 

They laid him in the earth, and on his breast, 
Besides the wound that sent his soul to rest. 
They found the scatter'd dints of many a scar, 
Which were not planted there in recent war ; 
Where'er had pass'd his summer years of life, 
It seems they vanish'd in a land of strife ; 
But all unknown his glory or his guilt. 
These only told that somewhere blood was spilt, 
And Ezzelin, who might have spoke the past, 
Beturn'd no more — that night appear'd his last. 

XXIV. 

Upon that night (a peasant's is the tale) 
A Serf that cross'd the intervening vale,i 

not choosing to quit the house in open day, had waited till 
the following evening to return home. When, however, the 
evening arrived, and he found himself disappointed in his 
expectations, he became deeply afflicted, and began to make 
inquiries from different persons, whom he ordered to attend 
him for that purpose. Amongst these was a man named 
Giorgio Schiavoni, who, having discharged some timber from 
a bark in the river, had remained on board the vessel to 
watch it ; and being interrogated whether he had seen any 
one thrown into the river on the night preceding, he replied, 
that he saw two men on foot, who came down the street, and 
looked diligently about, to observe whether any person was 
passing. That seeing no one, they returned, and a short 
time afterwards two others came, and looked around in the 
same manner as the former ; no person still appearing, they 
gave a sign to their companions, when a man came, mounted 
on a white horse, having behind him a dead body, the head 
and arms of which hung on one side, and the feet on the 
other side of the horse ; the two persons on foot supporting 
the body, to prevent its falling. They thus proceeded towards 
that part, where the filth of the city is usually discharged 
into the river, and turning the horse, with his tail towards 
the water, the two persons took the dead body by the arms 
and feet, and with all their strength flung it into the river. 
The person on horseback then asked if they had thrown it 
in ; to which they replied Signor, si (yes, sir). He then looked 
towards the river, and seeing a mantle floating on the stream, 
he inquired what it was that appeared black, to which they 
answered, it was a mantle ; and one of them threw stones 
upon it, in consequence of which it sunk. The attendants 
upon the pontiff then inquired from Giorgio, why he had not 
revealed this to the governor of the city ; to which he replied, 
that he had seen in his time a hundred dead bodies thrown 
into the river at the same place, without any inquiry being 
made respecting them ; and that he had not, therefore, con' 



Canto II. 



LARA. 



141 



When Cynthia's light almost gave way to morn, 
And nearly veil'd in mist her waning horn ; 
A Serf, that rose betimes to thread the wood, 
And hew the bough that bought his children's 

food, 
Pass'd by the river that divides the plain 
Of Otho's lands and Lara's broad domain : 
He heard a tramp — a horse and horseman broke 
From out the wood — before him was a cloak 
Wrapt round some burthen at his saddle-bow ; 
Bent was his head, and hidden was his brow. 
Eoused by the sudden sight at such a time. 
And some foreboding that it might be crime, 
Himself unheeded watch'd the stranger's course, 
Wlio reach'd the river, bounded from his horse. 
And lifting thence the burthen which he bore, 
Heaved up the bank, and dash'd it from the shore. 
Then paused, and look'd, and turn'd, and seem'd to 

watch. 
And still another hurried glance would snatch. 
And follow with his step the stream that flow'd. 
As if even yet too much its surface show'd : 
At once he started, stoop'd, around him strown 
The winter floods had scatter'd heaps of stone ; 
Of these the heaviest thence he gather'd there. 
And slung them with a more than common care. 
Meantime the Serf had crept to where unseen 
Himself might safely mark what this might mean : 
He caught a glimpse, as of a floating breast, 
And something glitter'd star-like on the vest ; 
But ere he well could mark the buoyant trunk, 
A massy fragment smote it, and it sunk ; 
It rose again, but indistinct to view. 
And left the waters of a purple hue. 
Then deeply disappear'd : the horseman gazed 
Till ebb'd the latest eddy it had raised ; 
Then turning, vaulted on his pawing steed. 
And instant spurr'd him into panting speed. 
His face was mask'd — the features of the dead. 
If dead it were, escaped the observer's dread ; 

sidered it as a matter of any importance. The fishermen 
and seamen were then collected, and ordered to search the 
river, where, on the following evening, they found the body 
of the duke, with his habit entire, and thirty ducats in his 
purse. He was pierced with nine wounds, one of which was 
in hLs throat, the others in his head, body, and limbs. No 
sooner was the pontiff informed of the death of his son, and 
that he had been thrown, like filth, into the river, than, giv- 
ing way to his grief, he shut himself up in a chamber, and 
wept bitterly. The Cardinal of Segovia, and other attend- 
ants of the pope, went to the door, and after many hours 
spent in persua-sions and exhortations, prevailed upon him to 
admit them. From the evening of Wednesday till the follow- 
ing Saturday the r>ope took no food; nor did he sleep from 
Thursday morning till the same hour on the ensuing day. 
At length, however, giving way to the entreaties of his at- 
tendants, he began to restrain his sorrow, and to consider the 
injury which his own health might sustain, by the further 
Indulgence of his grief"— .Boicoe'a Leo the. Tenth, vol. i. p. 2C^^. 
i"Lara, though it has many good pa-ssagfs, is a further 
proof of the melancholy fact, which is true of all sequels, from 
the continuation of the ^Eneid, by one of the famous Italian 
pveta of tUc middle ages, down to 'Polly, a Sequel to tlie 



But if in sooth a star its bosom bore, 
Such is the badge that knighthood ever wore, 
And such 'tis known Sir Ezzelin had worn 
Upon the night that led to such a morn. 
If thus he perish'd. Heaven receive his soul ! 
His undiscover'd limbs to ocean roll ; 
And charity upon the hope would dwell 
It was not Lara's hand by which he fell. 

XXV. 

And Kaled — Lara — Ezzelin, are gone. 

Alike without their monumental stone ! 

The first, all efforts vainly strove to wean 

From lingering where her chieftain's blood had been 

Grief had so tamed a spirit once too proud. 

Her tears were few, her wailing never loud ; 

But furious would you tear her from the spot 

Where yet she scarce believed that he was not, 

Her eye shot forth with all the living fire 

That haunts the tigress in her whelpless ire ; 

But left to waste her weaiy moments there. 

She talk'd all idly unto shapes of air. 

Such as the busy brain of Sorrow paints, 

And woos to listen to her fond complaints ; 

And she would sit beneath the very tree 

Where lay his drooping head upon her knee : 

And in that posture where she saw him fall, 

His words, his looks, his dying grasp recall ; 

And she had shorn, but saved her raven hair, 

And oft would snatch it from her bosom there, 

And fold, and pr^ss it gently to the ground. 

As if she stanch'd anew some phantom's wound. 

Herself would question, and for him reply ; 

Then rising, start, and beckon him to fly 

From some imagined spectre in pursuit ; 

Then seat her down upon some linden's root. 

And hide her visage with her meagre hand, 

Or trace strange characters along the sand. 

This could not last — she lies by him she loved ; 

Her tale untold — her truth too dearly proved.^ 



Beggar's Opera,' that 'more last words' may generally be 
spared, without any great detriment to the world." — Bishop 
Heber. 

" Lara has some charms which the Corsair has not. It is 
more domestic ; it calls forth more sympathies with polished 
society ; it is more intellectual, but much less passionate, less 
vigorous, and less brilliant ; it is sometimes even languid,— at 
any rate, it is more diffuse."— Sir E. Brydges. 

" Lara, obviously the sequel of "The Corsair," maintains in 
general the same tone of deep interest and lofty feeling ; — 
though the disappearance of Medora from the scene deprives 
it of the enchanting sweetness by which its terrors are there 
redeemed, and makes the hero, on the whole, less captivating. 
The character of Lara, too, is rather too elaborately finished,* 
and his nocturnal encounter with the apparition is worked 
up too ostentatiously. There is infinite beauty in the sketch 
of the dark Page, and in many of the moral or general reflec- 
tions which are interspersed with the narrative."— Jeffrey. 



• "What do the Reviewers mean by 'elaborate '7 Lara I wrote while 
undresglng, after cominR home from balls and masquerades, in the year of 
revelry, ViU:'— Byron Lettere, 1822. 



t!lf)t Siege of OTorintJ)/ 



JOHN HOBHOUSE, Esq., 

THIS POEM IS INSCRIBED 
BY HIS 



Janmry 22, 1816. 



FEIEND. 



ADVEETISEMENT. 

" The grand army of the Turks (in 1715), under 
the Prime Vizier, to open to themselves a way into the 
heart of the Morea, and to form the siege of Napoli 
di Eomania, the most considerable place in all that 
country,^ thought it best in the first place to attack 
Corinth, upon which they made several storms. The 
garrison being weakened, and the governor seeing it 
was impossible to hold out against so mighty a force, 
thought it fit to beat a parley : but while they were 
treating about the articles, one of the magazines in 
the Turkish camp, wherein they had six hundred 
barrels of powder, blew up by accident, whereby six 
or seven hundred men were killed ; which so enraged 

1 The " Siege of Corinth," which appears, by the original 
MS., to have been begun in July, 1815, made its appearance 
in January, 1816. Mr. Murray having enclosed Lord Byron a 
thousand guineas for the copyright of this poem and of " Pa- 
risina," he replied, — "Your offer is liberal in the extreme, 
and much more than the two poems can possibly be worth ; 
but I cannot accept it, nor will not. You are most welcome 
to them as additions to the collected volumes ; but I cannot 
consent to their separate publication. I do not like to risk 
any fame (whether merited or not) which I have been favored 
with upon compositions which I do not feel to be at all equal 
to my own notions of what they should be ; though they may 
do very well as things without pretension, to add to the pub- 
lication with the lighter pieces. I have enclosed your draft 
torn, for fear of accidents by the way — I wish you would not 
throw temptation in mine. It is not from a disdain of the 
universal idol, nor from a pleasant superfluity of his treasures, 
I can assure you, that I refuse to worship him ; but what is 
right is right, and must not yield to circumstances. I am very 
glad that the handwriting was a favorable omen of the morale 
of the piece ; but you must not trust to that, for my copyist 
would write out any thing I desired, in all the ignorance of 
innocence— I hope, however, in this instance, with no great 
peril to either." The copyist was Lady Byron. Lord Byron 
gave Mr. Giffbrd carte-blanche to strike out or alter any thing 
at his pleasure in this poem, as it was passing through the 
press ; and the reader will be amused with the varioe lectiones 
which had their origin in this extraordinary confidence. Mr. 
GiflFord drew his pen, it will be seen, through at least one of 
the most admired passages. 

' Napoli di Romania is not now the most considerable place 
in the Morea, but Tripolitza, where the Pacha resides, and 
maintains his government. Napoli is near Argos. I visited 
all three in 1810-11 ; and, in the course of journeying through 
the country from my first arrival in 1809, 1 crossed the Isth- 
(142) 



the infidels, that they would not grant any capitula- 
tion, but stormed the place with so much fury, that 
they took it, and put most of the garrison, with Sig- 
nior Minotti, the governor, to the sword. The rest, 
with Antonio Bembo, proveditor extraordinary, were 
made prisoners of war." — History of the Turks, vol. 
iii. p. 151. 



C^e Sbim of Otorintf)*^ 



In the year since Jesus died for men,* 
Eighteen hundred years and ten, 

mus eight times in my way from Attica to the Morea, over 
the mountains, or in the other direction, when passing from 
the Gulf of Athens to that of Lepanto. Both the routes are 
picturesque and beautiful, though very different : that by sea 
has more sameness ; but the voyage being always within sight 
of land, and often very near it, presents many attractive views 
of the islands Salamis, ^gina, Poros, &c., and the coast of the 
Continent. 

3 " With regard to the observations on carelessness, &c.," 
wrote Lord Byron to a friend, " I think, with all humility, 
that the gentle reader has considered a rather uncommon, and 
decidedly irregular, versification for haste and negligence. 
The measure is not that of any of the other poems, which (I 
believe) were allowed to be tolerably correct, according to 
Byshe and the fingers — or ears — by which bards write, and 
readers reckon. Great part of the ' Siege' is in (I think) what 
the learned called anapests (though I am not sure, being 
heinously forgetful of my metres and my Gradus), and many 
of the lines intentionally longer or shorter than its rhyming 
companion ; and the rhyme also occurring at greater or less 
intervals of caprice or convenience. I mean not to say that 
this is right or good, but merely that I could have been 
smoother, had it appeared to me of advantage ; and that I was 
not otherwise without being aware of the deviation, though 
I now feel sorry for it, as I would undoubtedly rather please 
than not. My wish has been to try at something different 
from my former efforts ; as I endeavored to make them differ 
from each other. The versification of the ' Corsair ' is not 
that of ' Lara ;' nor the ' Giaour' that of the ' Bride:' ' Childe 
Harold ' is, again, varied from these ; and I strove to vary the 
last somewhat from all of the others. Excuse all this nonsense 
and egotism. The fact is, that I am rather trying to think on 
the subject of this note, than really thinking on iV— Byron 
Letters, Feb. 1816. 

4 On Christmas day, 1815, Lord Byron, enclosing this frag- 



THE SIEGE OF COKINTH. 



143 



We were a gallant company, 

Riding o'er land, and sailing o'er sea. 

Oh ! but we went merrily ! 

We forded the river, and clomb the high hill, 

Never our steeds for a day stood still ; 

Whether we lay in the cave or the shed. 

Our sleep fell soft on the hardest bed : 

Whether we couch'd in our rougli capote,^ 

On the rougher plank of our gliding boat. 

Or stretch'd on the beach, or our saddles spread 

As a pillow beneath the resting head, 

Fresh we woke upon the morrow : 

All our thoughts and words had scope, 

We had health, and we had hope, 
Toil and travel, but no sorrow. 
We were of all tongues and creeds ; — 
Some were those who counted beads. 
Some of mosque, and some of church. 

And some, or I mis-say, of neither ; 
Yet through the wide world might ye search. 

Nor find a motlier crew nor blither. 

But some are dead, and some are gone, 
And some are scatter'd and alone, 
And some are rebels on the hills 2 

That look along Epirus' valleys. 

Where freedom still at moments rallies, 
And pays in blood oppression's ills ; 

And some are in a far countree. 
And some all restlessly at home ; 

But never more, oh ! never, we 
Shall meet to revel and to roam. 

But those hardy days flew cheerily ! 
And when they now fall drearily, 
My thoughts, like swallows, skim the main. 
And bear my spirit back again 



intent to >rr. Murray, says, — " I send some lines, written some 
time ago, an«l intencled as an opening to the ' Siege of Corinth.' 
I had forgotten them, and am not sure that they had not 
better b*" left out now ; — on that, you and your synod can de- 
termine."— " They are written," says Moore, "in the loosest 
form of that rambling style of m«tre, which his admiration 
of Mr. Coleridge's 'Cbristabel' led him, at this time, to 
adopt." It will be seen, hereafter, that the poet had never 
nad "Christabel" at the time when he wrote these lines; — 
he had, however, the ''Lay of the Last Minstrel." With re- 
gard to the character of the species of versification at this 
time .so much in favor, it may be observed, that feeble imita- 
tions have .since then vulL,'arized it a good deal to the general 
ear; but that, in the hands of Mr. Coleridge, Sir "Walter 
Scott, and l>ord Byron himself, it has often been employed 
with the mo.st happy effect. Its irregularity, when moulded 
under the guidance of a delicate taste, is more to the eye than 
to the ear, and in fact not greater than was a<^lmitted in some 
of the most delicious of the lyrical measures of the ancient 
Greeks. 

* In one of his sea excursions, Lord Byron was nearly lost 
in a Turkish ship of war, owing to the ignorance of the cap- 
tain and crew. "Fletcher," he says, "yelled; the Greeks 
called on all the saints; the Mussulmans on Allah ; while the 
captain burst into tears, and ran below deck. I did what I 
could to console Fletcher; but finding him incorrigil,ile, I 



Over the earth, and tnrough the air, 

A wild bird and a wanderer. 

'Tis this that ever wakes my strain. 

And oft, too oft, implores again 

The few who may endure my lay. 

To follow me so far away. 

Stranger — wilt thou follow now. 

And sit with me on Acro-Corinth's brow ? 



I. 

Many a vanish'd year and age, 

And tempest's breath, and battle's rage. 

Have swept o'er Corinth ; yet she stands, 

A fortress form'd to Freedom's hands.^ 

The whirlwind's wrath, the earthquake's shock. 

Have left untouch 'd her hoary rock. 

The keystone of a land, which still, 

Though fall'n, looks proudly on that hill, 

The landmark to the double tide 

That purpling rolls on either side. 

As if their waters chafed to meet. 

Yet pause and crouch beneath her feet. 

But could the blood before her shed 

Since first Timoleon's brother bled,* 

Or baffled Persia's despot fled. 

Arise from out the earth which drank 

The stream of slaughter as it sank, 

That sanguine ocean would o'erflow 

Her isthmus idly spread below : 

Or could the bones of all the slain. 

Who perish'd there, be piled again. 

That rival pyramid would rise 

More mountain-like, through those clear skies. 

Than yon tower-capp'd Acropolis, 

Which seems the very clouds to kiss,^ 



wrapped myself up in my Albanian capote, and lay down to 
wait the worst." This striking instance of the poet's coolness 
and courage is thus confirmed by IMr. Hobhouse: — "Finding 
that, from his lameness, he was unable to be of any service in 
the exertions which our very serious danger called for, after 
a laugh or two at the panic of his valet, he not only wrapped 
himself up and lay down, in the manner he has described, but 
when our difficulties were terminated, was found fast asleep." 

2 The last tidings recently heard of Dervish (one of the 
Arnaouts who followed me) state him to be in revolt upon the 
mountains, at the head of some of the bauds common in that 
country in times of trouble. 

8 In the original MS. — 

" A marvel from her Moslem bands." 

* Timoleon, who had saved the life of his brother Timo- 
phanes in battle, afterwards killed him for aiming at the 
supreme power in Corinth, preferring his duty to his country 
to all the obligations of blood. Dr. Warton says, that Pope 
once intended to write an epic poem on the story, and that 
Dr. Akensido had the snmo. design. 

6 "The Giaour, the Bride of Abydos, the Corsair, Lara, the 
Siege of Corinth, followed each other with a celerity, which 
was only rivalled by their success; and if at times the author 
seemed to pause in his poetic career, with the threat of for- 
bearing further adventure for a time, the public eagerly par- 
doned the breach of a promise by keeping whicli tliey must 



144 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



II. 

On dun Cithseron's ridge appears 
The gleam of twice ten thousand spears ; 
And downward to the Isthmian plain, 
From shore to shore of either main, 
The tent is pitch'd, the crescent shines 
Along the Moslem's leaguering lines ; 
And the dusk Spahi's bands ^ advance 
Beneath each bearded pacha's glance ; 
And far and wide as eye can reach 
The turban'd cohorts throng the beach ; 
And there the Arab's camel kneels, 
And there his steed the Tartar wheels ; 
The Turcoman hath left his herd,^ 
The sabre round his loins to gird ; 
And there the volleying thunders pour, 
Till waves grow smoother to the roar. 
The trench is dug, the cannon's breath 
Wings the far hissing globe of death ; 
Fast whirl the fragments from the wall. 
Which crumbles with the ponderous ball : 
And from that wall the foe replies. 
O'er dusty plain and smoky skies. 
With fires that answe^r fast and well 
The summons of the Infidel. 



III. 

But near and nearest to the wall 
Of those who wish and work its fall, 
With deeper skill in war's black art 
Than Othman's sons, and high of heart 
As any chief that ever stood 
Triumphant in the fields of blood ; 
From post to post, and deed to deed. 
Fast spurring on his reeking steed. 
Where sallying ranks the trench assail. 
And make the foremost Moslem quail ; 
Or where the battery, guarded well. 
Remains as yet impregnable, 

have been sufferers. Exquisitely beautiful in themselves, 
these tales received a new charm froni the romantic climes 
into which they introduced us, and from the Oriental costume 
so strictly preserved and so picturesquely exhibited. Greece, 
the cradle of the poetry with which our earliest studies are 
familiar, was presented to us among her ruins and her sorrows. 
Her delightful scenery, once dedicated to those deities who, 
though dethroned from their own Olympus, still preserve a 
poetical empire, was spread before us in Lord Byron's poetry, 
varied by all the moral effect derived from what Greece is, and 
what she has been, while it was doubled by comparisons, per- 
petually excited, between the philosopl ers and heroes who 
formerly inhabited that romantic country, and their descend- 
ants, who either stoop to their Scythian conquerors, or main- 
tain, among the recesses of their classical mountains, an 
independence as wild and savage as it is precarious. The 
Oriental manners also and diction, so peculiar in their pic- 
turesque effect that they can cast a charm even over the an- 
surdities of an eastern tale, had here the more honorable 
occupation of decorating that which in itself was beautiful, 
and enhancing by novelty what would have been captivat- 
ing without its aid. The powerful impression prodviced by 
this peculiar species of poetry confirmed us in a principle, 



Alighting cheerly to inspire 
The soldier slackening in his fire ; 
The first and freshest of the host 
Which Stamboul's sultan there can boast. 
To guide the follower o'er the field, 
To point the tube, the lance to wield, 
Or whirl around the bickering blade ; — 
Was Alp, the Adrian renegade ! 

IV. 

From Venice — once a race of worth 

His gentle sires — he drew his birth ; 

But late an exile from her shore. 

Against his countrymen he bore 

The arms they taught to bear ; and now 

The turban girt his shaven brow. 

Through many a change had Corinth pass'd 

With Greece to Venice' rule at last ; 

And here, before her walls, with those 

To Greece and Venice equal foes. 

He stood a foe, with all' the zeal 

Which young and fiery converts feel. 

Within whose heated bosom throngs 

The memory of a thousand wrongs. 

To him had Venice ceased to be 

Her ancient civic boast-—" the Free ;" 

And in the palace of St. Mark 

Unnamed accusers in the dark 

Within the " Lion's mouth " had placed 

A charge against him unefiaced : 

He fled in time, and saved his life, 

To waste his future years in strife, 

That taught his land how great her loss 

In him who triumph'd o'er the cross, 

'Gainst which he rear'd the crescent high. 

And battled to avenge or die. 

V. 

Coumourgi' — he whose closing scene 
Adorn'd the triumph of Eugene, 

which, though it will hardly be challenged when stated as an 
axiom, is very rarely complied with in practice. It is, that 
every author should, like Lord Byron, form to himself, and 
communicate to the reader, a precise, defined, and distinct 
view of the landscape, sentiment, or action which he intends 
to describe to the reader."— Sir Walter Scott. 

1 Turkish holders of military fiefs, which oblige them to 
join the army, mounted at their own expense. 

2 The life of the Turcomans is wandering and patriarchal : 
they dwell in tents. 

3 Ali Coumourgi, the favorite of three sultans, and Grand 
Vizier to Achmet III., after recovering Peloponnesus from 
the Venetians in one campaign, was mortally wounded in the 
next, against the Germans, at the battle of Peterwaradin (in 
the plain of Carlowitz), in Hungary, endeavoring to rally his 
guards. He died of his wounds next day. His last order was 
the decapitation of General Breuner, and some other German 
prisoners ; and his last words, " Oh that I could thus serve all 
the Christian dogs !" a speech and act not unlike one of Ca- 
ligula. He was a young man of great ambition and unbounded 
presumption : on being told that Prince Eugene, then opposed 
to him, "was a great general," he said, "I shall become a 
greater, and at his expense." 



THE SIEGE OF CORINTH. 



145 



"When on Carlowitz' bloody plain, 
The last and mightiest of the slain. 
He sank, regretting not to die, 
But cursed the Christian's victory — 
Coumourgi — can his glory cease, 
That latest conqueror of Greece, 
Till Christian liands to Greece restore 
The freedom Venice gave of yore ? 
A hundred years have roll'd away 
Since he refix'd the Moslem's sway, 
And now he led the Mussulman, 
And gave the guidance of the van 
To Alp, who well repaid the trust 
By cities levell'd with the dust; 
And proved, by many a deed of death, 
How firm his heart in novel faith. 

YJ. 
The walls grew weak ; and fast and hot 
Against them pour'd the ceaseless shot, 
With unabating fury sent 
From battery to battlement ; 
And thunder-like the pealing din 
Rose from each heated culverin : 
And here and there some crackling dome 
Was fired before the exploding bomb : 
And as the fabric sank beneath 
The shattering shell's volcanic breath, 
In red and wreathing columns flash'd 
The flame, as loud the ruin crash'd. 
Or into countless meteors driven. 
Its earth-stars melted into heaven ; 
Whose clouds that day grew doubly dun, 
Impervious to the hidden sun, 
With volumed smoke that slowly grew 
To one wide sky of sulphurous hue. 

VII. 

But not for vengeance, long delay'd. 
Alone, did Alp, the renegade, 
The Moslem warriors sternly teach 
His skill to pierce the promised breach : 
Within these walls a maid was pent 
His hope would win, without consent 
Of that inexorable sire, 
Whose heart refused him in its ire. 
When Alp, beneath his Christian name, 
Her virgin hand aspired to claim. 
In happier mood, and earlier time, 
While unimpeach'd for traitorous crime, 
Gayest in gondola or hall, 
He glitter'd through the Carnival ; 
And tuned the softest serenade 
That e'er on Adria's waters play'd 
At midnight to Italian maid.i 

VIII. 
And many deem'd her heart was won ; 
For sought by numbers, given to none, 

• 1 "In midnight courtship to Italian maid."— MS. 
10 



Had young Francesca's hand remain'd 
Still by the church's bonds unchain'd : 
And when the Adriatic bore 
Lanciotto to the Paynim shore, 
Her wonted smiles were seen to fail. 
And pensive wax'd the maid and pale ; 
More constant at confessional, 
More rare at masque and festival ; 
Or seen at such, with downcast eyes. 
Which conquer'd hearts they ceased to prize ; 
With listless look she seems to gaze ; 
With humbler care her form arrays ; 
Her voice less lively in the song ; 
Her step, though light, less fleet among 
The pairs, on whom the Morning's glance 
Breaks, yet unsated with the dance. 

IX. 

Sent by the state to guard the land 
(Which, wrested from the Moslem's hand. 
While Sobieski tamed his pride 
By Buda's wall and Danube's side. 
The chiefs of Venice wrung away 
From Patra to Eubcea's bay), 
Minotti held in Corinth's towers 
The Doge's delegated powers, 
While yet the pitying eye of Peace 
Smiled o'er her long-forgotten Greece : 
And ere that faithless truce was broke 
Which freed her from the unchristian yoke, 
With him his gentle daughter came ; 
Nor there, since Menelaus' dame 
Forsook her lord and land, to prove 
What woes await on lawless love, 
Had fairer form adorn'd the shore 
Than she, the matchless stranger, bore. 

X. 

The wall is rent, the ruins yawn ; 
And, with to-mori'ow's earliest dawn, 
O'er the disjointed mass shall vault 
The foremost of the fierce assault. 
The bands are rank'd ; the chosen van 
Of Tartar and of Mussulman, 
The full of hope, misnamed " forlorn," 
Who hold the thought of death in scorn, 
And win their way with falchion's force, 
Or pave the path with many a corse. 
O'er which the following brave may rise, 
Their stepping-stone — the last who dies ! 

XI. 

'Tis midnight : on the mountains brown 
The cold, round moon shines deeply down; 
Blue roll the waters, blue the sky 
Spreads like an ocean hung on high. 
Bespangled with those isles of light, 
So wildly, spiritually bright; 
Who ever gazed upon them shining 
And tum'd to earth without repining, 



146 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Nor wish'd for wings to flee away, 

And mix with their eternal ray ? 

The waves on either shore lay there 

Calm, clear, and azure as the air ; 

And scarce their foam the pebbles shook, 

But murmur'd meekly as the brook. 

The winds were pillow'd on the waves ; 

The banners droop'd along their staves, 

And, as they fell around them furling, 

Above them shone the crescent curling ; 

And that deep silence was unbroke. 

Save where the watch his signal spoke. 

Save where the steed neigh'd oft and shrill, 

And echo answer'd from the hill. 

And the wide hum of that wild host 

Bustled like leaves from coast to coast, 

As rose the Muezzin's voice in air 

In midnight call to wonted prayer ; 

It rose, that chanted mournful strain, 

Like some lone spirit's o'er the plain : 

'Twas musical, but sadly sweet. 

Such as when winds and harp-strings meet, 

And take a long unmeasured tone. 

To mortal minstrelsy unknown. ^ 

It seem'd to those within the wall 

A cry prophetic of their fall : 

It struck even the'besieger's ear 

With something ominous and drear. 

An undefined and sudden thrill. 

Which makes the heart a moment still. 

Then beat with quicker pulse, ashamed 

Of that strange sense its silence framed ; 

Such as a sudden passing-bell 

Wakes, though but for a stranger's knell.^ 

XII. 

The tent of Alp was on the shore ; 

The sound was hush'd, the prayer was o'er ; 

The watch was set, the night-round made, 

All mandates issued and obey'd : 

'Tis but another anxious night, . 

His pains the morrow may requite 

With all revenge and love can pay, 

In guerdon for their long delay. 

Few hours remain, and he hath need 

Of rest, to nerve for many a deed 

Of slaughter : but within his soul 

The thoughts like troubled waters roll. 

He stood alone among his host ; 

Not his the loud fanatic boast 

To plant the crescent o'er the cross, 

Or risk a life with little loss, 

Secure in paradise to be 

By Houris loved immortally : 

1 "And make a melancholy moan, 

To moi-tal voice and ear unknown."— MS. 

2 " Which rings a deep, internal knell, 
A visionary passing-bell."— MS. 



Nor his, what burning patriots feel. 

The stern exaltedness of zeal. 

Profuse of blood, untired in toil. 

When battling on the parent soil. 

He stood alone — a renegade 

Against the country he betray'd ; 

He stood alone amidst his band. 

Without a trusted heart or hand : 

They foUow'd him, for he was brave, 

And great the spoil he got and gave ; 

They crouch'd to him, for he had skill 

To warp and wield the vulgar will : 

But still his Christian origin 

With them was little less than sin. 

They envied even the faithless fame 

He earn'd beneath a Moslem name ; 

Since he, their mightiest chief, had been 

In youth a bitter Nazarene. 

They did not know how pride can stoop. 

When bafled feelings withering droop ; 

They did not know how hate can burn 

In hearts once changed from soft to stern ; 

Nor all the false and fatal zeal 

The convert of revenge can feel. 

He ruled them — man may rule the worst, 

By ever daring to be first : 

So lions o'er the jackal sway ; 

The jackal points, he fells the prey,' 

Then on the vulgar yelling press, 

To gorge the relics of success. 

XIII. 

His head grows fever'd, and his pulse 

The quick successive throbs convulse : 

In vain from side to side he throws 

His form, in courtship of repose ; * 

Or if he dozed, a sound, a start 

Awoke him with a sunken heart. 

The turban on his hot brow press'd, 

The mail weigh'd lead-like on his breast, 

Though oft and long beneath its weight 

Upon his eyes had slumber sate, 

Without or couch or canopy. 

Except a rougher field and sky 

Than now might yield a warrior's bed, 

Than now along the heaven was spread. 

He could not rest, he could not stay 

Within his tent to wait for day. 

But walk'd him forth along the sand. 

Where thousand sleepers strew'd the strand. 

What pillow'd them ? and why should he 

More wakeful than the humblest be, 

Since more their peril, worse their toil ? 

And yet they fearless dream of spoil ; 

8 " As lions o'er the jackal sway 
f By springing dauntless on the prey ; 
They follow on, and yelling press 
To gcjrge the fragments of success." — MS. 
* " He vainly turn'd from side to side, 
And each reposing posture tried." — MS. 



THE SIEGE OF CORINTH. 



147 



While he alone, where thousands pass'd 
A night of sleep, perchance their last, 
In sickly vigil wander'd on, 
And envied all he gazed upon. 

XIV. 

He felt his soul become more light 
Beneath the freshness of the night. 
Cool was the silent sky, though calm, 
And bathed his brow with airy balm : 
Behind, the camp— before him lay. 
In many a winding creek and bay, 
Lepanto's gulf; and, on the brow 
Of Delphi's hill, unshaken snow, 
High and eternal, such as shone 
Through thousand summers brightly gone. 
Along the gulf, the mount, the clime ; 
It will not melt, like man, to time : 
Tyrant and slave are swept away. 
Less form'd to wear before the ray ; 
But that white veil, the lightest, frailest, 
WMch on the mighty mount thou hailest, 
While tower and tree are torn and rent, 
Shines o'er its craggy battlement ; 
In form a peak, in height a cloud. 
In texture like a hovering shroud, 
Thus high by parting Freedom spread, 
As from her fond abode she fled, 
And linger'd on the spot, where long 
Her prophet spirit spake in song. 
Oh ! still her step at moments falters 
O'er wither'd fields, and ruin'd altars, 
And fain would wake, in souls too broken. 
By pointing to each glorious token : 
But vain her voice, till better days 
Dawn in those yet remember'd rays. 
Which shone upon the Persian flying, 
And saw the Spartan smile in dying. 



XV. 

Not mindless of these mighty times 

Was Alp, despite his flight and crimes ; 

And through this night, as on he wander'd. 

And o'er the past and present ponder'd, 

And thought upon the glorious dead 

Who there in better cause had bled, 

He felt how faint and feebly dim 

The fame that could accrue to him. 

Who cheer'd the band, and waved the sword, 

A traitor in a turban'd horde ; 

And led them to the lawless siege, 

Whose best success were sacrilege. 

Not so had those his fancy number'd. 

The chiefs whose dust around him slumber'd 

' Here follows, in MS.— 

" Immortal — boundless — undecay'd — 
Their souls the very soil pervade." 

> " Where Freedom loveliest may be won."— MS. 



Their phalanx marshall'd on the plain. 
Whose bulwarks were not then in vain. 
They fell devoted, but undying ; 
The very gale their name seem'd sighing : 
The waters murmur'd of their name ; 
The woods were peopled with their fame ; 
The silent pillar, lone and gray, 
Claim'd kindred with their sacred clay ; 
Their spirits wrapp'd the dusky mountain. 
Their memory sparkled o'er the fountain ; 
The meanest rill, the mightiest river 
Roll'd mingling with their fame for ever. 
Despite of every yoke slie bears. 
That land is glory's still and theirs ! i 
'Tis still a watchword to the earth : 
When man would do a deed of worth 
He points to Greece, and turns to tread, 
So sanction'd, on the tyrant's head : 
He looks to her, and rushes on 
Where life is lost, or freedom won.^ 

XVI. 

Still by the shore Alp mutely mused. 

And woo'd the freshness night diffused. 

There shrinks no ebb in that tideless sea,^ 

Which changeless rolls eternally ; 

So that wildest of waves, in their angriest mood. 

Scarce break on the bounds of the land for a rood : 

And the powerless moon beholds them flow. 

Heedless if she come or go : 

Calm or high, in main or bay. 

On their course she hath no sway. 

The rock unworn its base doth bare. 

And looks o'er the surf, but it comes not there ; 

And the fringe of the foam may be seen below. 

On the line that it left long ages ago : 

A smooth short space of yellow sand 

Between it and the greener land. 

He wander'd on along the beach. 

Till within the range of a carbine's reach 

Of the leaguer'd wall ; but they saw him not. 

Or how could he 'scape from the hostile shot ? * 

Did traitors lurk in the Christians' hold ? [cold ? 

Were their hands grown stiff", or their hearts wax'd 

I know not, in sooth ; but from yonder wall 

There flash'd no fire, and there hiss'd no ball, 

Though he stood beneath the bastion's frown, 

That flank'd the seaward gate of the town ; 

Though he heard the sound, and could almost tell 

The sullen words of the sentinel, 

As his measured step on the stone below 

Clank'd, as he paced it to and fro ; 

And he saw the lean dogs beneath the wall 

Hold o'er the dead their carnival,^ 

8 The reader need hardly be reminded that there are no 
perceptible tides in the Mediterranean. 
* " Or would not waste on a single head 

The ball on numbers better sped." — MS. 
5 " Omit the rest of this section." — Gifford. 



148 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Gorging and growling o'er carcass and limb ; 

They were too busy to bark at him ! 

From a Tartar's skull they had stripp'd the flesh, 

As ye peel the fig when its fruit is fresh ; 

And their white tusks crunch'd o'er the whiter skull/ 

As it slipp'd thi-ough their jaws, when their edge grew 

dull. 
As they lazily mumbled the bones of the dead, 
When they scarce could rise from the spot where they 

fed; 
So well had they broken a lingering fast 
With those who had fallen for that night's repast.^ 
And Alp knew, by the turbans that roll'd on the sand, 
The foremost of these were the best of his band : 
Crimson and green were the shawls of their wear, 
And each scalp had a single long tuft of hair,^ 
All the rest was shaven and bare. 
The scalps were in the wild dog's maw. 
The hair was tangled round his jaw : 
But close by the shore, on the edge of the gulf, 
There sat a vulture flapping a wolf. 
Who had stolen from the hills, but kept away, 
Scared by the dogs, from the human prey ; 
But he seized on his share of a steed that lay, 
Pick'd by the birds, on the sands of the bay. 

XVII. 

Alp turn'd him from the sickening sight : 

Never had shaken his nerves in fight ; 

But he better could brook to behold the dying, 

Deep in the tide of their warm blood lying,* 

Scorch'd with the death-thirst, and writhing in vain. 

Than the perishing dead who are past all pain.^ 

There is something of pride in the perilous hour, 

Whate'er be the shape in which death may lower ; 

For Fame is there to say who bleeds. 

And Honor's eye on daring deeds ! 

But when all is past, it is humbling to tread 

O'er the weltering field of the tombless dead,^ 

1 This spectacle I have seen, siich as described, beneath the 
wall of the Seraglio at Constantinople, in the little cavities 
worn by the Bosphorus in the rock, a narrow terrace of 
which projects between the wall and the water. I think the 
fact is also mentioned in Hobhouse's Travels. The bodies 
were probably those of some refractory Janizaries.— " The 
sensations produced by the state of the weather, and leaving 
a comfortable cabin, were in unison with the impressions 
which we felt when, passing under the palace of the sultans, 
and gazing at the gloomy cypresses which rise above the 
walls, we saw two dogs gnawing a dead body."— Hobhouse. 

2 " This passage shows the force of Lord Byron's pencil."— 
Jeffrey. 

3 This tuft, or long lock, is left, from a superstition that 
Mahomet will draw them into Paradise by it. 

* "Than the mangled corpse in its own blood lying."— 

GiPPORD. 

5 " Strike out— 

' Scorch'd with the death-thirst, and writhing in vain, 
Than the perishing dead who are past all pain.' 
What is a 'perishing dead'?" — G. 

6 " O'er the weltering limbs of the tombless dead."— G. 



And see worms of the earth, and fowls of the air, 
Beasts of the forest, all gathering there ; 
All regarding man as their prey, 
All rejoicing in his decay .'^ 

XVIII. 

There is a temple in ruin stands, 

Fashion'd by long-forgotten hands ; 

Two or three columns, and many a stone, 

Marble and granite, with grass o'ergrown ! 

Out upon Time ! it will leave no more 

Of the things to come than the things before ! ^ 

Out upon Time ! who for ever will leave 

But enough of the past for the future to grieve 

O'er that which hath been, and o'er that which 

must be : 
What we have seen, our sons shall see ; 
Remnants of things that have pass'd away. 
Fragments of stone, rear'd by creatures of clay !^ 

XIX. 

He sate him down at a pillar's base,i<> 

And pass'd his hand athwart his face ; 

Like one in dreary musing mood, 

Declining was his attitude ; 

His head was drooping on his breast, 

Fever'd, throbbing, and oppress'd : 

And o'er his brow, so downward bent, 

Oft his beating fingers went; 

Hurriedly, as you may see 

Your own run over the ivory key, 

Ere the measured tone is taken 

By the chords you would awaken. 

There he sate all heavily. 

As he heard the night-wind sigh. 

Was it the wind through some hollow stone 

Sent that soft and tender moan ? ^^ 

He lifted his head, and he look'd on the sea. 

But it was unrippled as glass may be ; 

1 " All that liveth on man will prey, 
All rejoice in his decay, 
All that can kindle dismay and disgust 
Follow his frame from the bier to the dust."— MS. 

8 " Omit this couplet." — Gifpord. 

9 After this follows in MS.— 

" Monuments that the coming age 
Leaves to the spoil of the seasons' rage- 
Till ruin makes the relics scarce, 
Then Learning acts her solemn farce, 
And, roaming through the marble waste, 
Prates of beauty, art, and taste. 

XIX. 

" That Temple was more in the midst of the plain ; 
What of that shrine did yet remain 
Lay to his left ." 

10 « From this, all is beautiful to — 

' He saw not, he knew not ; but nothing is there.' "— G. 
11 1 must here acknowledge a close, though unintentional, 
resemblance in these twelve lines to a passage in an unpub- 
lished poem of Mr. Coleridge, called " Christabel." It was 
not till after these lines were written that I heard that wild 



THE SIEGE OF CORINTH. 



149 



He look'd on the long grass — it waved not a blade : 

How was that gentle sound convey'd ? 

He look'd to the banners— each flag lay still, 

So did the leaves on Cithseron's hill, 

And he felt not a breath come over his cheek ; 

What did that sudden sound bespeak ? 

He turn'd to the left — is he sure of sight? 

There sate a lady, youthful and bright ! 

XX. 

He started up with more of fear 

Than if an armed foe were near. 

" God of my fathers ! what is here ? 

Who art thou, and wherefore sent 

So near a hostile armament ?" 

His trembling hands refused to sign 

The cross he deem'd no more divine : 

He had resumed it in that hour, 

But conscience wrung away the power. 

He gazed, he saw : he knew the face 

Of beauty, and the form of grace ; 

It was Francesca by his side. 

The maid who might have been his bride ! 

The rose was yet upon her cheek, 

But mellow'd with a tenderer streak : 

Where was the play of her soft lips fled ? 

Gone was the smile that enliven'd their red. 

The ocean's calm within their view, 

Beside her eye had less of blue ; 

But like that cold wave it stood still, 

And its glance,! though clear, was chill. 

Around her form a thin robe twining, 

Nought conceal'd her bosom shining ; 

Through the parting of her hair, 

Floating darkly downward there, 

Her rounded arm show'd white and bare : 

And ere yet she made reply. 

Once she raised her hand on high ; 

It was so wan, and transparent of hue, 

You might have seen the moon shine through. 

XXL 

" I come from my rest to him I love best, 
That I may be happy, and he may be bless'd. 
I have pass'd the guards, the gate, the wall ; 
Sought thee in safety through foes and all. 
'Tis said the lion will turn and flee 
From a maid in the pride of her purity ; 



and singularly original and beautiful poem recited ; and the 
MS. of that production I never saw till very recently, by the 
kindness of Mr. Coleridge himself, who, I hope, is convinced 
that I have not been a willful plagiarist. The original idea 
andoubtfKlly pertains to Mr. Coleridge, whose poem has been 
corapost'd above fourteen years. Let me conclude by a hope 
that he will not longer delay the publication of a produc- 
tion, of which I can only add my mite of approbation to the 
applause of far more competent judges. — The following are 
the lines in "Christabel" which Lord Byron had uninten- 
tionally imitated:— 



And the Power on high, that can shield the good 

Thus from the tyrant of the wood. 

Hath extended its mercy to guard me as well 

From the hands of the leaguering infidel. 

I come — and if I come in vain. 

Never, oh never, we meet again ! 

Thou hast done a fearful deed 

In falling away from thy fathers' creed : 

But dash that turban to earth, and sign 

The sign of the cross, and for ever be mine ; 

Wring the black drop from thy heart. 

And to-morrow unites us no more to part." 

" And where should our bridal couch be spread? 

In the midst of the dying and the dead ? 

For to-morrow we give to the slaughter and flame 

The sons and the shrines of the Christian name. 

None, save thou and thine, I've sworn. 

Shall be left upon the morn : 

But thee will I bear to a lovely spot, [forgot. 

Where our hands shall be join'd, and our sorrow 

There thou yet shalt be my bride. 

When once again I've quell'd the pride 

Of Venice ; and her hated race 

Have felt the arm they would debase 

Scourge, with a whip of scorpions, those 

Whom vice and envy made my foes." 

Upon his hand she laid her own — 

Light was the touch, but it thrill'd to the bone, 

And shot a chillness to his heart. 

Which fix'd him beyond the power to start. 

Though slight was that grasp so mortal cold, 

He could not loose him from its hold ; 

But never did clasp of one so dear 

Strike on the pulse with such feeling of fear, 

As those thin fingers, long and white. 

Froze through his blood by their touch that night. 

The feverish glow of his brow was gone, 

And his heart sank so still that it felt like stone, 

As he look'd on the face, and beheld its hue, 

So deeply changed from what he knew : 

Fair but faint — without the ray 

Of mind, that made each feature play 

Like sparkling waves on a sunny day ; 

And her motionless lips lay still as death. 

And her words came forth without her breath. 

And there rose not a heave o'er her bosom's swell. 

And there seem'd not a pulse in her veins to dwell. 



' The night is chill, the forest bare, 
Is it the wind that moaneth bleak? 
There is not wind enough in the air 
To move away the ringlet curl 
From the lovely lady's cheek — 
There is not wind enough to twirl 
The one red leaf, the last of its clan, 
That dances as often as dance it can. 
Hanging so light, and hanging so high, 
On the topmost twig that looks at the sky. 
" And its thrilling glance," &c.— Gifford. 



150 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Though her eye shone out. yet the lids were fix'd, 

And the glance that it gave was wild and unmix'd 

With aught of change, as the eyes may seem 

Of the restless who walk in a troubled dream ; 

Like the figures on arras, that gloomily glare, 

Stirr'd by the breath of the wintry air,i 

So seen by the dying lamp's fitful light. 

Lifeless, but life-like, and awful to sight ; 

As they seem, through the dimness, about to come 

down 
From the shadowy wall where their images frown ; 2 
Fearfully flitting to and fro, 
As the gusts on the tapestry come and go. 

" If not for love of me be given 
Thus much, then, for the love of heaven, — 
Again I say — that turban tear 
From off thy faithless brow, and swear 
Thine injured country's sons to spare, 
Or thou art lost ; and never shalt see — 
Not earth — that's past — but heaven or me. 
If this thou dost accord, albeit 
A heavy doom 'tis thine to meet, 
That doom shall half absolve thy sin, 
And mercy's gate may receive thee within : 
But pause one moment more, and take 
The curse of Him thou didst forsake ; 
And look once more to heaven, and see 
Its love for ever shut from thee. 
There is a light cloud by the moon ^ — 
'Tis passing, and will pass full soon — 
If, by the time its vapory sail 
Hath ceased her shaded orb to veil, 
Thy heart within thee is not changed, 
Then God and man are both avenged ; 
Dark will thy doom be, darker still 
Thine immortality of ill." 

Alp look'd to heaven, and saw on high 
The sign she spake of in the sky ; 
But his heart was swollen, and turn'd aside, 
By deep interminable pride. 



1 "Like a picture, that magic had charm'd from its frame, 
Lifeless but life-like, and ever the same." — MS. 

2 In the summer of 1803, when in his sixteenth year. Lord 
Byron, though offered a bed at Annesley, used at first to 
return every night to sleep at Newstead ; alleging as a reason, 
that he was afraid of the family pictures of the Chaworths ; 
that he fancied " they had taken a grudge to him on account 
of the duel." Mr. Moore thinks it may possibly have been 
the recollection of these pictures that suggested to him these 
lines. 

3 I have been told that the idea expressed in this and the 
five following lines has been admired by those whose appro- 
bation is valuable. I am glad of it : but it is not original — at 
least not mine ; it may be found much better expressed in 
pages 182-3-4 of the English version of "Vathek" (I forget 
the precise page of the French), a work to which I have be- 
fore referred ; and never recur to, or read, without a renewal 
of gratification.— The following is the passage : — " ' Deluded 
prince!' said the Genius, addressing the Caliph, 'to whom 
Providence hath confided the care of innumerable subjects ; 



This first false passion of his breast 

EoU'd like a torrent o'er the rest. 

He sue for mercy ! He dismay 'd 

By wild words of a timid maid ! 

He, wrong'd by Venice, vow to save 

Her sons, devoted to the grave ! 

No — though that cloud were thunder's worst, 

And charged to crush him — let it burst ! 

He look'd upon it earnestly, 

Without an accent of reply ; 

He watch'd it passing ; it is flown : 

Full on his eye the clear moon shone, 

And thus he spake — " Whate'er my fate, 

I am no changeling— 'tis too late : 

The reed in storms may bow and quiver. 

Then rise again ; the tree must shiver. 

What Venice made me, I must be. 

Her foe in all, save love to thee : 

But thou art safe : oh, fly with me !" 
He turn'd, but she is gone ! 
Nothing is there but the column stone. 
Hath she sunk in the earth, or melted in air ? 
He saw not— he knew not — but nothing is there. 

XXIL 

The night is past, and shines the sun 

As if that morn were a jocund one.* 

Lightly and brightly breaks away 

The Morning from her mantle gray, 

And the Noon will look on a sultry day.^ 

Hark to the trump, and the drum, 
And the mournful sound of the barbarous horn. 
And the flap of the banners, that flit as they're borne, 
And the neigh of the steed, and the multitude's hum. 
And the clash, and the shout, " They come ! they 

come !" 
The horse-tails 6 are pluck'd from the ground, and the 
sword [word. 

From its sheath ; and they form, and but wait for the 
Tartar, and Spahi, and Turcoman, 
Strike your tents, and throng to the van ; 



is it thus that thou fulfiUest thy mission ? Thy crimes are 
already completed ; and art thou now hastening to thy pun- 
ishment? Thou knowest that beyond those mountains Eblis 
and his accursed dives hold their infernal empire ; and, se- 
duced by a malignant phantom, thou art proceeding to sur- 
render thyself to them ! This moment is the last of grace 
allowed thee : give back Nouronahar to her father, who still 
retains a few sparks of life : destroy thy tower with all its 
abominations: drive Carathis from thy councils: be just to 
thy subjects: respect the ministers of the Prophet: compen- 
sate for thy impieties by an exemplary life ; and, instead of 
squandering thy days in voluptuous indulgence, lament thy 
crimes on the sepulchres of thy ancestors. Thou beholdest 
the clouds that obscure the sun : at the instant he recovers 
his splendor, if thy heart be not changed, the time of mercy 
assigned thee will be past for ever.' " 

* " Leave out this couplet." — Gifford. 

6 " Strike out — ' And the Noon will look on a sultry day.' " 
— G. 

s The horse-tails, fixed upon a lance, a pacha's standard. 



THE SIEGE OF CORINTH. 



151 



Mount ye, spur ye, skirr the plain, 

That the fugitive may flee in vain. 

When he breaks from the town ; and none escape, 

Aged or young, in the Christian shape ; 

While your fellows on foot, in a fiery mass. 

Bloodstain the breach through which they pass.^ 

The steeds are all bridled, and snort to the rein ; 

Curved is each neck, and flowing each mane ; 

White is the foam of their champ on the bit : 

The spears are uplifted ; the matches are lit ; 

The cannon are pointed, and ready to roar, 

And crush the wall they have crumbled before :^ 

Forms in his phalanx each Janizar ; 

Alp at their head ; his right arm is bare, 

So is the blade of his scimitar ; 

The khan and the pachas are all at their post; 

The vizier himself at the head of the host. 

When the culverin's signal is fired, then on ; 

Leave not in Corinth a living one — 

A priest at her altars, a chief in her halls, 

A hearth in her mansions, a stone on her walls. 

Grod and the prophet — Allah Hu ! 

Up to the skies with that wild halloo ! 

•* There the breach lies for passage, the ladder to scale ; 

And your hands on your sabres, and how should ye fail ? 

He who first downs with the red cross may crave ^ 

His heart's dearest wish ; let him ask it, and have !" 

Thus utter'd Coumourgi, the dauntless vizier ; 

The reply was the brandish of sabre and spear, 

And the shout of fierce thousands in joyous ire ; — 

Silence— hark to the signal — fire ! 

XXIII. 

As the wolves, that headlong go 

On the stately bufialo. 

Though with fieiy eyes, and angry roar, 

And hoofs that stamp, and horns that gore, 

He tramples on earth, or tosses on high 

The foremost, who rush on his strength but to die : 

Thus against the wall they went, 

Thus the first were backward bent;* 

Many a bosom, sheathed in brass, 

Strew'd the earth like broken glass, 

Shiver'd by the shot, that tore 

The ground whereon they moved no more : 

Even as they fell, in files they lay. 

Like the mower's grass at the close of day. 

When his work is done on the levell'd plain ; 

Such was the fall of the foremost slain.^ 

XXIV. 
As the spring tides, with heavy splash, 
From the cliflfs invading dash 

1 "Omit— 
' While your fellows on foot, in a fiery mass, 
Bloodstain the breach through which they pass.'" — Giffokd. 

' "And crush the wall they have shaken before." — G. 

' " 'He who first dfncm with the red cross may crave,' &c. 
What vulgarism is this ! 

' He who lowers, — or plucks doum,' " &c. — G. 



Huge fragments, sapp'd by the ceaseless flow. 

Till white and thundering down they go. 

Like the avalanche's snow 

On the Alpine vales below ; 

Thus at length, outbreathed and worn, 

Corinth's sons were downward borne 

By the long and oft renew'd 

Charge of the Moslem multitude. 

In firmness they stood, and in masses they fell, 

Heap'd, by the host of the infidel. 

Hand to hand, and foot to foot : 

Nothing there, save death, was mute ; 

Stroke, and thrust, and flash, and cry 

For quarter, or for victory. 

Mingle there with the volleying thunder, 

Which makes the distant cities wonder 

How the sounding battle goes. 

If with them, or for their foes ; 

If they must mourn, or may rejoice 

In that annihilating voice, 

Which pierces the deep hills through and through 

With an echo dread and new : 

You might have heard it, on that day, 

O'er Salamis and Megara ; 

(We have heard the hearers say,) 

Even unto Piraeus' bay. 

XXV. 

From the point of encountering blades to the 

hilt, 
Sabres and swords with blood were gilt ; 
But the rampart is won, and the spoil begun. 
And all but the after carnage done. 
Shriller shrieks now mingling come 
From within the plunder' d dome : 
Hark to the haste of flying feet. 
That splash in the blood of the slippery street ! 
But here and there, where vantage ground 
Against the foe may still be found. 
Desperate groups, of twelve or ten. 
Make a pause, and turn again — 
With banded backs against the wall, 
Fiercely stand, or fighting fall. 

There stood an old man ^ — his hairs were white, 

But his veteran arm was full of might : 

So gallantly bore he the brunt of the fray. 

The dead before him, on that day. 

In a semicircle lay ; 

Still he combated unwounded. 

Though retreating, unsurrounded. 

Many a scar of former fight 

Lurk'd' beneath his corselet bright; 

4 " Thus against the wall they bent, 
Thus the first were backward sent." — GiFFORD. 

6 "Such was the fall of the foremost train."— G. 

6 " There stood a man," &c. — G. 

7 " 'Lurk'd,^ a bad word— say ' Wa^ hid.^ "— G. 



152 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



I 



But of every wound his body bore, 

Each and all had been ta'en before : 

Though aged, he was so iron of limb, 

Few of our youth could cope with him ; 

And the foes, whom he singly kept at bay, 

Outnumber'd his thin hairs ^ of silver gray. 

From right to left his sabre swept ; 

Many an Othman mother wept 

Sons that were unborn, when dipp'd^ 

His weapon first in Moslem gore, 

Ere his years could count a score. 

Of all he might have been the sire ^ 

Who fell that day beneath his ire : 

For, sonless left long years ago. 

His wrath made many a childless foe ; 

And since the day, when in the strait* 

His only boy had met his fate. 

His parent's iron hand did doom 

More than a human hecatomb.^ 

If shades by carnage be appeased, 

Patroclus' spirit less was pleased 

Than his, Minotti's son, who died 

Where Asia's bounds and ours divide. 

Buried he lay, where thousands before 

For thousands of years were inhumed on the 

shore ; 
What of them is left, to tell 
Where they lie, and how they fell ? 
Not a stone on their turf, nor a bone in their graves ; 
But they live in the verse that immortally saves. 

XXVI. 
Hark to the Allah shout ! ^ a band 
Of the Mussulman bravest and best is at hand : 
Their leader's nervous arm is bare. 
Swifter to smite, and never to spare — 
Unclothed to the shoulder it waves them on ; 
Thus in the fight is he ever known : 
Others a gaudier garb may show, 
To tempt the spoil of the greedy foe ; 
Many a hand's on a richer hilt. 
But none on a steel more ruddily gilt ; 
Many a loftier turban may wear, — 
Alp is but known by the white arm bare ; 
Look through the thick of the fight, 'tis there ! 
There is not a standard on that shore 
So well advanced the ranks before ; 
There is not a banner in Moslem war 
Will lure the Delhis half so far ; 
It glances like a falling star ! 
Where'er that mighty arm is seen, 
The bravest be, or late have been ; ' 

1 " Outnumber'd his hairs," &c. — Gipford. 

2 " Sons that were unborn, when he dipp'd." — G. 

3 " Bravo !— this is better than King Priam's fifty sons."— G. 

4 In the naval battle at the mouth of the Dardanelles, be- 
tween the Venetians and the Turks. 

5 " There can be no such thing ; but the whole of this is 
poor, and spun out." — G. 



There the craven cries for quarter 
Vainly to the vengeful Tartar ; 
Or the hero, silent lying. 
Scorns to yield a groan in dying ; 
Mustering his last feeble blow 
'Gainst the nearest levell'd foe, 
Though faint beneath the mutual wound, 
Grappling on the gory ground. 

XXVII. 

Still the old man stood erect. 
And Alp's career a moment check'd. 
" Yield thee, Minotti ; quarter take. 
For thine own, thy daughter's sake." 

" Never, renegado, never ! 

Though the life of thy gift would last for ever." ^ 

" Francesca ! — Oh, my promised bride ! ^ 
Must she too perish by thy pride ?" 

" She is safe." — " Where ? where ?" — " In heaven : 

From whence thy traitor soul is driven — 

Far from thee, and undefiled." 

Grimly then Minotti smiled. 

As he saw Alp staggering bow 

Before his words, as with a blow. 

" Oh God ! when died she ?" — " Yesternight — 

Nor weep I for her spirit's flight : 

None of my pure race shall be 

Slaves to Mahomet and thee — 

Come on !" — That challenge is in vain — 

Alp's already with the slain ! 

While Minotti's words were wreaking 

More revenge in bitter speaking 

Than his falchion's point had found, 

Had the time allow'd to wound. 

From within the neighboring porch 

Of a long-defended church. 

Where the last and desperate few 

Would the failing fight renew. 

The sharp shot dash'd Alp to the ground ; 

Ere an eye could view the wound 

That crash'd through the brain of the infidel, 

Round he spun, and down he fell ; 

A flash like fire within his eyes 

Blazed, as he bent no more to rise. 

And then eternal darkness sunk 

Through all the palpitating trunk ; ^^ 

Nought of life left, save a quivering 

Where his limbs were slightly shivering : 

They turn'd him on his back ; his breast 

And brow were stain'd with gore and dust. 



6 " Hark to the Allah Hu !" &c.— Gifford. 

7 " Omit the remainder of the section." — G. 

8 In the original MS.— 

" Though the life of thy giving would last for ever. 

9 " "Where's Francesca ?— my promised bride !" — MS. 

10 Here follows in MS.— 

" Twice and once he roll'd a space, 
Then lead-like lay upon his face." 



THE SIEGE OF CORINTH. 



153 



And through his lips the life-blood oozed, 
From its deep veins lately loosed ; 
But in his pulse there was no throb, 
Nor on his lips one dying sob ; 
Sigh, nor word, nor struggling breath 
Heralded his way to death : 
Ere his very thought could pray, 
Unanell'd he pass'd away. 
Without a hope from mercy's aid, — 
To the last a Renegade.^ 

XXVIII. 

Fearfully the yell arose 

Of his followers, and his foes ; 

These in joy, in fury those i ^ 

Then again in conflict mixing. 

Clashing swords, and spears transfixing, 

Interchanged the blow and thrust. 

Hurling warriors in the dust. 

Street by street, and foot by foot, 

Still Minotti dares dispute 

The latest portion of the land 

Left beneath his high command ; 

With him, aiding heart and hand, 

The remnant of his gallant band. 

Still the church is tenable, 
Whence issued late the fated ball 
That half avenged the city's fall. 

When Alp, her fierce assailant, fell : 

Thither bending sternly back. 

They leave before a bloody track ; 

And, with their faces to the foe. 

Dealing wounds with every blow,^ 

The chief, and his retreating train. 

Join to those within the fane ; 

There they yet may breathe awhile, 

Shelter'd by the massy pile. 

XXIX. 

Brief breathing-time ! the turban'd host, 
With adding ranks and raging boast, 
Press onwards with such strength and heat. 
Their numbers balk their own retreat ; 
For narrow the way that led to the spot 
Where still the Christians yielded not ; 
And the foremost, if fearful, may vainly try 
Through the massy column to turn and fly ; 
They perforce must do or die. 
They die ; but ere their eyes could close. 
Avengers o'er their bodies rose ; 
Fresh and furious, fast they fill 
The ranks unthinn'd, though slaughter'd still 



1 " One cannot help suspecting, on longer and more mature 
consideration, that one has been led to join in ascribing much 
more force to the objections made against such characters as 
the Corsair, Lara, the Giaour, Alp, &c., than belongs to them. 
The incidents, habits, Ac, are much too remote from modern 
And European life to act a.s mischievous examples to others ; 
while, under the srirero circumstances, the splendor of imagery, 
beauty and tenderness of sentiment, and extraordinary 



And faint the weary Christians wax 
Before the still renew'd attacks : 
And now the Othmans gain the gate ; 
Still resists its iron weight. 
And still, all deadly aim'd and hot, 
From every crevice comes the shot; 
From every shatter'd window pour 
The volleys of the sulphurous shower : 
But the portal wavering grows and weak — 
The iron yields, the hinges creak — 
It bends— it falls— and all is o'er ; 
Lost Corinth may resist no more ! 

XXX. 

Darkly, sternly, and all alone, 

Minotti stood o'er the altar stone : 

Madonna's face upon him shone. 

Painted in heavenly hues above. 

With eyes of light and looks of love ; 

And placed upon that holy shrine 

To fix our thoughts on things divine, 

When pictured there, we kneeling see 

Her, and the boy-God on her knee. 

Smiling sweetly on each prayer 

To heaven, as if to waft it there. 

Still she smiled ; even now she smiles, 

Though slaughter streams along her aisles : 

Minotti lifted his aged eye. 

And made the sign of a cross with a sigh, 

Then seized a torch which blazed thereby ; 

And still he stood, while, with steel and flame, 

Inward and onward the Mussulman came. 

XXXI. 

The vaults beneath the mosaic stone 

Contain'd the dead of ages gone ; 

Their names were on the graven floor, 

But now illegible with gore ; 

The carved crests, and curious hues 

The varied marble's veins diffuse. 

Were smear'd, and slippery — stain'd, and strewn 

With broken swords, and helms o'erthrown : 

There were dead above, and the dead below 

Lay cold in many a coffin'd row ; 

You might see them piled in sable state, 

By a pale light through a gloomy grate ; 

But War had enter'd their dark caves, 

And stored along the vaulted graves 

Her sulphurous treasures, thickly spread 

In masses by the fleshless dead : 

Here, throughout the siege, had been 

The Christians' chiefest magazine ; 
To these a late-form'd train now led, 

strength and felicity of language, are applicable to human 
nature at all times, and in all countries, and convey to the 
best faculties of the reader's mind an impulse which elevates, 
refines, instructs, and enchants, with the noblest and purest 
of all pleasures." — Sir E. Brydges. 

2 " These in rage, in triumph those."— MS. 

3 " Dealing death with every blow." — Giffoed. 



154 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Minotti's last and stern resource 
Against the foe's o'er whelming force. 

XXXII. 

The foe came on, and few remain 

To strive, and those must strive in vain : 

For lack of further lives, to slake 

The thirst of vengeance now awake, 

With barbarous blows they gash the dead, 

And lop the already lifeless head. 

And fell the statues from their niche, 

And spoil the shrines of oflferings rich. 

And from each other's rude hands wrest 

The silver vessels saints had bless'd. 

To the high altar on they go ; 

Oh, but it made a glorious show ! ^ 

On its table still behold 

The cup of consecrated gold ; 

Massy and deep, a glittering prize, 

Brightly it sparkles to plunderers' eyes : 

That morn it held the holy wine. 

Converted by Christ to his blood so divine. 

Which his worshippers drank at the break of day. 

To shrive their souls ere they join'd in the fray. 

Still a few drops within it lay : 

And round the sacred table glow 

Twelve lofty lamps, in splendid row. 

From the purest metal cast ; 

A spoil — the richest, and the last. 

XXXIII. 

So near they came, the nearest stretch'd 
To grasp the spoil he almost reach'd, 

When old Minotti's hand 
Touch'd with the torch the train — 

'Tis fired ! 
Spire, vaults, the shrine, the spoil, the slain, 

The turban'd victors, the Christian band. 
All that of living or dead remain, 
Hurl'd on high with the shiver'd fane. 

In one wild roar expired ! 
The shatter'd town — the walls thrown down — 
The waves a moment backward bent-— 
The hills that shake, although unrent, 

As if an earthquake pass'd — 
The thousand shapeless things all driven 
In cloud and flame athwart the heaven, 

By that tremendous blast — 
Proclaim'd the desperate conflict o'er 
On that too long afflicted shore : ^ 

i " ' Oh, but it made a glorious show ! ! !' Out." — Gippord. 

2 " Strike out from ' Up to the sky,' &c., to ' All blacken'd 
there and reeking lay.' Despicable stuflf."— G. 

s» " Omit the next six lines." — G. 

4 I believe I have taken a poetical license to transplant the 
jackal from Asia. In Greece I never saw nor heard these 
animals ; but among the ruins of Ephesus I have heard them 
by hundreds. They haunt ruins and follow armies. 

6 " Leave out this couplet."— G. 



Up to the sky like rockets go 
All that mingled there below : 
Many a tall and goodly man, 
Scorch'd and shrivell'd to a span, 
When he fell to earth again 
Like a cinder strew'd the plain : 
Down the ashes shower like rain ; 
Some fell in the gulf, which received the sprinkle 
With a thousand circling wrinkles ; 
Some fell on the shore, but, far away, 
Scatter'd o'er the isthmus lay ; 
Christian or Moslem, which be they ? 
Let their mothers see and say ! 
When in cradled rest they lay, 
And each nursing mother smiled 
On the sweet sleep of her child. 
Little deem'd she such a day 
Would rend those tender limbs away. 
Not the matrons that them bore 
Could discern their offspring more ; 
That one moment left no trace 
More of human form or face 
Save a scatter'd scalp or bone : 
And down came blazing rafters, strown 
Around, and many a falling stone, 
Deeply dinted in the clay. 
All blacken'd there and reeking lay. 
All the living things that heard 
That deadly earth-shock disappear'd : 
The wild birds flew ; the wild dogs fled, 
And howling left the unburied dead ; ^ 
The camels from their keepers broke ; 
The distant steer forsook the yoke — 
The nearer steed plunged o'er the plain. 
And burst his girth, and tore his rein ; 
The bull-frog's note, from out the marsh, 
Deep-mouth' d arose, and doubly harsh ; 
The wolves yell'd on the cavern'd hill, 
Where echo roU'd in thunder still ; 
The jackals' troop, in gather'd cry,* 
Bay'd from afar complainingly. 
With a mix'd and mournful sound, 
Like crying babe, and beaten hound : ^ 
With sudden wing, and ruffled breast, 
The eagle left his rocky nest, 
And mounted nearer to the sun. 
The clouds beneath him seem'd so dun ; • 
Their smoke assail'd his startled beak. 
And made him higher soar and shriek — 
Thus was Corinth lost and won ! ^ 



6 " The ' Siege of Corinth,' though written, perhaps, with 
too visible an effect, and not very well harmonized in all its 
parts, cannot but be regarded as a magnificent composition. 
There is less misanthropy in it than in any of the rest ; and 
the interest is made up of alternate representations of soft 
and solemn scenes and emotions, and of the tumult, and ter- 
rors, and intoxication of war. These opposite pictures are, 
perhaps, too violently contrasted, and, in some parts, too 
harshly colored ; but they are in general exquisitely designed, 
and executed with the utmost spirit and energy." — Jeffrey. 



f 



iParisma*^ 



SCROPE BERDMORE DAVIES, Esq., 

THE FOLLOWING POEM IS INSCRIBED, 
BY ONE WHO HAS LONG ADMIRED HIS TALENTS AND VALUED HIS FRIENDSHIP. 



January 22, 1816, 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

The following poem is grounded on a circumstance 
mentioned in Gibbon's ** Antiquities of the House of 
Brunswick." I am aware, that in modern times the 



1 " This poem, perhaps the most exquisitely versified one 
that ever the author produced, was written in London in the 
autumn of 1815, and published in February, 1816. Although 
the beauties of it were universally acknowledged, and frag- 
ments of its music ere long on every lip, the nature of the 
subject prevented it from being dwelt upon at much length 
in the critical journals of the time ; most of which were con- 
tent to record, generally, their regret that so great a poet 
should have permitted himself, by awakening sympathy for 
a pair of incestuous lovers, to become, in some sort, the 
apologist of their sin. An anonymous writer, in 'Black- 
wood's Magazine,' seems, however, to have suggested some 
particulars, in the execution of the story, which ought to be 
taken into consideration, before we rashly class Lord Byron 
with those poetical offenders, who have bent their powers ' to 
divest incest of its hereditary horrors.' ' In Parisina,' says 
this critic, ' we are scarcely permitted to have a single glance 
at the guilt, before our attention is riveted upon the punish- 
ment: we have scarcely had time to condemn, within our 
own hearts, the sinning, though injured son, when — 

" For a departing being's soul 

The death-hymn peals and the hollow bells knoll : 

He is near his mortal goal ; 

Kneeling at the friar's knee ; 

Sad to hear — and piteous to see — 

Kneeling on the bare cold ground. 

With the block before and the guards around — 

And the headsman with his bare arm ready, 

That the blow may be both swift and steady, 

Feels if the axe be sharp and true 

Since he set its edge anew : 

While the crowd in a speechless circle gather 

To see the Son fall by the doom of the Father !" 
The fatal guilt of the Princess is in like manner swallowed 
up in the dreary contemplation of her uncertain fate. We 
forbear to think of her as an adulteress, after we have heard 
that " horrid voice " which is sent up to heaven at the death of 
her paramour— 

" Whatsoe'er its end below, 

Her life began and closed in woe." 

" ' Not only has Lord Byron avoided all the details of this 

unhallowed love, he has also contrived to mingle in the very 

incest which he condemns the idea of retribution; and our 



delicacy or fastidiousness of the reader may deem 
such subjects unfit for the purposes of poetry. The 
Greek dramatists, and some of the best of our old 
English writers, were of a different Opinion : as 
Alfieri and Schiller have also been, more recently, 



horror for the sin of Hugo is diminished by our belief that it 
was brought about by some strange and superhuman fatalism, 
to revenge the ruin of Bianca. That gloom of righteous vis- 
itation, which invests, in the old Greek tragedies, the fated 
house of Atreus, seems here to impend with some portion of 
its ancient horror over the line of Este. We hear, in the 
language of Hugo, the voice of the same prophetic solemnity 
which announced to Agamemnon, in the very moment of his 
triumph, the approaching and inevitable darkness of his 
fate : — 

" The gather'd guilt of elder times 
Shall reproduce itself in crimes ; 
There is a day of vengeance still. 
Linger it may — but come it will." 
" ' That awful chorus does not, unless we be greatly mis- 
taken, leave an impression of destiny upon the mind more 
powerful than that which rushed on the troubled spirit of 
Azo, when he heard the speech of Hugo in his hall of judg- 
ment : — 

" Thou gav'st, and mayst resume my breath, 
A gift for which I thank thee not ; 
Nor are my mother's wrongs forgot. 
Her slighted love and ruin'd name, 
Her offspring's heritage of shame." ' 
" We shall have occasion to recur to this subject when we 
reach our author's ' Manfred.' The facts on which the pres- 
ent poem was grounded are thus given in Frizzi's History of 
Ferrara : — 

" ' This turned out a calamitous year for the people of Fer- 
rara; for there occurred a very tragical event in the court of 
their sovereign. Our annals, both printed and in manuscript, 
with the exception of the unpolished and negligent work of 
Sardi, and one other, have given the following relation of 
it,— from which, however, are rejected many details, and 
especially the narrative of Bandelli, who wrote a century 
afterwards, and who does not accord with the contemporary 
historians. 

" ' By the above-mentioned Stella dell' Assassino, the mar- 
quis, in the year 1405, had a son called Ugo, a beautiful and 
ingenuous youth. Parisina Malatesta, second wife Of Nic- 
colo, like the generality of stepmothers, treated him with 
little kindness, to the infinite regret of the marquis, who re- 
garded him with fond partiality. One day she asked leave of 

(155) 



156 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



upon the Continent. The following extract will ex- 
plain the facts on which the story is founded. The 
name of Azo is substituted for Nicholas, as more 
metrical. 

"Under the reign of Nicholas III. Ferrara was 
polluted with a domestic tragedy. By the testi- 
mony of an attendant, and his own observation, the 
Marquis of Este discovered the incestuous loves of 
his wife Parisina, and Hugo his bastard son, a beau- 
tiful and valiant youth. They were beheaded in 
the castle by the sentence of a father and husband, 
who published his shame, and survived their execu- 
tion.i He was unfortunate, if they were guilty : if 
they were innocent, he was still more unfortunate; 
nor is there any possible situation in which I can sin- 
cerely approve the last act of the justice of a parent." 
— Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, vol. iii. p. 470. 

her husband to undertake a certain journey, to which he 
consented, but upon condition that Ugo should bear her com- 
pany ; for he hoped by these means to induce her, in the end, 
to lay aside the obstinate aversion which she had conceived 
against him. And indeed his intent was accomplished but 
too well, since, during the journey, she not only divested 
herself of all her hatred, but fell into the opposite extreme. 
After their return, the marquis had no longer any occasion 
to renew his former reproach. It happened one day that a 
servant of the marquis, named Zoese, or, as some call him, 
Giorgio, passing before the apartments of Parisina, saw going 
out from them one of her chambermaids, all terrified and in 
tears. Asking the reason, she told him that her mistress, for 
some slight offence, had been beating her ; and, giving vent 
to her rage, she added, that she could easily be revenged, if 
she chose to make known the criminal familiarity which sub- 
sisted between Parisina and her stepson. The servant took 
note of the words, and related them to his master. He was 
astounded thereat, but scarcely believing his ears, he assured 
himself of the fact, alas ! too clearly, on the 18th of May, by 
looking through a hole made in the ceiling of his wife's 
chamber. Instantly he broke into a furious rage, and arrested 
both of them, together with Aldobrandino Eangoni, of Mo- 
dena, her gentleman, and also, as some say, two of the women 
of her chamber, as abettors of this sinful act. He ordered 
them to be brought to a hasty trial, desiring the judges to 
pronounce sentence, in the accustomed forms, upon the cul- 
prits. This sentence was death. Some there were that be- 
stirred themselves in favor of the delinquents, and, amongst 
others, Ugoccion Contrario, who was all powerful with Nic- 
colo, and also his aged and much deserving minister Alberto 
dal Sale. Both of these, their tears flowing down their cheeks, 
and upon their knees, implored him for mercy; adducing 
whatever reasons they could suggest for sparing the offend- 
ers, besides those motives of honor and decency which 
might persuade him to conceal from the public so scandalous 
a deed. But his rage made him inflexible, and, on the in- 
stant, he commanded that the sentence should be put in 
execution. 

" ' It was, then, in the prisons of the castle, and exactly in 
those frightful dungeons which are seen at this day beneath 
the chamber called the Aurora, at the foot of the Lion's tower, 
at the top of the street Giovecca, that on the night of the 21st 
of May were beheaded, first, Ugo, and afterwards Parisina. 
Zoese, he that accused her, conducted the latter under his 
arm to the place of punishment. She, all along, fancied that 
she was to be thrown into a pit, and asked at every step, 
whether she was yet come to the spot. She was told that 
her punishment was the axe. She inquired what had become 
of Ugo, and received for answer, that he was already dead ; 
at the which, sighing grievously, she exclaimed, " Now, then, 



lari0ina» 



I. 

It is the hour when from the boughs 
The nightingale's high note is heard ; 

It is the hour when lovers' vows 
Seem sweet in every whisper'd word ; ^ 

And gentle winds, and waters near, 

Make music to the lonely ear. 

Each flower the dews have lightly wet, 

And in the sky the stars are met, 

And on the wave is deeper blue, 

And on the leaf a browner hue, 

And in the heaven that clear obscure, 

So softly dark, and darkly pure, 

I wish not myself to live ;" and, being come.to the block, she 
stripped herself with her own hands of all her ornaments, 
and wrapping a cloth round her head, submitted to the fatal 
stroke, which terminated the cruel scene. The same was 
done with Rangoni, who, together with the others, according 
to two calendars in the library of St. Francesco, was buried 
in the cemetery of that convent. Nothing else is known re- 
specting the women. 

" ' The marquis kept watch the whole of that dreadful night, 
and, as he was walking backwards and forwards, inquired of 
the captain of the castle if Ugo was dead yet ; who answered 
him. Yes. He then gave himself up to the most desperate 
lamentations, exclaiming, " Oh ! that I too were dead, since I 
have been hurried on to resolve thus against my own Ugo !" 
And then gnawing with his teeth a cane which he had in his 
hand, he passed the rest of the night in sighs and in tears, 
calling frequently upon his own dear Ugo. On the following 
day, calling to mind that it would be necessary to make pub- 
lic his justification, seeing that the transaction could not be 
kept secret, he ordered the narrative to be drawn out upon 
paper, and sent it to all the courts of Italy. 

" ' On receiving this advice, the Doge of Venice, Francesco 
Foscari, gave orders, but without publishing his reasons, that 
stop should be put to the preparations for a tournament, 
which, under the auspices of the marquis, and at the expense 
of the city of Padua, was about to take place, in the square of 
St. Mark, in order to celebrate his advancement to the ducal 
chair. 

" ' The marquis, in addition to what he had already done, 
from some unaccountable burst of vengeance, commanded 
that as many of the married women as were well known to 
him to be faithless, like his Parisina, should, like her, be 
beheaded. Amongst others, Barbarina, or, as some call her, 
Laodamia Romei, wife of the court judge, uhderwent this 
sentence, at the usual place of execution ; that is to say, in 
the quarter of St. Giacomo, opposite the present fortress, 
beyond St. Paul's. It cannot be told how strange appeared 
this proceeding in a prince, who, considering his own dispo- 
sition, should, as it seemed, have been in such cases most 
indulgent. Some, however, there were who did not fail to 
commend him.' 

"The above passage of Frizzi was translated by Lord 
Byron, and formed a closing note to the original edition of 
' Parisina.' " 

1 "Ferrara is much decayed and depopulated; but the 
castle still exists entire ; and I saw the court where Parisina 
and Hugo were beheaded, according to the annal of Gibbon." 
—Byron Letters, 1817. 

2 "The opening verses, though soft and voluptuous, are 
tinged with the same shade of sorrow which gives character 
and harmony to the whole poem." — Jeffrey. 



PARISINA. 



157 



Which follows the decline of day, 

As twilight melts beneath the moon away.^ 

II. 

But it is not to list to the waterfall 

That Parisina leaves her hall, 

And it is not to gaze on the heavenly light 

That the lady walks in the shadow of night ; 

And if she sits in Este's bower, 

'Tis not for the sake of its full-blown flower ; 

She listens — but not for the nightingale — 

Though her ear expects as soft a tale. 

There glides a step through the foliage thick. 

And her cheek grows pale — and her heart beats 

quick. 
There whispers a voice through the rustling leaves, 
And her blush returns, and her bosom heaves. 
A moment more — and they shall meet — 
'Tis past — her lover's at her feet. 

III. 

And what unto them is the world beside, 
With all its change of time and tide ? 
Its living things — its earth and sky — 
Are nothing to their mind and eye. 
And heedless as the dead are they 

Of aught around, above, beneath ; 
As if all else had pass'd away, 

They only for each other breathe ; 
Their very sighs are full of joy 

So deep, that did it not decay, 
That happy madness would destroy 

The hearts which feel its fiery sway : 
Of guilt, of peril, do they deem 
In that tumultuous tender dream ? 
Who that have felt that passion's power. 
Or paused, or fear'd in such an hour ? 
Or thought how brief such moments last ? 
But yet — they are already past ! 
Alas ! we must awake before 
We know such vision comes no more. 

IV. 
With many a lingering look they leave 

The spot of guilty gladness past : 
And though they hope, and vow, they grieve, 

As if that parting were the last. 
The frequent sigh — the long embrace — 

The lip that there would cling for ever. 
While gleams on Parisina's face 

The Heaven she fears will not forgive her. 
As if each calmly conscious star 
Beheld her frailty from afar — 
The frequent sigh, the long embrace. 
Yet binds them to their trysting-place. 
But it must come, and they must part 
In fearful heaviness of heart, 



1 The lines contained in this section were printed as set to 
music some time since, but belonged t^ the poem where they 



With all the deep and shuddering chill 
Which follows fast the deeds of ill. 



And Hugo is gone to his lonely bed, 

To covet there another's bride ; 
But she must lay her conscious head 
A husband's trusting heart beside. 
But fever'd in her sleep she seems, 
And red her cheek with troubled dreams, 

And mutters she in her unrest 
I A name she dare not breathe by day, 
; And clasps her lord unto the breast 
Which pants for one away : 
And he to that embrace awakes, 
And, happy in the thought, mistakes 
That dreaming sigh, and warm caress, 
For such as he was wont to bless ; 
And could in very fondness weep 
O'er her who loves him even in sleep. 



VI. 

He clasp'd her sleeping to his heart, 

And listeu'd to each broken word : 
He hears — Why doth Prince Azo start, 

As if the Archangel's voice he heard ? 
And well he may — a deeper doom 
Could scarcely thunder o'er his tomb, 
When he shall wake to sleep no more. 
And stand the eternal throne before. 
And well he may — his earthly peace 
Upon that sound is doom'd to cease. 
That sleeping whisper of a name 
Bespeaks her guilt and Azo's shame. 
And whose that name ? that o'er his pillow 
Sounds fearful as the breaking billow. 
Which rolls the plank upon the shore, 

And dashes on the pointed rock 
The wretch who sinks to rise no more, — 

So came upon his soul the shock. 
And whose that name ? 'tis Hugo's, — his- 
In sooth he had not deem'd of this ! — 
'Tis Hugo's, — he, the child of one 
He loved — his own all-evil son — 
The offspring of his wayward youth. 
When he betray'd Bianca's truth. 
The maid whose folly could confide 
In him who made her not his bride. 



VII. 

He pluck'd his poniard in its sheath. 
But sheath'd it ere the point was bare — 

Howe'er unworthy now to breathe. 
He could not slay a thing so fair — 
At least, not smiling — sleeping — there : 



now appear ; the greater part of which was composed prior 
to " Lara." 



158 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Nay more : — he did not wake her then, 
But gazed upon her with a glance 
Which, had she roused her from her trance, 
Had frozen her sense to sleep again ; 
And o'er his brow the burning lamp 
Gleam'd on the dew-drops big and damp. 
She spake no more — but still she slumber'd — 
While, in his thought, her days are number'd. 



VIII. 

And with the morn he sought, and found, 
In many a tale from those around. 
The proof of all he fear'd to know. 
Their present guilt, his future woe ; 
The long-conniving damsels seek 
To save themselves, and would transfer 
The guilt — the shame — the doom — to her : 
Concealment is no more — they speak 
All circumstance which may compel 
Full credence to the tale they tell : 
And Azo's tortured heart and ear 
Have nothing more to feel or hear. 

IX. 

He was not one who brook'd delay : 

Within the chamber of his state, 
The chief of Este's ancient sway 

Upon his throne of judgment sate ; 
His nobles and his guards are there, — 
Before him is the sinful pair ; 
Both young, — and one how passing fair ! 
With swordless belt, and fetter'd hand, 
Oh, Christ ! that thus a son should stand 

Before a father's face ! 
Yet thus must Hugo meet his sire, 
And hear the sentence of his ire, 

The tale of his disgrace ! 
And yet he seems not overcome. 
Although, as yet, his voice be dumb. 



And still, and pale, and silently 

Did Parisina wait her doom ; 
How changed since last her speaking eye 

Glanced gladness round the glittering room. 
Where high-born men were proud to wait — 
Where Beauty watch'd to imitate 

Her gentle voice — her lovely mien — 
And gather from her air and gait 

The graces of its queen : 
Then, — had her eye in sorrow wept, 
A thousand warriors forth had leapt, 
A thousand swords had sheathless shone,* 
And made her quarrel all their own. 

1 A sagacious writer gravely charges Lord Byron with 
paraphrasing, in this passage, without acknowledgment, Mr. 
Burke's well-known description of the unfortunate Marie 
Antoinette. " Verily," says Mr. Coleridge, " there be amongst 
us a set of critics, who seem to hold, that every possible 



Now, — what is she ? and what are they ? 
Can she command, or these obey ? 
All silent and unheeding now, 
With downcast eyes and knitting brow, 
And folded arms, and freezing air. 
And lips that scarce their scorn forbear, 
Her knights and dames, her court — is there : 
And he, the chosen one, whose lance 
Had yet been couch'd before her glance^ 
Who — were his arms a moment free- 
Had died or gain'd her liberty ; 
The minion of his father's bride, — 
He, too, is fetter'd by her side ; 
Nor sees her swoln and full eye swim 
Less for her own despair than him : 
Those lids — o'er which the violet vein 
Wandering, leaves a tender stain. 
Shining through the smoothest white 
That e'er did softest kiss invite — 
Now seem'd with hot and livid glow 
To press, not shade, the orbs below ; 
Which glance so heavily, and fill. 
As tear on tear grows gathering still. 

XI. 

And he for her had also wept. 

But for the eyes that on him gazed : 
His sorrow, if he felt it, slept ; 

Stern and erect his brow was raised. 
Whate'er the grief his soul avow'd, 
He would not shrink before the crowd ; 
But yet he dared not look on her : 
Remembrance of the hours that were — 
His guilt — his love — his present state — 
His father's wrath — all good men's hate — 
His earthly, his eternal fate — 
And hers, — oh, hers ! — he dared not throw 
One look upon that deathlike brow ! 
Else had his rising heart betray'd 
Remorse for all the wreck it made. 

XII. 

And Azo spake : — " But yesterday 

I gloried in a wife and son ; 
That dream this morning pass'd away ; 

Ere day declines, I shall have none. 
My life must linger on alone ; 
Well, — let that pass, — there breathes not one 
Who would not do as I have done : 
Those ties are broken — not by me ; 

Let that too pass ; — the doom's prepared ! 
Hugo, the priest awaits on thee, 

And then — thy crime's reward ! 
Away ! address thy prayers to Heaven, 

Before its evening stars are met — 

thought and image is traditional ; who have no notion that 
there are such things as fountains in the world, small as 
well as great; and who would therefore charitably derive 
every rill they behold flowing, from a perforation made in 
some other man's tank." 



M 



I 



PARISINA. 



159 



Learn if thou there canst be forgiven ; 
Its mercy may absolve thee yet. 

But here, upon +he earth beneath, 
There is no spot where thou and I 

Together, for an hour, could breathe : 
Farewell ! I will not see thee die — 

But thou, frail thing ! shalt view his head- 
Away ! I cannot speak the rest : 
Go ! woman of the wanton breast ; 

Not I, but thou his blood dost shed : 

Go ! if that sight thou canst outlive, 

And joy thee in the life I give." 



XIII. 

And here stern Azo hid his face — 
For on his brow the swelling vein 
Throbb'd as if back upon his brain 
The hot blood ebb'd and flow'd again ; 

And therefore bow'd he for a space. 
And pass'd his shaking hand along 
His eye, to veil it from the throng : 

While Hugo raised his chained hands, 

And for a brief delay demands 

His father's ear : the silent sire 

Forbids not what his words require. 

" It is not that I dread the death — 
For thou hast seen me by thy side 
All redly through the battle ride. 
And that — not once a useless brand — 
Thy slaves have wrested from my hand 
Hath shed more blood in cause of thine. 
Than e'er can stain the axe of mine : 

Thou gav'st, and mayst resume my breath, 
A gift for which I thank thee not ; 
Xor are my mother's wrongs forgot, 
Her slighted love and ruin'd name. 
Her offspring's heritage of shame ; 
But she is in the grave, where he. 
Her son, thy rival, soon shall be. 
Her broken heart — my sever'd head — 
Shall witness for thee from the dead 
How trusty and how tender were 
Thy youthful love — paternal care. 
'Tis true that I have done thee wrong — 

But wrong for wrong: — this, — deem'd thy 
bride. 

The other victim of thy pride, — 
Thou know'st for me was destined long; , 
Thou saw'st, and covetedst her charms ; 

And with thy very crime — my birth — 

Thou tauntedst me, as little worth ; 
A match ignoble for her arms. 
Because, forsooth, I could not claim 
The lawful heirship of thy name. 
Nor sit on Este's lineal throne : 

Yet, were a few short summers mine. 

My name should more than Este's shine 
With honors all mv own. 



I had a sword — and have a breast 

That should have won as haught^ a crest 

As ever waved along the line 

Of all these sovereign sires of thine. 

Not always knightly spurs are worn 

The brightest by the better born ; 

And mine have lanced my courser's flank 

Before proud chiefs of princely rank, 

When charging to the cheering cry 

Of ' Este and of Victory !' 

I will not plead the cause of crime, 

Nor sue thee to redeem from time 

A few brief hours or days that must 

At length roll o'er my reckless dust ; — 

Such maddening moments as my past. 

They could not, and they did not, last. 

Albeit my birth and name be base. 

And thy nobility of race 

Disdain'd to deck a thing like me — 

Yet in my lineaments they trace 

Some features of my father's face, 
And in my spirit — all of thee. 
From thee this tamelessness of heart — 
From thee — nay, wherefore dost thou start ? — 
From thee in all their vigor came 
My arm of strength, my soul of flame ; 
Thou didst not give me life alone. 
But all that made me more thine own. 
See what thy guilty love hath done ! 
Repaid thee with too like a son ! 
I am no bastard in my soul. 
For that, like thine, abhorr'd control : 
And for my breath, that hasty boon 
Tlfou gav'st and wilt resume so soon, 
I valued it no more than thou, 
When rose thy casque above thy brow, 
And we, all side by side, have striven. 
And o'er the dead our coursers driven : 
The past is nothing — and at last 
The future can but be the past ; 
Yet would I that I then had died ; 

For though thou work'dst my mother's ill. 
And made thy own my destined bride, 

I feel thou art my father still ; 
And, harsh as sounds thy hard decree, 
'Tis not unjust, although from thee. 
Begot in sin, to die in shame, 
My life begun and ends the same : 
As err'd the sire, so err'd the son. 
And thou must punish both in one. 
My crime seems worst to human view. 
But God must judge between us two!" 

XIV. 
He ceased — and stood with folded arms. 
On which the circling fetters sounded ; 
And not an ear but felt as wounded. 



1 Haught, haughty.—" Away, homghi man, thou art insult- 
ing me." — Shakspeare. 



160 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Of all the chiefs that there were rank'd, 
When those dull chains in meeting clank 'd ; 
Till Parisina's fatal charms ^ 
Again attracted every eye — 
Would she thus hear him doom'd to die ? 
She stood, I said, all pale and still, 
The living cause of Hugo's ill : 
Her eyes unmoved, but full and wide, 
Not once had turn'd to either side — 
Nor once did those sweet eyelids close, 
Or shade the glance o'er which they rose. 
But round their orbs of deepest blue 
The circling white dilated grew — 
And there with glassy gaze she stood 
As ice were in her curdled blood ; 
But every now and then a tear 
So large and slowly gather'd slid 
From the long dark fringe of that fair lid. 
It was a thing to see, not hear ! 
And those who saw, it did surprise. 
Such drops could fall from human eyes. 
To speak she thought — the imperfect note 
Was choked within her swelling throat. 
Yet seem'd in that low hollow groan 
Her whole heart gushing in the tone. 
It ceased — again she thought to speak. 
Then burst her voice in one long shriek,^ 
And to the earth she fell like stone. 
Or statue from its base o'erthrown. 
More like a thing that ne'er had life, — 
A monument of Azo's wife, — 
Than her, that living guilty thing. 
Whose every passion was a sting, 
Which urged to guilt, but could not bear 
That guilt's detection and despair. 
But yet she lived — and all too soon 
Recover'd from that death-like swoon — 
But scarce to reason — every sense 
Had been o'erstrung by pangs intense ; 
And each frail fibre of her brain 
(As bowstrings, when relax'd by rain, 
The erring arrow launch aside) 
Sent forth her thoughts all wild and wide — 
The past a blank, the future black, 
With glimpses of a dreary track, 
Like lightning on the desert path. 
When midnight storms are mustering wrath. 



1 " I sent for ' Marmion,' because it occurred to me, there 
might be a resemblance between part of ' Parisina ' and a 
similar scene in the second canto of ' Marmion.' I fear there 
is, though I never thought of it before, and could hardly 
wish to imitate that which is inimitable. I wish you would 
ask Mr. Gifford whether I ought to say any thing upon it. I 
had completed the story on the passage from Gibbon, which 
indeed leads to a like scene naturally, without a thought of 
the kind: but it comes upon me not very comfortably." — 
Lord B. to Mr. M., Feb. 3, 1816.— The scene referred to is the 
one in which Constance de Beverley appears before the con- 
clave— 

" Her look composed, and steady eye. 

Bespoke a matchless constancy ; 



She fear'd — she felt that something ill 

Lay on her soul, so deep and chill ; 

That there was sin and shame she knew ; 

That some one was to die — but who ? 

She had forgotten : — did she breathe ? 

Could this be still the earth beneath. 

The sky above, and men around ; 

Or were they fiends who now so frown'd 

On one, before whose eyes each eye 

Till then had smiled in sympathy ? 

All was confused and undefined 

To her all-jarr'd and wandering mind ; 

A chaos of wild hopes and fears : 

And now in laughter, now in tears, 

But madly still in each extreme. 

She strove with that convulsive dream ; 

For so it seem'd on her to break : 

Oh ! vainly must she strive to wake ! 

XV. 

The Convent bells are ringing, 

But mournfully and slow ; 
In the gray square turret swinging, 

With a deep sound, to and fro. 

Heavily to the heart they go ! 
Hark ! the hymn is singing — 

The song for the dead below. 

Or the living who shortly shall be so ! 
For a departing being's soul 
The death-hymn peals and the hollow bells knoll 
He is near his mortal goal ; 
Kneeling at the friar's knee ; 
Sad to hear — and piteous to see — 
Kneeling on the bare cold ground. 
With the block before and the guards around— 
And the headsman with his bare arm ready, 
That the blow may be both swift and steady. 
Feels if the axe be sharp and true 
Since he set its edge anew : 
While the crowd in a speechless circle gather 
To see the Son fall by the doom of the Father ! 

XVI. 

It is a lovely hour as yet 
Before the summer sun shall set, 
Which rose upon that heavy day, 
And mock'd it with his steadiest ray ; 



And there she stood so calm and pale, 
That, but her breathing did not fail, 
And motion slight of eye and head, 
And of her bosom, warranted. 
That neither sense nor pulse she lacks, 
You must have thought a form of wax, 
Wrought to the very life, was there— 
So still she was, so pale, so fair." 

2 " The arraignment and condemnation of the guilty pair, 
with the bold, high-toned, and yet temperate defence of the 
son, are managed with considerable talent ; and yet are less 
touching than the mute despair of the fallen beauty, who 
stands in speechless agony before him."— Jeffrey. 



PAKISINA. 



161 



And his evening beams are shed 
Full on Hugo's fated head, 
As his last confession pouring 
To the monk, his doom deploring 
In penitential holiness, 
He bends to hear his accents bless 
With absolution such as may- 
Wipe our mortal stains away. 
That high sun on his head did glisten 
As he there did bow and listen, 
And the rings of chestnut hair 
Curl'd half down his neck so bare ; 
But brighter still the beam was thrown 
Upon the axe which near him shone 

With a clear and ghastly glitter 

Oh ! that parting hour was bitter ! 
Even the stern stood chill'd with awe : 
Dark the crime, and just the law — 
Yet they shudder'd as they saw. 

XVII. 

The parting prayers are said and over 

Of that false son — and daring lover ! 

His beads and sins are all recounted, 

His hours to their last minute mounted ; 

His mantling cloak before was stripp'd. 

His bright brown locks must now be clipp'd ; 

'Tis done — all closely are they shorn ; 

The vest which till this moment worn — 

The scarf which Parisina gave — 

Must not adorn him to the grave. 

Even that must now be thrown aside, 

And o'er his eyes the kerchief tied ; 

But no — that last indignity 

Shall ne'er approach his haughty eye. 

All feelings seemingly subdued, 

In deep disdain were half renew'd. 

When headsman's hands prepare to bind 

Those eyes which would not brook such blind. 

As if they dared not look on death. 

" No — yours my forfeit blood and breath ; 

These hands are chain'd, but let me die 

At least with an unshackled eye — 

Strike :" — and as the word he said. 

Upon the block he bow'd his head ; 

These the last accents Hugo spoke : 

" Strike :"— and flashing fell the stroke— 

Roll'd the head— and, gushing, sunk 

Back the stain'd and heaving trunk, 

In the dust, which each deep vein 

Slaked with its ensanguined rain ; 

His eyes and lips a moment quiver. 

Convulsed and quick— then fix for ever. 

He died, as erring man should die. 

Without display, without parade ; 

Meekly had he bow'd and pray'd. 

As not disdaining priestly aid, 



^ "The grand part of this poem is that which describes the 
execution of the rival son ; and in which, though there is no 
pomp, either of language or of sentiment, and though every 
11 



Nor desperate of all hope on high. 

And while before the prior kneeling, 

His heart was wean'd from earthly feeling ; 

His wrathful sire — his paramour — 

What were they in such an hour ? 

No more reproach — no more despair ; 

No thought but heaven — no word but prayer— 

Save the few which from him broke. 

When, bared to meet the headsman's stroke, 

He claim'd to die with eyes unbound, 

His sole adieu to those around.^ 

XVIII. 

Still as the lips that closed in death, 

Each gazer's bosom held his breath : 

But yet, afar, from man to man, 

A cold electric shiver ran. 

As down the deadly blow descended 

On him whose life and love thus ended ; 

And, with a hushing sound compress'd, 

A sigh shrunk back on every breast ; 

But no more thrilling noise rose there, 
Beyond the blow that to the block 
Pierced through with forced and sullen shock, 

Save one : — what cleaves the silent air 

So madly shrill — so passing wild ? 

That, as a mother's o'er her child. 

Done to death by sudden blow. 

To the sky these accents go. 

Like a soul's in endless woe. 

Through Azo's palace-lattice driven, 

That horrid voice ascends to heaven, 

And every eye is turn'd thereon : 

But sound and sight alike are gone ! 

It was a woman's shriek — and ne'er 

In madlier accents rose despair ; 

And those who heard it, as it pass'd, 

In mercy wish'd it were the last. 

XIX. 

Hugo is fallen ; and, from that hour, 

No more in palace, hall, or bower, 

Was Parisina heard or seen : 

Her name — as if she ne'er had been — 

Was banish'd from each lip and ear. 

Like words of wantonness or fear ; 

And from Prince Azo's voice, by none 

Was mention heard of wife or son ; 

No tomb — no memory had they ; 

Theirs was unconsecrated clay ; 

At least the knight's who died that day. 

But Parisina's fate lies hid 

Like dust beneath the coffin lid : 

AVhether in convent she abode, 

And won to heaven her dreary road 

By blighted and remorseful years 

Of scourge, and fast, and sleepless tears ; 



thing is conceived and expressed with the utmost simplicity 
and directness, there is a spirit of pathos and poetry to which 
it would not be easy to find many parallels."— Jeffrky. 



162 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



Or if she fell by bowl or steel, 

For that dark love she dared to feel ; 

Or if, upon the moment smote, 

She died by tortures less remote, 

Like him she saw upon the block, 

With heart that shared the headsman's 

shock. 
In quicken'd brokenness that came, 
In pity, o'er her shatter'd frame. 
None knew — and none can ever know : 
But whatsoe'er its end below. 
Her life began and closed in woe ! 



XX. 

And Azo found another bride. 

And goodly sons grew by his side; 

But none so lovely and so brave 

As him who wither'd in the grave ; 

Or if they were — on his cold eye 

Their growth but glanced unheeded by, 

Or noticed with a smother'd sigh. 

But never tear his cheek descended. 

And never smile his brow unbended ; 

And o'er that fair broad brow were wrought 

The intersected lines of thought ; 

Those furrows which the burning share 

Of Sorrow ploughs untimely there ; 

Scars of the lacerating mind 

Which the Soul's war doth leave behind. 

He was past all mirth or woe : 

Nothing more remain'd below 

But sleepless nights and heavy days, 

A mind all dead to scorn or praise, 

A heart which shunn'd itself— and yet 

That would not yield — nor could forget ; 

1 " In Parisina there is no tumult or stir. It is all sadness, 
and pity, and terror. There is too much of horror, perhaps, 
in the circumstances ; but the writing is beautiful throughout, 



Which, when it least appear'd to melt, 
Intently thought — intensely felt : 
The deepest ice which ever froze 
Can only o'er the surface close ; 
The living stream lies quick below, 
And flows — and cannot cease to flow. 
Still was his seal'd-up bosom haunted 
By thoughts which Nature hath implanted j 
Too deeply rooted thence to vanish, 
Howe'er our stifled tears we banish ; 
When, struggling as they rise to start, 
We check those waters of the heart. 
They are not dried — those tears unshed 
But flow back to the fountain head. 
And resting in their spring more pure, 
For ever in its depth endure. 
Unseen, unwept, but uncongeal'd. 
And cherish'd most where least reveal'd. 
With inward starts of feeling left, 
To throb o'er those of life bereft, 
Without the power to fill again 
The desert gap which made his pain ; 
Without the hope to meet them where 
United souls shall gladness share. 
With all the consciousness that he 
Had only pass'd a just decree ; 
That they had wrought their doom of ill ; 
Yet Azo's age was wretched still. 
The tainted branches of the tree. 
If lopp'd with care, a strength may give, 
By which the rest shall bloom and live 
All greenly fresh and wildly free : 
But if the lightning, in its wrath. 
The waving boughs with fury scathe, 
The massy trunk the ruin feels. 
And never more a leaf reveals.^ 



and the whole wrapped in a rich and redundant veil of poetry, 
where everything breathes the pure essence of genius and 
sensibility."— Jeffrey. 



^f)t ^xiBontx of (ttttllon/ 



SONNET ON CHILLON. 

Eteenal Spirit of the chainless Mind ! ^ 
Brightest' in dungeons, Liberty! thou art, 
For there thy habitation is the heart — 

The heart which love of thee alone can bind ; 

And when thy sons to fetters are consign'd — 
To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, 



1 When this poem was composed, I was not sufficiently aware 
of the history of Bonnivard, or I should have endeavored 
to dignify the subject by an attempt to celebrate his courage 
and his virtues. With some account of his life I have been 
furnished, by the kindness of a citizen of that republic, which 
is still proud of the memory of a man worthy of the best age 
of ancient freedom : — 

" Frangois de Bonnivard, fils de Louis de Bonnivard, ori- 
ginaire de Seysel et Seigneur de Lunes, naquit en 1496. II 
fit ses etudes S, Turin: en 1510 Jean Aime de Bonnivard, 
son oncle, lui resigna le Prieure de St. Victor, qui aboutis- 
sait aux murs de Geneve, et qui formait un benefice con- 
siderable. 

" Ce grand homme — (Bonnivard merite ce titre par la force 
de son ^me, la droiture de son coeur, la noblesse de ses inten- 
tions, la sagesse de ses conseils, le courage de ses demarches, 
I'gtendue de ses connaissances et la vivacite de son esprit), — 
ce grand homme, qui excitera I'admiration de tons ceux 
qu'une vertu heroique pent encore emouvoir, inspirera en- 
core la plus vive reconnaissance dans les cceurs des Genevois 
qui aiment Geneve. Bonnivard en fut toujours un des plus 
fermes appuis : pour assurer la liberte de notre Eepublique, 
il ne craignit pas de perdre souvent la sienne; il oublia 
son repos ; il meprisa ses richesses ; il ne nggligea rien pour 
atferrair le bonheur d'une patrie qu'il honora de son choix : 
d§s ce moment il la chSrit comme le plus zel6 de ses citoyens ; 
il la servit avec I'intrgpidite d'un heros, et il ecrivit son 
Histoire avec la naivete d'un philosophe et la chaleur d'un 
patriote. 

" II dit dans le commencement de son Histoire de Genfeve, 
que de.'i qu'il eut commence de lire Vhistoire des nations, il se 
sentit evlrain^ par son go^t pour les Republiques, dont il tpousa 
toujours les inth-ets : c'est ce golit pour la liberte qui lui fit 
sans doute adopter Genfive pour sa patrie. 

" Bonnivard, encore jeune, s'annonga hautement comme le 
dgfenseur de Gen&ve contre le Due de Savoye et I'Evgque. 

" En 1519, Bonnivard devient le martyr de sa patrie. Le 
Due de Savoye §tant entrg dans Geneve avec cinq cent hom- 
mes, Bonnivard craint le ressentiment du Due ; il voulut se 
retirer 5 Fribourg pour en eviter les suites ; mais il fut trahi 
par deux hommes qui I'accompagnaient, et conduit par ordre 
du Prince S, Grolge, ot il resta prisonnier pendant deux ans. 
Bonnivard 6tait malheureux dans ses voyages: comme ses 
malheurs n'avaient point ralenti son z61e pour Genfeve, il 
gtait toujours un ennemi redoutable pour ceux qui la mena- 
Caient, et par consequent il devait etre expose ^.leurs coups. 
II fut rencontre en 1530 sur le Jura par des voleurs, qui le 
dgpouillferent, et qui le mirent encore entre les mains du Due 



Their country conquers with their martyrdom, 
And Freedom's.fame finds wings on every wind. 
Chillon ! thy prison is a holy place, 

And thy sad floor an altar — for 'twas trod, 
Until his very steps have left a trace 

Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod. 
By Bonnivard ! — May none those marks efface ! 

For they appeal from tyranny to God. 



de Savoye: ce Prince le fit enfermer dans le Chdteau de Chil- 
lon, oia il resta sans etre interroge jusques en 1536 ; il fut alors 
delivre par les Bernois, qui s'emparferent du Pays de Vaud. 

"Bonnivard, en sortant de sa captivite, eut le plaisir de 
trouver Gengve libre et reformee : la Eepublique s'empressa 
de lui temoigner sa reconnaissance, et de dedommager des 
maux qu'il avoit souflTerts ; elle le regut Bourgeois de la ville 
au mois de Juin, 1536 ; elle lui donna la maison habitge autre- 
fois par le Vicaire-Ggneral, et elle lui assigna une pension de 
deux cent ecus d'or tant qu'il sejournerait S, Geneve. II fut 
admis dans le Conseil de Deux-Cent en 1537. 

" Bonnivard n'a pas fini d'etre utile : apr&s avoir travaille 
3 rendre G«n&ve libre, il reussit S la rendre tolerante. Bon- 
nivard engagea le Conseil 3 accorder aux ecclesiastiques et 
aux paysans un tems suflBisant pour examiner les propositions 
qu'on leur faisait ; il reussit par sa douceur : on prgche tou- 
jours le Christianisme avec succ6s quand on le prfeche avec 
charite. 

" Bonnivard fut savant : ses manuscrits, qui sont dans la 
Bibliothgque publique, prouvent qu'il avait bien lu les auteurs 
classiques Latins, et qu'il avait approfondi la theologie et 
I'histoire. Ce grand homme aimait les sciences, et il croyait 
qu'elles pouvaient faire la gloire de Genfeve ; aussi il ne 
nggligea rien pour les fixer dans cette ville naissante ; en 1551 
il donna sa biblioth&que au public ; elle futle commencement 
de notre bibliothfeque publique ; et ces livres sont en partie 
les rares et belles editions du quinzifeme siecle qu'on voit dans 
notre collection. Enfin, pendant la mgme annee, ce bon pa- 
triote institua la Eepublique son heritiere, a condition qu'elle 
employerait ses biens si entretenir le college dont on projet- 
tait la fondation. - 

" II parait que Bonnivard mourut en 1570 ; mais on ne pent 
I'assurer, parcequ'il y a une lacune dans le Necrologe depuis 
le mois de Juillet, 1570, jusques en 1571." 

Lord Byron wrote this beautiful poem at a small inn, in the 
little village of Ouchy, near Lausanne, where he happened in 
June, 1816, to be detained two days by stress of weather ; 
" thereby adding," says Moore, " one more deathless associa- 
tion to the already immortalized localities of the Lake." 

2 In the first draught, the sonnet opens thus — 
" Beloved Goddess of the chainless mind ! 
Brightest in dungeons. Liberty ! thou art, 
Thy palace is within the Freeman's heart. 
Whose soul the love of thee alone can bind ; 
And when thy sons to fetters are consign'd — 

To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, 
Thy joy is with them still, and unconfined. 
Their country conquers with their martyrdom," 

(163) 



164 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Cfie ^xi^ontx of (H^Jillon^* 



My hair is gray, but not with years, 
Nor grew it white 
In a single night,^ 
As men's have grown from sudden fears : 
My limbs are bow'd, though not with toil, 

But rusted with a vile repose,^ 
For they have been a dungeon's spoil, 

And mine has been the fate of those 
To whom the goodly earth and air 
Are bann'd, and barr'd — forbidden fare ; 
But this was for my father's faith 
I suflfer'd chains and courted death ; 
That father perish'd at the stake 
For tenets he would not forsake ; 
And for the same his lineal race 
In darkness found a dwelling-place ; 
We were seven — who now are one, 

Six in youth, and one in age, 
Finish'd as they had begun, 

Proud of persecution's rage ; * 
One in fire, and two in field, 
Their belief with blood have seal'd, 
Dying as their father died. 
For the God their foes denied ; 
Three were in a dungeon cast, 
Of whom this wreck is left the last. 

II. 
There are seven pillars of Gothic mould, 
In Chillon's dungeons deep and old, 
There are seven columns, massy and gray. 
Dim with a dull imprison' d ray, 
A sunbeam which hath lost its way, 
And through the crevice and the cleft 
Of the thick wall is fallen and left ; 
Creeping o'er the floor so damp, 
Like a marsh's meteor lamp : 
And in each pillar there is a ring. 
And in each ring there is a chain ; . 

1 "I will tell you something about 'Chillon.' A Mr. De 
Luc, ninety years old, a Swiss, had it read to him, and is 
pleased with it— so my sister writes. He said that he was 
with Rousseau at Chillon, and that the description is perfectly 
correct. But this is not all ; I recollected something of the 
name, and find the following passage in ' The Confessions,' 
vol. iii., p. 247, liv. viii. : ' De tons ces amusemens celui qui 
me plut davantage fut une promenade autour du Lac, que je 
fis en bateau avec De Lue pfere, sa bru, ses deux flls, et ma 
Therfese. Nous mimes sept jours S. cette tournee par le plus 
beau temps du monde. J'en gardai le vif souvenir des sites, 
qui m'avaient frappe 5 I'autre extremite du Lac, et dont je 
fis la description quelques annees apr6s, dans La Nouvelle 
Heloise.' This nonagenarian, De Luc, must be one of the 
' deux fils.' He is in England, infirm, but still in faculty. It 
is odd that he should have lived so long, and not wanting in 
oddness, that he should have made this voyage with Jean 
Jacques, and afterwards, at such an interval, read a poem by 



That iron is a cankering thing, 

For in these limbs its teeth remain. 
With marks that will not wear away, 
Till I have done with this new day, 
Which now is painful to these eyes, 
Which have not seen the sun so rise 
For years — I cannot count them o'er, 
I lost their long and heavy score. 
When my last brother droop'd and died, 
And I lay living by his side. 

III. 
They chain'd us each to a column 

stone. 
And we were three — ^yet, each alone ; 
We could not move a single pace, , 

We could not see each other's face. 
But with that pale and livid light 
That made us strangers in our sight : 
And thus together — yet apart, 
Fetter'd in hand, but join'd in heart, 
'Twas still some solace, in the dearth 
Of the pure elements of earth, 
To hearken to each other's speech, 
And each turn comforter to each 
With some new hope or legend old, 
Or song heroically bold ; 
But even these at length grew cold. 
Our voices took a dreary tone, 
An echo of the dungeon stone, 

A grating sound — not full and free 

As they of yore were wont to be : 

It might be fancy — but to me 
They never sounded like our own.* 

IV. 

1 was the eldest of the three. 

And to uphold and cheer the rest 

I ought to do— and did my best — 
And each did well in his degree. 

The youngest, whom my father loved, 
Because our mother's brow was given 
To him— with eyes as blue as heaven. 

For him my soul was sorely moved : 

an Englishman (who made precisely the same circumnaviga- 
tion) upon the same scenery." — Byron Letters, April 9, 1817. 
Jean Andrg de Luc, F.E.S., died at Windsor, in the July fol- 
lowing. He was born in 1726, at Geneva, was the author of 
many geological works, and corresponded with most of the 
learned societies of Europe. 

2 Ludovico Sforza, and others. The same is asserted of 
Marie Antoinette's, the wife of Louis the Sixteenth, though 
not in quite so short a period. Grief is said to have the same 
effect : to such, and not to fear, this change in hers was to be 
attributed. 

3 Original MS.— 

" But with the inward waste of grief." 

4 " Braving rancor — chains— and rage."— MS. 

8 "This picture of the first feelings of the three gallant 
brothers, when bound apart in this living tomb, and of the 
gradual decay of their cheery fortitude, is full of pity and 
agony." — Jeffrey. 



THE PEISONER OF CHILLON. 



165 



And truly might it be distress'd 
To see such bird in such a nest - 
For he was beautiful as day — 
(When day was beautiful to me 
As to young eagles, being free) — 
A polar day, which will not see 
A sunset till its summer's gone, 

Its sleepless summer of long light, 
The snow-clad offspring of the sun : 

And thus he was as pure and bright, 
And in his natural spirit gay, 
With tears for nought but others' ills. 
And then they flow'd like mountain rills, 
Unless he could assuage the woe 
Which he abhorr'd to view below. 

V. 

The other was as pure of mind, 
But form'd to combat with his kind ; 
Strong in his frame, and of a mood 
Which 'gainst the world in war had stood, 
And perish'd in the foremost rank 

With joy : — but not in chains to pine : 
His spirit wither'd with their clank, 

I saw it silently decline — 

And so perchance in sooth did mine : 
But yet I forced it on to cheer 
Those relics of a home so dear. 
He was a hunter of the hills. 

Had follow'd there the deer and wolf; 

To him this dungeon was a gulf, 
And fetter'd feet the worst of ills. 

VI. 

Lake Leman lies by Chillon's walls : 
A thousand feet in depth below 
Its massy waters meet and flow ; 
Thus much the fathom-line was sent 
From Chillon's snow-white battlement,^ 

Which round about the wave enthralls : 
A double dungeon wall and wave 
Have made — and like a living grave 
Below the surface of the lake 



J The Chateau de Chillon is situated between Clarens and 
Villeneuve, which last is at one extremity of the Lake of 
Geneva. On its left are the entrances of the Rhone, and op- 
posite are the heights of Meillerie and the range of Alps 
above Boveret and St. Gingo. Near it, on a hill behind, is a 
torror.t ; below it, washing its walls, the lake has been fath- 
omed to the depth of 800 feet, French measure: within it 
are airange of dungeons, in which the early reformers, and 
subsequently prisoners of state, were confined. Across one 
of the vaults is a beam, black with age, on which we were in- 
formed that the condemned were formerly executed. In the 
cells are seven pillars, or rather eight, one being half merged 
in the wall ; in some of these are rings for the fetters and the 
fettered : in the pavement the steps of Bonnivard have left 
their traces. He was confined here several years. It is by 
this castle that Rousseau has fixed the catastrophe of his 
Hgloise, in the rescue of one of her children by Julie from 
the water ; the shock of which, and the illness produced by 
the immersion, is the cause of her death. The ch&teau is 



The dark vault lies wherein we lay. 

We heard it ripple night and day ; 
Sounding o'er our heads it knock'd ; 

And I have felt the winter's spray 

Wash through the bars when winds were 
high 

And wanton in the happy sky ; 
And then the very rock hath rock'd, 
And I have felt it shake, unshock'd. 

Because I could have smiled to see 

The death that would have set me free. 

VII. 

I said my nearer brother pined, 
I said his mighty heart declined, 
He loathed and put away his food ; 
It was not that 'twas coarse and rude. 
For we were used to hunter's fare, 
And for the like had little care : 
The milk drawn from the mountain goat 
Was changed for water from the moat. 
Our bread was such as captive's tears 
Have moisten'd many a thousand years, 
Since man first pent his fellow men 
Like brutes within an iron den ; 
But what were these to us or him ? 
These wasted not his heart or limb ; 
My brother's soul was of that mould 
Which in a palace had grown cold. 
Had his free breathing been denied 
The range of the steep mountain's side ; 
But why delay the truth ? — he died.2 
I saw, and could not hold his head. 
Nor reach his dying hand — nor dead,— 
Though hard I strove, but strove in vain, 
To rend and gnash ^ my bonds in twain. 
He died — and they unlock'd his chain. 
And scoop'd for him a shallow grave 
Even from the cold earth of our cave. 

1 begg'd them, as a boon, to lay 
His corse in dust whereon the day 
Might shine — it was a foolish thought. 
But then within my brain it wrought, 

large, and seen along the lake for a great distance. The walls 
are white. — " The early history of this castle," says Mr. Ten- 
nant, who went over it in 1821, "is, I believe, involved in 
doubt. By some historians it is said to be built in the year 
1120, and according to others, in the year 1236; but by whom 
it was built seems not to be known. It is said, however, in 
history, that Charles the Fifth, Duke of Savoy, stormed and 
took it in 1536; that he there found great hidden treasures, 
and many wretched beings pining away their lives in these 
frightful dungeons, amongst whom was the good Bonnivard. 
On the pillar to which this unfortunate man is said to have 
been chained, I observed, cut out of the stone, the name of 
one whose beautiful poem has done much to heighten the 
interest of this dreary spot, and will, perhaps, do more to- 
wards rescuing from oblivion the names of ' Chillon ' and 
' Bonnivard,' than all the cruel sufferings which that injured 
man endured within its damp and gloomy walls." 

2 "But why withhold the blow?— he died."— MS. 
8 " To break or bite."— MS. 



166 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



That even in death his freeborn breast 

In such a dungeon could not rest. 

I might have spared my idle prayer — 

They coldly laugh'd — and laid him there ; 

The flat and turfless earth above 

The being we so much did love ; 

His empty chain above it leant, 

Such murder's fitting monument ! 



VIII. 
But he, the favorite and the flower, 
Most cherish'd since his natal hour. 
His mother's image in fair face, 
The infant love of all his race, 
His martyr'd father's dearest thought. 
My latest care, for whom I sought 
To hoard my life, that his might be 
Less wretched now, and one day free ; 
He, too, who yet had held untired 
A spirit natural or inspired — 
He, too, was struck, and day by day 
Was wither'd on the stalk away. 
Oh, God ! it is a fearful thing 
: To see the human soul take wing 
[ In any shape, in any mood : 
' I've seen it rushing forth in blood, 
I've seen it on the breaking ocean 
Strive with a swoln convulsive motion, 
I've seen the sick and ghastly bed 
Of Sin delirious with its dread : 
But these were horrors — this was woe 
Unmix'd with such — but sure and slow : 
He faded, and so calm and meek, 
So softly worn, so sweetly weak. 
So tearless, yet so tender— kind, 
And grieved for those he left behind ; 
With all the while a cheek whose bloom 
Was as a mockery of the tomb, 
Whose tints as gently sunk away 
As a departing rainbow's ray — 
An eye of most transparent light. 
That almost made the dungeon bright, 
And not a word of murmur — not 
A groan o'er his untimely lot, — 
A little talk of better days, 
A little hope my own to raise, 
For I was sunk in silence — lost 
In this last loss, of all the most ; 
And then the sighs he would suppress 
Of fainting nature's feebleness, 
More slowly drawn, grew less and less : 
I listen'd, but I could not hear ; 
I call'd, for I was wild with fear ; 
I knew 'twas hopeless, but my dread 
Would not be thus admonished ; 
I call'd, and thought I heard a sound — 
I burst my chain with one strong bound, 
And rush'd to him : — I found him not, 
I only stirr'd in this black spot, 



I only lived — I only drew 
The accursed breath of dungeon dew ; 
The last — the sole — the dearest link 
Between me and the eternal brink, 
Which bound me to my failing race. 
Was broken in this fatal place.^ 
One on the earth, and one beneath — 
My brothers — both had ceased to breathe : 
I took that hand which lay so still, 
Alas ! my own was full as chill ; 
I had not strength to stir, or strive, 
But felt that I was still alive — 
A frantic feeling, when we know 
That what we love shall ne'er be so. 

I know not why 

I could not die, 
I had no earthly hope but faith, 
And that forbade a selfish death. 

IX. 

What next befell me then and there 
I know not well — I never knew — 

First came the loss of light, and air. 
And then of darkness too : 

I had no thought, no feeling — ^none — 

Among the stones I stood a stone. 

And was, scarce conscious what I wist. 

As shrubless crags within the mist ; 

For all was blank, and bleak, and gray ; 

It was not night — it was not day ; 

It was not even the dungeon-light, 

So hateful to my heavy sight. 

But vacancy absorbing space, 

And fixedness — without a place ; 

There were no stars — no earth — no time — 

No check — no change — no good — no crime — 

But silence, and a stirless breath 

Which neither was of life nor death ; 

A sea of stagnant idleness. 

Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless ! 



A light broke in upon my brain, — 

It was the carol of a bird ; 
It ceased, and then it came again, 

The sweetest song ear ever heard, 
And mine was thankful till my eyes 
Ran over with the glad surprise, 
And they that moment could not see 
I was the mate of misery ; 
But then by dull degrees came back 
My senses to their wonted track ; 
I saw the dungeon walls and floor 
Close slowly round me as before, 
I saw the glimmer of the sun 
Creeping as it before had done, 



1 " The gentle decay and gradual extinction of the youngest 
life is the most tender and beautiful passage in the poem."— 
Jepfkey. 



I 



THE PEISONER OF CHILLON. 



167 



But through the crevice where it came 
That bird was perch'd, as fond and tame, 

And tamer than upon the tree ; 
A lovely bird, with azure wings, 
And song that said a thousand things. 

And seem'd to say them all for me ! 
I never saw its like before, 
I ne'er shall see its likeness more : 
It seem'd like me to want a mate, 
But was not half so desolate. 
And it was come to love me when 
None lived to love me so again, 
And cheering from my dungeon's brink, 
Had brought me back to feel and think. 
I know not if it late were free, 

Or broke its cage to perch on mine, 
But knowing well captivity. 

Sweet bird ! I could not wish for thine ! 
Or if it were, in winged guise, 
A visitant from paradise 
For— Heaven forgive that thought ! the while 
Which made me both to weep and smile ; 
I sometimes deem'd that it might be 
My brother's soul come down to me ; 
But then at last away it flew. 
And then 'twas mortal well I knew, 
For he would never thus have flown, 
And left me twice so doubly lone, — 
Lone — as the corse within its shroud. 
Lone — as a solitary cloud, 

A single cloud on a sunny day, 
While all the rest of heaven is clear, 
A frown upon the atmosphere. 
That hath no business to appear 

When skies are blue, and earth is gay. 

XI. 

A kind of change came in my fate, 
My keepers grew compassionate ; 
I know not what had made them so, 
They were inured to sights of woe, 
But so it was : — my broken chain 
With links unfasten'd did remain, 
And it was liberty to stride 
Along my cell from side to side, 
And up and down, and then athwart, 
And tread it over every part ; 
And round the pillars one by one. 
Returning where my walk begun, 
Avoiding only, as I trod. 
My brothers' graves without a sod ; 
For if I thought with heedless tread 
My step profaned their lowly bed, 
My breath came gaspingly and thick. 
And my crush'd heart fell blind and sick. 



1 " I saw them with their lake below, 

And their three thousand years of snow." — MS. 
• Between the entrances of the Khone and Villeneuve, not 
far from Chillon, is a very small island ; the only one I could 



XII. 

I made a footing in the wall, 

It was not therefrom to escape. 
For I had buried one and all 

Who loved me in a human shape ; 
And the whole earth would henceforth be 
A wider prison unto me : 
No child — no sire — no kin had I, 
No partner in my misery ; 
I thought of this, and I was glad, 
For thought of them had made me mad ; 
But I was curious to ascend 
To my barr'd windows, and to bend 
Once more, upon the mountains high, 
The quiet of a loving eye. 

XIII. 

I saw them — and they were the same. 
They were not changed like me in frame ; 
I saw their thousand years of snow 
On high — their wide long lake below,i 
And the blue Rhone in fullest flow ; 
I heard the torrents leap and gush 
O'er channelPd rock and broken bush ; 
I saw the white-wall'd distant town, 
And whiter sails go skimming down ; 
And then there was a little isle,^ 
Which in my very face did smile, 

The only one in view ; 
A small green isle, it seem'd no more. 
Scarce broader than my dungeon floor, 
But in it there were three tall trees. 
And o'er it blew the mountain breeze. 
And by it there were waters flowing, 
And on it there were young flowers growing. 

Of gentle breath and hue. 
The fish swam by the castle wall. 
And they seem'd joyous each and all ; 
The eagle rode the rising blast, 
Methought he never flew so fast 
As then to me he seem'd to fly, 
And then new tears came in my eye, 
And I felt troubled — and would fain 
I had not left my recent chain ; 
And when I did descend again, 
The darkness of my dim abode 
Fell on me as a heavy load ; 
It was as is a new-dug grave. 
Closing o'er one we sought to save, — 
And yet my glance, too much oppress'd, 
Had almost need of such a rest. 

XIV. 

It might be months, or years, or days, 
I kept no count — I took no note, 



perceive, in my voyage round and over the lake, within its 
circumference. It contains a few trees (I think not above 
three), and from its singleness and diminutive size has a pe- 
culiar effect upon the view. 



168 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



I had no hope my eyes to raise, 

And clear them of their dreary mote ; 
At last men came to set me free, 

I ask'd not why, and reck'd not where, 
It was at length the same to me, 
Fetter'd or fetterless to be, 
I learn'd to love despair. 
And thus when they appear'd at last, 
And all my bonds aside were cast, 
These heavy walls to me had grown 
A hermitage — and all my own ! 
And half I felt as they were come 
To tear me from a second home : 



1 Here follow in MS.— 

"Nor slew I of my subjects one — 

What sovereign | ^^f" ^« ^"^^ | hath done ?» 
" ( yet so much J 

2 " It has not been the purpose of Lord Byron to paint the 
peculiar character of Bonnivard. The object of the poem, 
like that of Sterne's celebrated sketch of the prisoner, is to 
consider captivity in the abstract, and to mark its effects in 
gradually chilling the mental powers as it benumbs and freezes 
the animal frame, until the unfortunate victim becomes, as it 
were, a part of his dungeon, and identified with his chains. 
This transmutation we believe to be founded on fact : at least, 
in the Low Countries, where solitude for life is substituted 
for capital punishments, something like it may be witnessed. 
On particular days in the course of the year, these victims of 
a jurisprudence which calls itself humane, are presented to 
the public eye, upon a stage erected in the open market- 
place, apparently to prevent their guilt and their punish- 
ment from being forgotten. It is scarcely possible to witness 
a sight more degrading to humanity than this exhibition: 



With spiders I had friendship made, 
And watch'd them in their sullen trade, 
Had seen the mice by moonlight play. 
And why should I feel less than they ? 
We were all inmates of one place, 
And I, the monarch of each race, 
Had power to kill — yet, strange to 

tell! 
In quiet we had learn'd to dwell ; ^ 
My very chains and I grew friends. 
So much a long communion tends 
To make us what we are : — even I 
Regain'd my freedom with a sigh.2 



with matted hair, wild' looks, and haggard featured, with eyes 
dazzled by the unwonted light of the sun, and ears deafened 
and astounded by the sudden exchange of the silence of a 
dungeon for the busy hum of men, the wretches sit more 
like rude images fashioned to a fantastic imitation of human- 
ity, than like living and reflecting beings. In the course of 
time we are assured they generally become either madmen or 
idiots, as mind or matter happens to predominate, when the 
mysterious balance between them is destroyed. It will readily 
be allowed that this singular poem is more powerful than 
pleasing. The dungeon of Bonnivard is, like that of Ugolino, 
a subject too dismal for even the power of the painter or poet 
to counteract its horrors. It is the more disagreeable, as 
affording human hope no anchor to rest upon, and describing 
the sufferer, though a man of talents and virtues, as altogether 
inert and powerless under his accumulated sufferings : yet, as 
a picture, however gloomy the coloring, it may rival any 
which Lord Byron has drawn ; nor is it possible to read it 
without a sinking of the heart, corresponding with that 
which he describes the victim to have suffered." — Sib Wai/- 
TER Scott. 



Beppo: 

A VENETIAN STOKY. 



Hosalind. Farewell, Monsieur Traveller : Look, you lisp, and wear strange suits : disable all the benefits of 
your own country ; be out of love with your Nativity, and almost chide God for making you that countenance 
you are ; or I will scarce think that you have swam in a Gondola. As You Like It, act iv. sc. 1. 

Annotation of the Commentaiors. 
That is, been at Venice, which was much visited by the young English gentlemen of those times, and was 
then what Paris is now — the seat of all dissoluteness. S. A.i 



Beppo was written at Venice, in October, 1817, and 
acquired great popularity immediately on its publica- 
tion in tbe May of the following year. Lord Byron's 
letters show that he attached very little importance 
to it at the time. He was not aware that he had 
opened a new vein, in which his genius was destined 
to work out some of its brightest triumphs. " I have 
written," he says to Mr. Murray, "a poem humorous, 
in or after the excellent manner of Mr. Whistlecraft, 
and founded on a Venetian anecdote which amused 
me. It is called Beppo — the short name for Giu- 
seppo, — that is, the Joe of the Italian Joseph. It has 
politics and ferocity." Again — " Whistlecraft is my 
immediate model, but Berni is the father of that kind 
of writing ; which, I think, suits our language, too, 
very well. We shall see by this experiment. It will, 
at any rate, show that I can write cheerfully, and 
repel the charge of monotony and mannerism." He 
wished Mr. Murray to accept of Beppo as a free gift, 
or, as he chose to express it, " as part of the contract 
for canto fourth of Childe Harold;" adding, how- 
ever, — "if it pleases, you shall have more in the 
same mood ; for I know the Italian way of life, and, 
as for the verse and the passions, I have them still in 
tolerable vigor." 

The Right Honorable John Hookham Frere has, 
then, by Lord Byron's confession, the merit of having 
first introduced the Bernesque style into our lan- 
guage; but his performance, entitled "Prospectus 
and Specimen of an intended National Work, by 
William and Robert Whistlecraft, of Stowmarket, 
in Suflfolk, Harness and Collar Makers, intended to 
comprise the most interesting Particulars relating to 
King Arthur and his Round Table," though it de- 
lighted all elegant and learned readers, obtained at 
the time little notice from the public at large, and is 
already almost forgotten. For the causes of this 

1 " Although I was only nine days at Venice, I saw, in that 
little time, more liberty to sin, than ever I heard tell of in 
the city of London in nine years." — Roger Ascham. 



failure, about which Mr. Rose and others have writ- 
ten at some length, it appears needless to look further 
than the last sentence we have been quoting from the 
letters of the author of the more successful Beppo. 
Whistlecraft had the verse: it had also the humor, 
the wit, and even the poetry of the Italian model j 
but it wanted the life of actual manners, and the 
strength of stirring passions. Mr. Frere had forgot, 
or was, with all his genius, unfit to profit by remem- 
bering, that the poets, whose style he was adopting, 
always made their style appear a secondary matter. 
They never failed to embroider their merriment on 
the texture of a really interesting story. Lord Byron 
perceived this ; and avoiding his immediate master's 
one fatal error, and at least equalling him in the ex- 
cellencies which he did display, engaged at once 
the sympathy of readers of every class, and be- 
came substantially the founder of a new species of 
English poetry. 

In justice to Mr. Frere, however, whose "Speci- 
men " has long been out of print, we must take this 
opportunity of showing how completely, as to style 
and versification, he had anticipated Beppo and Don 
Juan. In the introductions to his cantos, and in 
various detached passages of mere description, he 
had produced precisely the sort of effect at which 
Lord Byron aimed in what we may call the second- 
ary, or merely ornamental, parts of his Comic Epic. 
For example, this is the beginning of Whistlecraft's 
first canto : — 

" I've often wish'd that I could write a book, 
Such as all English people might peruse ; 

I never should regret the pains it took. 
That's just the sort of fame that I should choose: 

To sail about the world like Captain Cook, 
I'd sling a cot up for my favorite Muse, 

And we'd take verses out to Demerara, 

To New South "Wales, and up to Niagara. 

" Poets consume excisable commodities, 
They raise the nation's spirit when victorious, 

They drive an export trade in whims and oddities, 
Making our commerce and revenue glorious ; 

(169) 



170 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



As an industrious and pains-taking body 'tis 
That Poets should be reckon'd meritorious : 
And therefore I submissively propose 
To erect one Board for Verse and one for Prose. 

"Princes protecting Sciences and Art 
I've often seen, in copper-plate and print ; 

I never saw them elsewhere, for my part, 
And therefore I conclude there's nothing in't : 

But every body knows the Regent's heart ; 
I trust he won't reject a well-meant hint ; 

Each Board to have twelve members, with a seat 

To bring them in per ann. five hundred neat :— 

" From Princes I descend to the Nobility : 
In former times all persons of high stations, 

Lords, Baronets, and Persons of gentility. 
Paid twenty guineas for the dedications : 

This practice was attended with utility ; 
The patrons lived to future generations, 

The poets lived by their industrious earning, — 

So men alive and dead could live by Learning. 

" Then, twenty guineas was a little fortune ; 

Now, we must starve unless the times should mend : 
Our poets now-a-days are deem'd importune 

If their addresses are diffusely penn'd ; 
Most fashionable authors make a short one 

To their own wife, or child, or private friend, 
To show their independence, I suppose ; 
And that may do for Gentlemen like those. 

" Lastly, the common people I beseech — 
Dear People ! if you think my verses clever. 

Preserve with care'your noble parts of speech, 
And take it as a maxim to endeavor 

To talk as your good mothers used to teach, 
And then these lines of mine may last for ever ; 

And don't confound the language of the nation 

With long-tail'd words in osity and ation. 

" I think that Poets (whether Whig or Tory) 
(Whether they go to meeting or to church) 

Should study to promote their country's glory 
With patriotic, diligent research ; 

That children yet unborn may learn the story. 
With grammars, dictionaries, canes, and birch ; 

It stands to reason — This was Homer's plan, 

And we must do — like him — the best we can. 

" Madoc and Marmion, and many more, 
Are out in print, and most of them have sold ; 

Perhaps together they may make a score ; 
Richard the First has had his story told— 

But there were Loi'ds and Princes long before, 
That had behaved themselves like warriors bold ; 

Amongst the rest there was the great King Arthur, 

What hero's fame was ever carried farther ?" 

The following description of King Arthur's Christ- 
mas at Carlisle is equally meritorious : — 

" The great King Arthur made a sumptuous Feast, 

And held his Royal Christmas at Carlisle, 
And thither came the Vassals, most and least, 

From every corner of this British Isle ; 
And all were entertain'd, both man and beast. 

According to their rank, in proper style ; 
The steeds were fed and litter'd in the stable. 
The ladies and the knights sat down to table. 



" The bill of fare (as you may well suppose) 

Was suited to those plentiful old times. 
Before our modern luxuries arose. 

With truffles and ragouts, and various crimes ; 
And therefore, from the original in prose 

I shall arrange the catalogue in rhymes : 
They served up salmon, venison, and wild boars 
By hundreds, and by dozens, and by scores. 

" Hogsheads of honey, kilderkins of mustard. 
Muttons, and fatted beeves, and bacon swine ; 

Herons and bitterns, peacocks, swan and bustard, 
Teal, mallard, pigeons, widgeons, and in fine 

Plum-puddings, pancakes, apple-pies and custard ; 
And therewithal they drank good Gascon wine, 

With mead, and ale, and cider, of our own ; 

For porter, punch, and negus were not known. 

"The noise and uproar of the scullery tribe. 
All pilfering and scrambling in their calling. 

Was past all powers of language to describe — 
The din of manful oaths and female squalling : 

The sturdy porter, huddling up his bribe, 
And then at random breaking heads and bawling, 

Outcries, and cries of order, and contusions. 

Made a confusion beyond all confusions ; 

" Beggars and vagabonds, blind, lame, and sturdy, 
Minstrels and singers with their various airs. 

The pipe, the tabor, and the hurdy-gurdy, 
Jugglers and mountebanks with apes and bears. 

Continued from the first day to the third day. 
An uproar like ten thousand Smithfield fairs ; 

There were wild beasts and foreign birds and creatures, 

And Jews and Foreigners with foreign features. 

" All sorts of people there were seen together, 
All sorts of characters, all sorts of dresses ; 

The fool with fox's tail and peacock's feather, 
Pilgrims, and penitents, and grave burgesses ; 

The country people with their coats of leather, 
Vintners and victuallers with cans and messes ; 

Grooms, archers, varlets, falconers and yeomen. 

Damsels and waiting-maids, and waiting-women. 

" But the profane, indelicate amours, 
The vulgar, unenlighten'd conversation 

Of minstrels, menials, courtesans, and boors 
(Although appropriate to their meaner station), 

Would certainly revolt a taste like yours ; 
Therefore I shall omit the calculation 

Of all the curses, oaths, and cuts, and stabs, 

Occasion'd by their dice, and drink, and drabs. 

" We must take care in our poetic cruise, 

And never hold a single tack too long ; 
Therefore, my versatile, ingenious Muse, 

Take leave of this illiterate, low-bred throng, 
Intending to present superior views. 

Which to genteeler company belong. 
And show the higher orders of society 
Behaving with politeness and propriety. 

" And certainly they say, for fine behaving 
King Arthur's Court has never had its match ; 

True point of honor, without pride or braving. 
Strict etiquette for ever on the watch : 

Their manners were refined and perfect— saving 
Some modern graces, which they could not catch, 

As spitting through the teeth, and driving stages, 

Accomplishments reserved for distant ages. 



BEPPO. 



171 



"They look'd a manly, generous generation ; 

Beards, shoulders, eyebrows, broad, and square, and thick, 
Their accents firm and loud in conversation, 

Their eyes and gestures eager, sharp, and quick, 
Show'd them prepared, on proper provocation, 

To give the lie, pull noses, stab, and kick ; 
And for that very reason, it is said. 
They were so very courteous and well-bred. 

" The ladies look'd of an heroic race — 
At first a general likeness struck your eye, 

Tall figures, open features, oval face. 
Large eyes, with ample eyebrows arch'd and high ; 

Their manners had an odd, peculiar grace. 
Neither repulsive, aflable, nor shy, 

Majestical, reserved, and somewhat sullen ; 

Their dresses partly silk and partly woollen." 

The little snatches of critical quizzing introduced 
in Whistlecraffc are perfect in their way. Take, for 
example, this good-humored parody on one of the 
most magnificent passages in Wordsworth : — 

" In castles and in courts Ambition dwells. 

But not in castles or in courts alone ; 
She breathed a wish, throughout those sacred cells, 

For bells of larger size, and louder tone ; 
Giants abominate the sound of bells, 

And soon the fierce antipathy was shown. 
The tinkling and the jingling, and the clangor, 
Roused their irrational, gigantic anger. 

" Unhappy mortals ! ever blind to fate ! 

Unhappy Monks ! you see no danger nigh ; 
Exulting in their sound, and size, and weight, 

From morn till noon the merry peal you ply : 
The belfry rocks, your bosoms are elate. 

Your spirits with the ropes and pulleys fly ; 
Tired, but transported, panting, pulling, hauling. 
Ramping and stamping, overjoy'd and bawling. 

" Meanwhile the solemn mountains that surrounded 

The silent valley where the convent lay, 
With tintinnabular uproar were astounded, 

When the first peal burst forth at break of day : 
Feeling their granite ears severely wounded, 

They scarce knew what to think, or what to say ; 
And (though large mountains commonly conceal 
Their sentiments, dissembling what they feel, 

"Yet) Oader-Gibhrish from his cloudy throne 

To huge Loblommon gave an intimation 
Of this strange rumor, with an awful tone, 

Thundering his deep surprise and indignation ; 
The lesser hills, in language of their own, 

Discus^ d the topic by reverberation ; 
Discoursing with their echoes all day long, 
Their only conversation was, * ding-dong.^ " 

Mr. Rose has a very elegant essay on "Whistlecraft, 
in his "Thoughts and Recollections by One of the 
last Century," which thus concludes :— 

"Beppo, which had a story, and which pointed but one 
way, met with signal and universal success; while 'The 
Monks and the Giants ' have been little appreciated, by the 
majority of readers. Yet those who will only laugh upon a 
suflacient warrant, may, on analyzing this bravura-poem, find 
legitimate matter for their mirth. The want of meaning 
certainly cannot be objected to it, with reason ; for it contains 
a deep substratum of sense, and does not exhibit a character 



which has not, or might not, have its parallel in nature. I 
remember at the time this poem was published (which was, 
when the French monarchy seemed endangered by the vacil- 
lating conduct of Louis XVIII., who, under the guidance of 
successive ministers, was trimming between the loyalists and 
the liberals, apparently thinking that civility and conciliation 
was a remedy for all evils), a friend dared me to prove my 
assertion ; and, by way of a text, referred me to the character 
of the crippled abbot, under whose direction, 

' The convent was all going to the devil, 
While he, poor creature, thought himself beloved 

For saying handsome things and being civil. 
Wheeling about as he was pull'd and shoved.' 

" The obvious application of this was made by me to Louis 
XVIII. ; and if it was not the intention of the author to 
designate him in particular, the applicability of the passage 
to the then state of France, and her ruler, shows, at least, the 
intrinsic truth of the description. Take, in the same way, 
the character of Sir Tristram, and we shall find its elements, 
if not in one, in different living persons. 

' Songs, music, languages, and many a lay 

Asturian, or Armoric, Irish, Basque, 
His ready memory seized and bore away ; 

And ever when the ladies chose to ask, 
Sir Tristram was prepared to sing and play. 

Not like a minstrel, earnest at his task. 
But with a sportive, careless, easy style. 

As if he seem'd to mock himself the while. 

* His ready wit, and rambling education. 

With the congenial influence of his stars. 
Had taught him all the arts of conversation, 

All games of skill, and stratagems of wars ; 
His birth, it seems, by Merlin's calculation. 

Was under Venus, Mercury, and Mars : 
His mind with all their attributes was mix'd, 

And, like those planets, wand'ring and unfix'd.' 

"Who can read this description, without recognizing in it 
the portraits (flattering portraits, perhaps) of two military 
characters well known in society ?" 

The reader will find a copious criticism on Whistle- 
craft, from the pen of Ugo Foscolo, in the Quarterly 
Review, vol. xxi. 



i3eppo. 



I. 

'Tis known, at least it should be, that throughout 
All countries of the Catholic persuasion. 

Some weeks before Shrove Tuesday comes about, 
The people take their fill of recreation. 

And buy repentance, ere they grow devout, 
However high their rank, or low their station, 

With fiddling, feasting, dancing, drinking, masking, 

And other things which may be had for asking. 

II. 

The moment night with dusky mantle covers 
The skies (and the more duskily the better), 

The time less liked by husbands than by lovers 
Begins, and Prudery flings aside her fetter ; 



172 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



And Gayety on restless tiptoe hovers, 

Giggling with all the gallants who beset her : 
And there are songs and quavers, roaring, humming, 
Guitars, and every other sort of strumming. 

III. 

And there are dresses splendid, but fantastical. 
Masks of all times and nations, Turks and Jews, 

And harlequins and clowns, with feats gymnastical, 
Greeks, Eomans, Yankee-doodles, and Hindoos ; 

All kinds of dress, except the ecclesiastical, 
All people, as their fancies hit, may choose, 

But no one in these parts may quiz the clergy, — 

Therefore take heed, ye Freethinkers ! I charge ye. 

IV. 

You'd better walk about begirt with briars. 
Instead of coat and smallclothes, than put on 

A single stitch reflecting upon friars, 
Although you swore it only was in fun ; 

They'd haul you o'er the coals, and stir the fires 
Of Phlegethon with every mother's son. 

Nor say one mass to cool the caldron's bubble 

That boil'd your bones, unless you paid them double. 

V. 

But saving this, you may put on whate'er 
You like by way of doublet, cape, or cloak, 

Such as in Monmouth-street, or in Bag Fair, 
Would rig you out in seriousness or joke ; 

And even in Italy such places are. 
With prettier name in softer accents spoke, 

For, bating Covent Garden, I can hit on 

No place that's call'd " Piazza" in Great Britain.^ 

VI. 

This feast is named the Carnival,^ which being 
Interpreted, implies "farewell to flesh :" 

So call'd, because the name and thing agreeing. 
Through Lent they live on fish both salt and 
fresh. 

But why they usher Lent with so much glee in, 
Is more than I can tell, although I guess 

'Tis as we take a glass with friends at parting. 

In the stage-coach or packet, just at starting. 



1 " For, bating Covent Garden, I can't hit on 
A place," &c.— MS. 

2 "The Carnival," says Mr. Eose, "though it is gayer or 
duller, according to the genius of the nations which celebrate 
it, is, in its general character, nearly the same all over the 
peninsula. The beginning is like any other season ; towards 
the middle you begin to meet masques and mummers in sun- 
shine : in the last fifteen days the plot thickens ; and during 
the three last all is hurly-burly. But to paint these, which 
may be almost considered as a separate festival, I must avail 
myself of the words of Messrs. "William and Thomas Whis- 
tlecraft, in whose Prospectus and Specimen of an intended 
National Work I find the description ready made to my 
hand, observing that, besides the ordinary dramatis personce, — 

' Beggars and vagabonds, blind, lame, and sturdy, 
Minstrels and singers, with their various airs, 



VII. 



And thus they bid farewell to carnal dishes. 
And solid meats, and highly spiced ragouts. 

To live for forty days on ill-dress'd fishes. 
Because they gave no sauces to their stews, 

A thing which causes many "poohs" and " pishes,'' 
And several oaths (which would not suit the Muse), 

From travellers accustom'd from a boy 

To eat their salmon, at the least, with soy ; 

VIII. 

And therefore humbly I would recommend 
" The curious in fish-sauce," before they cross 

The sea, to bid their cook, or wife, or friend. 
Walk or ride to the Strand, and buy in gross 

(Or if set out beforehand, these may send 
By any means least liable to loss) 

Ketchup, Soy, Chili- vinegar, and Harvey, 

Or, by the Lord ! a Lent will well nigh starve ye ; 

IX. 

That is to say, if your religion's Roman, 
And you at Rome would do as Romans do. 

According to the proverb,— although no man, 
If foreign, is obliged to fast ; and you. 

If Protestant, or sickly, or a woman. 
Would rather dine in sin on a ragout — 

Dine and be d — d ! I don't mean to be coarse, 

But that's the penalty, to say no worse. 

X. 

Of all the places where the Carnival 
Was most facetious in the days of yore, 

For dance, and song, and serenade, and ball, 
And masque, and mime, and mystery, and more 

Than I have time to tell now, or at all, 
Venice the bell from every city bore, — 

And at the moment when I fix my story, 

That sea-born city was in all her glory. 

XI. 

They've pretty faces yet, those same Venetians, 
Black eyes, arch'd brows, and sweet expressions 

Such as of old were copied from the Grecians, [still ; 
In ancient arts by moderns mimick'd ill. 



The pipe, the tabor, and the hurdy-gurdy, 
Jugglers and mountebanks, with apes and bears. 

Continue, from the first day to the third day, 
An uproar like ten thousand Smithfield fairs '— 

the shops are shut, all business is at a stand, and the drunken 
cries heard at night afford a clear proof of the pleasures to 
which these days of leisure are dedicated. These holydays 
may surely be reckoned amongst the secondary causes which 
contribute to the indolence of the Italian, since they recon- 
cile this to his conscience, as being of religious institution. 
Now there is, perhaps, no offence which is so unproportion- 
ably punished by conscience as that of indolence. With the 
wicked man, it is an intermittent disease ; with the idle man, 
it is a chronic one." — Letters from the North of Italy, vol. ii. 
p. 171. 



I 



I 



llU 



BEPPO. 



173 



And like so many Venuses of Titian's 

(The best's at Florence' — see it, if ye will), 
They look when leaning over the balcony, 
Or stepp'd from out a picture by Giorgione,^ 

XII. 

Whose tints are truth and beauty at their best ; 

And when you to Manfrini's palace go,^ 
That picture (howsoever fine the rest) 

Is loveliest to my mind of all the show ; 
It may perhaps be also to your zest, 

And that's the cause I rhyme upon it so : 
'Tis but a portrait of his son, and wife, 



And self: but 



a woman ! love in life ! * 



XIII. 



Love in full life and length, not love ideal. 

No, nor ideal beauty, that fine name, 
But something better still, so very real. 

That the sweet model must have been the 
•same ; 
A thing that you would purchase, beg, or steal, 

Were't not impossible, besides a shame : 
The face recalls some face, as 'twere with pain. 
You once have seen, but ne'er will see again. 

XIV. 

One of those forms which flit by us, when we 
Are young, and fix our eyes on every face ; 

And, oh ! the loveliness at times we see 
In momentary gliding, the soft grace, 

The youth, the bloom, the beauty which agree, 
In many a nameless being we retrace. 

Whose course and home we knew not, nor shall 
know, 

Like the lost Pleiad ^ seen no more below. 



1 " At Florence I remained but a day, having a hurry for 
Rome. However, I went to the two galleries, from which 
one returns drunk with beauty ; but there are sculpture and 
painting, which, for the first time, gave me an idea of what 
people mean by their carit about those two most artificial of 
the arts. What struck me most were, — the mistress of Ra- 
phael, a portrait ; the mistress of Titian, a portrait ; a Venus 
of Titian, in the Medici gallery ; tfie Venus ; Canova's Venus, 
also in the other gallery," &<i.— Byron Letters, 1817. 

2 " I know nothing of pictures myself, and care almost as 
little ; but to me there are none like the Venetian — above all, 
Giorgione. I remember well his Judgment of Solomon, in 
the Mariscalchi gallery in Bologna. The real mother is 
beautiful, exquisitely beautiful."— jByrow Letters, 1820. 

' The following is Lord Byron's account of his visit to this 
palace, in April, 1817 :— " To-day, I have been over the Man- 
frini palace, famous for its pictures. Amongst them, there 
is a portrait of Ariosto, by Titian, surpassing all my antici- 
pation of the power of painting or human expression ; it is 
the poetry of portrait, and the portrait of poetry. There 
was also one of some learned lady centuries old, whose name 
I forget, but whose features must always be remembered. 
I never saw greater beauty, or sweetness, or wisdom ;— it is 
the kind of face to go mad for, because it cannot walk out 
of its frame. There is also a famous dead Christ and live 
Apostles, for which Buonaparte offered in vain five thousand 



XV. 

I said that like a picture by Giorgione 
Venetian women were, and so they are, 

Particularly seen from a balcony 

(For beauty's sometimes best set off afar), 

And there, just like a heroine of Goldoni, 
They peep from out the blind, or o'er the bar ; 

And, truth to say, they're mostly very pretty, 

And rather like to show it, more's the pity ! 

XVI. 

For glances beget ogles, ogles sighs. 

Sighs wishes, wishes words, and words a letter. 
Which flies on wings of light-heel'd Mercuries, 

Who do such things because they know no 
better ; 
And then, God knows what mischief may arise. 

When love links two young people in one fetter, 
Vile assignations, and adulterous beds, 
Elopements, broken vows, and hearts, and heads. 

XVII. 

Shakspeare described the sex in Desdemona 
As very fair, but yet suspect in fame,^ 

And to this day from Venice to Verona 
Such matters may be probably the same, 

Except that since those times was never known a 
Husband whom mere suspicion could inflame 

To suffocate a wife no more than twenty. 

Because she had a " cavalier servente." 

XVIII. 

Their jealousy (if they are ever jealous) 

Is of a fair complexion altogether, 
Not like that sooty devil of Othello's 

Which smothers women in a bed of feather. 



louis ; and of which, though it is a capo d' opera of Titian, as 
I am no connoisseur, I say little, and thought less, except of 
one figure in it. There are ten thousand others, and some 
very fine Giorgiones amongst them. There is an original 
Laura and Petrarch, very hideous both. Petrarch has not 
only the dress, but the features and air of an old woman ; 
and Laura looks by no means like a young one, or a pretty 
one. What struck most in the general collection, was the 
extreme resemblance of the style of the female faces in the 
mass of pictures, so many centuries or generations old, to 
those you see and meet every day among the existing Ital- 
ians. The Queen of Cyprus and Giorgione's wife, particularly 
the latter, are Venetians as it were of yesterday ; the same 
eyes and expression, and, to my mind, there is none finer. 
You must recollect, however, that I know nothing of paint- 
ing, and that I detest it, unless it reminds me of something 
I have seen, or think it possible to see." 

4 This appears to be ^.n incorrect description of the picture ; 
as, according to Vasari and others, Giorgione never was mar- 
ried, and died young. 

6 " Quae septem dici sex tamen esse solent."— Ovid. 

6 " Look to't : 

In Venice they do let heaven see the pranks 
They dare not show their husbands ; their best conscience 
Is— not to leave undone, but keep unknown."— O^AeWo. 



174 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



But worthier of these much more jolly fellows, 

"When weary of the matrimonial tether 
His head for such a wife no mortal bothers, 
But takes at once another, or another's.^ 

XIX. 

Didst ever see a Gondola ? For fear 
You should not, I'll describe it you exactly : 

'Tis a long cover'd boat that's common here, 
Carved at the prow, built lightly, but com- 
pactly, 

Row'd by two rowers, each call'd " Gondolier," 
It glides along the water looking blackly, 

Just like a coffin clapt in a canoe. 

Where none can make out what you say or do. 

XX. 

And up and down the long canals they go, 

And under the Rialto ^ shoot along. 
By night and day, all paces, swift or slow, 

And round the theatres, a sable throng, 
They wait in their dusk livery of woe, — 

But not to them do woeful things belong. 
For sometimes they contain a deal of fun. 
Like mourning coaches when the funeral's done. 

XXI. 

But to my story. — 'Twas some years ago, 
It may be thirty, forty, more or less. 

The Carnival was at its height, and so 
Were all kinds of buffi)onery and dress ; 

A certain lady went to see the show. 
Her real name I know not, nor can guess, 

And so we'll call her Laura, if you please. 

Because it slips into my verse with ease. 

XXII. 

She was not old, nor young, nor at the years 
Which certain people call a " certain age,^' 

Which yet the most uncertain age appears, 
Because I never heard, nor could engage 

A person yet by prayers, or bribes, or tears, 
To name, define by speech, or write on page. 

The period meant precisely by that word, — 

Which surely is exceedingly absurd. 



1 "Jealousy is not tlie order of the day in Venice, and 
daggers are out of fashion, while duels on love matters are 
unknown— at least, with the husbands."— J?2/ro?i Letters. 

2 "An English abbreviation, Rialto is the name, not of 
the bridge, but of the island from which it is called ; and the 
Venetians say, il ponte di Rialto, as we say Westminster 
Bridge. In that island is the Exchange; and I have often 
walked there as on classic ground. In the days of Antonio 
and Bassanio it was second to none. ' I sotto portichi,' says 
Sansovino, writing in 1580, ' sono ogni giorni frequentati da i 
mercatanti Fiorentini, Genovesi, Milanesi, Spagnuoli, Turchi, 
e d' altre nationi diverse del mondo, i quali vi concorrono in 
tanta copia, che questa piazza h annoverata fra le prime dell' 
universo.' It was there that the Christian held discourse 
with the Jew ; and Shylock refers to it, when he says, 



XXIII. 
Laura was blooming still, had made the best 

Of time, and time return'd the compliment, 
And treated her genteelly, so that, dress'd, 

She look'd extremely well where'er she went ; 
A pretty woman is a welcome guest, 

And Laura's brow a frown had rarely bent ; 
Indeed she shone all smiles, and seem'd to flatter 
Mankind with her black eyes for looking at her. 

XXIV. 

She was a married woman ; 'tis convenient, 
Because in Christian countries 'tis a rule 

To view their little slips with eyes more lenient ; 
Whereas, if single ladies play the fool 

(Unless within the period intervenient 
A well-timed wedding makes the scandal cool), 

I don't know how they ever can get over it, 

Except they manage never to discover it. 

XXV. 

Her husband sail'd upon the Adriatic, 
And made some voyages, too, in other seas. 

And when he lay in quarantine for pratique 
(A forty days' precaution 'gainst disease). 

His wife would mount, at times, her highest attic, 
For thence she oould discern the ship with ease : 

He was a merchant trading to Aleppo, 

His name Giuseppe, call'd more briefly, Beppo. 

XXVI. 

He was a man as dusky as a Spaniard, 
Sunburnt with travel, yet a portly figure ; 

Though color'd, as it were, within a tanyard. 
He was a person both of sense and vigor — 

A better seaman never yet did man yard ; 
And she, although her manners show'd no rigor. 

Was deem'd a woman of the strictest principle. 

So much as to be thought almost invincible.^ 

XXVII. 

But several years elapsed since they had met ; 

Some people thought the ship was lost, and some 
That he had somehow blunder'd into debt. 

And did not like the thoughts of steering home ; 



' Signor Antonio, many a time and oft, 

In the Rialto, you have rated me.' 
' Andiamo §. Rialto ' — ' 1' ora di Rialto ' — were on every tongue ; 
and continue so to the present day." — Rogers. 

3 " The general state of morals here is much the same as 
in the Doges' time: a woman is virtuous (according to the 
code) who limits herself to her husband and one lover ; those 
who have two, three, or more, are a little wild ; but it is only 
those who are indiscriminately diffuse, and form a low con- 
nection, who are considered as overstepping the modesty of 
marriage. There is no convincing a woman here that she is 
in the smallest degree deviating from the rule of right or the 
fitness of things, in having an amoroso. The great sin seems 
to lie in concealing it, or having more than one ; that is, un- 
less such an extension of the prerogative is understood and 
approved of by the prior claimant."— ^^/^on Letters, 1817. 



ft 



BEPPO. 



175- 



And tbere were several offer'd any bet, 

Or that he would, or that he would not come ; 
For most men (till by losing render'd sager) 
Will back their own opinions with a wager. 

XXVIII. 
'Tis said that their last parting was pathetic, 

As partings often are, or ought to be. 
And their presentiment was quite prophetic 

That they should never more each other see 
(A sort of morbid feeling, half poetic. 

Which I have known occur in two or three). 
When kneeling on the shore upon her sad knee, 
He left this Adriatic Ariadne. 

XXIX. 

And Laura waited long, and wept a little. 
And thought of wearing weeds, as well she 
might ; 

She almost lost all appetite for victual. 
And could not sleep with ease alone at night ; 

She deem'd the window-frames and shutters brittle 
Against a daring housebreaker or sprite. 

And so she thought it prudent to connect her 

With a vice-husband, chiefly to protect her. 

XXX. 

She chose (and what is there they will not choose, 
If only you will but oppose their choice?). 

Till Beppo should return from his long cruise. 
And bid once more her faithful heart rejoice, 

A man some women like, and yet abuse — 
A coxcomb was he by the public voice ; 

A Count of wealth, they said, as well as quality. 

And in his pleasures of great liberality.^ 

XXXI. 

And then he was a Count, and then he knew 
Music, and dancing, fiddling, French, and 
Tuscan ; 

The last not easy, be it known to you, 
For few Italians speak the right Etruscan. 

He was a critic upon operas, too. 
And knew all niceties of the sock and buskin ; 

And no Venetian audience could endure a 

Song, scene, or air, when he cried "seccatura!" 

XXXII. 

His " bravo " was decisive, for that sound 
Hush'd "Academic" sigh'd in silent awe; 

The fiddlers trembled as he look'd around, 
For fear of some false note's detected flaw. 

The "prima donna's" tuneful heart would bound, 
Dreading the deep damnation of his " bah !" 

Soprano, basso, even the contra-alto, 

Wish'd him five fathom under the Rialto. 



^ " A Count of wealth inferior to his quality, 

Which somewhat limited his liberality."— MS. 
« Cortejo is pronounced Corte^, with an aspirate, accord- 



XXXIII. 

He patronized the Improvisator!, 

Nay, could himself extemporize some stanzas, 
Wrote rhymes, sang songs, could also tell a story, 

Sold pictures, and was skillful in the dance as 
Italians can be, though in this their glory 

Must surely yield the palm to that which France 
has; 
In short he was a perfect cavaliero, 
And to his very valet seem'd a hero. 

xxxiv. 

Then he was faithful too, as well as amorous ; 

So that no sort of female could complain, 
Although they're now and then a little clamorous. 

He never put the pretty souls in pain ; 
His heart was one of those which most enamor us, 

Wax to receive, and marble to retain : 
He was a lover of the good old school, 
Who still become more constant as they cool. 

XXXV. 

No wonder such accomplishments should turn 
A female head, however sage and steady — 

With scarce a hope that Beppo could return. 
In law he was almost as good as dead, he 

Nor sent, nor wrote, nor show'd the least concern, 
And she had waited several years already ; 

And really if a man won't let us know 

That he's alive, he's dead, or should be so. 

XXXVI. 

Besides, within the Alps, to every woman 
(Although, God knows, it is a grievous sin), 

'Tis, I may say, permitted to have two men ; 
I can't tell who first brought the custom in, 

But " Cavalier Serventes " are quite common, 
And no one notices, nor cares a pin ; 

And we may call this (not to say the worst) 

A second marriage which corrupts the first. 

XXXVII. 

The word was formerly a " Cicisbeo," 
But that is now grown vulgar and indecent ; 

The Spaniards call the person a "Cortejo,"^ 
For the same mode subsists in Spain, though recent ; 

In short, it reaches from the Po to Teio, 
And may perhaps at last be o'er the sea sent : 

But Heaven preserve Old England from such courses I 

Or what becomes of damage and divorces ? 

XXXVIII. 

However, I still think, with all due deference 

To the fair single part of the creation. 
That married ladies should preserve the preference 

In tUe-ci-tUe or general conversation — 



ing to the Arabesque guttural. It means what there is as yet 
no precise name for in England, though the practice is as 
common as in any tramontane country whatever. 



176 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



And this I say without peculiar reference 

To England, France, or any other nation — 
Because they know the world, and are at ease, 
And being natural, naturally please. 

XXXIX. 
'Tis true, your budding Miss is very charming, 

But shy and awkward at first coming out, 
So much alarm'd, that she is quite alarming, 

All Giggle, Blush ; half Pertness, and half Pout ; 
And glancing at Mamma, for fear there's harm in 

What you, she, it, or they, may be about. 
The nursery still lisps out in all they utter — 
Besides, they always smell of bread and butter. 

XL. 

But " Cavalier Servente" is the phrase 

Used in politest circles to express 
This supernumerary slave, who stays 

Close to the lady as a part of dress. 
Her word the only law which he obeys. 

His is no sinecure, as you may guess ; 
Coach, servants, gondola, he goes to call, 
And carries fan and tippet, gloves and shawl. 

XLI. 

With all its sinful doings, I must say. 

That Italy's a pleasant place to me, 
Who love to see the Sun shine every day. 

And vines (not nail'd to walls) from tree to tree 
Festoon'd, much like the back scene of a play, 

Or melodrame, which people flock to see, 
When the first act is ended by a dance 
In vineyards copied from the south of France. 

XLII. 

I like on Autumn evenings to ride out. 
Without being forced to bid my groom be sure 

My cloak is round his middle strapp'd about. 
Because the skies are not the most secure ; 

I know too that, if stopp'd upon my route. 
Where the green alleys windingly allure. 

Reeling with grapes red wagons choke the way, — 

In England 'twould be dung, dust, or a dray. 

XLIII. 

I also like to dine on becaficas. 
To see the Sun set, sure he'll rise to-morrow, 

1 " From the tall peasant with her ruddy hronze."— MS. 

2 " Like her own clime, all sun, and bloom, and skies."— MS. 

3 "In these lines the author rises above the usual and ap- 
propriate pitch of his composition, and is betrayed into some- 
thing too like enthusiasm and deep feeling for the light and 
fantastic strain of his poetry. Neither does the fit go oflf, for 
he rises quite into rapture in the succeeding stanza. This 
is, however, the only slip of the kind in the whole work,— 
the only passage in which the author betrays the secret 
(which might, however, have been suspected) of his own 
genius, and his aflanity to a higher order of poets than those 
to whom he has here been pleased to hold out a model."— 
Jeffrey. 



Not through a misty morning twinkling weak as 
A drunken man's dead eye in maudlin sorrow, 

But with all Heaven t'himself; that day will 
break as 
Beauteous as cloudless, nor be forced to borrow 

That sort of farthing candlelight which glimmers 

Where reeking London's smoky caldron simmers. 

XLIV. 

I love the language, that soft bastard Latin, 
Which melts like kisses from a female mouth, 

And sounds as if it should be writ on satin. 
With syllables which breathe of the sweet South, 

And gentle liquids gliding all so pat in. 
That not a single accent seems uncouth. 

Like our harsh northern whistling, grunting guttural^ 

Which we're obliged to hiss, and spit, and sputter 
all. 

XLV. 

I like the women too (forgive my folly), 
From the rich peasant-cheek of ruddy bronze,' 

And large black eyes that flash on you a volley 
Of rays that say a thousand things at once, 

To the high dama's brow, more melancholy, 
But clear, and with a wild and liquid glance, 

Heart on her lips, and soul within her eyes, 

Soft as her clime,^ and sunny as her skies.^ 

XLVI. 

Eve of the land which still is Paradise ! 

Italian beauty ! didst thou not inspire 
Raphael,* who died in thy embrace, and vies 

With all we know of Heaven, or can desire, 
In what he hath bequeath'd us ? — in what guise. 

Though flashing from the fervor of the lyre, 
Would words describe thy past and present glow, 
While yet Canova can create below ? ^ 

XLVII. 

" England ! with all thy faults I love thee still," 
I said at Calais, and have not forgot it ; 

I like to speak and lucubrate my fill ; 
I like the government (but that is not it) ; 

I like the freedom of the press and quill ; 

I like the Habeas Corpus (when we've got it) ; 

I like a parliamentary debate. 

Particularly when 'tis not too late ; 

4 For the received accounts of the cause of Raphael's death, 
see his lives. 

5 Note. — (In talking thus, the writer, more especially 

Of women, would be understood to say, 
He speaks as a spectator, not officially, 

And always, reader, in a modest way ; 
Perhaps, too, in no very great degree shall he 

Appear to have oflfended in this lay, 
Since, as all know, without the sex, our sonnets 
Would seem unfinish'd, like their untrimm'd 
bonnets.) 
(Signed) Printer's Devil. 



BEPPO. 



177 



XLVIII. 

T like the taxes, when they're not too many ; 

I like a seacoal fire, when not too dear ; 
I like a beef-steak, too, as well as any ; 

Have no objection to a pot of beer; 
I like the weather, when it is not rainy. 

That is, I like two months of every year. 
And so God save the Regent, Chnreh, and King ! 
Which means that I like all and everything. 

XLIX. 

Our standing army, and disbanded seamen, 
Poor's rate. Reform, my own, the nation's debt, 

Our little riots just to show we are free men, 
Our trifling bankruptcies in the Gazette, 

Our cloudy climate, and our chilly women, 
All these I can forgive, and those forget. 

And greatly venerate our recent glories. 

And wish they were not owing to the Tories. 



But to my tale of Laura, — for I find 

Digression is a sin, that by degrees 
Becomes exceeding tedious to my mind, 

And, therefore, may the reader too displease — 
The gentle reader, who may wax unkind, 

And caring little for the author's ease. 
Insist on knowing what he means, a hard 
And hapless situation for a bard. 

LI. 

Oh that I had the art of easy writing 
"What should be easy reading ! could I scale 

Parnassus, where the Muses sit inditing 
Those pretty poems never known to fail, 

How quickly would I print (the world delighting) 
A Grecian, Syrian, or Assyrian tale ; 

And sell you, mix'd with western sentimentalism, 

Some samples of the finest Orientalism ! 

LII. 

But I am but a nameless sort of person 
(A broken Dandy ^ lately on my travels). 

And take for rhyme, to hook my rambling verse on, 
The first that Walker's Lexicon unravels. 

And when I can't find that, I put a worse on. 
Not caring as I ought for critics' cavils ; 

I've half a mind to tumble down to prose, 

But verse is more in fashion — so here goes. 

LIU. 

Tlie Count and Laura made their new arrangement, 
Which lasted, as arrangements sometimes do. 



1 "The expressions ^bluestocking^ and 'dandy' may fur- 
nish matter for the learning of a commentator at some future 
period. At this moment, every English reader will under- 
stand them. Our present ephemeral dandy is akin to the 
iiiaccaroni of my earlier days. The first of those expressions 
has become classical, by Mrs. Hannah More's poem of 'Bas- 
12 



For half a dozen years without estrangement ; 

They had their little difierences, too ; 
Those jealous whifis, which never any change meant; 

In such afiairs there probably are few 
Who have not had this pouting sort of squabble, 
From sinners of high station to the rabble. 

LIV. 

But, on the whole, they were a happy pair, 
As happy as unlawful love could make them ; 

The gentleman was fond, the lady fair. 

Their chains so slight, 'twas not worth while to 
break them : 

The world beheld them with indulgent air ; 
The pious only wish'd "the devil take them !" 

He took them not ; he very often waits. 

And leaves old sinners to be young ones' baits. 

LV. 

But they were young : Oh ! what without our youth 
Would love be ! What would youth be without love ! 

Youth lends it joy, and sweetness, vigor, truth. 
Heart, soul, and all that seems as from above ; 

But, languishing with years, it grows uncouth — 
One of few things experience don't improve, 

Which is, perhaps, the reason why old fellows 

Are always so preposterously jealous. 

LVI. 

It was the Carnival, as I have said 
Some six and thirty stanzas back, and so 

Laura the usual preparations made. 
Which you do when your mind's made up to go 

To-night to Mrs. Boehm's masquerade. 
Spectator, or partaker in the show ; 

The only difference known between the cases 

Is — here, we have six weeks of " varnish'd faces." 

LVII. 
Laura, when dress'd, was (as I sang before) 

A pretty woman as was ever seen, 
Fresh as the Angel o'er a new inn door, 

Or frontispiece of a new Magazine, 
With all the fashions which the last month wore, 

Color'd, and silver paper leaved between 
That and the title-page, for fear the press 
Should soil with parts of speech the parts of dress. 

LVIII. 

They went to the Ridotto ; — 'tis a hall 
Where people dance, and sup, and dance again ; 

Its proper name, perhaps, were a masqued ball, 
But that's of no importance to my strain ; 



Bleu,' and the other by the use of it in one of Lord Byron's 
poems. Though now become familiar and trite, their day 
may not be long. 

'Cadentque 

Quse nunc sunt in honore vocabula.' " — 

Lord Glenbervie, Ricciardetto, 1822. 



178 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



'Tis (on a smaller scale) like our Vauxhall, 
Excepting that it can't be spoilt by rain : 
The company is " mix'd " (the phrase I quote is 
As much as saying, they're below your notice) ; 

LIX. 

For a "mix'd company" implies that, save 
Yourself and friends, and half a hundred more, 

Whom you may bow to without looking grave, 
The rest are but a vulgar set, the bore 

Of public places, where they basely brave 
The fashionable stare of twenty score 

Of well-bred persons, call'd ''The World;" but I, 

Although I know them, really don't know why. 

LX. 

This is the case in England ; at least was 

During the dynasty of Dandies,^ now 
Perchance succeeded by some other class 

Of imitated imitators : — how 
Irreparably soon decline, alas ! 

The demagogues of fashion : all below 
Is frail ; how easily the world is lost 
By love, or war, and now and then by frost ! 

LXI. 

Crush'd was Napoleon by the northern Thor, 
Who knock'd his army down with icy hammer, 

Stopp'd by the elements,"^ like a whaler, or 
A blundering novice in his new French grammar ; 

Good cause had he to doubt the chance of war, 
And as for Fortune — but I dare not d — n her, 

Because, were I to ponder to infinity, 

The more I should believe in her divinity .^ 

LXII. 

She rules the present, past, and all to be yet. 
She gives us luck in lotteries, love, and marriage ; 

I cannot say that she's done much for me yet ; 
Not that I mean her bounties to disparage, 

We've not yet closed accounts, and we shall see yet 
How much she'll make amends for past miscarriage. 

Meantime the goddess I'll no more importune. 

Unless to thank her when she's made my fortune. 

LXIII. 

To turn, — and to return ; — the devil take it ! 
This story slips for ever through my fingers, 

1 " I liked the Dandies : they were always very civil to me ; 
though, in general, they disliked literary people, and perse- 
cuted and mystified Madame de Stael, Lewis, Horace Twiss, 
and the like. The truth is, that though I gave up the bus- 
iness early, I had a tinge of Dandyism in my minority, and 
probably retained enough of it to conciliate the great ones 
at four and ty^QntY "—Byron Diary, 1821. 

2 "When Brummell was obliged to retire to France, he 
knew no French, and having obtained a grammar for the 
purpose of study, our friend Scrope Davies was asked what 
progress Brummell had made in French : he responded, ' that 
Brummell had been stopped, like Buonaparte in Russia, by 
the elements.'' I have put this pun into Beppo, which is 'a 



Because, just as the stanza likes to make it. 
It needs must be — and so it rather lingers : 

This form of verse began, I can't well break it, 
But must keep time and tune like public singers ; 

But if I once get through my present measure, 

I'll take another when I'm next at leisure. 

LXIV. 

They went to the Ridotto ('tis a place 
To which I mean to go myself to-morrow,* 

Just to divert my thoughts a little space. 

Because I'm rather hippish, and may borrow 

Some spirits, guessing at what kind of face 
May lurk beneath each mask ; and as my sorrow 

Slackens its pace sometimes, I'll make, or find, 

Something shall leave it half an hour behind). 

LXV. 

Now Laura moves along the joyous crowd. 
Smiles in her eyes, and simpers on her lips ; 

To some she whispers, others speaks aloud ; 
To some she curtsies, and to some she dips. 

Complains of warmth, and this complaint avow'd, 
Her lover brings the lemonade, she sips ; 

She then surveys, condemns, but pities still 

Her dearest friends for being dress'd so ill. 

LXVI. 

One has false curls, another too much paint, 
A third— where did she buy that frightful turban? 

A fourth's so pale she fears she's going to faint, 
A fifth's look's vulgar, dowdyish, and suburban, 

A sixth's white silk has got a yellow taint, 
A seventh's thin muslin surely will be her 
bane. 

And lo ! an eighth appears, — " I'll see no more !" 

For fear, like Banquo's kings, they reach a score. 

LXVII. 

Meantime, while she was thus at others gazing, 
Others were levelling their looks at her ; 

She heard the men's half-whisper'd mode of 
praising, 
And, till 'twas done, determined not to stir ; 

The women only thought it quite amazing 
That, at her time of life, so many were 

Admirers still, — but men are so debased, 

Those brazen creatures always suit their taste. 

fair exchange and no robbery ;' for Scrope made his fortune 
at several dinners (as he owned himself), by repeating occa- 
sionally, as his own, some of the buffooneries with which I 
had encountered him in the morning." — Byron Diary, 1821. 

3 " Like Sylla, I have always believed that all things de- 
pend upon Fortune, and nothing upon ourselves. I am not 
aware of any one thought or action, worthy of being called 
good to myself or others, which is not to be attributed to the 
good goddess— Fortui^e !" — Byron Diary, 1821. 

4 In the margin of the original MS. Lord Byron has writ- 
ten—" January 19, 1818. To-morrow will be a Sunday, and 
full Ridotto." 



BEPPO. 



179 



LXVIII. 
For my part, now, I ne'er could understand 

Why naughty women — but I wont discuss 
A thing which is a scandal to the land, 

I only don't see why it should be thus ; 
And if I were but in a gown and band, 

Just to entitle me to make a fuss, 
I'd preach on this till Wilberforce and Romilly 
Should quote in their next speeches from my homily. 

LXIX. 

While Laura thus was seen, and seeing, smiling. 
Talking, she knew not why, and cared not what, 

So that her female friends, with envy broiling, 
Beheld her airs and triumph, and all that ; 

And well-dress'd males still kept before her filing, 
And passing bow'd and mingled with her chat ; 

More than the rest one person seem'd to stare 

With pertinacity that's rather rare. 

LXX. 

He was a Turk, the color of mahogany ; 

And Laura saw him, and at first was glad. 
Because the Turks so much admire philogyny. 

Although their usage of their wives is sad ; 
'Tis said they use no better than a dog any 

Poor woman, whom they purchase like a pad ; 
They have a number, though they ne'er exhibit 'em, 
Four wives by law, and concubines "ad libitum." 

LXXI. 

They lock them up, and veil, and guard them daily, 

They scarcely can behold their male relations, 
So that their moments do not pass so gayly 

As is supposed the case with northern nations ; 
-Confinement, too, must make them look quite palely ; 
■ And as the Turks abhor long conversations, 
Their days are either pass'd in doing nothing, 
Or bathing, nursing, making love, and clothing. 

LXXII. 

They cannot read, and so don't lisp in criticism ; 

Nor write, and so they don't atFect the muse ; 
Were never caught in epigram or witticism. 

Have no romances, sermons, plays, reviews, — 
In harams learning soon would make a pretty 
schism ! 

But luckily these beauties are no " Blues," 
No bustling Botherbys have they to show 'em 
" That charming passage in the last new poem :" 

LXXIII. 

No solemn, antique gentleman of rhyme, 
Who having angled all his life for fame. 

And getting but a nibble at a time. 
Still fussily keeps fishing on, the same 

Small " Triton of the minnows," the sublime 
Of mediocrity, the furious tame. 

The echo's echo, usher of the school 

Of female wits, boy bards— in short, a fool ! 



LXXIV. 

A stalking oracle of awful phrase, 

The approving "6rOocZ.'" (by no means GOOD in 
law). 
Humming like flies around the newest blaze, 

The bluest of bluebottles you e'er saw. 
Teasing with blame, excruciating with praise. 

Gorging the little fame he gets all raw. 
Translating tongues he knows not even by letter. 
And sweating plays so middling, bad were better. 

LXXV. 

One hates an author that's all author, felloAvs 
In foolscap uniforms turn'd up with ink. 

So very anxious, clever, fine, and jealous. 
One don't know what to say to them, or think, 

Unless to puff them with a pair of bellows ; 
Of coxcombry's worse coxcombs e'en the pink 

Are preferable to these shreds of paper, 

These unquench'd snuffings of the midnight taper. 

LXXVI. 

Of these same we see several, and of others. 
Men of the world, who know the world like men, 

Scott, Rogers, Moore, and all the better brothers, 
Who think of something else besides the pen ; 

But for the children of the " mighty mother's," 
The would-be wits and can't-be gentlemen, 

I leave them to their daily " tea is ready," 

Smug coterie, and literary lady.i 

LXXVII. 

The poor dear Mussulwomen whom I mention 
Have none of these instructive pleasant people, 

And one would seem to them a new invention-. 
Unknown as bells within a Turkish steeple ; 

I think 'twould almost be worth while to pension 
(Though best-sown projects very often reap ill) 

A missionary author, just to preach 

Our Christian usage of the parts of speech. 

LXXVIII. ^ 

No chemistry for them unfolds her gases. 
No metaphysics are let loose in lectures. 

No circulating library amasses 
Religious novels, moral tales, and strictures 

Upon the living manners, as they pass us ; 
No exhibition glares with annual pictures ; 

They stare not on the stars from out their attics, 

Nor deal (thank God for that !) in mathematics. 

LXXIX. 

Why I thank God for that is no great matter, 
I have my reasons, you no doubt suppose. 

And as, perhaps, they would not highly flatter, 
I'll keep them for my life (to come) in prose ; 



1 " Nothing can be cleverer than this caustic little diatribe, 
introduced <J propos of the life of Turkish ladies in their 
harams ."—Jeffrey. 



1 



180 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



I fear I have a little turn for satire, 

And yet methinks the older that one grows 
Inclines us more to laugh than scold, though laughter 
Leaves us so doubly serious shortly after. 

LXXX. 

Oh, Mirth and Innocence ! Oh, Milk and Water ! 

Ye happy mixtures of more happy day& ! 
In these sad centuries of sin and slaughter, 

Abominable Man no more allays 
His thirst with such pure beverage. No matter, 

I love you both, and both shall have my praise : 
Oh, for old Saturn's reign of sugar-candy ! — 
Meantime I drink to your return in brandy. 

LXXXI. 

Our Laura's Turk still kept his eyes upon her. 
Less in the Mussulman than Christian way. 

Which seems to say, " Madam, I do you honor. 
And while I please to stare, you'll please to stay." 

Could staring win a woman, this had won her, 
But Laura could not thus be led astray ; 

She had stood fire too long and well, to boggle 

Even at this stranger's most outlandish ogle. 

LXXXII. 

The morning now was on the point of breaking, 
A turn of time at which I would advise 

Ladies who have been dancing, or partaking 
In any other kind of exercise. 

To make their preparations for forsaking 
The ball-room ere the sun begins to rise, 

Because when once the lamps and candles fail, 

His blushes make them look a little pale. 

LXXXIII. 

I've seen some balls and revels in my time, 
And stay'd them over for some silly reason, 

And then I look'd (I hope it was no crime) 
To see what lady best stood out the season ; 

And though I've seen some thousands in their prime. 
Lovely and pleasing, and who still may please on, 

I never saw but one (the stars withdrawn) 

Whose bloom could after dancing dare the dawn. 

LXXXIV. 

The name of this Aurora I'll not mention, 
Although I might, for she was nought to me 

More than that patent work of God's invention, 
A charming woman, whom we like to see ; 

But writing names would merit reprehension. 
Yet if you like to find out this fair she, 

At the next London or Parisian ball 

You still may mark her cheek, out-blooming all. 

LXXXV. 

Laura, who knew it would not do at all 
To meet the daylight after seven hours' sitting 

Among three thousand people at a ball. 
To make her curtsy thought it right and fitting 



The Count was at her elbow with her shawl, 
And they the room were on the point of quit- 
ting, 
When lo ! those cursed gondoliers had got 
Just in the very place where they should not, 

LXXXVI. 

In this they're like our coachmen, and the cause 
Is much the same — the crowd, and pulling, 
hauling. 

With blasphemies enough to break their jaws, 
They make a never intermitted bawling. 

At home, our Bow-street gemmen keep the laws, 
And here a sentry stands within your calling ; 

But for all that, there is a deal of swearing, 

And nauseous words past mentioning or bearing. 

LXXXVIL 

The Count and Laura found their boat at last, 
And homeward floated o'er the silent tide, 

Discussing all the dances gone and past ; 
The dancers and their dresses, too, beside ; 

Some little scandals eke : but all aghast 
(As to their palace stairs the rowers glide) 

Sate Laura by the side of her Ad.orer,i 

When lo ! the Mussulman was there before her. 

LXXXVIII. 

" Sir," said the Count, with brow exceeding grave, 
" Your unexpected presence here will make 

It necessary for myself to crave 
Its import ? But perhaps 'tis a mistake ; 

I hope it is so ; and, at once to waive 
All compliment, I hope so for your sake : 

You understand my meaning, or you shall," 

" Sir" (quoth the Turk), " 'tis no mistake at all: 

LXXXIX. 

" That lady is my wife!" Much wonder paints 
The lady's changing cheek, as well it might ; 

But where an Englishwoman sometimes faints, 
Italian females don't do so outright ; 

They only call a little on their saints. 
And then come to themselves, almost or quite ; 

Which saves much hartshorn, salts, and sprinkling 
faces. 

And cutting stays, as usual in such cases. 

XC. 

She said, — what could she say ? Why, not a word : 

But the Count courteously invited in 
The stranger, much appeased by what he heard : 

" Such things, perhaps, we'd best discuss within," 
Said he ; *' don't let us make ourselves absurd 

In public, by a scene, nor raise a din, 
For then the chief and only satisfaction 
Will be much quizzing on the whole transaction." 



1 " Sate Laura with a kind of comic horror."— MS. 



BEPPO. 



181 



XCI. 
They enter'd, and for coffee call'd — it came, 

A beverage for Turlcs and Christians both, 
Although the way they make it's not the same. 

Now Laura, much recover'd, or less loth 
To speak, cries " Beppo ! what's your pagan 
name ? 

Bless me ! your beard is of amazing growth ! 
And how came you to keep away so long ? 
Are you not sensible 'twas very wrong ? 



XCII. 
" And are you really, truly, now a Turk ? 

With any other women did you wive ? 
Is't true they use their fingers for a fork ? 

Well, that's the prettiest shawl — as I'm alive ! 
You'll give it me ? They say you eat no pork. 

And how so many years did you contrive 
To — Bless me ! did I ever ? No, I never 
Saw a man grown so yellow ! How's your liver ? 



XCIII. 
" Beppo ! that beard of yours becomes you not ; 

It shall be shaved before you're a day older : 
Wli V do you wear it ? Oh ! I had forgot — 

Pray don't you think the weather here is colder ? 
How do I look ? You shan't stir from this spot 

In that queer dress, for fear that some beholder 
Should find you out, and make the story known. 
How short your hair is ! Lord ! how gray it's grown !" 



XCIV. 
WTiat answer Beppo made to these demands 

Is more than I know. He was cast away 
About where Troy stood once, and nothing stands : 

Became a slave of course, and for his pay 

1 " You ask me," says Lord Byron, in a letter written in 
1S20, " for a volume of Manners, &c., on Italy. Perhaps I am 
1 n the case to know more of them than most Englishmen, 
jecause I have lived among the natives, and in parts of the 
country where Englishmen never resided before (I speak of 
Romagna and this place particularly); but there are many 
reasons why I do not choose to treat in print on such a subject. 
Their moral is not your moral ; their life is not your life ; you 
would not understand it : it is not English, nor French, nor 
German, which you would all understand. The conventual 
education, the cavalier servitude, the habits of thought and 
living, are so entirely diflferent, and the difference becomes so 
much more striking the more you live intimately with them, 
that I know not how to make you comprehend a people who 
are at once temperate and profligate, seriou? in their charac- 
ters and buffoons in their amusements, capable of impressions 
and passions, which are at once sudden and durable (what you 
find in no other nation), and who actually have no society 
(what we would call so), as you may see by their comedies; 
they have no real comedy, not even in Goldoni, and that is 
because thoy have no society to draw it from. Their conver- 
sazioni are not society at all. They go to the theatre to talk, 
and into company to hold their tongues. The women sit in 
a circle, and the men gather into groups, or they play at 



Had bread and bastinadoes, till some bands 
Of pirates landing in a neighboring bay. 
He join'd the rogues and prosper'd, and became 
A renegado of indifferent fame. 



xcv. 

But he grew rich, and with his riches grew so 
Keen the desire to see his home again. 

He thought himself in duty bound to do so, 
And not be always thieving on the main ; 

Lonely he felt, at times, as Eobin Crusoe, 
And so he hired a vessel come from Spain, 

Bound for Corfu : she was a fine polacca, 

Mann'd with twelve hands, and laden with tobacco. 



XCVI. 

Himself, and much (Heaven knows how gotten t) 
cash, 

He then embark'd, with risk of life and limb. 
And got clear off, although the attempt was rash ; 

lie said that Providence protected him — 
For my part, I say nothing, lest we clash 

In our opinions : — well, the ship was trim. 
Set sail, and kept her reckoning fairly on. 
Except three days of calm when off Cape Bonn. 



XCVII. 

They reach'd the island, he transferr'd his lading 
And self and live stock to another bottom, 

And pass'd for a true Turkey merchant, trading 
With goods of various names, but I've forgot 
'em. 

However, he got off by this evading. 
Or else the people would perhaps have shot him ; 

And thus at Venice i landed to reclaim 

His wife, religion, house, and Christian name. 

dreary faro, or ' lotto reale,' for small sums. Their academic 
are concerts like our own, with better music and more form. 
Their best things are the carnival balls and masquerades, 
when every body runs mad for six weeks. After their din- 
ners and suppers they make extempore verses and buffoon 
one another ; but it is in a humor which you would not enter 
into, ye of the north. — In their houses it is better. As for 
the women, from the fisherman's wife up to the nobil dama, 
their system has its rules, and its fitnesses, and its decorums, 
so as to be reduced to a kind of discipline or game at hearts, 
which admits few deviations, unless you wish to lose it. They 
are extremely tenacious, and jealous as furies, not permitting 
their lovers even to marry if they can help it, and keeping 
them always close to them in public as in private, whenever 
they can. In short, they transfer marriage to adultery, and 
strike the not out of that commandment. The reason is 
that they marry for their parents, and love for themselves. 
They exact fidelity from a lover as a debt of honor, while 
they pay the husband as a tradesman, that is, not at all. 
You hear a person's character, male or female, canvassed, 
not as depending on their conduct to their husbands or 
wives, but to their mistress or lover. If I wrote a quarto, 
I don't know that I could do more than amplify what I have 
here noted." 



182 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



XCVIII. 

His wife received, the patriarch rebaptized him 
(He made the church a present, by the way) ; 

He then threw oflf the garments which disguised him, 
And borrow'd the Count's smallclothes for a day : 

His friends the more for his long absence prized him, 
Finding he'd wherewithal to make them gay, 

With dinners, where he oft became the laugh of 
them. 

For stories — but I don't believe the half of them. 



^ " This extremely clever and amusing performance affords 
a very curious and complete specimen of a kind of diction and 
composition of which our English literature has hitherto 
presented very few examples. It is, in itself, absolutely a 
thing of nothing — without story, characters, sentiments, or 
intelligible object;— a mere piece of lively and loquacious 
prattling, in short, upon all kinds of frivolous subjects, — a sort 
of gay and desultory babbling about Italy and England, Turks, 
balls, literature, and fish sauces. But still there is something 
very engaging in the uniform gayety, politeness, and good 
humor of the author, and something still more striking and 
admirable in the matchless facility with which he has cast 
into regular, and even difficult, versification, the unmingled, 
unconstrained, and unselected language of the most light, 
familiar, and ordinary conversation. With great skill and 
felicity, he has furnished us with an example of about one 



XCIX. 

Whate'er his youth had suffer'd, his old age 
With wealth and talking make him some 
amends ; 

Though Laura sometimes put him in a rage, 
I've heard the Count and he were always friends. 

My pen is at the bottom of a page. 
Which being finish'd, here the story ends ; 

'Tis to be wish'd it had been sooner done, 

But stories somehow lengthen when begun.^ 



hundred stanzas of good verse, entirely composed of common 
words, in their common places ; never presenting us with one 
sprig of what is called poetical diction, or even making use of 
a single inversion, either to raise the style or assist the 
rhyme, but running on in an inexhaustible series of good 
easy colloquial phrases, and finding them fall into verse by 
som.e unaccountable and happy fatality. In this great and 
characteristic quality it is almost invariably excellent. In 
some other respects, it is more unequal. About one half is 
as good as possible, in the style to which it belongs ; the other 
half bears, perhaps, too many marks of that haste with which 
such a work must necessarily be written. Some passages are 
rather too snappish, and some run too much on the cheap 
and rather plebeian humor of out-of-the-way rhymes, and 
strange-sounding words and epithets. But the greater part is 
extremely pleasant, amiable, and gentlemanlike." — Jeffrey. 



i 






a^eppa/ 



ADVEETISEMENT. 

"Celui qui remplissait alors cette place etait iin 
gentilhomme Polonais, nomm^ Mazeppa, ne dans le 
palatinat de Podolie : il avait ete eleve page de Jean 
Casimir, et avait pris h sa eour quelque teintnre des 
belles-lettres. TJne intrigue qu'il eut dans sa jeunesse 
avec la femme d'un gentilhomme Polonais ayant ete 
decouverte, le mari le fit lier tout nu sur un cheval 
farouche, et le laissa aller en cet etat. Le cheval, 
qui etait du pays de I'Ukraine, y retourna, et y porta 
Mazeppa, demi-mort de fatigue et de faim. Quel- 
ques paysans le secoururent : il resta long-tems parmi 
eux, et &e signala dans plusieurs courses contre les 
Tartares. La superiority de ses lumieres lui donna 
une grande consideration parmi les Cosaques : sa 
reputation s'augmentant de jour en jour obligea le 
Czar £i le faire Prince de I'Ukraine." — Voltaire, 
Hist, de Charles XII., p. 196. 

"Le roi fuyant, et poursuivi, eut son cheval tue 
sous lui; le Colonel Gieta, blesse, et perdant tout 
son sang, lui donna le sien. Ainsi on remit deux 
fois k cheval, dans sa fiiite, ce conquerant qui n'avait 
pu y monter pendant la bataille." — P. 216. 

"Le roi alia par un autre chemin avec quelques 
cavaliers. Le carrosse ou il etait rompit dans la 
marche; on le remit k cheval. Pour comble de 
disgrace, il s'^gara pendant la nuit dans un bois ; la, 
son courage ne pouvant plus suppleer a ses forces 
^puisees, les douleurs de sa blessure devenues plus 
insupportables par la fatigue, son cheval etant tombe 
de lassitude, il se coucha quelques heures au pied 
d'un arbre, en danger d'etre surpris a tout moment 
par les vainqueurs, qui le cherchaient de tous c6t6s." 
—P. 218.2 

1 The following " lively, spirited, and pleasant tale," as Mr. 
Gifford calls it, on the margin of the MS., was written in the 
autumn of 1818, at Ravenna. We extract the following from 
a reviewal of the time :— " Mazeppa is a very fine and spir- 
ited sketch of a very noble story, and is every way worthy 
of it^ author. The story is a well known one ; namely, that 
of the young Pole, who, being bound naked on the back of a 
wild horse, on account of an intrigue with the lady of a certain 
great noble of his country, was carried by his steed into the 
heart of the Ukraine, and being there picked up by some 
Cossacks, in a state apparently of utter hopelessness and ex- 
haustion, recovered, and lived to be long after the prince and 
leader of the nation among whom he had arrived in this 
extraordinary manner. Lord Byron has represented the 
strange and wild incidents of this adventure, as being related 
in a half serious, half sportive way, by Mazeppa himself, to no 
less a person than Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, in some 
of whose last campaigns the Cossack Hetman took a distin- 



JHa^eppa. 



'TwAS after dread Pultowa's day, 

When fortune left the royal Swede, 
Around a slaughter'd army lay. 

No more to combat and to bleed. 
The power and glory of the war. 

Faithless as their vain votaries, men, 
Had pass'd to the triumphant Czar, 

And Moscow's walls were safe again, 
Until a day more dark and drear, 
And a more memorable year, 
Should give to slaughter and to shame 
A mightier host and haughtier name ; 
A greater wreck, a deeper fall, 
A shock to one — a thunderbolt to all. 

II. 

Such was the hazard of the die ; 

The wounded Charles was taught to fly 

By day and night through field and flood, 

Stain'd with his own and subjects' blood ; 

For thousands fell that flight to aid : 

And not a voice was heard t'upbraid 

Ambition in his humbled hour. 

When truth had nought to dread from power. 

His horse was slain, and Gieta gave 

His own — and died the Russians' slave. 

This too sinks after many a league 

Of well sustain'd but vain fatigue ; 

And in the depths of forests, darkling, 

The watch-fires in the distance sparkling — 

guished part. He tells it during the desolate bivouac of 
Charles and the few friends who fled with him towards Tur- 
key, after the bloody overthrow of Pultowa. There is not a 
little of beauty and gracefulness in this way of setting the 
picture ;— the age of Mazeppa— the calm, practiced indiffer- 
ence with which he now submits to the worst of fortune's 
deeds— the heroic, unthinking coldness of the royal madman 
to whom he speaks — the dreary and perilous accompani- 
ments of the scene around the speaker and the audience,— 
all contribute to throw a very striking charm both of prepa- 
ration and of contrast over the wild story of the Hetman. 
Nothing can be more beautiful, in like manner, than the 
account of the love — the guilty love— the fruits of which 
had been so miraculous." 

2 For some authentic and interesting particulars concern- 
ing the Hetman Mazeppa, see Barrow's " Memoir of the Life 
of Peter the Great." 

(183) 



184 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



^ 



The beacons of surrounding foes — 
A king must lay his limbs at length. 

Are these the laurels and repose 
For which the nations strain their strength ? 
They laid him by a savage tree, 
In outworn nature's agony ; 
His wounds were stiff— his limbs were 

stark — 
The heavy hour was chill and dark ; 
The fever in his blood forbade 
A transient slumber's fitful aid : 
And thus it was ; but yet through all, 
Kinglike the monarch bore his fall, 
And made, in this extreme of ill. 
His pangs the vassals of his will : 
All silent and subdued were they. 
As once the nations round him lay. 

III. 

A band of chiefs ! — alas ! how few. 

Since but the fleeting of a day 
Had thinn'd it ; but this wreck was true 

And chivalrous : upon the clay 
Each sate him down, all sad and mute, 

Beside his monarch and his steed, 
For danger levels man and brute. 

And all are fellows in their need. 
Among the rest, Mazeppa made 
His pillow in an old oak's shade — 
Himself as rough, and scarce less old, 
The Ukraine's Hetman, calm and bold ; 
But first, outspent with this long course. 
The Cossack prince rubb'd down his horse. 
And made for him a leafy bed. 

And smooth'd his fetlocks and his mane. 

And slack'd his girth, and stripp'd his rein^ 
And joy'd to see how well he fed ; 
For until now he had the dread 
His wearied courser might refuse 
To browse beneath the midnight dews : 
But he was hardy as his lord, 
And little cared for bed and board ; 
But spirited and docile too, 
Whate'er was to be done, would do. 
Shaggy and swift, and strong of limb. 
All Tartar-like he carried him ; 
Obey'd his voice, and came to call, 
And knew him in the midst of all : 
Though thousands were around, — and Night, 
Without a star, pursued her flight, — 
That steed from sunset until dawn 
His chief would follow like a fawn. 

IV. 

This done, Mazeppa spread his cloak, 
And laid his lance beneath his oak, 
Felt if his arms in order good 
The long day's march had well withstood— 
If still the powder fill'd the pan, 
And flints unloosen'd kept their lock — 



His sabre's hilt and scabbard felt, 
And whether they had chafed his belt — 
And next the venerable man. 
From out his haversack and can, 

Prepared and spread his slender stock ; 
And to the monarch and his men 
The whole or portion offer'd then 
With far less of inquietude 
Than courtiers at a banquet would. 
And Charles of this his slender share 
With smiles partook a moment there, 
To force of cheer a greater show. 
And seem above both wounds and woe ; 
And then he said — " Of all our band. 
Though firm of heart and strong of hand, | 
In skirmish, march, or forage, none / 

Can less have said or more have done / 
Than thee, Mazeppa ! On the earth 
So fit a pair had never birth. 
Since Alexander's days till now, 
As thy Bucephalus and thou : 
All Scythia's fame to thine should yield 
For pricking on o'er flood and field." 
Mazeppa answer'd — "111 betide 
The school wherein I learn'd to ride !" 
Quoth Charles — " Old Hetman, wherefore so, 
Since thou hast learn'd the art so well?" 
Mazeppa said — '' 'Twere long to tell; 
And we have many a league to go. 
With every now and then a blow. 
And ten to one at least the foe. 
Before our steeds may graze at ease 
Beyond the swift Borysthenes : 
And, sire, your limbs have need of rest, 
And I will be the sentinel 
Of this your troop." — " But I request," 
Said Sweden's monarch, " thou wilt tell 
This tale of thine, and I may reap, 
Perchance, from this the boon of sleep ; 
For at this moment from my eyes 
The hope of present slumber flies." 

" Well, sire, with such a hope, I'll track 
My seventy years of memory back : 
I think 'twas in my twentieth spring, — 
Ay, 'twas, — when Casimir was king — 
John Casimir — I was his page 
Six summers, in my earlier age : 
A learned monarch, faith ! was he. 
And most unlike your majesty : 
He made no wars, and did not gain 
New realms to lose them back again ; 
And (save debates in Warsaw's diet) 
He reign'd in most unseemly quiet ; 
Not that he had no cares to vex ; 
He loved the muses and the sex ; 
And sometimes these so froward are, 
They made him wish himself at war ; 
But soon his wrath being o'er, he took 
Another mistress, or new book ; 



; 



k 



MAZEPPA. 



185 



And then he gave prodigious f^tes — 
All Warsaw gather'd round his gates 
To gaze upon his splendid court, 
And dames, and chiefs, of princely port : 
He was the Polish Solomon, 
So sung his poets, all but one. 
Who, being unpension'd, made a satire, 
And boasted that he could not flatter. 
It was a court of jousts and mimes, 
Where every courtier tried at rhymes ; 
Even I for once produced some verses, 
And sign'd my odes ' Despairing Thyrsis.' 
There was a certain Palatine, 

A Count of far and high descent, 
Rich as a salt or silver mine ; ^ 
And he was proud, ye may divine. 

As if from heaven he had been sent : 
He had such wealth in blood and ore 

As few could match beneath the throne ; 
And he would gaze upon his store. 
And o'er his pedigree would pore, 
Until by some confusion led. 
Which almost look'd like want of head, 

He thought their merits were his own. 
His -wife was not of his opinion ; 

His junior she by thirty years, 
Grew daily tired of his dominion ; 

And, after wishes, hopes, and fears, 

To virtue a few farewell tears, 
A restless dream or two, some glances 
At Warsaw's youth, some songs, and dances, 
Awaited but the usual chances. 
Those happy accidents which render 
The coldest dames so very tender. 
To deck her Count with titles given, 
'Tis said, as passports into heaven ; 
But, strange to say, they rarely boast 
Of these, who have deserved them most. 



V. 

" I was a goodly stripling then ; 

At seventy years I so may say. 
That there were few, or boys or men, 

Who, in my dawning time of day. 
Of vassal or of knight's degree. 
Could vie in vanities with me ; 
For I had strength, youth, gayety, 
A port, not like to this ye see, 
But smooth, as all is rugged now ; 

For time, and care, and war, have plough'd 
My very soul from out my brow ; 

And thus I should be disavow'd 
By all my kind and kin, could they 
Compare my day and yesterday ; 
This change was wrought, too, long ere age 
Had ta'en my features for his page : 

1 This comparison of a "salt mine" may, perhaps, be per- 
mitted to a Pole, as the wealth of the country consists greatly 
in the salt mines. 



With years, ye know, have not declined 
My strength, my courage, or my mind, 
Or at this hour I should not be 
Telling old tales beneath a tree, 
With starless skies my canopy. 

But let me on : Theresa's form — 
Methinks it glides before me now. 
Between me and yon chestnut's bough, 

The memory is so quick and warm ; 
And yet I find no words to tell 
The shape of her I loved so well : 
She had the Asiatic eye. 

Such as our Turkish neighborhood 

Hath mingled with our Polish blood, 
Dark as above us is the sky ; 
But through it stole a tender light, 
Like the first moonrise of midnight ; 
Large, dark, and swimming in the stream, 
Which seem'd to melt to its own beam ; 
All love, half languor, and half fire, 
Like saints that at the stake expire, 
And lift their raptured looks on high, 
As though it were a joy to die. 2 
A brow like a midsummer lake. 

Transparent with the sun therein. 
When waves no murmur dare to make, 

And heaven beholds her face within. 
A cheek and lip — but why proceed ? 

I loved her then — I love her still ; 
And such as I am, love indeed 

In fierce extremes — in good and ill. 
But still we love even in our rage. 
And haunted to our very age 
With the vain shadow of the past, 
As is Mazeppa to the last. 

VI. 

" We met — we gazed — I saw, and sigh'd, 

She did not speak, and yet replied ; 

There are ten thousand tones and signs 

We hear and see, but none defines — 

Involuntary sparks of thought. 

Which strike from out the heart o'erwrought, 

And form a strange intelligence. 

Alike mysterious and intense, 

AVhich link the burning chain that binds. 

Without their will, young hearts and minds : 

Conveying, as the electric wire. 

We know not how, the absorbing fire. 

I saw, and sigh'd — in silence wept. 

And still reluctant distance kept. 

Until I was made known to her. 

And we might then and there confer 

Without .suspicion — then, even then, 

I long'd, and was resolved to speak ; 
But on my lips they died again, « 

The accents tremulous and weak, 

2 " Until it proves a joy to die."— MS. 



186 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Until one hour. — There is a game, 

A frivolous and foolish play, 

Wherewith we while away the day ; 
It is — I have forgot the name — 
And we to this, it seems, were set, 
By some strangechance, which I forget : 
I reck'd not if I won or lost, 

It was enough for me to be 

So near to hear, and oh ! to see 
The being whom I loved the most. 
I watch'd her as a sentinel 
(May ours this dark night watch as well !), 

Until I saw, and thus it was. 
That she was pensive, nor perceived 
Her occupation, nor was grieved 
Nor glad to lose or gain ; but still 
Play'd on for hours, as if her will 
Yet bound her to the place, though not 
That hers might be the winning lot.^ 

Then through my brain the thought did pass 
Even as a flash of lightning there, 
That there was something in her air 
Which would not doom me to despair ; 
And on the thought my words broke forth, 

All incoherent as they were ; 
Their eloquence was little worth. 
But yet she listen'd — 'tis enough — 

Who listens once will listen twice ; 

Her heart, be sure, is not of ice, 
And one refusal no rebuff. 

VII. 

" I loved, and was beloved again — 
They tell me, sire, you never knew 
Those gentle frailties ; if 'tis true, 

I shorten all my joy or pain ; 

To you 'twould seem absurd as vain ; 

But ail men are not born to reign, 

Or o'er their passions, or as you 

Thus o'er themselves and nations too. 

I am — or rather was — a prince, 
A chief of thousands, and could lead 
Them on where each would foremost bleed ; 

But could not o'er myself evince 

The like control. — But to resume : 
I loved, and was beloved again ; 

In sooth, it is a happy doom, 
But yet where happiest ends in pain. 

We met in secret, and the hour 

Which led me to that lady's bower 

Was fiery Expectation's dower. 

My days and nights were nothing — all 

Except that hour which doth recall 

In the long lapse from youth to age 
No other like itself: I'd give 
TheaUkraine back again to live 

It o'er once more, and be a 



' but not 



For that which we had both forgot."— MS. 



The happy page, who was the lord 
Of one soft heart, and his own sword, 
And had no other gem nor wealth 
Save nature's gift of youth and health. 
We met in secret — doubly sweet. 
Some say, they find it so to meet ; 
I know not that — I would have given 

My life but to have call'd her mine 
In the full view of earth and heaven ; 

For I did oft and long repine 
That we could only meet by stealth. 

VIII. 

" For lovers there are many eyes, 
And such there were on us ; — the devil 
On such occasions should be civil — 

The devil ! — I'm loth to do him wrong. 
It might be some untoward saint. 

Who would not be at rest too long, 
But to his pious bile gave vent — 

But one fair night, some lurking spies 

Surprised and seized us both. 

The Count was something more than wroth- 

I was unarm'd ; but if in steel. 

All cap-S,-pie from head to heel. 

What 'gainst their numbers could I do ? 

'Twas near his castle, far away 
From city or from succor near, 

And almost on the break of day ; 

I did not think to see another, 
My moments seem'd reduced to few ; 

And with one prayer to Mary Mother, 
And, it may be, a saint or two, 

As I resign'd me to my fate. 

They led me to the castle gate : 
Theresa's doom I never knew, 

Our lot was henceforth separate. 

An angry man, ye may opine. 

Was he, the proud Count Palatine ; 

And he had reason good to be. 
But he was most enraged lest such 
An accident should chance to touch 

Upon his future pedigree ; 

Nor less amazed, that such a blot 

His noble 'scutcheon should have got, 

While he was highest of his line ; 
Because unto himself he seem'd 
The first of men, nor less he deem'd 

In others' eyes, and most in mine. 

'Sdeath ! with a page — perchance a king 

Had reconciled him to the thing ; 

But with a stripling of a page — 

I felt, but cannot paint his rage. 



the 



IX. 

horse !' 



-the horse was 



"'Bring forth 
brought ; 
In truth, he was a noble steed, 
A Tartar of the Ukraine breed. 

Who look'd as though the speed of thought 



=■? 



the ^ii«-=^ 



MAZEPPA. 



187 



Were in his limbs ; but he was wild, 

Wild as the wild deer, and untaught, 
With spur and bridle undefiled — 

'Twas but a day he had been caught ; 
And snorting, with erected mane, 
And struggling fiercely, but in vain. 
In the full foam of wrath and dread 
To me the desert-born was led : 
They bound me on, that menial throng, 
Upon his back with many a thong ; 
Then loosed him with a sudden lash — 
Away ! — away ! — and on we dash ! 
Torrents less rapid and less rash. 



" Away ! — away ! — My breath was gone — 
I saw not where he hurried on : 
'Twas scarcely yet the break of day, 
And on he foam'd — away ! — away ! — 
The last of human sounds which rose. 
As I was darted from my foes, 
Was the wild shout of savage laughter, 
Which on the wind came roaring after 
A moment from that rabble rout ; 
With sudden wrath I wrench'd my head. 

And snapp'd the cord, which to the 
mane 

Had bound my neck in lieu of rein, 
And, writhing half my form about, 
Howl'd back my curse; but 'midst the 

tread, 
The thunder of my courser's speed. 
Perchance they did not hear nor heed : 
It vexes me — for I would fain 
Have paid their insult back again. 
I paid it well in after days : 
There is not of that castle gate. 
Its drawbridge and portcullis' weight. 
Stone, bar, moat, bridge, or barrier left ; 
Nor of its fields a blade of grass. 

Save what grows on a ridge of wall. 

Where stood the hearth-stone of the hall 
And many a time ye there might pass. 
Nor dream that e'er that fortress was. 
I saw its turrets in a blaze. 
Their crackling battlements all cleft, 

And the hot lead pour down like rain 
From off the scorch'd and blackening roof, 
Whose thickness was not vengeance-proof. 

They little thought that day of pain. 
When launch'd, as on the lightning's flash. 
They bade me to destruction dash. 

That one day I should come again. 
With twice five thousand horse, to thank 

The Count for his uncourteous ride. 
They play'd me then a bitter prank. 
When, with the wild horse for my guide. 
They bound me to his foaming flank : 
At length I play'd them one as frank — 



For time at last sets all things even — 
And if we do but watch the hour, 
There never yet was human power 
Which could evade, if unforgiven, 
The patient search and vigil long 
Of him who treasures up a wrong. 



XI. 

'* Away, away, my steed and I, 

Upon the pinions of the wind, 

All human dwellings left behind ; 
We sped like meteors through the sky, 
When with its crackling sound the night 
Is checker'd with the northern light : 
Town — village — none were on our track. 

But a wild plain of far extent. 
And bounded by a forest black ; 

And, save the scarce-seen battlement 
On distant heights of some strong hold, 
Against the Tartars built of old, 
No trace of man. The year before 
A Turkish army had march'd o'er ; 
And where the Spahi's hoof hath trod, 
The verdure flies the bloody sod : 
The sky was dull, and dim, and gray, 

And a low breeze crept moaning by — 

I could have answer'd with a sigh — 
But fast we fled, away, away. 
And I could neither sigh nor pray ; 
And my cold sweat-drops fell like rain 
Upon the courser's bristling mane ; 
But, snorting still with rage and fear, 
He flew upon his far career : 
At times I almost thought, indeed. 
He must have slacken'd in his speed ; 
But no — my bound and slender frame 

Was nothing to his angry might, 
And merely like a spur became : 
Each motion which I made to free 
My swoln limbs from their agony 

Increas'd his fury and affright : 
I tried my voice, — 'twas faint and low, 
But yet he swerv'd as from a blow ; 
And, starting to each accent, sprang 
As from a sudden trumpet's clang : 
Meantime my cords were wet with gore. 
Which, oozing through my limbs, ran o'er ; 
And in my tongue the thirst became 
A something fierier far than flame. 

XII. 

" We near'd the wild wood — 'twas so wide, 
I saw no bounds on either side ; 
'Twas studded with old sturdy trees. 
That bent not to the roughest breeze 
Which howls down from Siberia's waste. 
And strips the forest in its haste, — 
But these were few and far between, 
Set thick with shrubs more young and green, 



188 



BYEON'S W/)KKS. 



Luxuriant with their annual leaves, 
Ere strown by those autumnal eves 
That nip the forest's foliage dead, 
Discolor'd with a lifeless red, 
Which stands thereon like stiffen'd gore 
Upon the slain when battle's o'er, 
And some long winter's night hath shed 
Its frost o'er every tombless head. 
So cold and stark the raven's beak 
May peck unpierced each frozen cheek : 
'Twas a -wild waste of underwood, 
And here and there a chestnut stood. 
The strong oak, and the hardy pine ; 

But far apart — and well it were. 
Or else a different lot were mine — 

The boughs gave way, and did not tear 
My limbs ; and I found strength to bear 
My wounds, already scarr'd with cold — 
My bonds forbade to loose my hold. 
We rustled through the leaves like wind. 
Left shrubs, and trees, and wolves behind ; 
By night I heard them on the track, 
Their troop came hard upon our back, 
With their long gallop, which can tire 
The hound's deep hate, and hunter's fire : 
Where'er we flew they follow'd on, 
Nor left us with the morning sun ; 
Behind I saw them, scarce a rood, 
At daybreak winding through the wood. 
And through the night had heard their feet 
Their stealing, rustling step repeat. 
Oh ! how I wish'd for spear or sword, 
At least to die amidst the horde, 
And perish — if it must be so — 
At bay, destroying many a foe ! 
When first my courser's race begun, 
I wish'd the goal already won ; 
But now I doubted strength and speed. 
Vain doubt ! his swift and savage breed 
Had nerved him like the mountain roe ; 
Nor faster falls the blinding snow 
Which whelms the peasant near the door 
Whose threshold he shall cross no more, 
Bewilder'd with the dazzling blast. 
Than through the forest paths he pass'd — 
Untired, untamed, and worse than wild ; 
All furious as a favor'd child 
Balk'd of its wish ; or fiercer still — 
A woman piqued — who has her will. 

XIII. 

" The wood was pass'd ; 'twas more than noon, 
But chill the air, although in June ; 
Or it might be my veins ran cold — 
Prolong'd endurance tames the bold ; 
And I was then not what I seem, 
But headlong as a wintry stream, 

1 The reviewer already quoted says, — " As the Hetman pro- 
ceeds, it strikes us there is a much closer resemblance to the 
fiery flow of Walter Scott's chivalrous narrative, than in any 



And wore my feelings out before 
I well could count their causes o'er ; 
And what with fury, fear, and wrath, 
The tortures which beset my path. 
Cold, hunger, sorrow, shame, distress, 
Thus bound in nature's nakedness ; 
Sprung from a race whose rising blood 
When stirr'd beyond its calmer mood. 
And trodden hard upon, is like 
The rattlesnake's, in act to strike. 
What marvel if this worn-out trunk 
Beneath its woes a moment sunk ? 
The earth gave way, the skies roll'd round, 
I seem'd to sink upon the ground ; 
But err'd, for I was fastly bound. 
My heart turn'd sick, my brain grew sore, 
And throbb'd awhile, then beat no more : 
The skies spun like a mighty wheel ; 
I saw the trees like drunkards reel. 
And a slight flash sprang o'er my eyes, 
Which saw no farther : he who dies 
Can die no more than then I died. 
O'ertortured by that ghastly ride, 
I felt the blackness come and go, 

And strove to wake ; but could not make 
My senses climb up from below : 
I felt as on a plank at sea, , 
When all the waves that dash o'er thee, 
At the same time upheave and whelm, 
And hurl thee towards a desert realm. 
My undulating life was as 
The fancied lights that flitting pass 
Our shut eyes in deep midnight, when 
Fever begins upon the brain ; 
But soon it pass'd, with little pain, 

But a confusion worse than such : 

I own that I should deem it much, 
Dying, to feel the same again ; 
And yet I do suppose we must 
Feel far more ere we turn to dust : 
No matter ; I have bared my brow 
Full in Death's face— before— and now.^ 

XIV. 

"My thoughts came back; where was I? 
Cold, 

And numb, and giddy : pulse by pulse 
Life reassumed its lingering hold. 
And throb by throb, — till grown a pang 

Which for a moment would convulse. 

My blood reflow'd, though thick and chill ; 
My ear with uncouth noises rang. 

My heart began once more to thrill ; 
My sight return'd, though dim, alas ! 
And thicken'd, as it were, with glass. 
Methought the dash of waves was nigh ; 
There was a gleam too of the sky, 

of Lord Byron's previous pieces. Nothing can be grander 
than the sweep and torrent of the horse's speed, and the slow, 
unwearied, inflexible pursuit of the wolves." 



i 



-i^ 



ZEPPA. 



189 



studded with stars ; — it is no dream ; 
The wild horse swims the wilder stream ! 
The bright broad river's gushing tide 
Sweeps, winding onward, far and wide, 
And we are half-way, struggling o'er 
To yon unknown and silent shore. 
The waters broke my hollow trance, 
And with a temporary strength 

My stiflfen'd limbs were rebaptized. 
My courser's broad breast proudly braves, 
And dashes off the ascending waves. 
And onward we advance ! 
We reach the slippery shore at length, 

A haven I but little prized, 
For all behind was dark and drear. 
And all before was night and fear. 
How many hours of night or day 
In those suspended pangs I lay, 
I could not tell ; I scarcely knew 
If this were human breath I drew. 



XV. 

" With glossy skin, and dripping mane. 

And reeling limbs, and reeking flank, 
The wild steed's sinewy nerves still strain 

Up the repelling bank. 
We gain the top : a boundless plain 
Spreads through the shadow of the night. 

And onward, onward, onward, seems. 

Like precipices in our dreams. 
To stretch beyond the sight ; 
And here and there a speck of white, 

Or scatter'd spot of dusky green, 
In masses broke into the light, 
As rose the moon upon my right : 

But nought distinctly seen 
In the dim waste would indicate 
The omen of a cottage gate ; 
No twinkling taper from afar 
Stood like a hospitable star ; 
Not even an ignis-fatuus rose 
To make him merry with my woes : 

That very cheat had cheer'd me then ! 
Although detected, welcome still, 
Reminding me, through every ill, 

Of the abodes of men. 



XVI. 

" Onward we went— but slack and slow ; 

His savage force at length o'erspent, 
The drooping courser, faint and low, 

All feebly foaming went. 
A sickly infant had had power 
To guide him forward in that hour ; 

But useless all to me : 
His new-born tameness nought avail'd — 
My limbs were bound ; my force had fail'd, 

Perchance, had they been free. 



With feeble effort still I tried 
To rend the bonds so starkly tied. 

But still it was in vain ; 
My limbs were only wrung the more. 
And soon the idle strife gave o'er. 

Which but prolong'd their pain : 
The dizzy race seem'd almost done. 
Although no goal was nearly won : 
Some streaks announced the coming sun — 

How slow, al^s ! he came ! 
Methought that mist of dawning gray 
Would never dapple into day ; 
How heavily it roU'd away— 

Before the eastern flame 
Rose crimson, and deposed the stars. 
And call'd the radiance from their cars,i 
And fill'd the earth, from his deep throne, 
With lonely lustre, all his own. 

XVII. 

" Up rose the sun ; the mists were curl'd 
Back from the solitary world 
Which lay around — behind — before. 
What booted it to traverse o'er 
Plain, forest, river ? Man nor brute, 
Nor dint of hoof, nor print of foot. 
Lay in the wild luxuriant soil ; 
No sign of travel — none of toil ; 
The very air was mute ; 
And not an insect's shrill small horn. 
Nor matin bird's new voice was borne 
From herb nor thicket. Many a werst. 
Panting as if his heart would burst, 
The weary brute still stagger'd on ; 
And still we were — or seem'd — alone. 
At length, while reeling on our way, 
Methought I heard a courser neigh. 
From out yon tuft of blackening firs. 
Is it the wind those branches stirs ? 
No, no ! from out the forest prance 

A trampling troop ; I see them come ! 
In one vast squadron they advance ! 

I strove to cry — my lips were dumb. 
The steeds rush on in plunging pride ; 
But where are they the reins to guide ? 
A thousand horse — and none to ride ! 
With flowing tail, and flying mane, 
Wide nostrils— never stretch'd by pain, 
Mouths bloodless to the bit or rein. 
And feet that iron never shod, 
And flanks unscarr'd by spur or rod, 
A thousand horse, the wild, the free, 
Like waves that follow o'er the sea, 

Came thickly thundering on, 
As if our faint approach to meet; 
The sight renerved my courser's feet, 
A moment staggering, feebly fleet, 

1 " Rose crimson, and forbade the stars 
To sparkle in their radiant cars." — MS. 



190 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



A moment, with a faint low neigh, 

He answer'd, and then fell ; 
With gasps and glazing eyes he lay, 

And reeking limbs immovable, 
His first and last career is done ! 
On came the troop — they saw him stoop, 

They saw me strangely bound along 

His back with many a bloody thong : 
They stop — they start — they snuff the air. 
Gallop a moment here and there. 
Approach, retire, wheel round and round, 
Then plunging back with sudden bound, 
Headed by one black mighty steed. 
Who seem'd the patriarch of his breed. 

Without a single speck or hair 
Of white upon his shaggy hide ; 
They snort— they foam — neigh — swerve aside, 
And backward to the forest fly. 
By instinct, from a human eye. 

They left me there to my despair, 
Link'd to the dead and stiffening wretch. 
Whose lifeless limbs beneath me stretch. 
Relieved from that unwonted weight. 
From whence I could not extricate 
Nor him nor me — and there we lay. 

The dying on the dead ! 
I little deem'd another day 

Would see my houseless, helpless head. 

" And there from morn till twilight bound, 

I felt the heavy hours toil round. 

With just enough of life to see 

My last of suns go down on me, 

In hopeless certainty of mind, 

That makes us feel at length resign'd 

To that which our foreboding years 

Present the worst and last of fears : 

Inevitable— even a boon, 

Nor more unkind for coming soon. 

Yet shunn'd and dreaded with such care, 

As if it only were a snare 

That prudence might escape : 
At times both wish'd for and implored, 
At times sought with self-pointed sword, 
Yet still a dark and hideous close 
To even intolerable woes. 

And welcome in no shape. 
And, strange to say, the sons of pleasure. 
They who have revell'd beyond measure 
In beauty, wassail, wine, and treasure. 
Die calm, or calmer, oft than he 
Whose heritage was misery : 
For he who hath in turn run through 
All that was beautiful and new. 

Hath nought to hope, and nought to 
leave ; 
And, save the future (which is view'd 
Not quite as men are base or good. 
But as their nerves may be endued), 

With nought perhaps to grieve : 



The wretch still hopes his woes must end, 

And Death, whom he should deem his friend, 

Appears, to his distemper'd eyes. 

Arrived to rob him of his prize. 

The tree of his new Paradise. 

To-morrow would have given him all. 

Repaid his pangs, repair'd his fall ; 

To-morrow would have been the first 

Of days no more deplored or curst. 

But bright, and long, and beckoning years, 

Seen dazzling through the mist of tears. 

Guerdon of many a painful hour ; 

To-morrow would have given him power 

To rule, to shine, to smite, to save — 

And must it dawn upon his grave ? 

XVIII. 

" The sun was sinking — still I lay 

Chain'd to the chill and stiffening steed ; 
I thought to mingle there our clay ; 

And my dim eyes of death had need, 

No hope arose of being freed : 
I cast my last looks up the sky, 

And there between me and the sun 
I saw the expecting raven fly. 
Who scarce would wait till both should die, 

Ere his repast begun ; 
He flew, and perch'd, then flew once more. 
And each time nearer than before ; 
I saw his wing through twilight flit. 
And once so near me he alit 

I could have smote, but lack'd the strength/ 
But the slight motion of my hand, 
And feeble scratching of the sand. 
The exerted throat's faint struggling noise, 
Which scarcely could be call'd a voice. 

Together scared him off at length. 
I know no more — my latest dream 

Is something of a lovely star 

Which fix'd my dull eyes from Ifeir, 
And went and came with wandering beam. 
And of the cold, dull, swimming, dense 
Sensation of recurring sense. 

And then subsiding back to death, 

And then again a little breath, 
A little thrill, a short suspense, 

An icy sickness curdling o'er 
My heart, and sparks that cross'd my brain, 
A gasp, a throb, a start of pain, 

A sigh, and nothing more. 

XIX. 

" I woke — Where was I ? — Do I see 
A human face look down on me ? 
And doth a roof above me close ? 
Do these limbs on a couch repose ? 
Is this a chamber where I lie ? 
And is it mortal yon bright eye, 
That watches me with gentle glance ? 
I closed my own again once more, 



MAZEPPA. 



191 



As doubtful that my former trance 

Could not as yet be o'er. 
A slender girl, long-hair'd, and tall, 
Sate watching by the cottage wall ; 
The sparkle of her eye I caught, 
Even with my first return of thought ; 
For ever and anon she threw 

A prying, pitying glance on me 

With her black eyes so wild and free : 
I gazed, and gazed, until I knew 

No vision it could be, — 
But that I lived, and was released 
From adding to the vulture's feast : 
And when the Cossack maid beheld 
My heavy eyes at length unseal'd, 
She smiled— and I essay'd to speak, 

But fail'd — and she approach'd, and made 

With lip and finger signs that said, 
I must not strive as yet to break 
The silence, till my strength should be 
Enough to leave my accents free ; 
And then her hand on mine she laid. 
And smooth'd the pillow for my head, 
And stole along on tiptoe tread. 

And gently oped the door, and spake 
In whispers — ne'er was voice so sweet ! 
Even music followed her light feet ; 

But those she call'd were not awake, 
And she went forth ; but, ere she pass'd, 
Another look on me she cast, 

Another sign she made, to say. 
That I had nought to fear, that all 
Were near, at my command or call, 

And she would not delay 



1 "Charles, having perceived that the day was lost, and 
that his only chance of safety was to retire with the utmost 
precipitation, suffered himself to be mounted on horseback, 
and with the remains of his army fled to a place called Pere- 
wolochna, situated in the angle formed by the junction of the 
Vorskla and the Borysthenes. Here, accompanied by Ma- 
zeppa, and a few hundreds of his followers, Charles swam over 
the latter great river, and proceeding over a desolate country, 
in danger of perishing vith hunger, at length reached the 



Her due return : — while she was gone, 
Methought I felt too much alone. 

XX. 

" She came with mother and with sire — 
What need of more ? — I will not tire 
With long recital of the rest. 
Since I became the Cossack's guest. 
They found me senseless on the plain— 

They bore me to the nearest hut — 
They brought me into life again — 
Me — one day o'er their realm to reign ! 

Thus the vain fool who strove to glut 
His rage, refining on my pain, 

Sent me forth to the wilderness. 
Bound, naked, bleeding, and alone, 
To pass the desert to a throne, — 

What mortal his own doom may guess ? 

Let none despond, let none despair ! 
To-morrow the Borysthenes 
May see our coursers graze at ease 
Upon his Turkish bank, — and never 
Had I such welcome for a river 

As I shall yield when safely there.i 
Comrades, good night!" — The Hetman threw 

His length beneath the oak-tree shade. 

With leafy couch already made, 
A bed nor comfortless nor new 
To him, who took his rest whene'er 
The hour arrived, no matter where : 

His eyes the hastening slumbers steep. 
And if ye marvel Charles forgot 
To thank his tale, he wonder'd not, — 

The King had been an hour asleep.^ 



Bog, where he was kindly received by the Turkish pacha. 
The Eussian envoy at the Sublime Porte demanded that Ma- 
zeppa should be delivered up to Peter ; but the old Hetman of 
the Cossacks escaped this fate by taking a disease which 
hastened his death." — Barrow's Peter the Oreat, pp. 196-203. 
2 It is impossible not to suspect that the poet had some cir- 
cumstances of his own personal history in his mind, when he 
portrayed the fair Polish Theresa, her youthful lover, and the 
jealous rage of the old Count Palatine. 



k -Ai 



STi^e Islanlr;' 



CHKISTIAN AND HIS €0MEADES.2 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

The foundation of the following story will be 
found partly in Lieutenant Bligh's "Narrative of 
the Mutiny and Seizure of the Bounty, in the South 
Seas, in 1789;" and partly in " Mariner's Account of 
the Tonga Islands." ^ 

Genoa, 1823. 



Cje $islantJ^ 



CANTO THE PIEST. 



I. 

The morning watch was come ; the vessel lay 
Her course, and gently made her liquid way ; 
The cloven billow flash'd from off her prow 
In furrows form'd by that majestic plough ; 
The waters with their world were all before ; 
Behind, the South Sea's many an islet shore. 
The quiet night, now dappling, 'gan to wane, 
Dividing darkness from the dawning main ; 
The dolphins, not unconscious of the day, 
Swam high, as eager of the coming ray ; 
The stars from broader beams began to creep. 
And lift their shining eyelids from the deep ; 

1 "The Island" was written at Genoa, early in the year 
1823, and published in the June following. 

2 " We are taught by The Book of sacred history, that the 
disobedience of our first parents entailed on our globe of earth 
a sinful and a suffering race. In our time there has sprung 
up from the most abandoned of this sinful family — from 
pirates, mutineers, and murderers— a little society, which, 
under the precepts of that sacred volume, is characterized by 
religion, morality, and innocence. The discovery of this happy 
people, as unexpected as it was accidental, and all that regards 
their condition and history, partake so much of the romantic 
as to render the story not ill adapted for an epic poem. Lord 
Byron, indeed, has partially treated the subject ; but, by 
blending two incongruous stories, and leaving both of them 
imperfect, and by mixing up fact with fiction, has been less 
felicitous than usual ; for, beautiful as many passages in his 
' Island ' are, in a region where every tree, and flower, and 
fountain, breathe poetry, yet, as a whole, the poem is deficient 
in dramatic effect." — Barrow. 

(192) 



The sail resumed its lately shadow'd white, 
And the wind flutter'd with a freshening flight ; 
The purpling ocean owns the coming sun. 
But ere he break — a deed is to be done. 

II. 
The gallant chief within his cabin slept, 
Secure in those by whom the watch was kept : 
His dreams were of Old England's welcome shore. 
Of toils rewarded, and of dangers o'er ; 
His name was added to the glorious roll 
Of those who search the storm-surrounded Pole. 
The worst was over, and the rest seem'd sure,* 
And why should not his slumber be secure ? 
Alas ! his deck was trod by unwilling feet. 
And wilder hands would hold the vessel's sheet ■; 
Young hearts, which languish'd for some sunny 

isle. 
Where summer years and summer women smile ; 
Men without country, who, too long estranged. 
Had found no native home, or found it changed, 
And, half uncivilized, preferr'd the cave 
Of some soft savage to the uncertain wave — 
The gushing fruits that nature gave untill'd ; 
The wood without a path but where they will'd ; 
The field o'er which promiscuous Plenty pour'd 
Her horn ; the equal land without a lord ; 
The wish — ^which ages have not yet subdued 
In man — to have no master save his mood ; ^ 



3 The hitherto scattered materials of the " Eventful History 
of the Mutiny and Piratical Seizure of the Bounty," with 
many important and most interesting additions, from the 
records of the Admiralty, and the family papers of Captain 
Hey wood, K.N., have lately been collected and arranged by 
Sir John Barrow, in a little volume, to which the reader of 
this poem is referred, and from which every young oflicer of 
the navy may derive valuable instruction. 

* " A few hours before, my situation had been peculiarly 
flattering : I had a ship in the most perfect order, stored with 
every necessary, both for health and service; the object of 
the voyage was attained, and two-thirds of it now completed. 
The remaining part had every prospect of success." — Bligh. 

5 "The women of Otaheite are handsome, mild, and cheer- 
ful in manners and conversation, possessed of great sensi- 
bility, and have suflicient delicacy to make them be admired 
and beloved. The chiefs were so much attached to our peo- 
ple, that they rather encouraged their stay among them than 
otherwise, and even made them promises of large posses- 



Canto I. 



THE ISLAND. 



193 



The earth, whose mine was on its face, unsold, 

The glowing sun and produce all its gold ; 

The freedom which can call each grot a home ; 

The general garden, where all steps may roam. 

Where Nature owns a nation as her child, 

Exulting in the enjoyment of the wild ; 

Their shells, their fruits, the only wealth they know. 

Their unexploring navy, the canoe ; 

•Their sport, the dashing breakers and the chase ; 

Their strangest sight, an European face : — 

Such was the country which these strangers yearn'd 

To see again ; a sight they dearly earn'd. 

III. 

Awake, bold Bligh ! the foe is at the gate ! 

Awake ! awake ! Alas ! it is too late ! 

Fiercely beside thy cot the mutineer 
Stands, and proclaims the reign of rage and fear. 
Thy limbs are bound, the bayonet at thy breast ; 
The hands, which trembled at thy voice, arrest ; 
Dragg'd o'er the deck, no more at thy command 
The obedient helm shall veer, the sail expand ; 
That savage spirit, which would lull by wrath 
Its desperate escape from duty's path, 
Glares round thee, in the scarce believing eyes 
Of those who fear the chief they sacrifice : 
For ne'er can man his conscience all assuage, 
Unless he drain the wine of passion — rage. 

IV. 

In vain, not silenced by the eye of death, 
Thou call'st the loyal with thy menaced breath : — 
They come not ; they are few, and, overawed, 
Must acquiesce, while sterner hearts applaud. 
In vain thou dost demand the cause : a curse 
Is all the answer, with the threat of worse. 
Full in thine eyes is waved the glittering blade 
Close to thy throat the pointed bayonet laid. 
The levell'd muskets circle round thy breast 
In hands as steel'd to do the deadly rest. 



sions. Under these and many other concomitant circum- 
stances, it ought hardly to be the subject of surprise that a set 
of sailors, most of them void of connections, should be led 
away, where they had the power of fixing themselves, in the 
midst of plenty, in one of the finest islands in the world, 
where there was no necessity to labor, and where the allure- 
ments of dissipation are beyond any conception that can be 
formed of it."— Bligh. 

1 " Just before sunrise, while I was yet asleep, Mr. Chris- 
tian, with the master-at-arms, gunner's mate, and Thomas 
Burkitt, seaman, came into my cabin, and, seizing me, tied 
my hands with a cord behind my back, threatening me with 
instant death, if I spoke or made the least noise. I neverthe- 
less called out as loud as I could, in hopes of assistance ; but 
the officers not of their party were already secured by sen- 
tinels at their doors. At my own cabin door were three men, 
besides the four within : all except Christian had muskets and 
bayonets ; he had only a cutlass. I was dragged out of bed, 
and forced on deck in my shirt. On demanding the reason of 
such violence, the only answer was abuse for not holding my 
tongue. The boatswain was then ordered to hoist out the 
, launch, accompanied by a threat, if he did not do it instantly, 
13 



Thou darest them to their worst, exclaiming — " Fire !" 
But they who pitied not could yet admire ; 
Some lurking remnant of their former awe 
Restrain'd them longer than their broken law ; 
They would not dip their souls at once in blood, 
But left thee to the mercies of the flood.i 

V. 

" Hoist out the boat !" was now the leader's cry ; 

And who dare answer " No !" to Mutiny, 

In the first dawning of the drunken hour. 

The Saturnalia of unhoped-for power ? 

The boat is lower'd with all the haste of hate. 

With its slight plank between thee and thy fate ; 

Her only cargo such a scant supply 

As promises the death their hands deny ; 

And just enough of water and of bread 

To keep, some days, the dying from the dead : 

Some cordage, canvas, sails, and lines, and twine. 

But treasures all to hermits of the brine. 

Were added after, to the earnest prayer 

Of those who saw no hope, save sea and air ; 

And last, that trembling vassal of the Pole — 

The feeling compass — Navigation's soul.^ 

VI. 

And now the self-elected chief finds time 

To stun the first sensation of his crime. 

And raise it in his followers — " Ho ! the bowl !"' 

Lest passion should return to reason's shoal, 

" Brandy for heroes !" * Burke could once exclaim—' 

No doubt a liquid path to epic fame ; 

And such the new-born heroes found it here. 

And drain'd the draught with an applauding cheer^ 

" Huzza! for Otaheite !" was the cry. 

How strange such shouts from sons of Mutiny ! 

The gentle island, and the genial soil. 

The friendly hearts, the feasts without a toil. 

The courteous manners but from nature caught. 

The wealth unhoarded, and the love unbought ; 



to take care of himself. The boat being hoisted out, Mr. 
Heyward and Mr. Hallet, two of the midshipmen, and Mr. 
Samuel, the clerk, were ordered into it. I demanded the in- 
tention of giving this order, and endeavored to persuade the 
people near me not to persist in such acts of violence ; but it 
was to no effect ; for the constant answer was, ' Hold your 
tongue, or you are dead this moment !' " — Bligh. 

2 "The boatswain and those seamen who were to be put 
into the boat were allowed to collect twine, canvas, lines, 
sails, cordage, an eight-and -twenty gallon cask of water ; and 
Mr. Samuel got one hundred and fifty pounds of bread, with 
a small quantity of rum and wine ; also a quadrant and com- 
pass." — B. 

3 " The mutineers having thus forced those of the seamen 
whom they wished to get rid of into the boat, Christian di- 
rected a dram to be served to each of his crew."— B. 

4 It appears to have been Dr. Johnson who thus gave honor 
to cognac. — " He was persuaded," says Boswell, " to take one 
glass of claret. He shook his head, and said, ' Poor stuff! — No, 
sir, claret is the liquor for boys ; port for men ; but he who 
aspires to be a hero (smiling) must drink brandy.' "—See 
Boswell, vol. viii. p. 54, ed. 1835. 



II 

I. 



194 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Canto I. 



Could these have charms for rudest sea-boys, driven 

Before the mast by every wind of heaven ? 

And now, even now prepared with others' woes 

To earn mild Virtue's vain desire, repose ? 

Alas ! such is our nature ! all but aim 

At the same end by pathways not the same ; 

Our means, our birth, our nation, and our name. 

Our fortune, temper, even our outward frame. 

Are far more potent o'er our yielding clay 

Than aught we know beyond our little day. 

Yet still there whispers the small voice within. 

Heard through Gain's silence, and o'er Glory's din : 

"Whatever creed be taught or land be trod, 

Man's conscience is the oracle of God. 

VII. 

The launch is crowded with the faithful few 
Who wait their chief, a melancholy crew : 
But some remain'd reluctant on the deck 
Of that proud vessel — now a moral wreck — 
And view'd their captain's fate with piteous eyes : 
While others scoff'd his augur'd miseries, 
Sneer'd at the prospect of his pigmy sail. 
And the slight bark so laden and so frail. 
The tender nautilus, who steers his prow, 
The sea-born sailor of his shell canoe, 
The ocean Mab, the fairy of the sea. 
Seems far less fragile, and, alas ! more free. 
He, when the lightning-wing'd tornadoes sweep 
The surge, is safe — his port is in the deep — 
And triumphs o'er the armadas of mankind. 
Which shake the world, yet crumble in the wind. 

VIII. 

When all was now prepared, the vessel clear, 
Which hail'd her master in the mutineer, 
A seaman, less obdurate than his mates, 
Show'd the vain pity which but irritates ; 
Watch'd his late chieftain with exploring eye. 
And told, in signs, repentant sympathy ; 
Held the moist shaddock to his parched mouth. 
Which felt exhaustion's deep and bitter drouth : 
But soon observed, this guardian was withdrawn. 
Nor further mercy clouds rebellion's dawn.i 
Then forward stepp'd the bold and froward boy 
His chief had cherish'd only to destroy. 
And, pointing to the helpless prow beneath. 
Exclaim' d, " Depart at once ! delay is death !" 

1 "Isaac Martin, I saw, had an inclination to assist me; 
and as he fed me with shaddock, my lips being quite parched, 
we explained each other's sentiments by looks. But this was 
observed, and he was removed. He then got into the boat, 
but was compelled to return."— Bligh. 

2 " Christian then said, ' Come, Captain Bligh, your officers 
and men are now in the boat, and you must go with them ; 
if you attempt to make the least resistance, you will in- 
stantly be put to death ;' and, without further ceremony, I 
was forced over the side by a tribe of armed ruffians, where 
they untied my hands. Being in the boat, we were veered 
astern by a rope, A few pieces of pork were thrown to us, 



Yet then, even then, his feelings ceased not all : 
In that last moment could a word recall 
Remorse for the black deed as yet half done, 
And what he hid from many show'd to one : 
When Bligh in stern reproach demanded where 
Was now his grateful sense of former care ? 
Where all his hopes to see his name aspire, 
And blazon Britain's thousand glories higher ? 
His feverish lips thus broke their gloomy spell, 
" 'Tis that ! 'tis that ! I am in hell ! in hell !" 2 
No more he said ; but urging to the bark 
His chief, commits him to his fragile ark ; 
These the sole accents from his tongue that fell, 
But volumes lurk'd below his fierce farewell. 

IX. 

The arctic sun rose broad above the wave ; 

The breeze now sank, now whisper'd from his cave ; 

As on the ^olian harp, his fitful wings 

Now swell'd, now flutter'd o'er his ocean strings. 

With slow, despairing oar, the abandon'd skifi" 

Ploughs its drear progress to the scarce-seen cliflf, 

Which lifts its peak a cloud above the main : 

That boat and ship shall never meet again ! 

But 'tis not mine to tell their tale of grief. 

Their constant peril, and their scant relief; 

Their days of danger, and their nights of pain ; 

Their manly courage even when deem'd in vain ; 

The sapping famine, rendering scarce a son 

Known to his mother in the skeleton ; 

The ills that lessen'd still their little store. 

And starved even Hunger till he wrung no more ; 

The varying frowns and favors of the deep. 

That now almost ingulfs, then leaves to creep 

With crazy oar and shatter'd strength along 

The tide that yields reluctant to the strong ; 

The incessant fever of that arid thirst 

Which welcomes, as a well, the clouds that burst 

Above their naked bones, and feels delight 

In the cold drenching of the stormy night, 

And from the outspread canvas gladly wrings 

A drop to moisten life's all-gasping springs ; 

The savage foe escaped, to seek again 

More hospitable shelter from the main ; 

The ghastly spectres which were doom'd at last 

To tell as true a tale of dangers past. 

As ever the dark annals of the deep 

Disclosed for man to dread or woman weep. 

also the four cutlasses. After having been kept some time to 
make sport for these unfeeling wretches, and having under- 
gone much ridicule, we were at length cast adrift in the open 
ocean. Eighteen persons were with me in the boat. When 
we were sent away, ' Huzza for Otaheite !' was frequently 
heard among the mutineers. Christian, the chief of them, 
was of a respectable family in the north of England. While 
they were forcing me out of the ship, I asked him whether 
this was a proper return for the many instances he had ex- 
perienced of my friendship? He appeared disturbed at the 
question, and answered, with much emotion, ' That — Captain 
Bligh— that is the thing— I am in hell— I am in hell!'"— 
Bligh. 



Canto II. 



THE ISLAND. 



195 



X. 

We leave them to their fate, but not unknown 

Nor unredress'd. Eevenge may have her own : 

Roused discipline aloud proclaims their cause, 

And injured navies urge their broken laws. 

Pursue we on his track the mutineer, 

Whom distant vengeance had not taught to fear. 

Wide o'er the wave — away ! away ! away ! 

Once more his eyes shall hail the welcome bay ; 

Once more the happy shores without a law 

Receive the outlaws whom they lately saw ; 

Nature, and Nature's goddess — woman — woos 

To lands where, save their conscience, none accuse ; 

Where all partake the earth without dispute, 

And bread itself is gather'd as a fruit ; i 

Where none contest the fields, the woods, the 

streams : — 
The goldless age, where gold disturbs no dreams. 
Inhabits or inhabited the shore, 
Till Europe taught them better than before : 
Bestow'd her customs, and amended theirs, 
But left her vices also to their heirs. 
Away with this ! behold them as they were, 
Do good with Nature, or with Nature err. 
" Huzza ! for Otaheite !" was the cry. 
As stately swept the gallant vessel by. 
The breeze springs up ; the lately flapping sail 
Extends its arch before the growing gale ; 
In swifter ripples stream aside the seas. 
Which her bold bow flings off" with dashing ease. 
Thus Argo 2 plough'd the Euxine's virgin foam. 
But those she wafted still look'd back to home : 
These spurn their country with their rebel bark, 
And fly her as the raven fled the ark ; 
And yet they seek to nestle with the dove. 
And tame their fiery spirits down to love. 



Ci&e Islantr, 



CANTO THE SECOND. 



How pleasant were the songs of Toobonai,^ 

When summer's sun went down the coral bay ! 

Come, let us to the islet's softest shade. 

And hear the warbling birds ! the damsels said : 

The wood-dove from the forest depth shall coo, 

Like voices of the gods from Bolotoo ; 

We'll cull the flowers that grow above the dead. 

For these most bloom where rests the warrior's head 



^ The now celebrated bread-fruit, to transplant which Cap- 
tain Bligh's expedition was undertaken. 

2 The vessel in which Jason embarked in quest of the 
golden fleece. 

* The first three sections are taken from an actual song of 



And we will sit in twilight's face, and see 
The sweet moon glancing through the tooa tree. 
The lofty accents of whose sighing bough 
Shall sadly please us as we lean below ; 
Or climb the steep, and view the surf in vain 
Wrestle with rocky giants o'er the main. 
Which spurn in columns back the baffled spray. 
How beautiful are these ! how happy they. 
Who, from the toil and tumult of their lives. 
Steal to look down where nought but ocean strives ! 
Even he too loves at times the blue lagoon. 
And smooths his ruffled mane beneath the moon. 

II. 

Yes — from the sepulchre we'll gather flowers. 

Then feast like spirits in their promised bowers. 

Then plunge and revel in the rolling surf. 

Then lay our limbs along the tender turf, 

And, wet and shining from the sportive toil. 

Anoint our bodies with the fragrant oil. 

And plait our garlands gather'd from the grave, 

And wear the wreaths that sprung from out the brave. 

But lo ! night comes, the Mooa woos us back. 

The sound of mats are heard along our track ; 

Anon the torchlight dance shall fling its sheen 

In flashing mazes o'er the Marly's green ; 

And we too will be there ; we too recall 

The memory bright with many a festival, 

Ere Fiji blew the shell of war, when foes 

For the first time were wafted in canoes. 

Alas ! for them the flower of mankind bleeds ; 

Alas ! for them our fields are rank with weeds : 

Forgotten is the rapture, or unknown. 

Of wandering with the moon and love alone. 

But be it so : — they taught us how to wield 

The club, and rain our arrows o'er the field : 

Now let them reap the harvest of their art ! 

But feast to-night ! to-morrow we depart. 

Strike up the dance ! the cava bowl fill high ! 

Drain every drop ! — to-morrow we may die. 

In summer garments be our limbs array'd ; 

Around our waists the tappa's white display'd ; 

Thick wreaths shall form our coronal, like spring's, 

And round our necks shall glance the hooni strings ; 

So shall their brighter hues contrast the glow 

Of the dusk bosoms that beat high below. 

III. 

But now the dance is o'er — yet stay awhile ; 
Ah, pause ! nor yet put out the social smile. 
To-morrow for the Mooa we depart. 
But not to-night — to-night is for the heart. 
Again bestow the wreaths we gently woo, 
Ye young enchantresses of gay Licoo ! 



the Tonga Islanders, of which a prose translation is given in 
" Mariner's Account of the Tonga Islands." Toobonai is not 
however one of them ; but was one of those where Christian 
and the mutineers took refuge. I have altered and added, 
but have retained as much as possible of the original. 



196 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



Canto II. 



How lovely are your forms ! how every sense 
Bows to your beauties, soften'd, but intense, 
Like to the flowers on Mataloco's steep, 
Which fling their fragrance far athwart the 

deep ! — 
"We too will see Licoo ; but— oh ! my heart !— 
What do I say ? — to-morrow we depart ! 

IV. 

Thus rose a song — the harmony of times 
Before the winds blew Europe o'er these climes. 
True, they had vices— such are Nature's growth — 
But only the barbarian's— we have^both : 
The sordor of civilization, mix'd 
With all the savage which man's fall hath fix'd. 
Who hath not seen Dissimulation's reign, 
The prayers of Abel link'd to deeds of Cain ? 
Who such would see may from his lattice view 
The Old World more degraded than the New, — 
Now new no more, save where Columbia rears 
Twin giants, born by Freedom to her spheres, 
Where Chimborazo, over air, earth, wave. 
Glares with his Titan eye, and sees no slave. 

V. 

Such was this ditty of Tradition's days, 
Which to the dead a lingering fame conveys 
In song, where fame as yet hath left no sign 
Beyond the sound whose charm is half divine ; 
Which leaves no record to the skeptic eye, 
But yields young history all to harmony ; 
A boy Achilles, with the centaur's lyre 
In hand, to teach him to surpass his sire. 
For one long-cherish' d ballad's simple stave, 
Eung from the rock, or mingled with the wave. 
Or from the bubbling streamlet's grassy side. 
Or gathering mountain echoes as they glide. 
Hath greater power o'er each true heart and ear, 
Than all the columns Conquest's minions rear ; 
Invites, when hieroglyphics are a theme 
For sages' labors or the student's dream ; 
Attracts, when History's volumes are a toil, — 
The first, the freshest bud of Feeling's soil. 
Such was this rude rhyme— rhyme is of the 

rude — 
But such inspired the Norseman's solitude. 
Who came and conquer'd ; such, wherever rise 
Lands which no foes destroy or civilize. 
Exist : and what can our accomplish'd art 
Of verse do more than reach the awaken'd heart ? 

VI. 

And sweetly now those untaught melodies 
Broke the luxurious silence of the skies, 
The sweet siesta of a summer day. 
The tropic afternoon of Toobonai, 
When every flower was bloom, and air was balm, 
And the first breath began to stir the palm. 
The first yet voiceless wind to urge the wave 
All gently to refresh the thirsty cave, 



Where sate the songstress with the stranger boy, 
Who taught her passion's desolating joy, 
Too powerful over every heart, but most 
O'er those who know not how it may be lost ; 
O'er those who, burning in the new-born fire. 
Like martyrs revel in their funeral pyre. 
With such devotion to their ecstasy. 
That life knows no such rapture as to die : 
And die they do ; for earthly life has nought 
Match' d with that burst of nature, even in 

thought ; 
And all our dreams of better life above 
But close in one eternal gush of love. 



VII. 

There sate the gentle savage of the wild. 
In growth a woman, though in years a child, 
As childhood dates within our colder clime, 
Where nought is ripen'd rapidly save crime ; 
The infant of an infant world, as pure 
From nature — lovely, warm, and premature ; 
Dusky like night, but night with all her stars ; 
Or cavern sparkling with its native spars ; 
With eyes that were a language and a spell, 
A form like Aphrodite's in her shell, 
With all her loves around her on the deep. 
Voluptuous as the first approach of sleep ; 
Yet full of life — for through her tropic cheek 
The blush would make its way, and all but 

speak ; 
The sun-born blood suffused her neck, and threw 
O'er her clear nut-brown skin a lucid hue. 
Like coral reddening through the darken'd wave, 
Which draws the diver to the crimson cave. 
Such was this daughter of the southern seas. 
Herself a billow in her energies. 
To bear the bark of others' happiness. 
Nor feel a sorrow till their joy grew less : 
Her wild and warm yet faithful bosom knew 
No joy like what it gave ; her hopes ne'er drew 
Aught from experience, that chill touchstone, 

whose 
Sad proof reduces all things from their hues : 
She fear'd no ill, because she knew it not. 
Or what she knew was soon — too soon — forgot : 
Her smiles and tears had pass'd, as light winds 

pass 
O'er lakes to ruffle, not destroy, their glass,- 
Whose depths unsearch'd, and fountains from the 

hill. 
Restore their surface, in itself so still. 
Until the earthquake tear the naiad's cave. 
Root up the spring, and trample on the wave. 
And crush the living waters to a mass. 
The amphibious desert of the dank morass ! 
And must their fate be hers ? The eternal change 
But grasps humanity with quicker range ; 
And they who fall but fall as worlds will fall. 
To rise, if just, a spirit o'er them all. 



Canto II. 



THE ISLAND. 



197 



yiii. 

And who is he ? the blue-eyed northern child ^ 
Of isles more known to man, but scarce less wild ; 
The fair-hair'd offspring of the Hebrides. 
Where roars the Pentland with its whirling seas ; 
Kock'd in his cradle by the roaring wind, 
The tempest-born in body and in mind. 
His young eyes opening on the ocean foam, 
Had from that moment deem'd the deep his home, 
The giant comrade of his pensive moods. 
The sharer of his craggy solitudes. 
The only Mentor of his youth, where'er 
His bark was borne; the sport of wave and air; 
A careless thing, who placed his choice in chance, 
Nursed by the legends of his land's romance ; 
Eager to hope, but not less firm to bear, 
Acquainted with all feelings save despair. 
Placed in the Arab's clime, he would have been 
As bold a rover as the sands have seen. 
And braved their thirst with as enduring lip 
As Ishmael, wafted on his desert-ship ; 2 
Fix'd upon Chili's shore, a proud cacique ; 
On Hellas' mountains, a rebellious Greek ; 
Born in a tent, perhaps a Tamerlane ; 
Bred to a throne, perhaps unfit to reign. 
For the same soul that rends its path to sway, 
If rear'd to such, can find no further prey 
Beyond itself, and must retrace its way,^ 
Plunging for pleasure into pain : the same 
Spirit which made a Nero, Eome's worst shame, 
A humbler state and discipline of heart. 
Had form'd his glorious namesake's counterpart ; * 
I But grant his vices, grant them all his own, 
! How small their theatre without a throne ! 

IX. 

Thou smilest : — these comparisons seem high 
To those who scan all things with dazzled eye ; 
Link'd with the unknown name of one whose doom 
Has nought to do with glory or with Rome, 
j With Chili, Hellas, or with Araby ; — 

Thou smilest ? — Smile ; 'tis better thus than sigh ; 

Yet such he might have been ; he was a man, 

A soaring spirit, ever in the van, 

A patriot hero or despotic chief. 

To form a nation's glory or its grief. 

Bom under auspices which make us more 

Or less than we delight to ponder o'er. 



1 George Stewart. " He was," says Bligh, " a young man 
of creditable parents in the Orkneys ; at which place, on the 
return of the Resolution from the South Seas, in 1780, we 
received so many civilities, that, on that account only, I 
should gladly have taken him with me ; but, independent of 
this recommendation, he was a seaman, and had always 
borne a good character." 

2 The "ship of the desert" is the Oriental figure for the 
camel or dromedary ; and they deserve the metaphor well, — 
the former for his endurance, the latter for his swiftness. 

8 " Lucullus, when frugality could charm. 
Had roasted turnips in the Sabine farm."— Pope. 



But these are visions ; say, what was he here ? 
A blooming boy, a truant mutineer. 
The fair-hair'd Torquil, free as ocean's spray. 
The husband of the bride of Toobonai. 

X. 

By Neuha's side he sate, and watch' d the waters, — 

Neuha, the sun-flower of the island daughters, 

High-born (a birth at which the herald smiles, 

Without a scutcheon for these secret isles), 

Of a long race, the valiant and the free, 

The naked knights of savage chivalry. 

Whose grassy cairns ascend along the shore ; 

And thine — I've seen — Achilles ! do no more. 

She, when the thunder-bearing strangers came, 

In vast canoes, begirt with bolts of flame, 

Topp'd with tall trees, which, loftier than the palm, 

Seem'd rooted in the deep amidst its calm : 

But when the winds awaken'd, shot forth wings 

Broad as the cloud along the horizon flings. 

And sway'd the waves like cities of the sea. 

Making the very billows look less free ; — 

She, with her paddling oar and dancing prow, 

Shot through the surf, like reindeer through the snow, 

Swift gliding o'er the breaker's whitening edge, 

Light as a nereid in her ocean sledge. 

And gazed and wonder'd at the giant hulk. 

Which heaved from wave to wave its trampling bulk : 

The anchor dropp'd ; it lay along the deep. 

Like a huge lion in the sun asleep. 

While round it swarm'd the proas' flitting chain, 

Like summer bees that hum around his mane. 

XI. 

The white man landed ! — need the rest be told ? 
The New World stretch'd its dusk hand to the Old ; 
Each was to each a marvel, and the tie 
Of wonder warm'd to better sympathy. 
Kind was the welcome of the sun-born sires, 
And kinder still their daughters' gentler fires. 
Their union grew : the children of the storm 
Found beauty link'd with many a dusky form ; 
While these in turn admired the paler glow. 
Which seem'd so white in climes that knew no snow. 
The chase, the race, the liberty to roam. 
The soil where every cottage show'd a home ; 
The sea-spread net, the lightly -launch'd canoe, 
Which stemm'd the studded archipelago. 



* The consul Nero, who made the unequalled march which 
deceived Hannibal, and defeated Asdrubal; thereby accom- 
plishing an achievement almost unrivalled in military an- 
nals. The first intelligence of his return, to Hannibal, was 
the sight of Asdrubal's head thrown into his camp. When 
Hannibal saw this, he exclaimed with a sigh, that "Rome 
would now be the mistress of the world." And yet to this 
victory of Nero's it might be owing that his imperial name- 
sake reigned at all. But the infamy of the one has eclipsed 
the glory of the other. When the name of "Nero" is 
heard, who thinks of the consul? — But such are human 
things ! 



198 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



Canto II. 



O'er whose blue bosom rose the starry isles ; 

The healthy slumber, earn'd by sportive toils ; 

The palm, the loftiest dryad of the woods. 

Within whose bosom infant Bacchus broods, 

While eagles scarce build higher than the crest 

Which shadows o'er the vineyard in her breast ; 

The cava feast, the yam, the cocoa's root, 

Which bears at once the cup, and milk, and fruit ; 

The bread-tree, which, without the ploughshare, yields 

The unreap'd harvest of unfurrow'd fields. 

And bakes its unadulterated loaves 

Without a furnace in unpurchased groves. 

And flings off famine from its fertile breast, 

A priceless market for the gathering guest ; — 

These, with the luxuries of seas and woods, 

The airy joys of social solitudes, 

Tamed each rude wanderer to the sympathies 

Of those who were more happy, if less wise, 

Did more than Europe's discipline had done, 

And civilized Civilization's son ! 

XII. 

Of these, and there was many a willing pair, 
Neuha and Torquil were not the least fair : 
Both children of the isles, though distant far ; 
Both born beneath a sea-presiding star ; 
Both nourish'd amidst nature's native scenes, 
Loved to the last, whatever intervenes 
Between us and our childhood's sympathy. 
Which still reverts to what first caught the eye. 
He who first met the Highlands' swelling blue 
Will love each peak that shows a kindred hue. 
Hail in each crag a friend's familiar face, 
And clasp the mountain in his mind's embrace. 
Long have I roam'd through lands which are not mine. 
Adored the Alp, and loved the Apennine, 
Revered Parnassus, and beheld the steep 
Jove's Ida and Olympus crown the deep : 
But 'twas not all long ages' lore, nor all 
Their nature held me in their thrilling thrall ; 
The infant rapture still survived the boy. 
And Loch-na-gar with Ida look'd o'er Troy,i 
Mix'd Celtic memories with the Phrygian mount, 
And Highland linns with Castalie's clear fount. 
Forgive me, Homer's universal shade ! 
Forgive me, Phoebus ! that my fancy stray'd ; 
The north and nature taught me to adore 
Your scenes sublime, from those beloved before, 

XIII. 

The love which maketh all things fond and fair. 
The youth which makes one rainbow of the air. 
The dangers past, that make even man enjoy 
The pause in which he ceases to destroy, 

1 When very young, about eight years of age, after an 
attack of the scarlet fever at Aberdeen, I was removed by 
medical advice into the Highlands. Here I passed occasion- 
ally some summers, and from this period I date my love of 
mountainous countries. I can never forget the effect, a few 
years afterwards, in England, of the only thing I had long 



The mutual beauty, which the sternest feel 

Strike to their hearts like lightning to the steel, 

United the half savage and the whole, 

The maid and boy, in one absorbing soul. 

No more the thundering memory of the fight 

Wrapp'd his wean'd bosom in its dark delight ; 

No more the irksome restlessness of rest 

Disturb'd him like the eagle in her nest. 

Whose whetted beak and far-pervading eye 

Darts for a victim over all the sky : 

His heart was tamed to that voluptuous state. 

At once Elysian and effeminate, 

Which leaves no laurels o'er the hero's urn ; — 

These wither when for aught save blood they burn ; 

Yet when their ashes in their nook are laid, 

Doth not the myrtle leave as sweet a shade ? 

Had Csesar known but Cleopatra's kiss, 

Rome had been free, the world had not been his. 

And what have Caesar's deeds and Caesar's fame 

Done for the earth ? We feel them in our shame : 

The gory sanction of his glory stains 

The rust which tyrants cherish on our chains. 

Though Glory, Nature, Reason, Freedom, bid 

Roused millions do what single Brutus did, — 

Sweep these mere mock-birds of the despot's song 

From the tall bough where they have perch'd so long, — 

Still are we hawk'd at by such mousing owls, 

And take for falcons those ignoble fowls, 

When but a word of freedom would dispel 

These bugbears, as their terrors show too well. 

XIV. 
Rapt in the fond forgetfulness of life, 
Neuha, the South Sea girl, was all a wife, 
With no distracting world to call her off 
From love ; with no society to scoff 
At the new transient flame ; no babbling crowd 
Of coxcombry in admiration loud. 
Or with adulterous whisper to alloy 
Her duty, and her glory, and her joy : 
With faith and feelings naked as her form. 
She stood as stands a rainbow in a storm. 
Changing its hues with bright variety, 
But still expanding lovelier o'er the sky, 
Howe'er its arch may swell, its colors move, 
The cloud-compelling harbinger of love. 

XV. 

Here, in this grotto of the wave-worn shore, 
They pass'd the tropic's red meridian o'er ; 
Nor long the hours — they never paused o'er time, 
Unbroken by the clock's funereal chime, 
Which deals the daily pittance of our span, 
And points and mocks with iron laugh at man. 

seen, even in miniature, of a mountain, in the Malvern Hills. 
After I returned to Cheltenham, I used to watch them every 
afternoon, at sunset, with a sensation which I cannot de- 
scribe. This was boyish enough ; but I was then only thir- 
teen years of age, and it was in the holidays. 



Canto II. 



THE ISLAND. 



199 



What deem'd they of the future or the past ? 
The present, like a tyrant, held them fast : 
Their hour-glass was the sea-sand, and the tide, 
Like her smooth billow, saw their moments glide : 
Their clock the sun, in his unbounded tow'r ; 
They reckon'd not, whose day was but an hour ; 
The nightingale, their only vesper-bell. 
Sung sweetly to the rose the day's farewell ; i 
The broad sun set, but not with lingering sweep. 
As in the north he mellows o'er the deep ; 
But fiery, full, and fierce, as if he left 
The world for ever, earth of light bereft. 
Plunged with red forehead down along the wave, 
As dives a hero headlong to his grave. 
Then rose they, looking first along the skies. 
And then for light into each other's eyes. 
Wondering that summer show'd so brief a sun, 
And asking if indeed the day were done. 

XVI. 

And let not this seem strange : the devotee 

Lives not in earth, but in his ecstasy ; 

Around him days and worlds are heedless driven. 

His soul is gone before his dust to heaven. 

Is love less potent ? No — his path is trod. 

Alike uplifted gloriously to God ; 

Or link'd to all we know of heaven below, 

The other better self, whose joy or woe 

Is more than ours ; the all-absorbing flame 

Which, kindled by another, grows the same, 

Wrapt in one blaze ; the pure, yet funeral pile. 

Where gentle hearts, like Bramins, sit and smile. 

How often we forget all time, when lone, 

Admiring Nature's universal throne. 

Her woods, her wilds, her waters, the intense 

Reply of Aers to our intelligence ! 

Live not the stars and mountains ? Are the waves 

Without a spirit ? Are the dropping caves 

Without a feeling in their silent tears ? 

No, no ; — they woo and clasp us to their spheres, 

Dissolve this clog and clod of clay before 

Its hour, and merge our soul in the great shore. 



1 The now well-known story of the loves of the nightingale 
and rose need not be more than alluded to, being sufficiently 
familiar to the western as to the eastern reader. 

2 If the reader wUl apply to his ear the sea-shell on his 
chimney-piece, he will be aware of what is alluded to. If the 
text should appear obscure, he will find in " Gebir " the same 
idea better expressed in two lines. The poem I never read, 
but have heard the lines quoted by a more recondite reader — 
who seems to be of a different opinion from the editor of the 
Quarterly Review, who qualified it, in his answer to the Crit- 
ical Reviewer of his Juvenal, as trash of the worst and most 
insane description. It is to Mr. Landor, the author of " Ge- 
bir," so qualified, and of some Latin poems, which vie with 
Martial or Catullus in obscenity, that the immaculate Mr. 
Southey addresses his declamation against impurity ! 

Mr. Landor's lines above alluded to are — 

■" For I have often seen her with both hands 
Shake a dry crocodile of equal height, 
And listen to the shells within the scales. 



Strip off this fond and false identity ! — 
Who thinks of self, when gazing on the sky ? 
And who, though gazing lower, ever thought. 
In the young moments ere the heart is taught 
Time's lesson, of man's baseness or his own ? 
All nature is his realm, and love his throne. 

XVII. 

Neuha arose, and Torquil : twilight's hour 
Came sad and softly to their rocky bower, 
Which, kindling by degrees its dewy spars, 
Echo'd their dim light to the mustering stars. 
Slowly the pair, partaking nature's calm. 
Sought out their cottage, built beneath the palm ; 
Now smiling and now silent, as the scene ; 
Lovely as Love — the spirit ! — when serene. 
The Ocean scarce spoke louder with his swell, 
Than breathes his mimic murmurer in the shell,* 
As, far divided from his parent deep. 
The sea-born infant cries, and will not sleep, 
Raising his little plaint in vain, to rave 
For the broad bosom of his nursing wave : 
The woods droop'd darkly, as inclined to rest, 
The tropic bird wheel'd rockward to his nest, 
And the blue sky spread round them like a lake 
Of peace, where Piety her thirst might slake. 

XVIII. 

But through the palm and plantain, hark, a voice ! 

Not such as would have been a lover's choice, 

In such an hour, to break the air so still ; 

No dying night-breeze, harping o'er the hill, 

Striking the strings of nature, rock and tree, 

Those best and earliest lyres of harmony. 

With Echo for their chorus ; nor the alarm 

Of the loud war-whoop to dispel the charm ; 

Nor the soliloquy of the hermit owl, 

Exhaling all his solitary soul, 

Dhe dim though large-eyed winged anchorite. 

Who peals his dreary psean o'er the night ; 

But a loud, long, and naval whistle, shrill 

As ever started through a sea-bird's bill ; 



And fancy there was life, and yet apply 

The jagged jaws wide open to the ear." 
In the "Excursion" of Wordsworth occurs the following 
exquisite passage :— 

" I have seen 

A curious child, applying to his ear 

The convolutions of a smooth-lipp'd shell, 

To which, in silence hush'd, his very soul 

Listen'd intensely, and his countenance soon 

Brighten'd with joy ; for murmuring from within 

Were heard sonorous cadences ! whereby, 

To his belief, the monitor express'd 

Mysterious union with its native sea. 

Even such a shell the universe itself 

Is to the ear of faith ; and doth impart 

Authentic tidings of invisible things: 

Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power > 

And central peace subsisting at the heart 

Of endless agitation." 



200 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Canto II. 



And then a pause, and then a hoarse " Hillo ! 
Torquil ! my boy ! what cheer ? Ho ! brother, ho !" 
" Who hails ?" cried Torquil, following with his eye 
The sound. " Here's one," was all the brief reply. 

XIX. 

But here the herald of the self-same mouth 
Came breathing o'er the aromatic south, 
Not like a " bed of violets " on the gale, 
But such as wafts its cloud o'er grog or ale. 
Borne from a short frail pipe, which yet had 

blown 
Its gentle odors over either zone. 
And, pufF'd where'er winds rise or waters roll, 
Had wafted smoke from Portsmouth to the Pole, 
Opposed its vapor as the lightning flash'd. 
And reek'd, 'midst mountain-billows, unabash'd, 
To iEolus a constant sacrifice. 
Through every change of all the varying skies. 
And what was he who bore it ? — I may err, 
But deem him sailor or philosopher.i 
Sublime tobacco ! which from east to west 
Cheers the tar's labor or the Turkman's rest ; 
Which on the Moslem's ottoman divides 
His hours, and rivals opium and his brides ; 
Magnificent in Stamboul, but less grand. 
Though not less loved, in Wapping or the Strand ; 
Divine in hookas, glorious in a pipe. 
When tipp'd with amber, mellow, rich, and ripe ; 
Like other charmers, wooing the caress 
More dazzlingly when daring in full dress : 
Yet thy true lovers more admire by far 
Thy naked beauties — Give me a cigar ! 2 

XX. 

Through the approaching darkness of the wood 

A human figure broke the solitude, 

Fantastically, it may be, array'd, 

A seaman in a savage masquerade ; » 

Such as appears to rise out from the deep 

When o'er the line the merry vessels sweep, 

And the rough saturnalia of the tar 

Flock o'er the deck, in Neptune's borrow'd car ; ' 

And, pleased, the god of ocean sees his name 

Revive once more, though but in mimic game 

Of his true sons, who riot in the breeze 

Undreamt of in his native Cyclades. 

Still the old god delights, from out the main, 

To snatch some glimpses of his ancient reign. 



1 Hobbes, the father of Locke's and other philosophy, was 
an inveterate smoker, — even to pipes beyond computation. 

2 " We talked of change of manners (1773). Dr. Johnson 
observed, that our drinking less than our ancestors was 
owing to the change from ale to wine. ' I remember,' said 
he, 'when all the decent people in Lichfield got drunk every 
night, and were not the worse thought of. Smoking has 
gone out. To be sure, it is a shocking thing, blowing smoke 
out of our mouths into other people's mouths, eyes, and 
noses, and having the same thing done to us. Yet I cannot 
account, why a thing which requires so little exertion, and 



Our sailor's jacket, though in ragged trim. 
His constant pipe, which never yet burn'd dim, 
His foremast air, and somewhat rolling gait. 
Like his dear vessel, spoke his former state ; 
But then a sort of kerchief round his head, 
Not over-tightly bound, nor nicely spread ; 
And, 'stead of trowsers (ah ! too early torn ! 
For even the mildest woods will have their thorn), 
A curious sort of somewhat scanty mat 
Now served for inexpressibles and hat ; 
His naked feet and neck, and sunburnt face, 
Perchance might suit alike with either race. 
His arms were all his own^ our Europe's growth, 
Which two worlds bless for civilizing both ; 
The musket swung behind his shoulders broad, 
And somewhat stoop'd by his marine abode, 
But brawny as the boar's ; and hung beneath, 
His cutlass droop' d, unconscious of a sheath, 
Or lost or worn away ; his pistols were 
Link'd to his belt, a matrimonial pair — 
(Let not this metaphor appear a scoff. 
Though one miss'd fire, the other would go off) ; 
These, with a bayonet, not so free from rust 
As when the arm-chest held its brighter trust. 
Completed his accoutrements, as Night 
Survey'd him in his garb heteroclite. 

XXI. 

"What cheer, Ben Bunting?" cried (when in full 

view 
Our new acquaintance) Torquil. " Aught of new ?" 
" Ey, ey !" quoth Ben, " not new, but news enow ; 
A strange sail in the offing." — " Sail ! and how ? 
What ! could you make her out ? It cannot be ; 
I've seen no rag of canvas on the sea." 
" Belike," said Ben, " you might not from the bay. 
But from the bluff-head, where I watch'd to-day, 
I saw her in the doldrums ; for the wind 
Was light and baffling." — "When the sun declined 
Where lay she? had she anchor'd?" — " No, but still 
She bore down on us, till the wind grew still." 
" Her flag ?"— " I had no glass : but fore and aft. 
Egad ! she seem'd a wicked-looking craft." 
" Arm'd?" — " I expect so ; — sent on the look-out : 
'Tis time, belike, to put our helm about." 
" About? — Whate'er may have us now in chase, 
We'll make no running fight, for that were base ; 
We will die at otir quarters, like true men." 
" Ey, ey ? for that 'tis all the same to Ben." 



yet preserves the mind from total vacuity, should have gone 
out." — BoswELL. "As an item in the history of manners, it 
may be observed, that drinking to excess has diminished 
greatly in the memory even of those who can remember 
forty or fifty years. The taste for smoking, however, has 
revived, probably from the military habits of Europe during 
the French wars ; but, instead of the sober sedentary pipe, 
the ambulatory cigar is now chiefly used."— Ceoker, 1830. 

3 This rough but jovial ceremony, used in crossing the line, 
has been so often and so well described, that it need not be 
more than alluded to. 



Canto III. 



THE ISLAND. 



201 



"Does Christian know this?" — "Ay; he has piped 

all hands 
To quarters. They are furbishing the stands 
Of arms ; and we have got some guns to bear, 
And scaled them. You are wanted." — "That's but 

fair ; 
And if it were not, mine is not the soul 
To leave my comrades helpless on the shoal. 
My Neuha ! ah ! and must my fate pursue 
Not me alone, but one so sweet and true ? 
But whatsoe'er betide, ah, Neuha ! now 
Unman me not ; the hour will not allow 
A tear ; I am thine whatever intervenes !" 
" Eight," quoth Ben, " that will do for the marines." * 



Cj&e $0lantr. 



CANTO THE THIRD. 



The fight was o'er ; the flashing through the gloom, 
Which robes the cannon as he wings a tomb. 
Had ceased ; and sulphury vapors upward driven 
Had left the earth, and but polluted heaven : 
The rattling roar which rung in every volley 
Had left the echoes to their melancholy ; 
No more they shriek'd their horror, boom for boom ; 
The strife was done, the vanquish'd had their doom ; 
The mutineers were crush'd, dispersed, or ta'en. 
Or lived to deem the happiest were the slain. 
Few, few escaped, and these were hunted o'er 
The isle they loved beyond their native shore. 
No further home was theirs, it seem'd, on earth, 
Once renegades to that which gave them birth ; 
Track'd like wild beasts, like them they sought the 

wild, 
As to a mother's bosom flies the child ; 
But vainly wolves and lions seek their den, 
And still more vainly men escape from men. 

II. 

Beneath a rock whose jutting base protrudes 
Far over ocean in his fiercest moods. 
When scaling his enormous crag the wave 
Is hurl'd down headlong like the foremost brave. 
And falls back on the foaming crowd behind. 
Which fight beneath the banners of the wind. 
But now at rest, a little remnant drew 
Together, bleeding, thirsty, faint, and few ; 
But still their weapons in their hands, and still 
With something of the pride of former will, 

1 " That will do for the marines, but the sailors won't be- 
lieve it," is an old saying ; and one of the few fragments of 
former jealousies which still survive (in jest only) between 
these gallant services. 

* Archidamus, king of Sparta, and son of Agesilaus, when 



As men not all unused to meditate. 

And strive much more than wonder at their fate. 

Their present lot was what they had foreseen. 

And dared as what was likely to have been : 

Yet still the lingering hope, which deem'd their lot 

Not pardon'd, but unsought for or forgot. 

Or trusted that, if sought, their distant caves 

Might still be miss'd amidst the world of waves. 

Had wean'd their thoughts in part from what they saw 

And felt, the vengeance of their country's law. 

Their sea-green isle, their guilt-won paradise. 

No more could shield their virtue or their vice : 

Their better feelings, if such were, were thrown 

Back on themselves, — their sins remain'd alone. 

Proscribed even in their second country, they 

Were lost ; in vain the world before them lay ; 

All outlets seem'd secured. Their new allies 

Had fought and bled in mutual sacrifice ; 

But what avail'd the club and spear, and arm 

Of Hercules, against the sulphury charm. 

The magic of the thunder, which destroy'd 

The warrior ere his strength could be employ'd ? 

Dug, like a spreading pestilence, the grave 

No less of human bravery than the brave ! 2 

Their own scant numbers acted all the few 

Against the many oft will dare and do : 

But though the choice seems native to die free. 

Even Greece can boast but one Thermopylae, 

Till now, when she has forged her broken chain 

Back to a sword, and dies and lives again ! 

III. 

Beside the jutting rock the few appear'd. 

Like the last remnant of the red-deer's herd ; 

Their eyes were feverish, and their aspect worn, 

But still the hunter's blood was on their horn. 

A little stream came tumbling from the height, 

And straggling into ocean as it might. 

Its bounding crystal frolick'd in the ray. 

And gush'd from clifi" to crag with saltless spray ; 

Close on the wild, wide ocean, yet as pure 

And fresh as innocence, and more secure, 

Its silver torrent glitter'd o'er the deep. 

As the shy chamois' eye o'erlooks the steep. 

While far below the vast and sullen swell 

Of ocean's alpine azure rose and fell. 

To this young spring they rush'd,— all feelings first 

Absorb'd in passion's and in nature's thirst, — 

Drank as they do who drink their last, and threw 

Their arms aside to revel in its dew ; [stains 

Cool'd their scorch'd throats, and wash'd the gory 

From wounds whose only bandage might be chains ; 

Then, when their drought was quench'd, look'd sadly 

round, 
As wondering how so many still were found 

he saw a machine invented for the casting of stones and 
darts, exclaimed, that it was the "grave of valor." The 
same story has been told of some knights ou the first ap- 
plication of gunpowder ; but the original anecdote is in Plu- 
tarch. 



202 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



Canto III. 



Alive and fetterless : — but silent all, 
Each sought his fellow's eyes, as if to call 
On him for language which his lips denied, 
As though their voices with their cause had died. 

IV. 

Stern, and aloof a little from the rest, 

Stood Christian, with his arms across his chest. 

The ruddy, reckless, dauntless hue once spread 

Along his cheek was livid now as lead ; 

His light-brown locks, so graceful in their flow, 

Now rose like startled vipers o'er his brow. 

Still as a statue, with his lips comprest 

To stifle even the breath within his breast. 

Fast by the rock, all menacing, but mute, 

He stood ; and, save a slight beat of his foot. 

Which deepen'd now and then the sandy dint 

Beneath his heel, his form seem'd turn'd to flint. 

Some paces further Torquil lean'd his head 

Against a bank, and spoke not, but he bled,— 

Not mortally : — his worst wound was within ; 

His brow was pale, his blue eyes sunken in. 

And blood-drops, sprinkled o'er his yellow hair, 

Show'd that his faintness came not from despair, 

But nature's ebb. Beside him was another, 

Eough as a bear, but willing as a brother, — 

Ben Bunting, who essay'd to wash, and wipe. 

And bind his wound — then calmly lit his pipe, 

A trophy which survived a hundred fights, 

A beacon which had cheer'd ten thousand nights. 

The fourth and last of this deserted group 

"Walk'd up and down — at times would stand, then stoop 

To pick a pebble up — then let it drop — 

Then hurry as in haste — then quickly stop — 

Then cast his eyes on his companions — then 

Half whistle half a tune, and pause again — 

And then his former movements would redouble. 

With something between carelessness and trouble. 

This is a long description, but applies 

To scarce five minutes pass'd before the eyes ; 

But yet what minutes ! Moments like to these 

Rend men's lives into immortalities. 

V. 

At length Jack Skyscrape, a mercurial man. 

Who flutter'd over all things like a fan, 

More brave than firm, and more disposed to dare 

And die at once than wrestle with despair, 

Exclaim'd, " G — d damn !" — those syllables intense, — 

Nucleus of England's native eloquence, 

As the Turk's "Allah !" or the Roman's more 

Pagan " Proh Jupiter !" was wont of yore 

To give their first impressions such a vent, 

By way of echo to embarrassment. 

Jack was embarrass'd, — never hero more. 

And as he knew not what to say, he swore : 

Nor swore in vain ; the long-congenial sound 

Revived Ben Bunting from his pipe profound ; 

He drew it from his mouth, and look'd full wise. 

But merely added to the oath his eyes ; 



Thus rendering the imperfect phrase complete, 
A peroration I need not repeat. 

VI. 

But Christian, of a higher order, stood 

Like an extinct volcano in his mood ; 

Silent, and sad, and savage, — with the trace 

Of passion reeking from his clouded face ; 

Till lifting up again his sombre eye, 

It glanced on Torquil, who lean'd faintly by. 

"And is it thus ?" he cried, " unhappy boy ! 

And thee, too, thee — my madness must destroy!" 

He said, and strode to where young Torquil stood. 

Yet dabbled with his lately flowing blood ; 

Seized his hand wistfully, but did not press, 

And shrunk as fearful of his own caress ; 

Inquired into his state ; and when he heard 

The wound was slighter than he deem'd or fear'd, 

A moment's brightness pass'd along his brow. 

As much as such a moment would allow. 

" Yes," he exclaim'd, " we are taken in the toil. 

But not a coward or a common spoil ; 

Dearly they've bought us — dearly still may buy, — 

And I must fall ; but have you strength to fly ? 

'Twould be some comfort still, could you survive ; 

Our dwindled band is now too few to strive. 

Oh, for a sole canoe ! though but a shell. 

To bear you hence to where a hope may dwell ! 

For me, my lot is what I sought ; to be, 

In life or death, the fearless and the free." 

VII. 

Even as he spoke, around the promontory, 
Which nodded o'er the billows high and hoary, 
A dark speck dotted ocean : on it flew 
Like to the shadow of a roused sea-mew : 
Onward it came — and, lo ! a second follow'd — 
Now seen — now hid — where ocean's vale was hollow'd ; 
And near, and nearer, till their dusky crew 
Presented well-known aspects to the view. 
Till on the surf their skimming paddles play. 
Buoyant as wings, and flitting through the spray ; — 
Now perching on the wave's high curl, and now 
Dash'd downward in the thundering foam below, 
Which flings it broad and boiling sheet on sheet. 
And slings its high flakes, shiver'd into sleet ; 
But floating still through surf and swell, drew nigh 
The barks, like small birds through a lowering sky. 
Their art seem'd nature — such the skill to sweep 
The wave of these born playmates of the deep. 

VIII. 

And who the first that, springing on the strand, 
Leap'd like a nereid from her shell to land, 
With dark but brilliant skin, and dewy eye 
Shining with love, and hope, and constancy ? 
Neuha — the fond, the faithful, the adored — 
Her heart on Torquil's like a torrent pour'd : 
And smiled, and wept, and near, and nearer clasp'd, 
As if to be assured 'twas him she grasp'd ; 



Canto IV. 



THE ISLAND. 



203 



Shudder'd to see his yet warm wound, and then, 
To find it trivial, smiled and wept again. 
She was a warrior's daughter, and could bear 
Such sights, and feel, and mourn, but not despair. 
Her lover lived, — nor foes nor fears could blight 
That full-blown moment in its all delight : 
Joy trickled in her tears, joy fiU'd the sob 
That rock'd her heart till almost heard to throb ; 
And paradise was breathing in the sigh 
Of nature's child in nature's ecstasy. 



IX. 

The sterner spirits who beheld that meeting 
Were not unmoved : who are, when hearts are 

greeting ? 
Even Christian gazed upon the maid and boy 
With tearless eye, but yet a gloomy joy 
Mix'd with those bitter thoughts the soul arrays 
In hopeless visions of our better days. 
When all's gone — to the rainbow's latest ray. 
" And but for me !" he said, and turn'd away ; 
Then gazed upon the pair, as in his den 
A lion looks upon his cubs again ; 
And then relapsed into his sullen guise, 
As heedless of his further destinies. 



X. 

But brief their time for good or evil thought ; 
The billows round the promontory brought 
The plash of hostile oars. — Alas ! who made 
That sound a dread? All around them seem'd 

array'd 
Against them, save the bride of Toobonai : 
She, as she caught the first glimpse o'er the bay 
Of the arm'd boats, which hurried to complete 
The remnant's ruin with their flying feet, 
Beckon'd the natives round her to their prows, 
Embark'd their guests and launch'd their light 

canoes ; 
In one placed Christian and his comrades twain ; 
But she and Torquil must not part again. 
She fix'd him in her own. — Away ! away ! 
They clear the breakers, dart along the bay, 
And towards a group of islets, such as bear 
The sea-bird's nest and seal's surf-hollow'd 

lair, 
They skim the blue tops of the billows ; fast 
They flew, and fast their fierce pursuers chased. 
They gain upon them — now they lose again, — 
Again make way and menace o'er the main ; 
And now the two canoes in chase divide, 
And follow different courses o'er the tide, 
To baffle the pursuit. — Away ! away ! 
As life is on each paddle's flight to-day, 
And more than life or lives to Neuha : Love 
Freights the frail bark and urges to the cove — 
And now the refuge and the foe are nigh — 
Yet, yet a moment ! — Fly, thou light ark, fly ! 



Cj^e 3Eslant». 



CANTO THE FOURTH. 



I. 

White as a white sail on a dusky sea. 
When half the horizon's clouded and half free, 
Fluttering between the dun wave and the sky, 
Is hope's last gleam in man's extremity. 
Her anchor parts ! but still her snowy sail 
Attracts our eye amidst the rudest gale : 
Though every wave she climbs divides us more, 
The heart still follows from the loneliest shore. 

II. 

Not distant from the isle of Toobonai, 
A black rock rears its bosom o'er the spray, 
The haunt of birds, a desert to mankind, 
Where the rough seal reposes from the wind, 
And sleeps unwieldy in his cavern dun. 
Or gambols with huge frolic in the sun : 
There shrilly to the passing oar is heard 
The startled echo of the ocean bird. 
Who rears on its bare breast her callow brood. 
The feather'd fishers of the solitude. 
A narrow segment of the yellow sand 
On one side forms the outline of a strand ; 
Here the young turtle, crawling from his shell, 
Steals to the deep wherein his parents dwell ; 
Chipp'd by the beam, a nursling of the day, 
But hatch'd for ocean by the fostering ray ; 
The rest was one bleak precipice, as e'er 
Gave mariners a shelter and despair ; 
A spot to make the saved regret the deck 
Which late went down, and envy the lost wreck. 
Such was the stern asylum Neuha chose 
To shield her lover from his following foes ; 
But all its secret was not told ; she knew 
In this a treasure hidden from the view. 

III. 

Ere the canoes divided, near the spot, 

The men that mann'd what held her Torquil's lot, 

By her command removed, to strengthen more 

The skiff" which wafted Christian from the shore. 

This he would have opposed ; but with a smile 

She pointed calmly to the craggy isle. 

And bade him " speed and prosper." She would take 

The rest upon herself for Torquil's sake. 

They parted with this added aid ; afar 

The proa darted like a shooting star. 

And gain'd on the pursuers, who now steer'd 

Right on the rock which she and Torquil near'd. 

They pull'd ; her arm, though delicate, was free 

And firm as ever grappled with the sea. 

And yielded scarce to Torquil's manlier strength. 

The prow now almost lay within its length 



204 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Canto IV. 



Of the crag's steep, inexorable face, 

With nought but soundless waters for its base ; 

Within a hundred boats' length was the foe, 

And now what refuge but their frail canoe ? 

This Torquil ask'd with half-upbraiding eye, 

Which said—" Has Neuha brought me here to die ? 

Is this a place of safety, or a grave, 

And yon huge rock the tombstone of the wave ?" 

IV. 

They rested on their paddles, and uprose 

Neuha, and pointing to the approaching foes, 

Cried, " Torquil, follow me, and fearless follow !" 

Then plunged at once into the ocean's hollow. 

There was no time to pause — the foes were near — 

Chains in his eye, and menace in his ear ; 

With vigor they pull'd on, and as they came, 

Hail'd him to yield, and by his forfeit name. 

Headlong he leapt — to him the swimmer's skill 

Was native, and now all his hope from ill : 

But how, or where ? He dived, and rose no more ; 

The boat's crew look'd amazed o'er sea and shore. 

There was no landing on that precipice, 

Steep, harsh, and slippery as a berg of ice. 

They watch'd awhile to see him float again, 

But not a trace rebubbled from the main : 

The wave roll'd on, no ripple on its face, 

Since their first plunge recall'd a single trace ; 

The little whirl which eddied, and slight foam. 

That whiten'd o'er what seem'd their latest home, 

White as a sepulchre above the pair 

Who left no marble (mournful as an heir) 

The quiet proa wavering o'er the tide 

Was all that told of Torquil and his bride ; 

And but for this alone the whole might seem 

The vanish'd phantom of a seaman's dream. 

They paused and search'd in vain, then pull'd away ; 

Even superstition now forbade their stay. 

Some said he had not plunged into the wave, 

But vanish'd like a corpse-light from a grave ; 

1 Of this cave (which is no fiction) the original will be 
found in the ninth chapter of " Mariner's Account of the 
Tonga Islands." I have taken the poetical liberty to trans- 
plant it to Toobonai, the last island where any distinct ac- 
count is left of Christian and his comrades. — The following is 
the account given by Mariner : — 

" On this island there is a peculiar cavern situated on the 
western coast, the entrance to which is at least a fathom be- 
neath the surface of the sea at low water ; and was first dis- 
covered by a young chief, whilst diving after a turtle. The 
nature of this cavern will be better understood if we imagine 
a hollow rock rising sixty feet or more above the surface of 
the water, into the cavity of which there is no known entrance 
but one, and that is in the side of the rock, as low down as 
six feet under the water, into which it flows; and, conse- 
quently, the base of the cavern may be said to be the sea 
itself. Finow, and his friends, being on this part of the isl- 
and, proposed one afternoon, on a sudden thought, to go into 
this cavern and drink cava. Mr. Mariner was not with them 
at the time this proposal was made ; but happening to come 
down a little while after to the shore, and seeing some of the 
young chiefs diving into the water, one after another, and not 
rise again, he was a little surprised, and inquired of the last, 



Others, that something supernatural 

Glared in his figure, more than mortal tall ; 

While all agreed that in his cheek and eye 

There was a dead hue of eternity. 

Still as their oars receded from the crag. 

Round every weed a moment would they lag. 

Expectant of some token of their prey ; 

But no — he had melted from them like the spray. 



And where was he, the pilgrim of the deep. 
Following the nereid ? Had they ceased to weep 
For ever ? or, received in coral caves, 
Wrung life and pity from the softening waves ? 
Did they with ocean's hidden sovereigns dwell, 
And sound with mermen the fantastic shell ? - - 
Did Neuha with the mermaids comb her hair 
Flowing o'er ocean as it stream'd in air? 
Or had they perish'd, and in silence slept 
Beneath the gulf wherein they boldly leapt ? 

VI. 

Young Neuha plunged into the deep, and he 

FoUow'd : her track beneath her native sea 

Was as a native's of the element, 

So smoothly, bravely, brilliantly she went, 

Leaving a streak of light behind her heel. 

Which struck and flash'd like an amphibious steel. 

Closely, and scarcely less expert to trace 

The depths where divers hold the pearl in chase, 

Torquil, the nursling of the northern seas. 

Pursued her liquid steps with heart and ease. 

Deep — deeper for an instant Neuha led 

The way — then upward soar'd — and as she spread 

Her arms, and flung the foam from off" her locks, 

Laugh'd, and the sound was answer'd by the rocks. 

They had gain'd a central realm of earth again. 

But look'd for tree, and field, and sky, in vain. 

Around she pointed to a spacious cave, 

Whose only portal was the keyless wave ^ 

who was just preparing to take the same step, what they were 
about. ' Follow me,' said he, ' and I will take you where you 
have never been before ; and where Finow, and his chiefs 
and matabooles, are now assembled.' Mr. Mariner, without 
any further hesitation, prepared himself to follow his com- 
panion, who dived into the water, and he after him, and, 
guided by the light reflected from his heels, entered the open- 
ing in the rock, and rose into the cavern. He was no sooner 
above the surface of the water than, sure enough, he heard 
the voices of the king and his friends ; being directed by his 
guide, he climbed upon a jutting portion of rock and sat 
down. The light was sufficient, after remaining about five 
minutes, to show objects with some little distinctness ; and 
he could discover Finow and the rest of the company seated, 
like himself, round the cavern. Nevertheless, as it was de- 
sirable to have a stronger illumination, Mr. Mariner dived 
out again, and procuring his pistol, primed it well, tied plenty 
of gnatoo tight round it, and wrapped the whole up in a 
plantain-leaf; he directed an attendant to bring a torch in 
the same way. Thus prepared, he re-entered the cavern, un- 
wrapped the gnatoo, a great portion of which was perfectly 
dry, fired it by the flash of the powder, and lighted the torch. 
The place was now illuminated tolerably well, for the first 



Canto IV. 



THE ISLAND. 



205 



(A hollow archway by the sun unseen, 

Save through the billows' glassy veil of green, 

In some transparent ocean holiday, 

When all the finny people are at play), 

Wiped with her hair the brine from Torquil's eyes, 

And clajjp'd her hands with joy at his surprise ; 

Led him to where the rock appear'd to jut, 

And form a something like a Triton's hut ; 

For all was darkness for a space, till day 

Through clefts above let in a sober'd ray ; 

As in some old cathedral's glimmering aisle 

The dusty monuments from light recoil. 

Thus sadly in their refuge submarine 

The vault drew half her shadow from the scene. 

VII. 

Forth from her bosom the young savage drew 

A pine torch, strongly girded with gnatoo ; } 

A plantain leaf o'er all, the more to keep 

Its latent sparkle from the sapping deep. 

This mantle kept it dry ; then from a nook 

Of the same plantain leaf a flint she took, 

A few shrunk wither'd twigs, and from the blade 

Of Torquil's knife struck fire, and thus array'd 

The grot with torchlight. Wide it was and high. 

And show'd a self-born Gothic canopy ; 

The arch uprear'd by nature's architect, 

The architrave some earthquake might erect ; 

The buttress from some mountain's bosom hurl'd, 

When the Poles crash'd, and water was the world ; 

Or harden'd from some earth-absorbing fire. 

While yet the globe reek'd from its funeral pyre ; 

The fretted pinnacle, the aisle, the nave,i 

Were there, all scoop'd by Darkness from her cave. 

There, with a little tinge of phantasy. 

Fantastic faces mop'd and mow'd on high, 

And then a mitre or a shrine would fix 

The eye upon its seeming crucifix. 

Thus Nature play'd with the stalactites, 

And built herself a chapel of the seas. 



time, perhaps, since its existence. It appeared (by guess) to 
be about forty feet wide in the main part, but which branched 
oflf, on one side, in two narrow portions. The medium 
height seemed also about forty feet. The roof was hung with 
stalactites in a very curious way, resembling, upon a cursory 
view, the Gothic arches and ornaments of an old church. 
After having examined the place, they drank cava, and passed 
away the time in conversation upon different subjects." The 
account proceeds to state that the mode in which the cavern 
was discovered, and the interesting use made of the retreat 
by the young chief who found it out, were related by one of 
the matabooles present. According to his statement, the en- 
tire family of a certain chief had been in former times con- 
demned to death in consequence of his conspiring against a 
tyrannical governor of the island. One of the devoted family 
was a beautiful daughter, to whom the young chief who had 
accidentally discovered the cave had long been ardently at- 
tached. On learning her danger, he bethought himself of 
this retreat, to which he easily persuaded her to accompany 
him, and she remained concealed within it, occasionally en- 
joying the society of her lover, until he was enabled to carry 
her off to the Fiji islands, where they remained until the 



VIII. 

And Neuha took her Torquil by the hand, 
And waved along the vault her kindled brand. 
And led him into each recess, and show'd 
The secret places of their new abode. 
Nor these alone, for all had been prepared 
Before, to soothe the lover's lot she shared : 
The mat for rest ; for dress the fresh gnatoo, 
And sandal oil to fence against the dew ; 
For food the cocoa-nut, the yam, the bread 
Born of the fruit ; for board the plantain spread 
With its broad leaf, or turtle-shell which bore 
A banquet in the flesh it cover'd o'er ; 
The gourd with water recent from the rill, 
The ripe banana from the mellow hill ; 
A pine-torch pile to keep undying light. 
And she herself, as beautiful as night. 
To fling her shadowy spirit o'er the scene. 
And make their subterranean world serene. 
She had foreseen, since first the stranger's sail 
Drew to their isle, that force or flight might 

fail. 
And form'd a refuge of the rocky den 
For Torquil's safety from his countrymen. 
Each dawn had wafted there her light canoe. 
Laden with all the golden fruits that grew ; 
Each eve had seen her gliding through the hour 
With all could cheer or deck their sparry bower ; 
And now she spread her little store with smiles. 
The happiest daughter of the loving isles. 

IX. 

She, as he gazed with grateful wonder, press'd 
Her shelter'd love to her impassion'd breast ; 
And suited to her soft caresses, told 
An olden tale of love, — for love is old. 
Old as eternity, but not outworn 
With each new being born or to be born : 2 
How a young chief, a thousand moons ago, 
Diving for turtle in the depths below. 



death of the governor enabled them to return. The only 
part of this romantic tale which seemed very improbable was 
the length of time which the girl was said to have remained 
in the cavern, two or three months. To ascertain whether 
this was possible, Mr. Mariner examined every part of it, but 
without discovering any opening. If the story be true, in all 
likelihood the duration of her stay in the cavern was not 
much more than one fourth of the time mentioned ; as the 
space would not contain a quantity of air sufficient for the 
respiration of an individual for a longer period. 

1 This may seem too minute for the general outlines (in 
Mariner's Account) from which it is taken. But few men 
have travelled without seeing something of the kind — on land, 
that is. Without adverting to Ellora, in Mungo Park's last 
journal, he mentions having met with a rock or mountain so 
exactly resembling a Gothic cathedral, that only minute in- 
spection could convince him that it was a work of nature. 

2 The reader will recollect the epigram of the Greek an- 
thology, or its translation into most of the modern lan- 
guages :— 

" Whoe'er thou art, thy master 
He was, or is, or is to be." 



206 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Canto IV. 



Had risen, in tracking fast his ocean prey, 
Into the cave which round and o'er them lay- 
How in some desperate feud of after-time 
He shelter'd there a daughter of the clime, 
A foe beloved, and offspring of a foe, 
Saved by his tribe but for a captive's woe ; 
How, when the storm of Avar was still'd, he led 
His island clan to where the waters spread 
Their deep-green shadow o'er the rocky door, 
Then dived — it seem'd as if to rise no more : 
His wondering mates, amazed within their bark, 
Or deem'd him mad, or prey to the blue shark ; 
Row'd round in sorrow the sea-girded rock, 
Then paused upon their paddles from the shock ; 
When, fresh and springing from the deep, they saw 
A goddess rise — so deem'd they in their awe ; 
And their companion, glorious by her side, 
Proud and exulting in his mermaid bride ; 
And how, when undeceived, the pair they bore 
With sounding conchs and joyous shouts to shore ; 
How they had gladly lived and calmly died, 
And why not also Torquil and his bride ? 
Not mine to tell the rapturous caress 
Which follow'd wildly in that wild recess 
This tale ; enough that all within that cave 
Was love, though buried strong as in the grave 
Where Abelard, through twenty years of death, 
When Eloisa's form was lower'd beneath 
Their nuptial vault, his arms outstretch'd, and press'd 
The kindling ashes to his kindled breast.^ 
The waves without sang round their couch, their roar 
As much unheeded as if life were o'er ; 
Within, their hearts made all their harmony, 
Love's broken murmur and more broken sigh. 

X. 

And they, the cause and sharers of the shock 
Which left them exiles of the hollow rock. 
Where were they ? O'er the sea for life they plied, 
To seek from Heaven the shelter men denied. 
Another course had been their choice — but where ? 
The wave which bore them still their foes would 

bear. 
Who, disappointed of their former chase, 
In search of Christian now renew'd their race. 
Eager with anger, their strong arms made way. 
Like vultures baffled of their previous prey. 
They gain'd upon them, all whose safety lay 
In some bleak crag or deeply-hidden bay : 
No further chance or choice remain'd ; and right 
For the first further rock which met their sight 
They steer'd, to take their latest view of land. 
And yield as victims, or die sword in hand ; 
Dismiss'd the natives and their shallop, who 
Would still have battled for that scanty crew ; 
But Christian bade them seek their shore again, 
Nor add a sacrifice which were in vain ; 



1 The tradition is attached to the story of Eloisa, that 
when her body was lowered into the grave of Abelard (who 



For what were simple bow and savage spear 
Against the arms which must be wielded here ? 

XI. 

They landed on a wild but narrow scene. 

Where few but Nature's footsteps yet had been ; 

Prepared their arms, and with that gloomy eye, 

Stern and sustain'd, of man's extremity. 

When hope is gone, nor glory's self remains 

To cheer resistance against death or chains, — 

They stood, the three, as the three hundred stood 

Who dyed Thermopylae with holy blood. 

But, ah ! how different ! 'tis the cause makes all. 

Degrades or hallows courage in its fall. 

O'er them no fame, eternal and intense. 

Blazed through the clouds of death and beckon'd 

hence ; 
No grateful country, smiling through her tears. 
Began the praises of a thousand years ; 
No nation's eyes would on their tomb be bent^ 
No heroes envy them their monument ; 
However boldly their warm blood was spilt. 
Their life was shame, their epitaph was guilt. 
And this they knew and felt, at least the one. 
The leader of the band he had undone ; 
Who, born perchance for better things, had set 
His life upon a cast which linger'd yet : 
But now the die was to be thrown, and all 
The chances were in favor of his fall : 
And such a fall ! But still he faced the shock, 
Obdurate as a portion of the rock 
Whereon he stood, and fix'd his levell'd gun, 
Dark as a sullen cloud before the sun. 

XII. 

The boat drew nigh, well arm'd, and firm the crew 

To act whatever duty bade them do ; 

Careless of danger, as the onward wind 

Is of the leaves it strews, nor looks behind. 

And yet perhaps they rather wish'd to go 

Against a nation's than a native foe, 

And felt that this poor victim of self-will, 

Briton no more, had once been Britain's still. 

They hail'd him to surrender — no reply ; 

Their arms were poised, and glitter' d in the sky. 

They hail'd again — no answer ; yet once more 

They offer'd quarter louder than before. ■* 

The echoes only, from the rock's rebound, 

Took their last farewell of the dying sound. 

Then flash'd the flint, and blazed the volleying flame, 

And the smoke rose between them and their aim, 

While the rock rattled with the bullets' knell. 

Which peal'd in vain, and flatten'd as they fell ; 

Then flew the only answer to be given 

By those who had lost all hope in earth or heaven. 

After the first fierce peal, as they pull'd nigher. 

They heard the voice of Christian shout, ** Now, fire !" 



had been buried twenty years), he opened his arms to receive 
her. 



Canto IV. 



THE ISLAND. 



207 



And ere the word upon the echo died, 
Two fell ; the rest assail'd the rock's rough side, 
And, furious at the madness of their foes, 
Disdain'd all further eflforts, save to close. 
But steep the crag, and all without a path. 
Each step opposed a bastion to their wrath. 
While, placed midst clefts the least accessible. 
Which Christian's eye was train'd to mark full 

well. 
The three maintain'd a strife which must not yield. 
In spots where eagles might have chosen to build. 
Their every shot told ; while the assailant fell, 
Dash'd on the shingles lilvc the limpet shell ; 
But still enough survived, and mounted still, 
Scattering their numbers here and there, until 
Surrounded and commanded, though not nigh 
Enough for seizure, near enough to die. 
The desperate trio held aloof their fate 
But by a thread, like sharks who have gorged the 

bait ; 
Yet to the very last they battled well, 
And not a groan inform'd their foes who fell. 
Christian died last — twice wounded ; and once more 
Mercy was oflfer'd when they saw his gore ; 
Too late for life, but not too late to die, 
With, though a hostile hand, to close his eye. 
A limb was broken, and he droop'd along 
The crag, as doth a falcon reft of young. 
The sound revived him, or appear'd to wake 
Some passion which a weakly gesture spake : 
He beckon'd to the foremost, who drew nigh. 
But, as they near'd, he rear'd his weapon high — 
His last ball had been aim'd, but from his breast 
He tore the topmost button from his vest,i 
Down the tube dash'd it, levell'd, fired, and smiled 
As his foe fell ; then, like a serpent, coil'd 
His wounded, weary form, to where the steep 
Look'd desperate as himself along the deep ; 
Cast one glance back, and clench'd his hand, and 

shook 
His last rage 'gainst the earth which he forsook ; 
Then plunged : the rock below received like glass 
His body crush'd into one gory mass. 
With scarce a shred to tell of human form. 
Or fragment for the sea-bird or the worm ; 
A fair-hair'd scalp, besmear'd with blood and weeds, 
Yet reek'd, the remnant of himself and deeds ; 
Some splinters of his weapons (to the last. 
As long as hand could hold, he held them fast) 
Yet glitter'd, but at distance— hurl'd away 
To rust beneath the dew and dashing spray. 
The rest was nothing— save a life misspent, 
And soul — but who shall answer where it went ? 



1 In Thibault's account of Frederic the Second of Prussia, 
there is a singular relation of a young Frenchman, who with 
his mistress appeared to be of some rank. He enlisted and 
deserted at Schweidnitz; and after a desperate resistance 
was retaken, having killed an oflEicer, who attempted to seize 
him after he was wounded, by the discharge of his musket 
loaded with a button of his uniform. Some circumstances on 



'Tis ours to bear, not judge the dead ; and they 
Who doom to hell, themselves are on the way. 
Unless these bullies of eternal pains 
Are pardon'd their bad hearts for their worse brains. 

XIII. 

The deed was over ! All were gone or ta'en. 

The fugitive, the captive, or the slain. 

Chain'd on the deck, where once, a gallant crew, 

They stood with honor, were the wretched few 

Survivors of the skirmish on the isle ; 

But the last rock left no surviving spoil. 

Cold lay they where they fell, and weltering. 

While o'er them flapp'd the sea-birds' dewy wing. 

Now wheeling nearer from the neighboring surge, 

And screaming high their harsh and hungry dirge : 

But calm and careless heaved the wave below, 

Eternal with unsympathetic flow ; 

Far o'er its face the dolphins sported on, 

And sprung the flying fish against the sun, 

Till its dried wing relapsed from its brief height, 

To gather moisture for another flight. 

XIV. 
'Twas morn ; and Neuha, who by dawn of day 
Swam smoothly forth to catch the rising ray. 
And watch if aught approach'd the amphibious lair 
Where lay her lover, saw a sail in air : 
It flapp'd, it fill'd, and to the growing gale 
Bent its broad arch : her breath began to fail 
With fluttering fear, her heart beat thick and high, 
While yet a doubt sprung where its course might lie. 
But no ! it came not ; fast and far away 
The shadow lessen'd as it clear'd the bay. 
She gazed, and flung the sea-foam from her eyes. 
To watch as for a rainbow in the skies. 
On the horizon verged the distant deck, 
Diminish'd, dwindled to a very speck — 
Then vanish'd. All was ocean, all was joy ! 
Down plunged she through the cave to rouse her 

boy; 
Told all she had seen, and all she hoped, and all 
That happy love could augur or recall ; 
Sprung forth again, with Torquil following free 
His bounding nereid over the broad sea ; 
Swam round the rock, to where a shallow cleft 
Hid the canoe that Neuha there had left 
Drifting along the tide, without an oar. 
That eve the strangers chased them from the shore ; 
But when these vanish'd, she pursued her prow, 
Regain'd, and urged to where they found it now : 
Nor ever did more love and joy embark, 
Than now were wafted in that slender ark. 



his court-martial raised a great interest amongst his judges, 
who wished to discover his real situation in life, which he 
offered to disclose, but to the king only, to whom he requested 
pel-mission to write. This was refused, and Frederic was 
filled with the greatest indignation, from baffled curiosity or 
some other motive, when he understood that his request had 
been denied. 



208 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



Canto IV. 



XV. 

Again their own shore rises on the view, 

No more polluted with a hostile hue ; 

No sullen ship lay bristling o'er the foam, 

A floating dungeon : — all was hope and home ! 

A thousand proas darted o'er the bay, 

With sounding shells, and heralded their way ; 

The chiefs came down, around the people pour'd, 

And welcomed Torquil as a son restored ; 

The women throng'd, embracing and embraced 

By Neuha, asking where they had been chased, 



1 " Byron ! the sorcerer ! He can do with me according to 
his will. If it is to throw me headlong upon a desert island ; 
if it is to place me on the summit of a dizzy cUfl— his power 
is the same. I wish he had a friend or a servant, appointed 



And how escaped? The tale was told; and 

then 
One acclamation rent the sky again ; 
And from that hour a new tradition gave 
Their sanctuary the name of " Neuha's Cave." 
A hundred fires, far flickering from the height, 
Blazed o'er the general revel of the night. 
The feast in honor of the guest, return'd 
To peace and pleasure, perilously earn'd ; 
A night succeeded by such happy days 
As only the yet infant world displays.^ 



to the office of the slave who was to knock every morning at 
the chamber-door of Philip of Macedon, and remind him he 
was mortal."— Dr. Parr. 



anftetr: 



A DRAMATIC POEM. 



" There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." 



DRAMATIS PERSONiE. 



Manfred. 

Chamois Hunter. 

Abbot op St. Maurice. 

Manuel. 

Herman. 

Witch of the Alps. 

Arimanes. 

Nemesis. 

The Destinies. 

Spirits, &c. 



The scene of the Drama is amongst the Higher Alps — 
partly in the Castle of Manfred, and partly in the 
Mountains. 



The following extracts from Lord Byron's letters to Mr. 
Murray, are all we have to offer respecting the history of the 
composition of Manfred : — 

Venice, Feb. 15, 1817.— "I forgot to mention to you, that. a 
kind of Poem in dialogue (in blank verse) or Drama, from 
which ' the Incantation ' is an extract, begun last summer in 
Switzerland, is finished ; it is in three acts, but of a very wild, 
metaphysical, and inexplicable kind. Almost all the persons 
— but two or three — are Spirits of the earth and air, or the 
waters ; the scene is in the Alps ; the hero a kind of magician, 
who is tormented by a species of remorse, the cause of which 
is left half unexplained. He wanders about invoking these 
Spirits, which appear to him, and are of no use ; he at last 
goes to the very abode of the Evil Principle, in proprid per- 
sond, to evocate a ghost, which appears, and gives him an am- 
biguous and disagreeable answer ; and, in the third act, he 
is found by his attendants dying in a tower where he had 
studied his art. You may perceive, by this outline, that I have 
no great opinion of this piece of fantasy ; but I have at least 
rendered it quite impossible for the stage, for which my inter- 
course with Drury Lane has given me the greatest contempt. 
I have not even copied it off, and feel too lazy at present to 
attempt the whole ; but when I have, I will send it you, and 
you may either throw it into the fire or not." 

March 3.—" I sent you the other day, in two covers, the 
first act of ' Manfred,' a drama as mad as Nat Lee's Bedlam 
tragedy, which was in twenty-five acts and some odd scenes : 
mine is but in three acts." 

March 9. — " In remitting the third act of the sort of dra- 
matic poem of which you will by this time have received 
the two first, I have little to observe, except that you must 
not publish it (if it ever is published) without giving me pre- 
14 



Mmtuti. 



ACT I. 

SCENE L 



Manfred alone. — Scene, a Gothic Gallery. — Time, 

Midnight. 

Man. The lamp must be replenish'd, but even then 
It will not burn so long as I must watch : 
My slumbers — if I slumber — are not sleep, 
But a continuance of enduring thought, 
Which then I can resist not : in my heart 
There is a vigil, and these eyes but close 
To look within ; and yet I live, and bear 
The aspect and the form of breathing men. 

vious notice. I have really and truly no notion whether it 
is good or bad ; and as this was not the case with the princi- 
pal of my former publications, I am, therefore, incKned to 
rank it very humbly. You will submit it to Mr. Gifford, and 
to whomsoever you please besides. The thing, you will see 
at a glimpse, could never be attempted or thought of for the 
stage ; I much doubt if for publication even. It is too much 
in my old style ; but I composed it actually with a horror of 
the stage, and with a view to render the thought of it im- 
practicable, knowing the zeal of my friends that I should 
try that for which I have an invincible repugnance, viz., a 
representation. I certainly am a devil of a mannerist, and 
must leave off; but what could I do? Without exertion of 
some kind, I should have sunk under my imagination and 
reality." 

March 25. — " With regard to the ' Witch Drama,' I repeat, 
that I have not an idea if it is good or bad. If bad, it must, 
on no account, be risked in publication ; if good, it is at your 
service. I value it at three hundred guineas, or less, if you 
like it. Perhaps, if published, the best way will be to add it 
to your winter volume and not publish separately. The 
price will show you I don't pique myself upon it ; so speak 
out. You may put it into the fire, if you like, and Gifford 
don't like." 

April 9.—" As for ' Manfred,' the two fltst acts are the best ; 
the third so so ; but I was blown with the fiirst and second 
heats. You may call it a ' Poem,' for it is no Drama, and I 
do not choose to have it called by so d — d a name— a ' Poem 
in dialogue,' or— Pantomime, if you will ; any thing but a 
green-room synonym : and this is your motto — 

'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' " 

( 209 ) 



210 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Act I. 



But grief should be the instructor of the wise ; 
Sorrow is knowledge : they who know the most 
Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth, 
The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life. 
Philosophy and science, and the springs 
Of wonder, and the wisdom of the world, 
I have essay'd, and in my mind there is 
A power to make these subject to itself— 
But they avail not : I have done men good. 
And I have met with good even among men — 
But this avail'd not : I have had my foes. 
And none have baffled, many fallen before me — 
But this avail'd not : — Good, or evil, life, 



The third act was rewritten before publication ; as to the 
particulars of which, the reader is referred to a subsequent 
note. To avoid overloading the margin, we may give here the 
most important paragraphs of the two ablest critiques that 
immediately followed the appearance of Manfred : — 

" In Manfred, we recognize at once the gloom and potency 
of that soul which burned and blasted and fed upon itself, in 
Harold, and Conrad, and Lara— and which comes again in 
this piece, more in sorrow than in anger — more proud, per- 
haps, and more awful than ever— but with the fiercer traits 
of its misanthropy subdued, as it were, and quenched in the 
gloom of a deeper despondency. Manfred does not, like 
Conrad and Lara, wreak the anguish of his burning heart in 
the dangers and daring of desperate and predatory war— nor 
seek to drown bitter thoughts in the tumult of perpetual con- 
tention ; nor yet, like Harold, does he sweep over the peopled 
scenes of the earth with high disdain and aversion, and make 
hi^ survey of the business, and pleasures, and studies of man 
an occasion for taunts and sarcasms, and the food of an un- 
measurable spleen. He is fixed by the genius of the poet in 
the majestic solitudes of the central Alps — where, from his 
youth up, he has lived in proud but calm seclusion from the 
ways of men, conversing only with the magnificent forms and 
aspects of nature by which he is surrounded, and with the 
Spirits of the Elements over whom he has acquired dominion, 
by the secret and unhallowed studies of sorcery and magic. 
He is averse, indeed, from mankind, and scorns the low and 
frivolous nature to which he belongs; but he cherishes no 
animosity or hostility to that feeble race. Their concerns 
excite no interest— their pursuits no sympathy— their joys 
no envy. It is irksome and vexatious for him to be crossed 
by them in his melancholy musings,— but he treats them with 
gentleness and pity ; and, except when stung to impatience 
by too importunate an intrusion, is kind and consideiate to 
the comforts of all around him. This piece is properly en- 
titled a dramatic poem — for it is merely poetical, and is not 
at all a drama or play in the modern acceptation of the term. 
It has no action, no plot, and no characters ; Manfred merely 
muses and suffers from the beginning to the end. His dis- 
tresses are the same at the opening of the scene and at its 
closing, and the temper in which they are borne is the same. 
A hunter and a priest, and some domestics, are indeed intro- 
duced, but they have no connection with the passions or 
sufferings on which the interest depends; and Manfred is 
substantially alone throughout the whole piece. He holds 
no communion but with the memory of the Being he had 
loved, and the immortal Spirits whom he evokes to reproach 
with his misery, and their inability to relieve it. These un- 
earthly beings approach nearer to the character of persons of 
the drama — ^but still they are but choral accompaniments to 
the performance ; and Manfred is, in reality, the only actor 
and sufferer on the scene. To delineate his character in- 
deed — to render conceivable his feelings — is plainly the 
whole scope and design of the poem ; and the conception and 
execution are, in this respect, equally admirable. It is a 



Powers, i:)assions, all I see in other beings, 

Have been to me as rain unto the sands, 

Since that all-nameless hour. I have no dread, 

And feel the curse to have no natural fear, 

Nor fluttering throb, that beats with hopes or 

wishes, 
Or lurking love of something on the earth. 
Now to my task. — 

Mysterious Agency ! 
Ye spirits of the unbounded Universe ! ^ 
Whom I have sought in darkness and in light — 
Ye, who do compass earth about, and dwell 
In subtler essence — ye, to whom the tops 



grand and terrific vision of a being invested with superhuman 
attributes, in order that he may be capable of more than hu- 
man sufferings, and be sustained under them by more than 
human force and pride. To object to the improbability of 
the fiction, is to mistake the end and aim of the author. 
Probabilities, we apprehend, did not enter at all into his con- 
sideration; his object was, to produce effect — to exalt and 
dilate the character through whom he was to interest or ap- 
pall us — and to raise our conception of it, by all the helps that 
could be derived from the majesty of nature, or the dread of 
superstition. It is enough, therefore, if the situation in which 
he has placed him is conceivable, and if the supposition of its 
reality enhances our emotions and kindles our imagination ; 
—for it is Manfred only that we are required to fear, to pity, 
or admire. If we can once conceive of him as a real existence, 
and enter into the depth and the height of his pride and his 
sorrows, we may deal as we please with the means that have 
been used to furnish us with this impression, or to enable us 
to attain to this conception. We may regard them but as 
types, or metaphors, or allegories ; but he is the thing to be 
expressed, and the feeling and the intellect of which all these 
are but shadows." — Jeffeey. 

" In this very extraordinary poem. Lord Byron has pursued 
the same course as in the third canto of Childe Harold, and 
put out his strength upon the same objects. The action is 
laid among the mountains of the Alps — the characters are 
all, more or less, formed and swayed by the operations of the 
magnificent scenery around them, and every page of the poem 
teems with imagery and passion, though, at the same time, 
the mind of the poet is often overborne, as it were, by the 
strength and novelty of its own conceptions ; and thus the 
composition, as a whole, is liable to many and fatal objections. 
But there is a still more novel exhibition of Lord Byron's 
powers in this remarkable drama. He has here burst into 
the world of spirits ; and, in the wild delight with which the 
elements of nature seem to have inspired him, he has en- 
deavored to embody and call up before him their ministering 
agents, and to employ these wild personificatioqs, as he for- 
merly employed the feelings and passions of man. We are 
not prepared to say, that, in this daring attempt, he has com- 
pletely succeeded. We are inclined to think, that the plan 
he has conceived, and the principal character which he has 
wished to delineate, would require a fuller development than 
is here given to them ; and, accordingly, a sense of imperfec- 
tion, incompleteness, and confusion accompanies the mind 
throughout the perusal of the poem, owing either to some 
failure on the part of the poet, or to the inherent mystery of 
the subject. But though, on that account, it is diflScult to 
comprehend distinctly the drift of the composition, it unques- 
tionably exhibits many noble delineations of mountain sce- 
nery,— many impressive and terrible pictures of passion, — 
and many wild and awful visions of imaginary horror." — 
Professor Wilson. 

^ " Eternal Agency ! 

Ye spii'its of the immortal Universe !" — MS, 



Scene I. 



MANFEED. 



211 



Of mountains inaccessible are haunts,* 

And earth's and ocean's caves familiar things — 

I call upon ye by the written charm 

Which gives me power upon you Rise ! Appear ! 

[A pause. 
They come not yet. — Now by the voice of him 
Who is the first among you — by this sign, 
Which makes you tremble — by the claims of him 
Who is undying, — Rise ! Appear ! Appear ! 

[A pause. 
If it be so. — Spirits of earth and air, 
Ye shall not thus elude me : by a power, 
Deeper than all yet urged, a tyrant spell. 
Which had its birthplace in a star condemn'd, 
The burning wreck of a demolish'd world, 
A wandering hell in the eternal space ; 
By the strong curse which is upon my soul. 
The thought which is within me and around me, 
I do compel ye to my will. — Appear ! 

[A star is seen at the darker end of the gallery : it 
is stationary; and a voice is heard singing. 

FlEST Spieit. 
Mortal ! to thy bidding bow'd, 
From my mansion in the cloud, 
AVhich the breath of twilight builds, 
And the summer's sunset gilds 
With the azure and vermilion, 
Which is mix'd for my pavilion ;2 
Though thy quest may be forbidden, 
On a star-beam I have ridden : 
To thine adjuration bow'd. 
Mortal — be thy wish avow'd ! 

Voice of the Second Spirit. 
Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains ; 

They crown'd him long ago 
On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds, 

With a diadem of snow. 
Around his waist are forests braced, 

The Avalanche in his hand ; 
But ere it fall, that thundering ball 

Must pause for my command. 
The Glacier's cold and restless mass 

Moves onward day by day ; 
But I am he who bids it pass, 

Or with its ice delay.^ 
I am the spirit of the place. 

Could make the mountain bow 
And quiver to his cavern'd base — 

And what with me wouldst Thou f 

Voice of the Third Spirit. 
In the blue depth of the waters. 

Where the wave hath no strife, 
Where the wind is a stranger. 

And the sea-snake hath life. 



1 " Of inaccessible mountains are the haunts."- 

2 "Which is fit for my pavilion."— MS. 



-MS. 



Where the Mermaid is decking 

Her green hair with shells, 
Like the storm on the surface 

Came the sound of thy spells ; 
O'er my calm Hall of Coral 

The deep echo roll'd — 
To the Spirit of Ocean 

Thy wishes unfold ! 

Fourth Spirit. 
Where the slumbering earthquake 

Lies pillow'd on fire, 
And the lakes of bitumen 

Rise boilingly higher ; 
Where the roots of the Andes 

Strike deep in the earth, 
As their summits to heaven 

Shoot soaringly forth ; 
I have quitted my birthplace, 

Thy bidding to bide — 
Thy spell hath subdued me, 

Thy will be my guide ! 

Fifth Spirit. 
I am the Rider of the wind, 

The Stirrer of the storm ; 
The hurricane I left behind 

Is yet with lightning warm ; 
To speed to thee, o'er shore and sea 

I swept upon the blast : 
The fleet I met sail'd well, and yet 

'Twill sink ere night be past. 

Sixth Spirit. 
My dwelling is the shadow of the night, 
Why doth thy magic torture me with 
light? 

Seventh Spirit. 
The star which rules thy destiny 
Was ruled, ere earth began, by me : 
It was a world as fresh and fair 
As e'er revolved round sun in air ; 
Its course was free and regular. 
Space bosom'd not a lovelier star. 
The hour arrived — and it became 
A wandering mass of shapeless flame, 
A pathless comet, and a curse, 
The menace of the universe ; 
Still rolling on with innate force, 
Without a sphere, without a course, 
A bright deformity on high. 
The monster of the upper sky ! 
And thou ! beneath its influence born — 
Thou worm ! whom I obey and scorn — 
Forced by a power (which is not thine. 
And lent thee but to make thee mine) 

3 " Or makes its ice delay." — MS. 



212 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Act I. 



For this brief moment to descend, 

Where these weak spirits round thee bend 

And parley with a thing like thee — 

What wouldst thou, Child of Clay ! with me ? 

The Seven Spieits. 
Earth, ocean, air, night, mountains, winds, thy star, 

Are at thy beck and bidding, Child of Clay ! 
Before thee at thy quest their spirits are — 

What wouldst thou with us, son of mortals— say ? 

Man. Forgetfulness 

First Spirit. Of what— of whom — and why? 

Man. Of that which is within me ; read it there — 
Ye know it, and I cannot utter it. 

Spirit. We can but give thee that which we pos- 
sess: 
Ask of us subjects, sovereignty, the power 
O'er earth — the whole, or portion — or a sign 
Which shall control the elements, whereof 
We are the dominators, each and all, 
These shall be thine. 

Man. Oblivion, self-oblivion- 

Can ye not wring from out the hidden realms 
Ye offer so profusely what I ask ? 

Spirit. It is not in our essence, in our skill ; 
But — thou mayst die. 

Man. Will death bestow it on me ? 

Spirit. We are immortal, and do not forget ; 
We are eternal ; and to us the past 
Is, as the future, present. Art thou answer'd ? 

Man. Ye mock me — but the power which brought 
ye here 
Hath made you mine. Slaves, scoff not at my will ! 
The mind, the spirit, the Promethean spark, 
The lightning of my being, is as bright, 
Pervading, and far-darting as your own. 
And shall not yield to yours, though coop'd in clay ! 
Answer, or I will teach you what I am. 

Spirit. We answer as we answer'd ; our reply 
Is even in thine own words. 

Man. Why say ye so ? 

Spirit. If, as thou sayst, thine essence be as ours, 
We have replied in telling thee, the thing 
Mortals call death hath nought to do with us. 

Man. I then have call'd ye from your realms in 
vain ; 
Ye cannot, or ye will not, aid me. 

Spirit. Say ; 

What we possess we offer ; it is thine : 

1 These verses were written in Switzerland, in 1816, and 
transmitted to England for publication, witli the third canto 
of Childe Harold. "As they were written," says Mr. Moore, 
"immediately after the last fruitless attempt at reconcilia- 
tion, it is needless to say who was in the poet's thoughts 
while he penned some of the opening stanzas." 

2 "And the vnsp on the morass." Hearing, in February, 
1818, of a menaced version of Manfred by some Italian, Lord 
Byron wrote to his friend Mr. Hoppner— " If you have any 
means of communicating with the man, would you permit 



Bethink ere thou dismiss us, ask again — 

Kingdom, and sway, and strength, and length of 



Man. Accursed ! what have I to do with days ? 
They are too long already. — Hence — begone ! 

Spirit. Yet pause : being here, our will would do 
thee service ; 
Bethink thee, is there then no other gift 
Which we can make not worthless in thine eyes ? 

Man. No, none; yet stay — one moment, ere we 
part — 
I would behold ye face to face. I hear 
Your voices, sweet and melancholy sounds. 
As music on the waters ; and I see 
The steady aspect of a clear large star ; 
But nothing more. Approach me as ye are, 
Or one, or all, in your accustom'd forms. 

Spirit. We have no forms beyond the elements 
Of which we are the mind and principle : 
But choose a form — in that we will appear. 

Man. I have no choice; there is no form on 
earth 
Hideous or beautiful to me. Let him. 
Who is most powerful of ye, take such aspect 
As unto him may seem most fitting — Come ! 

Seventh Spirit {appearing in the shape of a 
beautiful female figure) . Behold ! 

Man. Oh God ! if it be thus, and thou 
Art not a madness and a mockery, 
I yet might be most happy. I will clasp thee. 

And we again will be [The figure vanishes. 

My heart is crush'd ! 
[Manfred falls senseless. 

(A Voice is heard in the Incantation which follows.)^ 
When the moon is on the wave. 

And the glow-worm in the grass, 
And the meteor on the grave. 

And the wisp on the morass ; ^ 
When the falling stars are shooting, 
And the answer'd owls are hooting, 
And the silent leaves are still 
In the shadow of the hill. 
Shall my soul be upon thine. 
With a power and with a sign. 

Though thy slumber may be deep. 

Yet thy spirit shall not sleep ; 

There are shades which will not vanish, 

There are thoughts thou canst not banish ; 

me to convey to him the offer of any price he may obtain, or 
think to obtain, for his project, provided he will throw his 
translation into the fire, and promise not to undertake any 
other of that, or any other of my things? I will send him 
his money immediately, on this condition." A negotiation 
was accordingly set on foot, and the translator, on receiving 
two hundred francs, delivered up his manuscript, and en- 
gaged never to translate any other of the poet's works. Of 
his qualifications for the task some notion may be formed 
from the fact, that he had turned the word "wisp," in this 
line, into a "bundle of straw." 



Scene II. 



MANFEED.- 



213 



By a power to thee unknown, 
Thou canst never be alone ; 
Thou art wrapt as with a shroud, 
Thou art gather'd in a cloud ; 
And for ever shalt thou dwell 
In the spirit of this spell. 
Though thou seest me not pass by, 
Thou shalt feel me with thine eye 
As a thing that, though unseen. 
Must be near thee, and hath been ; 
And when in that secret dread 
Thou hast turn'd around thy head, 
Thou shalt marvel I am not 
As thy shadow on the spot. 
And the power which thou dost feel 
Shall be what thou must conceal. 

And a magic voice and verse 

Hath baptized thee with a curse ; 

And a spirit of the air 

Hath begirt thee with a snare ; 

In the wind there is a voice 

Shall forbid thee to rejoice ; 

And to thee shall Night deny 

All the quiet of her sky ; 

And the day shall have a sun. 

Which shall make thee wish it done. 

From thy false tears I did distill 
An essence which hath strength to kill ; 
From thy own heart I then did wring 
The black blood in its blackest spring ; 
From thy own smile I snatch'd the snake. 
For there it coil'd as in a brake ; 
From thy own lip I drew the charm 
Which gave all these their chiefest harm ; 
In proving every poison known, 
I found the strongest was thine own. 

By thy cold breast and serpent smile, 

By thy unfathom'd gulfs of guile, 

By that most seeming virtuous eye. 

By thy shut soul's hypocrisy ; 

By the perfection of thine art 

Which pass'd for human thine own heart; 

By thy delight in others' pain. 

And by thy brotherhood of Cain, 

I call upon thee ! and compel ^ 

Thyself to be thy proper Hell 1 

And on thy head I pour the vial 

Which doth devote thee to this trial ; 

Nor to slumber, nor to die. 

Shall be in thy destiny ; 

Though thy death shall still seem near 

To thy wish, but as a fear ; 

Lo ! the spell now works around thee. 

And the clankless chain hath bound thee ; 

1 " I do adjure thee to this spell."— MS. 



O'er thy heart and brain together 

Hath the word been pass'd — now wither ! 

SCENE II. 

The Mountain of the Jungfrau. — Time, Morning. — 
Manfeed alone upon the Cliffs. 

Man. The spirits I have raised abandon me — 
The spells which I have studied baffle me — 
The remedy I reck'd of tortured me ; 
I lean no more on superhuman aid ; 
It hath no power upon the past, and for 
The future, till the past be gulf 'd in darkness, 
It is not of my search. — My mother Earth ! 
And thou fresh breaking Day, and you, ye 

Mountains, 
Why are ye beautiful ? I cannot love ye. 
And thou, the bright eye of the universe. 
That openest over all, and unto all 
Art a delight — thou shin'st not on my heart. 
And you, ye crags, upon whose extreme edge 
I stand, and on the torrent's brink beneath 
Behold the tall pines dwindled as to shrubs 
In dizziness of distance ; when a leap, 
A stir, a motion, even a breath, would bring 
My breast upon its rocky bosom's bed 
To rest for ever — wherefore do I pause ? 
I feel the impulse — yet I do not plunge ; 
I see the peril — ^yet do not recede ; 
And my brain reels — and yet my foot is firm : 
There is a power upon me which withholds, 
And makes it my fatality to live ; 
If it be life to wear within myself 
This barrenness of spirit, and to be 
My own soul's sepulchre, for I have ceased 
To justify my deeds unto myself— 
The last infirmity of evil. Ay, 
Thou winged and cloud-cleaving minister, 

{An eagle passes. 
Whose happy flight is highest into heaven. 
Well mayst thou swoop so near me — I should be 
Thy prey, and gorge thine eaglets ; thou art gone 
Where 'the eye cannot follow thee ; but thine 
Yet pierces downward, onward, or above, 
With a pervading vision. — Beautiful ! 
How beautiful is all this visible world ! 
How glorious in its action and itself! 
But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we. 
Half dust, half deity, alike unfit 
To sink or soar, with our mix'd essence make 
A conflict of its elements, and breathe 
The breath of degradation and of pride, 
Contending with low wants and lofty will. 
Till our mortality predominates. 
And men are — what they name not to themselves, 
And trust not to each other. Hark ! the note, 

[The Shepherd's pipe in the distance is heard. 
The natural music of the mountain reed — 
For here the patriarchal days are not 
A pastoral fable — pipes in the liberal air. 



214 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Act I. 



Mix'd with the sweet bells of the sauntering herd ; i 
My soul would drink those echoes. Oh, that I were 
The viewless spirit of a lovely sound, 
A living voice, a breathing harmony, 
A bodiless enjoy ment^ — born and dying 
With the blest tone which made me ! 

Enter from below a CHAMOIS Hunter. 

Chamois Htjntek. Even so 

This way the chamois leapt : her nimble feet 
Have baffled me ; my gains to-day will scarce 
Eepay my break-neck travail.— What is here ? 
Who seems not of my trade, and yet hath reach'd 
A height which none even of our mountaineers, 
Save our best hunters, may attain : his garb 
Is goodly, his mien manly, and his air 
Proud as a freeborn peasant's, at this distance — 
I will approach him nearer. 

Man. (not perceiving the other). To be thus — 
Gray-hair'd with anguish,^ like these blasted pines, 
Wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless,^ 
A blighted trunk upon a cursed root, 
Which but supplies a feeling to decay — 
And to be thus, eternally but thus, 
Having been otherwise ! Now furrow'd o'er 
With wrinkles, plough'd by moments, not by years 
And hours — all tortured into ages — hours 
Which I outlive ! — Ye toppling crags of ice ! 
Ye avalanches, whom a breath draws down 
In mountainous o'erwhelming, come and crush 

me! 
I hear ye momently above, beneath. 
Crash with a frequent conflict;* but ye pass. 
And only fall on things that still would live ; 

1 The germs of this, and of several other passages in Man- 
fred, may be found in the Journal of his Swiss tour, which 
Lord Byron transmitted to his sister ; e. g. : — " Sept. 19. — Ar- 
rived at a lake in the very bosom of the mountains ; left our 
quadrupeds, and ascended further; came to some snow in 
patches, upon which my forehead's perspiration fell like rain, 
making the same dents as in a sieve ; the chill of the wind 
and the snow turned me giddy, but I scrambled on and up- 
wards. Hobhouse went to the highest pinnacle. The whole 
of the mountains superb. A shepherd on a steep and very 
high cliff playing upon his pipe; very different from Arcadia. 
The music of the cows' bells (for their wealth, like the patri- 
archs', is cattle) in the pastures, which reach to a height far 
above any mountains in Britain, and the shepherds shouting 
to us from crag to crag, and playing on their reeds where the 
steeps appeared almost inaccessible, with the surrounding 
scenery, realized all that I had ever heard or imagined of a 
pastoral existence— much more so than Greece or Asia Minor ; 
for there we are a little too much of the sabre and musket 
order, and if there is a crook in one hand, you are sure to 
see a gun in the other : but this was pure and unmixed— sol- 
itary, savage, and patriarchal. As we went, they played the 
' Ranz des Vaches ' and other airs, by way of farewell. I have 
lately repeopled my mind with nature." 

2 See the opening lines to the " Prisoner of Chillon," ante, 
p. 164. Speaking of Marie Antoinette, " I was struck," says 
Madame Campan, "with the astonishing change misfortune 
had wrought upon her features : her whole head of hair had 
turned almost white, during her transit from Varennes to 
Paris." The same thing occurred to the unfortunate Queen 



On the young flourishing forest, or the hut 
And hamlet of the harmless villager. 

C. HuN. The mists begin to rise from up the valley ; 
I'll warn him to descend, or he may chance 
To lose at once his way and life together. 

Man. The mists boil up around the glaciers ; clouds 
Rise curling fast beneath me, white and sulphury, 
Like foam from the roused ocean of deep Hell,^ 
Whose every wave breaks on a living shore, 
Heap'd with the damn'd like pebbles. — I am giddy.* 

C. Htjn. I must approach him cautiously ; if near, 
A sudden step will startle him, and he 
Seems tottering already. 

Man. Mountains have fallen, 

Leaving a gap in the clouds, and with the shock 
Rocking their Alpine brethren ; filling up 
The ripe green valleys with destruction's splinters ; 
Damming the rivers with a sudden dash. 
Which crush'd the waters into mist, and made 
Their fountains find another channel — thus. 
Thus, in its old age, did Mount Rosenberg — 
Why stood I not beneath it ? 

C. HiTN. Friend ! have a care. 

Your next step may be fatal ! — for the love 
Of him who made you, stand not on that brink ! 

Ma'n. (not hearing him). Such would have been for 
me a fitting tomb ; 
My bones had then been quiet in their depth ; 
They had not then been strewn upon the rocks 
For the wind's pastime — as thus — thus they shall be — 
In this one plunge. — Farewell, ye opening heavens ! 
Look not upon me thus reproachfully — 
You were not meant for me — Earth ! take these 
atoms ! 

Mary. " With calm but undaunted fortitude," says her his- 
torian, "she laid her neck upon the block; and while one 
executioner held her hands, the other, at the second stroke, 
cut off her head, which, falling out of its attire, discovered 
her hair, already grown quite gray with cares and sorrows." 
The hair of Mary's grandson, Charles I., turned quite gray, 
in like manner, during his stay at Carisbrooke. 

3 " Passed whole woods of withered pines, all withered,— 
trunks stripped and barkless, branches lifeless, — done by a 
single winter : their appearance reminded me of me and my 
family." — Swiss Journal. 

4 "Ascended the Wengern mountain ; left the horses, took 
off my coat, and went to the summit. On one side, our view 
comprised the Jungfrau, with all her glaciers ; then the Dent 
d' Argent, shining like truth ; then the Little Giant, and the 
Great Giant ; and last, not least, the Wetterhorn. The height 
of the Jungfrau is thirteen thousand feet above the sea, and 
eleven thousand above the valley. Heard the avalanches 
falling every five minutes nearly."— Swiss Journal. 

5 " Like foam from the roused ocean of old Hell." — MS. 

6 "The clouds rose from the opposite valley, curling ap 
perpendicular precipices, like the foam of the ocean of hell 
during a spring tide — it was white and sulphury, and im- 
measurably deep in appearance. The side we ascended was 
not of so precipitous a nature ; but, on arriving at the sum- 
mit, we looked down upon the other side upon a boiling sea 
of cloud, dashing against the crags on which we stood— these 
crags on one side quite perpendicular. In passing the masses 
of snow, I made a snowball and pelted Hobhouse with it."— 
Swiss Journal. 



Scene I. 



MANFRED. 



215 



lAs Manfred is in act to spring from the 
cliff, the Chamois Hunter seizes and 
retains him with a sudden grasp. 
C. Htjn. Hold, madman ! — though aweary of thy 
life, 
Stain not our pure vales with thy guilty blood : 

Away with me 1 will not quit my hold. 

Man. I am most sick at heart — nay, grasp me not — 
I am all feebleness — the mountains whirl 

Spinning around me 1 grow blind What art 

thou? 

C. Htjn. I'll answer that anon. — A way with me 

The clouds grow thicker there — now lean on me — 

Place your foot here — here, take this staff, and cling 
A moment to that shrub — now give me your hand, 
And hold fast by my girdle — softly — well — 
The Chalet will be gain'd within an hour : 
Come on, we'll quickly find a surer footing, 
And something like a pathway, which the torrent 
Hath wash'd since winter.— Come, 'tis bravely done — 
You should have been a hunter. — Follow me. 

[As they descend the rocks with difficulty, the 
scene closes. 



ACT II. 



SCENE I. 



A Cottage amongst the Bernese Alps. 
Manfred and the Chamois Hunter. 

C. Hun. No, no — yet pause — thou must not yet go 
forth: 
Thy mind and body are alike unfit 
To trust each other, for some hours, at least ; 
When thou art better, I will be thy guide — 
But whither ? 

Man. It imports not : I do know 

My route full well, and need no further guidance. 

C. Hun. Thy garb and gait bespeak thee of high 
lineage — 
One of the many chiefs, whose castled crags 
Look o'er the lower valleys — which of these 
May call thee lord ? I only know their portals ; 
My way of life leads me but rarely down 
To bask by the huge hearths of those old halls, 
Carousing with the vassals ; but the paths, 
Which step from out our mountains to their doors, 
I know from childhood — which of these is thine ? 

Man. No matter. 

C. Hun. Well, sir, pardon me the question. 

And be of better cheer. Come, taste my wine ; 
'Tis of an ancient vintage : many a day 
'T has thaw'd my veins among our glaciers, now 
Let it do thus for thine. — Come, pledge me fairly. 

Man. Away, away ! there's blood upon the brim ! 
Will it then never— never sink in the earth ? 

C. Hun. What dost thou mean ? thy senses wander 
from thee. 



Man. I say 'tis blood — my blood ! the pure warm 
stream 
Which ran in the veins of my fathers, and in ours 
When we were in our youth, and had one heart, 
And loved each other as we should not love. 
And this was shed : but still it rises up, 
Coloring the clouds, that shut me out from heaven, 
Where thou art not— and I shall never be. 

C. Hun. Man of strange words, and some half- 
maddening sin. 
Which makes thee people vacancy, whate'er 
Thy dread and sufferance be, there's comfort yet — 
The aid of holy men, and heavenly patience 

Man. Patience and patience! Hence — that word 
was made 
For brutes of burthen, not for birds of prey ; 
Preach it to mortals of a dust like thine, — 
I am not of thine order. 

C. Hun. Thanks to heaven ! 

I would not be of thine for the free fame 
Of William Tell ; but whatsoe'er thine ill. 
It must be borne, and these wild starts are useless. 

Man. Do I not bear it ? — Look on me — I live, 

C. Hun. This is convulsion, and no healthful life, 

Man. I tell thee, man ! I have lived many years, 
Many long years, but they are nothing now 
Tc those which I must number : ages — ages- 
Space and eternity — and consciousness. 
With the fierce thirst of death — and still unslaked ! 

C. Hun. Why, on thy brow the seal of middle age 
Hath scarce been set ; I am thine elder far, 

Man. Think'st thou existence doth depend on time ? 
It doth ; but actions are our epochs : mine 
Have made my days and nights imperishable. 
Endless, and all alike, as sands on the shore. 
Innumerable atoms ; and one desert, 
Barren and cold, on which the wild waves break, 
But nothing rests, save carcasses and wrecks, 
Eocks, and the salt-surf weeds of bitterness. 

C. Hun, Alas ! he's mad— but yet I must not leave 
him. 

Man. I would I were — for then the things I see 
Would be but a distemper'^ dream. 

C. Hun, What is it 

That thou dost see, or think thou look'st upon ? 

Man. Myself, and thee— a peasant of the Alps— 
Thy humble virtues, hospitable home. 
And spirit patient, pious, proud, and free ; 
Thy self-respect, grafted on innocent thoughts ; 
Thy days of health, and nights of sleep ; thy toils,' 
By danger dignified, yet guiltless ; hopes 
Of cheerful old age and a quiet grave. 
With cross and garland over its green turf, 
And thy grandchildren's love for epitaph ; 
This do I see — and then I look within — 
It matters not — my soul was scorch'd already ! 

C. Hun, And wouldst thou then exchange thy lot 
for mine ? 

Man. No, friend! I would not wrong thee, nor 
exchange 



216 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Act II. 



My ]ot with living being : I can bear- 
However wretchedly, 'tis still to bear — 
In life what others could not brook to dream, 
But perish in their slumber. 

C. Hun. And with this — 

This cautious feeling for another's pain, 
Canst thou be black with evil ? — say not so. 
Can one of gentle thoughts have wreak'd revenge 
Upon his enemies ? 

Man. Oh ! no, no, no ! 

My injuries came down on those who loved me — 
On those whom I best loved : I never quell'd 
An enemy, save in my just defence — 
But my embrace was fatal. 

C. Hun. Heaven give thee rest ! 

And penitence restore thee to thyself; 
My prayers shall be for thee. 

Man. I need them not, 

But can endure thy pity. I depart — 
'Tis time— farewell !— Here's gold, and thanks for 

thee — 
No words — it is thy due. — Follow me not — 
I know my path — the mountain peril's past : — 
And once again, I charge thee, follow not ! 

[Exit Manfred. 

SCENE 11. 
A lower Valley/ in the Alps. — A Cataract.^ 
Enter Manfred. 
It is not noon — the sunbow's rays^ still arch 
The torrent with the many hues of heaven. 
And roll the sheeted silver's waving column 
O'er the crag's headlong perpendicular. 
And fling its lines of foaming light along. 
And to and fro, like the pale courser's tail, 

1 " This scene is one of tlie most poetical and most sweetly- 
written in the poem. There is a still and deliciou^witchery 
in the tranquillity and seclusion of the place, and the celes- 
tial beauty of the being who reveals herself in the midst of 
these visible enchantments."— Jeffrey. 

2 This iris is formed by the rays of the sun over the lower 
part of the Alpine torrents: it is exactly like a rainbow 
come down to pay a visit, and so close that you may walk 
into it; this effect lasts till noon. — "Before ascending the 
mountain, went to the torrent ; the sun upon it, forming a 
rainbow of the lower part of all colors, but principally purple 
and gold; the bow moving as you move: I never saw any 
thing like this ; it is only in the sunshine." —Swiss Journal. 

3 " Arrived at the foot of the Jungfrau ; glaciers ; torrents : 
one of these torrents nine hundred feet in height of visible 
descent ; heard an avalanche fall, like thunder ; glaciers enor- 
mous ; storm came on— thunder, lightning, hail ; all in per- 
fection, and beautiful. The torrent is in shape curving over 
the rock, like the tail of a white horse streaming in the 
wind, such as it might be conceived would be that of the 
'pale horse' on which Death is mounted in the Apocalypse. 
It is neither mist nor water, but a something between both ; 
its immense height gives it a wave or curve, a spreading here 
or condensation there, wonderful and indescribable." — Swiss 
Journal. 

* " In all Lord Byron's heroes we recognize, though with 
infinite modifications, the same great characteristics — a high 
and audacious conception of the power of the mind, — an 



The Giant steed, to be bestrode by Death, 

As told in the Apocalypse.' No eyes 

But mine now drink this sight of loveliness ; 

I should be sole in this sweet solitude. 

And with the Spirit of the place divide 

The homage of these waters. — I will call her. 

[Manfred takes some of the water into the palm 
of his hand, and flings it in the air, muttering 
the adjuration. After a pause, the Witch of 
THE Alps rises beneath the arch of the sunbow 
of the torrent. 
Beautiful Spirit ! with thy hair of light. 
And dazzling eyes of glory, in whose form 
The charms of earth's least mortal daughters grow 
To an unearthly stature, in an essence 
Of purer elements ; while the hues of youth, — 
Carnation'd like a sleeping infant's cheek, 
Eock'd by the beating of her mother's heart. 
Or the rose tints, which summer's twilight leaves 
Upon the lofty glacier's virgin snow. 
The blush of earth, embracing with her heaven, — 
Tinge thy celestial aspect, and make tame 
The beauties of the sunbow which bends o'er thee.* 
Beautiful Spirit ! in thy calm clear brow, 
Wherein is giass'd serenity of soul, 
Which of itself shows immortality, 
I read that thou wilt pardon to a Son 
Of Earth, whom the abstruser powers permit 
At times to commune with them — if that he 
Avail him of his spells — to call thee thus, 
And gaze on thee a moment. 

Witch. Son of Earth ! 

I know thee, and the powers which give thee 

power ; 
I know thee for a man of many thoughts. 
And deeds of good and ill, extreme in both, 

intense sensibility of passion, — an almost boundless capacity 
of tumultuous emotion, — a haunting admiration of the grand- 
eur of disordered power, — and, above all, a soul-felt, blood-felt 
delight in beauty. Parisina is full of it to overflowing ; it 
breathes from every page of the Prisoner of Chillon ; but it 
is in Manfred that it riots and revels among the streams, and 
waterfalls, and groves, and mountains, and heavens. There 
is in the character of Manfred more of the self-might of 
Byion than in all his previous productions. He has therein 
brought, with wonderful power, metaphysical conceptions 
into forms, — and we know of no poem in which the aspect of 
external nature is throughout lighted up with an expression 
at once so beautiful, solemn, and majestic. It is the poem, 
next to Childe Harold, which we should give to a foreigner 
to read, that he might know something of Byron. Shak- 
speare has given to those abstractions of human life and 
being, which are truth to the intellect, forms as full, clear, 
glowing, as the idealized forms of visible nature. The very 
words of Ariel picture to us his beautiful being. In Man- 
fred we see glorious but immature manifestations of similar 
power. The poet there creates, with delight, thoughts and 
feelings and fancies into visible forms, that he may cling 
and cleave to them, and clasp them in his passion. The 
beautiful Witch of the Alps seems exhaled from the lumi- 
nous spray of the cataract,— as if the poet's eyes, unsated 
with the beauty of inanimate nature, gave spectral appari- 
tions of loveliness to feed the pure passion of the poet's 
soul."— Wilson. 




■//^.^// y/z^y r yf///r/ 



Scene II. 



MANFEED. 



217 



Fatal and fated in thy sufferings. 

I have expected this — what wouldst thou with me ? 

Man. To look upon thy beauty — nothing further.^ 
The face of the earth hath madden'd me, and I 
Take refuge in her mysteries, and pierce 
To the abodes of those who govern her — 
But they can nothing aid me. I have sought 
From them what they could not bestow, and now 
I search no further. 

Witch. What could be the quest 

Which is not in the power of the most powerful, 
The rulers of the invisible ? 

Man. a boon ; 

But why should I repeat it ? 'twere in vain. 

Witch. I know not that ; let thy lips utter it. 

Man. Well, though it torture me, 'tis but the same ; 
My pang shall find a voice. From my youth upwards 
My spirit walk'd not with the souls of men. 
Nor look'd upon the earth with human eyes ; 
The thirst of their ambition was not mine, 
The aim of their existence was not mine ; 
My joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers, 
Made me a stranger ; though I wore the form, 
I had no sympathy with breathing flesh, 
Nor midst the creatures of clay that girded me 

Was there but one who but of her anon. 

I said, with men, and with the thoughts of men, 
I held but slight communion ; but instead. 
My joy was in the wilderness, — to breathe 
The difficult air of the iced mountain's top. 
Where the birds dare not build, nor insect's wing 
Flit o'er the herbless granite ; or to plunge 
Into the torrent, and to roll along 
On the swift whirl of the new-breaking wave 
Of river-stream, or ocean, in their flow. 
In these my early strength exulted ; or 
To follow through the night the moving moon, 
The stars and their development ; or catch 
The dazzling lightnings till my eyes grew dim ; 
Or to look, list'ning, on the scatter'd leaves. 
While Autumn winds were at their evening song. 
These were my pastimes, and to be alone ; 
For if the beings, of whom I was one, — 
Hating to be so, — cross' d me in my path, 
I felt myself degraded back to them. 
And was all clay again. And then I dived, 
In my lone wanderings, to the caves of death, 
Searching its cause in its effect ; and drew 

1 "There is something exquisitely beautiful in all this 
passage; and both the apparition and the dialogue are so 
managed, that the sense of their improbability is swallowed 
up in that of their beauty ; and, without actually believing 
that such spirits exist or communicate themselves, we feel for 
the moment as if we stood in their presence." — Jeffrey. 

2 The philosopher, Jamblicus. The story of the raising of 
Eros and Anteros may be found in his life by Eunapius. It 
is well told. "It is reported of him," says Eunapius, "that 
while he and his scholars were bathing in the hot baths of 
Gadara in Syria, a dispute arising concerning the baths, he, 
smiling, ordered his disciples to ask the inhabitants by what 
names the two lesser springs, that were nearer and handsomer 



From wither'd bones, and skulls, and heap'd-up dust. 

Conclusions most forbidden. Then I pass'd 

The nights of years in sciences untaught. 

Save in the old time ; and with time and toil, 

And terrible ordeal, and such penance 

As in itself hath power upon the air. 

And spirits that do compass air and earth, 

Space, and the peopled infinite, I made 

Mine eyes familiar with Eternity, 

Such as, before me, did the Magi, and 

He who from out their fountain dwellings raised 

Eros and Anteros,^ at Gadara, 

As I do thee ; — and with my knowledge grew 

The thirst of knowledge, and the power and joy 

Of this most bright intelligence, until, 

Witch. Proceed. 

Man. Oh ! I but thus prolong'd my words, 
Boasting these idle attributes, because 
As I approach the core of my heart's grief— 
But to my task. I have not named to thee 
Father or mother, mistress, friend, or being. 
With whom I wore the chain of human ties ; 
If I had such, they seem'd not such to me ; 
Yet there was one 

Witch. Spare not thyself— proceed. 

Man. She was like me in lineaments — her eyes, 
Her hair, her features, all, to the very tone 
Even of her voice, they said were like to mine ; 
But soften'd all, and temper'd into beauty : 
She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings, 
The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind 
To comprehend the universe : nor these 
Alone, but with them gentler powers than mine. 
Pity, and smiles, and tears — which I had not ; 
And tenderness— but that I had for her ; 
Humility — and that I never had. 
Her faults were mine — her virtues were her own — 
I loved her, and destroy'd her ! 

Witch. With thy hand ? 

Man. Not with my hand, but heart— which broke 
her heart ; 
It gazed on mine, and wither'd. I have shed 
Blood, but not hers— and yet her blood was shed ; 
I saw — and could not stanch it. 

Witch. And for this — 

A being of the race thou dost despise. 
The order which thine own would rise above. 
Mingling with us and ours,— thou dost forego 



than the rest, were called. To which the inhabitants replied, 
that 'the one was called Eros, and the other Anteros, but for 
what reason they knew not.' Upon which Jamblicus, sitting 
by one of the springs, put his hand in the water, and mutter- 
ing some few words to himself, called up a fair-coraplexioned 
boy, with gold-colored locks dangling from his back and 
breast, so that he looked like one that was washing; and 
then, going to the other spring, and doing as he had done 
before, called up another Cupid, with darker and more 
dishevelled hair: upon which both the Cupids clung about 
Jamblicus ; but he presently sent them back to their proper 
places. After this, his friends submitted their belief to him 
in every thing." 



218 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Act II. 



The gifts of our great knowledge, and shrink'st back 
To recreant mortality Away ! 

Man. Daughter of Air! I tell thee, since that 
hour — 
But words are breath — look on me in my sleep, 
Or watch my watchings— Come and sit by me ! 
My solitude is solitude no more. 
But peopled with the Furies ; — I have gnash'd 
My teeth in darkness till returning morn, 
Then cursed myself till sunset ; — I have pray'd 
For madness as a blessing — 'tis denied me. 
I have affronted death — but in the war 
Of elements the waters shrunk from me, 
And fatal things pass'd harmless ; the cold hand 
Of an all-pitiless demon held me back, 
Back by a single hair, which would not break. 
In fantasy, imagination, all 
The afluence of my soul — which one day was 
A Croesus in creation — I plunged deep, 
But, like an ebbing wave, it dash'd me back 
Into the gulf of my unfathom'd thought. 
I plunged amidst mankind — Forgetfulness 
I sought in all, save where 'tis to be found, 
And that I have to learn ; my sciences, 
My long-pursued and superhuman art. 
Is mortal here : I dwell in my despair — 
And live — and live for ever. 

Witch, It may be 

That I can aid thee. 

Man. To do this thy power 

Must wake the dead, or lay me low with them. 
Do so — in any shape — in any hour — 
With any torture— so it be the last. 

Witch. That is not in my province ; but if thou 
Wilt swear obedience to my will, and do 
My bidding, it may help thee to thy wishes. 

Man. I will not swear — Obey! and whom? the 
spirits 
Whose presence I command, and be the slave 
Of those who served me — Never ! 

Witch. Is this all ? 

Hast thou no gentler answer ? — Yet bethink thee. 
And pause ere thou rejectest. 

Man. I have said it. 

1 The story of Pausanias, king of Sparta (who commanded 
the Greeks at the battle of Platsea, and afterwards perished 
for an attempt to betray the Lacedaemonians), and Cleonice, 
is told in Plutarch's life of Cimon ; and in the Laconics of 
Pausanias the Sophist, in his description of Greece. — The fol- 
lowing is the passage from Plutarch: — "It is related, that 
when Pausanias was at Byzantium, he cast his eyes upon a 
young virgin named Cleonice, of a noble family there, and 
insisted on having her for a mistress. The parents, intimid- 
ated by his power, were under the hard necessity of giving 
up their daughter. The young woman begged that the light 
might be taken out of his apartment, that she might go to 
his bed in secrecy and silence. When she entered he was 
asleep, and she unfortunately stumbled upon the candlestick 
and threw it down. The noise waked him suddenly, and he, 
in his confusion, thinking it was an enemy coming to assas- 
sinate him, unsheathed a dagger that lay by him, and plunged 
it into the virgin's heart. After this he could never rest. 



Witch. Enough I— I may retire then — say ! 

Man. Retire ! 

[The Witch disappears. 

Man. (alone). We are the fools of time and terror : 
Days 
Steal on us and steal from us ; yet we live, 
Loathing our life, and dreading still to die. 
In all the days of this detested yoke — 
This vital weight upon the struggling heart, 
Which sinks with sorrow, or beats quick with 

pain. 
Or joy that ends in agony or faintness — 
In all the days of past and future, for 
In life there is no present, we can number 
How few — how less than few — wherein the soul 
Forbears to pant for death, and yet draws back 
As from a stream in winter, though the chill 
Be but a moment's. I have one resource 
Still in my science — I can call the dead, 
And ask them what it is we dread to be : 
The sternest answer can but be the Grave, 

And that is nothing. If they answer not 

The buried Prophet answer'd to the Hag 
Of Endor ; and the Spartan Monarch drew 
From the Byzantine maid's unsleeping spirit 
An answer and his destiny — he slew 
That which he loved, unknowing what he slew, 
And died unpardon'd — though he call'd in aid 
The Phyxian Jove, and in Phigalia roused 
The Arcadian Evocators to compel 
The indignant shadow to depose her wrath, 
Or fix her term of vengeance — she replied 
In words of dubious import, but fulfiU'd.i 
If I had never lived, that which I love 
Had still been living ; had I never loved, 
That which I love would still be beautiful — 
Happy and giving happiness. What is she ? 
What is she now ? — a sufferer for my sins — 
A thing I dare not think upon — or nothing. 
Within few hours I shall not call in vain — 
Yet in this hour I dread the thing I dare : 
Until this hour I never shrunk to gaze 
On spirit, good or evil — now I tremble, 
And feel a strange cold thaw upon my heart. 



Her image appeared to him every night, and with a men- 
acing tone repeated this heroic verse, — 

' Go to the fate which pride and lust prepare !' 

The allies, highly incensed at this infamous action, joined 
Cimon to besiege him in Byzantium. But he found means 
to escape thence ; and as he was still haunted by the spectre, 
he is said to have applied to a temple at Heraclea, where the 
manes of the dead were consulted. There he invoked the 
spirit of Cleonice, and entreated her pardon. She appeared, 
and told him ' he would soon be delivered from all his trou- 
bles, after his return to Sparta :' in which, it seems, bis death 
was enigmatically foretold. These particulars we have from 
many historians." — Langhokne's Plutarch, vol. iii. p. 279. 
" Thus we find," adds the translator, " that it was a custom 
in the Pagan as well as in the Hebrew theology, to conjure 
up the spirits of the dead ; and that the witch of Endor was 
not the only witch in the world." 



Scene III. 



MANFRED. 



219 



But I can act even what I most abhor, 

And champion human fears. — The night approaches. 

lExit. 

SCENE III. 
The Summit of the Jungfrau Mountain. 

Enter First Destiny. 
The moon is rising broad, and round, and bright ; 
And here on snows, where never human foot 
Of common mortal trod, we nightly tread, 
And leave no traces ; o'er the savage sea, 
The glassy ocean of the mountain ice. 
We skim its rugged breakers, which put on 
The aspect of a tumbling tempest's foam. 
Frozen in a moment ^ — a dead whirlpool's image : 
And this most steep fantastic pinnacle. 
The fretwork of some earthquake — where the clouds 
Pause to repose themselves in passing by — 
Is sacred to our revels, or our vigils ; 
Here do I wait my sisters, on our way 
To the Hall of Arimanes, for to-night 
Is our great festival — 'tis strange they come not. 

A Voice without, singing. 
The Captive Usurper, 

Hurl'd down from the throne, 
Lay buried in torpor. 

Forgotten and lone ; 
I broke through his slumbers, 

I shiver'd his chain, 
I leagued him with numbers — 
He's Tyrant again ! 
With the blood of a million he'll answer my care. 
With a nation's destruction — his flight and despair. 

Second Voice, without. 
The ship sail'd on, the ship sail'd fast, 
But I left not a sail, and I left not a mast ; 
There is not a plank of the hull or the deck. 
And there is not a wretch to lament o'er his wreck ; 
Save one, whom I held, as he swam, by the hair, 
And he was a subject well worthy my care ; 
A traitor on land, and a pirate at sea — 
But I saved him to wreak further havoc for me ! 

First Destiny, answering. 
The city lies sleeping ; 

The morn, to deplore it. 
May dawn on it weeping : 

Sullenly, slowly, 
The black plague flew o'er it — 

Thousands lie lowly ; 

1 "Came to a morass; Hobhouse dismounted to get over 
well ; I tried to pass my horse over ; the horse sunk up to the 
chin, and of course he and I were in the mud together ; be- 
mired, but not hurt ; laughed and rode on. Arrived at the 
Grindenwold ; mounted again, and rode to the higher gla- 
cier — like a frozen hurricane." — Swiss Journal, 



Tens of thousands shall perish — 
The living shall fly from 
he sick they should cherish ; 
But nothing can vanquish 
The touch that they die from. 

Sorrow and anguish, 
And evil and dread, 

Envelope a nation ; 
The blest are the dead, 
Who see not the sight 

Of their own desolation ; 
This work of a night — 
This wreck of a realm — this deed of my doing — 
For ages I've done, and shall still be renewing ! 

Enter the Second and Third Destinies. 

The Three. 
Our hands contain the hearts of men, 

Our footsteps are their graves ; 
We only give to take again 

The spirits of our slaves ! 

First Des. Welcome ! — Where's Nemesis ? 
Second Des. At some great work ; 

But what I know not, for my hands were full. 
Third Des. Behold she cometh. 

Enter Nemesis. 

First Des. Say, where hast thou been ? 

My sisters and thyself are slow to-night. 

Nem. I was detain'd repairing shatter'd thrones. 
Marrying fools, restoring dynasties. 
Avenging men upon their enemies. 
And making them repent their own revenge ; 
Goading the wise to madness ; from the dull 
Shaping out oracles to rule the world 
Afresh, for they were waxing out of date, 
And mortals dared to ponder for themselves, 
To weigh kings in the balance, and to speak 
Of freedom, the forbidden fruit. — Away ! 
We have outstay'd the hour — mount we our clouds ! ^ 

{^Exeunt, 

SCENE IV. 

The Hall of Arimanes — Arimanes on his Throne, a 

Globe of Fire, surrounded by the Spirits. 

Hymn of the Spirits. 
Hail to our Master ! — Prince of Earth and Air ! 

Who walks the clouds and waters — in his hand 
The sceptre of the elements, which tear 

Themselves to chaos at his high command ! 

2 " This stanza we think is out of place, at least, if not out 
of character ; and though the author may tell us that human 
calamities are naturally subjects of derision to the ministers 
of vengeance, yet we cannot be persuaded that satirical and 
political allusions are at all compatible with the feelings and 
impressions which it was here his business to maintain." — 
Jeffrey. 



220 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Act II. 



He breatheth — and a tempest shakes the sea ; 

He speaketh — and the clouds reply in thunder ; 
He gazeth — from his glance the sunbeams flee ; 

He moveth — earthquakes rend the world asunder. 
Beneath his footsteps the volcanoes rise ; 

His shadow is the Pestilence ; his path 
The comets herald through the crackling skies ; ^ 

And planets turn to ashes at his wrath. 
To him War offers daily sacrifice ; 

To him Death pays his tribute ; Life is his, 
With all its infinite of agonies — 

And his the spirit of whatever is ! 

Enter the Destinies and Nemesis. • 

FlEST Des. Glory to Arimanes ! on the earth 
His power increaseth — both my sisters did 
His bidding, nor did I neglect my duty ! 

Second Des. Glory to Arimanes ! we who bow 
The necks of men, bow down before his throne ! 

Third Des. Glory to Arimanes ! we await 
His nod ! 

Nem. Sovereign of Sovereigns ! we are thine, 
And all that liveth, more or less, is ours. 
And most things wholly so ; still to increase 
Our power, increasing thine, demands our care. 
And we are vigilant. Thy late commands 
Have been fulfill'd to the utmost. 

Enter Manfred. 

A Spirit. What is here ? 

A mortal ! — Thou most rash and fatal wretch. 
Bow down and worship ! 

Second Spirit. I do know the man — 

A Magian of great power, and fearful skill ! 

Third Spirit. Bow down and worship, slave! — 
What, know'st thou not 
Thine and our Sovereign ? — Tremble, and obey ! 

All the Spirits. Prostrate thyself, and thy con- 
demned clay. 
Child of the Earth ! or dread the worst. 

Man. I know it ; 

And yet ye see I kneel not. 

Fourth Spirit. 'Twill be taught thee. 

Man. 'Tis taught already; — many a night on the 
earth, 
On the bare ground, have I bow'd down my face. 
And strew'd my head with ashes ; I have known 
The fullness of humiliation, for 
I sunk before my vain despair, and knelt 
To my own desolation. 

Fifth Spirit. Dost thou dare 

Refuse to Arimanes on his throne 
What the whole earth accords, beholding not 
The terror of his glory ? —Crouch ! I say. 

Man. Bid him bow down to that which is above 
him. 



1 " The comets herald through the 

MS. 



J crackling ") 
1 burning J 



The overruling Infinite — the Maker 

Who made him not for worship — let him kneel, ^ 

And we will kneel together. 

The Spirits. Crush the worm ! 

Tear him in pieces ! — 

First Des. Hence ! Avaunt ! — he's mine. 

Prince of the Powers invisible ! This man 
Is of no common order, as his port 
And presence here denote ; his sufferings 
Have been of an immortal nature, like 
Our own; his knowledge and his powers and will, 
As far as is compatible with clay. 
Which clogs the ethereal essence, have been such 
As clay hath seldom borne ; his aspirations 
Have been beyond the dwellers of the earth, 
And they have only taught him what we know — '■ 
That knowledge is not happiness, and science 
But an exchange of ignorance for that 
Which is another kind of ignorance. 
This is not all — the passions, attributes 
Of earth and heaven, from which no power, nor 

being. 
Nor breath from the worm upwards is exempt. 
Have pierced his heart ; and in their consequence 
Made him a thing, which I, wlio pity not. 
Yet pardon those who pity. He is mine. 
And thine, it may be ; be it so, or not. 
No other Spirit in this region hath 
A soul like his — or power upon his soul. 

Nem. What doth he here then ? 

First Des. Let him answer that. 

Man. Ye know what I have known ; and without 
power 
I could not be amongst ye : but there are 
Powers deeper still beyond — I come in quest 
Of such, to answer unto what I seek. 

Nem. What wouldst thou ? 

Man. Thou canst not reply to me. 

Call up the dead — my question is for them. 

Nem. Great Arimanes, doth thy will avouch 
The wishes of this mortal ? 

Ari. Yea. 

Nem. Whom wouldst thou 

Uncharnel ? 

Man. One without a tomb — call up 

Astarte. 

Nemesis. 
Shadow ! or Spirit ! 

Whatever thou art, 
Which still doth inherit 

The whole or a part 
Of the form of thy birth. 

Of the mould of tliy clay, 
Which return'd to the earth, 

Reappear to the day ! 
Bear what thou borest. 

The heart and the form. 
And the aspect thou worest 

Redeem from the worm. 



Scene IV. 



MANFRED. 



221 



Appear ! — Appear ! — Appear ! 

Who sent thee there requires thee here ! 

[The Phantom, of ASTARTE rises and stands 
in the midst. 
Man. Can this be death? there's bloom upon her 
cheek ; 
But now I see it is no living hue, 
But a strange hectic — like the unnatural red 
Which Autumn plants upon the perish'd leaf. 
It is the same ! Oh, God ! that I should dread 
To look upon the same — Astarte ! — No, 
I cannot speak to her — but bid her speak — 
Forgive me or condemn me. 

Nemesis. 
By the power which hath broken 

The grave which enthrall'd thee, 
Speak to him who hath spoken, 

Or those who have calFd thee ! 

Man. She is silent. 

And in that silence I am more than answer'd. 

Nem. My power extends no further. Prince of 
Air! 
It rests with thee alone — command her voice. 

Ari. Spirit — obey this sceptre ! 

Nem. Silent still ! 

She is not of our order, but belongs 
To the other powers. Mortal ! thy quest is vain. 
And we are baffled also. 

Man. Hear me, hear me — 

Astarte ! my beloved ! speak to me : 
I have so much endured — so much endure — 
Look on me! the grave hath not changed thee 

more 
Than I am changed for thee. Thou lovedst me 
Too much, as I loved thee : we were not made 
To torture thus each other, though it were 
The deadliest sin to love as we have loved. 
Say that thou loath'st me not — that I do bear 
This punishment for both — that thou wilt be 
One of the blessed — and that I shall die ; 
For hitherto all hateful things conspire 
To bind me in existence — in a life 
Which makes me shrink from immortality — 
A future like the past. I cannot rest. 
I know not what I ask, nor what I seek : 
I feel but what thou art — and what I am ; 
And I would hear yet once before I perish 



1 "Over this fine drama, a moral feeling hangs like a som- 
brous thunder cloud. No other guilt but that so darkly 
shadowed out could have furnished so dreadful an illustration 
of the hideous aberrations of human nature, however noble 
and majestic, when left a prey to its desires, its passions, and 
its imagination. The beauty, at one time so innocently 
adored, is at last soiled, profaned, and violated. Affection, 
love, guilt, horror, remorse, and death, come in terrible suc- 
cession, yet all darkly linked together. We think of Astarte 
as young, beautiful, innocent — guilty — lost— murdered — bur- 
ied—judged—pardoned ; but still, in her permitted visit to 



The voice which was my music — Speak to me ! 
For I have call'd on thee in the still night, 
Startled the slumbering birds from the hush'd 

boughs, 
And woke the mountain wolves, and made the 

caves 
Acquainted with thy vainly echoed name, 
Which answer'd me — many things answer'd me — 
Spirits and men — but thou wert silent all. 
Yet speak to me ! I have outwatch'd the stars. 
And gazed o'er heaven in vain in search of thee. 
Speak to me ! I have wander'd o'er the earth. 
And never found thy likeness— Speak to me ! 
Look on the fiends around — they feel for me : 
I fear them not, and feel for thee alone — 
Speak to me ! though it be in wrath ; — but say — 
I reck not what — but let me hear thee once — 
This once — once more ! 

Phantom of Astarte. Manfred! 

Man. Say on, say on — 

I live but in the sound — it is thy voice ! 

Phan. Manfred ! To-morrow ends thine earthly 
ills. 
Farewell ! 

Man. Yet one word more— am I forgiven ? 

Phan. Farewell ! 

Man. Say, shall we meet again ? 

Phan. Farewell! 

Man. One word for mercy ! Say, thou lovest me. 

Phan. Manfred! 

[The Spirit of Astarte disappears.^ 

Nem. She's gone, and will not be recall'd ; 

Her words will be fulfill'd. Return to the earth. 

A Spirit. He is convulsed — This is to be a mortal, 
And seek the things beyond mortality. 

Another Spirit. Yet, see, he mastereth himself, 
and makes 
His torture tributary to his will. 
Had he been one of us, he would have made 
An awful spirit. 

Nem. Hast thou further question 

Of our great sovereign, or his worshippers ? 

Man. None. 

Nem. Then for a time farewell. 

Man. We meet then ! Where ? On the earth ? — 
Even as thou wilt : and for the grace accorded 
I now depart a debtor. Fare ye well ! 

[Exit Manfred. 
{Scene closes.) 



earth, speaking in a voice of sorrow, and with a countenance 
yet pale with mortal trouble. "We had but a glimpse of her 
in her beauty and innocence ; but, at last, she rises up before 
us in all the mortal silence of a ghost, with fixed, glazed, and 
passionless eyes, revealing death, judgment, and eternity. 
The moral breathes and burns in every word, — in sadness, 
misery, insanity, desolation, and death. The work is ' instinct 
with spirit,' — and in the agony and distraction, and all its 
dimly imagined causes, we behold, though broken up, con- 
fused, and shattered, the elements of a purer existence."— 
"Wilson. 



222 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Act III. 



ACT III.i 

SCENE I. 
A Hall in the Castle of Manfred. 

Manfred and Herman. 

Man. What is the hour ? 

Her. It wants but one till sunset, 

And promises a lovely twilight. 

Man. Say, 

Are all things so disposed of in the tower 
As I directed ? 

Her. All, my lord, are ready : 

Here is the key and casket. 

Man. It is well : 

Thou mayst retire. \^Exit Herman. 

Man. {alone). There is a calm upon me — 

Inexplicable stillness ! which till now 
Did not belong to what I knew of life. 
If that I did not know philosophy 
To be of all our vanities the motliest. 
The merest word that ever fool'd the ear 
^rom out the schoolman's jargon, I should deem 
The golden secret, the sought " Kalon," found. 
And seated in my soul. It will not last, 
But it is well to have known it, though but once : 
It hath enlarged my thoughts with a new sense. 
And I within my tablets would note down 
That there is such a feeling. Who is there ? 

Re-enter Herman. 
Her. My lord, the abbot of St. Maurice craves 
To greet your presence. 

Enter the Abbot of St. Maurice. 

Abbot. Peace be with Count Manfred ! 

Man. Thanks, holy father ! welcome to these walls ; 
Thy presence honors them, and blesseth those 
Who dwell within them. 

Abbot. Would it were so. Count! — 

But I would fain confer with thee alone. 



1 The third act, as originally written, being shown to Mr. 
GiflEbrd, he expressed his unfavorable opinion of it very dis- 
tinctly; and Mr. Murray transmitted this opinion to Lord 
Byron. The result is told in the following extracts from his 
letters : — 

" Venice, April 14, 1817.— The third act is certainly d— d 
bad, and, like the Archbishop of Grenada's homily (which 
savored of the palsy), has the dregs of my fever, during which 
it was written. It must on no account be published in its 
present state. I will try and reform it, or rewrite it alto- 
gether; but the impulse is gone, and I have no chance of 
making any thing out of it. The speech of Manfred to the 
Sun is the only part of this act I thought good myself; the 
rest is certainly as bad as bad can be, and I wonder what the 
devil possessed me. I am very glad indeed that you sent me 
Mr. Gifford's opinion without deduction. Do you suppose me 
such a booby as not to be very much obliged to him ? or that 
I was not, and am not, convinced and convicted in my con- 
.science of this same overt act of nonsense ? I shall try at 
it again ; in the mean time, lay it upon the shelf— the whole 
Drama I mean. Recollect not to publish, upon pain of I 



Man. Herman, retire. — What would my reverend 
guest ? 

Abbot. Thus, without prelude:— Age and zeal, 
my office. 
And good intent, must plead my privilege ; 
Our near, though not acquainted neighborhood. 
May also be my herald. Eumors strange. 
And of unholy nature, are abroad. 
And busy with thy name : a noble name 
For centuries : may he who bears it now 
Transmit it unimpair'd ! 

Man. Proceed, — I listen. 

Abbot. 'Tis said thou boldest converse with the 
things 
Which are forbidden to the search of man ; 
That with the dwellers of the dark abodes. 
The many evil and unheavenly spirits 
Which walk the valley of the shade of death. 
Thou communest. I know that with mankind, 
Thy fellows in creation, thou dost rarely 
Exchange thy thoughts, and that thy solitude 
Is as an anchorite's, were it but holy. 

Man. And what are they who do avouch these 
things ? 

Abbot. My pious brethren— the scared peasantry — 
Even thy own vassals — who do look on thee 
With most unquiet eyes. Thy life's in peril. 

Man. Take it. 

Abbot. I come to save, and not destroy — 

I would not pry into thy secret soul ; 
But if these things be sooth, there still is time 
For penitence and pity : reconcile thee 
With the true church, and through the church to 
heaven. 

Man. I hear thee. This is my reply : whate'er 
I may have been, or am, doth rest between 
Heaven and myself. — I shall not choose a mortal 
To be my mediator. Have I sinn'd 
Against your ordinances ? prove and punish ! 2 

Abbot. My son ! I did not speak of punishment, 
But penitence and pardon ; — with thyself 



know not what, until I have tried again at the third act. I 
am not sure that I shall try, and still less that I shall succeed 
if I do." 

" Rome, May 5.— I have rewritten the greater part, and 
return what is not altered in the proof you sent me. The 
Abbot has become a good man, and the Spirits are brought in 
at the death. You will find, I think, some good poetry in 
this new act, here and there; and if so, print it, without 
sending me further proofs, under Mr. GifforWs correction, if he 
will have the goodness to overlook it." 

2 Thus far the text stands as originally penned : we subjoin 
the sequel of the scene as given in the first MS. : — 

" Abbot. Then, hear and tremble ! For the headstrong 
wretch 

Who in the mail of innate hardihood 

Would shield himself, and battle for his sins. 

There is the stake on earth, and beyond earth eternal— — 
Man. Charity, most reverend father. 

Becomes thy lips so much more than this menace. 

That I would call thee back to it : but say, 

What wouldst thou with me? 



Scene I. 



MANFRED. 



223 



The choice of such remains — and for the last, 
Our institutions and our strong belief 
Have given me power to smooth the path from sin 
To higher hope and better thoughts ; the first 
I leave to heaven, — " Vengeance is mine alone !" 
So saith the Lord, and with all humbleness 
His servant echoes back the awful word. 

Man. Old man ! there is no power in holy men, 
Nor charm in prayer — nor purifying form 
Of penitence — nor outward look — nor fast — 
Nor agony — nor, greater than all these. 
The innate tortures of that deep despair, 
Which is remorse without the fear of hell. 
But all in all sufficient to itself 
Would make a hell of heaven — can exorcise 
From out the unbounded spirit, the quick sense 
Of its own sins, wrongs, sufierance, and revenge 
Upon itself; there is no future pang 
Can deal that justice on the self-condemn'd 
He deals on his own soul. 

Abbot. All this is well ; 

For this will pass away, and be succeeded 
By an auspicious hope, which shall look up 
With calm assurance to that blessed place. 
Which all who seek may win, whatever be 
Their earthly errors, so they be atoned : 
And the commencement of atonement is 



Abbot. It may be there are 

Things that would shake thee — but I keep them back, 
And give thee till to-morrow to repent. 
Then if thou dost not all devote thyself 
To penance, and with gift of all thy lands 

To the monastery 

Man. I understand thee,— well ! 

Abbot. Expect no mercy ; I have warned thee. 
Man. {opening the casket). Stop — 
There is a gift for thee within this casket. 

[Manfred opens the casket, strikes a light, and 
burns some incense. 
Ho! Ashtaroth! 
ITie Demon Ashtaroth appears, singing as follows : — 
The raven sits 

On the raven-stone, 
And his black wing flits 

O'er the milk-white bone ; 
To and fro, as the night-winds blow, 
The carcass of the assassin swings ; 
And there alone, on the raven-stone,* 

The raven flaps his dusky wings. 
The fetters creak— and his ebon beak 

Croaks to the close of the hollow sound ; 
And this is the tune, by the light of the moon, 

To which the witches dance their round — 
Merrily, merrily, cheerily, cheerily, 

Merrily, speeds the ball : 
The dead in their shrouds, and the demons in clouds, 
Flock to the witches' carnival. 
Abbot. I fear thee not — hence— hence — 
Avaunt thee, evil one ! — help, ho ! without there ! 

Man. Convey this man to the Shreckhorn— to its peak- 
To its extremest peak — watch with him there 



• "Raven-stone (Rabenstein), a translation of the German word for the 
gibbet, which in Germany and Switzerland is permanent, and made of 
Btone." 



The sense of its necessity. — Say on — 

And all our church can teach thee shall be taught ; 

And all we can absolve thee shall be pardon'd. 

Man. When Eome's sixth emperor ^ was near his 
last. 
The victim of a self-inflicted wound. 
To shun the torments of a public death 2 
From senates once his slaves, a certain soldier, 
With show of loyal pity, would have stanch'd 
The gushing throat with his officious robe ; 
The dying Eoman thrust him back, and said — 
Some empire still in his expiring glance, 
" It is too late — is this fidelity ?" 

Abbot. And what of this ? 

Man. I answer with the Roman — 

" It is too late !" 

Abbot. It never can be so. 

To reconcile thyself with thy own soul. 
And thy own soul with heaven. Hast thou no hope ? 
'Tis strange — even those who do despair above, 
Yet shape themselves some fantasy on earth, 
To which frail twig they cling, like drowning men. 

Man. Ay — father! I have had those earthly visions 
And noble aspirations in my youth. 
To make my own the mind of other men. 
The enlightener of nations ; and to rise 
I knew not whither — it might be to fall ; 



From now till sunrise ; let him gaze, and know 
He ne'er again will be so near to heaven. 
But harm him not ; and, when the morrow breaks, 
Set him down safe in his cell— away with him ! 
Ash. Had I not better bring his brethren too, 
Convent and all, to bear him company? 
Man. No, this will serve for the present. Take him up. 
Ash. Come, friar ! now an exorcism or two, 
And we shall fly the lighter. 
Ashtaroth disappears with the Abbot, singing as follows: 
A prodigal son, and a maid undone, 

And a widow rewedded within the year ; 
And a worldly monk, and a pregnant nun, 
Are things which every day appear. 
Manfred alone. 
Man. Why would this fool break in on me, and force 
My art to pranks fantastical ? — no matter. 
It was not of my seeking. My heart sickens, 
And weighs a fix'd foreboding on my soul : 
But it is calm — calm as a sullen sea 
After the hurricane ; the winds are still. 
But the cold waves swell high and heavily, 
And there is danger in them. Such a rest 
Is no repose. My life hath been a combat. 
And every thought a wound, till I am scarr'd 
In the immortal part of me. — What now?" 

1 Otho, being defeated in a general engagement near Brix- 
ellum, stabbed himself. Plutarch says, that, though he lived 
full as badly as Nero, his last moments were those of a phil- 
osopher. He comforted his soldiers who lamented his fortune, 
and expressed his concern for their safety, when they solicited 
to pay him the last friendly offices. Martial says : 

" Sit Cato, dum vivit, sane vel Csesare major, 
Dum moritur, numquid major Othone fuit?" 



2 " To shun 



f not loss of life, but 
t the torments of a 



I public 



death. 



Choose between them."— MS. 



224 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Act III. 



But fall, even as the mountain cataract, 

Which having leapt from its more dazzling height, 

Even in the foaming strength of its abyss 

(Which casts up misty columns that become 

Clouds raining from the reascended skies). 

Lies low but mighty still. — But this is past, 

My thoughts mistook themselves. 

Abbot. And wherefore so ? 

Man. I could not tame my nature down ; for he 
Must serve who fain would sway — and soothe — and 

sue — 
And watch all time — and pry into all place — 
And be a living lie — who would become 
A mighty thing amongst the mean, and such 
The mass are ; I disdain'd to mingle with 
A herd, though to be leader — and of wolves. 
The lion is alone, and so am I. 

Abbot. And why not live and act with other men ? 

Man. Because my nature was averse from life ; 
And yet not cruel ; for I would not make, 
But find a desolation : — like the wind. 
The red-hot breath of the most lone simoom, 
Which dwells but in the desert, and sweeps o'er 
The barren sands which bear no shrubs to blast. 
And revels o'er their wild and arid waves, 
And seeketh not, so that it is not sought, 
But being met is deadly ; such hath been 
The course of my existence ; but there came 
Things in my path which are no more. 

Abbot. Alas ! 

I 'gin to fear that thou art past all aid 
From me and from my calling ; yet so young, 
I still would 

Man. Look on me ! there is an order 

Of mortals on the earth, who do become 

1 This speech has heen quoted in more than one of the 
sketches of the poet's own life. Much earlier, when only 
twenty-three years of age, he had thus prophesied : — " It seems 
as if I were to experience in my youth the greatest misery of 
old age. My friends fall around me, and I shall be left a 
lonely tree before I am withered. Other men can always take 
refuge in their families. I have no resource but my own re- 
flections, and they present no prospect, here or hereafter, 
except the selfish satisfaction of surviving my betters. I am, 
indeed, very wretched. My days are listless, and my nights 
restless. I have very seldom any society ; and when I have, I 
run out of it. I don't know that I sha'n't end with insan- 
ity." — Byron Letters, 1811. 

2 " Of the immortality of the soul, it appears to me that 
there can be little doubt — if we attend for a moment to the 
action of mind. It is in perpetual activity. I used to doubt 
it— but reflection has taught me better. How far our future 
state will be individual ; or, rather, how far it will at all re- 
semble our present existence, is another question ; but that 
the mind is eternal seems as probable as that the body is not 
so." — Byron Diary, 1821. — "I have no wish to reject Chris- 
tianity without investigation; on the contrary, I am very 
desirous of believing ; for I have no happiness in my pres- 
ent unsettled notions on religion."— By ?-on Conversations with 
Kennedy, 1823. 

3 "There are three only, even among the great poets of 
modern times, who have chosen to depict, in their full shape 
and vigor, those agonies to which great and meditative intel- 
lects are, in the present progress of human history, exposed 



Old in their youth, and die ere middle age, 
Without the violence of warlike death ; 
Some perishing of pleasure — some of study — 
Some worn with toil — some of mere weariness — 
Some of disease — and some insanity ^ — 
And some of wither'd or of broken hearts ; 
For this last is a malady which slays 
More than are number'd in the lists of Fate, 
Taking all shapes, and bearing many names. 
Look upon me ! for even of all these things 
Have I partaken ; and of all these things, 
Gne were enough ; then wonder not that I 
Am what I am, but that I ever was. 
Or having been, that I am still on earth. 

Abbot. Yet, hear me still 

Man. Old man ! I do respect 

Thine order, and revere thine years ; I deem 
Thy purpose pious, but it is in vain : 
Think me not churlish ; I would spare thyself, 
Far more than me, in shunning at this time 
All further colloquy — and so — farewell.^ 

Exit Manfred. 

Abbot. This should have been a noble creature : ^ he 
Hath all the energy which would have made 
A goodly frame of glorious elements. 
Had they been wisely mingled ; as it is. 
It is an awfal chaos — light and darkness — 
And mind and dust — and passions and pure thoughts, 
Mix'd, and contending without end or order, 
All dormant or destructive : he will perish, 
And yet he must not ; I will try once more. 
For such are worth redemption ; and my duty 
Is to dare all things for a righteous end. 
I'll follow him — but cautiously, though surely. 

iExit Abbot, 

by the eternal recurrence of a deep and discontented skepti- 
cism. But there is only one who has dared to represent him- 
self as the victim of those nameless and undefinable sufferings. 
Goethe chope for his doubts and his darkness the terrible 
disguise of the mysterious Faustus. Schiller, with still greater 
boldness, planted the same anguish in the restless, haughty, 
and heroic bosom of Wallenstein, But Byron has sought no 
external symbol in which to embody the inquietudes of his 
soul. He takes the world, and all that it inherit, for his arena 
and his spectators ; and he displays himself before their gaze, 
wrestling unceasingly and ineffectually with the demon that 
torments him. At times, there is something mournful and 
depressing in his skepticism ; but oftener it is of a high and 
solemn character, approaching to the very verge of a confiding 
faith. Whatever the poet may believe, we, his readers, always 
feel ourselves too much ennobled and elevated, even by his 
melancholy, not to be confirmed in our own belief by the very 
doubts so majestically conceived and uttered. His skepticism, 
if it ever approaches to a creed, carries with it its refutation 
in its grandeur. There is neither philosophy nor religion in 
those bitter and savage taunts which have been cruelly thrown 
out, from many quarters, against those moods of mind which 
are involuntary, and will not pass away; the shadows and 
spectres which still haunt his imagination may once have 
disturbed our own ; — through his gloom there are frequent 
flashes of illumination : — and the sublime sadness which to 
him is breathed from the mysteries of mortal existence, is 
always joined with a longing after immortality, and expressed 
in language that is itself divine."— Wilson. 



Scene III. 



MANFRED. 



225 



SCENE 11. 
Another Chamber, 

Manfred and Herman. 

Her. My lord, you bade me wait on you at sunset : 
He sinks behind the mountain. 

Man. Doth he so ? 

I will look on him. 

[Manfred advances to the Window of the Hall. 
Glorious orb ! the idol 
Of early nature, and the vigorous race 
Of undiseased mankind, the giant sons ^ 
Of the embrace of angels, with a sex 
More beautiful than they, which did draw down 
1 he erring spirits who can ne'er return. 
Most glorious orb ! that wert a worship, ere 
The mystery of thy making was reyeal'd ! 
Thou earliest minister of the Almighty, 
Which gladden'd, on their mountain tops, the hearts 
Of the Chaldean shepherds, till they pour'd 
Themselves in orisons ! Thou material God ! 
And representative of the Unknown — 
Who chose thee for his shadow ! Thou chief star ! 
Centre of many stars ! which mak'st our earth 
Endurable, and temperest the hues 
And hearts of all who walk within thy rays ! 
Sire of the seasons ! Monarch of the climes, 
And those who dwell in them ! for near or far, 
Our inborn spirits have a tint of thee. 
Even as our outward aspects ; — thou dost rise, 
And shine, and set in glory. Fare thee well ! 
I ne'er shall see thee more. As my first glance 
Of love and wonder was for thee, then take 
My latest look : thou wilt not beam on one 
To whom the gifts of life and warmth have been 
Of a more fatal nature.^ He is gone : 
I follow. [Exit Manfred. 



SCENE III. 

The MovMain^ — The Castle of Manfred at some dis- 
tance — A Terrace before a Tower. — Time, Twilight. 

Herman, Manuel, and other Dependents of 

Manfred. 
Her. 'Tis strange enough; night after night, for 
years, 
He hath pursued long vigils in this tower. 
Without a witness. I have been within it, — 
So have we all been oft-times : but from it, 



1 "And it came to pass, that the Sons of God saw the 
lughters of men, that they were fair," &c. — " There were 

ints in the earth in those days ; and also after that, when 
<ns of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they 
ire children to them, the same became mighty men which 
rere of old, men of renown." — Genesis, ch. vi. verses 2 and 4. 

2 " Pray, was Manfred's speech to the Sun still retained in 
I act third ? I hope so : it was one of the best in the thing, and 
[ better than the Coliseum." — Byron Letters, 1817. 

' " Some strange things in these few years."— MS. 
15 



Or its contents, it were imj 

To draw conclusions absolute, of aught 

His studies tend to. To be sure, there is 

One chamber where none enter : I would give 

The fee of what I have to come these three years, 

To pore upon its mysteries. 

Manuel. 'Twere dangerous ; 

Content thyself with what thou know'st already. 

Her. Ah, Manuel ! thou art elderly and wise. 
And couldst say much ; thou hast dwelt within the 
How many years is't ? [castle — 

Manuel. Ere Count Manfred's birth, 

I served his father, whom he nought resembles. 

Her. There be more sons in like predicament. 
But wherein do they differ ? 

Manuel. I speak not 

Of features or of form, but mind and habits ; 
Count Sigismund was proud, — but gay and free, — 
A warrior and a reveller ; he dwelt not 
With books and solitude, nor made the night 
A gloomy vigil, but a festal time. 
Merrier than day ; he did not walk the rocks 
And forests like a wolf, nor turn aside 
From men and their delights. 

Her. Beshrew the hour, 

But those were jocund times ! I would that such 
Would visit the old walls again ; they look 
As if they had forgotten them. 

Manuel. These walls 

Must change their chieftain first. Oh ! I have seen 
Some strange things in them, Herman.^ 

Her. Come, be friendly ; 

Relate me some to while away our watch : 
I've heard thee darkly speak of an event 
Which happen' d hereabouts, by this same tower. 

Manuel. That was a night indeed ! I do remember 
'Twas twilight, as it may be now, and such 
Another evening ; — yon red cloud, which rests 
On Eigher's pinnacle, so rested then, — 
So like that it might be the same ; the wind 
Was faint and gusty, and the mountain snows 
Began to glitter with the climbing moon ; 
Count Manfred was, as now, within his tower, — 
How occupied, we knew not, but with him 
The sole companion of his wanderings 
And watchings — her, whom of all earthly things 
That lived, the only thing he seem'd to love, — 
As he, indeed, by blood was bound to do. 

The Lady Astarte, his * 

Hush ! who comes here ? 



* The remainder of the third act, in its original shape, ran 
thus : — 

*' Her. Look — look — the tower — 

The tower's on fire. Oh, heavens and earth ! what sound, 
"What dreadful sound is that ? [A crash like thunder. 

Manuel. Help, help, there ! — to the rescue of the Count— 
The Count's in danger, — what ho ! there ! approach ! 

[The Servants, Vassals, and Peasantry approach, 
stupefied with terror. 
If there be any of you who have heart 



226 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Act III. 



Enter the ABBOT. 

Abbot. Where is your master ? 

Her. Yonder, in the tower. 

Abbot. I must speak with him. 

Manuel. 'Tis impossible ; 

He is most private, and must not be thus 
Intruded on. 

Abbot. Upon myself I take 
The forfeit of my fault, if fault there be — 
But I must see him. 

Her. Thou hast seen him once 

This eve already. 

Abbot. Herman ! I command thee, 

Knock, and apprise the Count of my approach. 

Her. We dare not. 

Abbot. Then it seems I must be herald 

Of my own purpose. 

Manuel, Beverend father, stop — 

I pray you pause. 

Abbot. Why so ? 

Manuel. But step this way. 

And I will tell you further. \_Exeunt. 

SCENE iv.i 

Interior of the Toiver. 

Manfred alone. 
The stars are forth, the moon above the tops 
Of the snow-shining mountains. — Beautiful ! 

And love of human kind, and will to aid 

Those in distress— pause not— but follow me— 

The portal's open, follow. [Manuel goes in. 

Her. Come— Who follows ? 

What, none of ye ? — ye recreants ! shiver then 
Without. I will not see old Manuel risk 
His few remaining years unaided. [Herman goes in. 

Yassal. Hark !— 

No — all is silent— not a breath — the flame 
Which shot forth such a blaze is also gone : 
What may this mean? Let's enter ! 

Peasant. Faith, not I,— 

Not that, if one, or two, or more, will join, 
I then will stay behind ; but, for my part, 
I do not see precisely to what end. 

Vassal. Cease your vain prating — come. 

Manuel {speaking within). 'Tis all in vain- 

He's dead. 

Her. {within). Not so — even now methought he moved ; 
But it is dark — so bear him gently out — 
Softly — how cold he is ! take care of his temples 
In winding down the staircase. 
Ee-enter Manuel and Herman, hearing Manfred in their 
arms. 

Manuel. Hie to the castle, some of ye, and bring 
What aid you can. Saddle the barb, and speed 
For the leech to the city— quick ! some water there ! 

Her. His cheek is black — ^but there is a faint beat 
Still lingering about the heart. Some water. 

[They sprinkle Manfred with water; after a pause 
he gives some signs of life. 

Manuel. He seems to strive to speak— come — cheerly, 
Count! 
He moves his lips — canst hear him ? I am old. 
And cannot catch faint sounds. 

[Herman inclining his head and listening. 



I linger yet with Nature, for the Night 

Hath been to me a more familiar face 

Than that of man ; and in her starry shade 

Of dim and solitary loveliness, 

I learn'd the language of another world. 

I do remember me, that in my youth. 

When I was wandering, — upon such a night 

I stood within the Coliseum's wall,^ 

Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome ; 

The trees which grew along the broken arches 

Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars 

Shone through the rents of ruin ; from afar 

The watch-dog bay'd beyond the Tiber ; and 

More near from out the Csesars' palace came 

The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly, 

Of distant sentinels the fitful song 

Began and died upon the gentle wind. 

Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach 

Appear'd to skirt the horizon, yet they stood 

Within a bowshot. Where the Csesars dwelt. 

And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst 

A grove which springs through levell'd battlements, 

A-ud twines its roots with the imperial hearths. 

Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth ; 

But the gladiators' bloody Circus stands, 

A noble wreck in ruinous perfection. 

While Caesar's chambers, and the Augustan halls. 

Grovel on earth in indistinct decay. — 

And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon 



Her. I hear a word 

Or two— but indistinctly — what is next ? 
What's to be done ? let's bear him to the castle. 

[Manfred motions with his hand not to remove him. 

Manuel. He disapproves — and 'twere of no avail — 
He changes rapidly. 

Her. 'Twill soon be over. 

Manuel. Oh ! what a death is this ! that I should live 
To shake my gray hairs over the last chief 
Of the house of Sigismund. — And such a death ! 
Alone — we know not how — unshrived — untended— 
With strange accompaniments, and fearful signs— 
I shudder at the sight— but must not leave him. 

Manfred {speaking faintly and slowly). Old man ! 'tis 
not so diflacult to die. 

[Manfred having said this expires. 

Her. His eyes are fix'd and lifeless. — He is gone.— 

Manuel. Close them.— My old hand quivers,— He de- 
parts— 
Whither ? I dread to think— but he is gone !" 

1 " The opening of this scene is, perhaps, the finest passage 
in the drama ; and its solemn, calm, and majestic character 
throws an air of grandeur over the catastrophe, which was in 
danger of appearing extravagant, and somewhat too much in 
the style of the ' Devil and Dr. Faustus,' " — Wilson, 

2 " Drove at midnight to see the Coliseum by moonlight : 
but what can I say of the Coliseum? It must be seen; to de- 
scribe it I should have thought impossible, if I had not read 
' Manfred.' To see it aright, as the Poet of the North tells us 
of the fair Melrose, one ' must see it by the pale moonlight,' 
The stillness of night, the whispering echoes, the moonlight 
shadows, and the awful grandeur of the impending ruins, 
form a scene of romantic sublimity, such as Byron alone 
could describe as it deserves. His description is the very 
thing itself."— Matthews's Diary of an Invalid. 



Scene IV. 



MANFRED. 



227 



All this, and cast a wide and tender light, 
Which soften'd down the hoar austerity 
Of rugged desolation, and filPd up. 
As 'twere anew, the gaps of centuries ; 
Leaving that beautiful which still was so, 
And making that which was not, till the place 
Became religion, and the heart ran o'er 
AVith silent worship of the great of old, — 
The dead but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule 
Our spirits from their urns. 

'Twas such a night ! 
'Tis strange that I recall it at this time ; 
But I have found our thoughts take wildest flight 
Even at the moment when they should array 
Themselves in pensive order. 

Enter the Abbot. 

Abbot. My good lord ! 

I crave a second grace for this approach ; 
But yet let not my humble zeal offend 
By its abruptness — all it hath of ill 
Recoils on me ; its good in the effect 
May light upon your head — could I say heart — 
Could I touch that, with words or prayers, I should 
Recall a noble spirit which hath wander'd ; 
But is not yet all lost. 

Man. Thou know'st me not ; 

My days are number'd, and my deeds recorded : 
Retire, or 'twill be dangerous — Away ! 

Abbot. Thou dost not mean to menace me ? 

Man. Not I ; 

I simply tell thee peril is at hand, 
And would preserve thee. 

Abbot. What dost mean ? 

Man. Look there ! 

What dost thou see ? 

Abbot. Nothing. 

Man. Look there, I say, 

And steadfastly ;— now tell me what thou seest. 

Abbot. That which should shake me, — but I fear 
it not : 
I see a dusk and awful figure rise. 
Like an infernal god, from out the earth ; 
His face wrapt in a mantle, and his form 
Robed as with angry clouds : he stands between 
Thyself and me — but I do fear him not. 

Man. Thou hast no cause — he shall not harm 
thee — but 
His sight may shock thine old limbs into palsy. 
I say to thee — Retire ! 

Abbot. And I reply — 

Never — till I have battled with this fiend : — 
What doth he here ? 

Man. Why — ay — what doth he here ? 

I di(^ not send for him, — he is unbidden. 

Abbot. Alas ! lost mortal ! what with guests like 
these 
Hast thou to do ? I tremble for thy sake : 
Why doth he gaze on thee, and thou on him ? 
Ah ! he unveils his aspect : on his brow 



The thunder-scars are graven ; from his eye 
Glares forth the immortality of hell — 
Avaunt ! — 

Man. Pronounce — what is thy mission ? 

Spieit. Come ! 

Abbot. What art thou, unknown being? answer !— 



Spieit. The genius of this mortal. — Come! 'tis time. 

Man. I am prepared for all things, but deny 
The power which summons me. Who sent thee here ? 

Spieit. Thou'lt know anon — Come ! come ! 

Man. I have commanded 

Things of an essence greater far than thine. 
And striven with thy masters. Get thee hence ! 

Spieit. Mortal ! thine hour is come — ^Away ! I say. 

Man. I knew, and know my hour is come, but not 
To render up my soul to such as thee : 
Away ! I'll die as I have lived — alone. 

Spieit. Then I must summon up my brethren. — 
Rise ! {^Other Spirits rise up. 

Abbot. Avaunt ! ye evil ones ! — Avaunt ! I say ; 
Ye have no power where piety hath power. 
And I do charge ye in the name 

Spieit. Old man ! 

We know ourselves, our mission, and thine order ; 
Waste not thy holy words on idle uses, 
It were in vain : this man is forfeited. 
Once more I summon him — Away ! away ! 

Man. I do defy ye, — though I feel my soul 
Is ebbing from me, yet I do defy ye ; 
Nor will I hence, while I have earthly breath 
To breathe my scorn upon ye — earthly strength 
To wrestle, though with spirits ; what ye take 
Shall be ta'en limb by limb. 

Spieit. Reluctant mortal I 

Is this the Magian who would so pervade 
The world invisible, and make himself 
Almost our equal ? — Can it be that thou 
Art thus in love with life ? the very life 
Which made thee wretched ! 

Man. Thou false fiend, thou liest ! 

My life is in its last hour, — that I know, 
Nor would redeem a moment of that hour ; 
I do not combat against death, but thee 
And thy surrounding angels ; my past power 
Was purchased by no compact with thy crew, 
But by superior science — penance — daring — 
And length of watching — strength of mind — and skill 
In knowledge of our fathers — when the earth 
Saw men and spirits walking side by side. 
And gave ye no supremacy : I stand 
Upon my strength — I do defy — deny — 
Spurn back, and scorn ye ! — 

Spieit. But thy many crimes 

Have made thee 

Man. What are they to such as thee ? 

Must crimes be punish'd but by other crimes, 
And greater criminals ? — Back to thy hell ! 
Thou hast no power upon me, that I feel ; 
Thou never shalt possess me, that I know : 



228 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



Scene IV. 



What I have done is done ; I bear within 

A torture which could nothing gain from thine ; 

The mind which is immortal makes itself 

Kequital for its good or evil thoughts — 

Is its own origin of ill and end — 

And its own place and time : its innate sense, 

When stripp'd of this mortality, derives 

No color from the fleeting things without, 

But is absorb'd in sufferance or in joy, 

Born from the knowledge of its own desert. [me ; 

Thou didst not tempt me, and thou couldst not tempt 

I have not been thy dupe, nor am thy prey — 

But was my own destroyer, and will be 

My own hereafter. — Back, ye bafSed fiends ! 

The hand of death is on me — but not yours ! 

]_The Demons disappear. 



1 In the first edition, this line was accidentally left out. 
On discovering the omission, Lord Byron wrote to Mr. Mur- 
ray — " You have destroyed the whole effect and moral of the 
poem, by omitting the last line of Manfred's speaking." 

2 In June, 1820, Lord Byron thus writes to Mr. Murray : — 
" Enclosed is something which will interest you ; to wit, the 
opinion of the greatest man in Germany — perhaps in Europe 
— upon one of the great men of your advertisements (all 
' famous hands,' as Jacob Tonson used to say of his ragamuf- 
fins) — ^in short, a critique of Goethe's upon Manfred. There 
is the original, an English translation, and an Italian one : 
keep them all in your archives ; for the opinions of such a 
man as Goethe, whether favorable or not, are always interest- 
ing — and this is more so, as favorable. His Faust I never 
read, for I don't know German ; but Matthew Monk Lewis, 
in 1816, at Coligny, translated most of it to me vivd voce, and 
I was naturally much struck with it : but it was the Staub- 
bach and the Jungfrau, and something else, much more than 
Faustus, that made me write Manfred. The first scene, how- 
ever, and that of Faustus are very similar." 

The following is the extract from Goethe's Kunst und 
AlthertJium (i. e. Art and Antiquity) which the above letter 
enclosed :— 

" Byron's tragedy, * Manfred,' was to me a wonderful phe- 
nomenon, and one that closely touched me. This singularly 
intellectual poet has taken my Faustus to himself, and ex- 
tracted from it the strongest nourishment for his hypochon- 
driac humor. He has made use of the impelling principles 
in his own way, for his own purposes, so that no one of them 
remains the same ; and it is particularly on this account that 
I cannot enough admire his genius. The whole is in this 
way so completely formed anew, that it would be an interest- 
ing task for the critic to point out, not only the alterations he 
has made, but their degree of resemblance with, or dissimi- 
larity to, the original : in the course of which I cannot deny, 
that the gloomy heat of an unbounded and exuberant despair 
becomes at last oppressive to us. Yet is the dissatisfaction 
we feel always connected with esteem and admiration. 

"We find thus, in this tragedy, the quintessence of the 
most astonishing talent born to be its own tormentor. The 
character of Lord Byron's life and poetry hardly permits a 
just and equitable appreciation. He has often enough con- 
fessed what it is that torments him. He has repeatedly por- 



* " The grave confidence •with which the venerable critic traces the fancies 
of his brother poet to real persons and events, making no difficulty even of 
a djouble murder at Florence to furnish grounds for his theory, affords an 
amusing instance of the disposition so prevalent throughout Europe, to 
picture Byron as a man of marvels and mysteries, as well in his life as his 
poetry. To these exaggerated, or wholly false notions of him, the numerous 
fictions palmed upon the world of his romantic tours and wonderful adven- 
tures, in places he never saw, and with persons that never existed, have. 



Abbot. Alas! how pale thou art — thy lips are 
white — 
And thy breast heaves — and in thy gasping throat 
The accents rattle : Give thy prayers to Heaven — 
Pray — albeit but in thought, — but die not thus. 

Man. 'Tis over — my dull eyes can fix thee not ; 
But all things swim around me, and the earth 
Heaves as it were beneath me. Fare thee well — 
Give me thy hand. 

Abbot. Cold— cold — even to the heart- 

But yet one prayer — Alas ! how fares it with thee ? 

Man. Old man ! 'tis not so diflSicult to die.^ 

[Manpeed expires. 

Abbot. He's gone — his soul hath ta'en his earthless 
flight- 
Whither ? I dread to think — but he is gone.^ 



trayed it ; and scarcely any one feels compassion for this Intol- 
erable suffering, over which he is ever laboriously ruminating. 
There are, properly speaking, two females whose phantoms 
for ever haunt him, and which, in this piece also, perform 
principal parts — one under the name of Astarte, the other 
without form or actual presence, and merely a voice. Of the 
horrid occurrence which took place with the former, the fol- 
lowing is related :— "When a bold and enterprising young 
man, he won the affections of a Florentine lady.* Her hus- 
band discovered the amour, and murdered his wife ; but the 
murderer was the same night found dead in the street, and 
there was no one on whom any suspicion could be attached. 
Lord Byron removed from Florence, and these spirits haunted 
him all his life after, 

" This romantic incident is rendered highly probable by in- 
numerable allusions to it in his poems. As, for instance,when 
turning his sad contemplations inwards, he applies to himself 
the fatal history of the king of Sparta. It is as follows : — 
Pausanias, a Lacedaemonian general, acquires glory by the 
important victory at Platsea, but afterwards forfeits the con- 
fidence of his countrymen through his arrogance, obstinacy, 
and secret intrigues with the enemies of his country. This 
man draws upon himself the heavy guilt of innocent blood, 
which attends him to his end; for, while commanding the 
fleet of the allied Greeks, in the Black Sea, he is inflamed 
with a violent passion for a Byzantine maiden. After long 
resistance, he at length obtains her from her parents, and she 
is to be delivered up to him at night. She modestly desires 
the servant to put out the lamp, and, while groping her way 
in the dark, she overturns it. Pausanias is awakened from his 
sleep— apprehensive of an attack from murderers, he seizes 
his sword, and destroys his mistress. The horrid sight never 
leaves him. Her shade pursues him unceasingly, and he im- 
plores for aid in vain from the gods and the exorcising priests. 

" That poet must have a lacerated heart who selects such a 
scene from antiquity, appropriates it to himself, and burdens 
his tragic image with it. The following soliloquy, which is 
overladen with gloom and a weariness of life, is, by this re- 
mark, rendered intelligible. We recommend it as an exer- 
cise to all friends of declamation. Hamlet's soliloquy appears 
improved upon here." — Goethe here subjoins Manfred's so- 
liloquy, beginning, " We are the fools of time and terror," in 
which the allusion to Pausanias occurs. 



no doubt, considerably contributed ; and the consequence is, so utterly out 
of truth and nature are the representations of his life and character long 
current upon the Continent, that it may be questioned whether the real 
' flesh and blood ' hero of these pages, — the social, practical-minded, and, 
with all his faults and eccentricities, English Lord Byron,— may not, to the 
over-exalted imaginations of most of his foreign admirers, appear but an 
ordinary, unromantic, and prosaic personage."— Moobb. 



MANFKED. 



229 



The reader will not be sorry to pass from this German criti- 
cism to that of the Edinburgh Review on Manfred. — " This is, 
undoubtedly, a work of great genius and originality. Its worst 
fault, perhaps, is that it fatigues and overawes us by the uni- 
formity of its terror and solemnity. Another, is the painful and 
oflFensive nature of the circumstance on which its distress is 
ultimately founded. The lyrical songs of the Spirits are too 
long, and not all excellent. There is something of pedantry 
in them now and then ; and even Manfred deals in classical 
allusions a little too much. If we were to consider it as a 
proper drama, or even as a finished poem, we should be 
obliged to add, that it is far too indistinct and unsatisfactory. 
But this we take to be according to the design and conception 
of the author. He contemplated but a dim and magnificent 
sketch of a subject which did not admit of more accurate 
drawing or more brilliant coloring. Its obscurity is a part 
of its grandeur ; — and the darkness that rests upon it, and 
the smoky distance in which it is lost, are all devices to in- 
crease its majesty, to stimulate our curiosity, and to impress 
us with deeper awe. — It is suggested, in an ingenious paper 
in a late number of the Edinburgh Magazine, that the general 
conception of this piece, and much of what is excellent in the 
manner of its execution, have been borrowed from ' The Tra- 
gical History of Dr. Faustus,' of Marlow ;* and a variety of 
passages are quoted, which the author considers as similar, 
and, in many respects, superior to others in the poem before 
us. We cannot agree in the general terms of the conclusion ; 
but there is no doubt a certain resemblance, both in some of 
the topics that are suggested, and in the cast of the diction in 
which they are expressed. Thus, to induce Faustus to persist 
in his unlawful studies, he is told that the Spirits of the Ele- 
ments will serve him, — 

'Sometimes like women, or unwedded maids, 
Shadowing more beauty in their ayrie browes. 
Than have the white breasts of the Queene of Love.' 

And again, when the amorous sorcerer commands Helen of 
Troy to revive again to be his paramour, he addresses her, 
on her first appearance, in these rapturous lines — 

' "Was this the face that launcht a thousand ships, 
And burn'd the topless towers of Ilium ? 
Sweet Helen ! make me immortal with a kiss. 
Her lips suck forth my soule ! — see where it flies. 



* On reading this, Lord Byron wrote from Venice : — " Jeffrey is very kind 
about Manfred, and defends its originality, which I did not know that any- 
body had attacked. As to the germs of it, they may be found in the Journal 
which I sent to Mrs. Leigh, before I left Switzerland. I have the whole 
Bcene of Manfred before me, as if it was but yesterday, and could point it 
out, spot by spot, torrent and all." 

t " Of the 'Prometheus' of ^Eschylus I was passionately fond as a boy 



Come, Helen, come give me my soule againe, 
Here will I dwell, for heaven is on that lip, 
And all is dross that is not Helena. 
O ! thou art fairer than the evening ayre, 
Clad in the beauty of a thousand starres ; 
More lovely than the monarch of the skyes, 
In wanton Arethusa's azure arms !' 

The catastrophe, too, is bewailed in verses of great elegance 
and classic beauty — 

' Cut is the branch that might have growne full straight, 

And burned is Apollo's laurel bough 

That sometime grew within this learned man. 

Faustus is gone ! — regard his hellish fall. 

Whose findful torture may exhort the wise, 

Only to wonder at unlawful things !' 

But these, and many other smooth and fanciful verses in this 
curious old drama, prove nothing, we think, against the ori- 
ginality of Manfred ; for there is nothing to be found there 
of the pride, the abstraction, and the heart-rooted misery in 
which that originality consists. Faustus is a vulgar sorcerer, 
tempted to sell his soul to the devil for the ordinary price 
of sensual pleasure, and earthly power and glory ; and who 
shrinks and shudders in agony when the forfeit comes to be 
exacted. The style, too, of Marlow, though elegant and 
scholarlike, is weak and childish compared with the depth 
and force of much of Lord Byron ; and the disgusting buf- 
foonery and low farce of which his piece is principally made 
up, place it more in contrast, than in any terms of com- 
parison, with that of his noble successor. In the tone and 
pitch of the composition, as well as in the character of the 
diction in the most solemn parts, Manfred reminds us much 
more of the ' Prometheus ' of ^schylus,f than of any more 
modern performance. The tremendous solitude of the prin- 
cipal person — the supernatural beings with whom alone he 
holds communion — ^the guilt — ^the firmness — the misery — 
are all points of resemblance, to which the grandeur of the 
poetic imagery only gives a more striking effect. The chief 
differences are, that the subject of the Greek poet was sanc- 
tified and exalted by the established belief of his country, 
and that his terrors are nowhere tempered with the sweet- 
ness which breathes from so many passages of his English 
rival." 



(it was one of the Greek plays we read thrice a year at Harrow) ; indeed, 
that and the ' Medea ' were the only ones, except the ' Seven before Thebes,' 
which ever much pleased me. The Prometheus, if not exactly in my 
plan, has always been so much in my head, that I can easily conceive 
its influence over all or any thing that I have written; but T deny Mar- 
low and his progeny, and beg that you will do the same."— .Byron Lettert 
1817. 



JKarmo iFaliero, Boge of Vmia 

AN HISTOEICAL TKAGEDY, 

IN FIVE ACTS.i 



" Dux inquieti turbidus Adriae." — Horace. 



PREFACE. 

The conspiracy of the Doge Marino Faliero is one 
of the most remarkable events in the annals of the 



1 On the original MS. sent from Eavenna, Lord Byron has 
written :—" Begun April 4, 1820— completed July 16, 1820— 
finished copying August 16, 17, 1820; the which copying 
makes ten times the toil of composing, considering the 
weather — thermometer 90° in the shade — and my domestic 
duties." He at the time intended to keep it by him for six 
years before sending it to the press ; but resolutions of this 
kind are, in modern days, very seldom adhered to. It was 
published in the end of the same year ; and, to the poet's 
great disgust, and in spite of his urgent and repeated remon- 
strances, was produced on the stage of Drury Lane Theatre 
early in 1821. The extracts from bis letters sufficiently ex- 
plain his feelings on this occasion. 

Marino Faliero was, greatly to his satisfaction, commended 
warmly for the truth of its adhesion to Venetian history and 
manners, as well as the antique severity of its structure and 
language, by that eminent master of Italian and classical 
literature, the late Ugo Foscolo. Mr. Giffbrd also delighted 
him by pronouncing it " English— genuine English." It was, 
however, little favored by the contemporary critics. There 
was, indeed, only one who spoke of it as quite worthy of 
Lord Byron's reputation. "Nothing," said he, "has for a 
long time afforded us so much pleasure, as the rich promise of 
dramatic excellence unfolded in this production of Lord 
Byron. Without question, no such tragedy as Marino Faliero 
has appeared in English, since the day when Otway also was 
inspired to his masterpiece by the interests of a Venetian 
story and a Venetian conspiracy. The story of which Lord 
Byron has possessed himself is, we think, by far the finer of 
the two, — and we say possessed, because we believe he has ad- 
hered almost to the letter of the transactions as they really 
took place." — The language of the Edinburgh and Quarterly 
Reviewers, Mr. Jeffrey and Bishop Heber, was in a far differ- 
ent strain. The former says— 

"Marino Faliero has undoubtedly considerable beauties, 
both dramatic and poetical ; and might have made the fortune 
of any young aspirant for fame : but the name of Byron raises 
expectations which are not so easily satisfied ; and, judging of 
it by the lofty standard which he himself has established, we 
are compelled to say, that we cannot but regard it as a failure, 
both as a poem and a play. This may be partly accounted 
for from the inherent difficulty of uniting these two sorts of 
excellence — of confining the daring and digressive genius of 
poetry within the forms and limits of a regular drama, and, at 
the same time, imparting its warm and vivifying spirit to the 
practical preparation and necessary details of a complete 
theatrical action. These, however, are difficulties with which 
dramatic adventurers have long had to struggle; and over 
(230) 



most singular government, city, and people of modern 
history. It occurred in the year 1355. Everything 
about Venice is, or was, extraordinary — her aspect is 
like a dream, and her history is like a romance. The 



which, though they are incomparably most formidable to the 
most powerful spirits, there is no reason to doubt that the 
powers of Lord Byron would have triumphed. The true 
history of his failure, therefore, we conceive, and the actual 
cause of his miscarriage on the present occasion, is to be found 
in the bad choice of his subject — his selection of a story which 
not only gives no scope to the peculiar and commanding 
graces of his genius, but runs continually counter to the mas- 
ter currents of his fancy. His great gifts are exquisite ten- 
derness, and demoniacal sublimity ; the power of conjuring up 
at pleasure those delicious visions of love and beauty, and 
pity and purity, which melt our hearts within us with a thrill- 
ing and ethereal softness — and of wielding, at the same time, 
that infernal fire which blasts and overthrows all things with 
the dark and capricious fulminations of its scorn, rancor, 
and revenge. With the consciousness of these great powers, 
and as if in willful perversity to their suggestions, he has here 
chosen a story which, in a great measure, excludes the agency 
of either ; and resolutely conducted it, so as to secure himself 
against their intrusion ; — a story without love or hatred — 
misanthropy or pity — containing nothing voluptuous and 
nothing terrific — but depending, for its grandeur, on the 
anger of a very old and irritable man ; and, for its attraction, 
on the elaborate representations of conjugal dignity and 
domestic honor, — ^the sober and austere triumphs of cold and 
untempted chastity, and the noble propriety of a pure and 
disciplined understanding. These, we think, are not the most 
promising themes for any writer whose business is to raise 
powerful emotions ; nor very likely, in any hands, to redeem 
the modern drama from the imputation of want of spirit, 
interest, and excitement. But, for Lord Byron to select them 
for a grand dramatic effort, is as if a swift-footed racer were 
to tie his feet together at the starting, or a valiant knight to 
enter the lists without his arms. No mortal prowess could 
succeed under such disadvantages. The story, in so far as it 
is original in our drama, is extremely improbable, though, 
like most other very improbable stories, derived from au- 
thentic sources : but, in the main, it is original ; being, indeed, 
merely another ' Venice Preserved,' and continually recalling, 
though certainly without eclipsing, the memory of the first. 
Except that Jaffier is driven to join the conspirators by the 
natural impulse of love and misery, and the doge by a re- 
sentment so outrageous as to exclude all sympathy, — and that 
the disclosure, which is produced by love in the old play, is 
here ascribed to mere friendship, — the general action and 
catastrophe of the two pieces are almost identical ; while, with 
regard to the writing and management, it must be owned 
that, if Lord Byron has most sense and vigor, Otway has by 



MARINO FALIERO. 



231 



story of this doge is to be found in all her Chronicles, 
and particularly detailed in the " Lives of the Doges," 
by Marin Sanuto, which is given in the Appendix. 
It is simply and clearly related, and is perhaps more 
dramatic in itself than- any scenes which can be 
founded upon the subject. 

Marino Faliero appears to have been a man of 
talents and of courage. I find him commander iu 
chief of the land forces at the siege of Zara, where 
he beat the king of Hungary and his army of eighty 
thousand men, killing eight thousand men, and 
keeping the besieged at the same time in check ; an 
exploit to which I know none similar in history, 
except that of Csesar at Alesia, and of Prince Eugene 
at Belgrade. He was afterwards commander of the 
fleet in the same war. He took Capo d'Istria. He 
was ambassador at Genoa and Rome, — at which last 
he received the news of his election to the dukedom ; 
his absence being a proof that he sought it by no 



far the most passion and pathos ; and that though his con- 
spirators are better orators and reasoners than the gang of 
Pierre and Eeynault, the tenderness of Belvidera is as much 
more touching, as it is more natural, than the stoical and 
self-satisfied decorum of Angiolina." 

After an elaborate disquisition on the unities, Bishop Heber 
thus concludes : — 

"We cannot conceive a greater instance of the efficacy of 
system to blind the most acute perception, than the fact that 
Lord Byron, in works avowedly and exclusively intended for 
the closet, has piqued himself on the observance of rules, 
which (be their advantage on the stage what it may) are 
evidently, off the stage, a matter of perfect indifference. The 
only object of adhering to the unities is to preserve the illu- 
sion of the scene. To the reader they are obviously useless. 
It is true, that, in the closet, not only are their supposed ad- 
vantages destroyed, but their inconveniences are also, in a 
great measure, neutralized : and it is true also, that poetry so 
splendid has often accompanied them, as to make us wholly 
overlook, in the blaze of greater excellences, whatever incon- 
veniences result from them, either in the closet or the theatre. 
But even diminished difficulties are not to be needlessly 
courted, and thaugh, in the strength and dexterity of the 
combatant, we soon lose sight of the cumbrous trappings by 
which he has chosen to distinguish himself; yet, if those 
trappings are at once cumbersome and pedantic, not only will 
his difficulty of success be increased, but his failure, if he fails, 
will be rendered the more signal and ridiculous. 

" Marino Faliero has, we believe, been pretty generally pro- 
nounced a failure by the public voice, and we see no reason 
to call for a revision of their sentence. It contains, beyond 
all doubt, many passages of commanding eloquence, and some 
of genuine poetry ; and the scenes, more particularly, in which 
Lord Byron has neglected the absurd creed of his pseudo- 
Hellenic writers, are conceived and elaborated with great 
tragic effect and dexterity. But the subject is decidedly ill- 
chosen. In the main tissue of the plot, and in all the busiest 
and most interesting parts of it, it is, in fact, no more than 
another ' Venice Pi'cserved,' in which the author has had to 
contend (nor has he contended successfully) with our recol- 
lections of a former and deservedly popular play on the same 
subject. And the only respect in which it differs is, that the 
Jaffier of Lord Byron's plot is drawn in to join the conspira- 
tors, not by the natural and intelligible motives of poverty, 
aggravated by the sufferings of a beloved wife, and a deep 
and well-grounded resentment of oppression, but by his out- 
rageous anger for a private wrong of no very atrocious nature. 
The Doge of Venice, to chastise the vulgar libel of a foolish 



intrigue, since he was apj^rised of his predecessor's 
death and his own succession at the same moment. 
But he appears to have been of an ungovernable 
tamper. A story is told by Sanuto of his having, 
many years before, when podesta and captain at 
Treviso, boxed the ears of the bishop, who was some- 
what tardy in bringing the Host. For this, honest 
Sanuto " saddles him with a judgment," as Thwack- 
um did Square ; but he does not tell us whether he 
was punished or rebuked by the senate for this out- 
rage at the time of its commission. He seems, indeed, 
to have been afterwards at peace with the church, for 
we find him ambassador at Rome, and invested with 
the fief of Val di Marino, in the march of Treviso, 
and with the title of count, by Lorenzo, Count- 
bishop of Ceneda. For these facts my authorities 
are Sanuto, Vettor Sandi, Andrea Navagero, and the 
account of the siege of Zara, first published by the 
indefatigable Abate Morelli, in his " Monumenti 

boy, attempts to overturn that republic of which he is the first 
and most trusted servant ; to massacre all his ancient friends 
and fellow soldiers, the magistracy and nobility of the land. 
With such a resentment as this, thus simply stated and taken 
singly, who ever sympathized, or who but Lord Byron would 
have expected in such a cause to be able to awaken sympathy ? 
It is little to the purpose to say that this is all historically 
true. A thing may be true without being probable ; and such 
a case of idiosyncrasy as is implied in a resentment so sudden 
and extravagant, is no more a fitting subject for the poet, 
than an animal with two heads would be for an artist of a 
different description. 

" It is true that, when a long course of mutual bickering 
had preceded, when the mind of the prince had been pre- 
pared, by due degrees, to hate the oligarchy with which he 
was surrounded and overruled, and to feel or suspect, in 
every act of the senate, a studied and persevering design to 
wound and degrade him, a very slight addition of injury might 
make the cup of anger overflow ; and the insufficient punish- 
ment of Steno (though to most men this punishment seems 
not unequal to the offence) might have opened the last flood- 
gate to that torrent which had been long gathering strength 
from innumerable petty insults and aggressions. 

" It is also possible that an old man, doatingly fond of a 
young and beautiful wife, yet not insensible to the ridicule of 
such an unequal alliance, might for months or years have 
been tormenting himself with the suspected suspicions of his 
countrymen ; have smarted, though convinced of his consort's 
purity, under the idea that others were not equally candid, 
and have attached, at length, the greater importance to Steno's 
ribaldry, from apprehending this last to be no more than an 
overt demonstration of the secret thoughts of half the little 
world of Venice. 

" And we cannot but believe that, if the story of Faliero 
(unpromising as we regard it in every way of telling) had 
fallen into the hands of the barbarian Shakspeare, the com- 
mencement of the play would have been placed considerably 
earlier ; that time would have been given for the gradual de- 
velopment of those strong lines of character which were 
to decide the fate of the hero, and for the working of those 
subtle but not instantaneous poisons which were to destroy 
the peace, and embitter the feelings, and confuse the under- 
standing, of a brave and high-minded but proud and irritable 
veteran. 

"But the misfortune is (and it is in a great measure, as 
we conceive, to be ascribed to Lord Byron's passion for the 
unities), that, instead of placing this accumulation of painful 
feelings before our eyes, even our ears are made very imper- 



232 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Veneziani di varia Letteratura," printed in 1796, all 
of which I have looked over in the original language. 
The moderns, Darii, Sismondi, and Laugier, nearly 
agree with the ancient chroniclers. Sismondi attrib'- 
utes the conspiracy to his jealousy ; but I find this 
nowhere asserted by the national historians. Vettor 

Sandi, indeed, says, that " Altri scrissero che 

dalla gelosa suspizion di esso doge siasi fatto (Michel 
Steno) staccar con violenza," &c, &c. ; but this appears 
to have been by no means the general opinion, nor is 
it alluded to by Sanuto, or by Navagero ; and Sandi 
himself adds, a moment after, that "per altre Vene- 
ziane memorie traspiri, che non il solo desiderio di 
vendetta lo dispose alia congiura ma anche la innata 
abituale ambizion sua, per cui anelava a farsi prin- 
cipe independente." The first motive appears to 
have been excited by the gross affront of the words 
written by Michel Steno on the ducal chair, and by 
the light and inadequate sentence of the Forty on 
the ofiender, who was one of their " tre Capi." The 



fectly acquainted with them. Of the previous encroachments 
of the oligarchy on the ducal power we see nothing. Nay, 
we only hear a very little of it, and that in general terms, 
and at the conclusion of the piece ; in the form of an apology 
for the doge's past conduct, not as the constant and painful 
feeling which we ought to have shared with him in the first 
instance, if we were to sympathize in his views, and wish 
success to his enterprise. The fear that his wife might be an 
object of suspicion to his countrymen is, in like manner, 
scarcely hinted at ; and no other reason for such a fear is 
named than that which, simply taken, could never have pro- 
duced it — a libel scribbled on the back of a chair. "We are, 
therefore, through the whole tragedy, under feelings of sur- 
prise rather than of pity or sympathy, as persons witnessing 
portentous events from causes apparently inadequate. We 
see a man become a traitor for no other visible cause (how- 
ever other causes are incidentally insinuated) than a single 
vulgar insult, which was more likely to recoil on the perpe- 
trator than to wound the object ; and we cannot pity a death 
incurred in such a quarrel." 

The following extract from a letter of January, 1821, wUl 
show the author's own estimate of the piece thus criticised. 
After repeating his hope, that no manager would be so auda- 
cious as to trample on his feelings by producing it on the 
stage, he thus proceeds : — 

" It is too regular — the time twenty-four hours — the change 
of place not frequent — nothing meZo-dramatic — no surprises 
— no starts, nor trap-doors, nor opportunities ' for tossing their 
heads and kicking their heels' — and no Zo-ye, the grand in- 
gredient of a modern play. I am persuaded that a great 
tragedy is not to be produced by following the old drama- 
tists—who are full of gross faults, pardoned only for the 
beauty of their language, — but by writing naturally and 
regularly, and producing regular tragedies, like the Greeks ; 
but not in imitation, — merely the outline of their conduct, 
adapted to our own times and circumstances, and of course 
no chorus. You will laugh, and say, 'Why don't you do so?' 
I have, you see, tried a sketch in Marino Faliero ; but many 
people think my talent ' essentially undramatic,^ and I am not 
at all clear that they are not right. If Marino Faliero don't 
fail— in the perusal — I shall, perhaps, try again (but not for 
the stage) ; and as I think that love is not the principal pas- 
sion for tragedy (and yet most of ours turn upon it), you 
will not find me a popular writer. Unless it is love furious, 
criminal, and hapless, it ought not to make a tragic subject. 
When it is melting and maudlin, it does, but it ought not to 



attentions of Steno himself appear to have been di* 
rected towards one of her damsels, and not to the 
"dogaressa" herself, against whose fame not the 
slightest insinuation appears, while she is praised for 
her beauty, and remarked for her youth. Neither 
do I find it asserted (unless the hint of Sandi be an 
assertion), that the doge was actuated by jealousy 
of his wife; but rather by respect for her, and for 
his own honor, warranted by his past services and 
present dignity. 

I know not that the historical facts are alluded to 
in English, unless by Dr. Moore in his View of Italy. 
His account is false and flippant, full of stale jests 
about old men and young wives, and wondering at so 
great an efiect from so slight a cause. How so acute 
and severe an observer of mankind as the author of 
Zeluco could wonder at this is inconceivable. He 
knew that a basin of water spilt on Mrs. Masham's 
gown deprived the Duke of Marlborough of his com- 
mand, and led to the inglorious peace of Utrecht — 



do it ; it is then for the gallery and second-price boxes. If 
you want to have a notion of what I am trying, take up a 
translation of any of the Greek tragedians. If I said the 
original, it would be an impudent presumption of mine ; but 
the translations are so inferior to the originals, that I think 
I may risk it. Then judge of the ' simplicity of plot,' and 
do not judge me by your old mad dramatists ; which is like 
drinking usquebaugh, and then proving a fountain. Yet, 
after all, I suppose you do not mean that spirits is a nobler 
element than a clear spring bubbling up in the sun? and this 
I take to be the difference between the Greeks and those tur- 
bid mountebanks — always excepting Ben Jonson, who was a 
scholar and a classic. Or, take up a translation of Alfieri, 
and try the interest, &c. of these my new attempts in the old 
line, by him, in English ; and then tell me fairly your opinion. 
But don't measure me by your own old or new taUor's yard. 
Nothing so easy as intricate confusion of plot and rant. Mrs. 
Centlivre, in comedy, has ten times the bustle of Congreve ; 
but are they to be compared? and yet she drove Congreve 
from the theatre." 

Again, February 16, he thus writes, — 

" You say the Doge will not be popular : did I ever write 
for popularity? I defy you to show a work of mine (except 
a tale or two) of a popular style or complexion. It appears 
to me that there is room for a different style of the drama ; 
neither a servile following of the old drama, which is a grossly 
erroneous one, nor yet too French, like those who succeeded 
the older writers. It appears to me that good English, and a 
severer approach to the rules, might combine something not 
dishonorable to our literature. I have also attempted to 
make a play without love ; and there are neither rings, nor 
mistakes, nor starts, nor outrageous canting villains, nor 
melodrama in it. All this will prevent its popularity, but 
does not persuade me that it is therefore faulty. Whatever 
fault it has will arise from deficiency in the conduct, rather 
than in the conception, which is simple and severe. 

" Reproach is useless always, and irritating — but my feel- 
ings were very much hurt, to be dragged like a gladiator to 
the fate of a gladiator by that ' retiarius,^ Mr. EUiston. As 
to his defence and offers of compensation, what is all this to 
the purpose ? It is like Louis XIV., who insisted upon buying 
at any price Algernon Sydney's horse, and, on his refusal, on 
taking it by force, Sydney shot his horse. I could not shoot 
my tragedy, but I would have flung it into the fire rather than 
have had it represented." 



MARINO FALIERO. 



233 



that Louis XIV. was plunged into the most desolating 
wars, because his minister was nettled at his finding 
fault with a window, and wished to give him another 
occupation— that Helen lost Troy — that Lucretia ex- 
pelled the Tarquins from Rome — and that Cava 
brought the Moors to Spain — that an insulted hus- 
band led the Gauls to Clusium, and thence to Rome 
— that a single verse of Frederic II. of Prussia 
on the Abbe de Bernis, and a jest on Madame de 
Pompadour, led to the battle of Rosbachi — that the 
elopement of Dearbhorgil with Mac Murchad con- 
ducted the English to the slavery of Ireland — that 
a personal pique between Marie Antoinette and the 
Duke of Orleans precipitated the first expulsion of 
the Bourbons — and, not to multiply instances, that 
Commodus, Domitian, and Caligula fell victims not 
to their public tyranny, but to private vengeance — 
and that an order to make Cromwell disembark from 
the ship in which he would have sailed to America 
destroyed both king and commonwealth. After these 
instances, on the least reflection, it is indeed extra- 
ordinary in Dr. Moore to seem surprised that a man 
used to command, who had served and swayed in the 
most important ofiices, should fiercely resent, in a 
fierce age, an unpunished afiront, the grossest that 
can be offered to a man, be he prince or peasant. 
The age of Faliero is little to the purpose, unless to 
favor it — 

" The young man's wrath is like straw on fire, 
But like red-hot steel is the old man's ire." 
" Young men soon give and soon forget affronts, 
Old age is slow at both." 

Laugier's reflections are more philosophical: — 
" Tale fu il fine ignominioso di un' uomo, che la sua 
nascitjl, la sua et^, il suo carattere dovevano tener 
lontano dalle passioni produttrici di grandi delitti. I 
Buoi talenti per lungo tempo esercitati ne' maggiori 
impieghi, la sua capacity sperimentata ne' governi e 
nolle ambasciate, gli avevano acquistato la stima e 
la fiducia de' cittadini, ed avevano uniti i sufiragj per 
collocarlo alia testa della republica. Innalzato ad un 
grado che terminava gloriosamente la sua vita, il ri- 
sentimento di un' ingiuria leggiera insinuo nel suo 
cuore tal veleno che basto a corrompere le antiche sue 
quality, e a condurlo al termine dei scellerati ; serio 
esempio, che prova non esservi etcL^ in cui la prudenza 
umana sia sicura, e che nelV uomo restano sempre pas- 
sioni capaci a disonorarlo, quando non invigili sopra 
se stesso." 2 

"Where did Dr. Moore find that Marino Faliero 
begged his life? I have searched the chroniclers, 
and find nothing of the kind; it is true that he 



^ The abbe's biographer denies the correctness of this 
statement. — " Quelques ecrivains," he says, " qui trouvaient 
sans doute piquant d'attribuer de grands effets S, de petites 
causes, ont prgtendu que I'abbg avait insistg dans le conseil 
pour faire declarer la guerre S. la Prusse, par ressentiment 
centre Fredgric, et pour venger sa vanity poetique, humilie 
par le vers du monarque bel-esprit et poete — 

' Evitez de Bernis la sterile abondance.' 



avowed all. He was conducted to the place of tort- 
ure, but there is no mention made of any application 
for mercy on his part ; and the very circumstance of 
their having taken him to the rack seems to argue 
anything but his having shown a want of firmness, 
which would doubtless have been also mentioned by 
those minute historians, who by no means favor him : 
such, indeed, would be contrary to his character as 
a soldier, to the age in which he lived, and at which 
he died, as it is to the truth of history. I know 
no justification, at any distance of time, for calum- 
niating an historical character : surely truth belongs 
to the dead, and to the unfortunate; and they who 
have died upon a scafibld have generally had faults 
enough of their own, without attributing to them 
that which the very incurring of the perils which 
conducted them to their violent death renders, of 
all others, the most improbable. The black veil 
which is painted over the place of Marino Faliero 
amongst the doges, and the Giants' Staircase where 
he was crowned, and discrowned, and decapitated, 
struck forcibly upon my imagination; as did his 
fiery character and strange story. I went, in 1819, 
in search of his tomb more than once to the church 
San Giovanni e San Paolo; and, as I was standing 
before the monument of another family, a priest 
came up to me and said, " I can show you finer mon- 
uments than that." I told him that I was in search 
of that of the Faliero family, and particularly of 
the Doge Marino's. " Oh," said he, " I will show it 
you ;" and conducting me to the outside, pointed out 
a sarcophagus in the wall with an illegible inscription. 
He said that it had been in a convent adjoining, but 
was removed after the French came, and placed in 
its present situation; that he had seen the tomb 
opened at its removal; there were still some bones 
remaining, but no positive vestige of the decapitation. 
The equestrian statue of which I have made mention 
in the third act as before that church is not however 
of a Faliero, but of some other now obsolete warrior, 
although of a later date. There were two other 
doges of this family prior to Marino : Ordelafo, who 
fell in battle at Zara in 1117 (where his descendant 
afterwards conquered the Huns), and Vital Faliero, 
who reigned in 1082. The family, originally from 
Fano, was of the most illustrious in blood and wealth 
in the city of once the most wealthy and still the 
most ancient families in Europe. The length I have 
gone into on this subject will show the interest I have 
taken in it. Whether I have succeeded or not in the 
tragedy, I have at least transferred into our language 
an historical fact worthy of commemoration. 



Je ne m'amuserai point jt refuter cette opinion ridicule ; elle 
tombe par le fait, si I'abbg, comme dit Duclos, se declara au 
contraire, dans le conseil, constamment pour I'alliance avec 
la Prusse, contre le sentiment mgme de Louis XV. et de 
Madame de Pompadour." — Bib. Univ. 

2 Laugier, Hist, de la R6pub. de Venise, Italian translation, 
vol. iv. p. 30, 



234 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



It is now four years that I have meditated this 
work; and before I had sufSiciently examined the 
records, I was rather disposed to have made it turn 
on a jealousy in Faliero.i But, perceiving no founda- 
tion for this in historical truth, and aware that jealousy 
is an exhausted passion in the drama, I have given it 
a more historical form. I was, besides, well advised 
by the late Matthew Lewis on that point, in talking 
with him of my intention at Venice in 1817. " If you 
make him jealous," said he, " recollect that you have 
to contend with established writers, to say nothing of 
Shakspeare, and an exhausted subject: — stick to the 
old fiery doge's natural character, which will bear you 
out, if properly drawn ; and make your plot as regular 
as you can." Sir William Drummond gave me nearly 
the same counsel. How far I have followed these in- 
structions, or whether they have availed me, is not for 
me to decide. I have had no view to the stage ; in its 
present state it is, perhaps, not a very exalted object 
of ambition ; besides, I have been too much behind 
the scenes to have thought it so at any time.^ And I 
cannot conceive any man of irritable feeling putting 
himself at the mercies of an audience. The sneering 
reader, and the loud critic, and the tart review, are 
scattered and distant calamities; but the trampling 
of an intelligent or of an ignorant audience on a pro- 
duction which, be it good or bad, has been a mental 

1 In February, 1817, Lord Byron writes to Mr. Murray— 
" Look into Dr. Moore's ' View of Italy ' for me : in one of 
the volumes you will find an account of the Doge Valiero (it 
ought to be Faliero) and his conspiracy, or the motives of it. 
Get it transcribed for me, and send it in a letter to me soon. 
I want it, and cannot find so good an account of that business 
here; though the veiled patriot, and the place where he 
was crowned, and afterwards decapitated, still exist and are 
shown. I have searched all their histories ; but the policy of 
the old aristocracy made their writers silent on his motives, 
which were a private grievance against one of the patricians. 
I mean to write a tragedy on the subject, which appears to me 
very dramatic : an old man, jealous, and conspiring against 
the state, of which he was actually reigning chief. The last 
circumstance makes it the most remarkable, and only fact of 
the kind, in all history of all nations." 

2 " It is like being at the whole process of a woman's toilet 
— it disenchants." — MS. 

3 While I was in the sub-committee of Drury Lane Theatre, 
I can vouch for my colleagues, and I hope for myself, that we 
did our best to bring back the legitimate drama. I tried what 
I could to get "De Montfort" revived, but in vain, and 
equally in vain in favor of Sotheby's "Ivan," which was 
thought an acting play ; and I endeavored also to wake Mr. 
Coleridge to write a tragedy. Those who are not in the 
secret will hardly believe that the " School for Scandal " is 
the play which has brought least money, averaging the number 
of times it has been acted since its production ; so Manager 
Dibden assured me. Of what has occurred since Maturin's* 
" Bertram " I am not aware ; so that I may be traducing, 
through ignorance, some excellent new writers : if so, I beg 
their pardon. I have been absent from England nearly five 
years, and, till last year, I never read an English newspaper 
since my departure, and am now only aware of theatrical 



# The Rev. Charles Maturin (a curate in Dublin) died in 1824. His first 
production, the " House of Montorio," a romance, is the only one of hia 
works that has survived him. When he wished his family to be aware that 
the fit was on him, this fantastical gentleman used to stick a wafer on his 



labor to the writer, is a palpable and immediate 
grievance, heightened by a man's doubt of their com- 
petency to judge, and his certainty of his own impru- 
dence in electing them his judges. Were I capable 
of writing a play which could be deemed stageworthy . 
success would give me no pleasure, and failure great 
pain. It is for this reason that, even during the time 
of being one of the committee of one of the theatres, 
I never made the attempt, and never will.^ But 
surely there is dramatic power somewhere, where 
Joanna Baillie,* and Milman,-^ and John Wilson ^ 
exist. The " City of the Plague " and the " Fall of 
Jerusalem" are full of the best materiel for tragedy 
that has been seen since Horace Walpole, except 
passages of Ethwald and De Montfort. It is the 
fashion to underrate Horace Walpole ; firstly, because 
he was a nobleman, and secondly, because he was a 
gentleman; but, to say nothing of the composition 
of his incomparable letters, and of the Castle of 
Otranto, he is the " Ultimus Eomanorum," the author 
of the Mysterious Mother, a tragedy of the highest 
order, and not a puling love-play. He is the father 
of the first romance and of the last tragedy in our 
language, and surely worthy of a higher place than 
any living writer, be he who he may. 

In speaking of the drama of Marino Faliero, I for- 
got to mention, that the desire of preserving, though 

matters through the medium of the Parisian Gazette of 
Galignani, and only for the last twelve months. Let me then 
deprecate all offence to tragic or comic writers, to whom I 
wish well, and of whom I know nothing. The long complaints 
of the actual state of the drama arise, however, from no fault 
of the performers. I can conceive nothing better than Kemble, 
Cooke, and Kean in their very difierent manners, or than 
Elliston in gentleman's comedy, and in some parts of tragedy. 
Miss O'Neill I never saw, having made and kept a determin- 
ation to see nothing which should divide or disturb my recol- 
lection of Siddons. Siddons and Kemble were the ideal of 
tragic action ; I never saw any thing at all resembling them 
even in person : for this reason, we shall never see again 
Coriolanus or Macbeth. When Kean is blamed for want of 
dignity, we should remember that it is a grace, and not an 
art, and not to be attained by study. In all, not suPER-natural 
parts, he is perfect ; even his very defects belong, or seem to 
belong, to the parts themselves, and appear truer to nature. 
But of Kemble we may say, with reference to his acting, what 
the Cardinal de Retz said of the Marquis of Montrose, " that 
he was the only man he ever saw who reminded him of the 
heroes of Plutarch." 

* Mrs. Baillie's " Family Legend " is the only one of her 
dramas that ever had any success on the stage. 

6 The Rev. Henry Hart Milman, of Brazen Nose College, 
Oxford, for some time Professor of Poetry in that university, 
and now rector of St. Margaret, Westminster. "Fazio," 
which he wrote before taking his first degree at Oxford, is 
the only one of his plays that has done well on the stage. 

6 John Wilson, of Magdalen College, Oxford, now Professor 
of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, — the 
well-known author of the " Isle of Palms," " Margaret Lind- 
say," " Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life," &c., &c., and the 
principal critic as well as humorist of Blackwood's Magazine. 



forehead.—" Maturin," says Lord Byron, " sent his ' Bertram ' and a letter 
to the Drury Lane committee, without his address ; so that at first I could 
give him no answer ; when I at length hit upon his residence, I sent him a 
favorable one, and something more substantial." 



MARINO FALIERO. 



235 



still too remote, a nearer approach to unity than the 
irregularity, which is the reproach of the English 
theatrical compositions, permits, has induced me to 
represent the conspiracy as already formed, and the 
doge acceding to it; whereas, in fact, it was of his 
own preparation and that of Israel Bertuccio. The 
other characters (except that of the duchess), inci- 
dentsi. and almost the time, which was wonderfully 



1 Lord Byron originally designed to inscribe this tragedy 
to his friend, the late Mr. Douglas Kinnaird ; but the dedica- 
tion, then drawn up, has remained till now in MS. It is in 
these words : — 

"To THE Honorable Douglas Kinnaird. 

"My dear Douglas,— I dedicate to you the following tra- 
gedy, rather on account of your good opinion of it, than from 
any notion of my own that it may be worthy of your accept- 
ance. But if its merits were ten times greater than they 
possibly can be, this offering would still be a very inadequate 
acknowledgment of the active and steady friendship with 
which, for a series of years, you have honored your obliged 
and affectionate friend, BYEON." 

At another moment, the poet resolved to dedicate this 
tragedy to Goethe, whose praises of " Manfred " had highly 
delighted him ; but this dedication shared the fate of that to 
Mr. Kinnaird :— it did not reach the hands of Goethe till 
1831, when it was presented to him at "Weimar, by Mr. Murray, 
jun. ; nor was it printed at all, until Mr. Moore included it 
in his Life of Lord Byron. It is to be regretted that Mr. 
Moore, in doing so, omitted some passages, which, the MS. 
having since been lost, we cannot now restore. " It is writ- 
ten," he says, " in the poet's most whimsical and mocking 
mood ; and the unmeasured severity poured out in it upon 
the two favorite objects of his wrath and ridicule, compels me 
to deprive the reader of some of its most amusing passages." 
The world are in possession of so much of Lord Byron's sar- 
castic criticisms on his contemporaries, and the utter reckless- 
ness with which he threw them off is so generally appreciated, 
that one is at a loss to understand what purpose could be 
served by suppressing the fragments thus characterized. 

" To Baron Goethe,* &c., &c., &c. 

" Sir,— In the Appendix to an English work lately trans- 
lated into German and published at Leipsic, a judgment of 
yours upon English poetry is quoted as follows: 'That in 
English poetry, great genius, universal power, a feeling of pro- 
fundity, with sufficient tenderness and force, are to be found ; 
but that altogether these do not constitute poets,' &c., &e. 

" I regret to see a great man falling into a great mistake. 
This opinion of yours only proves, that the ^Dictionary often 
thousand living English Authors' has not been translated into 
German. You will have read, in your friend Schlegel's ver- 
sion, the dialogue in Macbeth — 

' There are ten thousand ! 
Macbeth. Geese, villain ? 
Answer. Authors, sir.' 

Now, of these 'ten thousand authors,' there are actually 
nineteen hundred and eighty-seven poets, all alive at this 
moment, whatever their works may be, as their booksellers 
well know : and amongst these there are several that possess 
afar greater reputation than mine, although considerably less 
than yours. It is owing to this neglect on the part of your 
German translators that you are not aware of the works of 
********* 

" There is also another, named * * * * 

****** 

" I mention these poets by way of sample to enlighten you. 



• Goethe was ennobled, having the Von prefixed to his name, but never 
received the title of baron. 



short for such a design in real life, are strictly histori- 
cal, except that all the consultations took place in the 
palace. Had I followed this, the unity would have 
been better preserved ; but I wished to produce the 
doge in the full assembly of the conspirators, instead 
of monotonously placing him always in dialogue with 
the same individuals. For the real facts, I refer to 
the Appendix.i 



They form but two bricks of our Babel (Windsor bricks, by 
the way), but may serve for a specimen of the building. 

" It is, moreover, asserted, that ' the predominant character 
of the whole body of the present English poetry is a disgust 
and contempt for life.' But I rather suspect that, by one 
single work oi prose, you yourself have excited a greater con- 
tempt for life, than all the English volumes of poesy that ever 
were written. Madame de Stael says, that 'Werther has 
occasioned more suicides than the most beautiful woman ;' 
and I really believe that he has put more individuals out of 
this world than Napoleon himself, — except in the way of his 
profession. Perhaps, illustrious sir, the acrimonious judg- 
ment passed by a celebrated northern journal upon you in 
particular, and the Germans in general, has rather indisposed 
you towards English poetry as well as criticism. But you 
must not regard our critics, who are at bottom good-natured 
fellows, considering their two professions, — taking up the 
law in court, and laying it down out of it. No one can more 
lament their hasty and unfair judgment, in your particular, 
than I do ; and I so expressed myself to your friend Schlegel, 
in 1816, at Coppet. 

" In behalf of my ' ten thousand ' living brethren, and of 
myself, I have thus far taken notice of an opinion expressed 
with regard to ' English poetry ' in general, and which mer- 
ited notice, because it was yours. 

" My principal object in addressing you was to testify my 
sincere respect and admiration of a man, who, for half a cen- 
tury, has led the literature of a great nation, and will go down 
to posterity as the first literary character of his age. 

"You have been fortunate, sir, not only in the writings 
which have illustrated your name, but in the name itself, as 
being sufficiently musical for the articulation of posterity. In 
this you have the advantage of some of your countrymen, 
whose names would perhaps be immortal also — if anybody 
could pronounce them. 

" It may, perhaps, be supposed, by this apparent tone of 
levity, that I am wanting in intentional respect towards you ; 
but this will be a mistake : I am always flippant in prose. 
Considering you, as I really and warmly do, in common with 
all your own, and with most other nations, to be by far the 
first literary character which has existed in Europe since the 
death of Voltaire, I felt, and feel, desirous to inscribe to you 
the following work, — not as being either a tragedy or a poem 
(for I cannot pronounce upon its pretensions to be either one 
or the other, or both, or neither), but as a mark of esteem 
and admiration from a foreigner to the man who has been 
hailed in Germany ' the Great Goethe.' I have the honor 
to be, with the truest respect, your most obedient and very 
humble servant, BYRON. 

" Eavenna, S^re 140, 1820. 

" P. S. I perceive that in Germany as well as in Italy, there 
is a great struggle about what they call ' Classical ' and ' Ro- 
mantic,' — terms which were not subjects of classification in 
England, at least when I left it four or five years ago. Some 
of the English scribblers, it is true, abused Pope and Swift, 
but the reason was that they themselves did not know how to 
write either prose or verse ; but nobody thought them worth 
making a sect of. Perhaps there may be something of the kind 
sprung up lately, but I have not heard much about it, and 
it would be such bad taste that I shall be very sorry to be- 
lieve it." 



236 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Act I. 



DRAMATIS PERSONS. 



MEN. 



Conspirators, 



Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice. 
Berttjccio Faliero, Nephew of the Doge. 
LiONi, a Patrician and Senator. 
Benintende, Chief of the Council of Ten. 
Michel Steno, One of the Three Capi of the Forty. 
Israel Bertuccio, Chief of 

the Arsenal, 
Philip Calendaro, 
Dagolino, 
Bertram, 
Signor of the Night {" Signore di Notte''), one of the 

Officers belonging to the Republic. 
First Citizen. 
Second Citizen. 
Third Citizen. 
ViNCENZO, ] 

PiETRO, \ Officers belonging to the Ducal Palace. 
Battista, J 

Secretary of the Council of Ten. 
Guards, Conspirators, Citizens, The Council of Ten, 

The Giunta, &c. &c. 

WOMEN. 
Angiolina, Wife to the Doge. 
Marianna, her Friend. 

Female Attendants, &c. 

Scene— Venice, in the year 1355. 



i^armo dTalCoro* 



ACT I. 



SCENE I. 
An Antechamber in the Ducal Palace. 

Pietro speaks, in entering, to Battista. 

Pie. Is not the messenger return'd ? 

Bat. Not yet ; 

I have sent frequently, as you commanded, 
But still the Signory is deep in council 
And long debate on Steno's accusation. 

Pie. Too long — at least so thinks the Doge 

Bat. How bears he 

These moments of suspense ? 

Pie. "With struggling patience. 

Placed at the ducal table, cover'd o'er 
With all the apparel of the state ; petitions, 



The illustrious Goethe was much gratified with this token 
of Lord Byron's admiration. He died at Weimar early in 
the year 1832— a year which swept away so many of the great 
men of the European world — among others, Cuvier and Scott. 



Despatches, judgments, acts, reprieves, reports, 

He sits as rapt in duty ; but whene'er 

He hears the jarring of a distant door, 

Or aught that intimates a coming step. 

Or murmur of a voice, his quick eye wanders, 

And he will start up from his chair, then pause. 

And seat himself again, and fix his gaze 

Upon some edict ; but I have observed 

For the last hour he has not turn'd a leaf. 

Bat. 'Tis said he is much moved, — and doubtless 
'twas 
Foul scorn in Steno to offend so grossly. 

Pie. Ay, if a poor man : Steno's a patrician. 
Young, galliard, gay, and haughty. 

Bat. Then you think 

He will not be judged hardly ? 

Pie. 'Twere enough 

He be judged justly ; but 'tis not for us 
To anticipate the sentence of the Forty. 

Bat. And here it comes. — What news, Vincenzo ? 

Enter ViNCENZO. 
ViN. 'Tis 

Decided ; but as yet his doom's unknown : 
I saw the president in act to seal 
The parchment which will bear the Forty's judgment 
Unto the Doge, and hasten to inform him. {Exeunt. 

SCENE II. 
The Ducal Chamber. 

Marino Faliero, Doge ; and his Nephew, 
Bertuccio Faliero. 
Ber. F. It cannot be but they will do you justice. 
Doge. Ay, such as the Avogadori i did, 
Who sent up my appeal unto the Forty 
To try him by his peers, his own tribunal. 
Ber. F. His peers will scarce protect him : such an 
act 
Would bring contempt on all authority. 
Doge. Know you not Venice ? Know you not the 
Forty? 
But we shall see anon. 
Ber. F. {addressing Vincenzo, then entering). 
How now — what tidings ? 
ViN. I am charged to tell his highness that the court 
Has pass'd its resolution, and that, soon 
As the due forms of judgment are gone through, 
The sentence will be sent up to the Doge ; 
In the mean time the Forty doth salute 
The Prince of the Republic, and entreat 
His acceptation of their duty. 

Doge. Yes— 

They are wondrous dutiful, and ever humble. 
Sentence is pass'd, you say ? 



1 The Avogadori, three in number, were the conductors 
of criminal prosecutions on the part of the state ; and no act 
of the councils was valid, unless sanctioned by the presence 
of one of them. 



Scene II. 



MAEINO FALIERO. 



237 



I 



ViN. It is, your highness : 

The president was sealing it, when I 
Was call'd in, that no moment might be lost 
In forwarding the intimation due 
Not only to the Chief of the Republic, 
But the complainant, both in one united. 

Ber. F. Are you aware, from aught you have per- 
ceived, 
Of their decision? 

ViN. No, my lord ; you know 

The secret custom of the courts in Venice. 

Ber. F. True ; but there still is something given 
to guess. 
Which a shrewd gleaner and quick eye would catch at ; 
A whisper, or a murmur, or an air 
More or less solemn spread o'er the tribunal. 
The Forty are but men — most worthy men. 
And wise, and just, and cautious — this I grant — 
And secret as the grave to which they doom 
The guilty : but with all this, in their aspects — 
At least in some, the juniors of the number — 
A searching eye, an eye like yours, Vincenzo, 
Would read the sentence ere it was pronounced. 

ViN. My lord, I came away upon the moment. 
And had no leisure to take note of that 
Which passed among the Judges, even in seeming ; 
My station near the accused too, Michel Steno, 
Made me — 

Doge {abruptly). And howlook'd hef deliver that. 

ViN. Calm, but not overcast, he stood resign'd 
To the decree, whate'er it were ; — but lo ! 
It comes, for the perusal of his highness. 

Enter the Secretary of the Forty. 

Sec. The high tribunal of the Forty sends 
Health and respect to the Doge Faliero, 
Chief magistrate of Venice, and requests 
His highness to peruse and to approve 
The sentence pass'd on Michel Steno, born 
Patrician, and arraign'd upon the charge 
Contain'd, together with its penalty, 
Within the rescript which I now present. 

Doge. Retire, and wait without. 

[^Exeunt Secretary and Vincenzo. 
Take thou this paper : 
The misty letters vanish from my eyes ; 
I cannot fix them. 

Ber. F. Patience, my dear uncle : 

Why do you tremble thus ? — nay, doubt not, all 
Will be as could be wish'd. 



1 " Marino Faliero, dalla bella moglie— altri la gode, ed egli 
la mantiene." — Santtto. 

2 " It is not in the plot only that we think we can trace 
the injurious effects of Lord Byron's continental prejudices 
and his choice of injudicious models. We trace them in the 
abruptness of his verse, which has all the harshness, though 
not all the vigor, of Alfieri, and which, instead of that rich- 
ness and variety of cadence which distinguishes even the 
most careless of our elder dramatists, is often only distin- 
guishable from prose by the unrelenting uniformity with 



Doge. Say on. 

Ber. F. {reading). " Decreed 

In council, without one dissenting voice, 
That Michel Steno, by his own confession. 
Guilty on the last night of Carnival 
Of having graven on the ducal throne 
The following words " i 

Doge. Wouldst thou repeat them ? 

Wouldst thou repeat them — thou, a Faliero, 
Harp on the deep dishonor of our house, 
Dishonor'd in its chief — that chief the j)rince 
Of Venice, first of cities ? — To the sentence. 

Ber. F. Forgive me, my good lord ; I will obey— 
{Reads) " That Michel Steno be detain'd a month 
In close arrest." ^ 

Doge. Proceed. 

Ber. F. My lord, 'tis finish'd. 

Doge. How say you? — finish'd! Do I dream? — 
'tis false — 
Give me the paper — {Snatches the paper and reads) 

— " 'Tis decreed in council 
That Michel Steno " Nephew, thine arm ! 

Ber. F. Nay, 

Cheer up, be calm ; this transport is uncall'd for — 
Let me seek some assistance. 

Doge. Stop, sir — Stir not — 

'Tis past. 

Ber. F. I cannot but agree with you 
The sentence is too slight for the ofience ; 
It is not honorable in the Forty 
To affix so slight a penalty to that 
Which was a foul affront to you, and even 
To them, as being your subjects; but 'tis not 
Yet without remedy : you can appeal 
To them once more, or to the Avogadori, 
Who, seeing that true justice is withheld. 
Will now take up the cause they once declined. 
And do you right upon the bold delinquent. 
Think you not thus, good uncle? why do you 

stand 
So fix'd ? You heed me not ; — I pray you, hear me ! 

Doge {dashing down the ducal bonnet, and offering 
to trample upon it, exclaims, as he is withheld 
by his nephew) 
Oh, that the Saracen were in Saint Mark's ! 
Thus would I do him homage. 

Ber. F. For the sake 
Of Heaven and all its saints, my lord 

Doge. Away ! 

Oh, that the Genoese were in the port ! 



which it is divided into decasyllabic portions. The sentence 
of the College of Justice was likely, indeed, to be prosaic ; 
and Shakspeare and our other elder tragedians would have 
given it as bond fide prose, without that affectation (for which, 
however. Lord Byron has many precedents in modern times) 
which condemns letters, proclamations, the speeches of the 
vulgar, and the outcries of the rabble and the soldiery, to strut 
in the same precise measure with the lofty musings and dig- 
nified resentment of the powerful and the wise: — but Ber- 
tuccio Faliero might as well have spoken poetry."— Heber. 



238 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Act I, 



Oh, that the Huns whom I o'erthrew at Zara 
Were ranged around the palace ! 

Ber. F. 'Tis not well 

In Venice' Duke to say so. 

Doge. Venice' Duke ! 

Who now is Duke in Venice ? let me see him, 
That he may do me right. 

Ber. F. If you forget 

Your office, and its dignity and duty, 
Eemember that of man, and curb this passion. 
The Duke of Venice 

Doge {interrupting him). There is no such thing — 
It is a word — nay, worse — a worthless by-word : 
The most despised, wrong'd, outraged, helpless wretch, 
Who begs his bread, if 'tis refused by one, 
May win it from another kinder heart : 
But he, who is denied his right by those 
V/hose place it is to do no wrong, is poorer 
Than the rejected beggar — he's a slave — 
And that am I, and thou, and all our house, 
Even from this hour ; the meanest artisan 
Will point the finger, and the haughty noble 
May spit upon us : — where is our redress ? 

Bee. F. The law, my prince 

Doge {interrupting him). You see what it has 
done — 
I ask'd no remedy but from the law — 
I sought no vengeance but redress by law — 
I call'd no judges but those named by law — 
As sovereign, I appeal' d unto my subjects. 
The very subjects who had made me sovereign, 
And gave me thus a double right to be so. 
The rights of place and choice, of birth and service, 
Honors and years, these scars, these hoary hairs. 
The travel, toil, the perils, the fatigues. 
The blood and sweat of almost eighty years. 
Were weigh'd i' the balance, 'gainst the foulest stain. 
The grossest insult, most contemptuous crime 
Of a rank, rash patrician — and found wanting ! 
And this is to be borne ! 

Bee. F. I say not that :— 

In case your fresh appeal should be rejected, 
We will find other means to make all even. 

Doge. Appeal again ! art thou my brother's son ? 
A scion of the house of Faliero ? 
The nephew of a Doge ? and of that blood 
Which hath already given three dukes to Venice ? 
But thou sayst well — we must be humble now. 

Bee. F. My princely uncle ! you are too much 
moved : 
I grant it was a gross ofience, and grossly 
Left without fitting punishment : but still 
This fury doth exceed the provocation. 
Or any provocation : if we are wrong'd, 
We will ask justice ; if it be denied. 
We'll take it ; but may do all this in calmness — 
Deep Vengeance is the daughter of deep Silence. 
I have yet scarce a third part of your years, 
I love our house, I honor you, its chief. 
The guardian of my youth, and its instructor — 



But though I understand your grief, and enter 
In part of your disdain, it doth appall me 
To see your anger, like our Adrian waves, 
O'ersweep all bounds, and foam itself to air. 

Doge. I tell thee — must I tell thee — what thy father 
Would have required no words to comprehend ? 
Hast thou no feeling save the external sense 
Of torture from the touch ? hast thou no soul — 
No pride — no passion — no deep sense of honor ? 

Bee. F. 'Tis the first time that honor has been 
doubted, 
And were the last, from any other skeptic. 

Doge. You know the full ofience of this born villain, 
This creeping, coward, rank, acquitted felon, 
Who threw his sting into a poisonous libel,i 
And on the honor of— Oh God ! — my wife. 
The nearest, dearest part of all men's honor. 
Left a base slur to pass from mouth to mouth 
Of loose mechanics, with all coarse foul comments. 
And villainous jests, and blasphemies obscene ; 
While sneering nobles, in more polish'd guise, 
Whisper'd the tale, and smiled upon the lie 
Which made me look like them — a courteous wittol, 
Patient — ay, proud, it may be, of dishonor. 

Bee. F. But still it was a lie — you knew it false. 
And so did all men. 

Doge. Nephew, the high Eoman 

Said, " Caesar's wife must not even be suspected," 
And put her from him. 

Bee. F. True — but in those days 

Doge. What is it that a Eoman would not sufier, 
That a Venetian prince must bear ? Old Dandolo 
Eefused the diadem of all the Csesars, 
And wore the ducal cap I trample on. 
Because 'tis now degraded. 

Bee. F. 'Tis even so. 

Doge. It is — it is : — I did not visit on 
The innocent creature thus most vilely slander'd 
Because she took an old man for her lord. 
For that he had been long her father's friend 
And patron of her house, as if there were 
No love in woman's heart but lust of youth 
And beardless faces ; — I did not for this 
Visit the villain's infamy on her. 
But craved my country's justice on his head, 
The justice due unto the humblest being 
Who hath a wife whose faith is sweet to him, 
Who hath a home whose hearth is dear to him, 
Who hath a name whose honor's all to him, 
When these are tainted by the accursing breath 
Of calumny and scorn. 

Bee. F. And what redress 

Did you expect as his fit punishment ? 

Doge. Death ! Was I not the sovereign of the 
state — 
Insulted on his very throne, and made 
A mockery to the men who should obey me ? 
Was I not injured as a husband ? scorn'd 

1 " Who threw his sting into a poisonous rhyme." — MS. 



Scene II. 



MAKING FALIERO. 



239 



As man ? reviled, degraded, as a prince ? 
Was not offence like his a complication 
Of insult and of treason ? — and he lives ! 
Had he instead of on the Doge's throne 
Stamp'd the same braifd upon a peasant's stool, 
His blood had gilt the threshold ; for the carle 
Had stabb'd him on the instant. 
• Bee. F. Do not doubt it, 

He shall not live till sunset — leave to me 
The means, and calm yourself. 

Doge. Hold, nephew : this 

Would have sufficed but yesterday ; at present 
I have no further wrath against this man. 

Bee. F. What mean you ? is not the offence re- 
doubled 
By this most rank — I will not say — acquittal ; 
For it is worse, being full acknowledgment 
Of the offence, and leaving it unpunish'd ? 

Doge. It is redoubled, but not now by him : 
The Forty hath decreed a month's arrest — 
We must obey the Forty. 

Bee. F. Obey them ! 

Who have forgot their duty to the sovereign ? 

Doge. Why, yes ; — boy, you perceive it then at last : 
Whether as fellow citizen who sues 
For justice, or as sovereign who commands it. 
They have defrauded me of both my rights 
(^For here the sovereign is a citizen) ; 
But, notwithstanding, harm not thou a hair 
Of Steno's head — he shall not wear it long. 

Bee. F. Not twelve hours longer, had you left to me 
The mode and means : if you had calmly heard me, 
I never meant this miscreant should escape. 
But wish'd you to repress such gusts of passion, 
That we more surely might devise together 
His taking off. 

Doge. No, nephew, he must live ; 

At least, just now — a life so vile as his 
Were nothing at this hour ; in th' olden time 
Some sacrifices ask'd a single victim. 
Great expiations had a hecatomb. 

Bee. F. Your wishes are my law ; and yet I fain 
Would prove to you how near unto my heart 
The honor of our house must ever be. 

Doge. Fear not ; you shall have time and place of 
proof; 
But be not thou too rash, as I have been. 
I am ashamed of my own anger now ; 
I pray you, pardon me. 

Bee. F. Why, that's my uncle ! 

The leader, and the statesman, and the chief 
Of commonwealths, and sovereign of himself! 
I wonder' d to perceive you so forget 
All prudence in your fury at these years. 
Although the cause 

Doge. Ay, think upon the cause — 

Forget it not : — When you lie down to rest. 
Let it be black among your dreams ; and when 
The morn returns, so let it stand between 
The sun and you, as an ill-omen'd cloud 



Upon a summer day of festival : 
So will it stand to me ; — but speak not, stir not, — 
Leave all to me ; — we shall have much to do. 
And you shall have a part. — But now retire, 
'Tis fit I were alone. 

Bee. F. {taking up and placing the ducal bonnet on 
the table). Ere I depart, 

I pray you to resume what you have spurn'd. 
Till you can change it haply for a crown. 
And now I take my leave, imploring you 
In all things to rely upon my duty 
As doth become your near and faithful kinsman. 
And not less loyal citizen and subject. 

[_Exit Beetuccio Falieeo. 

DoGe (solus). Adieu, my worthy nephew. — 

Hollow bauble ! [Taking up the ducal cap. 
Beset with all the thorns that line a crown, 
Without investing the insulted brow 
With the all-swaying majesty of kings ; 
Thou idle, gilded, and degraded toy, 
Let me resume thee as I would a vizor. [Puts it on. 
How my brain aches beneath thee ! and my temples 
Throb feverish under thy dishonest weight. 
Could I not turn thee to a diadem ? 
Could I not shatter the Briarean sceptre 
Which in this hundred-handed Senate rules, 
Making the people nothing, and the prince 
A pageant ? In my life I have achieved 
Tasks not less difficult — achieved for them. 
Who thus repay me ! Can I not requite them ? 
Oh, for one year ! Oh, but for even a day 
Of my full youth, while yet my body served 
My soul as serves the generous steed his lord, 
I would have dash'd amongst them, asking few 
In aid to overthrow these swoln patricians ; 
But now I must look round for other hands 
To serve this hoary head ; — but it shall plan 
In such a sort as will not leave the task 
Herculean, though as yet 'tis but a chaos 
Of darkly-brooding thoughts : my fancy is 
In her first work, more nearly to the light 
Holding the sleeping images of things 
For the selection of the pausing judgment. — 
The troops are few in 

Enter Vincenzo. 

ViN. There is one without 

Craves audience of your highness. 

Doge. I'm unwell — 

I can see no one, not even a patrician — 
Let him refer his business to the council. 

ViN. My lord, I will deliver your reply ; 
It cannot much import — he's a plebeian. 
The master of a galley, I believe. 

Doge. How ! did you say the patron of a galley ? 
That is — I mean — a servant of the state : 
Admit him, he may be on public service. 

[Exit Vincenzo. 

Doge (solus). This patron may be sounded ; I will 
try him. 



240 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Act I. 



I know the people to be discontented : 
They have cause, since Sapienza's adverse day, 
When Genoa conquer'd : they have further cause, 
Since they are nothing in the state, and in 
The city worse than nothing — mere machines, 
To serve the nobles' most patrician pleasure. 
The troops have long arrears of pay, oft promised, 
And murmur deeply — any hope of change 
Will draw them forward : they shall pay themselves 
With plunder : — but the priests — I doubt the priest- 
hood 
Will not be with us ; they have hated me 
Since that rash hour, when, madden'd with the 

drone, 
I smote the tardy bishop at Treviso,i 
Quickening his holy march ; yet, ne'ertheless. 
They may be won, at least their chief at Rome, 
By some well-timed concessions ; but, above 
All things, I must be speedy : at my hour 
Of twilight little light of life remains. 
Could I free Venice, and avenge my wrongs, 
I had lived too long, and willingly would sleep 
Next moment with my sires; and, wanting this, 
Better that sixty of my fourscore years 
Had been already where — how soon, I care not — 
The whole must be extinguish'd ; — better that 
They ne'er had been, than drag me on to be 
The thing these arch-oppressors fain would make me. 
Let me consider — of efficient troops 
There are three thousand posted 



Enter ViNCENZO and ISRAEL Beettjccio. 

ViN. May it please 

Your highness, the same patron that I spake of 
Is here to crave your patience. 

Doge. Leave the chamber, 

Vincenzo. — [_Exit Vincenzo. 

Sir, you may advance — what would you ? 

I. Ber. Redress. 

Doge. Of whom ? 

I. Bee. Of God and of the Doge. 

Doge. Alas \ my friend, you seek it of the twain 
Of least respect and interest in Venice. 
You must address the council. 

I. Bee. 'Twere in vain ; 

For he who injured me is one of them. 

Doge. There's blood upon thy face — ^how came it 
there ? 

I. Bee. 'Tis mine, and not the first I've shed for 
Venice, 
But the first shed by a Venetian hand : 
A noble smote me. 

Doge. Doth he live? 



1 An historical fact. See Marin Sanuto's Lives of the 
Doges. — " Sanuto says that Heaven took away his senses for 
this buffet, and induced him to conspire : — ' Per6 fu permesso 
che il Faliero perdette 1' intelleto,' &c." — Byron Letters. 

2 " This oflacer was chief of the artisans of the arsenal, and 
commanded the Bucentaur, for the safety of which, even if 
an accidental storm should arise, he was responsible with 



I. Bee. Not long- 

But for the hope I had and have, that you, 
My prince, yourself a soldier, will redress 
Him, whom the laws of discipline and Venice 
Permit not to protect himself ,*— if not — 
I say no more. 

Doge. But something you would do — 

Is it not so ? 

I. Bee. I am a man, my lord. 

Doge. Why, so is he who smote you. 

I. Bee. He is call'd so ; 

Nay, more, a noble one — at least, in Venice : 
But since he hath forgotten that I am one, 
And treats me like a brute, the brute may turn — 
'Tis said the worm will. 

Doge. Say — his name and lineage ? 

I. Bee. Barbaro. 

Doge. What was the cause ? or the pretext ? 

I. Bee. I am the chief of the arsenal,^ employ'd 
At present in repairing certain galleys 
But roughly used by the Genoese last year. 
This morning comes the noble Barbaro 
Full of reproof, because our artisans 
Had left some frivolous order of his house. 
To execute the state's decree : I dared 
To justify the men — he raised his hand ; — 
Behold my blood ! the first time it e'er flow'd 
Dishonorably. 

Doge. Have you long time served ? 

I. Bee. So long as to remember Zara's siege, 
And fight beneath the chief who beat the Huns there, 
Sometime my general, now the Doge Faliero. — 

Doge. How ! are we comrades ? — the state's ducal 
robes 
Sit newly on me, and you were appointed 
Chief of the arsenal ere I came from Rome ; 
So that I recognized you not. Who placed you ? 

I. Bee. The late Doge ; keeping still my old com- 
mand 
As patron of a galley : my new office 
Was given as the reward of certain scars 
(So was your predecessor pleased to say) : 
I little thought his bounty would conduct me 
To his successor as a helpless plaintiff; 
At least, in such a cause. 

Doge. Are you much hurt ? 

I. Bee. Irreparably in my self-esteem. 

Doge. Speak out ; fear nothing : being stung at 
heart, 
What would you do to be revenged on this man ? 

I. Bee. That which I dare not name, and yet will 
do. 

Doge. Then wherefore came you here ? 



his life. He mounted guard at the ducal palace during an 
interregnum, and bore the red standard before the new doge 
on his inauguration ; for which service his perquisites were 
the ducal mantle, and the two silver basins from which the 
doge scattered the regulated pittance which he was permit- 
ted to throw among the people." — Amelot de la Hous- 

SAYE, 79. 






Scene II. 



MAKING FALIEEO. 



241 



I.Bee. I come for justice, 

Because my general is Doge, and will not 
See his old soldier trampled on. Had any. 
Save Faliero, fiU'd the ducal throne, 
This blood had been wash'd out in other blood. 

Doge. You come to me for justice — unto me ! 
The Doge of Venice, and I cannot give it ; 
I cannot even obtain it — 'twas denied 
To me most solemnly an hour ago ! 

I. Ber. How says your highness ? 

Doge. Steno is condemn'd 

To a month's confinement. 

I. Bee. What! the same who dared 

To stain the ducal throne with those foul words. 
That have cried shame to every ear in Venice ? 

Doge. Ay, doubtless they have echo'd o'er the 
arsenal. 
Keeping due time with every hammer's clink 
As a good jest to jolly artisans ; 
Or making chorus to the creaking oar, 
In the vile tune of every galley-slave, 
Who, as he sung the merry stave, exulted 
He was not a shamed dotard like the Doge. 

I. Bee. Is't possible ? a month's imprisonment ! 
No more for Steno ? 

Doge. You have heard the offence, 

And now you know his punishment ; and then 
You ask redress of me ! Go to the Forty, 
Who pass'd the sentence upon Michel Steno ; 
They'll do as much by Barbaro, no doubt. 

I. Bee. Ah I dared I speak my feelings ! 

Doge. Give them breath. 

Mine have no further outrage to endure. 

I. Bee. Then, in a word, it rests but on your word 
To punish and avenge — I will not say 
My petty wrong, for what is a mere blow, 
However vile, to such a thing as I am ?— 
But the base insult done your state and person. 

Doge. You overrate my power, which is a pageant. 
This cap is not the monarch's crown ; these robes 
Might move compassion, like a beggar's rags; 
Nay, more, a beggar's are his own, and these 
But lent to the poor puppet, who must play 
Its part with all its empire in this ermine. 

I. Bee. Wouldst thou be king? 

Doge. Yes — of a happy people. 

I. Bee. Wouldst thou be sovereign lord of Venice ? 

Doge. Ay, 

If that the people shared that sovereignty. 
So that nor they nor I were further slaves 
To this o'ergrown aristocratic Hydra, 
The poisonous heads of whose envenom'd body 
Have breathed a pestilence upon us all. 

I. Bee. Yet, thou wast bom, and still hast lived, 
1 ^» patrician. 

II^B^Doge. In evil hour was I so born ; my birth 
l^^path made me Doge to be insulted : but 
I^B[ lived and toil'd a soldier and a servant 
^^|bf Venice and her people, not the Senate ; 
I^Huieir good and my own honor were my guerdon. 
T^ 16 



I have fought and bled; commanded, ay, and con- 

quer'd ; 
Have made and marr'd peace oft in embassies, 
As it might chance to be our country's vantage ; 
Have traversed land and sea in constant duty, 
Through almost sixty years, and still for Venice, 
My fathers' and my birthplace, whose dear spires, 
Eising at distance o'er the blue Lagoon, 
It was reward enough for me to view 
Once more ; but not for any knot of men, 
Nor sect, nor faction, did I bleed or sweat ! 
But would you know why I have done all this ? 
Ask of the bleeding pelican why she 
Hath ripp'd her bosom ? Had the bird a voice. 
She'd tell thee 'twas for all her little ones. 

I. Bee. And yet they made thee Duke. 

Doge. They made me so ; 

I sought it not, the flattering fetters met me 
Beturning from my Eoman embassy, 
And never having hitherto refused 
Toil, charge, or duty for the state, I did not, 
At these late years, decline what was the highest 
Of all in seeming, but of all most base 
In what we have to do and to endure : 
Bear witness for me thou, my injured subject. 
When I can neither right myself nor thee. 

I. Bee. You shall do both, if you possess the will ; 
And many thousands more not less oppress'd, 
Who wait but for a signal — will you give it ? 

Doge. You speak in riddles. 

I. Bee. Which shall soon be read 

At peril of my life, if you disdain not 
To lend a patient ear. 

Doge. Say on. 

I. Bee. Not thou, 

Nor I alone, are injured and abused, 
Contemn'd and trampled on ; but the whole people • 
Groan with the strong conception of their wrongs : . 
The foreign soldiers in the Senate's pay 
Are discontented for their long arrears ; 
The native mariners, and civic troops. 
Feel with their friends ; for who is he amongst them 
Whose brethren, parents, children, wives, or sisters. 
Have not partook oppression, or pollution, 
From the patricians ? And the hopeless war 
Against the Genoese, which is still maintain'd 
With the plebeian blood, and treasure wrung 
From their hard earnings, has inflamed them further : 
Even now — but, I forget that speaking thus. 
Perhaps I pass the sentence of my death ! 

Doge. And suflering what thou hast done — fear'st 
thou death ? 
Be silent then, and live on, to be beaten 
By those for whom thou hast bled. 

I, Bee. No, I will speak 

At every hazard ; and if Venice' Doge 
Should turn delator, be the shame on him, 
And sorrow too ; for he will lose far more 
Than I. 

Doge. From me fear nothing ; out with it ! 



242 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Act I. 



I. Bee. Know then, that there are met and sworn 
in secret 
A band of brethren, valiant hearts and true ; 
Men who have proved all fortunes, and have long 
Grieved over that of Venice, and have right 
To do so ; having served her in all climes. 
And having rescued her from foreign foes, 
Would do the same from those within her walls. 
They are not numerous, nor yet too few 
For their great purpose ; they have arms, and means, 
And hearts, and hopes, and faith, and patient courage. 

Doge. For what then do they pause ? 

I. Ber. An hour to strike. 

Doge {aside). Saint Mark's shall strike that hour ! i 

I. Ber, I now have placed 

My life, my honor, all my earthly hopes 
Within thy power, but in the firm belief 
That injuries like ours, sprung from one cause, 
Will generate one vengeance : should it be so. 
Be our chief now — our sovereign hereafter. 

Doge. How many are ye ? 

I. Ber. I'll not answer that 

Till I am answer'd. 

Doge. How, sir ! do you menace ? 

I. Bee. No ; I affirm. I have betray'd myself ; 
But there's no torture in the mystic wells 
Which undermine your palace, nor in those 
Not less appalling cells, the " leaden roofs," 
To force 'a single name from me of others. 
The Pozzi 2 and the Piombi were in vain ; 
They might wring blood from me, but treachery 

never. 
And I would pass the fearful " Bridge of Sighs," 
Joyous that mine must be the last that e'er 
Would echo o'er the Stygian wave which flows 
Between the murderers and the murder'd, washing 
The prison and the palace walls : there are 
Those who would live to think on't, and avenge me. 

Doge. If such your power and purpose, why come 
here 
To sue for justice, being in the course 
To do yourself due right ? 

I. Bee. Because the man, 

Who claims protection from authority. 
Showing his confidence and his submission 
To that authority, can hardly be 
Suspected of combining to destroy it. 
Had I sate down too humbly with this blow, 
A moody brow and mutter'd threats had made me 
A mark'd man to the Forty's inquisition ; 
But loud complaint, however angrily 
It shapes its phrase, is little to be fear'd. 
And less distrusted. But, besides all this, 
I had another reason. 

1 The bells of San Marco were never rung but by order of 
the doge. One of the pretexts for ringing this alarm was to 
liave been an announcement of the appearance of a Genoese 
fleet off the Lagune. 

2 " The state dungeons, called Pozzi, or wells, were sunk in 
the tliick walls of the palace ; and the prisoner, when taken 



Doge. What was that ? 

I. Ber. Some rumors that the Doge was greatly 
moved 
By the reference of the Avogadori 
Of Michel Steno's sentence to the Forty 
Had reach'd me. I had served you, honor'd you, 
And felt that you were dangerously insulted, 
Being of an order of such spirits, as 
Requite tenfold both good and evil : 'twas 
My wish to prove and urge you to redress. 
Now you know all ; and that I speak the truth. 
My peril be the proof. 

Doge. You have deeply ventured ; 

But all must do so who would greatly win : 
Thus far I'll answer you — your secret's safe. 

I. Bee. And is this all ? 

Doge. Unless with all intrusted, 

What would you have me answer ? 

I. Bee. I would have you 

Trust him who leaves his life in trust with you. 

Doge. But I must know your plan, your names, 
and numbers ; 
The last may then be doubled, and the former 
Matured and strengthen'd. 

I. Bee. We're enough already : 

You are the sole ally we covet now. 

Doge. But bring me to the knowledge of your chiefs. 

I. Bee. That shall be done upon your formal pledge 
To keep the faith that we will pledge to you. 

Doge. When? where? 

I. Bee. This night I'll bring to your apartment 
Two of the principals ; a greater number 
Were hazardous. 

Doge. Stay, I must think of this. 

What if I were to trust myself amongst you. 
And leave the palace ? 

I. Bee. You must come alone. 

Doge. With but my nephew. 

I. Bee. Not were he your son. 

Doge. Wretch! darest thou name my son? He 
died in arms 
At Sapienza for this faithless state. 
Oh ! that he were alive, and I in ashes ! 
Or that he were alive ere I be ashes ! 
I should not need the dubious aid of strangers. 

I. Bee. Not one of all those strangers whom thou 
doubtest. 
But will regard thee with a filial feeling. 
So that thou keep'st a father's faith with them. 

Doge. The die is cast. Where is the place of 
meeting ? 

I. Bee. At midnight I will be alone and mask'd 
Where'er your highness pleases to direct me. 
To wait your coming, and conduct you where 

out to die, was conducted across the gallery to the other side, 
and being then led back into the other compartment or cell, 
upon the bridge, was there strangled. The low portal through 
which the criminal was taken into this cell is now walled up ; 
but the passage is open, and is still known by the name of the 
Bridge of Sighs." — Hobhouse. 



RCKNE I. 



MAKING FALIERO. 



243 



You shall receive our homage, and pronounce 
Upon our project. 

Doge. At what hour arises 

The moon ? [dusky ; 

I. Ber. Late, but the atmosphere is thick and 
'Tis a sirocco. 

Doge. At the midnight hour, then. 

Near to the church where sleep my sires ; i the same. 
Twin-named from the apostles John and Paul ; 
A gondola,^ with one oar only, will 
Lurk in the narrow channel which glides by. 
Be there. 

I. Ber. I will not fail. 

Doge. And now retire 

I. Ber. In the full hope your highness will not falter 
In your great purpose. Prince, I take my leave. 

[Uxit Israel Bertuccio. 

Doge (solus). At midnight, by the church Saints 
John and Paul, 
Where sleep my noble fathers, I repair — 
To what? to hold a council in the dark 
With common ruflBlans leagued to ruin states ! 
And will not my great sires leap from the vault, 
Where lie two doges who preceded me, [could ! 

And pluck me down amongst them? Would they 
For I should rest in honor with the honor'd. 
Alas ! I must not think of them, but those 
Who have made me thus unworthy of a name 
Noble and brave as aught of consular 
On Roman marbles ; but I will redeem it 
Back to its antique lustre in our annals, 
By sweet revenge on all that's base in Venice, 
And freedom to the rest, or leave it black 
To all the growing calumnies of time. 
Which never spare the fame of him who fails, 
But try the Caesar, or the Catiline, 
By the true touchstone of desert — success.' 



ACT II. 

SCENE I. 

An Apartment in the Ducal Palace. 

Angiolina {wife of the DoGE) and Marianna. 
Ang. What was the Doge's answer ? 
Mar. That he was 

That moment summon'd to a conference : 



1 " The doges were all buried in St. Mark's before Faliero. 
It is singular that when his predecessor, Andrea Dandolo, 
died, the Ten made a law that all the future doges should be 
buried with their families in their own churches— one would 
think, by a kind of presentiment. So that all that is said 
of his ancestral doges, as buried at St, John's and Paul's, is 
altered from the fact, they being in St. Mark's. Make a note 
of this, and put Editor as the subscription to it. As I make 
such pretensions to accuracy, I should not like to be twitted 
even with such trifles on that score. Of the play they may 
bay, what they please, but not so of my costume and dram.pers. 
—they having been real existences." — Byron Letters, Oct. 1820. 

2 A gondola is not like a common boat, but is as easily 



But 'tis by this time ended. I perceived 
Not long ago the senators embarking ; 
And the last gondola may now be seen 
Gliding into the throng of barks which stud 
The glittering waters. 

Ang. Would he were return'd ! 

He has been much disquieted of late ; 
And Time, which has not tamed his fiery spirit. 
Nor yet enfeebled even his mortal frame, 
j Which seems to be more nourish'd by a soul 
I So quick and restless that it would consume 
j Less hardy clay — Time has but little power 
I On his resentments or his griefs. Unlike 
1 To other spirits of his order, who, 

In the first burst of passion, pour away 
j Their wrath or sorrow, all things wear in him 
I An aspect of eternity: his thoughts, 
His feelings, passions, good or evil, all 
Have nothing of old age : and his bold brow 
Bears but the scars of mind, the thoughts of years, 
Not their decrepitude : and he of late 
Has been more agitated than his wont. 
Would he were come ! for I alone have power 
Upon his troubled spirit. 

Mar. It is true, 

His highness has of late been greatly moved 
By the afiront of Steno, and with cause : 
But the offender doubtless even now 
Is doom'd to expiate his rash insult with 
Such chastisement as will enforce respect 
To female virtue, and to noble blood. 

Ang. 'Twas a gross insult ; but I heed it not 
For the rash scorner's falsehood in itself, 
But for the effect, the deadly deep impression 
Which it has made upon Faliero's soul. 
The proud, the fiery, the austere — austere 
To all save me : I tremble when I think 
To what it may conduct. 

Mar. Assuredly 

The Doge cannot suspect you ? 

Ang. Suspect me ! 

Why Steno dared not : when he scrawl'd his lie, 
Grovelling by stealth in the moon's glimmering light. 
His own still conscience smote him for the act. 
And every shadow on the walls frown'd shame 
Upon his coward calumny. 

Mar. 'Twere fit 

He should be punish'd grievously. 

rowed with one oar as with two (though, of course, not so 
swiftly), and often is so from motives of privacy, and, since 
the decay of Venice, of economy. 

3 " What Gifford says of the first act is very consolatory. 
English, sterling genuine English, is a desideratum amongst 
you, and I am glad that I have got so much left; though 
Heaven knows how I retain it: I hear none but from my 
valet, and he is Nottinghamshire; and I see none but in 
your new publications, and theirs is no language at all, but 
jargon. Gifford says that it is good English, and Foscolo 
says that the characters are right Venetian — 

' Here are in all two worthy voices gain'd,' " 
—Byron Letters, Sept. 1820. 



244 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Act II. 



Ang. He is so. 

Mar. "What! is the sentence pass'd? is he con- 
demn'd ? 

Ang. I know not that, but he has been detected. 

Mar. And deem you this enough for such foul 
scorn ? 

Ang. I would not be a judge in my own cause, 
Nor do I know what sense of punishment 
May reach the soul of ribalds such as Steno ; 
But if his insults sink no deeper in 
The minds of the inquisitors than they 
Have ruflled mine, he will, for all acquittance, 
Be left to his own shamelessness or shame. 

Mar. Some sacrifice is due to slander'd virtue. 

Ang. Why, what is virtue if it needs a victim ? 
Or if it must depend upon men's words ? 
The dying Eoman said, " 'twas but a name :" 
It were indeed no more, if human breath 
Could make or mar it. 

Mar. Yet full many a dame. 

Stainless and faithful, would feel all the wrong 
Of such a slander ; and less rigid ladies. 
Such as abound in Venice, would be loud 
And all-inexorable in their cry 
For justice. 

Ang. This but proves it is the name 

And not the quality they prize : the first 
Have found it a hard task to hold their honor. 
If they require it to be blazon'd forth ; 
And those who have not kept it, seek its seeming 
As they would look out for an ornament 
Of which they feel the want, but not because 
They think it so ; they live in others' thoughts. 
And would seem honest, as they must seem fair. 

Mar. You have strange thoughts for a patrician 
dame. 

Ang. And yet they were my father's; with his 
name, 
The sole inheritance he left. 

Mar. You want none ; 

Wife to a prince, the chief of the Republic. 

Ang. I should have sought none though a peasant's 
bride, 
But feel not less the love and gratitude 
Due to my father, who bestow'd my hand 
Upon his early, tried, and trusted friend, 
The Count Val di Marino, now our Doge. 

Mar. And with that hand did he bestow your heart ? 

Ang. He did so, or it had not been bestow'd. 

Mar. Yet this strange disproportion in your years. 
And, let me add, disparity of tempers. 
Might make the world doubt whether such an union 
Could make you wisely, permanently happy. 

Ang. The world will think with worldlings; but 
my heart 
Has still been in my duties, which are many, 
But never difiicult. 

Mar. And do you love him ? 

Ang. I love all noble qualities which merit 
Love, and I loved my father, who first taught me 



To single out what we should love in others, 

And to subdue all tendency to lend 

The best and purest feelings of our nature 

To baser passions. He bestow'd my hand 

Upon Faliero : he had known him noble. 

Brave, generous ; rich in all the qualities 

Of soldier, citizen, and friend ; in all 

Such have I found him as my father said. 

His faults are those that dwell in the high bosoms 

Of men who have commanded ; too much pride, 

And the deep passions fiercely foster'd by 

The uses of patricians, and a life 

Spent in the storms of state and war ; and also 

From the quick sense of honor, which becomes 

A duty to a certain sign, a vice 

When overstrain'd, and this I fear in him. 

And then he has been rash from his youth upwards, 

Yet temper'd by redeeming nobleness 

In such sort, that the wariest of republics 

Has lavish'd all its chief employs upon him, 

From his first fight to his last embassy. 

From which on his return the Dukedom met him. 

Mar. But previous to this marriage, had your heart 
Ne'er beat for any of the noble youth, 
Such as in years had been more meet to match 
Beauty like yours ? or since have you ne'er seen 
One, who, if your fair hand were still to give. 
Might now pretend to Loredano's daughter ? 

Ang. I answer'd your first question when I said 
I married. 

Mar. And the second ? 

Ang. Needs no answer. 

Mar. I pray you pardon, if I have ofiended. 

Ang. I feel no wrath, but some surprise : I knew not 
That wedded bosoms could permit themselves 
To ponder upon what they now might choose. 
Or aught save their past choice. 

Mar. 'Tis their past choice 

That far too often makes them deem they would 
Now choose more wisely, could they cancel it. 

Ang. It may be so. I knew not of such thoughts. 

Mar. Here comes the Doge — shall I retire ? 

Ang. It may 

Be better you should quit me ; he seems wrapt 
In thought. — How pensively he takes his way ! 

\_Exit Ma ri ANN A. 

Ihiter the DoGE and Pietro. 

Doge {musing). There is a certain Philip Calendar© 
Now in the arsenal, who holds command 
Of eighty men, and has great influence 
Besides on all the spirits of his comrades : 
This man, I hear, is bold and popular. 
Sudden and daring, and yet secret ; 'twould 
Be well that he were won : I needs must hope 
That Israel Bertuccio has secured him, 
But fain would be 

Pie. My lord, pray pardon 

For breaking in upon your meditation ; 
The Senator Bertuccio, your kinsman, 



Scene I. 



MARINO FALIERO. 



245 



Charged me to follow and inquire your pleasure 
To fix an hour when he may speak with you. 

Doge. At sunset. — Stay a moment — let me see — 
Say in the second hour of night. [Exit Pietko. 

Ang. My lord ! 

Doge. My dearest child, forgive me — why delay 
So long approaching me ? — I saw you not. 

Ang. You were absorb'd in thought, and he who now 
Has parted from you might have words of weight 
To bear you from the senate. 

Doge. From the senate ? ^ 

Ang. I would not interrupt him in his duty 
And theirs. 

Doge. The senate's duty ! you mistake ; 
'Tis we who owe all service to the senate. 

Ang. I thought the Duke had held command in 
Venice. 

Doge. He shall. — But let that pass. — We will be 
jocund. 
How fares it with you ? have you been abroad ? 
The day is overcast, but the calm wave 
Favors the gondolier's light skimming oar ; 
Or have you held a levee of your friends ? 
Or has your music made you solitary ? 
Say — is there aught that you would will within 
The little sway now left the Duke ? or aught 
Of fitting splendor, or of honest pleasure. 
Social or lonely, that would glad your heart, 
To compensate for many a dull hour, wasted 
On an old man offc moved with many cares ? 
Speak, and 'tis done. 

Ang. You're ever kind to me. 

I have nothing to desire, or to request, 
Except to see you oftener and calmer. 

Doge. Calmer? 

Ang. Ay, calmer, my good lord. — Ah, why 

Do you still keep apart, and walk alone, 
And let such strong emotions stamp your brow. 
As not betraying their full import, yet 
Disclose too much ? 

Doge. Disclose too much ! — of what ? 

"What is there to disclose ? 

Ang. a heart so ill 

At ease. 

Doge. 'Tis nothing, child. — But in the state 
You know what daily cares oppress all those 
Who govern this precarious commonwealth ; 
Now suffering from the Genoese without, 

1 " This scene is, perhaps, the finest in the whole play. The 
character of the calm, pure-spirited Angiolina is developed 
in it most admirably ; — the great diflference between her tem- 
per and that of her fiery husband is vividly portrayed; — but 
not less vividly touched is that strong bond of their union 
which exists in the common nobleness of their deeper 
natures. There is no spark of jealousy in the old man's 
thoughts, — he does not expect the fervors of youthful pas- 
sion in his wife, nor does he find them ; but he finds what is 
far better, — the fearless confidence of one who, being to the 
heart's core innocent, can scarcely be a believer in the exist- 
ence of such a thing as guilt. He finds every charm which 
gratitude, respect, anxious and deep-seated affection, can give 



And malcontents within — 'tis this which makes me 
More pensi\ e and less tranquil than my wont. 

Ang. Yet this existed long before, and never 
Till in these late days did I see you thus. 
Forgive me ; there is something at your heart 
More than the mere discharge of public duties, 
Which long use and a talent like to yours 
Have render'd light, nay, a necessity. 
To keep your mind from stagnating. 'Tis not 
In hostile states, nor perils, thus to shake you ; 
You, who have stood all storms and never sunk, 
And climb'd up to the pinnacle of power 
And never fainted by the way, and stand 
Upon it, and can look down steadily 
Along the depth beneath, and ne'er feel dizzy. 
Were Genoa's galleys riding in the port. 
Were civil fury raging in Saint Mark's, 
You are not to be wrought on, but would fall, 
As you have risen, with an unalter'd brow : 
Your feelings now are of a different kind ; 
Something has stung your pride, not patriotism. 

Doge. Pride ! Angiolina ? Alas ! none is left me. 

Ang. Yes — the same sin that overthrew the angels. 
And of all sins most easily besets 
Mortals the nearest to the angelic nature : 
The vile are only vain ; the great are proud. 

Doge. I had the pride of honor, of your honor. 
Deep at my heart But let us change the theme. 

Ang. Ah no ! — As I have ever shared your kindness 
In all things else, let me not be shut out 
From your distress : were it of public import, 
You know I never sought, would never seek 
To win a word from you ; but feeling now 
Your grief is private, it belongs to me 
To lighten or divide it. Since the day 
When foolish Steno's ribaldry detected 
Unfix'd your quiet, you are greatly changed. 
And I would soothe you back to what you were. 

Doge. To what I was ! — have you heard Steno's 
sentence ? 

Ang. No. 

Doge. A month's arrest. 

Ang. Is it not enough ? 

Doge. Enough ! — ^yes, for a drunken galley-slave. 
Who, stung by stripes, may murmur at his master ; 
But not for a deliberate, false, cool villain, 
Who stains a lady's and a prince's honor 
Even on the throne of his authority. 

to the confidential language of a lovely, and a modest, and a 
pious woman. She has been extremely troubled by her ob- 
servance of the countenance and gestures of the doge, ever 
since the discovery of Steno's guilt ; and she does all she can 
to soothe him from his proud irritation. Strong in her con- 
sciousness of purity, she has brought herself to regard with- 
out anger the insult offered to herself; and the yet uncor- 
rected instinct of a noble heart makes her try to persuade 
her lord, as she is herself persuaded, that Steno, whatever be 
the sentence of his judges, must be punished — more even 
than they would wish him to be — by the secret suggestions 
of his own guilty conscience, — the deep blushes of his priv- 
acy."— Lockhart. 



246 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Act II. 



Ang. There seems to me enough in the conviction 
Of a patrician guilty of a falsehood : 
All other punishment were light unto 
His loss of honor. 

Doge. Such men have no honor ; 

They have but their vile lives — and these are spared. 

Ang. You would not have him die for this offence ? 

Doge. Not now: — being still alive, I'd have him 
live 
Long as he can ; he has ceased to merit death ; 
The guilty saved hath damn'd his hundred judges, 
And he is pure, for now his crime is theirs. 

Ang. Oh ! had this false and flippant libeller 
Shed his young blood for his absurd lampoon. 
Ne'er from that moment could this breast have known 
A joyous hour, or dreamless slumber more. 

Doge. Does not the law of Heaven say blood for 
blood? 
And he who taints kills more than he who sheds it. 
Is it the pain of blows, or shame of blows, 
That make such deadly to the sense of man ? 
Do not the laws of man say blood for honor, — 
And, less than honor, for a little gold ? 
Say not the laws of nations blood for treason ? 
Is't nothing to have filled these veins with poison 
For their once healthful current ? is it nothing 
To have stain'd your name and mine — the noblest 

names ? 
Is't nothing to have brought into contempt 
A prince before his people ? to have fail'd 
In the respect accorded by mankind 
To youth in woman, and old age in man ? 
To virtue in your sex, and dignity 
In ours? — But let them look to it who have saved 
him.i 

Ang. Heaven bids us to forgive our enemies. 

Doge. Doth Heaven forgive her own? Is Satan 
saved 
From wrath eternal ? ^ 

Ang. Do not speak thus wildly — 

Heaven will alike forgive you and your foes. 

Doge. Amen ! May Heaven forgive them ! 

Ang. And will you ? 

Doge. Yes, when they are in heaven ! 

Ang. And not till then ? 

Doge. What matters my forgiveness ? an old man's, 
Worn out, scorn'd, spurn'd, abused; what matters 

then 
My pardon more than my resentment, both 
Being weak and worthless ? I have lived too long. — 
But let us change the argument. — My child ! 
My injured wife, the child of Loredano, 
The brave, the chivalrous, how little deem'd 
Thy father, wedding thee unto his friend, 

1 "This scene between the doge and Angiolina, though 
intolerably long, has more force and beauty than any thing 
that goes before it. She endeavors to soothe the furious mood 
of her aged partner ; while he insists that nothing but the 
libeller's death could make fitting expiation for his offence. 
This speech of the doge is an elaborate, and, after all, inef- 



That he was linking thee to shame ! — Alas ! 

Shame without sin, for thou art faultless. Hadst thou 

But had a different husband, any husband 

In Venice save the Doge, this blight, this brand, 

This blasphemy had never fallen upon thee. 

So young, so beautiful, so good, so pure, 

To suffer this, and yet be unavenged ! 

Ang. I am too well avenged, for you still love me, 
And trust, and honor me ; and all men know 
That you are just, and I am true : what more 
Could I require, or you command ? 

Doge. 'Tis well, 

And may be better ; but whate'er betide, 
Be thou at least kind to my memory. 

Ang. Why speak you thus ? 

Doge. It is no matter vfhy ; 

But I would still, whatever others think. 
Have your respect both now and in my grave. 

Ang. Why should you doubt it ? has it ever fail'd ? 

Doge. Come hither^ child; I would a word with 
you. 
Your father was my friend ; unequal fortune 
Made him my debtor for some courtesies 
Which bind the good more firmly : when, oppress'd 
With his last malady, he will'd our union, 
It was not to repay me, long repaid 
Before by his great loyalty in friendship ; 
His object was to place your orphan beauty 
In honorable safety from the perils, 
Which, in this scorpion nest of vice, assail 
A lonely and undower'd maid. I did not 
Think with him, but would not oppose the thought 
Which soothed his death-bed. 

Ang. I have not forgotten 

The nobleness with which you bade me speak. 
If my young heart held any preference 
Which would have made me happier ; nor your ofter 
To make my dowry equal to the rank 
Of aught in Venice, and forego all claim 
My father's last injunction gave you. 

Doge. Thus, 

'Twas not a foolish dotard's vile caprice, 
Nor the false edge of aged appetite. 
Which made me covetous of girlish beauty, 
And a young bride : for in my fieriest youth 
I sway'd such passions ; nor was this my age 
Infected with that leprosy of lust 
Which taints the hoariest years of vicious men, 
Making them ransack to the very last 
The dregs of pleasure for their vanish'd joys ; 
Or buy in selfish marriage some young victim, 
Too helpless to refuse a state that's honest, 
Too feeling not to know herself a wretch. 
Our wedlock was not of this sort ; you had 

fectual attempt, by rhetorical exaggerations, to give some 
color to the insane and unmeasured resentment on which 
the piece hinges." — Jeffrey. 

2 "Doth Heaven forgive her own? Is there not Hell?"— 

MS. 



Scene I. 



MARINO FALIERO. 



247 



Freedom from me to choose, and urged in answer 
Your father's choice. 

Ang. I did so ; I would do so 

In face of earth and heaven ; for I have never 
Repented for my sake ; sometimes for yours, 
In pondering o'er your late disquietudes. [harshly ; 

DOGrE. I knew my heart would never treat you 
I knew my days could not disturb you long ; 
And then the daughter of my earliest friend. 
His worthy daughter, free to choose again. 
Wealthier and wiser, in the ripest bloom 
Of womanhood, more skillful to select 
By passing these probationary years ; 
Inheriting a prince's name and riches. 
Secured, by the short penance of enduring 
An old man for some summers, against all 
That law's chicane or envious kinsmen might 
Have urged against her right ; my best friend's child 
Would choose more fitly in respect of years. 
And not less truly in a faithful heart. 

Ang. My lord, I look'd but to my father's wishes. 
Hallow' d by his last words, and to my heart 
For doing all its duties, and replying 
With faith to him with whom I was afiianced. 
Ambitious hopes ne'er cross'd my dreams ; and should 
The hour you speak of come, it will be seen so. 

Doge. I do believe you ; and I know you true : 
For love, romantic love, which in my youth 
I knew to be illusion, and ne'er saw 
Lasting, but often fatal, it had been 
No lure for me, in my most passionate days, 
And could not be so now, did such exist. 
But such respect, and mildly paid regard 
As a trde feeling for your welfare, and 
A free compliance with all honest wishes ; 
A kindness to your virtues, watchfulness 
Not shown, but shadowing o'er such little failings 
As youth is apt in, so as not to check 
Rashly, but win you from them ere you knew 
You had been won, but thought the change your 

choice ; 
A pride not in your beauty, but your conduct, — 
A trust in you — a patriarchal love. 
And not a doting homage — friendship, faith — 
Such estimation in your eyes as these 
Might claim, I hoped for. 

Ang. And have ever had. 

Doge. I think so. For the difierence in our years 
You knew it, choosing me, and chose ; I trusted 
Not to my qualities, nor would have faith 
In such, nor outward ornaments of nature. 
Were I still in my five and twentieth spring ; 
I trusted to the blood of Loredano 
Pure in your veins ; I trusted to the soul 
God gave you— to the truths your father taught you— 
To your belief in Heaven — to your mild virtues — 
To your own faith and honor, for my own. 

I "These passages, though not perfectly dramatic, have 
great sweetness and dignity, and remind us, in their rich 



Ang. You have done well. — I thank you for that 
trust, 
Which I have never for one moment ceased 
To honor you the more for. 

Doge. Where is honor, 

Innate and precept-strengthen'd, 'tis the rock 
Of faith connubial : where it is not — where 
Light thoughts are lurking, or the vanities 
Of worldly pleasure rankle in the heart, 
Or sensual throbs convulse it, well I know 
'Twere hopeless for humanity to dream 
Of honesty in such infected blood. 
Although 'twere wed to him it covets most : 
An incarnation of the poet's god 
In all his marble-chisell'd beauty, or 
The demi-deity, Alcides, in 
His majesty of superhuman manhood, 
Would not suffice to bind where virtue is not ; 
It is consistency which forms and proves it : 
Vice cannot fix, and virtue cannot change. 
The once fall'n woman must for ever fall ; 
For vice must have variety, while virtue 
Stands like the sun, and all which rolls around 
Drinks life, and light, and glory from her aspect.^ 

Ang. And seeing, feeling thus this truth in others, 
(I pray you pardon me ;) but wherefore yield you 
To the most fierce of fatal passions, and 
Disquiet your great thoughts with restless hate 
Of such a thing as Steno ? 

Doge. You mistake me. 

It is not Steno who could move me thus ; 
Had it been so, he should— — but let that pass. 

Ang. What is't you feel so deeply, then, even now ? 

Doge. The violated majesty of Venice, 
At once insulted in her lord and laws. 

Ang. Alas ! why will you thus consider it ? 

Doge. I have thought on't till but let me lead 

you back 
To what I urged ; all these things being noted, 
I wedded you ; the world then did me justice 
Upon the motive, and my conduct proved 
They did me right, while yours was all to praise : 
You had all freedom — all respect — all trust 
From me and mine ; and, born of those who made 
Princes at home, and swept kings from their thrones 
On foreign shores, in all things you appear'd 
Worthy to be our first of native dames. 

Ang. To what does this conduct ? 

Doge. To thus much — that 

A miscreant's angry breath may blast it all — 
A villain, whom for his unbridled bearing, 
Even in the midst of our great festival, 
I caused to be conducted forth, and taught 
How to demean himself in ducal chambers ; 
A wretch like this may leave upon the wall 
The blighting venom of his sweltering heart, 
And this shall spread itself in general poison ; 



verbosity, of the moral and mellifluous parts of MassingerJ 
Jeffrey. 



248 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Act II. 



And woman's innocence, man's honor, pass 
Into a byword ; and the doubly felon 
(Who first insulted virgin modesty 
By a gross afiront to your attendant damsels 
Amidst the noblest of our dames in public) 
Requite himself for his most just expulsion 
By blackening publicly his sovereign's consort, 
And be absolved by his upright compeers. 

Ang. But he has been condemn'd into captivity. 

Doge. For such as him a dungeon were acquittal ; 
And his brief term of mock arrest will pass 
Within a palace. But I've done with him ; 
The rest must be with you. 

Ang. With me, my lord ? 

Doge. Yes, Angiolina. Do not marvel : I 
Have let this prey upon me till I feel 
My life can not be long ; and fain would have you 
Regard the injunctions you will find within 

This scroll {giving her a paper) Fear not; they 

are for your advantage : 
Bead them hereafter at the fitting hour. 

Ang. My lord, in life, and after life, you shall 
Be honor'd still by me : but may your days 
Be many yet — and happier than the present ! 
This passion will give way, and you will be 
Serene, and what you should be — what you were. 

Doge. I will be what I should be, or be nothing ! 
But never more — oh ! never, never more, 
O'er the few days or hours which yet await 
The blighted old age of Faliero, shall 
Sweet Quiet shed her sunset ! Never more 
Those summer shadows rising from the past 
Of a not ill-spent nor inglorious life. 
Mellowing the last hours as the night approaches, 
Shall soothe me to my moment of long rest. 
I had but little more to task, or hope, 
Save the regards due to the blood and sweat, 
And the soul's labor through which I had toiPd 
To make my country honor'd. As her servant — 
Her servant, though her chief— I would have gone 
Down to my fathers with a name serene 
And pure as theirs ; but this has been denied me. — 
Would I had died at Zara ! « 

Ang. There you saved 

The state ; then live to save her still. A day, 
Another day like that would be the best 
Reproof to them, and sole revenge for you. 

Doge. But one such day occurs within an age ; 
My life is little less than one, and 'tis 
Enough for Fortune to have granted once, 
That which scarce one more favor'd citizen 
May win in many states and years. But why 
Thus speak I ? Venice has forgot that day — 
Then why should I remember it ? — Farewell, 
Sweet Angiolina ! I must to my cabinet ; 
There's much for me to do — and the hour hastens. 

Ang. Remember what you were. 

Doge. It were in vain ! 

Joy's recollection is no longer joy. 
While Sorrow's memory is a sorrow still. 



Ang. At least, whatever may urge, let me implore 
That you will take some little pause of rest : 
Your sleep for many nights has been so turbid. 
That it had been relief to have awaked you. 
Had I not hoped that Nature would o'erpower 
At length the thoughts which shook your slumbers 

thus. 
An hour of rest will give you to your toils 
With fitter thoughts and freshen'd strength. 

Doge. I cannot — 

I must not, if I could ; for never was 
Such reason to be watchful : yet a few — 
Yet a few days and dream-perturbed nights, 
And I shall slumber well — but where ? — no matter. 
Adieu, my Angiolina. 

Ang. Let me be 

An instant — yet an instant your companion ! 
I cannot bear to leave you thus. 

Doge. Come then. 

My gentle child — forgive me ; thou wert made 
For better fortunes than to share in mine. 
Now darkling in their close toward the deep vale 
Where Death sits robed in his all-sweeping shadow. 
When I am gone — it may be sooner than 
Even these years warrant, for there is that stirring 
Within — above — around, that in this city 
Will make the cemeteries populous 
As e'er they were by pestilence or war, — 
When I am nothing, let that which I was 
Be still sometimes a name on thy sweet lips, 
A shadow in thy fancy, of a thing 
Which would not have thee mourn it, but remember. 
Let us begone, my child — the time is pressing. 

\_ExeunL 



SCENE II. 
A Retired Spot near the Arsenal. 

Iseael Bertuccio and Philip Calendaeo. 

Cal. How sped you, Israel, in your late complaint ? 

I. Bee, Why, well. 

Cal. Is't possible ! will he be punish'd ? 

I. Bee. Yes. 

Cal. With what ? a mulct or an arrest ? 

I. Bee. With death !— 

Cal. Now you rave, or must intend revenge. 
Such as I counsell'd you, with your own hand. 

I. Bee. Yes; and for one sole draught of hate, 
forego 
The great redress we meditate for Venice, 
And change a life of hope for one of exile ; 
Leaving one scorpion crush'd, and thousands stinging 
My friends, my family, my countrymen ! 
No, Calendaro ; these same drops of blood. 
Shed shamefully, shall have the whole of his 

For their requital But not only his ; 

We will not strike for private wrongs alone : 
Such are fol* selfish passions and rash men, 
But are unworthy a tyrannicide. 



Scene II. 



MAEINO FALIEEO. 



249 



Cal. You have more patience than I care to boast. 
Had I been present when you bore this insult, 
I must have slain him, or expired myself 
In the vain effort to repress my wrath. 

I. Ber. Thank Heaven, you were not — all had else 
been marr'd : 
As 'tis, our cause looks prosperous still. 

Cal. You saw 

The Doge — what answer gave he ? 

I. Bee. That there was 

No punishment for such as Barbaro. 

Cal. I told you so before, and that 'twas idle 
To think of justice from such hands. 

I. Ber. At least, 

It lull'd suspicion, showing confidence. 
Had I been silent, not a sbirro but 
Had kept me in his eye, as meditating 
A silent, solitary, deep revenge. 

Cal. But wherefore not address you to the Council ? 
The Doge is a mere puppet, who can scarce 
Obtain right for himself. Why speak to him ? 

I. Bee. You shall know that hereafter. 

Cal. "Why not now ? 

I. Bee. Be patient but till midnight. Get your 
musters. 
And bid our friends prepare their companies : 
Set all in readiness to strike the blow. 
Perhaps in a few hours; we have long waited 
For a fit time — that hour is on the dial, 
It may be, of to-morrow's sun : delay 
Beyond may breed us double danger. See 
That all be punctual at our place of meeting, 
And arm'd, excepting those of the Sixteen, 
Who will remain among the troops to wait 
The signal. 

Cal. These brave words have breathed new life 
Into my veins ; I'm sick of these protracted 
And hesitating councils : day on day 
Crawl'd on, and added but another link 
To our long fetters, and some fresher wrong 
Inflicted on our brethren or ourselves. 
Helping to swell our tyrants' bloated strength. 
Let us but deal upon them, and I care not 
For the result, which must be death or freedom ! 
I'm weary to the heart of finding neither. 

I. Bee. We will be free in life or death ! the grave 
Is chainless. Have you all the musters ready ? 
And are the sixteen companies completed 
To sixty? 

Cal. All save two, in which there are 
Twenty -five wanting to make up the number. 

I. Bee. No matter ; we can do without. Whose 
are they ? 

Cal. Bertram's and old Soranzo's, both of whom 
Appear less forward in the cause than we are. 

I. Bee. Your fiery nature makes you deem all 
those 
Who are not restless, cold : but there exists 
Oft in concentred spirits not less daring 
Than in more loud avengers. Do not doubt them. 



Cal. I do not doubt the elder ; but in Bertram 
There is a hesitating softness, fatal 
To enterprise like ours : I've seen that man 
Weep like an infant o'er the misery 
Of others, heedless of his own, though greater ; 
And in a recent quarrel I beheld him 
Turn sick at sight of blood, although a villain's. 

I. Bee. The truly brave are soft of heart and eyes, 
And feel for what their duty bids them do. 
I have known Bertram long ; there doth not breathe 
A soul more full of honor. 

Cal. It may be so : 

I apprehend less treachery than weakness ; 
Yet as he has no mistress, and no wife. 
To work upon his milkiness of spirit. 
He may go through the ordeal : it is well 
He is an orphan, friendless save in us : 
A woman or a child had made him less 
Than either in resolve. 

I. Bee. Such ties are not 

For those who are call'd to the high destinies 
Which purify corrupted commonwealths ; 
We must forget all feelings save the one — 
We must resign all passions save our purpose — 
We must behold no object save our country — 
And only look on death as beautiful, 
So that the sacrifice ascend to heaven. 
And draw down freedom on her evermore. 

Cal. But if we fail 

I. Bee. They never fail who die 

In a great cause : the block may soak their gore ; 
Their heads may sodden in the sun ; their limbs 
Be strung to city gates and castle walls — 
But still their spirit walks abroad. Though years 
Elapse, and others share as dark a doom. 
They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts 
Which overpower all others, and conduct 
The world at last to freedom. What were we 
If Brutus had not lived ? He died in giving 
Rome liberty, but left a deathless lesson — 
A name which is a virtue, and a soul 
Which multiplies itself throughout all time, 
When wicked men wax mighty, and a state 
Turns servile. He and his high friend were styled 
" The last of Romans !" Let us be the first 
Of true Venetians, sprung from Roman sires. 

Cal. Our fathers did not fly from Attila 
Into these isles, where palaces have sprung 
On banks redeem'd from the rude ocean's ooze, 
To own a thousand despots in his place. 
Better bow down before the Hun, and call 
A Tartar lord, than these swoln silkworms masters ! 
The first at least was man, and used his sword 
As sceptre : these unmanly creeping things 
Command our swords, and rule us with a word 
As with a spell. 

I. Bee. It shall be broken soon. 

You say that all things are in readiness ; 
To-day I have not been the usual round. 
And why thou knowest ; but thy vigilance 



250 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Act III. 



"Will better have supplied my care : these orders 

In recent council to redouble now 

Our efforts to repair the galleys, have 

Lent a fair color to the introduction 

Of many of our cause into the arsenal, 

As new artificers for their equipment, 

Or fresh recruits obtain'd in haste to man 

The hoped-for fleet. — Are all supplied with arms ? 

Cal. All who were deem'd trustworthy : there are 
some 
Whom it were well to keep in ignorance 
Till it be time to strike, and then supply them ; 
When in the heat and hurry of the hour 
They have no opportunity to pause, 
But needs must on with those who will surround them. 

I. Bee. You have said well. Have you remark'd 
all such? 

Cal. I've noted most ; and caused the other chiefs 
To use like caution in their companies. 
As far as I have seen, we are enough 
To make the enterprise secure, if 'tis 
Commenced to-morrow ; but, till 'tis begun, 
Each hour is pregnant with a thousand perils. 

I. Bee.. Let the Sixteen meet at the wonted hour, 
Except Soranzo, Nicoletto Blondo, 
And Marco Giuda, who will keep their watch 
Within the arsenal, and hold all ready, 
Expectant of the signal we will fix on. 

Cal. We will not fail. 

I. Bee. Let all the rest be there ; 

I have a stranger to present to them. 

Cal. a stranger ! doth he know the secret ? 

I. Bee. Yes. 

Cal. And have you dared to peril your friends' lives 
On a rash confidence in one we know not ? 

I. Bee. I have risk'd no man's life except my own — 
Of that be certain : he is one who may 
Make our assurance doubly sure, according 
His aid ; and if reluctant, he no less 
Is in our power : he comes alone with me, 
And cannot 'scape us : but he will not swerve. 

Cal. I cannot judge of this until I know him : 
Is he one of our order ? 

I. Bee. Ay, in spirit. 

Although a child of greatness ; he is one 
Who would become a throne, or overthrow one — 
One who has done great deeds, and seen great changes ; 
No tyrant, though bred up to tyranny ; 
Valiant in war, and sage in council ; noble 
In nature, although haughty ; quick, yet wary : 
Yet for all this, so full of certain passions, 
That if once stirr'd and baffled, as he has been 
Upon the tenderest points, there is no Fury 
In Grecian story like to that which wrings 
His vitals with her burning hands, till he 
Grows capable of all things for revenge ; 
And add too, that his mind is liberal, 
He sees and feels the people are oppress'd. 
And shares their sufferings. Take him all in all, 
We have need of such, and such have need of us. 



Cal. And what part would you have him take 
with us ? 

I. Bee. It may be, that of chief. 

Cal. What ! and resign 

Your own command as leader ? 

I. Bee. Even so. 

My object is to make your cause end well. 
And not to push myself to power. Experience, 
Some skill, and your own choice, had mark'd me out 
To act in trust as your commander, till 
Some worthier should appear : if I have found such 
As you yourselves shall own more worthy, think you 
That I would hesitate from selfishness. 
And, covetous of brief authority, 
Stake our deep interest on my single thoughts, 
Rather than yield to one above me in 
All leading qualities ? No, Calendaro, 
Know your friend better ; but you all shall judge. 
Away ! and let us meet at the fix'd hour. 
Be vigilant, and all will yet go well. 

Cal. Worthy Bertuccio, I have known you ever 
Trusty and brave, with head and heart to plan 
What I have still been prompt to execute. 
For my own part, I seek no other chief; 
What the rest will decide I know not, but 
I am with you, as I have ever been. 
In all our undertakings. Now farewell. 
Until the hour of midnight sees us meet. 

[Exeunt. 



ACT III. 



SCENE I. 



Scene, the Space between the Canal and the Church of 
San Giovanni e San Paolo. An equestrian Statue 
before it. — A Gondola lies in the Canal at some 
distance. 

Enter the DoGE alone, disguised. 
Doge (solus), I am before the hour, the hour whose 

voice. 
Pealing into the arch of night, might strike 
These palaces with ominous tottering, 
And rock their marbles to the corner-stone, 
Waking the sleepers from some hideous dream 
Of indistinct but awful augury 
Of that which will befall them. Yes, proud city ! 
Thou must be cleansed of the black blood which 

makes thee 
A lazar-house of tyranny : the task 
Is forced upon me, I have sought it not ; 
And therefore was I punish'd, seeing this 
Patrician pestilence spread on and on. 
Until at length it smote me in my slumbers, 
And I am tainted, and must wash away 
The plague-spots in the healing wave. Tall fane f 
Where sleep my fathers, whose dim statues shadow 
The floor which doth divide us from the dead, 



Scene I. 



MARINO FALIERO. 



251 



Where all the pregnant hearts of our bold blood, 

Moulder' d into a mite of ashes, hold 

In one shrunk heap what once made many heroes, 

When what is now a handful shook the earth — 

Fane of the tutelar saints who guard our house ! 

Vault where two doges rest — my sires ! who died 

The one of toil, the other in the field. 

With a long race of other lineal chiefs 

And sages, whose great labors, wounds, and state 

I have inherited, — let the graves gape, 

Till all thine aisles be peopled with the dead. 

And pour them from thy portals to gaze on me I 

I call them up, and them and thee to witness 

What it hath been which put me to this task — 

Their pure high blood, their blazon-roll of glories, 

Their mighty name dishonor' d all in me, 

Not by me, but by the ungrateful nobles 

We fought to make our equals, not our lords : ^ — 

And chiefly thou, Ordelafo the brave, 

Who perish'd in the field, where I since conquer'd, 

Battling at Zara, did the hecatombs 

Of thine and Venice' foes, there oifer'd up 

By thy descendant, merit such acquittance ? 2 

Spirits ! smile down upon me ; for my cause 

Is yours, in all life now can be of yours, — 

Your fame, your name, all mingled up in mine, 

And in the future fortunes of our race ! 

Let me but prosper, and I make this city 

Free and immortal, and our house's name 

Worthier of what you were, now and hereafter I"^ 

Enter Israel Bertuccio. 

I. Ber. Who goes there ? 

Doge. A friend to Venice. 

I. Ber. 'Tis he. 

Welcome, my lord, — you are before the time. 

Doge. I am ready to proceed to your assembly. 

I. Ber. Have with you. — I am proud and pleased 
to see 
Such confident alacrity. Your doubts 
Since our last meeting, then, are all dispell'd ? 

Doge. Not so— but I have set my little left 
Of life upon this cast : the die was thrown 
When first I listen'd to your treason — Start not ! 
That is the word ; I cannot shape my tongue 
To syllable black deeds into smooth names, 
Though I be wrought on to commit them. When 
I heard you tempt your sovereign, and forbore 
To have you dragg'd to prison, I became 



1 itxiT^ f v,* + 1 ' f equals, not our lords :" 
1 " We fought to make our -^ -, , ^ „ 

C peers, and not our masters :" 

—MS. 

« '• By thy descendant, merit such | ^^1"!f ^^f ?'' 
I requital ?"— MS. 

3 " The doge, true to his appointment, is waiting for his 
conductor hefore the church of San Paolo e Giovanni. There 
is great loftiness, both of feeling and diction, in this pas- 
sage."— Jeffrey. 

* "There is a great deal of natural struggle in the breast of 
the high-born and haughty doge, between the resentment 
with which he burns on the one hand, and the reluctance 



Your guiltiest accomplice : now you may, 
If it so please you, do as much by me. 

I. Ber. Strange words, my lord, and most un- 
merited ; 
I am no spy, and neither are we traitors. 

Doge. We! — We! — no matter — you have earn'd 
the right 
To talk of us. — But to the point. — If this 
Attempt succeeds, and Venice, render'd free 
And flourishing, when we are in our graves, 
Conducts her generations to our tombs. 
And makes her children with their little hands 
Strew flowers o'er her deliverers' ashes, then 
The consequence will sanctify the deed. 
And we shall be like the two Bruti in 
The annals of hereafter ; but if not, 
If we should fail, employing bloody means 
And secret plot, although to a good end. 
Still we are traitors, honest Israel ; — thou 
No less than he who was thy sovereign 
Six hours ago, and now thy brother rebel. 

I. Ber. 'Tis not the moment to consider thus, 
Else I could answer. — Let us to the meeting, 
Or we may be observed in lingering here. 

Doge. We are observed, and have been. 

I. Ber. We observed ! 

Let me discover — and this steel 

Doge. Put up ; 

Here are no human witnesses : look there — 
What see you ? 

I. Ber. Only a tall warrior's statue 

Bestriding a proud steed, in the dim light 
Of the dull moon. 

Doge. That warrior was the sire 

Of my sire's fathers, and that statue was 
Decreed to him by the twice-rescued city : — 
Think you that he looks down on us or no ? 

I. Ber. My lord, these are mere fantasies ; there 
are 
No eyes in marble. 

Doge. But there are in Death. 

I tell thee, man, there is a spirit in 
Such things that acts and sees, unseen, though felt ; 
And, if there be a spell to stir the dead, 
'Tis in such deeds as we are now upon. 
Deem'st thou the souls of such a race as mine 
Can rest, when he, their last descendant chief, 
Stands plotting on the brink of their pure graves 
With stung plebeians ? * 

with which he considers the meanness of the associates with 
whom he has leagued himself on the other. The conspiring 
doge is not, we think, meant to be ambitious for himself, but 
he is sternly, proudly, a Venetian noble ; and it is impossible 
for him to tear from his bosom the scorn for every thing ple- 
beian which has been implanted there by birth, education, 
and a long life of princely command. There are other 
thoughts, too, and of a gentler kind, which cross from time 
to titae his perturbed spirit. He remembers— he cannot en- 
tirely forget — the days and nights of old companionship, by 
which he had long been bound to those whose sentence he 
has consented to seal. He has himself been declaiming 



252 



BYRON'S WOEKS. 



Act III. 



I. Ber. It had been as well 

To have ponder'd this before, — ere you embark'd 
In our great enterprise, — Do you repent ? 

Doge. No — but I jeel, and shall do to the last. 
I cannot quench a glorious life at once, 
Nor dwindle to the thing I now must be,i 
And take men's lives by stealth, without some pause : 
Yet doubt me not ; it is this very feeling, 
And knowing what has wrung me to be thus, 
Which is your best security. There's not 
A roused mechanic in your busy plot 
So wrong'd as I, so fall'n, so loudly call'd 
To his redress : the very means I am forced 
By these fell tyrants to adopt is such. 
That I abhor them doubly for the deeds 
Which I must do to pay them back for theirs. 

I. Bee. Let us away — hark — the hour strikes. 

Doge. On — On — 

It is our knell, or that of Venice — On ! 

I. Bee. Say rather, 'tis her freedom's rising peal 

Of triumph. -This way — we are near the place. 

{Exeunt. 

SCENE II. 
The House where the Conspirators meet. 

Dagolino, Doeo, Beeteam, Fedele Teevisano, 

Calendaeo, Antonio delle Bende, &c., &c. 

Cal. {entering). Are all here? 

Dag. All with you ; except the three 

On duty, and our leader Israel, 
Who is expected momently. 

Cal. Where's Bertram ? 

Bee. Here! 

Cal. Have you not been able to complete 

The number wanting in your company ? 

Bee. I had mark'd out some : but I have not dared 
To trust them with the secret, till assured 
That they were worthy faith. 

Cal. There is no need 

Of trusting to their faith : who, save ourselves 
And our more chosen comrades, is aware 
Fully of our intent ? they think themselves 
Engaged in secret to the Signory,^ 
To punish some more dissolute young nobles 
Who have defied the law in their excesses ; 
But once drawn up, and their new swords well flesh'd 
In the rank hearts of the more odious senators, 
They will not hesitate to follow up 
Their blow upon the others, when they see 
The example of their chiefs ; and I for one 
Will set them such, that they for very shame 
And safety will not pause till all have perish'd. 

Bee. How say you ? all ! 

against the folly of mercy, and arguing valiantly the neces- 
sity of total extirpation, — and that, too, in the teeth even of 
some of the plebeian conspirators themselves : yet the poet, 
■with profound insight into the human heart, makes him shud- 
der when his own impetuosity has brought himself, and all 
who hear him, to the brink. He cannot look upon the bloody 



Cal. Whom wouldst thou spare ? 

Bee. / spare f 

I have no power to spare. I only question'd. 
Thinking that even amongst these wicked men 
There might be some, whose age and qualities 
Might mark them out for pity. 

Cal. Yes, such pity 

As when the viper hath been cut to pieces, 
The separate fragments quivering in the sun, 
In the last energy of venomous life. 
Deserve and have. Why, I should think as soon 
Of pitying some particular fang which made 
One in the jaw of the swoln serpent, as 
Of saving one of these : they form but links 
Of one long chain ; one mass, one breath, one body ; 
They eat, and drink, and live, and breed together, 
Revel, and lie, oppress, and kill in concert, — 
So let them die as one ! 

Dag. Should one survive. 

He would be dangerous as the whole ; it is not 
Their number, be it tens or thousands, but 
The spirit of this aristocracy 
Which must be rooted out ; and if there were 
A single shoot of the old tree in life, 
'T would fasten in the soil, and spring again 
To gloomy verdure and to bitter fruit. 
Bertram, we must be firm ! 

Cal. Look to it well, 

Bertram ; I have an eye upon thee. 

Bee. Who 

Distrusts me ? 

Cal. Not I ; for if I did so. 

Thou wouldst not now be there to talk of trust : 
It is thy softness, not thy want of faith. 
Which makes thee to be doubted. 

Bee. You should know 

Who hear me, who and what I am ; a man 
Eoused like yourselves to overthrow oppression ; 
A kind man, I am apt to think, as some 
Of you have found me ; and if brave or no. 
You, Calendar©, can pronounce, who have seen me 
Put to the proof; or, if you should have doubts, 
I'll clear them on your person ! 

Cal. You are welcome, 

When once our enterprise is o'er, which must not 
Be interrupted by a private brawl. 

Bee. I am no brawler ; but can bear myself 
As far among the foe as any he 
Who hears me ; else why have I been selected 
To be of your chief comrades ? but no less 
I own my natural weakness ; I have not 
Yet learn' d to think of indiscriminate murder 
Without some sense of shuddering ; and the sight 
Of blood which spouts through hoary scalps is not 

resolution, no nol; even after he himself has been the chief 
instrument of its formation." — Lockhart. 

f the thing I now must be," [MS. 



1 "Nor dwindle to 



t a cut-throat without shuddering." — 



2 An historical 
Note A. 



fact. See Appendix: Marino Faliero, 



Scene II. 



MAEINO FALIEKO. 



253 



To me a thing of triumph, nor the death 
Of men surprised a glory. Well — too well 
I know that we must do such things on those 
Whose acts have raised up such avengers ; but 
If there were some of these who could be saved 
From out this sweeping fate, for our own sakes 
And for our honor, to take off some stain 
Of massacre, which else pollutes it wholly, 
I had been glad ; and see no cause in this 
For sneer, nor for suspicion ! 

Dag. Calm thee, Bertram, 

For we suspect thee not, and take good heart. 
It is the cause, and not our will, which asks 
Such actions from our hands : we'll wash away 
All stains in Freedom's fountain ! 

Enter Israel Beetfccio, and the Doge, disguised. 

Dag. Welcome, Israel. 

CoNSP. Most welcome. — Brave Bertuccio, thou art 
late — 
Who is this stranger ? 

Cal. It is time to name him. 

Our comrades are even now prepared to greet him 
In brotherhood, as I have made it known 
That thou wouldst add a brother to our cause, 
Approved by thee, and thus approved by all. 
Such is our trust in all thine actions. Now 
Let him unfold himself. 

I. Ber. Stranger, step forth ! 

\_The Doge discovers himself . 

CoNSP. To arms ! — we are betray'd — it is the Doge ! 
Down with them both ! our traitorous captain, and 
The tyrant he hath sold us to ! 

Cal. {drawing his sword). Hold ! hold ! 
Who moves a step against them dies. Hold ! hear 
Bertuccio — What ! are you appall'd to see 
A lone, unguarded, weaponless old man 
Amongst you? — Israel, speak! what means this 
mystery ? 

I. Ber. Let them advance and strike at their own 
bosoms, 
Ungrateful suicides ! for on our lives 
Depend their own, their fortunes, and their hopes. 

Doge. Strike ! — If I dreaded death, a death more 
fearful 
Than any your rash weapons can inflict, 
I should not now be here : — Oh, noble Courage ! 
The eldest born of Fear, which makes you brave 
Against this solitary hoary head ! 
See the bold chiefs, who would reform a state 
And shake down senates, mad with wrath and dread 
At sight of one patrician ! Butcher me ! 
You can ; I care not. — Israel, are these men 
The mighty hearts you spoke of? look upon them ! 

Cal. Faith ! he hath shamed us, and deservedly. 
Was this your trust in your true chief Bertuccio, 
To turn your swords against him and his guest ? 
Sheathe them, and hear him. 

I. Ber. I disdain to speak. 

They might and must have known a heart like mine 



Incapable of treachery ; and the power 

They gave me to adopt all fitting means 

To further their design was ne'er abused. 

They might be certain that whoe'er was brought 

By me into this council had been led 

To take his choice — as brother, or as victim. 

Doge. And which am I to be ? your actions leave 
Some cause to doubt the freedom of the choice. 

I. Ber. My lord, we would have perish'd here 
together, 
Had these rash men proceeded ; but, behold, 
They are ashamed of that mad moment's impulse. 
And droop their heads ; believe me, they are such 
As I described them — Speak to them. 

Cal. Ay, speak ; 

We are all listening in wonder. 

I. Ber. {addressing the Conspirators). You are safe, 
Nay, more, almost triumphant — listen then. 
And know my words for truth. 

Doge. You see me here, 

As one of you hath said, an old, unarm'd, 
Defenceless man ; and yesterday you saw me 
Presiding in the hall of ducal state, 
Apparent sovereign of our hundred isles, 
Robed in official purple, dealing out 
The edicts of a power which is not mine. 
Nor yours, but of our masters — the patricians. 
Why I was there you know, or think you know ; 
Why I am here, he who hath been most wrong'd, 
He who among you hath been most insulted, 
Outraged, and trodden on, until he doubt 
If he be worm or no, may answer for me. 
Asking of his own heart, what brought him here ? 
You know my recent story, all men know it, 
And judge of it far differently from those 
Who sate in judgment to heap scorn on scorn. 
But spare me the recital — it is here. 
Here at my heart the outrage — but my words, 
Already spent in unavailing plaints. 
Would only show my feebleness the more. 
And I come here to strengthen even the strong, 
And urge them on to deeds, and not to war 
With woman's weapons ; but I need not urge you. 
Our private wrongs have sprung from public vices, 
In this — I cannot call it commonwealth. 
Nor kingdom, which hath neither prince nor people, 
But all the sins of the old Spartan state i 
Without its virtues — temperance and valor. 
The lords of Lacedsemon were true soldiers. 
But ours are Sybarites, while we are Helots, 
Of whom I am the lowest, most enslaved ; 
Although dress'd out to head a pageant, as 
The Greeks of yore made drunk their slaves to form 
A pastime for their children. You are met 
To overthrow this monster of a state, 
This mockery of a government, this spectre, 
Which must be exorcised with blood, — and then 



1 " "R t 11 th / ^^"^ '^^ *^® ^^^ Spartan state." 

I worst sins of the Spartan state." — MS. 



254 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



Act III. 



We will renew the times of truth and justice, 

Condensing in a fair free commonwealth 

Not rash equality but equal rights, 

Proportion'd like the columns to the temple, 

Giving and taking strength reciprocal, 

And making firm the whole with grace and beauty, 

So that no part could be removed without 

Infringement of the general symmetry. 

In operating this great change, I claim 

To be one of you — if you trust in me ; 

If not, strike home, — my life is compromised, 

And I would rather fall by freemen's hands 

Than live another day to act the tyrant 

As delegate of tyrants : such I am not. 

And never have been — read it in our annals ; 

I can appeal to my past government 

In many lands and cities ; they can tell you 

If I were an oppressor, or a man 

Feeling and thinking for my fellow men. 

Haply had I been what the senate sought, 

A thing of robes and trinkets, dizen'd out 

To sit in state as for a sovereign's picture ; i 

A popular scourge, a ready sentence-signer, 

A stickler for the senate and " the Forty," 

A skeptic of all measures which had not 

The sanction of " the Ten," a council-fawner, 

A tool, a fool, a puppet, — they had ne'er 

Foster'd the wretch who stung me. What I suffer 

Has reach'd me through my pity for the people ; 

That many know, and they who know not yet 

Will one day learn : meantime, I do devote, 

Whate'er the issue, my last days of life — 

My present power such as it is, not that 

Of Doge, but of a man who has been great 

Before he was degraded to a Doge, 

And still has individual means and mind ; 

I stake my fame (and I had fame) — my breath 

(The least of all, for its last hours are nigh) — 

My heart — my hope — my soul — upon this cast ! 

Such as I am, I offer me to you 

And to your chiefs ; accept me or reject me, — 

A prince who fain would be a citizen 

Or nothing, and who has left his throne to be so. 

Cal. Long live Faliero ! — Venice shall be free ! 

CONSP. Long live Faliero ! 

I. Bee. Comrades ! did I well ? 

Is not this man a host in such a cause ? 

Doge. This is no time for eulogies, nor place 
For exultation. Am I one of you ? 

Cal. Ay, and the first amongst us, as thou hast 
been 
Of Venice — be our general and chief. 

Doge. Chief! — general ! — I was general at Zara, 
And chief in Ehodes and Cyprus, prince in Venice : 

I cannot stoop that is, I am not fit 

To lead a band of patriots : when I lay 

Aside the dignities which I have borne, 
'Tis not to put on others, but to be 
Mate to my fellows — but now to the point : 
Israel has stated to me your whole plan — 



'Tis bold, but feasible if I assist it, 
And must be set in motion instantly. 

Cal. E'en when thou wilt. Is it not so, my friends ? 
I have disposed all for a sudden blow ; 
When shall it be then ? 

Doge. At sunrise. 

Bee. So soon? 

Doge. So soon ? — so late — each hour accumulates 
Peril on peril, and the more so now 
Since I have mingled with you ; — know you not 
The Council, and " the Ten " ? the spies, the eyes 
Of the patricians dubious of their slaves. 
And now more dubious of the prince they have made 

one? 
I tell you, you must strike, and suddenly. 
Full to the Hydra's heart — its heads will follow. 

Cal. With all my soul and sword, I yield assent ; 
Our companies are ready, sixty each, 
And all now under arms by Israel's order ; 
Each at their different place of rendezvous, 
And vigilant, expectant of some blow ; 
Let each repair for action to his post ! 
And now, my lord, the signal ? 

Doge. • When you hear 

The great bell of Saint Mark's, which may not be 
Struck without special order of the Doge 
(The last poor privilege they leave their prince), 
March on Saint Mark's ! 

I. Bee. And there ? — 

Doge. By different routes 

Let your march be directed, every sixty 
Entering a separate avenue, and still 
Upon the way let your cry be of war 
And of the Genoese fleet, by the first dawn 
Discern'd before the port; form round the palace, 
Within whose court will be drawn out in arms 
My nephew and the clients of our house. 
Many and martial ; while the bell tolls on. 
Shout ye, " Saint Mark ! — the foe is on our waters !" 

Cal. I see it now — but on, my noble lord. 

Doge. All the patricians flocking to the Council 
(Which they dare not refuse, at the dread signal 
Pealing from out their patron saint's proud tower) 
Will then be gather'd in unto the harvest. 
And we will reap them with the sword for sickle. 
If some few should be tardy or absent them, 
'Twill be but to be taken faint and single, 
When the majority are put to rest. 

Cal. Would that the hour were come ! we will not 
scotch, 
But kill. 

Bee. Once more, sir, with your pardon, I 
Would now repeat the question which I ask'd 
Before Bertuccio added to our cause 
This great ally who renders it more sure, 
And therefore safer, and as such admits 
Some dawn of mercy to a portion of 
Our victims — must all perish in this slaughter ? 

Cal. All who encounter me and mine, be sure, 
The mercy they have shown, I show. 



S(>ENE II. 



MAEINO FALIERO. 



256 



CONSP. All! All! 

Is this a time to talk of pity ? when 
Have they e'er shown, or felt, or feign'd it ? 

I. Ber. Bertram, 

This false compassion is a folly, and 
Injustice to thy comrades and thy cause! 
Dost thou not see, that if we single out 
Some for escape, they live but to avenge 
The fallen ? and how distinguish now the innocent 
From out the guilty ? all their acts are one — 
A single emanation from one body, 
Together knit for our oppression ! 'Tis 
Much that we let their children live ; I doubt 
If aU of these even should be set apart : 
The hunter may reserve some single cub 
From out the tiger's litter, but who e'er 
Would seek to save the spotted sire or dam, 
Unless to perish by their fangs ? however, 
I will abide by Doge Faliero's counsel : 
Let him decide if any should be saved. 

Doge. Ask me not — tempt me not with such a 
question — 
Decide yourselves. 

I, Ber. You know^their private virtues 

Far better than we can, to whom alone 
Their public vices, and most foul oppression. 
Have made them deadly ; if there be amongst them 
One who deserves to be repeal'd, pronounce. 

Doge. Dolfino's father was my friend, and Lando 
Fought by my side, and Marc Cornaro shared i 
My Genoese embassy : I saved the life 
Of Veniero — shall I save it twice ? 
Would that I could save them and Venice also ! 
All these men, or their fathers, were my friends 
Till they became my subjects; then fell from me 
As faithless leaves drop from the o'erblown flower, 
And left me a lone blighted thorny stalk, 
AVhich, in its solitude, can shelter nothing ; 
So, as they let me wither, let them perish ! 

Cal. They cannot coexist with Venice' freedom ! 

Doge. Ye, though you know and feel our mutual 
mass 
Of many wrongs, even ye are ignorant ^ 
What fatal poison to the springs of life. 
To human ties, and all that's good and dear, 
Lurks in the present institutes of Venice : 
All these men were my friends : I loved them, they 
Requited honorably my regards ; 
We served and fought; we smiled and wept in 

concert ; 
We revell'd or we sorrow'd side by side ; 
We made alliances of blood and marriage ; 
We grew in years and honors fairly, — till 

1 " Fought by my side, and {f ^J*= ^ornaro | ^^^^^^ 



My 



f Genoese embassy ; 



1 1 saved the life," Ac— MS. 



I. mission to the Pope ; 

' " Bear witness with me ! ye who hear and know, 
And feel our mutual mass of many wrongs." — MS. 



Their own desire, not my ambition, made 
Them choose me for their prince, and then farewell 
Farewell all social memory ! all thoughts 
In common ! and sweet bonds which link old friend- 
ships. 
When the survivors of long years and actions. 
Which now belong to history, soothe the days 
Which yet remain by treasuring each other. 
And never meet, but each beholds the mirror 
Of half a century on his brother's brow, 
And sees a hundred beings, now in earth, 
Flit round them whispering of the days gone by. 
And seeming not all dead, as long as two 
Of the brave, joyous, reckless, glorious band, 
Which once were one and many, still retain 
A breath to sigh for them, a tongue to speak 

Of deeds that else were silent, save on marble 

Oime ! Oime ! — and must I do this deed ? 
I. Ber. My lord, you are much moved : it is not 
now 
That such things must be dwelt upon. 

Doge. Your patience 

A moment — I recede not : mark with me 
The gloomy vices of this government. 
From the hour they made me Doge, the Doge THEY 

made me — 
Farewell the past ! I died to all that had been. 
Or rather they to me : ifo friends, no kindness. 
No privacy of life — all were cut off: 
They came not near me, such approach gave umbrage ;_ 
They could not love me, such was not the law ; 
They thwarted me, 'twas the state's policy ; 
They baffled me, 'twas a patrician's duty ; 
They wrong'd me, for such was to right the state ; 
They could not right me, that would give suspicion ; 
So that I was a slave to my own subjects ; 
So that I was a foe to my own friends ; 
Begirt with spies for guards, with robes for power, 
With pomp for freedom, gaolers for a council, 
Inquisitors for friends, and hell for life I 
I had one only fount of quiet left. 
And that they poison'd ! My pure household gods ^ 
Were shiver'd on my hearth, and o'er their shrine 
Sate grinning Ribaldry and sneering Scorn. 
I. Ber. You have been deeply wrong'd, and now 
shall be 
Nobly avenged before another night. 

Doge. I had borne all — it hurt me, but I bore it — 
Till this last running over of the cup 
Of bitterness — until this last loud insult, 
Not only unredress'd, but sanction'd ; then, 
And thus, I cast all further feelings from me — 
The feelings which they crush'd for me, long, long 

3 " I could have forgiven the dagger or the bowl, any thing, 
but the deliberate desolation piled upon me, when I stood 
alone upon my hearth, with my household gods shivered 
around me. Do you suppose I have forgotten or forgiven it? 
It has, comparatively, swallowed up in me every other feeling, 
and I am only a spectator upon earth till a tenfold oppor- 
tunity oflFers. It may come yet."— Byron Letters, 1819, 



256 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Act III. 



Before, even in their oath of false allegiance ! 
Even in that very hour and vow, they abjured 
Their friend and made a sovereign, as boys make 
Playthings, to do their pleasure — and be broken ! 
I from that hour have seen but senators 
In dark suspicious conflict with the Doge, 
Brooding with him in mutual hate and fear ; 
They dreading he should snatch the tyranny 
From out their grasp, and he abhorring tyrants. 
To me, then, these men have no private life, 
Nor claim to ties they have cut off from others ; 
As senators for arbitrary acts 
Amenable, I look on them — as such 
Let them be dealt upon.i 

Cal. And now to action ! 

Hence, brethren, to our posts, and may this be 
The last night of mere words : I'd fain be doing ! 
Saint Mark's great bell at dawn shall find me wake- 
ful ! 

I. Ber. Disperse then to your posts : be firm and 
vigilant ; 
Think on the wrongs we bear, the rights we claim. 
This day and night shall be the last of peril ! 
Watch for the signal, and then march. I go 
To join my band ; let each be prompt to marshal 
His separate charge : the Doge will now return 
To the palace to prepare all for the blow. 
We part to meet in freedom and in glory ! [you 

Cal. Doge, when I greet you next, my homage to 
Shall be the head of Steno on this sword ! 

Doge. No ; let him be reserved unto the last. 
Nor turn aside to strike at such a prey,^ 
Till nobler game is quarried : his offence 
Was a mere ebullition of the vice. 
The general corruption generated 
By the foul aristocracy : he could not — 
He dared not — in more honorable days 
Have risk'd it. I have merged all private wrath 
Against him in the thought of our great purpose. 
A slave insults me — I require his punishment 
From his proud master's" hands ; if he refuse it. 
The offence grows his, and let him answer it. 

Cal. Yet, as the immediate cause of the alliance 
Which consecrates our undertaking more, 

1 " The struggle of feelings with which the doge undertakes 
the conspiracy is admirably contrasted with the ferocious 
eagerness of his low-born associates ; and only loses its effect, 
because we cannot but be sensible that the man who felt thus 
could not have gone on with his guilty project, unless stimu- 
lated by some greater and more accumulated injuries than 
are, in the course of the tragedy, brought before the percep- 
tion of the reader." — Heber. 

2 " Nor turn aside to strike at such a ■< ^ r. ',, -.ro 

I wretch."— MS. 

8 "The great defect of Marino Faliero is, that the nature 
and character of the conspiracy excite no interest. It matters 
little that Lord Byron has been faithful to history, if the event 
is destitute of a poetic character. Like Alfieri, to whom in , 
many points his genius approximates, he is fettered by an ! 
intractable story, which is wholly remote from the instincts 
and feelings of mankind. How elevated soever may be his 
diction, how vivid soever his coloring, a moral truth is want- 



I owe him such deep gratitude, that fain 
I would repay him as he merits ; may I ? 

Doge. You would but lop the hand, and I the head; 
You would but smite the scholar, I the master ; 
You would but punish Steno, I the senate. 
I cannot pause on individual hate, 
In the absorbing, sweeping, whole revenge. 
Which, like the sheeted fire from heaven, must blast 
Without distinction, as it fell of yore. 
Where the Dead Sea hath quench'd two cities' ashes. 

I. Ber. Away, then, to your posts ! I but remain 
A moment to accompany the Doge 
To our late place of tryst, to see no spies 
Have been upon the. scout, and thence I hasten 
To where my allotted band is under arms. 

Cal. Farewell, then, — until dawn ! 

I. Ber. Success go with you ! 

CONSP. Wewill not fail!— Away! Mylordjfarewell!' 

[The Conspirators salute the Doge and Israel 

Bertuccio, and retire, headed by Philip Ca- 

lendaeo. The Doge and Israel Bertuccio 

remain. 

I. Ber. We have them in thetoil — it cannot fail ! 
Now thou'rt indeed a sovereign, and wilt make 
A name immortal greater than the greatest : 
Free citizens have struck at kings ere now ; 
Csesars have fallen, and even patrician hands 
Have crush'd dictators, as the popular steel 
Has reach'd patricians : but, until this hour, 
What prince has plotted for his people's freedom ? 
Or risk'd a life to liberate his subjects? 
For ever, and for ever, they conspire 
Against the people, to abuse their hands 
To chains, but laid aside to carry weapons 
Against the fellow nations, so that yoke 
On yoke, and slavery and death may whet, 
Not glut, the never-gorged Leviathan ! 
Now, my lord, to our enterprise ; — 'tis great, 
And greater the reward ; why stand you rapt ? 
A moment back, and you were all impatience ! 

Doge. And is it then decided ? must they die ? 

I. Ber. Who? 

Doge. My own friends by blood and courtesy, 

And many deeds and days — the senators ? 

ing — that charm, so diflScult to define, so easy to apprehend, 
which, diffused over the scene, excites in generous bosoms 
an exalted enthusiasm for the great interests of humanity. 
This is the poesy of history. It is the charm of the William 
Tell of Schiller ; it is felt in the awful plot of Brutus, and, 
to a certain degree, in the conspiracy of Pierre and Jaffier ; 
for the end and purpose of these conspiracies were, to re- 
deem their country from insult and oppression. But in 
Marino Faliero's attempt against the state, we contemplate 
nothing but the project of a sanguinary ruffian seeking to 
grasp unlimited authority, and making, after the established 
precedents of all usurpers, the wrongs and sufferings of the 
commonalty his pretence; while, in another aspect of his 
character, we see him goaded, by an imagined injury, into an 
enterprise which would have inundated Venice with her best 
blood. Is this a sublime spectacle, calculated to purge the 
mind, according to the aphorism of Aristotle, by means of 
terror or pity ?"—Ecl. Rev. 



Scene II. 



MAKING FALIEEO. 



257 



I. Ber. You pass'd their sentence, and it is a just 

one. 
Doge. Ay, so it seems, and so it is to you; 
You are a patriot, plebeian Gracchus — 
The rebels' oracle, the people's tribune — 
I blame you not — you act in your vocation ; 
They smote you, and oppress'd you, and despised you ; 
So they have me : but you ne'er spake with them ; 
You never broke their bread, nor shared their salt ; 
You never had their wine-cup at your lips ; 
You grew not up with them, nor laugh'd, nor wept. 
Nor held a revel in their company ; 
Ne'er smiled to see them smile, nor claim'd their 

smile 
In social interchange for yours, nor trusted 
Nor wore them in your heart of hearts, as I have : 
These hairs of mine are gray, and so are theirs, 
The elders of the council : I remember 
When all our locks were like the raven's wing, 
As we went forth to take our prey around 
The isles wrung from the false Mahometan ; 
And can I see them dabbled o'er with blood ? 
£ach stab to them will seem my suicide. ^ 

I. Ber. Doge ! Doge ! this vacillation is unworthy 
A child ; if you are not in second childhood, 
Call back your nerves to your own purpose, nor 
Thus shame yourself and me. By heavens ! I'd rather 
Forego even now, or fail in our intent, 
Than see the man I venerate subside 
From high resolves into such shallow weakness ! 
You have seen blood in battle, shed it, both 
Your own and that of others ; can you shrink then 
From a few drops from veins of hoary vampires, 
Who but give back what they have drain'd from mil- 
lions ? 
Doge. Rear with me ! Step by step, and blow on 
blow, 
I will divide with you ; think not I waver : 
Ah ! no ; it is the certainty of all 
Which I must do doth make me tremble thus. 
But let these last and lingering thoughts have way, 
To which you only and the night are conscious, 
And both regardless : when the hour arrives, 
'Tis mine to sound the knell, and strike the blow, 
Which shall unpeople many palaces. 
And hew the highest genealogic trees 
Down to the earth, strew'd with their bleeding fruit, 
And crush their blossoms into barrenness : 
Thi8 will I — must I — have I sworn to do, 
Nor aught can turn me from my destiny ; 



^ "The unmixed selfishness of the motives with which the 
doge accedes to the plot perpetually escapes him. Not that 
he is wholly untouched by the compunctious visitings of 
nature. But the fearful unity of such a character is broken 
by assigning to it the throbbings and the pangs of human 
feelings, and by making him recoil with affright from slaugh- 
ter and desolation. In the roar and whirlwind of the mighty 
passions which precede the acting of a dreadful plot, it is 
wholly unreasonable and out of keeping to put into his mouth 
the sentimental effusions of affectionate pity for his friends, 
17 



But still I quiver to behold what I 

Must be, and think what I have been ! Bear with 

me! 
I. Ber, Reman your breast; I feel no such remorse, 
I understand it not : why should you change ? 
You acted, and you act, on your free will. 

Doge. Ay, there it is — you feel not, nor do I, 
Else I should stab thee on the spot, to save 
A thousand lives, and, killing, do no murder ; 
You feel not — you go to this butcher-work 
As if these high-born men were steers for shambles ! 
When all is over, you'll be free and merry. 
And calmly wash those hands incarnadine ; 
But I, outgoing thee and all thy fellows 
In this surpassing massacre, shall be, 
Shall see and feel — oh God ! oh God ! 'tis true. 
And thou dost well to answer that it was 
" My own free will and act," and yet you err, 
For I will do this ! Doubt not — fear not ; I 
Will be your most unmerciful accomplice ! 
And yet I act no more on my free will. 
Nor my own feelings— both compel me back ; 
But there is hell within me and around. 
And like the demon who believes and trembles 
Must I abhor and do. Away ! away ! 
Get thee unto thy fellows, I will hie me 
To gather the retainers of our house. 
Doubt not, Saint Mark's great bell shall wake all 

Venice, 
Except her slaughter'd senate : ere the sun 
Be broad upon the Adriatic, there 
Shall be a voice of weeping, which shall drown 
The roar of waters in the cry of blood ! 
I am resolved — come on. 

I. Ber. With all my soul ! 

Keep a firm rein upon these bursts of passion ; 
Remember what these men have dealt to thee, 
And that this sacrifice will be succeeded 
By ages of prosperity and freedom 
To this unshackled city : a true tyrant 
Would have depopulated empires, nor 
Have felt the strange compunction which hath wrung 

you 
To punish a few traitors to the people. 
Trust me, such were a pity more misplaced 
Than the late mercy of the state to Steno. 
Doge. Man, thou hast struck upon the chord which 

jars 
All nature from my heart. Hence to our task ! 

\_Ikeunt. 



whom he thinks of rather too late to give these touches of 
remorse and mercy any other character than that of hypo- 
critical whining. The sentiments are certainly good, but 
lamentably out of time and place, and remind of Scarron's 
remark upon the moralizing Phlegyas in the infernal re- 
gions,— 

' Cette sentence est vrai et belle, 
Mais dans enfer de quoi sert-elle?' 
Yet, though wholly repugnant to dramatic congrulty, the 
passage has great poetic ^owev.^—Ecl. Rev. 



258 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Act IV. 



ACT IV. 

SCENE I.i 

Palazzo of the Patrician LiONi, LiONi laying aside 
the mash and cloak which the Venetian Nohles wore 
lie, attended hy a Domestic. 



LiONi. I will to rest, right weary of this revel, 
The gayest we have held for many moons, 
And yet, I know not why, it cheer'd me not ; 
There came a heaviness across my heart, 
Which, in the lightest movement of the dance, 
Though eye to eye, and hand in hand united 
Even with the lady of my love, oppress'd me. 
And through my spirit chill'd my blood, until 
A damp lilce death rose o'er my brow ; I strove 
To laugh the thought away, but 'twould not be : 
Through all the music ringing in my ears 
A knell was sounding as distinct and clear, 
Though low and far, as e'er the Adrian wave 
Rose o'er the city's murmur in the night. 
Dashing against the outward Lido's bulwark : 
So that I left the festival before 
It reach'd its zenith, and will woo my pillow 
For thoughts more tranquil, or foi'getfulness. 
Antonio, take my mask and cloak, and light 
The lamp within my chamber. 

Ant. Yes, my lord : 

Command you no refreshment ? 

LiONi. Nought, save sleep, 

Which will not be commanded. Let me hope it, 

\_Exit Antonio. 
Though my breast feels too anxious ; I will try 
Whether the air will calm my spirits : 'tis 
A goodly night ; the cloudy wind which blew 
From the Levant hath crept into its cave, 
And the broad moon has brighten'd. What a stillness ! 
\_Goes to an open lattice. 
And what a contrast with the scene I left. 
Where the tall torches' glare, and silver lamps' 
More pallid gleam along the tapestried walls. 
Spread over the reluctant gloom which haunts 
Those vast and dimly-latticed galleries 
A dazzling mass of artificial light. 
Which show'd all things, but nothing as they were. 
There Age essaying to recall the past, 
After long striving for the hues of youth 
At the sad labor of the toilet, and 
Full many a glance at the too faithful mirror, 
Prank' d forth in all the pride of ornament. 
Forgot itself, and trusting to the falsehood 



1 " The fourth act opens with the most poetical and bril- 
liantly written scene in the play — though it is a soliloquy, 
and altogether alien from the business of the piece. Lioni, a 
young nobleman, returns home from a splendid assembly, 
rather out of spirits ; and, opening his palace window for air, 
contrasts the tranquillity of the night scene which lies before 
him, with the feverish turbulence and glittering enchant- 
ments of that which he has just quitted. Nothing can be 
finer than this picture, in both its compartments. There is a 



Of the indulgent beams, which show, yet hide, 

Believed itself forgotten, and was fool'd. 

There Youth^ which needed not, nor thought of such 

Vain adjuncts, lavish'd its true bloom, and health, 

And bridal beauty, in the unwholesome press 

Of flush'd and crowded wassailers, and wasted 

Its hours of rest in dreaming this was pleasure, 

And so shall waste them till the sunrise streams 

On sallow cheeks and sunken eyes, which should not 

Have worn this aspect yet for many a year. 

The music, and the banquet, and the wine — 

The garlands, the rose odors, and the flowers — 

The sparkling eyes, and flashing ornaments — 

The white arms and the raven hair — the braids 

And bracelets ; swanlike bosoms, and the necklace, 

An India in itself, yet dazzling not 

The eye like what it circled ; the thin robes. 

Floating like light clouds 'twixt our gaze and heaven ; 

The many-twinkling feet so small and sylphlike. 

Suggesting the more secret symmetry 

Of the fair forms which terminate so well — 

All the delusion of the dizzy scene, 

Its false and true enchantments — art and nature, 

Which swam before my giddy eyes, that drank 

The sight of beauty as the parch'd pilgrim's 

On Arab sands the false mirage, which ofiers 

A lucid lake to his eluded thirst. 

Are gone. Around me are the stars and waters — 

Worlds mirror'd in the ocean, goodlier sight 

Than torches glared back by a gaudy glass ; 

And the great element, which is to spa^e 

What ocean is to earth, spreads its blue depths, 

Soften'd with the flrst breathings of the spring ; 

The high moon sails upon her beauteous way, 

Serenely smoothing o'er the lofty walls 

Of those tall piles and sea-girt palaces, 

Whose porphyry pillars, and whose costly fronts, 

Fraught with the Orient spoil of many marbles. 

Like altars ranged along the broad canal. 

Seem each a trophy of some mighty deed 

Rear'd up from out the waters, scarce less strangely 

Than those more massy and mysterious giants 

Of architecture, those Titanian fabrics. 

Which point in Egypt's plains to times that have 

No other record. All is gentle : nought 

Stirs rudely ; but, congenial with the night, 

Whatever walks is gliding like a spirit. 

The tinklings of some vigilant guitars 

Of sleepless lovers to a wakeful mistress. 

And cautious opening of the casement, showing 

That he is not unheard ; while her young hand, 



truth and a luxuriance in the description of the rout, which 
mark at once the hand of a master, and raise it to a very 
high rank as a piece of poetical painting ;— while the moon- 
light view from the window is equally grand and beautiful, 
and reminds us of those magnificent and enchanting lookings 
forth in ' Manfred,' which have left, we will confess, far deeper 
traces on our fancy, than any thing in the more elaborate 
work before us." — Jeffrey. 



Scene I. 



MARINO FALIERO. 



259 



Fair as the moonlight of which it seems part, 

So delicately white, it trembles in 

The act of opening the forbidden lattice, 

To let in love through music, makes his heart 

Thrill like his lyre-strings at the sight ; — the dash 

Phosphoric of the oar, or rapid twinkle 

Of the far lights of skimming gondolas, 

And the responsive voices of the choir 

Of boatmen answering back with verse for verse ; 

Some dusky shadow checkering the Rialto ; 

Some glimmering palace roof, or tapering spire. 

Are all the sights and sounds which here pervade 

The ocean-born and earth-commanding city — 

How sweet and soothing is this hour of calm ! 

I thank thee, Night ! for thou hast chased away 

Those horrid bodements which, amidst the throng, 

I could not dissipate : and with the blessing 

Of thy benign and quiet influence. 

Now will I to my couch, although to rest 

Is almost wronging such a night as this i 

[A knocking is heard from without. 
Hark ! what is that? or who, at such a moment ?2 

Enter Antonio. 
Ant. My lord, a man without, on urgent business, 
Implores to be admitted. 
LiONi. Is he a stranger ? 

Ant. His face is muffled in his cloak, but both 
His voice and gestures seem familiar to me ; 
I craved his name, but this he seem'd reluctant 
To trust, save to yourself; most earnestly 
He sues to be permitted to approach you. 
LiONi. 'Tis a strange hour, and a suspicious 
bearing ! 
And yet there is slight peril : 'tis not in 
Their houses noble men are struck at ; still. 
Although I know not that I have a foe 
In Venice, 'twill be wise to use some caution. 
Admit him, and retire ; but call up quickly 
Some of thy fellows, who may wait without. — 
Who can this man be ? — 

[Exit Antonio, and returns with Beeteam, 
muffled. 
Ber. My good lord Lioni, 

I have no time to lose, nor thou, — dismiss 
This menial hence ; I would be private with you. 
LiONi. It seems the voice of Bertram — Go, An- 
tonio. [Exit Antonio. 
Now, stranger, what would you at such an hour ? 
Ber. {discovering himself). A boon, my noble 
patron ; you have granted 



^ " This soliloquy is exquisite, and increases our regret that, 
with such powers of pleasing, Lord Byron should not always 
have condescended to please." — Hebeb. 

2 " The soliloquy of Lioni is a fine instance of repose, as 
the painters term it, amidst the horrors of the scene, and of 
that obscure but ruthless presentiment of evil, of which 
Shakspoare frequently made a use somewhat similar. Yet this 
splendid passage, with reference to the romantic character of 



Many to your poor client, Bertram ; add 
This one, and make him happy. 

Lioni. Thou hast known me 

From boyhood, ever ready to assist thee 
In all fair objects of advancement, which 
Beseem one of thy station ; I would promise 
Ere thy request was heard, but that the hour. 
Thy bearing, and this strange and hurried mode 
Of suing, gives me to suspect this visit 
Hath some mysterious import — but say on — 
What has occurr'd, some rash and sudden broil ? — 
A cup too much, a scuffle, and a stab ? — 
Mere things of every day ; so that thou hast not 
Spilt noble blood, I guarantee thy safety ; 
But then thou must withdraw, for angry friends 
And relatives, in the first burst of vengeance. 
Are things in Venice deadlier than the laws. 

Bee. My lord, I thank you ; but 

Lioni. But what? You have not 
Raised a rash hand against one of our order ? 
If so, withdraw and fly, and own it not ; 
I would not slay — but then I must not save thee ! 
He who has shed patrician blood 

Bee. I come 

To save patrician blood, and not to shed it ! 
And thereunto I must be speedy, for 
Each minute lost may lose a life ; since Time 
Has changed his slow scythe for the two-edged sword. 
And is about to take, instead of sand. 
The dust from sepulchres to fill his hour-glass ! — 
Go not thou forth to-morrow ! 

Lioni. Wherefore not? 

What means this menace ? 

Bee. Do not seek its meaning, 

But do as I implore thee ; — stir not forth. 
Whatever be stirring ; though the roar of crowds — 
The cry of women, and the shrieks of babes — 
The groans of men — the clash of arms — the sound 
Of rolling drum, shrill trump, and hollow bell, 
Peal in one wide alarum ! — Go not forth 
Until the tocsin's silent, nor even then 
Till I return ! 

Lioni. Again, what does this mean ? 

Bee. Again, I tell thee, ask not ; but by all 
Thou boldest dear on earth or heaven — by all 
The souls of thy great fathers, and thy hope 
To emulate them, and to leave behind 
Descendants worthy both of them and thee — 
By all thou hast of bless'd in hope or memory — 
By all thou hast to fear here or hereafter — 
By all the good deeds thou hast done to me. 



the poem, is adventitious, and obviously transplanted from 
the mind of the poet. It is the habitual cast of thought, 
tinged with misanthropy, which is peculiar to Lord Byron, 
and does not adapt itself to the situation or feelings of the 
personages of his poem. It is the cool contemplation of a 
mind raised above the storms of human life, and the pertur- 
bation of its passions, and viewing, as from ' a peculiar 
mount,' the strife and conflicts of a world in which it dis- 
dains to min."— Eel. Jtev. 



260 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Act IV. 



Good I would now repay with greater good, 
Remain within — trust to thy household gods, 
And to my word for safety, if thou dost 
As I now counsel — but if not, thou art lost ! 

LlONi. I am indeed already lost in wonder ; 
Surely thou ravest! what have J to dread? 
Who are my foes ? or if there be such, why 
Art thou leagued with them ? — thou /or if so leagued, 
Why comest thou to tell me at this hour, 
And not before ? 

Ber. I cannot answer this. 

Wilt thou go forth despite of this true warning ? 

LlONi. I was not born to shrink from idle threats, 
The cause of which I know not : at the hour 
Of council, be it soon or late, I shall not 
Be found among the absent. 

Bee. Say not so ! 

Once more, art thou determined to go forth ? 

LlONl. I am. Nor is there aught which shall im- 
pede me ! 

Ber. Then Heaven have mercy on thy soul! — 
Farewell ! [Going. 

LlONl. Stay — there is more in this than my own 
safety 
Which makes me call thee back ; we must not part 

thus : 
Bertram, I have known thee long. 

Ber. From childhood, signor, 

You have been my protector : in the days 
Of reckless infancy, when rank forgets. 
Or, rather, is not yet taught to remember 
Its cold prerogative, we play'd together ; 
Our sports, our smiles, our tears, were mingled oft ; 
My father was your father's client, I 
His son's scarce less than foster-brother ; years 
Saw us together — happy, heart-full hours ! 
Oh God ! the difference 'twixt those hours and this ! 

LlONl. Bertram, 'tis thou who hast forgotten them. 

Ber. Nor now, nor ever; whatsoe'er betide, 
I would have saved you : when to manhood's growth 
We sprung, and you, devoted to the state. 
As suits your station, the more humble Bertram 
Was left unto the labors of the humble. 
Still you forsook me not ; and if my fortunes 
Have not been towering, 'twas no fault of him 
Who ofttimes rescued and supported me. 
When struggling with the tides of circumstance 
Which bear away the weaker : noble blood 
Ne'er mantled in a nobler heart than thine 
Has proved to me, the poor plebeian Bertram. 
Would that thy fellow senators were like thee ! 

LiONi. Why, what hast thou to say against the 
senate ? 

Ber. Nothing. 

LiONi. I know that there are angry spirits 

And turbulent mutterers of stifled treason, 
Who lurk in narrow places, and walk out 
Muffled to whisper curses to the night ; 
Disbanded soldiers, discontented rufiians. 
And desperate libertines who brawl in taverns ; 



Thou herdest not with such : 'tis true, of late 
I have lost sight of thee, but thou wert wont 
To lead a temperate life, and break thy bread 
With honest mates, and bear a cheerful aspect. 
What hath come to thee ? in thy hollow eye 
And hueless cheek, and thine unquiet motions, 
Sorrow and shame and conscience seem at war 
To waste thee. 

Ber. Rather shame and sorrow light 

On the accursed tyranny which rides ^ 
The very air in Venice, and makes men 
Madden as in the last hours of the plague 
Which sweeps the soul deliriously from life ! 

LiONi. Some villains have been tampering with 
thee, Bertram; 
This is not thy old language, nor own thoughts ; 
Some wretch has made thee drunk with disaffection ; 
But thou must not be lost so ; thou wert good 
And kind, and art not fit for such base acts 
As vice and villainy would put thee to : 
Confess — confide in me — thou know'st my nature. 
What is it thou and thine are bound to do, 
Which should prevent thy friend, the only son 
Of him who was a friend unto thy father, 
So that our good will is a heritage 
We should bequeath to our posterity 
Such as ourselves received it, or augmented ; 
I say, what is it thou must do, that I 
Should deem thdfe dangerous, and keep the house 
Like a sick girl ? 

Ber. Nay, question me no further : 

I must be gone.-: — ■ 

LiONi. And I be murder'd ! — say, 

Was it not thus thou said'st, my gentle Bertram ? 

Ber. Who talks of murder? what said I of mur- 
der?— 
'Tis false ! I did not utter sxich a word. 

LlONi. Thou didst not ; but from out thy wolfish eye, 
So changed from what I knew it, there glares forth 
The gladiator. If my life's thine object. 
Take it — I am unarm'd, — and then away ! 
I would not hold my breath on such a tenure 
As the capricious mercy of such things 
As thou and those who have set thee to thy task-work. 

Ber. Sooner than spill thy blood, I peril mine ; 
Sooner than harm a hair of thine, I place 
In jeopardy a thousand heads, and some 
As noble, nay, even nobler than thine own . 

LlONl. Ay, is it even so ? Excuse me, Bertram ; 
I am not worthy to be singled out 
From such exalted hecatombs — who are they 
That are in danger, and that make the danger ? 

Ber. Venice, and all that she inherits, are 
Divided like a house against itself, 
And so will perish ere to-morrow's twilight ! 

LiONi. More mysteries, and awful ones ! But now, 
Or thou, or I, or both, it may be, are 



1 " On the accursed tyranny which | . , „ ,,4, 



Scene II. 



MAEINO FALIERO. 



261 



Upon the verge of ruin ; speak once out, 

And thou art safe and glorious ; for 'tis more 

Glorious to save than slay, and slay i' the dark too — 

Fie, Bertram ! that was not a craft for thee ! 

How would it look to see upon a spear 

The head of him whose heart was open to thee. 

Borne by thy hand before the shuddering people ? 

And such may be my doom ; for here I swear, 

Whate'er the peril or the penalty 

Of thy denunciation, I go forth. 

Unless thou dost detail the cause, and show 

The consequence of all which led thee here ! 

Ber. Is there no way to save thee ? minutes fly, 
And thou art lost ! — thou ! my sole benefactor, 
The only being who was constant to me 
Through every change. Yet, make me not a traitor ! 
Let me save thee — but spare my honor ! 

LiONi. Where 

Can lie the honor in a league of murder ? 
And who are traitors save unto the state ? 

Ber. a league is still a compact, and more binding 
In honest hearts when words must stand for law ; 
And in my mind, there is no traitor like 
He whose domestic treason plants the poniard 
Within the breast which trusted to his truth. 

LiONi. And who will strike the steel to mine ? 

Ber. Not I ; 

I could have wound my soul up to all things 
Save this. Thou must not die ! and think how dear 
Thy life is, when I risk so many lives, 
Nay, more, the life of lives, the liberty 
Of future generations, not to be 
The assassin thou miscall'st me ; — once, once more 
I do adjure thee, pass not o'er thy threshold ! 

LlONi. It is in vain — this moment I go forth. 

Ber. Then perish Venice rather than my friend ! 
I will disclose — ensnare — betray — destroy — 
Oh, what a villain I become for thee ! 

LiONi. Say, rather thy friend's saviour and the 
state's ! — 
Speak — pause not — all rewards, all pledges for 
Thy safety and thy welfare ; wealth such as 
The state accords her worthiest servants ; nay, 
Nobility itself I guarantee thee, 
So that thou art sincere and penitent. 

Ber. I have thought again : it must not be — I love 
thee — 
Thou knowest it — that I stand here is the proof, 
Not least though last ; but having done my duty 
By tiiee, I now must do it by my country ! 
Farewell — we meet no more in life ! — farewell ! 

LiONi. What, ho! — Antonio — Pedro — to the door! 
See that none pass — arrest this man ! 

Enter Antonio and other armed DomesUcs, who seize 
Bertram. 
LiONi (continue). Take care 

He hath no harm ; bring me my sword and cloak ; 
And man the gondola with four oars — quick — 

[Exit Antonio. 



We will unto Giovanni Gradenigo's, 

And send for Marc Cornaro ; — fear not, Bertram ; 

This needful violence is for thy safety, 

No less than for the general weal. 

Ber. Where wouldst thou 

Bear me a prisoner ? 

LiONi. Firstly to " the Ten ;" 

Next to the Doge. 

Ber. To the Doge? 

LiONi. Assuredly : 

Is he not chief of the state ? 

Ber. Perhaps at sunrise — 

LiONi. What mean you ? — but we'll know anon. 

Ber. Art sure ? 

LiONi. Sure as all gentle means can make ; and if 
They fail, you know "the Ten" and their tribunal, 
And that Saint Mark's has dungeons, and the dun- 
A rack. [geons 

Ber. Apply it then before the dawn 
Now hastening into heaven. — One more such word, 
And you shall perish piecemeal, by the death 
You think to doom to me. 

Re-enter Antonio. 

Ant. The bark is ready, 

My lord, and all prepared. 

LiONi. Look to the prisoner. 

Bertram, I'll reason with thee as we go 
To the Magnifico's, sage Gradenigo. [Exemit. 



SCENE IT. 
The Ducal Palace. — The Doge's Apartment. 

The Doge and his Nephew Bertuccio Faliero. 

Doge. Are all the people of our house in muster ? 

Ber. F. They are array'd, and eager for the signal, 
Within our palace precincts at San Polo.^ 
I come for your last orders. 

Doge. It had been 

As well had there been time to have got together, 
From my own fief, Val di Marino, more 
Of our retainers — but it is too late. 

Ber. F. Methinks, my lord, 'tis better as it is : 
A sudden swelling of our retinue 
Had waked suspicion ; and, though fierce and trusty. 
The vassals of that district are too rude 
And quick in quarrel to have long maintain'd 
The secret discipline we need for such 
A service, till our foes are dealt upon. 

Doge. True; but when once the signal has been 
given, 
These are the men for such an enterprise ; 
These city slaves have all their private bias, 
Their prejudice against or for this noble, 
Which may induce them to o'erdo or spare 
Where mercy may be madness ; the fierce peasants. 
Serfs of my county of Val di Marino, 

1 The doge's family palace. 



262 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Act IV 



Would do the bidding of their lord without 

Distinguishing for love or hate his foes ; 

Alike to them Marcello or Cornaro, 

A Gradenigo or a Foscari ; 

They are not used to start at those vain names, 

Nor bow the knee before a civic senate ; 

A chief in armor is their suzerain, 

And not a thing in robes. 

Bee, F. We are enough ; 

And for the dispositions of our clients 
Against the senate I will answer. 

Doge. Well, 

The die is thrown ; but for a warlike service, 
Done in the field, commend me to my peasants : 
They made the sun shine through the host of Huns 
When sallow burghers slunk back to their tents, 
And cower'd to hear their own victorious trumpet. 
If there be small resistance, you will find 
These citizens all lions, like their standard ; 
But if there's much to do, you'll wish, with me, 
A band of iron rustics at our backs. 

Bee. F. Thus thinking, I must marvel you resolve 
To strike the blow so suddenly. 

Doge. Such blows 

Must be struck suddenly or never. When 
I had o'ermaster'd the weak false remorse 
Which yearn'd about my heart, too fondly yielding 
A moment to the feelings of old days, 
I was most fain to strike ; and, firstly, that 
I might not yield again to such emotions ; 
And, secondly, because of all these men, 
Save Israel and Philip Calendaro, 
I know not well the courage or the faith : 
To-day might find 'mongst them a traitor to us, 
As yesterday a thousand to the senate ; 
But once in, with their hilts hot in their hands. 
They must on for their own sakes ; one stroke struck, 
And the mere instinct of the first-born Cain, 
Which ever lurks somewhere in human hearts. 
Though circumstance may keep it in abeyance. 
Will urge the rest on like to wolves ; the sight 
Of blood to crowds begets the thirst of more, 
As the first wine-cup leads to the long revel ; 
And you will find a harder task to quell 
Than urge them when they have commenced, but till 
That moment, a mere voice, a straw, a shadow. 
Are capable of turning them aside. — 
How goes the night? 

Bee. F. Almost upon the dawn. 

Doge. Then it is time to strike upon the bell. 
Are the men posted ? 

Bee. F. By this time they are ; 

But they have orders not to strike, until 
They have command from you through me in person. 

Doge. 'Tis well. — Will the morn never put to rest 
These stars which twinkle yet o'er all the heavens ? 
I am settled and bound up, and being so. 
The very eflFort which it cost me to 
Eesolve to cleanse this commonwealth with fire, 
Now leaves my mind more steady. I have wept. 



And trembled at the thought of this dread duty ; 

But now I have put down all idle passion. 

And look the growing tempest in the face. 

As doth the pilot of an admiral galley : 

Yet (wouldst thou think it, kinsman ?) it hath been 

A greater struggle to me, than when nations 

Beheld their fate merged in the approaching fight. 

Where I was leader of a phalanx, where 

Thousands were sure Lo perish — Yes, to spill 

The rank polluted current from the veins 

Of a few bloated despots needed more 

To steel me to a purpose such as made 

Timoleon immortal, than to face 

The toils and dangers of a life of war. 

Bee. F. It gladdens me to see your former wisdom 
Subdue the furies which so wrung you ere 
You were decided. 

Doge. It was ever thus 

With me ; the hour of agitation came 
In the first glimmerings of a purpose, when 
Passion had too much room to sway ; but in 
The hour of action I have stood as calm 
As were the dead who lay around me ; this 
They knew who made me what I am, and trusted 
To the subduing power which I preserved 
Over my mood, when its first burst was spent. 
But they were not aware that there are things 
Which make revenge a virtue by reflection. 
And not an impulse of mere anger ; though 
The laws sleep, justice wakes, and injured souls 
Oft do a public right with private wrong. 
And justify their deeds unto themselves. — 
Methinks the day breaks — is it not so ? look, 
Thine eyes are clear with youth ; — the air puts on 
A morning freshness, and, at least to me, 
The sea looks grayer through the lattice. 

Bee. F. True, 

The morn is dappling in the sky.i 

Doge. Away then ! 

See that they strike without delay, and with 
The first toll from Saint Mark's, march on the palace 
With all our house's strength : here I will meet 

you; 
The Sixteen and their companies will move 
In separate columns at the self-same moment : 
Be sure you post yourself at the great gate : 
I would not trust " the Ten" except to us — 
The rest, the rabble of patricians, may 
Glut the more careless swords of those leagued with 

us. 
Remember that the cry is still " Saint Mark ! 
The Genoese are come — ho ! to the rescue ! 
Saint Mark and Liberty !" — Now — now to action ! 

Bee. F. Farewell then, noble uncle ! we will meet 
In freedom and true sovereignty, or never ! 

Doge. Come hither, my Bertuccio — one embrace ; 
Speed, for the day grows broader ; send me soon 
A messenger to tell me how all goes 

1 " The night is clearing from the sky."— MS. 



Scene II. 



MAKING FALIEKO. 



263 



When you rejoin our troops, and then sound — sound 
The storm-bell from Saint Mark's ! 

[Exit Berttjccio Faliero. 
Doge (solus). He is gone/ 

And on each footstep moves a life. 'Tis done. 
Now the destroying angel hovers o'er 
Venice, and pauses ere he pours the vial, 
Even as the eagle overlooks his prey, 
And for a moment, poised in middle air. 
Suspends the motion of his mighty wings. 
Then swoops with his unerring beak. Thou day ! 
That slowly walk'st the waters ! march — march on — 
I would not smite i' the dark, but rather see 
That no stroke errs. And you, ye blue sea waves ! 
I have seen you dyed ere now, and deeply too, 
With Genoese, Saracen, and Hunnish gore. 
While that of Venice flow'd too, but victorious ; 
Now thou must wear an unmix' d crimson ; no 
Barbaric blood can reconcile us now 
Unto that horrible incarnadine, 
But friend or foe will roll in civic slaughter. 
And have I lived to fourscore years for this ? 
I, who was named Preserver of the City? 
I, at whose name the million's caps were flung 
Into the air, and cries from tens of thousands 
Rose up, imploring Heaven to send me blessings, 
And fame, and length of days — to see this day ? 
But this day, black within the calendar. 
Shall be succeeded by a bright millennium. 
Doge Dandolo survived to ninety summers 
To vanquish empires, and refuse their crown ; 
I will resign a crown, and make the state 
Renew its freedom — but oh ! by what means ? 
The noble end must justify them. What 
Are a few drops of human blood ? 'tis false, 
The blood of tyrants is not human ; they, 
Like to incarnate Molochs, feed on ours. 
Until 'tis time to give them to the tombs 
Which they have made so populous. — Oh world ! 
Oh men ! what are ye, and our best designs. 
That we must work by crime to punish crime ? 
And slay as if Death had but this one gate. 
When a few years would make the sword superfluous ? 
And I, upon the verge of th' unknown realm, 
Yet send so many heralds on before me ? — 
I must not ponder this. [A pause. 

Hark ! was there not 
A murmur as of distant voices, and 
The tramp of feet in martial unison ? 
What phantoms even of sound our wishes raise ! 



^ "At last the moment arrives when the bell is to be 
sounded, and the whole of the conspiring bands are watching 
in impatience for the signal. The nephew of the doge, and 
the heir of his house (for he is childless), leaves Faliero in 
his palace, and goes to strike with his own hand the fatal 
summons. The doge is left alone ; and English poetry, we 
think, contains few passages superior to that which follows." 

— LOCKHAKT. 

« " Where swings the sullen | ^^'^^ •''■^^^" ^ „ „ ^,^ 
I huge oracular bell."— MS. 



It cannot be — the signal hath not rung — 

Why pauses it ? My nephew's messenger 

Should be upon his way to me, and he 

Himself perhaps even now draws grating back 

Upon its ponderous hinge the steep tower portal, 

Where swings the sullen huge oracular bell,^ 

Which never knells but for a princely death. 

Or for a state in peril, pealing forth 

Tremendous bodements ; let it do its ofiice. 

And be this peal its awfullest and last. 

Sound till the strong tower rock ! — What ! silent still ? 

I would go forth, but that my post is here, 

To be the centre of reunion to 

The oft discordant elements which form 

Leagues of this nature, and to keep compact 

The wavering of the weak, in case of conflict ; 

For if they should do battle, 'twill be here. 

Within the palace, that the strife will thicken : 

Then here must be my station, as becomes 

The master-mover. Hark ! he comes — he comes, 

My nephew, brave Bertuccio's messenger. — 
What tidings ? Is he marching ? hath he sped ? 
They here ! — all's lost — yet will I make an effort.^ 

Enter a SiGNOR OP THE NiGHT,* with Guards, &c. &c. 

SiG. Doge, I arrest thee of high treason ! 

Doge. Me 

Thy prince, of treason ? — Who are they that dare 
Cloak their own treason under such an order ? 

SiG. {showing his order). Behold my order from the 
assembled Ten. 

Doge. And where are they, and why assembled ? no 
Such council can be lawful, till the prince 
Preside there, and that duty's mine : on thine 
I charge thee, give me way, or marshal me 
To the council chamber. 

SiG. Duke ! it may not be : 

Nor are they in the wonted Hall of Council, 
But sitting in the convent of Saint Saviour's. 

Doge. You dare to disobey me, then ? 

SiG. I serve 

The state, and needs must serve it faithfully ; 
My warrant is the will of those who rule it. 

Doge. And till that warrant has my signature 
It is illegal, and, as now applied, 
Rebellious. Hast thou weigh'd well thy life's worth, 
That thus you dare assume a lawless function ? & 

SiG. 'Tis not my office to reply, but act — 
I am placed here as guard upon thy person. 
And not as judge to hear or to decide. 



8 *' A relenting conspirator, whom the contemplative Lioni 
had formerly befriended, calls to warn him of his danger ; and 
is gradually led to betray his associates. The plot is crushed 
in the moment of its development, and the doge arrested in 
his palace. The scene immediately preceding this catastrophe 
is noble and thrilling." — Jeffrey. 

4 " I signori di Notte " held an important charge in the old 
republic. 

5 "That thus you dareassumea|!^^^«««f"°^"""!'' ,,, 

I. brigand's power ?"— MS. 



264 



BYKON'S WORKS 



Act IV. 



Do&E (aside). I must gain time. So that the storm- 
beil sound, 
All may be well yet. — Kinsman, speed — speed — 



Our fate is trembling in the balance, and 

Woe to the vanquish'd ! be they prince and people, 

Or slaves and senate — 

[The great bell of Saint Marh's tolls. 
Lo ! it sounds — it tolls ! 
{Aloud.) Hark, Signor of the Night! and you, ye 

hirelings. 
Who wield your mercenary staves in fear. 
It is your knell — Swell on, thou lusty peal ! 
Now, knaves, what ransom for your lives ? 

SiG. Confusion ! 

Stand to your arms, and guard the door — all's lost 
Unless that fearful bell be silenced soon. 
The officer hath miss'd his path or purpose. 
Or met some unforeseen and hideous obstacle.^ 
Anselmo, with thy company proceed 
Straight to the Tower ; the rest remain with me. 

\_Exit part of the Guard. 

Doge. Wretch ! if thou wouldst have thy vile life, 
implore it ; 
It is not now a lease of sixty seconds. 
Ay, send thy miserable ruffians forth ; 
They never shall return. 

SiG. So let it be ! 

They die then in their duty, as will I. 

Doge. Fool ! the high eagle flies at nobler game 
Than thou and thy base myrmidons, — live on. 
So thou provok'st not peril by resistance. 
And learn (if souls so much obscured can bear 
To gaze upon the sunbeams) to be free. 

SiG. And learn thou to be captive. It hath ceased, 
\^The hell ceases to toll. 
The traitorous signal, which was to have set 
The bloodhound mob on their patrician prey — 
The knell hath rung, but it is not the senate's ! 

Doge [after a pause). All's silent, and all's lost ! 

SiG. Now, Doge, denounce me 

As rebel slave of a revolted council ! 
Have I not done my duty ? 

Doge. Peace, thou thing ! 

Thou hast done a worthy deed, and earn'd the price 
Of blood, and they who use thee will reward thee. 
But thou wert sent to watch, and not to prate. 
As thou saidst even now — then do thine office, 
But let it be in silence, as behoves thee, 
Since, though thy prisoner, I am thy prince. 

SiG. I did not mean to fail in the respect 
Due to your rank : in this I shall (^ej you. 

Doge {aside). There now is nothing left me save 
to die ; 
And yet how near success ! I would have fallen. 
And proudly, in the hour of triumph, but 
To miss it thus ! 



1 " Or met some unforeseen and \ ^";'!,'" | obstacle."— MS. 



/fatal 
I hideous J 



Enter other SiGNOES OF THE NiGHT, with Bertijc- 
CIO Faliero prisoner. 

2d Sig. We took him in the act 

Of issuing from the tower, where, at his order, 
As delegated from the Doge, the signal 
Had thus begun to sound. 

1st Sig. Are all the passes 

Which lead up to the palace well secured ? 

2d Sig. They are — besides, it matters not; the 
chiefs 
Are all in chains, and some even now on trial — 
Their followers are dispersed, and many taken. 

Bee. F. Uncle ! 

Doge. It is in vain to war with Fortune ; 

The glory hath departed from our house. 

Bee,. F. Who would have deem'd it? — Ah! one 
moment sooner ! 

Doge. That moment would have changed the face 
of ages ; 
This gives us to eternity — We'll meet it 
As men whose triumph is not in success, 
But who can make their own minds all in all, 
Equal to every fortune. Droop not, 'tis 
But a brief passage — I would go alone, 
Yet if they send us, as 'tis like, together, 
Let us go worthy of our sires and selves. 

Bee. F. I shall not shame you, uncle. 

1st Sig. Lords, our orders 

Are to keep guard on both in separate chambers. 
Until the council call ye to your trial. 

Doge. Our trial ! will they keep their mockery 
Even to the last ? but let them deal upon us. 
As we had dealt on them, but with less pomp. 
'Tis but a game of mutual homicides. 
Who have cast lots for the first death, and they 
Have won with false dice — Who hath been our Judas ? 

1st Sig. I am not warranted to answer that. 

Bee. F. I'll answer for thee — 'tis a certain Bertram, 
Even now deposing to the secret giunta. 

Doge. Bertram the Bergamask! With what vile 
tools 
We operate to slay or save ! This creature. 
Black with a double treason, now will earn 
Eewards and honors, and be stamp'd in story 
With the geese in the Capitol, which gabbled 
Till Eome awoke, and had an annual triumph, 
While Manlius, who hurl'd down the Gauls, was 

cast 2 
From the Tarpeian. 

1st Sig. He aspired to treason, 

And sought to rule the state. 

Doge. He saved the state, 

And sought but to reform what he revived — 
But this is idle Come, sirs, do your work. 

1st Sig. Noble Bertuccio, we must now remove 
you 
Into an inner chamber. 



While Manlius, who hurl'd | 
MS. 



down" 
back . 



the Gauls," &c.— 



Scene I. 



MAKING FALIEEO. 



265 



Ber. F. Farewell, uncle ! 

If we shall meet again in life I know not, 
But they perhaps will let our ashes mingle. 

Doge. Yes, and our spirits, which shall yet go forth. 
And do what our frail clay, thus clogg'd, hath fail'd in ! 
They cannot quench the memory of those 
Who would have hurl'd them from their guilty thrones. 
And such examples will find heirs, though distant. 



ACT V. 

SCENE I. 

The Hall of the Council of Ten, assembled with the 
additional Senators, who, on the Trials of the Con- 
spirators for the Treason of Marino Faliero, 
composed what was called the Giunta. — Guards, 
Officers, &c. <fcc.— Israel Bertuccio and Philip 
Calendaro as Prisoners. — Bertram, Lioni, and 
Witnesses, &c^ 

The Chief of the Ten, Benintende.2 

Ben. There now rests, aft6r such conviction of 
Their manifold and manifest offences. 
But to pronounce on these obdurate men 
The sentence of the law : — a grievous task 
To those who hear, and those who speak. Alas ! 
That it should fall to me ! and that my days 
Of office should be stigmatized through all 
The years of coming time, as bearing record 
To this most foul and complicated treason 
Against a just and free state, known to all 
The earth as being the Christian bulwark 'gainst 
The Saracen and the schismatic Greek, 
The savage Hun, and not less barbarous Frank ; 
A city which has open'd India's wealth 
To Europe ; the last Eoman refuge from 
O'erwhelming Attila ; the ocean's queen ; 
Proud Genoa's prouder rival ! 'Tis to sap 
The throne of such a city, these lost men 
Have risk'd and forfeited their worthless lives — 
So let them die the death. 

I. Ber. We are prepared ; 

Your racks have done that for us. Let us die. 

Ben. If ye have that to say which would obtain 
Abatement of your punishment, the giunta 
Will hear you ; if you have aught to confess, 
Now is your time, perhaps it may avail ye. 

Ber. F. We stand to hear, and not to speak. 

Ben. Your crimes 

Are fully proved by your accomplices. 
And all which circumstance can add to aid them ; 
Yet we would hear from ypur own lips complete 
Avowal of your treason : on the verge 



^ " The fifth act, which begins with the arraignment of the 
original conspirators, is much in the style of that of Pierre and 
his associates in the old play. After them, the doge is brought 
in : his part is very forcibly written throughout." — Jeffrey. 



Of that dread gulf which none repass, the truth 
Alone can profit you on earth or heaven — 
Say, then, what was your motive ? 

I. Ber. Justice ! 

Ben. What 

Your object? 

I. Ber. Freedom ! 

Ben. You are brief, sir. 

I. Ber. So my life grows : I 
Was bred a soldier, not a senator. 

Ben. Perhaps you think by this blunt brevity 
To brave your judges to postpone the sentence? 

I. Ber. Do you be brief as I am, and believe me, 
I shall prefer that mercy to your pardon. 

Ben. Is this your sole reply to the tribunal ? 

I. Ber. Go, ask your racks what they have wrung 
from us. 
Or place us there again ; we have still some blood left. 
And some slight sense of pain in these wrench'd limbs : 
But this ye dare not do ; for if we die there — 
And you have left us little life to spend 
Upon your engines, gorged with pangs already — 
Ye lose the public spectacle, with which 
You would appall your slaves to further slavery ! 
Groans are not words, nor agony assent, 
Nor affirmation truth, if nature's sense 
Should overcome the soul into a lie. 
For a short respite — must we bear or die ? 

Ben. Say, who were your accomplices? 

I. Ber. The senate. 

Ben. What do you mean ? 

I. Ber. Ask of the suffering people. 

Whom your patrician crimes have driven to crime. 

Ben. You know the Doge ? 

I. Ber. I served with him at Zara 

In the field, when you were pleading here your way 
To present office ; we exposed our lives. 
While you but hazarded the lives of others, 
Alike by accusation or defence ; 
And, for the rest, all Venice knows her Doge, 
Through his great actions, and the senate's insults. 

Ben. You have held conference with him ? 

I. Ber. I am weary — 

Even wearier of your questions than your tortures : 
I pray you pass to judgment. 

Ben. It is coming. — 

And you, too, Philip Calendaro, what 
Have you to say why you should not be doom'd ? 

Cal. I never was a man of many words. 
And now have few left worth the utterance. 

Ben. a further application of yon engine 
May change your tone. 

Cal. Most true, it will do so 

A former application did so ; but 
It will not change my words, or, if it did — 



2 " In the notes to Marino Faliero, it may be as well to say 
that Benintende was not really of the Ten, but merely grand 
chancellor — a separate office, though an important one. It 
was an arbitrary alteration of mine." — Byron Letters. 



266 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Act V. 



Will my avowal on yon rack 



Ben. What then? 

Cal. 
Stand good in law ? 

Ben. Assuredly. 

Cal. Whoe'er 

The culprit be whom I accuse of treason ? 

Ben. Without doubt, he will be brought up to trial. 

Cal. And on this testimony would he perish ? 

Ben. So your confession be detail'd and full, 
He will stand here in peril of his life. 

Cal. Then look well to thy proud self, President ! 
For by the eternity which yawns before me, 
I swear that thou, and only thou, shalt be 
The traitor I denounce upon that rack. 
If I be stretch'd there for the second time. 

One of the Gitjnta. Lord President, 'twere best 
proceed to judgment ; 
There is no more to be drawn from these men. 

Ben. Unhappy men ! prepare for instant death. 
The nature of your crime, our law, and peril 
The state now stands in, leave not an hour's respite. 
Guards ! lead them forth, and upon the balcony 
Of the red columns, where, on festal Thursday ,i 
The Doge stands to behold the chase of bulls, 
Let them be justified : and leave exposed 
Their wavering relics, in the place of judgment. 
To the full view of the assembled people ! 
And Heaven have mercy on their souls I 

The Giunta. Amen! 

I. Bek. Signors, farewell ! we shall not all again 
Meet in one place. 

Ben. And lest they should essay 

To stir up the distracted multitude — 
Guards ! let their mouths be gagg'd,^ even in the act 
Of execution. Lead them hence ! 

Cal. What ! must we 

Not even say farewell to some fond friend. 
Nor leave a last word with our confessor ? 

Ben. a priest is waiting in the antechamber ; 
But, for your friends, such interviews would be 
Painful to them, and useless all to you. 

Cal. I knew that we were gagg'd in life ; at least 
All those who had not heart to risk their lives 
Upon their open thoughts ; but still I deem'd 
That in the last few moments, the same idle 



1 " Giovedi grasso," — " fat or greasy Thursday," — which I 
cannot literally translate in the text, was the day. 

2 Historical fact. See Sanuto, Appendix : Marino Faliero, 
Note A. 

3 " I know what Foscolo means, about Calendaro's spitting 
at Bertram; thafs national — the objection, I mean. The 
Italians and French, with those ' flags of abomination ' their 
pocket handkerchiefs, spit there, and here, and every where 
else — in your face almost, and therefore object to it on the 
stage as too familiar. But we who spit nowhere — ^but in a 
man's face when we grow savage — are not likely to feel this. 
Remember Massinger, and Kean's Sir Giles Overreach — 

' Lord ! thus I spit at thee and at thy counsel !' 
Besides, Calendar© does not spit in Bertram's face ; he spits at 
him, as I have seen the Mussulmans do upon the ground when 



Freedom of speech accorded to the dying, 
Would not now be denied to us ; but since 

I. Ber. Even let them have their way, brave Calen- 
What matter a few syllables ? let's die [daro I 

Without the slightest show of favor from them ; 
So shall our blood more readily arise 
To Heaven against them, and more testify 
To their atrocities, than could a volume 
Spoken or written of our dying words I 
They tremble at our voices — nay, they dread 
Our very silence — let them live in fear ! 
Leave them unto their thoughts, and let us now 
Address our own above ! — Lead on; we are ready. 

Cal. Israel, hadst thou but hearken'd unto me. 
It had not now been thus ; and yon pale villain. 
The coward Bertram, would 

I. Ber. Peace, Calendaro ! 

What brooks it now to ponder upon this ? 

Bert. Alas ! I fain you died in peace with me : 
I did not seek this task ; 'twas forced upon me : 
Say, you forgive me, though I never can 
Eetrieve my own forgiveness — frown not thus ! 

I. Ber. I die and pardon thee ! 

Cal. {spitting at him)? I die and scorn thee ! 

{Exeunt Israel BERTrccio and Philip 
Calendaro, Guards, &c. 

Ben. Now that these criminals have been disposed of, 
'Tis time that we proceed to pass our sentence 
Upon the greatest traitor upon record 
In any annals, the Doge Faliero ! 
The proofs and process are complete ; the time 
And crime require a quick procedure : shall 
He now be call'd in to receive the award? 

The Giunta. Ay, ay. 

Ben. Avogadori, order that the Doge 
Be brought before the council. 

One of the Giunta. And the rest, 

When shall they be brought up ? 

Ben. When all the chiefs 

Have been disposed of. Some have fled to Chiozza ; 
But there are thousands in pursuit of them, 
And such precaution ta'en on terra firma. 
As well as in the islands, that we hope 
None will escape to utter in strange lands 
His libellous tale of treasons 'gainst the senate. 



they are in a rage. Again, he does not in fact despise Ber- 
tram, though he affects it,— as we all do, when angry with one 
we think our inferior. He is angry at not being allowed to 
die in his own way (although not afraid of death) ; and recol- 
lect that he suspected and hated Bertram from the first. Israel 
Bertuccio, on the other hand, is a cooler and more concen- 
trated fellow : he acts u-pon principle and impulse ; Calendaro 
upon impulse and example. So there's argument for you. 
'The doge repeats;^ — true, but it is from engrossing passion, 
and because he sees different persons, and is always obliged 
to recur to the cause uppermost in his mind. ' His speeches 
are long;' — true, but I wrote for the closet, and on the 
French and Italian model rather than yours, which I think 
not very highly of, for all your old dramatists, who are long 
enough too, God knows: look into any of them." — Byron 
Letters. 



Scene I. 



MAEINO FALIEEO. 



267 



Enter the DoGE as Prisoner, with Guards, &c. &c. 

Ben. Doge — for such still you are, and by the law 
Must be consider'd, till the hour shall come 
When you must doff the ducal bonnet from 
That head, which could not wear a crown more 

noble 
Than empires can confer, in quiet honor, 
But it must plot to overthrow your peers. 
Who made you what you are, and quench in blood 
A city's glory — we have laid already 
Before you in your chamber at full length, 
By the Avogadori, all the proofs 
Which have appear' d against you ; and more ample 
Ne'er rear'd their sanguinary shadows to 
Confront a traitor. What have you to say 
In your defence ? 

Doge. What shall I say to ye. 

Since my defence must be your condemnation ? 
You are at once offenders and accusers, 
Judges and executioners ! — Proceed 
Upon your power. 

Ben. Your chief accomplices 

Having confess'd, there is no hope for you. 

Doge. And who be they ? 

Ben. In number many ; but 

The first now stands before you and the court, 
Bertram, of Bergamo, — would you question him ? 

Doge {looking at him contemptuously). No. 

Ben. And two others, Israel Bertuccio, 

And Philip Calendaro, have admitted 
Their fellowship in treason with the Doge ! 

Doge. And where are they ? 

Ben. Gone to their place, and now 

Answering to Heaven for what they did on earth. 

Doge. Ah ! the plebeian Brutus, is he gone ? 
And the quick Cassius of the arsenal ? — 
How did they meet their doom ? 

Ben. Think of your own : 

It is approaching. You decline to plead, then ? 

Doge. I cannot plead to my inferiors, nor 
Can recognize your legal power to try me. 
Show me the law ! 

Ben. On great emergencies 

The law must be remodell'd or amended ; 
Our fathers had not fix'd the punishment 
Of such a crime, as on the old Roman tables 
The sentence against parricide was left 
In pure forgetfulness ; they could not render 
That penal, which had neither name nor thought 
In their great bosoms ; who would have foreseen 
That nature could be filed to such a crime 
As sons 'gainst sires, and princes 'gainst their realms ? 



1 " One source of feebleness in this passage, and it is one 
of frequent occurrence in all Lord Byron's plays, is his prac- 
tice of ending his lines with insignificant monosyllables. 
' 0/,' ' to,^ ' and,' ' till,^ ' but,'' 'from,' all occur in the course of 
a very few pages, in situations where, had the harmony or 
vigor of the line been consulted, the voice would have been 
allowed to pause, and the energy of the sentiment would 
have been carried to its highest tone of elevation. This we 



Your sin hath made us make a law which will 
Become a precedent 'gainst such haught traitors, 
As would with treason mount to tyranny ; 
Not even contented with a sceptre, till 
They can convert it to a two-edged sword ! 
Was not the place of Doge sufficient for ye ? 
What's nobler than the signory of Venice ? 

Doge. The signory of Venice ! You betray'd me — 
You — you, who sit there, traitors as ye are ! 
From my equality with you in birth, 
And my superiority in action. 
You drew me from my honorable toils 
In distant lands — on flood — in field — in cities — 
You singled me out like a victim to 
Stand crown'd, but bound and helpless, at the altar 
Where you alone could minister. I knew not — 
I sought not — wish'd not — dream'd not the election, 
Which reach'd me first at Rome, and I obey'd ; 
But found on my arrival, that, besides 
The jealous vigilance which always led you 
To mock and mar your sovereign's best intents, 
You had, even in the interregnum of ^ 
My journey to the capital, curtail'd 
And mutilated the few privileges 
Yet left the duke : all this I bore, and would 
Have borne, until my very hearth was stain'd 
By the pollution of your ribaldry. 
And he, the ribald, whom I see amongst you — 
Fit judge in such tribunal ! 

Ben. {interrupting him). Michel Steno 

Is here in virtue of his office, as 
One of the Forty ; "the Ten" having craved 
A gitinta of patricians from the senate 
To aid our judgment in a trial arduous 
And novel as the present : he was set 
Free from the penalty pronounced upon him, 
Because the Doge, who should protect the law, 
Seeking to abrogate all law, can claim 
No punishment of others by the statutes 
Which he himself denies and violates ! 

Doge. His punishment ! I rather see him there, 
Where he now sits, to glut him with my death, 
Than in the mockery of castigation. 
Which your foul, outward, juggling show of justice 
Decreed as sentence ! Base as was his crime, 
'Twas purity compared with your protection. 

Ben. And can it be, that the great Doge of Venice, 
With three parts of a century of years 
And honors on his head, could thus allow 
His fury, like an angry boy's, to master 
All feeling, wisdom, faith, and fear, on such 
A provocation as a young man's petulance ? 

should have set down to the account of carelessness, had it 
not been so frequent, and had not the stiffness and labor 
of the author's general style almost tempted us to believe 
it systematic. A more inharmonious system of versifica- 
tion, or one more necessarily tending to weight and feeble- 
ness, could hardly have been invented. But with all these 
defects, there is much to praise in the Doge of Venice." — 
Hebeb. 



268 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Act V. 



Doge. A spark creates the flame — 'tis the last drop 
Which makes the cup run o'er, and mine was full 
Already : you oppress'd the prince and people ; 
I would have freed both, and have fail'd in both : 
The price of such success would have been glory, 
Vengeance, and victory, and such a name 
As would have made Venetian history 
Rival to that of Greece and Syracuse 
When they were freed, and flourish' d ages after, 
And mine to Gelon and to Thrasybulus : — 
Failing, I know the penalty of failure 
Is present infamy and death — the future 
Will judge, when Venice is no more, or free ; 
Till then, the truth is in abeyance. Pause not ; 
I would have shown no mercy, and I seek none ; 
My life was staked upon a mighty hazard, 
And being lost, take what I would have taken ! 
I would have stood alone amidst your tombs : 
Now you may flock round mine, and trample on it. 
As you have done upon my heart while living. 

Ben. You do confess then, and admit the justice 
Of our tribunal ? 

Doge. I confess to have fail'd ; 

Fortune is female : from my youth her favors 
Were not withheld, the fault was mine to hope 
Her former smiles again at this late hour. 

Ben. You do not then in aught arraign our equity ? 

Doge. Noble Venetians ! stir me not with questions. 
I am resign'd to the worst ; but in me still 
Have something of the blood of brighter days. 
And am not over-patient. Pray you, spare me 
Further interrogation, which boots nothing. 
Except to turn a trial to debate. 
I shall but answer that which will offend you, 
And please your enemies — a host already ; 
'Tis true, these sullen walls should yield no echo : 
But walls have ears — nay, more, they have tongues ; 

and if 
There were no other way for truth to o'erleap them,i 
You who condemn me, you who fear and slay me, 
Yet could not bear in silence to your graves 
What you would hear from me of good or evil ; 
The secret were too mighty for your souls : 
Then let it sleep in mine, unless you court 
A danger which would double that you escape. 



1 " There were no other way for truth to I P^^^f ® I them." 

( o'ertop J 

—MS. 

2 " The torture \ ^^^ *^® exposure of the truth." 

I to elicit the whole truth."— MS. 

{Doge Faliero's consort" 
with respect the Duchess " 
Duchess Faliero." — MS. 
* The Venetian senate took the same title as the Roman, of 
" conscript fathers." 

6 " The drama, which has the merit, uncommon in modern 
performances, of embodying no episodical deformity whatever, 
now hurries in full career to its close. Every thing is des- 
patched with the stern decision of a tyrannical aristocracy. 
There is no hope of mercy on any side,— there is no petition 



Such my defence would be, had I full scope 
To make it famous ; for true words are things, 
And dying men's are things which long outlive, 
And oftentimes avenge them ; bury mine. 
If ye would fain survive me : take this counsel, 
And though too oft ye made me live in wrath, 
Let me die calmly ; you may grant me this ; 
I deny nothing — defend nothing — nothing 
I ask of you, but silence for myself. 
And sentence from the court ! 

Ben. This full admission 

Spares us the harsh necessity of ordering 
The torture to elicit the whole truth.^ 

Doge. The torture ! you have put me there already, 
Daily since I was Doge ; but if you will 
Add the corporeal rack, you may : these limbs 
Will yield with age to crushing iron ; but 
There's that within my heart shall strain your engines. 

JEnter an Officer. 

Officer. Noble Venetians ! Duchess Faliero ' 
Requests admission to the giunta's presence. 

Ben. Say, conscript fathers,* shall she be admitted ? 

One of the Giunta. She may have revelations of 
importance 
Unto the state, to justify compliance 
With her request. 

Ben. Is this the general will ? 

All. It is. 

Doge. Oh, admirable laws of Venice ! 

Which would admit the wife, in the full hope 
That she might testify against the husband. 
What glory to the chaste Venetian dames ! 
But such blasphemers 'gainst all honor, as 
Sit here, do well to act in their vocation. 
Now, villain Steno ! if this woman fail, 
I'll pardon thee thy lie, and thy escape. 
And my own violent death, and thy vile life. 

The Duchess enters^ 
Ben. Lady ! this just tribunal has resolved. 
Though the request be strange, to grant it, and 
Whatever be its purport, to accord 
A patient hearing with the due respect 
Which fits your ancestry, your rank, and virtues : 



— nay, there is no wish for mercy. Even the plebeian con- 
spirators have too much Venetian blood in them to be either 
scared by the approach, or shaken in the moment, of death ; 
and as for the doge, he bears himself as becomes a warrior of 
sixty years, and a deeply insulted prince. At the moment, 
however, which immediately precedes the pronouncing of the 
sentence, admission is asked and obtained by one from whom 
less of the Spartan firmness might have been expected. This 
is Angiolina. She indeed hazards one fervent prayer to the 
unbending senate ; but she sees in a moment that it is in vain, 
and she recovers herself on the instant ; and turning to her 
lord, who stands calm and collected at the foot of the council 
table, speaks words worthy of him and of her. Nothing can 
be more unexpected, or more beautiful, than the behavior 
of the young patrician who interrupts their conversation."— 

LOCKHART. 



|X. 



\ 



Scene I. 



MARINO FALIERO. 



269 



But you turn pale — ho ! there, look to the lady ! 
Place a chair instantly. 

Ang. a moment's faintness — 

'Tis past ; I pray you pardon me, — I sit not 
In presence of my prince and of my husband, 
While he is on his feet. 

Ben. Your pleasure, lady ? 

Ang. Strange rumors, but most true, if all I hear 
And see be sooth, have reach'd me, and I come 
To know the worst, even at the worst ; forgive 
The abruptness of my entrance and my bearing. 

Is it 1 cannot speak — I cannot shape 

The question — but you answer it ere spoken. 
With eyes averted, and with gloomy brows — 
Oh God ! this is the silence of the grave ! 

Ben. {after a pause). Spare us, and spare thyself 
the repetition 
Of our most awful, but inexorable 
Duty to Heaven and man ! 

Ang. Yet speak ; I cannot — 

I cannot — no — even now believe these things. 
Is he condemn'd ? 

Ben. Alas ! 

Ang. And was he guilty ? 

Ben. Lady ! the natural distraction of 
Thy thoughts at such a moment makes the question 
Merit forgiveness ; else a doubt like this 
Against a just and paramount tribunal 
Were deep offence. But question even the Doge, 
And if he can deny the proofs, believe him 
Guiltless as thy own bosom. 

Ang. Is it so ? 

My lord — my sovereign — my poor father's friend — 
The mighty in the field, the sage in council ; 
Unsay the words of this man ! — Thou art silent ! 

Ben. He hath already own'd to us his guilt,i 
Nor, as thou seest, doth he deny it now. 

Ang. Ay, but he must not die ! Spare his few years. 
Which grief and shame will soon cut down to' days ! 
One day of baffled crime must not efface 
Near sixteen lustres crowded with brave acts. 

Ben. His doom must be fulfill'd without remission 
Of time or penalty — 'tis a decree. 

Ang. He hath been guilty, but there may be mercy. 

Ben. Not in this case with justice. 

Ang. Alas! signer, 

He who is only just is cruel ; who 
Upon the earth would live were all judged justly ? 

Ben. His punishment is safety to the state. 

Ang. He was a subject, and hath served the state ; 
He was your general, and hath saved the state ; 
He is your sovereign, and hath ruled the state. 

One of the Council. He is a traitor, and betray'd 
the state. 

Ang. And, but for him, there now had been no state 
To save or to destroy ; and you, who sit 
There to pronounce the death of your deliverer, 



He hath already -J ♦ ^ f ^^^ ^'^'^ guilt." 



-MS. 



Had now been groaning at a Moslera oar. 
Or digging in the Hunnish mines in fetters ! 

One of the Council. No, lady, there are others 
who would die 
Rather than breathe in slavery ! 

Ang. If there are so 

Within these walls, thou art not of the number : 
The truly brave are generous to the fallen ! — 
Is there no hope ? 

Ben. Lady, it cannot be. 

Ang. {turning to the Doge). Then die, Faliero! 
since it must be so ; 
But with the spirit of my father's friend. 
Thou hast been guilty of a great offence, 
Half-cancell'd by the harshness of these men. 
I would have sued to them — have pray'd to them — . 
Have begg'd as famish'd mendicants for bread — 
Have wept as they will cry unto their God 
For mercy, and be answer'd as they answer, — 
Had it been fitting for thy name or mine. 
And if the cruelty in their cold eyes 
Had not announced the heartless wrath within. 
Then, as a prince, address thee to thy doom ! 

Doge. I have lived too long not to know how to die I 
Thy suing to these men were but the bleating 
Of the lamb to the butcher, or the cry 
Of seamen to the surge : I would not take 
A life eternal, granted at the hands 
Of wretches, from whose monstrous villainies 
I sought to free the groaning nations ! 

Michel Steno. Doge, 

A word with thee, and with this noble lady. 
Whom I have grievously offended. Would 
Sorrow, or shame, or penance on my part. 
Could cancel the inexorable past ! 
But since that cannot be, as Christians let us 
Say farewell, and in peace : with full contrition 
I crave, not pardon, but compassion from you, 
And give, however weak, my prayers for both. 

Ang. Sage Benintende, now chief judge of Venice, 
I speak to thee in answer to yon signor. 
Inform the ribald Steno, that his words 
Ne'er weigh'd in mind with Loredano's daughter 
Further than to create a moment's pity 
For such as he is : would that others had 
Despised him as I pity ! I prefer 
My honor to a thousand lives, could such 
Be multiplied in mine, but would not have 
A single life of others lost for that 
Which nothing human can impugn — the sense 
Of virtue, looking not to what is call'd 
A good name for reward, but to itself. 
To me the scorner's words were as the wind 
Unto the rock : but as there are — alas ! 
Spirits more sensitive, on which such things 
Light as the whirlwind on the waters ; souls 
To whom dishonor's shadow is a substance • 

More terrible than death, here and hereafter ; 
Men whose vice is to start at vice's scoffing, 
And who, though proof against all blandishments 



270 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Act V. 



Of pleasure, and all pangs of pain, are feeble 

When the proud name on which they pinnacled 

Their hopes is breathed on, jealous as the eagle 

Of her high aerie ; let what we now 

Behold, and feel, and suffer, be a lesson 

To wretches how they tamper in their spleen 

With beings of a higher order. Insects 

Have made the lion mad ere now ; a shaft 

I' the heel o'erthrew the bravest of the brave ; 

A wife's dishonor was the bane of Troy ; 

A wife's dishonor unking'd Rome for ever; 

An injured husband brought the Gauls to Clusium, 

And thence to Eome, which perish'd for a time ; 

An obscene gesture cost Caligula 

His life, while Earth yet bore his cruelties ; 

A virgin's wrong made Spain a Moorish province ; 

And Steno's lie, couch'd in two worthless lines, 

Hath decimated Venice, put in peril 

A senate which hath stood eight hundred years, 

Discrown'd a prince, cut off his crownless head, 

And forged new fetters for a groaning people ! 

Let the poor wretch, like to the courtesan 

Who fired Persepolis, be proud of this, 

If it so please him — 'twere a pride fit for him ! 

But let him not insult the last hours of 

Him, who, whate'er he now is, was a hero, 

By the intrusion of his very prayers : 

Nothing of good can come from such a source, 

Nor would we aught with him, nor now, nor ever : 

We leave him to himself, that lowest depth 

Of human baseness. Pardon is for men, 

And not for reptiles — we have none for Steno, 

And no resentment : things like him must sting, 

And higher beings suffer ; 'tis the charter 

Of life. The man who dies by the adder's fang 

May have the crawler crush'd, but feels no anger : 

'Twas the worm's nature ; and some men are worms 

In soul, more than the living things of tombs.i 

Doge {to Ben.). Signor ! complete that which you 
deem your duty. 

Ben. Before we can proceed upon that duty. 
We would request the princess to withdraw ; 
'Twill move her too much to be witness to it. 

Ang. I know it will, and yet I must endure it. 
For 'tis a part of mine — I will not quit. 
Except by force, my husband's side. — Proceed ! 
Nay, fear not either shriek, or sigh, or tear ; 
Though my heart burst, it shall be silent, — Speak ! 
I have that within which shall o'ermaster all. 

Ben. Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice, 
Count of Val di Marino, Senator, 

1 "The duchess is formal and cold, without even that de- 
gree of love for her old husband which a child might have for 
her parent, or a pupil for her instructor. Even in this her 
longest and best speech, at the most touching moment of the 
catastrophe, she can moralize, in a strain of pedantry less 
natural to a woman than to any other person similarly cir- 
cumstanced, on lions stung by gnats, Achilles, Helen, Lucre- 
tia, the siege of Clusium, Caligula, Caaba, and Persepolis! 
The lines are fine in themselves, indeed ; and if they had 



And some time General of the Fleet and Army, 

Noble Venetian, many times and oft 

Intrusted by the state with higli employments, 

Even to the highest, listen to the sentence. 

Convict by many witnesses and proofs. 

And by tliine own confession, of the guilt 

Of treachery and treason, yet unheard of 

Until this trial — the decree is death. 

Thy goods are confiscate unto the state. 

Thy name is razed from out her records, save 

Upon a public day of thanksgiving 

For this our most miraculous deliverance. 

When thou art noted in our calendars 

With earthquakes, pestilence, and foreign foes, 

And the great enemy of man, as subject 

Of grateful masses for Heaven's grace in snatching 

Our lives and country from thy wickedness. 

The place wherein- as Doge thou shouldst be painted. 

With thine illustrious predecessors, is 

To be left vacant, with a death-black veil 

Flung over these dim words engraved beneath, — 

" This place is of Marino Faliero, 

Decapitated for his crimes." 

Doge. "His crimes!" 

But let it be so : — it will be in vain. 
The veil which blackens o'er this blighted name. 
And hides, or seems to hide, these lineaments, 
Shall draw more gazers than the thousand portraits 
Which glitter round it in their pictured trappings — 
Your delegated slaves — the people's tyrants ! 
" Decapitated for his crimes !" — What crimes? 
Were it not better to record the facts, 
So that the contemplator might approve, 
Or at the least learn whence the crimes arose ? 
When the beholder knows a Doge conspired, 
Let him be told the cause — it is your history. 

Ben. Time must reply to that ; our sons will judge 
Their fathers' judgment, which I now pronounce. 
As Doge, clad in the ducal robes and cap. 
Thou shalt be led hence to the Giants' Staircase, 
Where thou and all our princes are invested ; 
And there, the ducal crown being first resumed 
Upon the spot where it was first assumed, 
Thy head shall be struck off; and Heaven have mercy 
Upon thy soul ! 

Doge. Is this the giunta's sentence ? 

Ben. It is. 

Doge. I can endure it. — And the time ? 

Ben. Must be immediate. — Make thy peace with 
God: 
Within an hour thou must be in his presence. 



been spoken by Benintende as a funeral oration over the 
duke's body, or still more, perhaps, if they had been spoken 
by the duke's counsel on his trial, they would have been per- 
fectly in place and character. But that is not the highest 
order of female intellect which is disposed to be long-winded 
in distress ; nor does any one, either male or female, who is 
really and deeply affected, find time for wise saws and in- 
stances ancient and modern."— Heber. 



Scene II. 



MAEINO FALIEEO. 



271 



Doge. I am already ; and my blood will rise 
To Heaven before the souls of those who shed it. — 
Are all my lands confiscated ? 

Ben. They are ; 

And goods, and jewels, and all kind of treasure, 
Except two thousand ducats — these dispose of. 

Doge. That's harsh. — I would have fain reserved 
the lands 
Near to Treviso, which I hold by investment 
From Laurence the Count-bishop of Ceneda, 
In fief perpetual to myself and heirs, 
To portion them (leaving my city spoil. 
My palace and my treasures, to your forfeit) 
Between my consort and my kinsmen. 

Ben. These 

Lie under the state's ban ; their chief, thy nephew. 
In peril of his own life ; but the council 
Postpones his trial for the present. If 
Thou will'st a state unto thy widow'd princess. 
Fear not, for we will do her justice. 

Ang. Signers, 

I share not in your spoil ! From henceforth, know 
I am devoted unto God alone. 
And take my refuge in the cloister. 

Doge. Come ! 

The hour may be a hard one, but 'twill end. 
Have I aught else to undergo save death ? 

Ben. You have nought to do, except confess and 
die. 
The priest is robed, the scimitar is bare. 
And both await without. — But, above all 
Think not to speak unto the people ; they 
Are now by thousands swarming at the gates, 
But these are closed : the Ten, the Avogadori, 
The giunta, and the chief men of the Forty, 
Alone will be beholders of thy doom, 
And they are ready to attend the Doge. 

Doge. The Doge ! 

Ben. Yes, Doge, thou hast lived and thou shalt 
die 
A sovereign ; till the moment which precedes 
The separation of that head and trunk. 
That ducal crown and head shall be united. 
Thou hast forgot thy dignity in deigning 
To plot with petty traitors ; not so we. 
Who in the very punishment acknowledge 
The prince. Thy vile accomplices have died 
The dog's death, and the wolf's ; but thou shalt fall 
As falls the lion by the hunters, girt 
By those who feel a proud compassion for thee. 
And mourn even the inevitable death 
Provoked by thy wild wrath, and regal fierceness. 
Now we remit thee to thy preparation : 
Let it be brief, and we ourselves will be 
Thy guides unto the place where first we were 
United to thee as thy subjects, and 
Thy senate ; and must now be parted from thee 
As such for ever, on the self-same spot. — 
Guards ! form the Doge's escort to his chamber. 

[Exeunt. 



SCENE II. 

The Doge's Apartment. 

The Doge as Prisoner, and the DuCHESS attending 
him. 

Doge. Now, that the priest is gone, 'twere useless 
all 
To linger out the miserable minutes ; 
But one pang more, the pang of parting from thee, 
And I will leave the few last grains of sand 
Which yet remain of the accorded hour, 
Still falling — I have done with Time. 

Ang. Alas ! 

And I have been the cause, the unconscious cause ; 
And for this funeral marriage, this black union. 
Which thou, compliant with my father's wish, 
Didst promise at his death, thou hast seal'd thine own. 

Doge. Not so : there was that in my spirit ever 
Which shaped out for itself some great reverse ; 
The marvel is, it came not until now — 
And yet it was foretold me. 

Ang. How foretold you ? 

Doge. Long years ago — so long, they are a doubt 
In memory, and yet they live in annals : 
When I was in my youth, and served the senate 
And signory as podesta and captain 
Of the town of Treviso, on a day 
Of festival, the sluggish bishop who 
Convey'd the Host aroused my rash young anger 
By strange delay, and arrogant reply 
To my reproof: I raised my hand and smote him, 
Until he reel'd beneath his holy burthen ; 
And as he rose from earth again, he raised 
His tremulous hands in pious wrath towards heaven. 
Thence pointing to the Host, which had fallen from 

him, 
He turn'd to me, and said, " The hour will come 
W^hen he thou hast o'erthrown shall overthrow thee : 
The glory shall depart from out thy house. 
The wisdom shall be shaken from thy soul. 
And in thy best maturity of mind 
A madness of the heart shall seize upon thee ; ^ 
Passion shall tear thee when all passions cease 
In other men, or mellow into virtues ; 
And majesty, which decks all other heads. 
Shall crown to leave thee headless ; honors shall 
But prove to thee the heralds of destruction. 
And hoary hairs of shame, and both of death, 
But not such death as fits an aged man." 
Thus saying, he pass'd on. — That hour is come. 

Ang. And with this warning couldst thou not have 
striven 
To avert the fatal moment, and atone, 
By penitence, for that which thou hadst done ? 

Doge. I own the words went to my heart, so much 
That I remember'd them amid the maze 
Of life, as if they form'd a spectral voice, 

1 " A madness of the heart shall rise within."— MS. 



272 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Act V. 



Which shook me in a supernatural dream ; 

And I repented ; but 'twas not for me 

To pull in resolution : what must be 

I could not change, and would not fear. — Nay more, 

Thou canst not have forgot, what all remember. 

That on my day of landing here as Doge, 

On my return from Rome, a mist of such 

Unwonted destiny went on before 

The Bucentaur, like the columnar cloud 

Which usher'd Israel out of Egypt, till 

The pilot was misled, and disembark'd us 

Between the pillars of Saint Mark's, where 'tis 

The custom of the state to put to death 

Its criminals, instead of touching at 

The Riva della Paglia, as the wont is, — 

So that all Venice shudder'd at the omen. 

Ang. Ah ! little boots it now to recollect 
Such things. 

Doge. And yet I find a comfort in 

The thought that these things are the work of Fate ; 
For I would rather yield to gods than men, 
Or cling to any creed of destiny, 
Rather than deem these mortals, most of whom 
I know to be as worthless as the dust. 
And weak as worthless, more than instruments 
Of an o'erruling power ; they in themselves 
Were all incapable — they could not be 
Victors of him who oft had conquer' d for them ! 

Ang. Employ the minutes left in aspirations 
Of a more healing nature, and in peace 
Even with these wretches take thy flight to heaven. 

Doge. I am at peace : the peace of certainty 
That a sure hour will come, when their sons' sons, 
And this proud city, and these azure waters, 
And all which makes them eminent and bright, 
Shall be a desolation and a curse, 
A hissing and a scoff" unto the nations, 
A Carthage, and a Tyre, an ocean Babel ! 

Ang. Speak not thus now : the surge of passion still 
Sweeps o'er thee to the last; thou dost deceive 
Thyself, and canst not injure them — be calmer. 

Doge. I stand within eternity, and see 
Into eternity, and I behold — 
Ay, palpable as I see thy sweet face 
For the last time — the' days which I denounce 
Unto all time against these wave-girt walls, 
And they who are indwellers. 

GUAKD {coming forward). Doge of Venice, 
The Ten are in attendance on your highness. 

Doge. Then farewell, Angiolina! — one embrace — 
Forgive the old man who hath been to thee 
A fond but fatal husband — love my memory — 
I would not ask so much for me still living, 
But thou canst judge of me more kindly now, 

1 " With unimpair'd but not outrageous grief." — MS. 

2 This was the actual reply of Bailli, maire of Paris, to a 
Frenchman who made him the same reproach on his way to 
execution, in the earliest part of their revolution. I find in 
reading over (since the completion of this tragedy), for the 



Seeing my evil feelings are at rest. 

Besides, of all the fruit of these long years, 

Glory, and wealth, and power, and fame, and name, 

Which generally leave some flowers to bloom 

Even o'er the grave, I have nothing left, not even 

A little love, or friendship, or esteem, 

No, not enough to extract an epitaph 

From ostentatious kinsmen; in one hour 

I have uprooted all my former life. 

And outlived everything, except thy heart. 

The pure, the good, the gentle, which will oft 

With unimpair'd but not a clamorous griefs 

Still keep Thou turn'st so pale ! — Alas ! she faints. 

She has no breath, no pulse ! — Guards ! lend your 

aid — 
I cannot leave her thus, and yet 'tis better. 
Since every lifeless moment spares a pang. 
When she shakes off" this temporary death, 
I shall be with the Eternal. — Call her women — 
One look ! — how cold her hand ! — as cold as mine 
Shall be ere she recovers. — Gently tend her. 

And take my last thanks 1 am ready now. 

{The Attendants of Angiolina enter ^ and sur- 
round their mistress, who has fainted. — Exeunt 
the Doge, Guards, &c. &c. 



SCENE III. 

The Court of the Ducal Palace: the outer gates are 
shut against the people. — The DoGE enters in his 
ducal robes, in procession with the Council of Ten 
and other Patricians, attended by the Guards, till 
they arrive at the top of the " Giants' Staircase " 
(where the Doges took the oaths) ; the Executioner is 
stationed there with his sword. — On arriving, a 
Chief of the Ten takes off the ducal cap from the 
Doge's head. 

DoGE. So now the Doge is nothing, and at last 
I am again Marino Faliero : 
'Tis well to be so, though but for a moment. 
Here was I crown'd, and here, bear witness. Heaven ! 
With how much more contentment I resign 
That shining mockery, the ducal bauble. 
Than I received the fatal ornament. 

One of the Ten. Thou tremblest, Faliero ! 

Doge. 'Tis with age, then.^ 

Ben. Faliero ! hast thou aught further to commend, 
Compatible with justice, to the senate ? 

Doge. I would commend my nephew to their mercy, 
My consort to their justice ; for methinks 
My death, and such a death, might settle all 
Between the state and me. 

first time these six years, " Yenice Preserved," a similar reply 
on a different occasion by Renault, and other coincidences 
arising from the subject. I need hardly remind the gentlest 
reader, that such coincidences must be accidental, from the 
very facility of their detection by reference to so popular a 
play on the stage and in the closet as Otway's chef-d'oeuvre. 



Scene III. 



MAEINO FALIERO. 



273 



Ben. They shall be eared for ; 

Even notwithstanding thine unheard-of crime. 

Doge. Unheard-of! ay, there's not a history 
But shows a thousand crown'd conspirators 
Against the people ; but to set them free 
One sovereign only died, and one is dying. 

Ben. And who were they who fell in such a cause ? 

Doge. The King of Sparta, and the Doge of Ven- 
ice — 
Agis and Faliero ! 

Ben. Hast thou more 

To utter or to do ? 

Doge. May I speak ? 

Ben. Thou mayst ; 

But recollect the people are without. 
Beyond the compass of the human voice. 

Doge. I speak to Time and to Eternity ,i 
Of which I grow a portion, not to man. 
Ye elements ! in which to be resolved 
I hasten, let my voice be as a spirit 
Upon you ! Ye blue waves ! which bore my banner, 
Ye winds ! which flutter'd o'er as if you loved it, 
And fill'd my swelling sails as they were wafted 
To many a triumph ! Thou, my native earth, 
Which I have bled for, and thou, foreign earth. 
Which drank this willing blood from many a wound ! 
Ye stones, in which my gore will not sink, bxit 
Reek up to heaven ! Y^'e skies, which will receive it ! 
Thou sun ! which shinest on these things, and Thou ! 

^ " Sentence being passed upon the doge, he is brought with 
much pomp to the place of execution. His last speech is a 
grand prophetic rant; something strained and elaborate- 
but eloquent and terrible." — Jeffrey, 

2 " and Thou ! 

Who makest and destroyest suns !" — MS. 

3 Should the dramatic picture seem harsh, let the reader 
look to the historical, of the period prophesied, or rather of 
the few years preceding that period. Voltaire calculated 
their "nostre bene merite Meretrici" at 12,000 of regulars, 
without including volunteers and local militia, on what 
authority I know not ; but it is, perhaps, the only part of the 
population not decreased. Venice once contained two hundred 
thousand inhabitants : there are now about ninety thousand ; 
and THESE ! ! few individuals can conceive, and none could 
describe, the actual state into which the more than infei-nal 
tyranny of Austria has plunged this unhappy city. From the 
present decay and degeneracy of Venice under the Barbarians, 
there are some honorable individual exceptions. There is 
Pasqualigo, the last, and, alas ! posthumous son of the marriage 
of the doges with the Adriatic, who fought his frigate with 
far greater gallantry than any of his French coadjutors in the 
memorable action off Lissa. I came home in the squadron 
with the prizes in 1811, and recollect to have heard Sir 
William Hoste, and the other officers engaged in that glorious 
conflict, speak in the highest terms of Pasqualigo's behavior. 
There is the Abbate Morelli. There is Alvise Querini, who, 
after a long and honorable diplomatic career, finds some 
consolation for the wrongs of his country, in the pursuits of 
literature with his nephew, Vittor Benzon, the son of the 
cerebrated beauty, the heroine of " La Biondina in Gondo- 
letta." There are the patrician poet Morosini, and the poet 
Lamberti, the author of the " Biondina," &c., and many other 
•■stimable productions; and, not least in an Englishman's 
estimation, Madame Michelli, the translator of Shakspeare. 
There are the young Dandolo and the improvvisatore Carrer, 

18 



Who kindlest and who quenchest suns ! ^ — Attest ! 

I am not innocent — but are these guiltless ? 

I perish, but not unavenged : far ages 

Float up from the abyss of time to be. 

And show these eyes, before they close, the doom 

Of this proud city, and I leave my curse 

On hers and hers for ever ! Yes, the hours 

Are silently engendering of the day. 

When she, who built 'gainst Attila a bulwark, 

Shall yield, and bloodlessly and basely yield, 

Unto a bastard Attila, without 

Shedding so much blood in her last defence 

As these old veins, oft drain'd in shielding her, 

Shall pour in sacrifice. — She shall be bought 

And sold, and be an appanage to those 

Who shall despise her ! ^ — She shall stoop to be 

A province for an empire, petty town 

In lieu of capital, with slaves for senates. 

Beggars for nobles,* panders for a people ! ^ 

Then when the Hebrew's in thy palaces,^ 

The Hun in thy high places, and the Greek 

Walks o'er thy mart, and smiles on it for his : 

When thy patricians beg their bitter bread 

In narrow streets, and in their shameful need 

Make their nobility a plea for pity ; 

Then, when the few who still retain a wreck 

Of their great fathers' heritage shall fawn 

Round a barbarian Vice of Kings' Vicegerent, 

Even in the palace where they sway'd as sovereigns, 

and Giuseppe Albrizzi, the accomplished son of an accom- 
plished mother. There is Aglietti, and, were there nothing 
else, there is the immortality of Canova. Cicognara, Mus- 
toxithi, Bucati, &c., &c., I do not reckon, because the one is 
a Greek, and the others were born at least a hundred miles 
off, which, throughout Italy, constitutes, if not a foreigner, at 
least a stranger (forestiere). 

{lazars 'j 
lepers > for a people !" — MS. 
wretches J 
5 The following sketch of the indigent Venetian noble is 
by .Gritti :— 

" Sono un novero ladro aristocratico 
Errante per la Veneta palude, 
Che i denti per il mio duro panatico 
Aguzzo in su la cote e in su I'incude ; 
Mi slombo in piedi, e a seder' mi snatico, 
Ballotando or la fame, or la virtude : 
Prego, piango, minaccio, insisto, adulo, 
Ed ho me stesso, e la mia patria in culo." 

" I'm a poor peer of Venice loose among her 

Marshes ! With standing bows I've double grown, 

And in my trade of place and pension-monger. 

Sate till I've ground my buttocks to the bone ; 

Balloting now for merit, now for hunger; ^ 

Breaking, myself, my teeth, upon a stone, 

I crave, cringe, storm, and strive, through life's short 

farce, 
And vote friends, self, and country all." — Rose. 
« The chief palaces on the Brenta now belong to the Jews ; 
who in the earlier times of the republic were only allowed to 
inhabit Mestri, and not to enter the city of Venice. The 
whole commerce is in the hands of the Jews and Greeks, and 
the Huns form the garrison. 



274 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Act V. 



Even in the palace where they slew their sovereign, 

Proud of some name they have disgraced, or sprung 

From an adulteress boastful of her guilt 

With some large gondolier or foreign soldier, 

Shall bear about their bastardy in triumph 

To the third spurious generation ; i — when 

Thy sons are in the lowest scale of being, 

Slaves turn'd o'er to the vanquish'd by the victors, 

Despised by cowards for greater cowardice. 

And scorn'd even by the vicious for such vices 

As in the monstrous grasp of their conception 

Defy all codes to image or to name them ; 

Then, when of Cyprus, now thy subject kingdom, 

All thine inheritance shall be her shame 

Entail'd on thy less virtuous daughters, grown 

A wider proverb for worse prostitution ; — 

When all the ills of conquer'd states shall cling 

thee. 
Vice without splendor, sin without relief 
Even from the gloss of love to smooth it o'er. 
But in its stead, coarse lusts of habitude,^ 
Prurient yet passionless, cold studied lewdness, 
Depraving nature's frailty to an art ; — 
When these and more are heavy on thee, when 
Smiles without mirth, and pastimes without pleasure. 
Youth without honor, age without respect. 
Meanness and weakness, and a sense of woe 



1 " It must be owned," says Bishop Heber, " that the duke 
bears his calamities with a patience which would be more 
heroic if it were less wordy. It is possible that a condemned 
man might recollect his quarrel with the Bishop of Treviso, 
and the evU omen which accompanied his solemn landing at 
Venice. But there are not many condemned men who, dur- 
ing a last and stinted interview with a beloved wife, would 
have employed so much time in relating anecdotes of them- 
selves ; and we should least of all expect it in one whose fiery 
character would have induced him to hurry forward to his 
end. The same objection applies to his prophecy of the 
future miseries of Venice. Its language and imagery are, 
doubtless, extremely powerful and impressive ; but we cannot 
allow that it is either dramatic or characteristic. A prophecy 
(which we know to be ex post facto) is, under any circum- 
stances, one of the cheapest and least artificial of poetical 
machines. But, under such circumstances as li!ie present, no 
audience could have endured so long a speech without disgust 
and weariness ; and Marino Faliero was most likely to have 
met his death like our own Sydney — 

' With no harangue idly proclaim'd aloud 
To catch the worthless plaudit of the crowd ; 
No feeble boast, death's terrors to defy. 
Yet still delaying, as afraid to die !' " 
We are surprised that Bishop Heber did not quote Andrew 
Marvell's magnificent lines on Charles I. : — 

" While round the armed bands 
Did clap their bloody hands. 
He nothing common did, or mean, 
Upon that memorable scene ; 
But with his keener eye 
The axe's edge did try ; 
Nor call'd the Gods with vulgar spight 
To vindicate his helpless right. 
But bow'd his comely head 
Down, as upon a bed." 
2 See Appendix : Marino Faliero, Note C. 



'Gainst which thou wilt not strive, and dar'st not 

murmur,^ 
Have made thee last and worst of peopled deserts. 
Then, in the last gasp of thine agony. 
Amidst thy many murders, think of mine ! 
Thou den of drunkards with the blood of prin(ies ! * 
Gehenna of the waters ! thou sea Sodom ! 
Thus I devote thee to the infernal gods ! 
Thee and thy serpent seed ! 

\^IIere the DOGE turns and addresses the Execu- 
tioner. 

Slave, do thine office ! 
Strike as I struck the foe ! Strike as I would 
Have struck those tyrants ! Strike deep as my curse ! 
Strike — and but once ! 

\>rhe Doge throws himself upon his hnees, and as 
the Executioner raises his sword the scene closes. 



SCENE IV. 

The Piazza and Piazzetta of Saint Marie's. — The 
people in crowds gathered round the grated gates 
of the Ducal Palace, which are shut. 

FiEST Citizen. I have gain'd the gate, and can 
discern the Ten, 
Kobed in their gowns of state, ranged round the Doge. 



* If the doge's prophecy seem remarkable, look to the fol- 
lowing, made by Alimanni two hundred and seventy years 
ago: — "There is one very singular prophecy concerning 
Venice : ' If thou dost not change,' it says to that proud re- 
public, ' thy liberty, which is already on the wing, will not 
reckon a century more than the thousandth year.' If we carry 
back the epocha of Venetian freedom to the establishment of 
the government under which the republic flourished, we shall 
find that the date of the election of the first doge is 697; and 
if we add one century to a thousand, that is, eleven hundred 
years, we shall find the sense of the prediction to be literally 
this: 'Thy liberty will not last till 1797.' Eecollect that 
Venice ceased to be free in the year 1796, the fifth year of the 
French republic ; and you will perceive, that there never was 
prediction more pointed, or more exactly followed by the 
event. You will, therefore, note as very rem arkable the three 
lines of Alimanni addressed to Venice : which, however, no 
one has pointed out : — 

' Se non cangi pensier, un secol solo 
Non conterS sopra '1 millesimo anno 
Tua liberty, che va faggendo a volo.' 
Many prophecies have passed for such, and many men have 
been called prophets for much less." — Ginguene, t. ix. p. 144. 
4 Of the first fifty doges, yire abdicated— _/iDe were banished 
with their eyes put out— five were massacred — and nine de- 
posed ; so that nineteen out of fifty lost the throne by vio- 
lence, besides two who fell in battle: this occurred long 
previous to the reign of Marino Faliero. One of his more 
immediate predecessors, Andrea Dandolo, died of vexation. 
Marino Faliero himself perished as related. Amongst his 
successors, Foscari, after seeing his son repeatedly tortured 
and banished, was deposed, and died of breaking a blood- 
vessel, on hearing the bell of Saint Mark's toll for the election 
of his successor, Morosini was impeached for the loss of 
Candia ; but this was previous to his dukedom, during which 
he conquered the Morea, and was styled the Peloponnesian. 
Faliero might truly say, 

" Thou den of drunkards with the blood of princes !" 



Scene IV. 



MAEINO FALIEKO. 



275 



Second Cit. I cannot reach thee with mine utmost 
effort. 
How is it ? let us hear at least, since sight 
Is thus prohibited unto the people, 
Except the occupiers of those bars. 

First Cit. One has approach'd the Doge, and now 
they strip 
The ducal bonnet from his head — and now 
He raises his keen eyes to heaven ; I see 
Them glitter, and his lips move — Hush ! hush ! — no, 
'Twas but a murmur — Curse upon the distance ! 
His words are inarticulate, but the voice 
Swells up like mutter'd thunder ; would we could 
But gather a sole sentence ! 

Second Cit. Hush! we perhaps may catch the 
sound. 

First Cit. 'Tis vain, 

I cannot hear him. — How his hoary hair 
Streams on the wind like foam upon the wave ! 
Now — now — he kneels — and now they form a circle 
Eound him, and all is hidden — but I see 

The lifted sword in air Ah ! hark ! it falls ! 

[The people murmur. 

1 " Un Capo de' Dieci " are the words of Sanuto's Chron- 
icle. 

2 " As a play, Marino Faliero is deficient in the attractive 
passions, in probability, and in depth and variety of interest ; 
and revolts throughout, by the extravagant disproportion 
which the injury bears to the unmeasured resentment with 
which it is pursued. As a poem, though it occasionally dis- 
plays great force and elevation, it obviously wants both 
grace and facility. The diction is often heavy and cumbrous, 
and the versification without sweetness or elasticity. It is 
generally very verbose, and sometimes exceedingly dull. 
Altogether, it gives us the impression of a thing worked out 
against the grain, and not poured forth from the fullness of 
the heart or the fancy ;— the ambitious and elaborate work 
of a powerful mind engaged with an unsuitable task — not the 
spontaneous eflfxision of an exuberant imagination, sporting 
in the fullness of its strength. Every thing is heightened and 
enforced with visible effort and design ; and the noble author 
is often contented to be emphatic by dint of exaggeration, 
and eloquent by the common topics of declamation. Lord 
Byron is, undoubtedly; a poet of the very first order, and has 
talents to reach the very highest honors of the drama. But 
he must not again disdain love, and ambition, and jealousy ; 
he must not substitute what is merely bizarre and extraordi- 
nary, for what is naturally and universally interesting, nor 
expect, by any exaggerations, so to rouse and rule our sym- 



Third Cit. Then they have murder'd him who 
would have freed us. [ever. 

Fourth Cit. He was a kind man to the commons 
Fifth Cit. Wisely they did to keep their portals 
barr'd. 
"Would we had known the work they were preparing 
Ere we were summon'd here — we would have brought 
Weapons, and forced them I 
Sixth Cit. Are you sure he's dead ? 

First Cit. I saw the sword fall — Lo! what have 
we here ? 

Enter on the Balcony of the Palace which fronts 
Saint Mark's Place a Chief of the Ten,i with 
a bloody ^word. He waves it thrice before the people, 
and exclaims, 
" Justice hath dealt upon the mighty Traitor !" 

[The gates are opened ; the populace rush in towards 
the "Giants' Staircase'' where the execution has 
taken place. The foremost of them exclaims to 
those behind, 
The gory head rolls down the Giants' Steps I 

[The curtain falls. ^ 



pathies by the senseless anger of an old man, and the pru- 
dish proprieties of an untempted woman, as by the agency of 
the great and simple passions with which, in some of their 
degrees, all men are familiar, and by which alone the Dra-- 
matic Muse has hitherto wrought her miracles."— Jeffrey. 
" On the whole, the Doge of Venice is the effect of a power- 
ful and cultivated mind. It has all the requisites of tragedy, 
sublimity, terror, and pathos — all but that without which the 
rest are unavailing, interest ! With many detached passages 
which neither derogate from Lord Byron's former fame, nor 
would have derogated from the reputation of our best ancient 
tragedians, it is, as a whole, neither sustained nor impressive. 
The poet, except in the soliloquy of Lioni, scarcely ever seems 
to have written with his own thorough good liking. ■ He may 
be suspected throughout to have had in his eye some other 
model than nature ; and we rise from his work with the same 
feeling as if we had been reading a translation. For this want 
of interest the subject itself is, doubtless, in some measure to 
blame; though, if the same subject had been differently 
treated, we are inclined to believe a very different efffect would 
have been produced. But for the constraint and stiffness of 
the poetry, we have nothing to blame but the apparent reso- 
lution of its author to set (at whatever risk) an example of 
classical correctness to his uncivilized countrymen, and rather 
to forego success than to succeed after the manner of Shak- 
speare." — Hebek. 



'^tahtn antr 2Sart1^: 



A MYSTEEY. 

FOUNDED ON THE FOJLLOWING PASSAGE IN GENESIS, CHAP. VI. 

" And it came to pass .... that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair ; and they 
took them wives of all which they chose." i 



And woman wailing for her demon lover."— Coleridge. 



DEAMATIS PERSONS. 



Angels.—SAMiASA. 

AZAZIEL. 

Eaphael, the Arcliangel. 
Men. — Noah and his Sons. 
Iead. 
Japhet. 

Women. — Anah. 

Aholibamah. 

Chorus of Spirits of the Earth. — Chorus of Mortals. 



1 " Heaven and Earth " was written at Eavenna, in Octo- 
ber, 1821. In forwarding it to Mr, Murray, in the following 
month, Lord Byron says—" Enclosed is a lyrical drama, en- 
titled ' A Mystery.' You will find it pious enough, I trust — 
at least some of the chorus might have been written by Stern- 
hold and Hopkins themselves for that, and perhaps for mel- 
ody. As it is longer, and more lyrical and Greek, than I 
intended at first, I have not divided it into acts, but called 
what I have sent Fart First; as there is a suspension of the 
action, which may either close there without impropriety, or 
Oe continued in a way that I have in view. I wish the first 
part to be published before the second ; because, if it don't 
succeed, it is better to stop there, than to go on in a fruitless 
experiment." Though without delay revised by Mr. GifFord, 
and printed, this " First Part " was not published till 1822, 
when it appeared in the second number of the " Liberal." 
The " Mystery" was never completed. 

2 " It is impossible to suppose two poems more nearly dia- 
metrically opposite to each other in object and execution, 
than the ' Loves of the Angels ' by Mr. Moore, and * Heaven 
and Earth, a Mystery,' by Lord Byron. The first is all glit- 
ter and point, like a piece of Derbyshire spar ; and the other 
is dark and massy, like a block of marble. In the one, angels 
harangue each other, like authors wishing to make a great 
public impression; in the other, they appear silent and 
majestic, even when their souls have been visited with 
human passions. In the one, the women whom the angels 
love, although beautiful and amiable, are blue-stockingish 
and pedantic, and their sins proceed from curiosity and the 
love of knowledge. In the other, they are the gentle, or the 
daring, daughters of flesh and blood, dissolving in tender- 

( ?76 ) 



Jgeaben antr ISartJ. 



PART I. 



SCENE L 



A woody and mountainous district near Mount 
Ararat. — Time, Midnight. 

Enter Anah and Aholibamah.^ 
Anah. Our father sleeps : it is the hour when they 

Who love us are accustom'd to descend 

Through the deep clouds o'er rocky Ararat : — 

How my heart beats ! 
Aho. Let us proceed upon 

Our invocation. 



ness, or burning with passion for the Sons of the Morning. 
In the one, we have sighs, tears, kisses, shiverings, thrill- 
ings, perfumes, feathered angels on beds of down, and all the 
transports of the honeymoon ; in the other, silent looks of 
joy or despair, passion seen blending in vain union between 
the spirits of mortal and immortal, love shrieking on the 
wild shore of death, and all the thoughts that ever agitated 
human hearts dashed and distracted beneath the blackness 
and amidst the bowlings of commingled earth and heaven. 
The one is extremely pretty, and the other is something ter- 
rible. The great power of this ' Mystery ' is in its fearless and 
daring simplicity. Lord Byron faces at once all the grandeur 
of his sublime subject. He seeks for nothing, but it rises 
before him in its death-doomed magnificence. Man, or angel, 
or demon, the being who mourns, or laments, or exults, is 
driven to speak by his own soul. The angels deign not to 
use many words, even to their beautiful paramours; and 
they scorn Noah and his sententious sons. The first scene 
is a woody and mountainous district, near Mount Ararat, 
and the time midnight. Mortal creatures, conscious of their 
own wickedness, have heard awful predictions of the threat- 
ened flood, and all their lives are darkened with terror. 
But the sons of God have been dwellers on earth, and 
women's hearts have been stirred by the beauty of these 
celestial visitants. Anah and Aholibamah, two of these 
angel-stricken maidens, come wandering along while others 
sleep, to pour forth their invocations to their demon lovers. 
They are of very different characters: Anah, soft, gentle, 
and submissive; Aholibamah, proud, impetuous, and aspir- 
ing—the one loving in fear, and the other in ambition." — 
Wilson. 



Scene I. 



HEAVEN AND EAKTH. 



277 



Anah. But the stars are hidden. 

I tremble. 

Aho. So do I, but not with fear 
Of aught save their delay. 
Anah. My sister, though 

I love Azaziel more than oh, too much ! 

What was I going to say ? my heart grows impious. 

Aho. And where is the impiety of loving 
Celestial natures ? 

Anah. But, Aholibamah, 

I love our God less since his angel loved me : 
This cannot be of good ; and though I know not 
That I do wrong, I feel a thousand fears 
Which are not ominous of right. 

Aho. Then wed thee 

Unto some son of clay, and toil and spin ! 
There's Japhet loves thee well, hath loved thee long : 
Marry, and bring forth dust ! 

Anah. I should have loved 

Azaziel not less were he mortal ; yet 
I am glad he is not. I cannot outlive him. 
And when I think that his immortal wings 
Will one day hover o'er the sepulchre 
Of the poor child of clay which so adored him, 
As he adores the Highest, death becomes 
Less terrible ; but yet I pity him : 
His grief will be of ages, or at least 
Mine would be such for him, were I the seraph, 
And he the perishable. 

Aho. Rather say. 

That he will single forth some other daughter 
Of earth, and love her as he once loved Anah. 

Anah. And if it should be so, and she loved him, 
Better thus than that he should weep for me. 
Aho. If I thought thus of Samiasa's love. 
All seraph as he is, I'd spurn him from me. 
But to our invocation ! — 'Tis the hour. 
Anah. Seraph ! 

From thy sphere ! 
Whatever star contain thy glory ; 
In the eternal depths of heaven 
Albeit thou watchest with " the seven," * 
Though through space infinite and hoary 
Before thy bright wings worlds be driven. 
Yet hear! 
Oh ! think of her who holds thee dear ! 

And though she nothing is to thee. 
Yet think that thou art all to her. 
Thou canst not tell, — and never be 
Such pangs decreed to aught save me, — 
The bitterness of tears. 
Eternity is in thine years, 
Unborn, undying beauty in thine eyes; 
With me thou canst not sympathize, 
Except in love, and there thou must 
Acknowledge that more loving dust 
Ne'er wept beneath the skies. 



1 The archangels, said to be seven in number, and to occupy 
the eighth rank in the celestial hierarchy. 



Thou walk'st thy many worlds, thou seest 

The face of him who made thee great, 
As he hath made me of the least 
Of those cast out from Eden's gate : 
Yet, Seraph dear ! 
Oh hear ! 
For thou hast loved me, and I would not die 
Until I know what I must die in knowing, 
That thou forgett'st in thine eternity 
Her whose heart death could not keep from 
o'erflowing 
For thee, immortal essence as thou art ! 
Great is their love who love in sin and fear ; 
And such, I feel, are waging in my heart 

A war uii worthy : to an Adamite 
Forgive, my Seraph ! that such thoughts appear, 
For sorrow is our element ; 
Delight 
An Eden kept afar from sight, 

Though sometimes with our visions blent. 
The hour is near 
Which tells me we are not abandon'd quite. — 
Appear! Appear! 
Seraph ! 
My own Azaziel I be but here, 
And leave the stars to their own light. 
Aho. Samiasa ! 

Wheresoe'er 
Thou rulest in the upper air — 
Or warring with the spirits who may dare 
Dispute with him 
Who made all empires, empire ; or recalling 
Some wandering star, which shoots through the 



Whose tenants dying, while their world is falling, 
Share the dim destiny of clay in this ; 

Or joining with the inferior cherubim. 
Thou deignest to partake their hymn — 

t 



I call thee, I await thee, and I love thee. 

Many may worship thee, that will I not : 
If that thy spirit down to mine may move thee, 
Descend and share my lot ! 
Though I be form'd of clay, 

And thou of beams 
More bright than those of day 
On Eden's streams, 
Thine immortality cannot repay 

With love more warm than mine 
My love. There is a ray 
In me, which, though forbidden yet to shine, 
I feel was lighted at thy God's and thine. 
It may be hidden long : death and decay 

Our mother Eve bequeath'd us — but my heart 
Defies it : though this life must pass away. 
Is that a cause for thee and me to part ? 
Thou art immortal — so am I : I feel — 

I feel ray immortality o'ersweep 
All pains, all tears, all time, all fears, and peal, 
Like the eternal thunders of the deep. 



278 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Paet I. 



Into my ears this truth—" Thou liv'st for ever !" 
But if it be in joy 

I know not, nor would know ; 
That secret rests with the Almighty giver 

Who folds in clouds the fonts of bliss and woe. 
But thee and me he never can destroy ; 
Change us he may, but not o'erwhelm ; we are 
Of as eternal essence, and must war 
With him if he will war with us : with thee 

I can share all things, even immortal sorrow ; 
For thou hast ventured to share life with me, 
And shall I shrink from thine eternity ? 

No ! though the serpent's sting should pierce me 
thorough, 
And thou thyself wert like the serpent, coil 
Around me still ! and I will smile, 
And curse thee not ; but hold 
Thee in as warm a fold 

As but descend, and prove 

A mortal's love 
For an immortal. If the skies contain 
More joy than thou canst give and take, remain ! i 

Anah. Sister ! sister ! I view them winging 
Their bright way through the parted night. 

Aho. The clouds from off their pinions flinging, 
As though they bore to-morrow's light. 

Anah. But if our father see the sight ! 

Aho. He would but deem it was the moon 
Eising unto some sorcerer's tune 
An hour too soon. 

Anah. They come ! he comes ! — Azaziel ! 

Aho. Haste 

To meet them ! Oh ! for wings to bear 
My spirit, while they hover there. 
To Samiasa's breast ! 

Anah. Lo ! they have kindled all the west, 
Like a returning sunset ; — lo ! 

On Ararat's late secret crest 
A mild and many-color'd bow, 
The remnant of their flashing path, 
Now shines ! and now, behold ! it hath 
Return'd to night, as rippling foam, 

Which the leviathan hath lash'd 
From his unfathomable home, 
When sporting on the face of the calm deep, 

Subsides soon after he again hath dash'd 
Down, down, to where the ocean's fountains 
sleep.2 

Aho. They have touch'd earth ! Samiasa ! 

Anah. My Azaziel ! 

\_Exeunt. 



1 " This invocation is extremely beautiful ; its chief beauty- 
lies in the continuous^nd meandering flow of its impassioned 
versification. At its close, — and it might ■well win down to 
earth erring angels from heaven,— the maidens disappear in 
the midnight darkness, hoping the presence of their celestial 
Isvers."— Wilson. 

2 " Lord Byron here takes a wide career, and is sometimes 
obscure and confused ; but the flashes of fire continually break 
through, and illumine the clouds of smoke and vapor. The 



SCENE II. 

Enter Ikad and Japhet. 

Iead. Despond not: wherefore wilt thou wander 
thus 
To add thy silence to the silent night. 
And lift thy tearful eye unto the stars ? 
They cannot aid thee. 

Japh. But they soothe me — now 

Perhaps she looks upon them as I look. 
Methinks a being that is beautiful 
Becometh more so as it looks on beauty. 
The eternal beauty of undying things. 
Oh, Anah ! 

Irad. But she loves thee not. 

Japh. Alas ! 

Iead. And proud Aholibamah spurns me also. 

Japh. I feel for thee too. 

Iead. Let her keep her pride. 

Mine hath enabled me to bear her scorn : 
It may be, time too will avenge it. 

Japh. Canst thou 

Find joy in such a thought? 

Iead. Nor joy nor sorrow. 

I loved her well ; I would have loved her better. 
Had love been met with love : as 'tis, I leave her 
To brighter destinies, if so she deems them. 

Japh. What destinies ? 

Iead. I have some cause to think 

She loves another. 

Japh. Anah ! 

Iead. No ; her sister. 

Japh. What other ? 

Iead. That I know not ; but her air, 

If not her words, tells me she loves another. 

Japh. Ay, but not Anah : she but loves her God. 

Iead. Whate'er she loveth, so she loves thee not. 
What can it profit thee ? ^ 

Japh. True, nothing ; but 

I love. 

Iead. And so do I. 

Japh. And now thou lov'st not, 

Or think'st thou lov'st not, art thou happier ? 

Iead. Yes. 

Japh. I pity. thee. 

Iead. Me! why? 

Japh. For being happy, 

Deprived of that which makes my misery. 

Iead. I take thy taunt as part of thy distemper,- 
And would not feel as thou dost for more shekels 
Than all our father's herds would bring, if weigh'd 

extravagance is dictated by passion. His muse, even in her 
riddles and digressions, has a sibyl-like, prophetic fury." — 
Jeffrey. 

3 "This is one of those bitter, taunting sarcasms that es- 
cape from Lord Byron's pen, in spite of himself Japhet is 
afterwards introduced alone, in a mountainous cave ; and his 
soliloquy, bemoaning his own fate, and the approaching de- 
struction of mankind, is interrupted by a laugh of demons, 
rejoicing over the event. This scene is terrific." — Jeffrey. 



Scene III. 



HEAVEN AND EARTH. 



279 



Against the metal of the sons of Cain — 
The yellow dust they try to barter with us, 
As if such useless and discolor'd trash, 
The refuse of the ^rth, could be received 
For milk, and wool, and flesh, and fruits, and all 
Our flocks and wilderness afford. — Go, Japhet, 
Sigh to the stars, as wolves howl to the moon — 
I must back to my rest. 

Japh. And so would I 

If I could rest. 

Ikad. Thou wilt not to our tents then ? 

Japh. No, Irad ; I will to the cavern, whose 
Mouth they say opens from the internal world 
To let the inner spirits of the earth 
Forth when they walk its surface. 

Iead. Wherefore so ? 

What wouldst thou there ? 

Japh. Soothe further my sad spirit 

With gloom as sad : it is a hopeless spot. 
And I am hopeless. 

Iead. But 'tis dangerous ; 

Strange sounds and sights have peopled it with terrors. 
I must go with thee. 

Japh. Irad, no ; believe me 

I feel no evil thought, and fear no evil. 

Ikad. But evil things will be thy foe the more 
As not being of them : turn thy steps aside, 
Or let mine be with thine. 

Japh. No, neither, Irad ; 

I must proceed alone. 

Irad. Then peace be with thee ! 

[Uxit Irad. 

Japh. (solus). Peace! I have sought it where it 
should be found. 
In love — with love, too, which perhaps deserved it ; 
And, in its stead, a heaviness of heart, 
A weakness of the spirit — listless days. 
And nights inexorable to sweet sleep. 
Have come upon me. Peace ! what peace ? the calm 
Of desolation, and the stillness of 
The untrodden forest, only broken by 
The sweeping tempest through its groaning boughs ; 
Such is the sullen or the fitful state 
Of my mind overworn. The earth's grown wicked. 
And many signs and portents have proclaim'd 
A change at hand, and an o'erwhelming doom 
To perishable beings. Oh, my Anah ! 
When the dread hour denounced shall open wide 
The fountains of the deep, how mightest thou 
Have lain within this bosom, folded from 
The elements ; this bosom, which in vain 
Hath beat for thee, and then will beat more vainly, 

While thine Oh, God ! at least remit to her 

Thy wrath ! for she is pure amidst the failing 
As a star in the clouds, which cannot quench. 
Although they obscure it for an hour. My Anah ! 
How would I have adored thee, but thou wouldst not; 
And still would I redeem thee — see thee live 
When ocean is earth's grave, and, unopposed 
By rock or shallow, the leviathan, 



Lord of the shoreless sea and watery world, 
Shall wonder at his boundlessness of realm. 

[Exit Japhet. 

JEnter NoAH and Shem. 

Noah. Where is thy brother Japhet? 

Shem. He went forth, 

According to his wont, to meet with Irad, 
He said ; but, as I fear, to bend his steps 
Towards Anah's tents, round which he hovers nightly, 
Like a dove round and round its pillaged nest ; 
Or else he walks the wild up to the cavern 
Which opens to the heart of Ararat. 

Noah. What doth he there ? It is an evil spot 
Upon an earth all evil ; for things worse 
Than even wicked men resort there : he 
Still loves this daughter of a fated race. 
Although he could not wed her if she loved him. 
And that she doth not. Oh, the unhappy hearts 
Of men ! that one of my blood, knowing well 
The destiny and evil of these days. 
And that the hour approacheth, should indulge 
In such forbidden yearnings ! Lead the way ; 
He must be sought for ! 

Shem. Go not forward, father ; 

I will seek Japhet. 

Noah. Do not fear for me : 

All evil things are powerless on the man 
Selected by Jehovah. — Let us on. 

Shem. To the tents of the father of the sisters ? 

Noah. No ; to the cavern of the Caucasus. 

[Exeunt NoAH and Shem. 



SCENE III. 

The Mountains. — A Cavern, and the Rocks of Cau- 
casus. 

Japh. {solus). Ye wilds, that look eternal ; and thou 
cave. 
Which seem'st unfathomable ; and ye mountains, 
So varied and so terrible in beauty ; 
Here, in your rugged majesty of rocks 
And toppling trees that twine their roots with stone 
In perpendicular places, where the foot 
Of man would tremble, could he reach them— yes, 
Ye look eternal ! Yet, in a few days. 
Perhaps even hours, ye will be changed, rent, hurl'd 
Before the mass of waters ; and yon cave. 
Which seems to lead into a lower world. 
Shall have its depths search'd by the sweeping wave, 
And dolphins gambol in the lion's den I 

And man ! Oh, men ! my fellow beings ! Who 

Shall weep above your universal grave. 

Save I ? Who shall be left to weep ? My kinsmen, 

Alas ! what am I better than ye are. 

That I must live beyond ye ? Where shall be 

The pleasant places where I thought of Anah 

While I had hope ? or the more savage haunts, 

Scarce less beloved, where I despair'd for her ? 



280 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Part I. 



And can it be ! — Shall yon exulting peak, 

Whose glittering top is like a distant star, 

Lie low beneath the boiling of the deep ? 

No more to have the morning sun break foi*th. 

And scatter back the mists in floating folds 

From its tremendous brow ? no more to have 

Day's broad orb drop behind its head at even. 

Leaving it with a crown of many hues ? 

No more to be the beacon of the world, 

For angels to alight on, as the spot 

Nearest the stars ? And can those words " no more " 

Be meant for thee, for all things, save for us, 

And the predestined creeping things reserved 

By my sire to Jehovah's bidding ? May 

He preserve them, and I not have the power 

To snatch the loveliest of earth's daughters from 

A doom which even some serpent, with his mate. 

Shall 'scape to save his kind to be prolong'd, 

To hiss and sting through some emerging world, 

Becking and dank from out the slime, whose ooze 

Shall slumber o'er the wreck of this, until 

The salt morass subside into a sphere 

Beneath the sun, and be the monument. 

The sole and undistinguish'd sepulchre, 

Of yet quick myriads of all life ? How much 

Breath will be still'd at once ! All-beauteous world ! 

So young, so mark'd out for destruction, I 

With a cleft heart look on thee day by day. 

And night by night, thy number'd days and nights : 

I cannot save thee, cannot save even her 

Whose love had made me love thee more ; but as 

A portion of thy dust, I cannot think 

Upon thy coming doom without a feeling 

Such as— Oh God ! and canst thou — [He pauses. 



A rushing sound from the cavern is heard, and 
of laughter — afterwards a Spirit passes. 

Japh. In the name 

Of the Most High, what art thou ? 

Spirit [laughs). Ha! ha! ha! 

Japh. By all that earth holds holiest, speak ! 

Spirit (laughs). Ha! ha! 

Japh. By the approaching deluge ! by the earth 
Which will be strangled by the ocean ! by 
The deep which will lay open all her fountains ! 
The heaven which will convert her clouds to seas, 
And the Omnipotent who makes and crushes ! 
Thou unknown, terrible, and indistinct. 
Yet awful Thing of Shadows, speak to me ! 
Why dost thou laugh that horrid laugh ? 

Spirit. Why weep'st thou? 

Japh. For earth and all her children. 

Spirit. Ha ! ha ! ha ! [Spirit vanishes. 

Japh. How the fiend mocks the tortures of a 
world. 
The coming desolation of an orb. 
On which the sun shall rise and warm no life ! 
How the earth sleeps I and all that in it is 
Sleep too upon the very eve of death ! 
Why should they wake to meet it? What are here, 



Which look like death in life, and speak like 

things 
Born ere this dying world ? They come like clouds ! 
[ Various Spirits pass from the cavern. 
Spirit. Eejoice ! * 

The abhorred race 
Which could not keep in Eden their high place. 
But listen'd to the voice 
Of knowledge without power. 
Are nigh the hour 
Of death ! 
Not slow, not single, not by sword, nor sorrow, 

Nor years, nor heart-break, nor time's sapping 
motion. 
Shall they drop off. Behold their last to-morroAv ! 
Earth shall be ocean I 
And no breath, 
Save of the winds, be on the unbounded wave! 

Angels shall tire their wings, but find no spot : 
Not even a rock from out the liquid grave 

Shall lift its point to save. 
Or show the place where strong Despair hath died. 
After long looking o'er the ocean wide 
For the expected ebb which cometh not : 
All shall be void, 
Destroy'd ! 
Another element shall be the lord 

Of life, and the abhorr'd 
Children of dust be quench'd ; and of each hue 
Of earth nought left but the unbroken blue ; 
And of the variegated mountain 
Shall nought remain 
Unchanged, or of the level plain ; 
Cedar and pine shall lift their tops in vain : 
All merged within the universal fountain, 
Man, earth, and fire, shall die. 

And sea and sky 
Look vast and lifeless in the eternal eye. 

Upon the foam 
Who shall erect a home ? 
Japh. (coming forward). My sire! 
Earth's seed shall not expire ; 
Only the evil shall be put away 

From day. 
Avaunt ! ye exulting demons of the waste ! 
Who howl your hideous joy 
When God destroys whom you dare not destroy ; 
Hence! haste! 
Back to your inner caves ! 
Until the waves 
Shall search you in your secret place, 
And drive your sullen race 
Forth, to be roU'd upon the tossing winds, 
In restless wretchedness along all space ! 
Spirit. Son of the saved ! 

When thou and thine have braved 
The wide and warring element ; 
When the great barrier of the deep is rent, 
Shall thou and thine be good or happy ?— No ! 
Thy new world and new race shall be of M'oe— 



Scene III. 



HEAVEN AND EARTH. 



281 



Less goodly in their aspect, in their years 
Less than the glorious giants, who 
Yet walk the world in pride. 
The Sons of Heaven by many a mortal bride. 
Thine shall be nothing of the past, save tears. 
And art thou not ashamed 

Thus to survive. 
And cat, and drink, and wive ? 
"With a base heart so far subdued and tamed, 
As even to hear this wide destruction named, 
"Without sucli grief and courage, as should rather 

Bid thee await the world-dissolving wave. 
Than seek a shelter with thy favor'd father, 
And build thy city o'er the drown'd earth's grave ? 
Who would outlive their kind, 
Except the base and blind ? 
Mine 
Hateth thine 
As of a diiFerent order in the sphere, 
But not our own. 
There is not one who hath not left a throne 

Vacant in heaven to dwell in darkness here, 
Rather than see his mates endure alone. 

Go, wretch ! and give 
A life like thine to other wretches — live ! 
And when the annihilating waters roar 
Above what they have done. 
Envy the giant patriarchs then no more, 
And scorn thy sire as the surviving one ! 
Thyself for being his son ! 

Chorus of Spirits issuing from the cajem. 
Bejoice ! 
No more the human voice 
Shall vex our joys in middle air 
"With prayer ; 
No more 

Shall they adore ; 
And we, who ne'er for ages have adored 

The prayer-exacting Lord, 
To whom the omission of a sacrifice 
Is vice; 
We, we shall view the deep's salt sources pour'd 
Until one element shall do the work 
Of all in chaos ; until they. 
The creatures proud of their poor clay. 
Shall perish, and their bleached bones shall lurk 
la caves, in dens, in clefts of mountains, where 
The deep shall follow to their latest lair ; 

Where even the brutes, in their despair, 
-^hall cease to prey on man and on each other, 

And the striped tiger shall lie down to die 
Beside the lamb, as though he were his brother ; 
Till all things shall be as they were, 
Silent and uncreated, save the sky : 
While a brief truce 
Is made with Death, who shall forbear 

^ "And there were giants in the earth in those days, and 
after; mighty men, which were of old, men of renown." — 
Genesis. 



The little remnant of the past creation. 
To generate new nations for his use ; 
This remnant, floating o'er the undulation 
Of the subsiding deluge, from its slime, 
When the hot sun hath baked the reeking soil 
Into a world, shall give again to Time 
New beings — years — diseases — sorrow — crime — 
With all companionship of hate and toil. 
Until— 
Japh. {interrupting them). The eternal will 
Shall deign to expound this dream 
Of good and evil ; and redeem 
Unto himself all times, all things ; 
And, gather'd under his almighty wings, 
Abolish hell ! 
And to the expiated Earth 
Restore the beauty of her birth. 

Her Eden in an endless paradise, 
Where man no more can fall as once he fell. 
And even the very demons shall do well ! 
Spirits. And when shall take efiect this wondrous 

spell ? 
Japh. When the Redeemer cometh ; first in pain. 

And then in glory. 
Spirit. Meantime still struggle in the mortal chain, 
Till earth wax hoary ; 
War with yourselves, and hell, and heaven, in vain, 

Until the clouds look gory 
With the blood reeking from each battle plain ; 
New times, new climes, new arts, new men ; but still, 
The same old tears, old crimes, and oldest ill. 
Shall be amongst your race in difierent forms ; 

But the same moral storms 
Shall oversweep the future, as the waves 
In a few hours the glorious giants' graves.* 

Chorus of Spirits. 
Brethren, rejoice ! 
Mortal, farewell ! 
Hark ! hark ! already we can hear the voice 
Of growing ocean's gloomy swell ; 
The winds, too, plume their piercing wings ; 
The clouds have nearly fill'd their springs ; 
The fountains of the great deep shall be broken. 

And heaven set wide her windows ; 2 while mankin(J 
View, unacknowledged, each tremendous token — 
Still, as they were from the beginning, blind. 
We hear the sound they cannot hear. 
The mustering thunders of the threatening sphere ; 

Yet a few hours their coming is delay'd ; 
Their flashing banners, folded still on high, 

Yet undisplay'd. 
Save to the Spirit's all-pervading eye. 
Howl ! howl ! oh Earth ! 
Thy death is nearer than thy recent birth ; 
Tremble, ye mountains, soon to shrink below 
The ocean's overflow ! 

2 " The same day were all the fountains of the great deep 
broken up; and the windows of heaven were opened."— 
Ibid. 



282 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Part I. 



The wave shall break upon your cliffs ; and shells, 

The little shells, of ocean's least things be 
Deposed where now the eagle's offspring dwells — 

How shall he shriek o'er the remorseless sea ! 
And call his nestlings up with fruitless yell, 
Unanswer'd, save by the encroaching swell ; — 
While man shall long in vain for his broad wings, 

The wings which could not save : — 
Where could he rest them, while the whole space 
brings 
Nought to his eye beyond the deep, his grave ? 
Brethren, rejoice ! 
And loudly lift each superhuman voice — 

All die, 
Save the slight remnant of Seth's seed — 

The seed of Seth, 
Exempt for future Sorrow's sake from death. 
But of the sons of Cain 
None shall remain ; 
And all his goodly daughters 
Must lie beneath the desolating waters ; 
Or, floating upward, with their long hair laid 
Along the wave, the cruel heaven upbraid, 
Which would not spare 
Beings even in death so fair. 
It is decreed. 
All die ! 
And to the universal human cry 
The universal silence shall succeed I 
Fly, brethren, fly ! 
But still rejoice ! 
We fell ! 
They fall ! 
So perish all 
These petty foes of Heaven who shrink from hell ! 

[The Spirits disappear, soaring upwards. 
Japh. (solus). God hath proclaim'd the destiny of 
earth ; 
My father's ark of safety hath announced it ; 
The very demons shriek it from their caves'; 
The scroll ^ of Enoch prophesied it long 
In silent books, which, in their silence, say 
More to the mind than thunder to the ear : 
And yet men listen' d not, nor listen ; but 
Walk darkling to their doom ; which, though so nigh. 
Snakes them no more in their dim disbelief. 
Than their last cries shall shake the Almighty purpose. 
Or deaf obedient ocean, which fulfills it. 
No sign yet hangs its banner in the air ; 
The clouds are few, and of their wonted texture ; 
The sun will rise upon the earth's last day 
As on the fourth day of creation, when 
God said unto him, " Shine !" and he broke forth 
Into the dawn, which lighted not the yet 
Unform'd forefather of mankind — but roused 
Before the human orison the earlier 
Made and far sweeter voices of the birds. 



^ The book of Enoch, preserved by the Ethiopians, is said 
by them to be anterior to the flood. 



Which in the open firmament of heaven 

Have wings like angels, and like them salute 

Heaven first each day before the Adamites : 

Their matins now draw nigh — the east is kindling — 

And they will sing ! and day will break ! Both near, 

So near the awful close ! For these must drop 

Their outworn pinions on the deep ; and day. 

After the bright course of a few brief morrows, — 

Ay, day will rise ; but upon what ? — a chaos, 

Which was ere day ; and which, renew'd, makes time 

Nothing ! for, without life, what are the hours ? 

No more to dust than is eternity 

Unto Jehovah, who created both. 

Without him, even eternity would be 

A void ; without man, time, as made for man, 

Dies with man, and is swallow'd in that deep 

Which has no fountain ; as his race will be 

Devour' d by that which drowns his infant world. — 

What have we here ? Shapes of both earth and air . 

No — all of heaven, they are so beautiful. 

I cannot trace their features ; but their forms, 

How lovelily they move along the side 

Of the gray mountain, scattering its mist ! 

And after the swart savage spirits, whose 

Infernal immortality pour'd forth 

Their impious hymn of triumph, they shall be 

Welcome as Eden. It may be they come 

To tell me the reprieve of our young world, 

For which I have so often pray'd — They come ! 

Anah ! oh, God ! and with her 

Bnter Samiasa, AzAZiEL, Anah, and Aholibamah. 
Anah. Japhet ! 

Sam. Lo ! 

A son of Adam ! 

AzA. What doth the earth-born here. 

While all his race are slumbering? 

Japh. Angel! what 

Dost thou on earth when thou shouldst be on high ? 

AzA. Know'st thou not, or forgett'st thou, that a 
part 
Of our great function is to guard thine earth ? 

Japh. But all good angels have forsaken earth. 
Which is condemn'd ; nay, even the evil fly 
The approaching chaos. Anah ! Anah ! my 
In vain, and long, and still to be, beloved ! 
Why walk'st thou with this spirit, in those hours 
When no good spirit longer lights below ? 

Anah. Japhet, I cannot answer thee ; yet, yet 
Forgive me 

Japh. May the Heaven, which soon no more 

Will pardon, do so ! for thou art greatly tempted. 

Aho. Back to thy tents, insulting son of Noah ! 
We know thee not. 

Japh. The hour may come when thou 

Mayst know me better ; and thy sister know 
Me still the same which I have ever been. 

Sam. Son of the patriarch, who hath ever been 
Upright before his God, whate'er thy gifts, 
And thy words seem of sorrow, mix'd with wrath, 



Scene III. 



HEAVEN AND EARTH. 



283 



How have Azaziel, or myself, brought on thee 
Wrong? 

Japh. Wrong ! the greatest of all wrongs ; but thou 
Sayst well; though she be dust, I did not, could 

not. 
Deserve her. Farewell, Anah ! I have said 
That word so often ! but now say it, ne'er 
To be repeated. Angel ! or whate'er 
Thou art, or must be soon, hast thou the power 
To save this beautiful— <Aese beautiful 
Children of Cain ? 

AzA. From what ? 

Japh. And is it so, 

That ye too know not ? Angels ! angels ! ye 
Have shared man's sin, and, it may be, now must 
Partake his punishment ; or, at the least, 
My sorrow. 

Sam. Sorrow ! I ne'er thought till now 

To hear an Adamite speak riddles to me. 

Japh. And hath not the Most High expounded 
them? 
Then ye are lost, as they are lost. 

Aho. So be it ! 

If they love as they are loved, they will not shrink 
More to be mortal, than I would to dare 
An immortality of agonies 
With Samiasa ! 

Anah. Sister ! sister ! speak not 

Thus. 

AzA. Fearest thou, my Anah ? 

Anah. Yes, for thee : 

I would resign the greater remnant of 
This little life of mine, before one hour 
Of thine eternity should know a pang. 

Japh. It is for him, then ! for the seraph thou 
Hast left me ! That is nothing, if thou hast not 
Left thy God too ! for unions like to these. 
Between a mortal and an immortal, cannot 
Be happy or be hallow'd. We are sent 
^ Upon the earth to toil and die ; and they 
Are made to minister on high unto 
The Highest : but if he can save thee, soon 
The hour will come in which celestial aid 
Alone can do so. 

Anah. Ah ! he speaks of death. 

Sam. Of death to us ! and those who are with us : 
I But that the man seems full of sorrow, I 
' Could smile. 

Japh. I grieve not for myself, nor fear ; 

I am safe, not for my own deserts, but those 
Of a well-doing sire, who hath been found 
Righteous enough to save his children. Would 
His power was greater of redemption ! or 
That by exchanging my own life for hers. 
Who could alone have made mine happy, she, 
The last and loveliest of Cain's race, could share 
The ark which shall receive a remnant of 
The seed of Seth ! 

Aho. And dost thou think that we. 

With Cain's, the eldest born of Adam's, blood 



Warm in our veins, — strong Cain ! who was begotten 
In Paradise, — would mingle with Seth's children ? 
Seth, the last offspring of old Adam's dotage ? 
No, not to save all earth, were earth in peril ! 
Our race hath always dwelt apart from thine 
From the beginning, and shall do so ever. 

Japh. I did not speak to thee, Aholibamah ! 
Too much of the forefather whom thou vauntest 
Has come down in that haughty blood which springs 
From him who shed the first, and that a brother's ! 
But thou, my Anah ! let me call thee mine. 
Albeit thou art not ; 'tis a word I cannot 
Part with, although I must from thee. My Anah ! 
Thou who dost rather make me dream that Abel 
Had left a daughter, whose pure pious race 
Survived in thee, so much unlike thou art 
The rest of the stern Cainites, save in beauty. 
For all of them are fairest in their favor 

Aho. {interrupting him). And wouldst thou have 
her like our father's foe 
In mind, in soul ? If / partook thy thought, 
And dream'd that aught of Abel was in her ! — 
Get thee hence, son of Noah ; thou makest strife. 

Japh. Offspring of Cain, thy father did so ! 

Aho. But 

He slew not Seth ; and what hast thou to do 
With other deeds between his God and him ? 

Japh. Thou speakest well : his God hath judged 
him, and 
I had not named his deed, but that thyself 
Didst seem to glory in him, nor to shrink 
From what he had done. 

Aho. He was our fathers' father ; 
The eldest born of man, the strongest, bravest, 
And most enduring : — Shall I blush for him 
From whom we had our being ? Look upon 
Our race ; behold their stature and their beauty. 
Their courage, strength, and length of days 

Japh. They are number'd. 

Aho. Be it so ! but while yet their hours endure, 
I glory in my brethren and our fathers. 

Japh. My sire and race but glory in their God, 
Anah ! and thou ? 

Anah. . Whate'er our God decrees, 

The God of Seth, as Cain, I must obey. 
And will endeavor patiently to obey. 
But could I dare to pray in his dread hour 
Of universal vengeance (if such should be), 
It would not be to live, alone exempt 
Of all my house. My sister ! oh, my sister ! 
What were the world, or other worlds, or all 
The brightest future, without the sweet past — 
Thy love — my father's — all the life, and all 
The things which sprang up with me, like the stars, 
Making my dim existence radiant with 
Soft lights which were not mine ? Aholibamah ! 
Oh ! if there should be mercy — seek it, find it : 
I abhor death, because that thou must die. 

Aho. What, hath this dreamer, with his father's ark, 
The bugbear he hath built to scare the world, 



284 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Part I. 



Shfaken my sister ? Are we not the loved 
Of seraphs ? and if we were not, must we 
Cling to a son of Noah for our lives ? 

Eather than thus But the enthusiast dreams 

The worst of dreams, the fantasies engender' d 
By hopeless love and heated vigils. "Who 
Shall shake these solid mountains, this firm earth, 
And bid those clouds and waters take a shape 
Distinct from that which we and all our sires 
Have seen them wear on their eternal way ? 
Who shall do this ? 

Japh. He whose one word produced them. 

Aho. Who heard that word ? 

Japh. The universe, which leap'd 

To life before it. Ah ! smilest thou still in scorn ? 
Turn to thy seraphs : if they attest it not. 
They are none. 

Sam. Aholibamah, own thy God ! 

Aho. I have ever hail'd our Maker, Samiasa, 
As thine, and mine : a God of love, not sorrow. 

Japh. Alas ! what else is love but sorrow ? Even 
He who made earth in love had soon to grieve 
Above its first and best inhabitants. 

Aho. 'Tis said so. 

Japh. It is even so. 

Enter NOAH and Shem. 

Noah. Japhet! What 

Dost thou here with these children of the wicked? 
Dread'st thou not to partake their coming doom ? 

Japh. Father, it cannot be a sin to seek 
To save an earth-born being ; and behold. 
These are not of the sinful, since they have 
The fellowship of angels. 

Noah. These are they, then, 

Who leave the throne of God, to take them wives 
From out the race of Cain ; the sons of heaven. 
Who seek earth's daughters for their beauty ? 

AzA. Patriarch ! 

Thou hast said it. 

Noah. Woe, woe, woe to such communion ! 

Has not God made a barrier between earth 
And heaven, and limited each, kind to kind ? 

Sam. Was not man made in high Jehovah's image ? 
Did God not love what he had made ? And what 
Do we but imitate and emulate 
His love unto created love ? 

Noah. I am 

But man, and was not made to judge mankind, 
Far less the sons of God ; but as our God 
Has deign'd to commune with me, and reveal 
His judgments, I reply, that the descent 
Of seraphs from the everlasting seat 
Unto a perishable and perishing, 
Even on the very eve of perishing, world, 
Cannot be good. 



1 In the original MS. "Michael." — "I return you," says 
Lord Byron to Mr. Murray, " the revise. I have softened the 
part to which Gifford objected, and changed the name of 



AzA. What ! though it were to save ? 

Noah. Not ye in all your glory can redeem 
What he who made you glorious hath condemn'd. 
Were your immortal mission safety, 'twould 
Be general, not for two, though beautiful ; 
And beautiful they are, but not the less 
Condemn'd. 

Japh. Oh, father ! say it not. 

Noah. Son! son! 

If that thou wouldst avoid their doom, forget 
That they exist : they soon shall cease to be. 
While thou shalt be the sire of a new world. 
And better. 

Japh. Let me die with this, and them ! 

Noah. Thou shouldst for such a thought, but shalt 
not; he 
Who can, redeems thee. 

Sam. And why him and thee, 

More than what he, thy son, prefers to both ? 

Noah. Ask him who made thee greater than myself 
And mine, but not less subject to his own 
Almightiness. And lo ! his mildest and 
Least to be tempted messenger appears ! 

Enter Eaphael,i the Archangel. 
Eaph. Spirits ! 

Whose seat is near the throne, 
What do ye here ? 
Is thus a seraph's duty to be shown, 
Now that the hour is near 
When earth must be alone ? 
Eeturn ! 
Adore and burn 
In glorious homage with the elected " seven." 
Your place is heaven. 
Sam. Eaphael ! 

The first and fairest of the sons of God, 

How long hath this been law, 
That earth by angels must be left untrod ? 

Earth ! which oft saw 
Jehovah's footsteps not disdain her sod ! 
The world he loved, and made 
For love ; and oft have we obey'd 
His frequent mission with delighted pinions : 

Adoring him in his least works display'd ; 
Watching this youngest star of his ^ominions ; 
And, as the latest birth of his great word, 
Eager to keep it worthy of our Lord. 
Why is thy brow severe ? 
And wherefore speak'st thou of destruction near? 

Eaph. Had Samiasa and Azaziel been 
In their true place, with the angelic choir. 
Written in fire 
They would have seen 
Jehovah's late decree. 
And not inquired their Maker's breath of me : 



Michael to Raphael, who was an angel of gentler sym- 
pathies." — Byron Letters, July 6, 1822. 



Scene III. 



HEAVEN AND EAETH. 



285 



But ignorance must ever be 
A part of sin ; 
And even the spirits' knowledge shall grow less 

As they wax proud within ; 
For Blindness is the first-born of Excess. 

When all good angels left the world, ye stay'd, 
Stung with strange passions, and debased 

By mortal feelings for a mortal maid : 
But ye are pardon'd thus far, and replaced 
With your pure equals. Hence ! away ! away ! 
Or stay, 
And lose eternity by that delay. 
AzA. And thou ! if earth be thus forbidden 
In the decree 
To us until this moment hidden, 
Dost thou not err as we 
In being here ? 
Raph. I came to call ye back to your fit sphere. 
In the great name and at the word of God. 
Dear, dearest in themselves, and scarce less dear 

That which I came to do : till now we trod 
Together the eternal space ; together 
Let us still walk the stars. True, earth must 
die! 
Her race, return'd into her womb, must wither. 
And much which she inherits : but oh ! why 
Cannot this earth be made, or be destroy'd. 
Without involving ever some vast void 
In the immortal ranks ? immortal still 

In their immeasurable forfeiture. 
Our brother Satan fell ; his burning will 
Rather than longer worship dared endure ! 

But ye who still are pure ! 
i-raphs ! less mighty than that mightiest one, 
Think how he was undone ! 
And think if tempting man can compensate 
For heaven desired too late ? 
Long have I warr'd. 
Long must I war 
With him who deem'd it hard 
To be created, and to acknowledge him 
Who midst the cherubim 
Made him as suns to a dependent star, 
Leaving the archangels at his right hand dim. 
I loved him — beautiful he was : oh heaven ! 
Save his who made, what beauty and what power 
Was ever like to Satan's ! Would the hour 

In which he fell could ever be forgiven ! 
The wish is impious : but, oh ye ! 
Yet undestroy'd, be warn'd ! Eternity 
With him, or with his God, is in your choice : 
I He hath not tempted you : he cannot tempt 
I The angels, from his further snares exempt : 
But man hath listen'd to his voice, 
And ye to woman's — beautiful she is. 
The serpent's voice less subtle than her kiss. 
The snake but vanquish'd dust ; but she will draw 
A second host from heaven, to break heaven's law. 
Yet, yet, oh fly ! 
Ye cannot die : 



But they * 

Shall pass away. 
While ye shall fill with shrieks the upper sky 

For perishable clay. 
Whose memory in your immortality 

Shall long outlast the sun which gave them day. 
Think how your essence diflereth from theirs 
In all but sufiering ! why partake 
The agony to which they must be heirs — 
Born to be plough'd with years, and sown with cares ; 

And reap'd by Death, lord of the human soil ? 
Even had their days been left to toil their path 
Through time to dust, unshorten'd by God's wrath, 
Still they are Evil's prey and Sorrow's spoil. 
Aho. Let them fly ! 

I hear the voice which says that all must die 
Sooner than our white-bearded patriarchs died ; 
And that on high 
An ocean is prepared, 
While from below 
The deep shall rise to meet heaven's overflow. 

Few shall be spared. 
It seems ; and, of that few, the race of Cain 
Must lift their eyes to Adam's God in vain. 
Sister ! since it is so, 
And the eternal Lord 
In vain would be implored 
For the remission of one hour of woe, 
Let us resign even what we have adored. 
And meet the wave, as we would meet the sword, 

If not unmoved, yet undismay'd. 
And wailing less for us than those who shall 
Survive in mortal or immortal thrall. 

And, when the fatal waters are allay'd, 
Weep for the myriads who can weep no more. 
Fly, seraphs ! to your own eternal shore, 
Where winds nor howl nor waters roar. 
Our portion is to die. 
And yours to live for ever : 
But which is best, a dead eternity, 
Or living, is but known to the great Giver. 
Obey him, as we shall obey ; 
I would not keep this life of mine in clay 
An hour beyond his will ; 
Nor see ye lose a portion of his grace. 
For all the mercy which Seth's race 
Find still. 
Fly! 
And as your pinions bear ye back to heaven. 
Think that my love still mounts with thee on high, 

Samiasa ! 
And if I look up with a tearless eye, 
'Tis that an angel's bride disdains to weep — 
Farewell ! Now rise, inexorable Deep ! 
Anah. And must we die ? 

And must I lose thee too, 
Azaziel! 
Oh my heart ! my heart ! 

Thy prophecies were true! 
And yet thou wert so happy too ! 



286 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Part II. 



The blow, thougli not unlook'd for, falls as new • 
But yet depart ! 
Ah! why? 
Yet let me not retain thee — fly ! 
My pangs can be but brief; but thine would be 
Eternal, if repulsed from heaven for me. 
Too much already hast thou deign'd 
To one of Adam's race ! 
Our doom is sorrow : not to us alone, 
But to the spirits who have not disdain'd 
To love us, Cometh anguish with disgrace. 
The first who taught us knowledge hath been hurl'd 
From his once archangelic throne 
Into some unknown world : 
And thou, Azaziel ! No — 
Thou shalt not suffer woe 
For me. Away ! nor weep ! 
Thou canst not weep ; but yet 
Mayst suffer more, not weeping : then forget 
Her, whom the surges of the all-strangling deep 

Can bring no pang like this. Fly ! fly ! 
Being gone, 'twill be less difficult to die. 
Japh. Oh say not so ! 

..Father ! and thou, archangel, thou ! 
Surely celestial mercy lurks below 

That pure severe serenity of brow : 

Let them not meet this sea without a shore. 

Save in our ark, or let me be no more ! 

Noah. Peace, child of passion, peace ! 

If not within thy heart, yet with thy tongue 

Do God no wrong ! 
Live as he wills it — die, when he ordains, 
A righteous death, unlike the seed of Cain's. 

Cease, or be sorrowful in silence ; cease 
To weary Heaven's ear with thy selfish plaint. 
Wouldst thou have God commit a sin for thee ? 
Such would it be 
To alter his intent 
For a mere mortal sorrow. Be a man ! 
And bear what Adam's race must bear, and can. 
Japh. Ay, father ! but when they are gone. 
And we are all alone, 
Floating upon the azure desert, and 
The depth beneath us hides our own dear land, 
And dearer, silent friends and brethren, all 
Buried in its immeasurable breast. 
Who, who, our tears, our shrieks, shall then command ? 
Can we in desolation's peace have rest ? 
Oh God ! be thou a God, and spare 

Yet while 'tis time ! 
Eenew not Adam's fall : 
Mankind were then but twain, 
But they are numerous now as are the waves 

And the tremendous rain, 
Whose drops shall be less thick than would their 
graves. 
Were graves permitted to the seed of Cain. 
Noah. Silence, vain boy ! each word of thine's a 
crime. 
Angels, forgive this stripling's fond despair. 



Raph. Seraphs ! these mortals speak in passion : 
Ye! 
Who are, or should be, passionless and pure, 
May now return with me. 

Sam. It may not be : 

We have chosen, and will endure. 
Raph. Saystthou? 

AzA. He hath said it, and I say, Amen ! 

Raph. Again ! 
Then from this hour. 
Shorn as ye are of all celestial power, 
And aliens from your God, 
Farewell ! 
Japh. Alas ! where shall they dwell ? 

Hark, hark ! Deep sounds, and deeper still, 
Are howling from the mountain's bosom : 
There's not a breath of wind upon the hill, 

Yet quivers every leaf, and drops each blossom : 
Earth groans as if beneath a heavy load. 
Noah. Hark, hark ! the sea-birds cry ! 
In clouds they overspread the lurid sky, 
And hover round the mountain, where before 
Never a white wing, wetted by the wave, 

Yet dared to soar. 
Even when the waters wax'd too fierce to brave. 
Soon it shall be their only shore. 
And then, no more ! 
Japh. The sun ! the sun ! 

He riseth, but his better light is gone, 
And a black circle, bound 
His glaring disk around. 
Proclaims earth's last of summer days hath shone ! 

The clouds return into the hues of night. 
Save where their brazen-color'd edges streak 
The verge where brighter morns were wont to break. 

Noah. And lo ! yon flash of light, 
The distant thunder's harbinger, appears ! 

It Cometh ! hence, away ! 
Leave to the elements their evil prey ! 
Hence to where our all-hallow'd ark uprears 
Its safe and wreckless sides ! 
Japh. Oh, father, stay ! 
Leave not my Anah to the swallowing tides ! 
Noah. Must we not leave all life to such ? Begone ! 
Japh. Not I. 

Noah. Then die 

With them ! 
How darest thou look on that prophetic sky, 
And seek to save what all things now condemn, 
In overwhelming unison 

With just Jehovah's wrath ! 
Japh. Can rage and justice join in the same path ? 
Noah. Blasphemer ! darest thou murmur even now? 
Raph. Patriarch, be still a father ! smooth thy brow : 
Thy son, despite his folly, shall not sink : 
He knows not what he says, yet shall not drink 

With sobs the salt foam of the swelling waters ; 
But be, when passion passeth, good as thou. 
Nor perish like heaven's children with man's 
daughters. 



Scene III. 



HEAVEN AND EARTH. 



287 



Aho. The tempest cometh; heaven and earth 
unite 
For the annihilation of all life. 
Unequal is the strife 
Between our strength and the Eternal Might ! 
Sam. But ours is with thee : we will bear ye far 
To some untroubled star, 
Where thou and Anah shalt partake our lot : 

And if thou dost not weep for thy lost earth, 
Our forfeit heaven shall also be forgot. 
Anah. Oh ! my dear father's tents, my place of 
birth ! 
And mountains, land, and woods ! when ye are not, 
Who shall dry up my tears ? 

AZA. Thy spirit-lord. 

Fear not ; though we are shut from heaven, 
Yet much is ours, whence we cannot be driven. 

Raph. Eebel ! thy words are wicked as thy deeds 
Shall henceforth be but weak : the flaming sword. 
Which chased the first-born out of Paradise, 
Still flashes in the angelic hands. 

Aza. It cannot slay us : threaten dust with death. 
And talk of weapons unto that which bleeds. 
What are thy swords in our immortal eyes ? 
Raph. The moment cometh to approve thy 
strength ; 
And learn at length 
How vain to war with what thy God commands : 
Thy former force was in thy faith. 

Enter 3fortals, flying for refuge. 

Chorus of Ilortals. 
The heavens and earth are mingling — God ! oh God ! 
What have we done ? Yet spare ! 
Hark ! even the forest beasts howl forth their prayer ! 

The dragon crawls from out his den. 

To herd, in terror, innocent with men ; 
And the birds scream their agony through air. 
Yet, yet, Jehovah ! yet withdraw thy rod 
Of wrath, and pity thine own world's despair ! 
Hear not Man only but all Nature plead ! 

Raph. Farewell, thou earth ! ye wretched sons of 
clay, 
I cannot, must not, aid you. 'Tis decreed ! 

Exit Raphael. 

Japh. Some clouds sweep on as vultures for their 
prey, 
While others, fix'd as rocks, await the word 
At which their wrathful vials shall be pour'd. 
No ^zure more shall robe the firmament. 

Nor spangled stars be glorious : Death hath risen : 
In the sun's place a pale and ghastly glare 
Hath wound itself around the dying air.i 

^ " In his description of the deluge, which is a varied and 
recurring masterpiece (we hear it foretold, and we see it 
come), Lord Byron appears to us to have had an eye to 
Pousain's celebrated picture, with the sky hanging like a 
weight of lead upon the waters, the sun quenched and lurid, 
the rocks and trees upon them gloomily watching their fate, 



AzA. Come, Anah ! quit this chaos-founded prison, 
To which the elements again repair. 
To turn it into what it was : beneath 
The shelter of these wings thou shalt be safe, 
As was the eagle's nestling once within 
Its mother's— Let the coming chaos chafe 
With all its elements ! Heed not their din ! 
A brighter world than this, where thou shalt breathe 
Ethereal life, will we explore : 
These darken 'd clouds are not the only skies. 

[AZAZIEL and Samiasa fly off and disappear 
with Anah and Aholibamah. 

Japh. They are gone! They have disappear'd 
amidst the roar 
Of the forsaken world ; and never more, 
Whether they live, or die with all earth's life, 
Now near its last, can aught restore 
Anah unto these eyes.^ 

Chorus of Mortals. 
Oh son of Noah ! mercy on thy kind ! 
What ! wilt thou leave us all — all — all behind ? 
While safe amidst the elemental strife. 
Thou sitt'st within thy guarded ark ? 
A Mother {offering her infant to Japhet). Oh 
let this child embark ! 
I brought him forth in woe, 

But thought it joy 
To see him to my bosom clinging so. 
Why was he born ? 
What hath he done — 
My unwean'd son — 
To move Jehovah's wrath or scorn ? 
What is there in this milk of mine, that death 
Should stir all heaven and earth up to destroy 

My boy, 
And roll the waters o'er his placid breath ? 
Save him, thou seed of Seth ! 
Or cursed be — with him who made 
Thee and thy race, for which we are betray'd ! 
Japh. Peace ! 'tis no hour for curses, but for prayer. 

Chorus of Mortals. 
For prayer ! ! ! 
And where 
Shall prayer ascend. 
When the swoln clouds unto the mountains bend 

And burst, 
And gushing oceans every barrier rend, 
Until the very deserts know no thirst ? 
Accursed 
Be he who made thee and thy sire ! 
We deem our curses vain ; we must expire ; 
But as we know the worst, 

and a few figures struggling vainly with the overwhelming 
waves."— Jeffeey. 

2 " The despair of the mortal lovers for the loss of their 
mortal mistresses is well and pathetically expressed."— Jef- 
frey. 



!88 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Part I. 



Why should our hymn he raised, our knees be bent - 

Before the implacable Omnipotent, 

Since we must fall the same ? 

If he hath made earth, let it be his shame. 

To make a world for torture. — Lo ! they come, 
The loathsome waters, in their rage ! 
And with their roar make wholesome Nature dumb ! 

The forest's trees (coeval with the hour 
When Paradise upsprung, 

Ere Eve gave Adam knowledge for her dower, 
Or Adam his first hymn of slavery sung), 
So massy, vast, yet green in their old age. 
Are overtopp'd, 
Their summer blossoms by the surges lopp'd, 
Which rise, and rise, and rise. 
Vainly we look up to the lowering skies — 

They meet the seas. 
And shut out God from our beseeching eyes. 
Fly, son of Noah, fly ! and take thine ease 
In thine allotted ocean-tent ; 
And view, all floating o'er the element. 
The corpses of the world of thy young days : 
Then to Jehovah raise 
Thy song of praise ! 
A Mortal. Blessed are the dead 
Who die in the Lord ! 
And though the waters be o'er earth outspread. 
Yet, as Ms word. 
Be the decree adored ! 
He gave me life — he taketh but 
The breath which is his own : 
And though these eyes should be for ever shut, 
Nor longer this weak voice before his throne 
Be heard in supplicating tone. 

Still blessed be the Lord, 
For what is past. 
For that which is : 
For all are his, 
From first to last — 
Time— space — eternity— life — death — 

The vast known and immeasurable unknown. 
He made, and can unmake ; 



1 " This poem carries with it the peculiar impress of the 
■writer's genius. It displays great vigor, and even a severity 
of style, throughout ; which is another proof, if proof were 
needed, that elevation of writing is to be obtained only by a 
rigid regard to simplicity. It may be pursued without shock- 
ing the feelings of the sensitive, or furnishing an object for 
the discriminating morality of the Lord Chancellor. Lord 
Byron has evidently endeavored to sustain the interest of 
this poem, by depicting natural but deep-drawn thoughts, in 
all their freshness and intensity, with as little fictitious aid as 
possible. Nothing is circumlocutory ; there is no going about 
and about to enter at length upon his object, but he impetu- 
ously rushes into it at once. All over the poem there is a 
gloom cast suitable to the subject : an ominous fearful hue, 
like that which Poussin has flung over his inimitable picture 
of the Deluge. We see much evil, but we dread more. All is 
out of earthly keeping, as the events of the time are out of 
the course of nature. Man's wickedness, the perturbed cre- 
ation, fear-struck mortals, demons passing to and fro in the 
earth, an overshadowing solemnity, and unearthly loves, form 



And shall I, for a little gasp of breath, 

Blaspheme and groan ? 
No ; let me die, as I have lived, in faith, 
Nor quiver, though the universe may quake ! 

Chorus of Mortals. 
Where shall we fly ? 
Not to the mountains high ; 
For now their torrents rush, with double roar, 

To meet the ocean, which, advancing still, 
Already grasps each drowning hill, 
Nor leaves an unsearch'd cave. 

Enter a Woman. 
Woman. Oh, save me, save ! 
Our valley is no more : 

My father and my father's tent, 
My brethren and my brethren's herds, 

The pleasant trees that o'er our noonday bent, 
And sent forth evening songs from sweetest 

birds. 
The little rivulet which freshen'd all 
Our pastures green. 
No more are to be seen. 
When to the mountain cliff" I climb'd this morn, 

I turn'd to bless the spot, 
And not a leaf appear'd about to fall ; — 

And now they are not ! — 
Why was I born ? 

Japh. To die ! in youth to die ! 

And happier in that doom. 
Than to behold the universal tomb 

Which I 
Am thus condemn'd to weep above in vain. 
Why, when all perish, why must I remain ? i 

[The waters rise; Men fly in every direction; 
many are overtaken hy the waves; the Chorus 
of Mortals disperses in search of safety up 
the mountains; Japhet remains upon a rock, 
while the Ark floats towards him in the dis- 
tance. 



together the materials. That it has faults is obvious: pro- 
saic passages, and too much tedious soliloquizing ; but there 
is the vigor and force of Byron to fling into the scale against 
these : there is much of the sublime in description, and the 
beautiful in poetry. Prejudice, or ignorance, or both, may 
condemn it ; but, while true poetical feeling exists amongst 
us, it will be pronounced not unworthy of its distinguished 
author.' '—Campbell. 

" It appears that this is but the first part of a poem ; b«t it 
is likewise a poem, and a fine one too, within itself. We con- 
fess that we see little or nothing objectionable in it, either as 
to theological orthodoxy, or general human feeling. It is 
solemn, lofty, fearful, wild, tumultuous; and shadowed"all 
over with the darkness of a dreadful disaster. Of the angels 
who love the daughters of men we see little, and know less — 
and not too much of the love and passion of the fair lost mor- 
tals. The inconsolable despair preceding and accompanying 
an incomprehensible catastrophe pervades the whole compo- 
sition ; audits expression is made sublime by the noble strain 
of poetry in which it is said or sung." — Wilson. 



HEAVEN AND EARTH. 



289 



"This ' Mystery' has more poetry and music in it than any 
of Lord Byron's dramatic writings since ' Manfred ;' and has 
also the peculiar merit of throwing us back, in a great de- 
gree, to the strange and preternatural time of which it pro- 
fesses to treat. It is truly, and in every sense of the word, a 
meeting of ' Heaven and Earth :' angels are seen ascending 
and descending, and the windows of the sky are opened to 
deluge the face of nature. We have an impassioned picture 
of the strong and devoted attachment inspired into the daugh- 
ters of men by angel forms, and have placed before us the 
emphatic picture of ' woman wailing for her demon lover.' 
There is a like conflict of the passions as of the elements — 
all wild, chaotic, uncontrollable, fatal ; but there is a discord- 
ant harmony in all this — a keeping in the coloring and the 
time. In handling the unpolished page, we look upon the 
world before the flood, and gaze upon a doubtful blank, with 
only a few straggling figures, part human and part divine ; 
while, in the expression of the former, we read the fancies, 
ethereal and lawless, that lifted the eye of beauty to the 
skies, and, in the latter, the human passions that 'drew 
angels down to earth.' " — Jeffrey. 

" Among all the wonderful excellences of Milton, nothing 
surpasses the pure and undisturbed idealism with which he 
has drawn our first parents, so completely human as to excite 
our most ardent sympathies, yet so far distinct from the com- 
mon race of men as manifestly to belong to a higher and un- 
corrupted state of being. In like manner, his Paradise is 
formed of the universal productions of nature — the flowers, 
the fruits, the trees, the waters, the cool breezes, the soft and 
sunny slopes, the majestic hills that skirt the scene ; yet the 
whole is of an earlier, a more prolific, a more luxuriant vege- 
tation : it fully comes up to our notion of what the earth might 
have been before it wa.s ' cursed of its Creator.' This is the 
more remarkable, as Milton himself sometimes destroys, or at 
least mars, the general effect of his picture, by the introduc- 
tion of incongruous thoughts or images. The poet's passions 
are, on occasions, too strong for his imagination, drag him 
down to earth, and, for the sake of some ill-timed allusion to 



some of those circumstances, which had taken possession of 
his mighty mind, he runs the hazard of breaking the solemn 
enchantment with which he has spell-bound our captive 
senses. Perhaps, of later writers, Lord Byron alone h:is caught 
the true tone, in his short drama called ' Heaven and Earth.' 
Here, notwithstanding that we cannot but admit the great 
and manifold delinquencies against correct taste, particularly 
some perfectly ludicrous metrical whimsies, yet all is in keep- 
ing — all is strange, poetic, Oriental ; the lyric abruptness, the 
prodigal accumulation of images in one part, and the rude 
simplicity in others— above all, the general tone of description 
as to natural objects, and of language and feeling in the 
scarcely mortal beings which come forth upon the scene, seem 
to throw us upward into the age of men before their lives 
were shortened to the narrow span of three-score years and 
ten, and when all that walked the earth were not born of 
woman."— MiLMAN. 

" The Mystery of ' Heaven and Earth ' is conceived in the 
best style of the greatest masters of poetry and painting. It 
is not unworthy of Dante, and of the mighty artist to whom 
we have alluded. As a picture of the last deluge, it is incom- 
parably grand and awful. The characters, too, are invested 
with great dignity and grace. Nothing can be more imposing 
and fascinating than the haughty, and imperious, and passion- 
ate beauty of the daughter of Cain ; nor any thing more ven- 
erable than the mild but inflexible dignity of the patriarch 
Noah. We trust that no one will be found with feelings so 
obtuse, with taste so perverted, or with malignity so undis- 
guised, as to mar the beauties of pictures like these, by impu- 
ting to their author the cool profession of those sentiments 
which he exhibits as extorted from perishing mortals, in their 
last instant of despair and death. Such a poem as this, if read 
aright, is calculated, by its lofty passion and sublime concep- 
tions, to exalt the mind and purify the heart beyond the 
power of many a sober homily. It will remain an imperishable 
monument of the transcendent talents of its author ; whom it 
has raised, in our estimation, to a higher pitch of pre-eminence 
than he ever before attained." — M. Mag. 



19 



5)arUanapaIus: 



A TEAGEDY.i 



TO 

THE ILLUSTRIOUS GOETHE 

A STRANGER PRESUMES TO OFFER THE HOMAGE 

OF A I,ITERARY VASSAL TO HIS LIEGE LORD, THE FIRST OP EXISTING WRITERS, 

WHO HAS CREATED THE LITERATURE OP HIS OWN COUNTRY, 

AND ILLUSTRATED THAT OP EUROPE. 

THE UNWORTHY PRODUCTION WHICH THE AUTHOR VENTURES TO INSCRIBE TO HIM 

IS ENTITLED 
SARDANAPALUS.2 



PREFACE. 

In publishing the following Tragedies ^ I have 
only to repeat, that they were not composed with 
the most remote view to the stage. On the attempt 
made by the managers in a former instance, the 



1 On the original MS. Lord Byron has written : — " Mem. 
Ravenna, May 27, 1821. — I began this drama on the 13th of 
January, 1821 ; and continued the two first acts very slowly, 
and by intervals. The three last acts were written since the 
13th of May, 1821 (this present month) ; that is to say, in a 
fortnight." The following are extracts from Lord Byron's 
diary and letters : — 

" January 13, 1821. Sketched the outline and Dram. Pers. 
of an intended tragedy of Sardanapalus, which I have for 
some time meditated. Took the names from Diodorus Sicu- 
lus (I know the history of Sardanapalus, and have known 
it since I was twelve years old), and read over a passage in 
the ninth volume of Mitford's Greece, where he rather vin- 
dicates the memory of this last of the Assyrians. Carried 
Teresa the Italian translation of Grillparzer's Sappho. She 
quarrelled with me, because I said that love was not the loftiest 
theme for a tragedy ; and, having the advantage of her native 
language, and natural female eloquence, she overcame my 
fewer arguments. I believe she was right. I must put more 
love into ' Sardanapalus ' than I intended." 

" May 25. I have completed four acts. I have made Sarda- 
napalus brave (though voluptuous, as history represents 
him), and also as amiable as my poor powers could render 
him. 1 have strictly preserved all the unities hitherto, and 
mean to continue them in the fifth, if possible ; but not for 
the stageP 

" May 30. By this post I send you the tragedy. You will 
remark that the unities are all strictly preserved. The scene 
passes in the same hall always : the time, a summer's night, 
about nine hours or less ; though it begins before sunset, and 
ends after sunrise. It is not for the stage, any more than the 
( 290) 



public opinion has been already expressed. With 
regard to my own private feelings, as it seems 
that they are to stand for nothing, I shall say noth- 
ing. 

For the historical foundation of the following com- 
positions the reader is referred to the Notes. 



other was intended for it ; and I shall take better care this 
time that they don't get hold on't." 

"July 14. I trust that 'Sardanapalus' will not be mistaken 
for a political play ; which was so far from my intention, 
that I thought of nothing but Asiatic history. My object 
has been to dramatize, like the Greeks (a modest phrase), 
striking passages of history and mythology. You will find 
all this very unlike Shakspeare ; and so much the better in 
one sense, for I look upon him to be the worst of models, 
though the most extraordinary of writers. It has been my 
object to be as simple and severe as Alfieri, and I have broken 
down the poetry as nearly as I could to common language. 
The hardship is that, in these times, one can neither speak of 
kings nor queens without suspicion of politics or personali- 
ties. I intended neither." 

"July 22. Print away, and publish. I think they must 
own that I have more styles than one. ' Sardanapalus ' is, 
however, almost a comic character : but, for that matter, so 
is Richard the Third. Mind the unities, which are my great 
object of research. I am glad Gifford likes it: as for the 
million, you see I have carefully consulted any thing but the 
taste of the day for extravagant ' coups de thgatre.' " 

Sardanapalus was published in December, 1821, and was 
received with very great approbation. 

2 " Well knowing myself and my labors, in my old age, I 
could not but reflect with gratitude and diffidence on the ex- 
pressions contained in this dedication, nor interpret them 
but as the generous tribute of a superior genius, no less origi- 
nal in the choice than inexhaustible in the materials of his 
subjects." — Goethe. 

3 " Sardanapalus " originally appeared in the same volume 
with " The Two Foscari." 



SARDANAPALUS. 



291 



The author has in one instance attempted to pre- 
serve, and in the other to approach, the " unities ;" 
conceiving that with any very distant departure from 
them, there may be poetry, but can be no drama. 
He is aware of the unpopularity of this notion in 
present English literature ; but it is not a system of 
his own, being merely an opinion, which, not very 
long ago, was the law of literature throughout the 
world, and is still so in the more civilized parts of it. 
But "nous avons change tout cela," and are reaping 
the advantages of the change. The writer is far from 
conceiving that any thing he can adduce by personal 
precept or example can at all approach his regular, 
or even irregular, predecessors ; he is merely giving 
a reason why he preferred the more regular forma- 
tion of a structure, however feeble, to an entire aban- 
donment of all rules whatsoever. Where he has 
failed, the failure is in the architect. — and not in the 
art.i 

^ "In this preface," says Mr. Jeffrey, "Lord Byron re- 
news his protest against looking upon any of his plays as 
having been composed ' with the most remote view to the 
stage ;' and, at the same time, testifies in behalf of the uni- 
ties, as essential to the existence of the drama — according to 
what ' was till lately the law of literature throughout the 
world, and is still so in the more civilized parts of it.' We do 
not think those opinions very consistent ; and we think that 
neither of them could possibly find favor with a person whose 
genius had a truly dramatic character. We should as soon 
expect an orator to compose a speech altogether unfit to be 
spoken. A drama is not merely a dialogue, but an action; 
and necessarily supposes that something is to pass before the 
eyes of assembled spectators. WHiatever is peculiar to its 
written part, should derive its peculiarity from this consid- 
eration. Its style should be an accompaniment to action, 
and should be calculated to excite the emotions, and keep 
alive the attention, of gazing multitudes. If an author does 
not bear this continually in his mind, and docs not write in 
the ideal presence of an eager and diversified assemblage, he 
may be a poet perhaps, but assuredly he will never be a dra- 
matist. If Lord Byron really does not wish to impregnate 
his elaborate scenes with the living part of the drama— if he 
has no hankering after stage effect — if he is not haunted with 
the visible presentiment of the persons he has created — if, in 
setting down a vehement invective, he does not fancy the 
tone in which Mr. Kean would deliver it, and anticipate the 
long applauses of the pit, then he may be sure that neither 
his feelings nor his genius are in unison with the stage at 
all. Why, then, should he affect the form, without the power 
of tragedy ? Didactic reasoning and eloquent description will 
not compensate, in a play, for a dearth of dramatic spirit and 
invention ; and, besides, sterling sense and poetry, as such, 
ought to stand by themselves, without the unmeaning mock- 
ery of a dramatis personce. As to Lord Byron pretending to 
set up the unities at this time of day, as ' the law of literature 
throughout the world,' it is mere caprice and contradiction. 
He, if ever man was, is a law to himself— ' a chartered liber- 
tine ;' — and now, when he is tired of this unbridled license, he 
wants to do penance within the unities ! English dramatic 
poetry soars above the unities, just as the imagination does. 
The only pretence for insisting on them is, that we suppose the 
stage itself to be, actually and really, the very spot on which a 
given action is performed ; and, if so, this space cannot be re- 
moved to another. But the supposition is manifestly quite con- 
trary to truth and experience." — Edinburgh Review, vol. xxxvi. 

The reader may be pleased to compare the above with the 
following passage from Dr. Johnson : — 



DRAMATIS PERSON^.2 



MEN. 
Sardanapalus, King of Nineveh and Assyria, &c. 
Arbaces, the Mede who aspired to the Throne. 
Beleses, a Chaldean and Soothsayer. 
Salemenes, the King's Brother-in-law. 
Altada, an Assyrian Officer of the Palace. 
Pania. 
Zames. 
Sfero. 
Balea. 

WOMEN. 
Z A ETNA, the Queen. ^ 

^Iyrrha, a?2 Ionian female Slave, and the Favorite 

of Sardanapalus. 
Women composing the Harem of Sardanapalus, 

Guards, Attendants, Chaldean Priests, 3Iedes, &c. &c. 

Scene.— A Hall in the Royal Palace of Nineveh. 

" Whether Shakspeare knew the unities, and rejected them 
by design, or deviated from them by happy ignorance, it is, I 
think, impossible to decide and useless to inquire. We may 
reasonably suppose, that when he rose to notice, he did not 
want the counsels and admonitions of scholars and critics ; 
and that he at last deliberately persisted in a practice which 
he might have begun by chance. As nothing is essential to 
the fable but unity of action, and as the unities of time and 
place arise evidently from false assumptions, and, by circum- 
scribing the extent of the drama, lessen its variety, I cannot 
think it much to be lamented that they were not known by 
him, or not observed ; nor, if such another poet could arise, 
should I very vehemently reproach him, that his first act 
passed at Venice, and his next in Cyprus. Such violations 
of rules merely positive become the comprehensive genius of 
Shakspeare, and such censures are suitable to the minute and 
slender criticism of Voltaire :— 

' Non usque adeo permiscuit imis 

Longus summa dies, ut non, si voce Metelli 
Serventur leges, malint a Csesare tolli.' 
Yet, when I speak thus slightly of dramatic rules, I cannot 
but recollect how much wit and learning may be produced 
against me ; before such authorities I am afraid to stand, not 
that I think the present question one of those that are to be 
decided by mere authority, but because it is to be suspected, 
that these precepts have not been so easily received, but for 
far better reasons than I have yet been able to find. The 
result of my inquiries, in which it would be ludicrous to 
boast of impartiality, is, that the unities of time and place 
are not essential to a just drama; that though they may 
sometimes conduce to pleasure, they are always to be sacri- 
ficed to the nobler beauties of variety and instruction ; and 
that a play written with nice observation of critical rules is 
to be contemplated as an elaborate curiosity, as the product 
of superfluous and ostentatious art, by which is shown rather 
what is possible than what is necessary. He that without dim- 
inution of any other excellence shall preserve all the unities 
unbroken, deserves the like applause with the architect who 
shall display all the orders of architecture in a citadel, without 
any deduction from its strength : but the principal beauty of a 
citadel is to exclude the enemy ; and the greatest graces of a play 
are to copy nature and instruct life." — Preface to Shakspeare. 

2 In this tragedy it has been my intention to follow the 
account of Diodorus Siculus; reducing it, however, to such 
dramatic regularity as I best could, and striving to approach 
the unities. I therefore suppose the rebellion to explode 
and succeed in one day by a sudden conspiracy, instead of 
the long war of the history. 



292 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Act I. 



SarXranapalUiS,* 



ACT I. 

SCENE I. 

A Sail in the Palace. 

Salemenes [solus). He hath wrong'd his queen, 
but still he is her lord ; 
He hath wrong'd my sister, still he is my brother ; 
He hath wrong'd his people, still he is their sovereign, 
And I nwist be his friend as well as subject : 
He must not perish thus. I will not see 
The blood of Nimrod and Semiramis 
Sink in the earth, and thirteen hundred years 
Of empire ending like a shepherd's tale ; 
He must be roused. In his effeminate heart 
There is a careless courage which corruption 
Has not all quench'd, and latent energies, 
Eepress'd by circumstance, but not destroy'd — 
Steep'd, but not drown'd, in deep voluptuousness. 
If born a peasant, he had been a man 
To have reach'd an empire : to an empire born. 
He will bequeath none ; noticing but a name, 
Which his sons will not prize in heritage : 
Yet, not all lost, even yet he may redeem 
His sloth and shame, by only being that 

1 " Sardanapalus is, beyond all doubt, a work of great 
beauty and power ; and though the heroine has many traits 
in common with the Medoras and Gulnares of Lord Byron's 
undramatic poetry, the hero must be allowed to be a new 
character in his hands. He has, indeed, the scorn of war, 
and glory, and priestcraft, and regular morality, which dis- 
tinguishes the rest of his lordship's favorites; but he has no 
misanthropy, and very little pride, and may be regarded, on 
the whole, as one of the most truly good-humored, amiable, 
and respectable voluptuaries to whom we have ever been 
presented. In this conception of his character the author 
has very wisely followed nature and fancy rather than his- 
tory. His Sardanapalus is not an effeminate, worn-out de- 
bauchee, with shattered nerves and exhausted senses, the 
slave of indolence and vicious habits ; but a sanguine votary 
of pleasure, a princely epicure, indulging, revelling in bound- 
less luxury while he can, but with a soul so inured to volup- 
tuousness, so saturated with dehghts, that pain and danger, 
when they come uncalled for, give him neither concern nor 
dread ; and he goes forth from the banquet to the battle, as 
to a dance or measure, attired by the Graces, and with youth, 
joy, and love for his guides. He dallies with Bellona as bride- 
groom — for his sport and pastime ; and the spear or fan, the 
shield or shining mirror, become his hands equally well. He 
enjoys life, in short, and triumphs in death ; and whether in 
prosperous or adverse circumstances, his soul smiles out su- 
perior to evil." — Jeffrey. 

" The Sardanapalus of Lord Byron is pretty nearly such a 
person as the Sardanapalus of history may be supposed to 
have been. Young, thoughtless, spoiled by flattery and un- 
bounded self-indulgence, but with a temper naturally ami- 
able, and abilities of a superior order, he affects to under- 
value the sanguinary renown of his ancestors as an excuse 
for inattention to the most necessary duties of his rank ; and 
flatters himself, while he is indulging his own sloth, that he 
is making his people happy. Yet, even in his fondness for 



Which he should be, as easily as the thing 

He should not be and is. Were it less toil , 

To sway his nations than consume his life ? 

To head an army than to rule a harem ? 

He sweats in palling pleasures, dulls his soul,^ 

And saps his goodly strength, in toils which yield not 

Health like the chase, nor glory like the war — 

He must be roused. Alas ! there is no sound 

\_8ound of soft music heard from within. 
To rouse him short of thunder. Hark ! the lute. 
The lyre, the timbrel ; the lascivious tinklings 
Of lulling instruments, the softening voices 
Of women, and of beings less than women, 
Must chime in to the echo of his revel, 
While the great king of all we know of earth 
Lolls crown'd with roses, and his diadem 
Lies negligently by to be caught up 
By the first manly hand which dares to snatch it. 
Lo, where they come ! already I perceive 
The reeking odors of the perfumed trains, 
And see the bright gems of the glittering girls,^ 
At once his chorus and his council, flash 
Along the gallery, and amidst the damsels. 
As femininely garb'd, and scarce less female. 
The grandson of Semiramis, the man-queen. — 
He comes ! Shall I await him ? yes, and front him, 
And tell him what all good men tell each other. 
Speaking of him and his. They come, the slaves, 
Led by the monarch subject to his slaves.* 

pleasure, there lurks a love of contradiction. Of the whole 
picture, selfishness is the prevailing feature— selfishness ad- 
mirably drawn indeed; apologized for by every palliating 
circumstance of education and habit, and clothed in the 
brightest colors of which it is susceptible from youth, tal- 
ents, and placability. But it is selfishness still; and we 
should have been tempted to quarrel with the art which 
made vice and frivolity thus amiable, if Lord Byron had 
not at the same time pointed out with much skill the bit- 
terness and weariness of spirit which inevitably wait on 
such a character; and if he had not given a fine contrast to 
the picture in the accompanying portraits of Salemenes and 
of Myrrha."— Bishop Hebeu. 

2 " He sweats in dreary, dull'd effeminacy."— MS. 

3 " And see the gewgaws of the glittering girls." — MS. 

* " Salemenes is the direct opposite to selfishness ; and the 
character, though slightly sketched, displays little less ability 
than that of Sardanapalus. He is a stern, loyal, plain-spoken 
soldier and subject; clear-sighted, just and honorable in his 
ultimate views, though not more punctilious about the means 
of obtaining them than might be expected from a respectable 
satrap of ancient Nineveh, or a respectable vizier of the mod- 
ern Turkish empire. To his king, in spite of personal neglect 
and family injuries, he is throughout pertinaciously attached 
and punctiliously faithful. To the king's rebels he is in- 
clined to be severe, bloody, and even treacherous ; an imper- 
fection, however, in his character, to want which would, in 
his situation, be almost unnatural, and which is skillfully 
introduced as a contrast to the instinctive perception of vir- 
tue and honor which flashes out from the indolence of his 
master. Of the satrap, however, the faults as well as the vir- 
tues are alike the offspring of disinterested loyalty and patri- 
otism. It is for his country and king that he is patient of 
injury; fbr them he is valiant; for them cruel. He has no 
ambition of personal power, no thirst of individual fame. In 
battle and in victory, 'Assyria!' is his only war-cry. When 



Scene II. 



SARDANAPALUS. 



293 



SCENE II. 

Enter Sardanapaltjs effeminately d/ressed, his Head 
crotoned with Flowers, and his Robe negligently 
flowing, attended hy a Train of Women and young 
Slaves. 

Sar. {speaking to some of his attendants). Let the 
pavilion over the Euphrates 
Be garlauded, and lit, and furnish'd forth 
For an especial banquet ; at the hour 
Of midnight we Avill sup there : see nought wanting, 
And bid the galley be prepared. There is 
A cooling breeze which crisps the broad clear river : 
We will embark anon. Fair nymphs, who deign 
To share the Soft hours of Sardanapalus, 
We'll meet again in that the sweetest hour. 
When we shall gather like the stars above us, 
And you will form a heaven as bright as theirs ; 
Till then, let each be mistress of her time, 
And thou, my own Ionian Myrrha,^ choose, 
AVilt thou along with them or me ? 

Myr. My lord 

Sar. My lord, my life! why answerest thou so 
coldly ? 
It is the curse of kings to be so answer'd. 
Rule thy own hours, thou rulest mine— say, wouldst 

thou 
Accompany our guests, or charm away 
The moments from me ? 

Myr. The king's choice is mine.' 

Sar. I pray thee say not so : my chiefest joy 
Is to contribute to thine every wish. 
I do not dare to breathe my own desire. 
Lest it should clash with thine ; for thou art still 
Too prompt to sacrifice thy thoughts for others.' 
Myr. I would remain : I have no happiness 

Save in beholding thine ; yet 

Sar. Yet! what yet? 

Thy own sweet will shall be ^ne only barrier 
Which ever rises betwixt thee and me. 



he sends off the queen and princes, he is less anxious for his 
nephews and sister than for the preservation of the line of 
Nimrod ; and, in his last moments, it is the supposed flight 
of his sovereign which alone distresses and overcomes him." 
— Heber. 

1 "The Ionian name had been still more comprehensive, 
having included the Achaians and the Boeotians, who, to- 
gether with those to whom it was afterwards confined, would 
mako nearly the whole of the Greek nation ; and among the 
Orientals it was always the general name for the Greeks.'"— 
Mitford's Greece, vol. i. p. 199. 

2 "The chief charm and vivifying angel of the piece is 
Myrrha, the Greek slave of Sardanapalus — a beautiful, heroic, 
devoted, and ethereal being — in love with the generous and 
infatuated monarch — ashamed of loving a barbarian — and 
using all her influence over him to ennoble as well as to 
adorn his existence, and to arm him against the terrors of 
his close. Her voluptuousness is that of the heart— her hero- 
ism of the affections. If the part she takes in the dialogue 
be sometimes too subdued and submissive for the lofty daring 
of her character, it is still such as might become a Greek 
slave— a lovely loniam girl, in whom the love of liberty and 



Myr. I think the present is the wonted hour 
Of council ; it were better I retire. 

Sal. {comes forward and says). The Ionian slave 
says well : let her retire. 

Sar. Who answers ? How now, brother ? 

Sal. The queen's brother, 

And your most faithful vassal, royal lord. 

Sar. {addressing his train). As I have said, let all 
dispose their hours 
Till midnight, when again we pray your presence. 

[The court retiring. 
{To Myrrha,* who is going.) Myrrha! I thought 
thou wouldst remain. 

Myr. Great king, . 

Thou didst not say so. 

Sar. But thou lookedst it : 

I know each glance of those Ionic eyes,^ 
Which said thou wouldst not leave me. 

Myr. Sire ! your brother 

Sal. His consort's brother, minion of Ionia ! 
How darest thou name me and not blush ? 

Sar. Not blush ! 

Thou hast no more eyes than heart to make her 

crimson 
Like to the dying day on Caucasus, 
Where sunset tints the snow with rosy shadows, 
And then reproach her with thine own cold blindness, 
Which will not see it. What, in tears, my Myrrha ? 

Sal. Let them flow on ; she weeps for more than 
one. 
And is herself the cause of bitterer tears. 

Sar. Cursed be he who caused those tears to flow ! 

Sal. Curse not thyself — millions do that already. 

Sar. Thou dost forget thee : make me not remember 
I am a monarch. 

Sal. Would thou couldst ! 

Myr. My sovereign, 

I pray, and thou too, prince, permit my absence. 

Sar. Since it must be so, and this churl has check'd 
Thy gentle spirit, go ; but recollect 



the scorn of death were tempered by the consciousness of 
what she regarded as a degrading passion, and an inward 
sense of fitness and decorum with reference to her con- 
dition .' ' — Jeffrey. 

3 " Myrrha is a female Salemenes, in whom, with admirable 
skill, attachment to the individual Sardanapalus is substi- 
tuted for the gallant soldier's loyalty to the descendant of 
kings ; and whose energy of expostulation, no less than the 
natural high tone of her talents, her courage, and her Gre- 
cian pride, is softened into a subdued and winning tenderness 
by the constant and painful recollection of her abasement as 
a slave in the royal harem ; and still more by the lowliness 
of perfect womanly love in the presence of and towards the 
object of her passion. No character can be drawn more nat- 
ural than hers; few ever have been drawn more touching 
and amiable. Of course she is not, nor could be, a Jewish or 
a Christian heroine; but she is a model of Grecian piety and 
nobility of spirit, and she is one whom a purer faith would 
have raised to the level of a Kebecca or a Miriam." — Heber. 

* In the original draught, " Byblis." 

6 " I know each glance of those deep Greek-soul'd eyes." — 
MS. 



294 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Act I. 



That we must forthwith meet : I had rather lose 
An empire than thy presence. [Exit Myrkha. 

Sal. It may be, 

Thou wilt lose both, and both for ever ! 

Sae. Brother, 

I can at least command myself, who listen 
To language such as this : yet urge me not 
Beyond my easy nature. 

Sal. 'Tis beyond 

That easy, far too easy, idle nature, 
Which I would urge thee. Oh that I could rouse thee ! 
Though 'twere against myself. 

Sar. By the god Baal ! 

The man would make me tyrant. 

Sal. So thou art. 

Think'st thou there is no tyranny but that 
Of blood and chains ? The despotism of vice — 
The weakness and the wickedness of luxury — 
The negligence — the apathy — the evils 
Of sensual sloth — produce ten thousand tyrants, 
Whose delegated cruelty surpasses 
The worst acts of one energetic master, 
However harsh and hard in his own bearing. 
The false and fond examples of thy lusts 
Corrupt no less than they oppress, and sap 
In the same moment all thy pageant power 
And those who should sustain it ; so that whether 
A foreign foe invade, or civil broil 
Distract within, both will alike prove fatal : 
The first thy subjects have no heart to conquer ; 
The last they rather would assist than vanquish. 

Sar. Why, what makes thee the mouthpiece of the 
people ? 

Sal. Forgiveness of the queen my sister's wrongs ; 
A natural love unto my infant nephews ; 
Faith to the king, a faith he may need shortly. 
In more than words ; respect for Nimrod's line ; 
Also, another thing thou knowest not. 

Sae. What's that? 

Sal. To thee an unknown word. 

Sar. Yet speak it ; 

I love to learn. 

Sal. Virtue. 

Sar. Not know the word ! 

Never was word yet rung so in my ears — 
Worse than the rabble's shout, or splitting trumpet : 
I've heard thy sister talk of nothing else. [vice. 

Sal. To change the irksome theme, then, hear of 

Sar. From whom ? 

Sal. Even from the winds, if thou couldst listen 
Unto the echoes of the nation's voice. 

Sar. Come, I'm indulgent, as thou knowest, patient. 
As thou hast often proved— speak out, what moves 
thee? 

Sal. Thy peril. 

Sar. Say on. 

Sal. Thus, then : all the nations, 

For they are many, whom thy father left 
In heritage, are loud in wrath against thee. 

Sar. 'Gainst me ! What would the slaves ? 



Sal. a king. 

Sar. And what 

Am I then ? 

Sal. In their eyes a nothing ; but 

In mine a man who might be something still. 

Sar. The railing drunkards ! why, what would 
they have ? 
Have they not peace and plenty ? 

Sal. Of the first 

More than is glorious ; of the last, far less 
Than the king recks of. 

Sar. Whose then is the crime, 

But the false satraps', who provide no better? 

Sal. And somewhat in the monarch who ne'er looks 
Beyond his palace walls, or if he stirs 
Beyond them, 'tis but to some mountain palace. 
Till summer heats wear down. Oh, glorious Baal ! 
Who built up this vast empire, and wert made 
A god, or at the least shinest like a god 
Through the long centuries of thy renown, 
This, thy presumed descendant, ne'er beheld 
As king the kingdoms thou didst leave as hero. 
Won with thy blood, and toil, and time, and peril ! 
For what ? to furnish imposts for a revel, 
Or multiplied extortions for a minion. 

Sar. I understand thee — thou wouldst have me go 
Forth as a conqueror. By all the stars 
Which the Chaldeans read ! the restless slaves i 
Deserve that I should curse them with their wishes, 
And lead them forth to glory. 

Sal. V/herefore not ? 

Semiramis — a woman only — led 
These our Assyrians to the solar shores 
Of Ganges. 

Sar. 'Tis most true. And how return'd ? 

Sal. Why, like a man — a hero ; baffled, but 
Not vanquish'd. With but twenty guards, she made 
Good her retreat to Bactria. 

Sar. And how many 

Left she behind in India to the vultures ? 

Sal. Our annals say not. 

Sar. Then I will say for them— 

That she had better woven within her palace 
Some twenty garments, than with twenty guards 
Have fled to Bactria, leaving to the ravens, 
And wolves, and men — the fiercer of the three, 
Her myriads of fond subjects. Is this glory ? 
Then let me live in ignominy ever. 

Sal. All warlike spirits have not the same fate. 
Semiramis, the glorious parent of 
A hundred kings, although she fail'd in India, 
Brought Persia, Media, Bactria, to the realm 
Which she once sway'd — and thou might'st sway. 

Sar. I sway them — 

She but subdued them. 

Sal. It may be ere long 

That they will need her sword more than your sceptre. 



" I have a mind 



To curse the restless slaves with their own wishes."— MS, 



Scene II. 



SAKDANAPALUS. 



295 



Sar. There was a certain Bacchus, was there not? 
I've heard my Greek girls speak of such — they say 
He was a god, that is, a Grecian god, 
Au idol foreign to Assyria's worship. 
Who conquer'd this same golden realm of Ind 
Thou prat'st of, where Semiramis was vanquish'd. 

Sal. I have heard of such a man ; and thou per- 
ceiv'st 
That he is deem'd a god for what he did. 

Sar. And in his godship I will honor him — 
Not much as man. What, ho ! my cupbearer ! 

Sal. What means the king ? 

Sar. To worship your new god 

And ancient conqueror. Some wine, I say. 

Enter Cupbearer. 
Sar. {addressing the Cupbearer). Bring me the 
golden goblet thick with gems. 
Which bears the name of Nimrod's chalice. Hence, 
Fill full, and bear it quickly. {^Exit Cupbearer. 

Sal, Is this moment 

A fitting one for the resumption of 
Thy yet unslept-off revels ? 

Re-enter Cupbearer, with wine. 

Sar. {taking the cup from him). Noble kinsman. 
If these barbarian Greeks of the far shores 
And skirts of these our realms lie not, this Bacchus 
Conquer'd the whole of India, did he not ? 

Sal. He did, and thence was deem'd a deity.i 

Sar. Not so : — of all his conquests a few columns 
Which may be his, and might be mine, if I 
Thought them worth purchase and conveyance, are 
The landmarks of the seas of gore he shed. 
The realms he wasted, and the hearts he broke. 
But here, here in this goblet is his title 
To immortality — the immortal grape 
From which he first express'd the soul, and gave 
To gladden that of man, as some atonement 
For the victorious mischiefs he had done. 
Had it not been for this, he would have been 
A mortal still in name as in his grave ; 
And, like my ancestor Semiramis, 
A sort of semi-glorious human monster. 
Here's that which deified him — let it now 
Humanize thee ; my surly, chiding brother, 
Pledge me to the Greek god ! 

Sal. For all thy realms 

I would not so blaspheme our country's creed. 

Sar. That is to say, thou thinkest him a hero. 
That he shed blood by oceans ; and no god. 
Because he turn'd a fruit to an enchantment. 
Which cheers the sad, revives the old, inspires 
The young, makes weariness forget his toil. 
And fear her danger ; opens a new world 

1 " He did, and thence was deem'd a god in story,"— MS. 

2 "In many parts of this play, it strikes me that Lord 
Byron has more in his eyes the case of a sinful Christian 



When this, the present, palls. Well, then I pledge 

thee 
And him as a true man, who did his utmost 
In good or evil to surprise mankind, [Drinks, 

Sal, Wilt thou resume a revel at this hour ? 

Sar, And if I did, 'twere better than a trophy. 
Being bought without a tear. But that is not 
My present purpose : since thou wilt not pledge me, 
Continue what thou pleasest, 
( To the Cupbearer. ) Boy, retire. 

[Exit Cupbearer. 

Sal. I would but have recall'd thee from thy dream ; 
Better by me awaken'd than rebellion, 

Sar, Who should rebel? or why? what cause? 
pretext ? 
I am the lawful king, descended from 
A race of kings who knew no predecessors. 
What have I done to thee, or to the people. 
That thou shouldst rail, or they rise up against me ? 

Sal. Of what thou hast done to me, I speak not. 

Sar. But 

Thou think'st that I have wrong'd the queen: is't 
not so ? 

Sal. Think ! Thou hast wrong'd her ! 2 

Sar. Patience, prince, and hear me. 

She has all power and splendor of her station, 
Respect, the tutelage of Assyria's heirs, 
The homage and the appanage of sovereignty, 
I married her as monarchs wed — for state, 
And loved her as most husbands love their wives. 
If she or thou supposedst I could link me 
Like a Chaldean peasant to his mate. 
Ye knew nor me, nor monarchs, nor mankind, 

Sal. I pray thee, change the theme : my blood 
disdains 
Complaint, and Salemenes' sister seeks not 
Reluctant love even from Assyria's lord ! 
Nor would she deign to accept divided passion 
With foreign strumpets and Ionian slaves. 
The queen is silent. 

Sar. And why not her brother ? 

Sal. I only echo thee the voice of empires. 
Which he who long neglects not long will govern. 

Sar. The ungrateful and ungracious slaves ! they 
murmur 
Because I have not shed their blood, nor led them 
To dry in the desert's dust by myriads, 
Or whiten with their bones the banks of Ganges ; 
Nor decimated them with savage laws. 
Nor sweated them to build up pyramids. 
Or Babylonian walls. 

Sal. Yet these are trophies 

More worthy of a people and their prince 
Than songs, and lutes, and feasts, and concubines, 
And lavish'd treasures, and contemned virtues. 



that has but one wife, and a sly business or so which sho 
and her kin do not approve of, than a bearded Oriental, like 
Sardanapalus, with three hundred wives and seven hundred 
concubines."— HouG^ 



296 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Act I. 



Sar. Or for my trophies I have founded cities : 
There's Tarsus and Anchialus, both built 
In one day — what could that blood-loving beldame, 
My martial grandam, chaste Semiramis, 
Do more, except destroy them ? 

Sal. 'Tis most true ; 

I own thy merit in those founded cities. 
Built for a whim, recorded with a verse. 
Which shames both them and thee to coming ages. 

Sar. Shame me ! By Baal, the cities, though well 
built. 
Are not more goodly than the verse ! Say what 
Thou wilt 'gainst me, my mode of life or rule, 
But nothing 'gainst the truth of that brief record. 
Why, those few lines contain the history 
Of all things human : hear — " Sardanapalus, 
The king, and son of Anacyndaraxes, 
In one day built Anchialus and Tarsus. 
Eat, drink, and love ; the rest's not worth a fillip." i 

Sal. a worthy moral, and a wise inscription. 
For a king to put up before his subjects ! 

Sar. Oh, thou wouldst have me doubtless set up 
edicts — 
" Obey the king — contribute to his treasure — 
Becruit his phalanx — spill your blood at bidding — 
Fall down and worship, or get up and toil." 
Or thus — " Sardanapalus on this spot 
Slew fifty thousand of his enemies. 
These are their sepulchres, and this his trophy." 
I leave such things to conquerors ; enough 
For me, if I can make my subjects feel 
The weight of human misery less, and glide 
Ungroaning to the tomb : I take no license 
Which I deny to them. We all are men. 

Sal. Thy sires have been revered as gods — 

Sar. In dust 

And death, where they are neither gods nor men. 
Talk not of such to me ! the worms are gods ; 
At least they banqueted upon your gods. 
And died for lack of further nutriment. 
Those gods were merely men : look to their issue — 



1 " For this expedition he took only a small chosen body of 
the pha anx, but all his light troops. In the first day's inarch 
he reached Anchialus, a town said to have been founded by 
the king of Assyria, Sardanapalus. The fortifications, in 
their magnitude and extent, still, in Arrian's time, bore the 
character of greatness, which the Assyrians appear singu- 
larly to have aflFected in works of the kind. A monument 
representing Sardanapalus was found there, warranted by 
an inscription in Assyrian characters, of course in the old 
Assyrian language, which the Greeks, whether well or ill, 
interpreted thus: 'Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxes, in 
one day founded Anchialus and Tarsus. Eat, drink, play: 
all other human joys are not worth a fillip.' Supposing this 
version nearly exact (for Arrian says it was not quite so), 
whether the purpose has not been to invite to civil order a 
people disposed to turbulence, rather than to recommend im- 
moderate luxury, may perhaps reasonably be questioned. 
What, indeed, could be the object of a king of Assyria in 
founding such towns in a country so distant from his cap- 
ital, and so divided from it by an immense extent of sandy 
deserts and lofty mountains, and, still more, how the inhab- 



I feel a thousand mortal things about me, 
But nothing godlike, — unless it may be 
The thing which you condemn, a disposition 
To love and to be merciful, to pardon 
The follies of my species, and (that's human) 
To be indulgent to my own. 

Sal. Alas ! 

The doom of Nineveh is seal'd. — Woe — woe 
To the unrivall'd city ! 

Sar. What dost dread ? 

Sal. Thou art guarded by thy foes : in a few hours 
The tempest may break out which overwhelms thee, 
And thine and mine ; and in another day 
What is shall be the past of Belus' race. 

Sar. What must we dread? 

Sal. Ambitious treachery, 

Which has environ'd thee with snares ; but yet 
There is resource : empower me with thy signet 
To quell the machinations, and I lay 
The heads of thy chief foes before thy feet. 

Sar. The heads — how many ? 

Sal. Must I stay to number 

When even thine own's in peril ? Let me go ; 
Give me thy signet — trust me with the rest. 

Sar. I will trust no man with unlimited lives. 
When we take those from others, we nor know 
What we have taken, nor the thing we give. 

Sal. Wouldst thou not take their lives who seek 
for thine ? 

Sar. That's a hard question — But I answer, Yes. 
Cannot the thing be done without ? Who are they 
Whom thou suspectest ? — Let them be arrested. 

Sal. I would thou wouldst not ask me ; the next 
moment 
Will send my answer through thy babbling troop 
Of paramours, and thence fly o'er the palace. 
Even to the city, and so baffle all. — 
Trust me. 

Sar. Thou knowest I have done so ever ; 

Take thou the signet. [Gives the signet. 

Sal. I have one more request. 



itants could be at once in circumstances to abandon them- 
selves to the intemperate joys which their prince has been 
supposed to have recommended, is not obvious ; but it may 
deserve observation that, in that line of coast, the southern 
of Lesser Asia, ruins of cities, evidently of an age after Alex- 
ander, yet barely named in history, at this day astonish the 
adventurous traveller by tlieir magnificence and elegance. 
Amid the desolation which, under a singularly barbarian 
government, has for so many centuries been daily spreading 
in the finest countries of the globe, whether more from soil 
and climate, or from opportunities for commerce, extraor- 
dinary means must have been found for communities to 
flourish there; whence it may seem that the measures of 
Sardanapalus were directed by juster views than have been 
commonly ascribed to him ; but that monarch having been 
the last of a dynasty ended by a revolution, obloquy on his 
memory would follow of course from the policy of his sue-, 
cessors and their partisans. The inconsistency of traditions 
concerning Sardanapalus is striking in Diodorus's account 
of him."— Mitfokd's Greece, vol. ix. p. 311. 



Scene II. 



SAKDANAPALUS. 



297 



Sar. Name it. 

Sal. That thou this night forbear the banquet 

In the pavilion over the Euphrates. 

Sar. Forbear the banquet ! Not for all the plotters 
That ever shook a kingdom ! Let them come, 
And do their worst : I shall not blench for them ; 
Nor rise the sooner ; nor forbear the goblet ; 
Nor crown me with a single rose the less ; 
Nor lose one joyous hour. — I fear them not. 

Sal. But thou wouldst arm thee, wouldst thou not, 
if needful ? 

Sar. Perhaps. I have the goodliest armor, and 
A sword of such a temper ; and a bow 
And javelin, which might furnish Nimrod forth : 
A little heavy, but yet not unwieldy. 
And now I think on't, 'tis long since I've used them, 
Even in the chase. Hast ever seen them, brother ? 

Sal. Is this a time for such fantastic trifling ? — 
If need be, wilt thou wear them ? 

Sar. Will I not? 

Oh ! if it must be so, and these rash slaves 
Will not be ruled with less, I'll use the sword 
Till they shall wish it turn'd into a distaff. 

Sal. They say thy sceptre's turn'd to that already. 

Sar. That's false ! but let them say so : the old 
Greeks, 
Of whom our captives often sing, related 
The same of their chief hero, Hercules, 
Because he loved a Lydian queen : thou seest 
The populace of all the nations seize 
Each calumny they can to sink their sovereigns. 

Sal. They did not speak thus of thy fathers. 

Sar. No ; 

They dared not. They were kept to toil and combat ; 
And never changed their chains but for their armor : 
Now they have peace and pastime, and the license 
To revel and to rail ; it irks me not. 
I would not give the smile of one fair girl 
For all the popular breath that e'er divided 
A name from nothing. What are the rank tongues 
Of this vile herd, grown insolent with feeding. 
That I should prize their noisy praise, or dread 
Their noisome clamor ? 

Sal. You have said they are men ; 

As such their hearts are something. 

Sar. So my dogs' are ; ^ 

And better, as more faithful : — but, proceed ; 
Thou hast my signet : — since they are tumultuous. 
Let them be temper'd, yet not roughly, till 
Necessity enforce it. I hate all pain. 
Given or received ; we have enough within us, 
The meanest vassal as the loftiest monarch, 
Not to add to each other's natural burthen 
Of mortal misery, but rather lessen, 
By mild reciprocal alleviation, 

1 See Miscellanies, "Inscription on the Monument of a 
Newfoundland Dog." 

* " The Epicurean philosophy of Sardanapalus gives him a 



The fatal penalties imposed on life : 

But this they know not, or they will not know. 

I have, by Baal ! done all I could to soothe them : 

I made no wars, I added no new imposts, 

I interfered not with their civic lives, 

I let them pass their days as best might suit them, 

Passing my own as suited me. 

Sal. Thou stopp'st 

Short of the duties of a king ; and therefore 
They say thou art unfit to be a monarch. 

Sar. They lie. — Unhappily, I am unfit 
To be aught save a monarch ; else for me. 
The meanest Mede might be the king instead. 

Sal. There is one Mede, at least, who seeks to be so. 

Sar. What mean'st thou ? — 'tis thy secret ; thou 
desirest 
Few questions, and I'm not of curious nature. 
Take the fit steps ; and, since necessity 
Requires, I sanction and support thee. Ne'er 
Was man who more desired to rule in peace 
The peaceful only : if they rouse me, better 
They had conjured up stern Nimrod from his ashes, 
" The mighty hunter." I will turn these realms 
To one wide desert chase of brutes, who were, 
But would no more, by their own choice, be human. 
What they have found me, they belie ; that which 
They yet may find me — shall defy their wish 
To speak it worse ; and let them thank themselves. 

Sal. Then thou at last canst feel ? 

Sar. Feel ! who feels not 

Ingratitude ? 

Sal. I will not pause to answer 

With words, but deeds. Keep thou awake that energy 
Which sleeps at times, but is not dead within thee, 
And thou mayst yet be glorious in thy reign, 
As powerful in thy realm. Farewell ! 

[Exit Salemenes. 

Sar. (solus). Farewell ! 

He's gone ; and on his finger bears my signet, 
Which is to him a sceptre. He is stern 
As I am heedless ; and the slaves deserve 
To feel a master. What may be the danger 
I know not : — he hath found it, let him quell it. 
Must I consume my life — this little life — 
In guarding against all may make it less ? ^ 
It is not worth so much ! It were to die 
Before my hour, to live in dread of death, 
Tracing revolt ; suspecting all about me. 
Because they are near ; and all who are remote, 
Because they are far. But if it should be so — 
If they should sweep me off from earth and empire. 
Why, what is earth or empire of the earth ? 
I have loved, and lived, and multiplied my image ; 
To die is no less natural than those — 
Acts of this clay ! 'Tis true I have not shed 



fine opportunity, in his conferences with his stern and con- 
fidential adviser, Salemenes, to contrast his own imputed and 
fatal vices of ease and love of pleasure with the boasted virtues 
of his predecessors, war and conquest."— Jeffrey. 



298 



BYRON'S WOEKS. 



Act I. 



Blood as I might have done, in oceans, till 

My name became the synonym of death— 

A terror and a trophy. But for this 

I feel no penitence ; my life is love : 

If I must shed blood, it shall be by force. 

Till now, no drop from an Assyrian vein 

Hath flow'd for me, nor hath the smallest coin 

Of Nineveh's vast treasures e'er been lavish'd 

On objects which could cost her sons a tear : 

If then they hate me, 'tis because I hate not : 

If they rebel, 'tis because I oppress not. 

Oh, men ! ye must be ruled with scythes, not sceptres, 

And mow'd down like the grass, else all we reap 

Is rank abundance, and a rotten harvest 

Of discontents infecting the fair soil, 

Making a desert of fertility. — 

I'll think no more. Within there, ho ! 

Enter an Attendant, 
Sar. Slave, tell 

The Ionian Myrrha we would crave her presence. 
Attend. King, she is here. 

Myrrha enters. 

Sar. {apart to Attendant), Away! 
{Addressing M.Y'KKKA..) Beautiful being ! 

Thou dost almost anticipate my heart; 
It throbb'd for thee, and here thou comest : let me 
Deem that some unknown influence, some sweet 

oracle, 
Communicates between us, though unseen. 
In absence, and attracts us to each other. 

Myr. There doth. 

Sar. I know there doth, but not its name : 

What is it? 

Myr, In my native land a god, 

And in my heart a feeling like a god's. 
Exalted ; yet I own 'tis only mortal ; 
For what I feel is humble, and yet happy — 

That is, it would be happy ; but 

[Myrrha pauses. 

Sar. There comes 

For ever something between us and what 
We deem our happiness : let me remove 
The barrier which that hesitating accent 
Proclaims to thine, and mine is seal'd. 

Myr. My lord !— 

Sar. My lord — my king — sire — sovereign ! thus it 
is — 
For ever thus, address'd with awe. I ne'er 
Can see a smile, unless in some broad banquet's 
Intoxicating glare, when the buffoons 
Have gorged themselves up to equality, 
Or I have quaff'd me down to their abasement. 
Myrrha, I can hear all these things, these names, 
Lord — king — sire — monarch — nay, time was I prized 

them; 
That is, I suffer'd them — from slaves and nobles ; 
But when they falter from the lips I love. 
The lips which have been press'd to mine, a chill 



Comes o'er my heart, a cold sense of the falsehood 

Of this my station, which represses feeling 

In those for whom I have felt most, and makes me 

Wish that I could lay down the dull tiara, 

And share a cottage on the Caucasus 

With thee, and wear no crowns but those of flowers. 

Myr. Would that we could ! 

Sar. And dost thou feel this ?— Why ? 

Myr. Then thou wouldst know what thou canst 
never know. 

Sar. And that is 

Myr. The true value of a heart ; 

At least, a woman's. 

Sar. I have proved a thousand — 

A thousand, and a thousand. 

Myr. Hearts ? 

Sar. I think so. 

Myr. Not one ! the time may come thou mayst. 

Sar. It will. 

Hear, Myrrha ; Salemenes has declared — 
Or why or how he hath divined it, Belus, 
Who founded our great realm, knows more than I — 
But Salemenes hath declared my throne 
In peril. 

Myr. He did well. 

Sar. And sayst thou so ? 

Thou whom he spurn'd so harshly, and now dared * 
Drive from our presence with his savage jeers. 
And made thee weep and blush ? 

Myr. I should do both 

More frequently, and he did well to call me 
Back to my duty. But thou spak'st of peril — 
Peril to thee 

Sar. Ay, from dark plots and snares 

From Medes — and discontented troops and nations. 
I know not what — a labyrinth of things — 
A maze of mutter' d threats and mysteries : 
Thou know'st the man — it is his usual custom. 
But he is honest. Come, we'll think no more on't — 
But of the midnight festival. 

Myr. 'Tis time 

To think of aught save festivals. Thou hast not 
Spurn'd his sage cautions ? 

Sar. What ?— and dost thou fear ? 

Myr. Fear ! — I'm a Greek, and how should I fear 
death ? 
A slave, and wherefore should I dread my freedom ? 

Sar. Then wherefore dost thou turn so pale ? 

Myr. I love. 

Sar. And do not I ? I love thee far— far more 
Than either the brief life or the wide realm. 
Which, it may be, are menaced ; — yet I blench not. 

Myr. That means thou lovest nor thyself nor me ; 
For he who loves another loves himself. 
Even for that other's sake. This is too rash : 
Kingdoms and lives are not to be so lost. 



" and even dared 



Profane our presence with his savage jeers."— MS. 



Scene II. 



SAKDANAPALUS. 



299 



Sar. Lost! — why, who is the aspiring chief who 
dared 
Assume to win them ? 

Myr. Who is he should dread 

To try so much ? "When he who is their ruler 
Forgets himself, will they remember him ? 

Sar. Myrrha! 

Myr. Frown not upon me : you have smiled 

Too often on me not to make those frowns 
Bitterer to bear than any punishment 
Which they may augur. — King, I am your subject ! 
Master, I am your slave ! Man, I have loved you ! — 
Loved you, I know not by what fatal weakness. 
Although a Greek, and born a foe to monarchs — 
A slave, and hating fetters — an Ionian, 
And, therefore, when I love a stranger, more 
Degraded by that passion than by chains ! 
Still I have loved you. If that love were strong 
Enough to overcome all former nature, 
Shall it not claim the privilege to save you ? 

Sar. Save me, my beauty ! Thou art very fair, 
And what I seek of thee is love— not safety. 

Myr. And without love where dwells security ? 

Sar. I speak of woman's love. 

Myr. The very first 

Of human life must spring from woman's breast, 
Your first small words are taught you from her lips. 
Your first tears quench'd by her, and your last 

sighs 
Too often breathed out in a woman's hearing, 
When men have shrunk from the ignoble care 
Of watching the last hour of him who led them. 

Sar. My eloquent Ionian ! thou speak'st music, 
The very chorus of the tragic songi 
I have heard thee talk of as the favorite pastime 
Of thy far father-land. Nay, weep not — calm thee. 

Myr. I weep not. — But I pray thee, do not speak 
About my fathers or their land. 

Sar. Yet oft 

Thou speakest of them. 

Myr. True — true : constant thought 

Will overflow in words unconsciously ; 
But when another speaks of Greece, it wounds me. 

Sar. Well, then, how wouldst thou save me, as 
thou saidst ? 

Myr. By teaching thee to save thyself, and not 
Thyself alone, but these vast realms, from all 
The rage of the worst war — the war of brethren. 

Sar. Why, child, I loathe all war, and warriors ; 
I live in peace and pleasure : what can man 
Do more ? 

Myr. Alas ! my lord, with common men 
There needs too oft the show of war to keep 
The substance of sweet peace ; and for a king, 
'Tis sometimes better to be fear'd than loved. 



1 " To speak of ' the tragic song ' as the favorite pastime of 
Greece, two hundred years before Thespis, is an anachro- 
nism. Nor could Myrrha, at so early a period of her coun- 
try's history, have spoken of their national hatred of kings, 



Sar. And I have never sought but for the last. 

Myr. And now art neither. 

Sar. Dost thou say so, Myrrlia ? 

Myr. I speak of civic popular love, self -loye, 
Which means that men are kept in awe and law, 
Yet not oppress'd — at least they must not think so ; 
Or if they think so, deem it necessary. 
To ward off worse oppression, their own passions. 
A king of feasts, and flowers, and wine, and revel. 
And love, and mirth, was never king of glory. 

Sar. Glory! what's that? 

Myr. Ask of the gods thy fathers. 

Sar. They cannot answer ; when the priests speak 
for them, 
'Tis for some small addition to the temple. 

Myr. Look to the annals of thine empire's founders. 

Sar. They are so blotted o'er with blood, I cannot. 
But what wouldst have ? the empire has been founded. 
I cannot go on multiplying empires. 

Myr. Preserve thine own. 

Sar. At least, I will enjoy it. 
Come, Myrrha, let us go on to the Euphrates : 
The hour invites, the galley is prepared, 
And the pavilion, deck'd for our return. 
In fit adornment for the evening banquet. 
Shall blaze with beauty and with light, until 
It seems unto the stars which are above us 
Itself an opposite star ; and we will sit 
Crown'd with fresh flowers like 

Myr. Victims. 

Sar. No, like sovereigns, 

The shepherd kings of patriarchal times, 
Who knew no brighter gems than summer wreaths,^ 
And none but tearless triumphs. Let us on. 

Enter Pania. 

Pan. May the king live for ever ! 

Sar. Not an hour 

Longer than he can love. How my soul hates 
This language, which makes life itself a lie, 
Flattering dust with eternity.' Well, Pania ! 
Be brief. 

Pan. I am charged by Salemenes to 
Reiterate his prayer unto the king. 
That for this day, at least, he will not quit 
The palace : when the general returns. 
He will adduce such reasons as will warrant 
His daring, and perhaps obtain the pardon 
Of his presumption. 

Sar. What ! am I then coop'd? 

Already captive ? can I not even breathe 
The breath of heaven ? Tell prince Salemenes, 
Were all Assyria raging round the walls 
In mutinous myriads, I would still go forth. 

Pan. I must obey, and yet — 



or of that which was equally the growth of a later age, — their 
contempt for ' barbarians.' "— Heber. 

2 " Who loved no gems so well as those of uature." — MS. 

3 » Wishing eternity to dust."— MS. 



300 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Act I. 



Myk. Oh, monarch, lidten. — 

How many a day and moon thou hast reclined 
Within these palace walls in silken dalliance. 
And never shown thee to thy people's longing ; 
Leaving thy subjects' eyes ungratified, 
The satraps uncontroll'd, the gods unworshipp'd, 
And all things in the anarchy of sloth, 
Till all, save evil, slumber'd through the realm ! 
And wilt thou not now tarry for a day, — 
A day which may redeem thee ? Wilt thou not 
Yield to the few still faithful a few hours, 
For them, for thee, for thy past fathers' race, 
And for thy sons' inheritance ? 

Pan. 'Tis true ! 

From the deep urgency with which the prince 
Despatch'd me to your sacred presence, I 
Must dare to add my feeble voice to that 
Which now has spoken. 

Sar. No, it must not be. 

Mye. For the sake of thy realm ! 

Sar. Away ! 

Pan. For that 

Of all thy faithful subjects, who will rally 
Bound thee and thine ! 

Sar. These are mere fantasies : 

There is no peril : — 'tis a sullen scheme 
Of Salemenes, to approve his zeal, 
And show himself more necessary to us. 

Myr. By all that's good and glorious, take this 
counsel. 

Sar. Business to-morrow. 

Myr. Ay, or death to-night. 

Sar. Why let it come then unexpectedly 
'Midst joy and gentleness, and mirth and love ; 
So let me fall like the pluck'd rose ! — far better 
Thus than be wither'd. 

Myr. Then thou wilt not yield, 

Even for the sake of all that ever stirr'd 
A monarch into action, to forego 
A trifling revel? 

Sar. No. 

Myr. Then yield for mme; 

For my sake ! 

Sar. Thine, my Myrrha ! 

Myr. ^Tis the first 

Boon which I ever ask'd Assyria's king. 

Sar. That's true, and were't my kingdom, must be 
granted. 
Well, for thy sake, I yield me. Pania, henc2 ! 
Thou hear'st me. 

Pan. And obey. [mu Pania. 

Sar. I marvel at thee. 

What is thy motive, Myrrha, thus to urge me? 

Mye. Thy safety ; and the certainty that nought 
Could urge the prince thy kinsman to require 
Thus much from thee, but some impending danger. 

Sar. And if I do not dread it, why shouldst thou ? 

1 " There are two of Lord Byron's characteristic excellences 
which he never leaves behind in his most fantastic expedi- 



Myr. Because thou dost not fear, I fear for thee. 

Sar. To-morrow thou wilt smile at these vain 
fancies. 

Myr. If the worst come, I shall be where none 
weep. 
And that is better than the power to smile. 
And thou ? 

Sar. I shall be king, as heretofore. 

Myr. Where? 

Sae. With Baal, Nimrod, and Semiramis, 

Sole in Assyria, or with them elsewhere. 
Fate made me what I am — may make me nothing — 
But either that or nothing must I be : 
I will not live degraded. 

Myr. Hadst thou felt 

Thus always, none would ever dare degrade thee. 

Sae. And who will do so now ? 

Mye. Dost thou suspect none ? 

Sae. Suspect! — that's a spy's Oj6&ce. Oh! we lose 
Ten thousand precious moments in vain words, 
And vainer fears. Within there ! — Ye slaves, deck 
The hall of Nimrod for the evening revel : 
If I must make a prison of our palace, 
At least we'll wear our fetters jocundly : 
If the Euphrates be forbid us, and 
The summer dwelling on its beauteous border, 
Here we are still unmenaced. Ho ! within there ! 

[Uxit Sardanapalus. 

Myr. (sola). Why do I love this man? My coun- 
try's daughters 
Love none but heroes. But I have no country ! 
The slave hath lost all save her bonds. I love him ; 
And that's the heaviest link of the long chain — 
To love whom we esteem not. Be it so : 
The hour is coming when he'll need all love, 
And find none. To fall from him now were baser 
Than to have stabb'd him on his throne when highest 
Would have been noble in my country's creed : 
I was not made for either. Could I save him, 
I should not love him better, but myself; 
And I have need of the last, for I have fallen 
In my own thoughts, by loving this soft stranger : 
And yet methinks I love him more, perceiving 
That he is hated of his own barbarians, 
The natural foes of all the blood of Greece. 
Could I but wake a single thought like those 
Which even the Phrygians felt when battling long 
'Twixt Ilion and the sea, within his heart. 
He would tread down the barbarous crowds, and 

triumph. 
He loves me, and I love him ; the slave loves 
Her master, and would free him from his vices. 
If not, I have a means of freedom still, 
And if I cannot teach him how to reign, 
May show him how alone a king can leave 
His throne. I must not lose him from my sight. 

[Ezit.^ 

tions, and which he has accordingly brought into his new 
domain of classic tragedy. One of these is his intense feeling 



Scene I. 



SARDANAPALUS. 



301 



ACT II. 



SCENE I. 



The Portal of the same Hall of the Palace. 

Seleses {solus). The sun goes down : methinks he 
sets more slowly, 
Taking his last look of Assyria's empire. 
How red he glares amongst those deepening clouds, 
Like the blood he predicts ! If not in vain, 
Thou sun that sinkest, and ye stars which rise, 
I have outwatch'd ye, reading ray by ray 
The edicts of your orbs, which make time tremble 
For what he brings the nations, 'tis the furthest 
Hour of Assyria's years. And yet how calm ! 
An earthquake should announce so great a fall — 
A summer's sun discloses it. Yon disk. 
To the star-read Chaldean, bears upon 
Its everlasting page the end of what 
Seem'd everlasting ; but oh, thou true sun ! 
The burning oracle of all that live. 
As fountain of all life, and symbol of 
Him who bestows it, wherefore dost thou limit 
Thy lore unto calamity ? Why not 
Unfold the rise of days more worthy thine 
All-glorious burst from ocean ? why not dart 
A beam of hope athwart the future years. 
As of wrath to its days ? Hear me ! oh, hear me ! 
I am thy worshipper, thy priest, thy servant — 
I have gazed on thee at thy rise and fall. 
And bow'd my head beneath thy midday beams. 
When my eye dared not meet thee. I have watch'd 
For thee, and after thee, and pray'd to thee, 
And sacrificed to thee, and read, and fear'd thee. 
And ask'd of thee, and thou hast answer'd — but 
Only to thus much : while I speak, he sinks — 
Is gone — and leaves his beauty, not his knowledge. 
To the delighted west, which revels in 
Its hues of dying glory. Yet what is 
Death, so it be but glorious ? 'Tis a sunset ; 
And mortals may be happy to resemble 
The gods but in decay. 

Enter Akbaces, hy an inner door. 

Arb. Beleses, why 

So rapt in thy devotions ? Dost thou stand 
Gazing to trace thy disappearing god 
Into some realm of undiscover'd day ? 
Our business is with night — 'tis come. 

Bel. But not 

Gone. 

Are. Let it roll on — we are ready. 

of the loveliness of woman — his power, not only of picturing 
individual forms, but of infusing into the very atmosphere 
which surrounds them the spirit of beauty and of love. A 
soft roseate light is spread over them, which seems to sink 
into the soul. The other faculty to which we allude is his 
comprehensive sympathy with the vastest objects in the ma- 
terial universe. There is scarcely any pure description of 



Bel. Yes. 

Would it were over ! 

Arb Does the prophet doubt, 

To whom the veiy stars shine victory ? 

Bel. I do not doubt of victory — but the victor. 

Arb. Well, let thy science settle that. Meantime 
I have prepared as many glittering spears 
As will out-sparkle our allies — your planets. 
There is no more to thwart us. The she-king, 
That less than woman, is even now upon 
The waters with his female mates. The order 
Is issued for the feast in the pavilion. 
The first cup which he drains will be the last 
Quaff 'd by the line of Nimrod. 

Bel. 'Twas a brave one. 

Arb. And is a weak one — 'tis worn out — we'll 
mend it. 

Bel. Art sure of that? 

Arb. Its founder was a hunter— 

I am a soldier — what is there to fear ? 

Bel. The soldier. 

Arb. And the priest, it may be : but 

If you thought thus, or think, why not retain 
Your king of concubines ? why stir me up ? 
Why spur me to this enterprise ? your own 
No less than mine ? 

Bel. Look to the sky ! 

Arb. I look. 

Bel. What seest thou ? 

Arb. a fair summer's twilight, and 

The gathering of the stars. 

Bel. And midst them, mark 

Yon earliest, and the brightest, which so quivers. 
As it would quit its place in the blue ether. 

Arb. Well? 

Bel. 'Tis thy natal ruler — thy birth planet. 

Arb. {touching his scabbard). My star is in this 
scabbard : when it shines. 
It shall out-dazzle comets. Let us think 
Of what is to be done to justify 
Thy planets and their portents. When we conquer. 
They shall have temples — ay, and priests — and thou 
Shalt be the pontiff of — what gods thou wilt ; 
For I observe that they are ever just, 
And own the bravest for the most devout. [not 

Bel. Ay, and the most devout for brave— thou hast 
Seen me turn back from battle. 

Arb. No ; I own thee 

As firm in fight as Babylonia's captain, 
As skillful in Chaldea's worship : now, 
Will it but please thee to forget the priest, 
And be the warrior ? 

Bel. Why not both? 

individual scenes in all his works; but the noblest allusions 
to the grandeurs of earth and heaven. He pays 'no alle- 
giance but to the elements.' The moon, the stars, the ocean, 
the mountain desert, are endowed by him with new ' speech 
and language,' and send to the heart their mighty voices. 
He can interpret between us and the firmament, or give us 
all the sentiment of an everlasting solitude." — Anon. 



302 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Act II. 



Arb. The better ; 

And yet it almost shames me, we shall have 
So little to effect. This woman's warfare 
Degrades the very conqueror. To have pluck'd 
A bold and bloody despot from his throne, 
And grappled with him, clashing steel with steel, 
That were heroic or to win or fall ; 
But to upraise my sword against this silkworm, 
And hear him whine, it may be 

Bel. Do not deem it ; 

He has that in him which may make you strife yet ; 
And were he all you think, his guards are hardy, 
And headed by the cool, stern Salemenes. 

Arb. They'll not resist. 

Bel. Why not? they are soldiers. 

Arb. True, 

And therefore need a soldier to command them. 

Bel. That Salemenes is. 

Arb. But not their king. 

Besides, he hates the effeminate thing that governs. 
For the queen's sake, his sister. Mark you not 
He keeps aloof from all the revels ? 

Bel. But 

Not from the council — there he is ever constant. 

Arb, And ever thwarted: what would you have 
more 
To make a rebel out of? A fool reigning, 
His blood dishonor'd, and himself disdain'd : 
Why, it is his revenge we work for. 

Bel. Could 

He but be brought to think so : this I doubt of. 

Arb. What, if we sound him ? 

Bel. Yes — if the time served. 

Enter Balea. 

Bal. Satraps ! The king commands your presence at 
The feast to-night. 

Bel. To hear is to obey. 

In the pavilion ? 

Bal. No ; here in the palace. 

Arb. How ! in the palace ? it was not thus order'd. 

Bal. It is so order'd now. 

Arb. And why ? 

Bal. I know not. 

May I retire ? 

Arb. Stay. 

Bel. {to Arb. aside). Hush ! let him go his way. 
(Alternately to'Bal.) Yes, Balea, thank the monarch, 

kiss the hem 
Of his imperial robe, and say, his slaves 
Will take the crumbs he deigns to scatter from 
His royal table at the hour — was't midnight ? 

Bal. It was : the place, the hall of Nimrod. Lords, 
I humble me before yiDU, and depart. [Exit Balea. 

Arb. I like not this same sudden change of place ; 
There is some mystery ; wherefore should he change 
it? 

Bel. Doth he not change a thousand times a day? 
Sloth is of all things the most fanciful — 
And moves more parasangs in its intents 



Than generals in their marches, when they seek 
To leave their foe at fault. — Why dost thou muse ? 

Arb. He loved that gay pavilion, — it was ever 
His summer dotage. 

Bel. And he loved his queen — 

And thrice a thousand harlotry besides — 
And he has loved all things by turns, except 
Wisdom and glory. 

Are. Still— I like it not. 
If he has changed — why, so must we : the attack 
Were easy in the isolated bower. 
Beset with drowsy guards and drunken coiirtiers : 
But in the hall of Nimrod 

Bel. Is it so ? 

Methought the haughty soldier fear'd to mount 
A throne too easily — does it disappoint thee 
To find there is a slipperier step or two 
Than what was counted on ? 

Arb. When the hour comes. 

Thou shalt perceive how far I fear or no. 
Thou hast seen my life at stake — and gayly play'd 

for; 
But here is more upon the die — a kingdom. 

Bel. I have foretold already — thou wilt win it : 
Then on, and prosper. 

Arb. Now were I a soothsayer, 

I would have boded so much to myself. 
But be the stars obey'd — I cannot quarrel 
With them, nor their interpreter. Who's here ? 

Enter Salemenes. 

Sal. Satraps! 

Bel. My prince ! » 

Sal. Well met— I sought ye both, 

But elsewhere than the palace. 

Arb. Wherefore so ? 

Sal. 'Tis not the hour. 

Arb. The hour !— what hour ? 

Sal. Of midnight. 

Bel. Midnight, my lord ! 

Sal. What, are you not invited ? 

Bel. Oh ! yes — we had forgotten. 

Sal. Is it usual 

Thus to forget a sovereign's invitation ? 

Arb, Why — we but now received it, 

Sal. Then why here ? 

Arb. On duty. 

Sal. On what duty ? 

Bel. On the state's. 

We have the privilege to approach the presence ; 
But found the monarch absent.^ 

Sal. And I too 

Am upon duty. 

Arb. May we crave its purport ? 

Sal. To arrest two traitors. Guards ! Within there ! 



Enter Guards. 



Sal. (continMing). 
Your swords. 



Satraps, 



1 "But found the monarch claim'd his privacy."— MS, 



Scene I. 



SAKDANAPALUS. 



303 



Bel. {delivering his). My lord, behold my scimitar. 

Arb. {dravnng his sword). Take mine. 

Sal. {advancing). I will. 

Arb. But in your heart the blade — 

The hilt quits not this hand.^ 

Sal. {draiving). How ! dost thou brave me? 

'Tis well — this saves a trial, and false mercy. 
Soldiers, hew down the rebel ! 

Arb. Soldiers! Ay— 

Alone you dare not. 

Sal. Alone ! foolish slave — 

What is there in thee that a prince should shrink from 
Of open force ? We dread thy treason, not 
Thy strength : thy tooth is nought without its venom — 
The serpent's, not the lion's. Cut him down. 

BeJj. {interposing). Arbaces! are you mad? Have 
I not render'd 
Ml/ sword ? Then trust like me our sovereign's 
justice. [of, 

Arb. No — I will sooner trust the stars thou prat'st 
And this slight arm, and die a king at least 
Of my own breath and body — so far that 
None else shall chain them. 

Sal. {to the Guards). You hear him, and me. 

Take him not, — kill. 

[The Guards attack Arbaces, who defends him- 
self valiantly and dexterously till they waver. 

Sal. Is it even so ; and must 

I do the hangman's oflSce ? Kecreants ! see 
How you should fell a traitor. 

[Salemenes attacks Arbaces. 

Enter Sardanapalus and Train. 

Sar. Hold your hands — 

Upon your lives, I say. What, deaf or drunken ? 
My sword ! fool, I wear no sword : here, fellow, 
Give me thy weapon. [To a Guard. 

[Sardanapalus snatches a sword from one of the 
soldiers, and rushes between the combatants — 
they separate. 

Sar. In my very palace ! 

What hinders me from cleaving you in twain, 
Audacious brawlers? 

Bel. Sire, your justice. 

Sal. Or— 

Your weakness. 

Sar. {raising the sword). How? 

Sal. Strike ! so the blow's repeated 

Upon yon traitor — whom you spare a moment, 
I trust, for torture — I'm content. 

Sar. What— him ! 

Who dares assail Arbaces ? 

Sal. I ! 

Sar. Indeed ! 

Prince, you forget yourself. Upon what warrant ? 

Sal. {showing the signet). Thine. 

Arb. {confused). The king's! 

1 " not else 

It quits this living hand." — MS. 



Sal. Yes ! and let the king confirm it. 

Sar. I parted not from this for such a purpose. 

Sal. You parted with it for your safety — I 
Employ'd it for the best. Pronounce in person. 
Here I am but your slave — a moment past 
I was your representative, 

Sar. Then sheathe 

Your swords. 

[Arbaces and Salemenes return their swords 
to the scabbards. 

Sal. Mine's sheathed : I pray you sheathe not yours ; 
'Tis the sole sceptre left you now with safety. 

Sar. a heavy one ; the hilt, too, hurts my hand. 
{To a Guard.) Here, fellow, take thy weapon back. 

Well, sirs. 
What doth this mean ? 

Bel. The prince must answer that. 

Sal. Truth upon my part, treason upon theirs. 

Sar. Treason— Arbaces ! treachery and Beleses ! 
That were an union I will not believe. 

Bel. Where is the proof? 

Sal. I'll answer that, if once 

The king demands your fellow-traitor's sword. 

Arb. {to Sal.). A sword which hath been drawn 
as oft as thine 
Against his foes. 

Sal. And now against his brother. 

And in an hour or so against himself. 

Sar. That is not possible : he dared not ; no — 
No — I'll not hear of such things. These vain 

bickerings 
Are spawn'd in courts by base intrigues, and baser 
Hirelings, who live by lies on good men's lives. 
You must have been deceived, my brother. 

Sal. First 

Let him deliver up his weapon, and 
Proclaim himself your subject by that duty. 
And I will answer all. 

Sar. Why, if I thought so— 

But no, it cannot be : the Mede Arbaces — 
The trusty, rough, true soldier — the best captain 

Of all who discipline our nations No, 

I'll not insult him thus, to bid him render 

The scimitar to me he never yielded 

Unto our enemies. Chief, keep your weapon. 

Sal. {delivering back the signet). Monarch, take 
back your signet. 

Sar. No, retain it ; 

But use it with more moderation. 

Sal. Sire, 

I used it for your honor, and restore it 
Because I cannot keep it with my own. 
Bestow it on Arbaces. 

Sar. So _ should 

He never ask'd it. 

Sal. Doubt not, he will have it, * 

Without that hollow semblance of respect. 

Bel. I know not what hath prejudiced the prince 
So strongly 'gainst two subjects, than whom none 
Have been more zealous for Assyria's weal. 



304 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Act II. 



Sal. Peace, factious priest and faithless soldier! 
Unit'st in thy own person the worst vices [thou 

Of the most dangerous orders of mankind. 
Keep thy smooth words and juggling homilies 
For those who know thee not. Thy fellow's sin 
Is, at the least, a bold one, and not tempered 
By the tricks taught thee in Chaldea. 

Bel. Hear him, 

My liege — the son of Belus ! he blasphemes 
The worship of the land, which bows the knee 
Before your fathers. 

Sar. Oh ! for that I pray you 

Let him have absolution. I dispense with 
The worship of dead men ; feeling that I 
Am mortal, and believing that the race 
From whence I sprung are — what I see them — ashes. 

Bel. King ! do not deem so : they are with the stars, 
And 

Sar. You shall join them there ere they will rise, 
If you preach further — Why, this is rank treason. 

Sal. My lord ! 

Sar. To school me in the worship of 

Assyria's idols ! Let him be released — 
Give him his sword. 

Sal. My lord, and king, and brother, 

I pray ye pause. 

Sar. Yes, and be sermonized, 

And dinn'd, and deafen'd with dead men and Baal, 
And all Chaldea's starry mysteries. 

Bel. Monarch ! respect them. 

Sar. Oh! for that— I love them ! 

I love to watch them in the deep blue vault. 
And to compare them with my Myrrha's eyes ; 
I love to see their rays redoubled in 
The tremulous silver of Euphrates' wave, 
As the light breeze of midnight crisps the broad 
And rolling water, sighing through the sedges 
Which fringe his banks : but whether they may be 
Gods, as some say, or the abodes of gods, 
As others hold, or simply lamps of night. 
Worlds, or the lights of worlds, I know nor care not. 
There's something sweet in my uncertainty 
I would not change for your Chaldean lore ; 
Besides, I know of these all clay can know 
Of aught above it, or below it — nothing, 
I see their brilliancy and feel their beauty ^ — 
When they shine on my grave I shall know neither. 

Bel. For neither^ sire, say better. 

Sar. I will wait. 

If it so please you, pontiff, for that knowledge. 
In the mean time receive your sword, and know 
That I prefer your service militant 
Unto your ministry — not loving either. 

Sal. {aside). His lusts have made him mad. Then 
must I save him, 
Spite of himself. 

1 " I know them beautiful, and see them brilliant."— MS. 

2 " The second act is, we think, a failure. The conspirators 
have a tedious dialogue, which is interrupted by Salemenes 
with a guard. Salemenes is followed by the king, who reverses 



Sar. Please you to hear me, satraps ! 

And chiefly thou, my priest, because I doubt thee 
More than the soldier ; and would doubt thee all 
Wert thou not half a warrior : let us part 
In peace — I'll not say pardon— which must be 
Earn'd by the guilty : this I'll not pronounce ye, 
Although upon this breath of mine depends 
Your own ; and, deadlier for ye, on my fears. 
But fear not — for that I am soft, not fearful — 
And so live on. Were I the thing some think me, 
Your heads would now be dripping the last drops 
Of their attainted gore from the high gates 
Of this our palace, into the dry dust. 
Their only portion of the coveted kingdom 
They would be crown'd to reign o'er — let that pass. 
As I have said, I will not deem ye guilty, 
ISTor doom ye guiltless. Albeit better men 
Than ye or I stand ready to arraign you ; 
And should I leave your fate to sterner judges. 
And proofs of all kinds, I might sacrifice 
Two men, who, whatsoe'er they now are, were 
Once honest. Ye are free, sirs. 

Are. Sire, this clemency 

Bel. {interrupting him). Is worthy of yourself; 
and, although innocent, 
We thank 

Sar. Priest ! keep your thanksgivings for Belus ; 
His offspring needs none. 

Bel. But being innocent 

Sar. Be silent — Guilt is loud. If ye are loyal. 
Ye are injured men, and should be sad, not grateful. 

Bel. So we should be, were justice always done 
By earthly power omnipotent ; but innocence 
Must oft receive her right as a mere favor. 

Sar. That's a good sentence for a homily. 
Though not for this occasion. Prithee keep it 
To plead thy sovereign's cause before his people. 

Bel. I trust there is no cause. 

Sar. No cause, perhaps ; 

But many causers : — if ye meet with such 
In the exercise of your inquisitive function 
On earth, or should you read of it in heaven 
In some mysterious twinkle of the stars. 
Which are your chronicles, I pray you note, 
That there are worse things betwixt earth and heaven 
Than him who ruleth many and slays none ; 
And, hating not himself, yet loves his fellows 
Enough to spare even those who would not spare him 
Were they once masters — but that's doubtful. Sa- 
traps ! 
Your swords and persons are at liberty 
To use them as ye will — but from this hour 
I have no call for either. Salemenes ! 
Follow me.2 

[Exeunt Sardanapalus, Salemenes, and the 
Train, &c., leaving Arbaces and Beleses. 

all his measures, pardons Arbaces, because he will not believe 
him guilty, and Beleses, in order to escape from his long 
speeches about the national religion. This incident only is 
well managed."— Heber. 



Scene I. 



SARDANAPALUS. 



305 



Abb. 

Bel. Now what think you ? 

Abb. That we are lost. 

Bel. That we have won the kingdom. 

Abb. What ? thus suspected — with the sword slung 
o'er us 
But by a single hair, and that still wavering, 
To be blown down by his imperious breath. 
Which spared us — why, I know not. 

Bel. Seek not why ; 

But let us profit by the interval. 
The hour is still our own — our power the same — 
The night the same we destined. He hath changed 
Nothing except our ignorance of all 
Suspicion into such a certainty 
As must make madness of delay. 

Abb. And yet 

Bel. What, doubting still ? 

Abb. He spared our lives, nay, more, 

Saved them from Salemenes. 

Bel. And how long 

Will he so spare ? till the first drunken minute. 

Abb. Or sober, rather. Yet he did it nobly ; 
Gave royally what we had forfeited 



Bel. Say bravely. 

Abb. Somewhat of both, perhaps. 

But it has touch'd me, and, whate'er betide, 
I will no further on. 

Bel. And lose the world ! 

Abb. Lose anything except my own esteem. 

Bel. I blush that we should owe our lives to such 
A king of distafis ! 

Abb. But no less we owe them ; 

And I should blush far more to take the grantor's ! 

Bel. Thou mayst endure whate'er thou wilt— the 
stars 
Have written otherwise. 

Abb. Though they came down, 

And marshall'd me the way in all their bnghtness, 
I would not follow. 

Bel. This is weakness — worse 

Than a scared beldam's dreaming of the dead, 
And waking in the dark. — Go to — go to ! 

Abb. Methought he look'd like Nimrod as he spoke, 
Even as the proud imperial statue stands 
Looking the monarch of the kings around it. 
And sways, while they but ornament, the temple. 

Bel. I told you that you had too much despised 
him. 
And that there was some royalty within him — 
What then ? he is the nobler foe. 

Abb. But we 

The meaner. — Would he had not spared us ! 

Bel. So— 

Wouldst thou be sacrificed thus readily ? 

Abb. No— but it had been better to have died 
Than live ungrateful. 

Bel. Oh, the souls of some men ! 

Thou wouldst digest what some call treason, and 
20 



Fools treachery — and, behold, upon the sudden, 
Because for something or for nothing, this 
Rash reveller steps, ostentatiously, 
'Twixt thee and Salemenes, thou art turn'd 
Into — what shall I say ? — Sardanapalus ! 
I know no'name more ignominious. 

Abb. But 

An hour ago, who dared to term me such 
Had held his life but lightly — as it is, 
I must forgive you, even as he forgave us — 
Semiramis herself would not have done it. 

Bel. No — the queen liked no sharers of the king- 
dom, 
Not even a husband. 

Abb. I must serve him truly 

Bel. And humbly? 

Abb. No, sir, proudly — being honest. 

I shall be nearer thrones than you to heaven ; 
And if not quite so haughty, yet more lofty. 
You may do your own deeming — you have codes, 
And mysteries, and corollaries of 
Right and wrong, which I lack for my direction, 
And must pursue but what a plain heart teaches. 
But now you know me. 

Bel. Have you finish'd ? 

Abb. Yes— 

With you. 

Bel. And would, perhaps, betray as well 
As quit me ? 

Abb. That's a sacerdotal thought. 

And not a soldier's. 

Bel. Be it what you will — 

Truce with these wranglings, and but hear me. 

Abb. No — 

There is more peril in your subtle spirit 
Than in a phalanx. 

Bel. If it must be so — 

I'll on alone. 

Abb. Alone ! 

Bel. Thrones hold but one 

Abb. But this is fill'd. 

Bel. With worse than vacancy—' 

A despised monarch. Look to it, Arbaces : 
I have still aided, cherish'd, loved, and urged you ; 
Was willing even to serve you, in the hope 
To Serve and save Assyria. Heaven itself 
Seem'd to consent, and all events were friendly, 
Even to the last, till that your spirit shrunk 
Into a shallow softness ; but now, rather 
Than see my country languish, I will be 
Her saviour or the victim of her tyrant, 
Or one or both, for sometimes both are one ; 
And, if I win, Arbaces is my servant. 

Abb. Your servant ! 

Bel. Why not ? better than be slave, 

The pardoned slave of she Sardanapalus ! 

Enter Pania. 
Pan. My lords, I bear an order from the king. 
Abb It is obey'd ere spoken. 



306 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Act II. 



Bel. Notwithstanding, 

Let's hear it. 

Pan. Forthwith, on this very night, 

Repair to your respective satrapies 
Of Babylon and Media. 

Bel. With our troops ? 

Pan. My order is unto the satraps and 
Their household train. 

Arb. But 

Bel. It must be obey'd : 

Say, we depart. 

Pan. My order is to see you 

Depart, and not to bear your answer. 

Bel. {aside). Ay ! 

Well, sir, we will accompany you hence. 

Pan. I will retire to marshal forth the guard 
Of honor which befits your rank, and wait 
Your leisure, so that it the hour exceeds not. 

[Exit Pania. 

Bel. Now then obey ! 

Akb. Doubtless. 

Bel. Yes, to the gates 

That grate the palace, which is now our prison — 
No further. 

Are. Thou hast harp'd the truth indeed ! 

The realm itself, in all its wide extension. 
Yawns dungeons at each step for thee and me. 

Bel. Graves! 

Arb. If I thought so, this good sword should dig 
One more than mine. 

Bel. It shall have work enough. 

Let me hope better than thou augurest ; 
At present, let us hence as best we may. 
Thou dost agree with me in understanding 
This order as a sentence ? 

Arb. Why, what other 

Interpretation should it bear ? it is 
The very policy of orient monarchs — 
Pardon and poison — favors and a sword — 
A distant voyage, and an eternal sleep. 
How many satraps in his father's time — 
For he I own is, or at least was, bloodless — 



* "Arbaces is a mere commonplace warrior; and Seleses, 
on whom, we suspect, Lord Byron has bestowed more than 
usual pains, is a very ordinary and uninteresting villain. 
Sardanapalus, indeed, and Salemenes are both made to speak 
of the wily Chaldean as the master-mover of the plot, as a 
politician in whose hands Arbaces is but a ' warlike puppet ;' 
and Diodorus Siculus has represented him, in fact, as the first 
instigator of Arbaces to his treason, and as making use of his 
priestly character, and of his supposed power of foretelling 
future events, to inflame the ambition, to direct the measures, 
to sustain the hopes, and to reprove the despondency, of his 
comrade. But of all this nothing appears in the tragedy. 
Lord Byron has been so anxious to show his own contempt 
for the priest, that he has not even allowed him that share of 
cunning and evil influence which was necessary for the part 
which he had to fill. Instead of being the original, the rest- 
less and unceasing prompter to bold and wicked measures, 
we find him, on his first appearance, hanging back from the 
enterprise, and chilling the energy of Arbaces by an enume- 
ration of the real or possible difficulties which might yet im- 



Bel. But will not, can not be so now. 

Arb. I doubt it. 

How many satraps have I seen set out 
In his sire's day for mighty viceroyalties, 
Whose tombs are on their path ! I know not how, 
But they all sicken'd by the way, it was 
So long and heavy. 

Bel. Let us but regain 

The free air of the city, and we'll shorten 
The journey. 

Arb. 'Twill be shorten'd at the gates, 

It may be. 

Bel. No ; they hardly will risk that. 

They mean us to die privately, but not 
Within the palace or the city walls, 
Where we are known, and may have partisans : 
If they had meant to slay us here, we were 
No longer with the living. Let us hence. 

Arb. If I but thought he did not mean my life 

Bel. Fool ! hence— what else should despotism 
alarm'd 
Mean ? Let us but rejoin our troops, and march. 

Arb. Towards our provinces ? 

Bel. No ; towards your kingdom. 

There's time, there's heart, and hope, and power, and 

means. 
Which their half measures leave us in full scope. — 
Away! 

Arb. And I even yet repenting must 
Relapse to guilt I 

Bel. Self-defence is a virtue, 

Sole bulwark of all right. Away, I say ! 
Let's leave this place, the air grows thick and 

choking. 
And the walls have a scent of nightshade — hence ! 
Let us not leave them time for further council. 
Our quick departure proves our civic zeal ; 
Our quick departure hinders our good escort. 
The worthy Pania, from anticipating 
The orders of some parasangs from hence : 

Nay, there's no other choice, but hence, I say I 

[JExit with Arbaces, who follows reluctantly } 



pede its execution. Instead of exercising that power over 
the mind of his comrade which a religious impostor may well 
possess over better and more magnanimous souls than his own, 
Beleses is made to pour his predictions into incredulous ears ; 
and Arbaces is as mere an Epicurean in his creed as Sardana- 
palus. When we might have expected to find him gazing with 
hope and reverence on the star which the Chaldean points 
out as his natal planet, the Median warrior speaks, in the lan- 
guage of Maxentius, of the sword on which his confidence 
depends ; and instead of being a tool in the hand of the pon- 
tiff, he says almost every thing which is likely to affront him. 
Though Beleses is introduced to us as engaged in devotion, 
and as a fervent worshipper of the sun, he is nowhere made 
either to feel or to counterfeit that professional zeal against 
Sardanapalus which his open contempt of the gods would 
naturally call for; and no reason appears, throughout the 
play, why Arbaces should follow, against his own conscience 
and opinion, the counsels of a man of whom he speaks with 
dislike and disgust, and whose pretences to inspiration and 
sanctity he treats with unmingled ridicule."— Bishop Hebeb. 



Scene I. 



SAEDANAPALUS 



307 



Enter Saedanapaltjs and Salemenes. 

Sar. Well, all is remedied, and without bloodshed, 
That worst of mockeries of a remedy ; 
We are now secure by these men's exile. 

Sal. Yes, 

As he who treads on flowers is from the adder 
Twined round their roots. 

Sar. Why, what wouldst have me do ? 

Sal. Undo what you have done. 

Sar. Revoke my pardon ? 

Sal. Replace the crown now tottering on your 
temples. 

Sar. That were tyrannical. 

Sal. But sure. 

Sar. We are so. 

What danger can they work upon the frontier ? 

Sal. They are not there yet— never should they 
be so. 
Were I well listen'd to. 

Sar. Nay, I have listen'd 

Impartially to thee — why not to them ? 

Sal. You may know that hereafter ; as it is, 
I take my leave, to order forth the guard. 

Sar. And you will join us at the banquet? 

Sal. Sire, 

Dispense with me — I am no wassailer : 
Command me in all service save the Bacchant's. 

Sar. Nay, but 'tis fit to revel now and then. 

Sal. And fit that some should watch for those who 
revel 
Too oft. Am I permitted to depart ? 

Sar. Yes Stay a moment, my good Salemenes 

My brother, my best subject, better prince 

Than I am king. You should have been the monarch. 

And I — I know not what, and care not ; but 

Think not I am insensible to all 

Thine honest wisdom, and thy rough yet kind. 

Though oft-reproving, sufferance of my follies. 

If I have spared these men against thy counsel, 

That is, their lives — it is not that I doubt 

The advice was sound ; but, let them live : we will not 

Cavil about their lives — so let them mend them. 

Their banishment will leave me still sound sleep, 

Which their death had not left me. 

Sal. Thus you run 

The risk to sleep for ever, to save traitors — 
A moment's pang now changed for years of crime. 
Still let them be made quiet. 

Sar. Tempt me not : 

My word is past. 

Sal. But it may be recall'd. 

Sar. 'Tis royal. 

Sal. And should therefore be decisive. 

This half indulgence of an exile serves 
But to provoke — a pardon should be full, 
Or it is none. 



1 " Nor silent Baal, our imaged deity, 
Although his marble face looks fjowningly 
As the dull shadows," &c.— MS. 



Sar. And who persuaded me 

After I had repeal'd them, or at least 
Only dismiss' d them from our presence, who 
Urged me to send them to their satrapies ? 

Sal. True ; that I had forgotten ; that is, sire. 
If they e'er reach'd their satrapies — why, then. 
Reprove me more for my advice ? 

Sar. And if 

They do not reach them — look to it ! — in safety. 
In safety, mark me — and security — 
Look to thine own. 

Sal. Permit me to depart ; 

Their safety shall be cared for. 

Sar. Get thee hence, then ; 

And, prithee, think more gently of thy brother. 

Sal. Sire, I shall ever duly serve my sovereign. 

[Exit Salemenes. 

Sar. {solus). That man is of a temper too severe ; 
Hard but as lofty as the rock, and free 
From all the taints of common earth — while I 
Am softer clay, impregnated with flowers : 
But as our mould is, must the produce be. 
If I have err'd this time, 'tis on the side 
Where error sits most lightly on that sense, 
I know not what to call it ; but it reckons 
With me ofttimes for pain, and sometimes pleasure ; 
A spirit which seems placed about my heart 
To count its throbs, not quicken them, and ask 
Questions which mortal never dared to ask me, 
Nor Baal, though an oracular deity i — 
Albeit his marble face majestical 
Frowns as tne shadows of the evening dim 
His brows to changed expression, till at times 
I think the statue looks in act to speak. 
Away with these vain thoughts ! I will be joyous — 
And here comes Joy's true herald. 

Enter Myrrha. 

Myr. King ! the sky 

Is overcast, and musters muttering thunder. 
In clouds that seem approaching fast, and show 
In forked flashes a commanding tempest.^ 
Will you then quit the palace ? 

Sar. Tempest, sayst thou ? 

Myr. Ay, my good lord. 

Sar. For my own part, I should be 

Not ill content to vary the smooth scene, 
And watch the warring elements ; but this 
Would little suit the silken garments and 
Smooth faces of our festive friends. Say, Myrrha, 
Art thou of those who dread the roar of clouds ? 

Myr, In my own country we respect their voices 
As auguries of Jove.^ 

Sar. Jove ! — ay, your Baal— 

Ours also has a property in thunder, 
And ever and anon some falling bolt 



»''i"a«-'«-''«{:h:apVrMin'-p-t-"-M«- 



3 " As from the gods to augur."— MS. 



308 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Act III. 



Proves his divinity, — and yet sometimes 
Strikes his own altars. 

Myr. That were a dread omen. 

Sar. Yes— for the priests. Well, we will not go 
forth 
Beyond the palace walls to-night, but make 
Our feast within. 

Myr. Now, Jove be praised ! that he 

Hath heard the prayer thou wouldst not hear. The 

gods 
Are kinder to thee than thou to thyself. 
And flash this storm between thee arid thy foes, 
To shield thee from them. 

Sar. Child, if there be peril, 

Methinks it is the same within these walls 
As on the river's brink. 

Myr. Not so ; these walls 

Are high, and strong, and guarded. Treason has 
To penetrate through many a winding way, 
And massy portal ; but in the pavilion 
There is no bulwark. 

Sar. No, nor in the palace, 

Nor in the fortress, nor upon the top 
Of cloud-fenced Caucasus, where the eagle sits 
Nested in pathless clefts, if treachery be : 
Even as the arrow finds the airy king, 
The steel will reach the earthly. But be calm : 
The men, or innocent or guilty, are 
Banish'd, and far upon their way. 

Myr. They live, then ? 

Sar. So sanguinary ? Thou ! 

Myr. I would not shrink 

From just infliction of due punishment 
On those who seek your life : were't otherwise, 
I should not merit mine. Besides, you heard 
The princely Salemenes. 

Sar. This is strange ; 

The gentle and the austere are both against me, 
And urge me to revenge. 

Myr, 'Tis a Greek virtue. 

Sar. But not a kingly one — I'll none on't ; or 
If ever I indulge in't, it shall be 
With kings — my equals. 

Myr. These men sought to be so. 

Sar. Myrrha, this is too feminine, and springs 
From fear 

Myr. For you. 

Sar. No matter, still 'tis fear. 

I have observed your sex, once roused to wrath. 
Are timidly vindictive to a pitch 
Of perseverance, which I would not copy. 
I thought you were exempt from this, as from 
The childish helplessness of Asian women.i 

Myr. My lord, I am no boaster of my love, 
Nor of my attributes ; I have shared your splendor. 
And will partake your fortunes. You may live 



1 "The weaker merit of our Asian women."— MS. 

2 " Rather than prove that love to you in griefs."— MS. 

8 " The second act, which contains the details of the con- 



To find one slave more true than subject myriads : 
But this the gods avert ! I am content 
To be beloved on trust for what I feel. 
Rather than prove it to you in your griefs,'-* 
Which might not yield to any cares of mine. 

Sar. Grief cannot come where perfect love exists, 
Except to heighten it, and vanish from 
That which it could not scare away. Let's in — 
The hour approaches, and we must prepare 
To meet the invited guests, who grace our feast. 

\^Exeunt^^ 



ACT III. 



SCENE I. 



The Hall of the Palace illuminated. — Sardanapalfs 
and his Chiests at Table. — A Storm without, and 
Thunder occasionally heard during the Banquet. 

Sar. Fill full ! why this is as it should be : here 
Is my true realm, amidst bright eyes and faces 
Happy as fair ! Here sorrow cannot reach. 

Zam. Nor elsewhere — where the king is, pleasure 
sparkles. 

Sar. Is not this better now than Nimrod's hunt- 
ings, 
Or my wild grandam's chase in search of kingdoms 
She could not keep when conquer'd ? 

Alt. Mighty though 

They were, as all thy royal line have been. 
Yet none of those who went before have reach'd 
The acme of Sardanapalus, who 
Has placed his joy in peace — the sole true glory. 

Sar. And pleasure, good Altada, to which glory 
Is but the path. What is it that we seek ? 
Enjoyment ! We have cut the way short to it, 
And not gone tracking it through human ashes. 
Making a grave with every footstep. 

Zam. No ; 

All hearts are happy, and all voices bless 
The king of peace, who holds a world in jubilee. 

Sar. Art sure of that ? I have heard otherwise ; 
Some say that there be traitors. 

Zam. Traitors they 

Who dare to say so! — 'Tis impossible. 
What cause ? 

Sar. What cause ? true, — fill the goblet up ; 

We will not think of them : there are none sucb , 
Or if there be, they are gone. 

Alt. Guests, to my pledge ! 

Down on your knees, and drink a measure to 
The safety of the king — ^the monarch, say I ? 
The god Sardanapalus ! 



spiracy of Arbaces, its detection by the vigilance of Salemenes, 
and the too rash and hasty forgiveness of the rebels by the 
king, is, on the whole, heavy and uninteresting."— Jeffrey. 



Scene I. 



SAEDANAPALUS. 



309 



[Zames and the Guests kneel, and exclaim— 
Mightier than 
His father Baal, the god Sardanapalus ! 

[It thunders as they kneel; some start up in 
confusion. 

Zam. Why do you rise, my friends ? in that strong 
His father gods consented. [peal 

Mye. Menaced, rather. 

King, wilt thou bear this mad impiety ? 

Sar. Impiety ! — nay, if the sires who reign'd 
Before me can be gods, I'll rfot disgrace 
Their lineage. But arise, my pious friends ; 
Hoard your devotion for the thunderer there : 
I seek but to be loved, not worshipp'd. 

Alt. Both — 

Both you must ever be by all true subjects. 

Sar. Methinks the thunders still increase : it is 
An awful night. 

Myr. Oh yes, for those who have 

No palace to protect their worshippers. 

Sar. That's true, my Myrrha; and could I convert 
My realm to one wide shelter for the wretched, 
I'd do it. 

Myr. Thou'rt no god, then, not to be 
Able to work a will so good and general, 
As thy wish would imply. 

Sar. And your gods, then, 

Who can, and do not? 

Myr. Do not speak of that, 

Lest we provoke them. 

Sar. True, they love not censure 

Better than mortals. Friends, a thought has struck 

me: 
Were there no temples, would there, think ye, be 
Air worshippers ? that is, when it is angry, 
And pelting as even now. 

Myr. The Persian prays 

Upon his mountain. 

Sar. Yes, when the sun shines. 

Myr. And I would ask, if this your palace were 
Unroof 'd and desolate, how many flatterers 
Would lick the dust in which the king lay low ? 

Alt. The fair Ionian is too sarcastic 
Upon a nation whom she knows not well ; 
The Assyrians know no pleasure but their king's. 
And homage is their pride. 

Sar. Nay, pardon, guests, 

The fair Greek's readiness of speech. 

Alt. Pardon! sire: 

We honor her of all things next to thee. 
Hark ! what was that ? 

Zam. That ! nothing but the jar 

Of distant portals shaken by the wind. 

Alt. It sounded like the clash of — Hark again ! 

Zam. The big rain pattering on the roof. 

Sar. No more. 

Myrrha, my love, hast thou thy shell in order ? 



^ " Early in the third act the royal banquet is disturbed by 
sudden tidings of treason and revolt; and then the reveller 



Sing me a song of Sappho, her, thou know'st. 
Who in thy country threw 

Enter Pania, with his sword and garments bloody 
and disordered. The Guests rise in confusion.^ 

Pan. {to the Guards). Look to the portals; 

And with your best speed to the walls without. 
Your arms ! To arms ! The king's in danger. Mon- 
arch, 
Excuse this haste, — 'tis faith. 

Sar. Speak on. 

Pan. It is 
As Salemenes fear'd ; the faithless satraps 

Sar. You are wounded — give some wine. Take 
breath, good Pania. 

Pan. 'Tis nothing— a mere flesh wound. I am worn 
More with my speed to warn my sovereign, 
Than hurt in his defence. 

Myr. Well, sir, the rebels ? 

Pan. Soon as Arbaces and Beleses reach'd 
Their stations in the city, they refused 
To march ; and on riiy attempt to use the power 
Which I was delegated with, they call'd 
Upon their troops, who rose in fierce defiance. 

Myr. All? 

Pan. Too many. 

Sar. Spare not of thy free speech 

To spare mine ears the truth. 

Pan. My own slight guard 

Were faithful, and what's left of it is still so. 

Myr. And are these all the force still faithful ? 

Pan. No— 

The Bactrians, now led on by Salemenes, 
Who even then was on his way, still urged 
By strong suspicion of the Median chiefs. 
Are numerous, and make strong head against 
The rebels, fighting inch by inch, and forming 
An orb around the palace, where they mean 
To centre all their force, and save the king. 
(Ke hesitates.) I am charged to 

Myr. 'Tis no time for hesitation. 

Pan. Prince Salemenes doth implore the king 
To arm himself, although but for a moment, 
And show himself unto the soldiers : his 
Sole presence in this instant might do more 
Than hosts can do in his behalf. 

Sar. What, ho! 

My armor there. 

Myr. And wilt thou ? 

Sar. Willi not? 

Ho, there ! — But seek not for the buckler ; 'tis 
Too heavy : — a light cuirass and my sword. 
Where are the rebels ? 

Pan. Scarce a furlong's length 

From the outward wall, the fiercest conflict rages. 

Sar. Then I may charge on horseback. Sfero, ho! 
Order my horse out. — There is space enough 

blazes out into the hero, and the Greek blood of Myrrha 
mounts to its proper office !" — Jeffrey. 



110 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Act hi. 



Even in our courts, and by the outer gate, 
To marshal half the horsemen of Arabia. 

[Exit Sfeeo for the armor. 

Myk. How I do love thee ! 

Sar. I ne'er doubted it. 

Myr. But now I know thee. 

Sar. {to his Attendant). Bring down my spear, too— 
Where's Salemenes ? 

Pan. "Where a soldier should be. 

In the thick of the fight. 

Sar. Then hasten to him Is 

The path still open, and communication 
Left 'twixt the palace and the phalanx ? 

Pan. ' 'Twas 

When I late left him, and I have no fear : 
Our troops were steady, and the phalanx form'd. 

Sar. Tell him to spare his person for the present, 
And that I will not spare my own — and say, 
I come. 

Pan. There's victory in the very word. 

[Uxit Pania. 

Sar. Altada — Zames — forth, and arm ye ! There 
Is all in readiness in the armory. 
See that the women are bestow'd in safety 
In the remote apartments : let a guard 
Be set before them, wi,th strict charge to quit 
The post but with their lives — command it, Zames. 
Altada, arm yourself, and return here ; 
Your post is near our person. 

[Exeunt Zames, Altada, and all save Myrrha. 

Enter Spero and others with the King's Arms, &c. 

See. King ! your armor. 

Sar. {armvng himself). Give me the cuirass — so: 
my baldric ; now 
My sword : I had forgot the helm — where is it ? 
That's well — no, 'tis too heavy : you mistake, too — 
It was not this I meant, but that which bears 
A diadem around it. 

See. Sire, I deem'd 

That too conspicuous from the precious stones 
To risk your sacred brow beneath — and, trust me. 
This is of better metal, though less rich. 

Sar. You deem'd! Are you too turn'd a rebel? 
Fellow ! 
Your part is to obey : return, and — no — 
. It is too late — I will go forth without it. 

See. At least, wear this. 

Sar. Wear Caucasus ! why, 'tis 

A mountain on my temples. 



1 " In the third act, where Sardanapalus calls for a mirror 
to look at himself in his armor, recollect to quote the Latin 
passage from Juvenal upon Otho (a similar character, who 
did the same thing). Gifford will help you to it. The trait 
is, perhaps, too familiar, but it is historical (of Otho, at 
least), and natural in an effeminate character." — Lord B. to 
Mr. M. 

2 "Ille tenet speculum pathici gestamen Othonis, 
Actoris Arunci spolium, quo ee ille videbat 



See. Sire, the meanest 

Soldier goes not forth thus exposed to battle. 
All men will recognize you — for the storm 
Has ceased, and the moon breaks forth in her bright- 
ness. 

Sar. I go forth to be recognized, and thus 
Shall be so sooner. . Now — my spear ! I'm arm'd. 

[In going stops short, and turns to Sfero. 
Sfero — I had forgotten — bring the mirror.^ 

See. The mirror, sire ? 

Sar. Yes, sir, of polish'd brass, 

Brought from the spoils of India— but be speedy .2 

[Exit Sfero. 

Sar. Myrrha, retire unto a place of safety. 
Why went you not forth with the other damsels ? 

Myr. Because my place is here. 

Sar. And when I am gone 

Myr. I follow. 

Sar. You ! to battle ? 

Myr. If it were so, 

'Twere not the first Greek girl had trod the i)ath. 
I will await here your return. 

Sar. The place 

Is spacious, and the first to be sought out, 
If they prevail ; and if it be so, 
And I return not 

Myr. Still we meet again. 

Sar. How? 

Myr. In the spot where all must meet at last — 
In Hades ! if there be, as I believe, 
A shore beyond the Styx : and if there be not. 
In ashes. 

Sar. Barest thou so much ? 

Myr. I dare all things, 

Except survive what I have loved, to be 
A rebel's booty : forth, and do your bravest. 

Re-enter Sfero with the mirror. 
Sar. {looking at himself). This cuirass fits me well, 
the baldric better. 
And the helm not at all. Methinks I seem 

[Flings away the helmet after trying it again. 
Passing well in these toys; and now to prove 

them. 
Altada ! Where's Altada ? 

Sfe. Waiting, sire, 

Without : he has your shield in readiness. 

Sar. True ; I forgot he is my shield-bearer 
By right of blood, derived from age to age. 
Myrrha, embrace me ; — yet once more — once more — 



Armatum, cum jam tolli Texilla juberet. 

Res memoranda novis annalibus, atque recenti 

Historia, speculum civilis sarcina belli." — Juv. Sat. ii. 



" This grasps a mirror— pathic Otho's ' 

(Auruncan actor's spoil), where, while his host, 

With shouts, the signal of the fight required. 

He view'd his mailed form ; view'd, and admired ! 

Lo, a new subject for the historic page, 

A MIKKOR, midst the arms of civil rage !"— Gifford. 



Scene I. 



SAEDANAPALUS. 



311 



Love me, whate'er betide. My chiefest glory 
Shall be to make me worthier of your love. 
Myb. Go forth, and conquer ! 

[Exeunt Sakdanapalus and Sfero.^ 
Now, I am alone. 
All are gone forth, and of that all how few 
Perhaps return ! Let him but vanquish, and 
Me perish ! If he vanquish not, I perish ; 
For I will not outlive him. He has wound 
About my heart, I know not how nor why. 
Not for that he is king ; for now his kingdom 
Rocks underneath his throne, and the earth yawns 
To yield him no more of it than a grave ; 
And yet I love him more. Oh, mighty Jove ! 
Forgive this monstrous love for a barbarian, 
Who knows not of Olympus ! yes, I love him 

Now, now, far more than Hark — to the war shout ! 

Methinks it nears me. If it should be so, 

[She draws forth a small vial. 
This cunning Colchian poison, which my father 
Learn'd to compound on Euxine shores, and taught 

me 
How to preserve, shall free me ! It had freed me 
Long ere this hour, but that I loved, until 
I half forgot I was a slave : — where all 
Are slaves save one, and proud of servitude, 
So they are served in turn by something lower 
In the degree of bondage, we forget 
That shackles worn like ornaments no less 
Are chains. Again that shout ! and now the clash 
Of arms — and now — and now 

Enter Altada. 

Alt. Ho, Sfero, ho ! 

Mye. He is not here; what wouldst thou with 
him? How 
Goes on the conflict ? 

Alt. Dubiously and fiercely. 

Myb,. And the king ? 

Alt. Like a king. I must find Sfero, 

And bring him a new spear and his own helmet. 
He fights till now bareheaded, and by far 
Too much exposed. The soldiers knew his face. 
And the foe too ; and in the moon's broad light. 
His silk tiara and his flowing hair 
Make him a mark too royal. Every arrow 
Is pointed at the fair hair and fair features. 
And the broad fillet which crowns both. 

Myr. Ye gods. 

Who fulminate o'er my father's land, protect him ! 
Were you sent by the king ? 

Alt. By Salemenes, 

Who sent me privily upon this charge, 
Without the knowledge of the careless sovereign. 
The king ! the king fights as he revels ! ho ! 



1 "In the third act, the king and his courtiers are dis- 
turbed at their banquet by the breaking out of the conspir- 
acy. The battle which follows, if we overlook the absurdity) 
which occurs during one part of it, of hostile armies drawn 



What, Sfero ! I will seek the armory — 

He must be there. [Exit Altada. 

Mye. 'Tis no dishonor — no — 

'Tis no dishonor to have loved this man. 
I almost wish now, what I never wish'd 
Before, that he were Grecian, If Alcides 
Were shamed in wearing Lydian Omphale's 
She-garb, and wielding her vile distaff", surely 
He, who springs up a Hercules at once, 
Nursed in effeminate arts from youth to manhood. 
And rushes from the banquet to the battle. 
As though it were a bed of love, deserves 
That a Greek girl should be his paramour, 
And a Greek bard his minstrel, a Greek tomb 
His monument. How goes the strife, sir ? 

Enter an Officer. 

Officee. Lost, 

Lost almost past recovery. Zames ! Where 
Is Zames? 

Myr. Posted with the guard appointed 
To watch before the apartment of the women. 

[Exit Officer. 

Mye. {sola). He's gone; and told no more than 
that all's lost ! 
What need have I to know more ? In those words, 
Those little words, a kingdom and a king, 
A line of thirteen ages, and the lives 
Of thousands, and the fortune of all left 
With life, are merged ; and I, too, with the great, 
Like a small bubble breaking with the wave 
Which bore it, shall be nothing. At the least, 
My fate is in my keeping : no proud victor 
Shall count me with his spoils. 

Enter Pania. 

Pan. Away with me, 

Myrrha, without delay ; we must not lose 
A moment — all that's left us now. 

Mye. The king ? 

Pan. Sent me here to conduct you hence, beyond 
The river, by a secret passage. 

Mye. Then 

He lives 

Pan. And charged me to secure your life. 

And beg you to live on for his sake, till 
He can rejoin you. 

Mye. Will he then give way ? 

Pan. Not till the last. Still, still he does whate'er 
Despair can do ; and step by step disputes 
The very palace. 

Mye. They are here, then : — ay. 

Their shouts come ringing through the ancient halls, 
Never profaned by rebel echoes till 
This fatal night. Farewell, Assyria's line ! 



up against each other in a dining-room, is extremely well 
told ; and Sardanapalus displays the precise mixture of effem- 
inacy and courage, levity and talent, which belongs to his 
character." — Heber. 



312 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Act III. 



Farewell to all of Nimrod ! Even the name 
Is now no more. 

Pan. Away with me — away ! 

Myr. No: I'll die here!— Away, and tell your 
king 
I loved him to the last. 

Enter Saedanapaltjs and Salemenes with Sol- 
diers. Pania quits Myrrha, and ranges himself 
with them. 
Sar. Since it is thus, 

We'll die where we were born — in our own halls. 

Serry your ranks — stand firm. I have despatch'd 

A trusty satrap for the guard of Zames, 

All fresh and faithful ; they'll be here anon. 

All is not over. — Pania, look to Myrrha. 

[Pania returns towards Myrrha. 
Sal. We have breathing time: yet once more 
charge, my friends — 

One for Assyria ! 
Sar. Rather say for Bactria ! 

My faithful Bactrians, I will henceforth be 

King of your nation, and we'll hold together 

This realm as province. 
Sal. Hark ! they come— they come. 

Enter Beleses and Arbaces with the Rebels. 
Are. Set on, we have them in the toil. Charge ! 

charge ! 
Bel. On ! on ! — Heaven fights for us, and with us. 
—On! 

[They charge the Xing and Salemenes with 
their Troops, who defend themselves till the 
arrival of Zames, with the Guard before 
mentioned. The Rebels are then driven off, 
and pursued by Salemenes, <&c. As the 
King is going to join the pursuit, Belesbs 
crosses him. 
Bel. Ho ! tyrant — I will end this war. 
Sar. Even so. 

My warlike priest, and precious prophet, and 
Grateful and trusty subject : — yield, I pray thee. 
I would reserve thee for a fitter doom, 
Rather than dip my hands in holy blood. 
Bel. Thine hour is come. 

Sar. No, thine.— I've lately read, 

Though but a young astrologer, the stars ; 
And ranging round the zodiac, found thy fate 
In the sign of the Scorpion, which proclaims 
That thou wilt now be crush'd. 
Bel. But not by thee. 

[They fight; Beleses is womided and dis- 
armed. 
Sar. {raising his sword to despatch him, exclaims) — 
Now call upon thy planets, will they shoot 
From the sky to preserve their seer and credit ? 

[A party of Rebels enter and rescue Beleses. 
They assail the King, who, in turn, is rescued 
by a party of his Soldiers, who drive the Reb- 
els off. 



The villain was a prophet after all. 
Upon them — ho ! there — victory is ours. 

[Exit in pursuit. 

Myr. {to Pan.). Pursue ! Why stand'st thou here, 
and leav'st the ranks 
Of fellow soldiers conquering without thee ? 

Pan. The king's command was not to quit thee. 
■ Myr. Me ! 

Think not of me — a single soldier's arm 
Must not be wanting now. I ask no guard, 
I need no guard : what, with a world at stake, 
Keep watch upon a woman ? Hence, I say, 
Or thou art shamed ! Nay, then, J will go forth, 
A feeble female, 'midst their desperate strife. 
And bid thee guard me there — where thou shouldst 

shield 
Thy sovereign. [Exit Myrrha. 

Pan. Yet stay, damsel !— She is gone. 

If aught of ill betide her, better I 
Had lost my life. Sardanapalus holds her 
Far dearer than his kingdom, yet he fights 
For that too ; and can I do less than he, 
Who never flash'd a scimitar till now ? 
Myrrha, return, and I obey you, though 
In disobedience to the monarch. [Exit Pania. 

Enter Altada and Sfero by an opposite door. 

Alt. Myrrha ! 

What, gone ? yet she was here when the fight raged, 
And Pania also. Can aught have befallen them ? 

See. I saw both safe, when late the rebels fled : 
They probably are but retired to make 
Their way back to the harem. 

Alt. If the king 

Prove victor, as it seems even now he must, 
And miss his own Ionian, we are doom'd 
To worse than captive rebels. 

See. Let us trace them ; 

She cannot be fled far ; and, found, she makes 
A richer prize to our soft sovereign 
Than his recover'd kingdom. 

Alt. Baal himself 

Ne'er fought more fiercely to win empire, than 
His silken son to save it ; he defies 
All augury of foes or friends ; and like 
The close and sultry summer's day, which bodes 
A twilight tempest, bursts forth in such thunder 
As sweeps the air and deluges the earth. 
The man's inscrutable. 

See. Not more than others. 

All are the sons of circumstance ; away — 
Let's seek the slave out, or prepare to be 
Tortured for his infatuation, and 
Condemn'd without a crime. [Exeunt. 

Enter Salemenes and Soldiers, &c. 
Sal. The triumph is 

Flattering : they are beaten backward from the palace, 
And we have open'd regular access 
To the troops station'd on the other side 



Scene I. 



SARDANAPALUS. 



313 



Euphrates, who may still be true ; nay, must be, 
When they hear of our victory. But where 
Is the chief victor ? where's the king ? 

Enter Sakdanapalus, cum suis, &c., and Myeeha. 

Sae. Here, brother.^ 

Sal. Unhurt, I hope. 

Sae. Not quite ; but let it pass. 
We've clear'd the palace 

Sal. And I trust the city. 

Our numbers gather ; and I've order'd onward 
A cloud of Parthians, hitherto reserved, 
All fresh and fiery, to be pour'd upon them 
In their retreat, which soon will be a flight. 

Sae. It is already, or at least they march'd 
Faster than I could follow with my Bactrians, 
Who spared no speed. I am spent : give me a seat. 

Sal. There stands the throne, sire. 

Sae. 'Tis no place to rest on. 

For mind nor body : let me have a couch, 

[They place a seat. 
A peasant's stool, I care not what : so — now 
I breathe more freely. 

Sal. This great hour has proved 

The brightest and most gloriou^ of your life. 

Sae. And the most tiresome. Where's my cup- 
bearer ? 
Bring me some water. 

Sal. {smiling). 'Tis the first time he 

Ever had such an order : even I, 
Your most austere of counsellors, would now 
Suggest a purpler beverage. 

Sae. Blood — doubtless. 

But there's enough of that shed ; as for wine, 
I have learn'd to-night the price of the pure element : 
Thrice have I drank of it, and thrice renew'd. 
With greater strength than the grape ever gave me, 
My charge upon the rebels. Where's the soldier 
Who gave me water in his helmet ? 

One of the Guaeds. Slain, sire ! 

An arrow pierced his brain, while, scattering 
The last drops from his helm, he stood in act 
To place it on his brows. 

Sae. Slain! unrewarded! 

And slain to serve my thirst: that's hard, poor 

slave ! 
Had he but lived, I would have gorged him with 
Gold : all the gold of earth could ne'er repay 
The pleasure of that draught ; for I was parch'd 
As I am now. [They bring water — he drinks. 

I live again — from henceforth 
The goblet I reserve for hours of love, 
But war on water. 

Sal. And that bandage, sire, 

Which girds your arm ? 

Sae. a scratch from brave Beleses. 

Mye. Oh ! he is wounded ! 



' " The king, by his daring valor, restores the fortune of 
the fight, and returns, with all his train, to the palace. 



Sae. Not too much of that ; 

And yet it feels a little stiff and painful, 
Now I am cooler. 

Mye. You have bound it with 

Sae. The fillet of my diadem : the first time 
That ornament was ever aught to me 
Save an incumbrance. 

Mye. {to the Attendants). Summon speedily 
A leech of the most skillful : pray, retire : 
I will unbind your wound and tend it. 

Sae. Do so, 

For now it throbs sufiiciently : but what 
Know'st thou of wounds ? yet wherefore do I ask ? 
Know'st thou, my brother, where I lighted on 
This minion ? 

Sal. Herding with the other females, 

Like frighten'd antelopes. 

Sae. No ; like the dam 

Of the young lion, femininely raging 
(And femininely meaneth furiously. 
Because all passions in excess are female) 
Against the hunter flying with her cub. 
She urged on with her voice and gesture, and 
Her floating hair and flashing eyes, the soldiers, 
In the pursuit. 

Sal. Indeed ! 

Sae. You see, this night 

Made warriors of more than me. I paused 
To look upon her, and her kindled cheek ; 
Her large black eyes, that flash'd through her long 

hair 
As it streamed o'er her ; her blue veins that rose 
Along her most transparent brow ; her nostril 
Dilated from its symmetry ; her lips 
Apart ; her voice that clove through all the din, 
As a lute's pierceth through the cymbals' clash, 
Jarr'd but not drown'd by the loud brattling ; her 
Waved arms, more dazzling with their own born 

whiteness 
Than the steel her hand held, which she caught up 
From a dead soldier's grasp ; — all these things made. 
Her seem unto the troops a prophetess 
Of victory, or Victory herself, 
Come down to hail us hers. 

Sal. {aside). This is too much. 

Again the love-fit's on him, and all's lost, 
Unless we turn his thoughts. 

{Aloud.) But pray thee, sire, 
Think of your wound — you said even now 'twas 
painful. 

Sae. That's true, too ; but I must not think of it. 

Sal. I have look'd to all things needful, and will 
now 
Receive reports of progress made in such 
Orders as I h9,d given, and then return 
To hear your further pleasure. 

Sae. Be it so. 



The scene that ensues ia very masterly and characteristic' 
Jeffrey. 



314 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Act IV. 



Sal. {in retiring). Myrrha! 

Mye. Prince ! 

Sal. You have shown a soul to-night, 

Which, were he not my sister's lord But now 

I have no time ; thou lovest the king? 

Myr. I love 

Sardanapalus. 

Sal. But wouldst have him king still ? 

Mye. I would not have him less than what he 
should be. 

Sal. Well then, to have him king, and yours, and 
all 
He should, or should not be ; to have him live, 
Let him not sink back into luxury. 
You have more power upon his spirit than 
Wisdom within these walls, or fierce rebellion 
Raging without : look well that he relapse not. 

Mye. There needed not the voice of Salemenes 
To urge me on to this : I will not fail. 
All that a woman's weakness can 

Sal. Is power 

Omnipotent o'er such a heart as his : 
Exert it wisely. {Exit Salemenes. 

Sae. Myrrha ! what, at whispers 

With my stern brother ? I shall soon be jealous.^ 

Mye. {smiling). You have cause, sire; for on the 
earth there breathes not 
A man more worthy of a woman's love — 
A soldier's trust — a subject's reverence — 
A king's esteem — the whole world's admiration ! 

Sae. Praise him, but not so warmly. I must not 
Hear those sweet lips grow eloquent in aught 
That throws me into shade : yet you speak truth. 

Mye. And now retire, to have your wound look'd to. 
Pray, lean on me. 

Sae. Yes, love ! but not from pain. 

[^Exeunt omnes. 



ACT IV. 

SCENE I. 



Saedanapaltjs discovered sleeping upon a Couch, 
and occasionally disturbed in his Slumbers, with 
Myeeha watching. 

Mye. {sola, gazing). I have stolen upon his rest, if 
rest it be, 
Which thus convulses slumber : shall I wake him ? 
No, he seems calmer. Oh, thou God of Quiet ! 
Whose reign is o'er seal'd eyelids and soft dreams. 



1 " The rebels are at length repulsed. The king re-enters 
wounded, and retires to rest, after a short and very character- 
istic conversation between Salemenes and Myrrha, in which 
the two kindred spirits show their mutual understanding of 
each other, and the loyal warrior, postponing all the selfish 
domestic feelings which led him to dislike the fair Ionian, ex- 
horts her to use her utmost power to keep her lover from relax- 
ing into luxury. The transient effect which their whispers 



Or deep, deep sleep, so as to be unfathom'd, 

Look like thy brother, Death — so still — so stirless-- 

For then we are happiest, as it may be, we 

Are happiest of all within the realm 

Of thy stern, silent, and unwakening twin. 

Again he moves — again the play of pain 

Shoots o'er his features, as the sudden gust 

Crisps the reluctant lake that lay so calm 2 

Beneath the mountain shadow ; or the blast 

RufSes the autumn leaves, that drooping cling 

Faintly and motionless to their loved boughs. 

I must awake him — yet not yet ; who knows 

From what I rouse him ? It seems pain ; but if 

I quicken him to heavier pain ? The fever 

Of this tumultuous night, the grief too of 

His wound, though slight, may cause all this, and 

shake 
Me more to see than him to suffer. No : 
Let Nature use her own maternal means, 
And I await to second, not disturb her.^ 

Sae. {awakening). Not so — although ye multiplied 
the stars. 
And gave them to me as a realm to share 
From you and with you ! I would not so purchase 
The empire of eternity. Hence — hence — 
Old hunter of the earliest brutes ! and ye. 
Who hunted fellow creatures as if brutes ! 
Once bloody mortals — and now bloodier idols, 
If your priests lie not ! And thou, ghastly beldam I 
Dripping with dusky gore, and trampling on 
The carcasses of Ind — away ! away ! 

Where am I? Where the spectres? Where \ 

No — that 
Is no false phantom : I should know it 'midst 
All that the dead dare gloomily raise up 
From their black gulf to daunt the living. Myrrha ! 

Mye. Alas! thou art pale, and on thy brow the 
drops 
Gather like night dew. My beloved, hush — 
Calm thee. Thy speech seems of another world, 
And thou art lord of this. Be of good cheer ; 
All will go well. 

Sae. Thy hand — so — 'tis thy hand ; 

'Tis flesh ; grasp — clasp — yet closer, till I feel 
Myself that which I was. 

Mye. At least know me 

For what I am, and ever must be — thine. 

Sae. I know it now. I know this life again. 
Ah, Myrrha ! I have been where we shall be. 

Mye. My lord ! 

Sae. I've been i' the grave — where 

worms are lords, 



produce on Sardanapalus is well imagined." — Bishop Hebek. 

2 " Crisps the unswelling wave," &c. — MS. 

3 " The fourth act opens with Myrrha watching over the 
slumbers of Sardanapalus. He wakens and tells a horrid 
dream, which we do not much admire, except that part of it 
which describes the form of his warlike ancestress Semira- 
mis, with whom, and the rest of his regal predecessors, he 
had fancied himself at a ghostly banquet." — Hebeb. 



Scene I. 



SAKDANAPALUS. 



315 



And kings are But I did not deem it so ; 

I thought 'twas nothing. 

Myk. So it is ; except 

Unto the timid, who anticipate 
That which may never be.^ 

Sak. Oh, Myrrha ! if 

Sleep shows such things, what may not death disclose ? 

Myk. I know no evil death can show, which life 
Has not already shown to those who live 
Embodied longest. If there be indeed 
A shore where mind survives, 'twill be as mind, 
All unincorporate : or if there flits 
A shadow of this cumbrous clog of clay, 
Which stalks, methinks, between our souls and heaven. 
And fetters us to earth — at least the phantom, 
Whate'er it have to fear, will not fear death. 

Sar. I fear it not ; but I have felt — have seen — 
A legion of the dead. 

Myr. And so have I. 

The dust we tread upon was once alive. 
And wretched. But proceed : what hast thou seen ? 
Speak it, 'twill lighten thy dimm'd mind. 

Sar. Methought — 

Myr. Yet pause, thou art tired — in pain — ex- 
hausted; all 
Which can impair both strength and spirit : seek 
Rather to sleep again. 

Sar. Not now — I would not 

Dream ; though I know it now to be a dream 
What I have dreamt : — and canst thou bear to hear it ? 

Myr. I can bear all things, dreams of life or death, 
Which I participate with you, in semblance 
Or full i-eality. 

Sar. And this look'd real, 

I tell you : after that these eyes were open, 
I saw them in their flight — for then they fled. 

Myr. Say on. 

Sar. I saw, that is, I dream'd myself 

Here — here — even where we are, guests as we were, 



1 " The general tone of Myrrha's character (in perfect con- 
sistency with the manners of her age and nation, and with 
her own elevated but pure and feminine spirit) is that of a 
devout worshipper of her country's gods. She reproves, with 
dignity, the impious flattery of the Assyrian courtiers and 
the libertine scoffs of the king. She does not forget, while 
preparing for death, that libation which was the latest and 
most solemn act of Grecian piety ; and she, more particularly, 
expresses her belief in a future state of existence. Yet this 
very Myrrha, when Sardanapalus is agitated by his evil 
dream, and by the natural doubt as to what worse visions 
death may bring, is made to console him, in the strain of his 
own Epicurean philosophy, with the doctrine that death is 
really nothing, except 

' Unto the timid, who anticipate 
That which may never be ;' 

and with the insinuation that all which remains of ' the dead 
is the dust we tread upon.' We do not wish to ask, we do not 
like to conjecture, whose sentiments these are, but they are 
certainly not the sentiments of an ancient Grecian heroine. 
They are not the sentiments which Myrrha might have 
learned from the heroes of her native land, or from the 



Myself a host that deem'd himself but guest. 
Willing to equal all in social freedom ; 
But, on my right hand and my left, instead 
Of thee and Zames, and our custom'd meeting, 
Was ranged on my left hand a haughty, dark. 
And deadly face ; I could not recognize it. 
Yet I had seen it, though I knew not where : 
The features were a giant's, and the eye 
Was still, yet lighted ; his long locks curl'd down 
On his vast bust, whence a huge quiver rose 
With shaft-heads feather' d from the eagle's wing,2 
That peep'd up bristling through his serpent hair. 
I invited him to fill the cup which stood 
Between us, but he answer d not ; I fill'd it — 
He took it not, but stared upon me, till 
I trembled at the fix'd glare of his eye : 
I frown'd upon him as a king should frown ; 
He frown'd not in his turn, but look'd upon me 
With the same aspect, which appall'd me more, 
Because it changed not : and I turn'd for refuge 
To milder guests, and sought them on the right. 

Where thou wert wont to be. But 

{^He pauses. 

Myr. What instead ? 

Sar. In thy own chair — thy own place in the ban- 
quet — 
I sought thy sweet face in the circle — but 
Instead — a gray-hair'd, wither'd, bloody-eyed, 
And bloody-handed, ghastly, ghostly thing, 
Female in garb, and crown'd upon the brow, 
Furrow'd with years, yet sneering with the passion 
Of vengeance, leering too with that of lust. 
Sate : — my veins curdled. 

Myr. Is this all ? 

Sar. Upon 

Her right hand — her lank, bird-like, right hand — stood 
A goblet, bubbling o'er with blood ; and on 
Her left, another, fill'd with — what I saw not. 
But turn'd from it and her. But all along 



poems whence those heroes derived their heroism, their con- 
tempt of death, ' and their love of virtue.' Myrrha would 
rather have told her lover of those happy islands where the 
benevolent and the brave repose after the toils of their mor- 
tal existence ; of that venerable society of departed warriors 
and sages, to which, if he renounced his sloth and lived for 
his people and for glory, he might yet expect admission. She 
would have told him of that joy with which his warlike an- 
cestors would move along their meads of asphodel, when the 
news reached them of their descendant's prowess ; she would 
have anticipated those songs which denied that ' Harmodius 
was dead,' however he might be removed from the sphere of 
mortality,— which told her countrymen of tlie ' roses and the 
golden-fruited bowers, where, beneath the light of a lower 
sun, departed warriors reined their shadowy cars, or struck 
their harps amid altars steaming with frankincense.' — (Horn. 
Odyss. A. 539. Callistratus ap. Athenaeum, 1. xv. Pindar. 
Fragm. Heyne, vol. iii. p. 31.) Such were the doctrines which 
naturally led men to a contempt for life and a thirst for glory ; 
but the opposite opinions were the doubts of a later day ; and 
of those sophists under whose influence Greece soon ceased 
to be free, or valiant, or virtuous."— Heber. 
2 « With arrows peeping through his falling hair." — MS. 



316 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



Act IV. 



The table sate a range of crowned wretches, 
Of various aspects, but of one expression. 

Myr. And felt you not this a mere vision ? 

Sar. No : 

It was so palpable, I could have touched them. 
I turn'd from one face to another, in 
The hope to find at last one which I knew 
Ere I saw theirs : but no — all turn'd upon me. 
And stared, but neither ate nor drank, but stared. 
Till I grew stone, as they seem'd half to be. 
Yet breathing stone, for I felt life in them. 
And life in me : there was a horrid kind 
Of sympathy between us, as if they 
Had lost a part of death to come to me, 
And I the half of life to sit by them. 
We were in an existence all apart 

From heaven or earth And rather let me see 

Death all than such a being ! 

Myr. And the end ? 

Sar. At last I sate, marble, as they, when rose 
The hunter and the crone ; and smiling on me — 
Yes, the enlarged but noble aspect of 
The hunter smiled upon me— I should say. 
His lips, for his eyes moved not — and the woman's 
Thin lips relax'd to something like a smile. 
Both rose, and the crown'd figures on each hand 
Rose also, as if aping their chief shades — 
Mere mimics even in death — but I sate still : 
A desperate courage crept through every limb, 
And at the last I fear'd them not, but laugh'd 
Full in their phantom faces. But then — then 
The hunter laid his hand on mine : I took it, 
And grasp'd it— but it melted from my own ; 
While he too vanish'd, and left nothing but 
The memory of a hero, for he look'd so. 

Myr. And was : the ancestor of heroes, too, 
And thine no less. 

Sar. Ay, Myrrha, but the woman. 

The female who remain'd, she flew upon me. 
And burnt my lips up with her noisome kisses ; 
And, flinging down the goblets on each hand, 
Methought their poisons flow'd around us, till 
Each form'd a hideous river. Still she clung ; 
The other phantoms, like a row of statues, 
Stood dull as in our temples, but she still 
EmbracecJ me, while I shrunk from her, as if. 
In lieu of her remote descendant, I 
Had been the son who slew her for her incest. 
Then — then — a chaos of all loathsome things 
Throng'd thick and shapeless : I was dead, yet feel- 
ing- 
Buried, and raised again — consumed by worms, 
Purged by the flames, and wither'd in the air ! 
I can fix nothing further of my thoughts. 
Save that I long'd for thee, and sought for thee. 
In all these agonies, — and woke and found thee. 

Myr. So shalt thou find me ever at thy side, 
Here and hereafter, if the last may be. 
But think not of these things — the mere creations 
Of late events, acting upon Sk frame 



Unused to toil, yet overwrought by toil 
Such as might try the sternest. 

Sar. I am better. 

Now that I see thee once more, what was seen 
Seems nothing. 

Enter Salemenes. 

Sal. Is the king so soon awake ? 

Sar. Yes, brother, and I would I had not slept j 
For all the predecessors of our line 
Rose up, methought, to drag me down to them. 
My father was amongst them, too ; but he, 
I know not why, kept from me, leaving me 
Between the hunter-founder of our race. 
And her, the homicide and husband-killer. 
Whom you call glorious. 

Sal. So I term you also, 

Now you have shown a spirit like to hers. 
By daybreak I propose that we set forth, 
And charge once more the rebel crew, who still 
Keep gathering head, repulsed, but not quite 
quell'd. 

Sar. How wears the night ? 

Sal. There yet remains some hours 

Of darkness : use them for your further rest. 

Sar. No, not to-night, if 'tis not gone: me- 
thought 
I pass'd hours in that vision. 

Myr. Scarcely one ; 

I watch'd by you : it was a heavy hour. 
But an hour only. 

Sar. Let us then hold council : 

To-morrow we set forth. 

Sal. But ere that time 

I had a grace to seek. 

Sar. 'Tis granted. 

Sal. Hear it 

Ere you reply too readily ; and 'tis 
For your ear only. 

Myr. Prince, I take my leave. 

[Exit Myrrha. 

Sal. That slave deserves her freedom. 

Sar. Freedom only ! 

That slave deserves to share a throne. 

Sal. Your patience — 

'Tis not yet vacant, and 'tis of its partner 
I come to speak with you. 

Sar. How ! of the queen ? 

Sal. Even so. I judged it fitting for their safety. 
That, ere the dawn, she sets forth with her chil- 
dren 
For Paphlagonia, where our kinsman Cotta 
Governs ; and there at all events secure 
My nephews and your sons their lives, and with 

them 
Their just pretensions to the crown in case 

Sar. I perish — as is probable ; well thought — 
Let them set forth with a sure escort. 

Sal. That 

Is all provided, and the galley ready 



Scene I. 



SARDANAPALUS. 



317 



To drop down the Euphrates ; ^ but ere they 
Depart, will you not see 

Sar. My sons ? It may 

Unman my heart, and the poor boys will weep ; 
And what can I reply to comfort them. 
Save with some hollow hopes, and ill-worn smiles ? 
You know I cannot feign. 

Sal. But you can feel ! 

At least, I trust so : in a word, the queen 
Requests to see you ere you part — for ever. 

Sar. Unto what end ? what purpose ? I will grant 
Aught — all that she can ask — but such a meeting. 

Sal. You know, or ought to know, enough of women, 
Since you have studied them so steadily. 
That what they ask in aught that touches on 
The heart, is dearer to their feelings or 
Their fancy, than the whole external world. ' 
I think as you do of my sister's wish ; 
But 'twas her wish — she is my sister — you 
Her husband— will you grant it? 

Sar. 'Twill be useless : 

But let her come. 

Sal. I go. [Exit Salemenes. 

Sar. We have lived asunder 

Too long to meet again — and now to meet ! 
Have I not cares enow, and pangs enow, 
To bear alone, that we must mingle sorrows, 
Who have ceased to mingle love? 

Re-enter Salemenes and Zarina. 

Sal, My sister ! Courage : 

Shame not our blood with trembling, but remember 
From whence we sprung. The queen is present, sire. 

Zar. I pray thee, brother, leave me. 

Sal. Since you ask it. 

[Exit Salemenes. 

Zar. Alone with him ! How many a year has pass'd, 
Though we are still so young, since we have met. 
Which I have worn in widowhood of heart ! 
He loved me not : yet he seems little changed — 
Changed to me only — would the change were mutual ! 
He speaks not — scarce regards me — not a word, 
Nor look — yet he was soft of voice and aspect, 
Indiflferent, not austere. My lord ! 

Sar. Zarina ! 

Zar. No, not Zarina — do not say Zarina. 
That tone — that word — annihilate long years, 
And things which make them longer. 

Sar. 'Tis too late 
To think of these past dreams. Let's not reproach — 
That is, reproach me not — for the last time 

Zar. A.nA first. I ne'er reproach'd you. 

Sar. 'Tis most true ; 

And that reproof comes heavier on my heart 
Than But our hearts are not in our own power. 

Zar. Nor hands ; but I gave both. 



^ " We hardly know why Lord Byron, who has not in other 
respects shown a slavish deference for Diodorus Siculus, should 
thus follow him in the manifest geographical blunder of placing 



Bar. Your brother said 

It was your will to see me, ere you went 
From Nineveh with {He hesitates.) 

Zar. Our children : it is true. 

I wish'd to thank you that you have not divided 
My heart, from all that's left it now to love — 
Those who are yours and mine, who look like you, 
And look upon me as you look'd upon me 
Once But they have not changed. 

Sar. Nor ever will. 

I fain would have them dutiful. 

Zar. I cherish 

Those infants, not alone from the blind love 
Of a fond mother, but as a fond woman. 
They are now the only tie between us. 

Sar. Deem not 

I have not done you justice : rather make them 
Resemble your own line, than their own sire. 
I trust them with you — to you : fit them for 

A throne, or, if that be denied You have heard 

Of this night's tumults? 

Zar. I had half forgotten. 

And could have welcomed any grief, save yours, 
Which gave me to behold your face again. 

Sar. The throne — I say it not in fear — but 'tis 
In peril : they perhaps may never mount it ; 
But let them not for this lose sight of it. 
I will dare all things to bequeath it them ; 
But if I fail, then they must win it back 
Bravely — and, won, wear it wisely, not as I 
Have wasted down my royalty. 

Zar. They ne'er 

Shall know from me of aught but what may honor 
Their father's memory. 

Sar. Rather let them hear 

The truth from you than from a trampling world. 
If they be in adversity, they'll learn 
Too soon the scorn of crowds for crownless princes, 
And find that all their father's sins are theirs. 
My boys ! — I could have borne it were I childless. 

Zar. Oh ! do not say so — do not poison all 
My peace left, by unwishing that thou wert 
A father. If thou conquerest, they shall reign, 
And honor him who saved the realm for them, 
So little cared for as his own ; and if 

Sar. 'Tis lost, all earth will cry out. Thank your 
father ! 
And they will swell the echo with a curse. 

Zar. That they shall never do ; but rather honor 
The name of him, who, dying like a king^ 
In his last hours did more for his own memory 
Than many monarchs in a length of days. 
Which date the flight of time, but make no annals. 

Sar. Our annals draw perchance unto their close ; 
But at the least, whate'er the past, their end 
Shall be like their beginning — memorable. 



Nineveh on the Euphrates instead of the Tigris, in opposition 
not only to the uniform tradition of the East, but to the express 
assertions of Herodotus, Pliny, and Ptolemy." — Heber, 



318 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Act IV. 



Zae. Yet, be not rash — be careful of your life, 
Live but for those who love. 

Sab. And who are they ? 
A slave, who loves from passion — I'll not say 
Ambition — she has seen thrones shake, and loves : 
A few friends who have revell'd till we are 
As one, for they are nothing if I fall ; 
A brother I have injured — children whom 
I have neglected, and a spouse 

Zae. Who loves. 

Sar. And pardons? 

Zar, I have never thought of this. 

And cannot pardon till I have condemn'd. 

Sar. My wife ! 

Zar. Now blessings on thee for that word ! 

I never thought to hear it more — from thee. 

Sar. Oh ! thou wilt hear it from my subjects. Yes — 
These slaves, whom I have nurtured, pamper'd, fed, 
And swoln with peace, and gorged with plenty, till 
They reign themselves — all monarchs in their man- 
sions — 
Now swarm forth in rebellion, and demand 
His death, who made their lives a jubilee ; 
While the few upon whom I have no claim 
Are faithful ! This is true, yet monstrous. 

Zar. 'Tis 

Perhaps too natural ; for benefits 
Turn poison in bad minds. 

Sar. And good ones make 

Good out of evil. Happier than the bee, 
Which hives not but from wholesome flowers. 

Zar. Then reap 

The honey, nor inquire whence 'tis derived. 
Be satisfied — you are not all abandon'd. 

Sar. My life insures me that. How long, bethink 
you, 
Were not I yet a king, should I be mortal ; 
That is, where mortals are, not where they must be ? 

Zar. I know not. But yet live for my — that is. 
Your children's sake ! 

Sar. My gentle, wrong'd Zarina ! ^ 

I am the very slave of circumstance 
And impulse — borne away with every breath ! 
Misplaced upon the throne — misplaced in life. 
I know not what I could have been, but feel 
I am not what I should be — let it end. 
But take this with thee : if I was jiot form'd 
To prize a love like thine, a mind like thine, 
Nor dote even on thy beauty — as I've doted 
On lesser charms, for no cause save that such 
Devotion was a duty, and I hated 
All that look'd like a chain for me or others 

1 "We are not sure whether there is not a considerable 
violation of costume in the sense of degradation with which 
Myrrha seems to regard her situation in the harem, no less 
than in the resentment of Salemenes, and the remorse of Sar- 
danapalus on the score of his infidelity to Zarina. Little as 
we know of the domestic habits of Assyria, we have reason 
to conclude, from the habits of contemporary nations, and 
from the manners of the East in every age, that polygamy 



(This even rebellion must avouch) ; yet hear 
These words, perhaps among my last — that none 
E'er valued more thy virtues, though he knew not 
To profit by them — as the miner lights 
Upon a vein of virgin ore, discovering 
That which avails him nothing : he hath found it, 
But 'tis not his — but some superior's, who 
Placed him to dig, but not divide the wealth 
Which sparkles at his feet ; nor dare he lift 
Nor poise it, but must grovel on, upturning 
The sullen earth. 

Zar. Oh I if thou hast at length 

Discover' d that my love is worth esteem, 
I ask no more — but let us hence together, 
And J— let me say we — shall yet be happy. 
Assyria is not all the earth — we'll find 
A world'out of our own — and be more bless'd 
Than I have ever been, or thou, with all 
An empire to indulge thee. 

Enter Salemenes. 

Sal. I must part ye — 

The moments, which must not be lost, are passing. 

Zar. Inhuman brother ! wilt thou thus weigh out 
Instants so high and blest ? 

Sal. Blest ! 

Zar. He hath been 

So gentle with me, that I cannot think 
Of quitting. 

Sal. So — this feminine farewell 

Ends as such partings end, in no departure. 
I thought as much, and yielded against all 
My better bodings. But it must not be. 

Zar. Not be? 

Sal. Eemain, and perish 

Zar. With my husband 

Sal. And children. 

Zar. Alas ! 

Sal. Hear me, sister, like 
My sister : — all's prepared to make your safety 
Certain, and of the boys too, our last hopes : 
'Tis not a single question of mere feeling. 
Though that were much — but 'tis a point of state : 
The rebels would do more to seize upon 
The offspring of their sovereign, and so crush 

Zar. Ah ! do not name it. 

Sal. Well, then, mark me : when 

They are safe beyond the Median's grasp, the rebels 
Have miss'd their chief aim — the extinction of 
The line of Nimrod. Though the present king 
Fall, his sons live for victory and vengeance. 

Zar. But could not I remain, alone ? 



was neither accounted a crime in itself, nor as a measure of 
which the principal wife was justified in complaining. And 
even in Greece, in those times when Myrrha's character must 
have been formed, — to be a captive, and subject to the cap- 
tor's pleasure, was accounted a misfortune indeed, but could 
hardly be regarded as an infamy. But where is the critic 
who would object to an inaccuracy which has given occasion 
to such sentiments and such poetry?''— Heber. 



Scene I. 



SAKDANAPALUS. 



319 



Sal. What! leave 

Your children, with two parents and yet orphans — 
In a strange land — so young, so distant ? 

Zae. . No— 

My heart will break, 

Sal. Now you know all — decide. 

Sar. Zarina, he hath spoken well, and we 
Must yield awhile to this necessity. 
Remaining here, you may lose all ; departing, 
You save the better part of what is left, 
To both of us, and to such loyal hearts 
As yet beat in these kingdoms. 

Sal. The time presses. 

Sae. Go, then. If e'er we meet again, perhaps 
I may be worthier of you — and, if not. 
Remember that my faults, though not atoned for. 
Are ended. Yet, I dread thy nature will 
Grieve more above the blighted name and ashes 

Which once were mightiest in Assyria— than 

But I grow womanish again, and must not ; 
I must learn sternness now. My sins have all 
Been of the softer order — hide thy tears — 
I do not bid thee not to shed them — 'twere 
Easier to stop Euphrates at its source 
Than one tear of a true and tender heart — 
But let me not behold them ; they unman me 
Here when I had remann'd myself. My brother. 
Lead her away. 

Zae. Oh, God ! I never shall 

Behold him more ! 

Sal. {striving to conduct her). Nay, sister, I must 
be obey'd. 

Zae. I must remain — away ! you shall not hold me. 
What, shall he die alone ? — I live alone ? 

Sal. He shall not die alone; but lonely you 
Have lived for years. 

Zae. That's false ! I knew he lived, 

.\nd lived upon his image — let me go ! 

Sal, {conducting her off the stage). Nay, then, I 
must use some fraternal force, 
Which you will pardon. 

Zae. Never. Help me ! Oh ! 

Sardanapalus, wilt thou thus behold me 
Torn from thee ? 

Sal. Nay — then all is lost again, 

If that this moment is not gain'd. 

Zae. My brain turns — 

My eyes fail — where is he ? [She faints. 

Sae. {advancing). No — set her down — 

She's dead — and you have slain her. 

Sal, 'Tis the mere 

Faintness of o'erwrought passion : in the air 



1 " This scene has been, by the Edinburgh Reviewers, we 
know not why, called 'useless,' 'unnatural,' and 'tediously 
written.' For ourselves, we are not ashamed to own that we 
have read it with emotion. It is an interview between Sar- 
danapalus and his neglected wife, whom, with her children, 
he is about to send to a place of safety. Here too, however, 
he is represented, with much poetical art and justice of de- 
lineation, as, in the midst of his deepest regrets for Zarina, 



She will recover. Pray, keep back. — [Aside.] I must 

Avail myself of this sole moment to 

Bear her to where her children are embark'd, 

I' the royal galley on the river. 

[Salemenes bears her off.^ 
Sae. {solus). This, too — 

And this too must I suffer — I, who never 
Inflicted purposely on human hearts 
A voluntary pang ! But that is false — 
She loved me, and I loved her. — Fatal passion ! 
Why dost thou not expire at once in hearts 
Which thou hast lighted up at once ? Zarina ! 
I must pay dearly for the desolation 
Now brought upon thee. Had I never loved 
But thee, I should have been an unopposed 
Monarch of honoring nations. To what gulfs 
A single deviation from the track 
Of human duties leads even those who claim 
The homage of mankind as their born due, 
And find it, till they forfeit it themselves ! 

Enter Myeeha. 

Sae. You here ! Who call'd you ? 

Mye. No one — but I heard 

Far off a voice of wail and lamentation. 
And thought 

Sae. It forms no portion of your duties 

To enter here till sought for. 

Mye. Though I might, 

Perhaps, recall some softer words of yours 
(Although they too were chiding), which reproved me, 
Because I ever dreaded to intrude : 
Resisting my own wish and your injunction 
To heed no time nor presence, but approach you 
UncalFd for : — I retire. 

Sae. Yet stay — being here. 

I pray you pardon me : events have sour'd me 
Till I wax peevish — heed it not : I shall 
Soon be myself again. 

Mye. I wait with patience. 

What I shall see with pleasure. 

Sae. Scarce a moment 

Before your entrance in this hall, Zarina, 
Queen of Assyria, departed hence. 

Mye. Ah! 

Sae. Wherefore do you start ? 



Mye. 



Did I do 



Sae. 'Twas well you enter'd by another portal, 
Else you had met. That pang at least is spared her ! 

Mye. I know to feel for her. 

Sae. That is too much. 

And beyond nature — 'tis not mutual ^ 



chiefly engrossed with himself and his own sorrows, and 
inclined, immediately afterwards, to visit on poor Myrrha 
the painful feelings which his own reproaches of himself 
have occasioned." — Hebek. 

2 For mutual, the MS. in our hands has natwral; but we are 
not quite sure that there has been merely a misprint in the 
foregoing editions. 



320 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Act IV. 



Nor possible. You cannot pity her, 
Nor she aught but 

Myk. Despise the favorite slave ? 

Not more than I have ever scorn'd myself. 

Sar. Scorn'd ! what, to be the envy of your sex, 
And lord it o'er the heart of the world's lord ? 

Mye. Were you the lord of twice ten thousand 
worlds — 
As you are like to lose the one you sway'd — 
I did abase myself as much in being 
Your paramour, as though you were a peasant — 
Nay, more, if that the peasant were a Greek. 

Sar. You talk it well 

Myr. And truly. 

Sar. In the hour 

Of man's adversity all things grow daring 
Against the falling ; but as I am not 
Quite fall'n, nor now disposed to bear reproaches, 
Perhaps because I merit them too often, 
Let us then part while peace is still between us. 

Myr. Part! 

Sar. Have not all past human beings parted, 

And must not all the present one day part ? 

Myr. Why? 

Sar. For your safety, which I will have look'd to. 
With a strong escort to your native land ; 
And such gifts, as, if you had not been all 
A queen, shall make your dowry worth a kingdom. 

Myr. I pray you talk not thus. 

Sar. The queen is gone : 

You need not shame to follow. I would fall 
Alone — I seek no partners but in pleasure. 

Myr. And I no pleasure but in parting not. 
You shall not force me from you. 

Sar. Think well of iir- 

It soon may be too late. 

Myr. So let it be ; 

For then you cannot separate me from you. 

Sar. And will not ; but I thought you wish'd it. 

Myr. I ! 

Sar. You spoke of your abasement. 

Myr. And I feel it 

Deeply — more deeply than all things but love. 

Sar. Then fly from it. 

Myr. 'Twill not recall the past— 

'Twill not restore my honor, nor my heart. 
No— here I stand or fall. If that you conquer, 
I live to joy in your great triumph : should 
Your lot be different, I'll not weep, but share it. 
You did not doubt me a few hours ago. 

Sar. Your courage never — nor your love till now ; 
And none could make me doubt it save yourself. 
Those words 

Myr. Were words. I pray you, let the proofs 

Be in the past acts you were pleased to praise 
This very night, and in my further bearing, 
Beside, wherever you are borne by fate. 

Sar. I am content ; and, trusting in my cause, 
Think we may yet be victors and return 
To peace — the only victory I covet. 



To me war is no glory — conquest no 
Renown. To be forced thus to uphold my right 
Sits heavier on my heart than all the wrongs 
These men would bow me down with. Never, 

never 
Can I forget this night, even should I live 
To add it to the memory of others. 
I thought to have made mine inoffensive rule 
An era of sweet peace 'midst bloody annals, 
A green spot amidst desert centuries, 
On which the future would turn back and smile, 
And cultivate, or sigh when it could not 
Eecall Sardanapalus' golden reign. 
I thought to have made my realm a paradise, 
And every moon an epoch of new pleasures. 
I took the rabble's shouts for love — the breath 
Of friends for truth — the lips of woman for 
My only guerdon — so they are, my Myrrha : 

[He kisses her. 
Kiss me. Now let them take my realm and life ! 
They shall have both, but never thee ! 

Myr. No, never 

Man may despoil his brother man of all 
That's great or glittering— kingdoms fall — hosts 

yield — 
Friends fail — slaves fly — and all betray — and, more 
Than all, the most indebted— but a heart 
That loves without self-love ! 'Tis here— now prove 

it. 

Unter Salemenes. 

Sal. I sought you — How ! she here again ? 

Sar. Return not 

Now to reproof: methinks your aspect speaks 
Of higher matter than a woman's presence. 

Sal. The only woman whom it much imports me 
At such a moment now is safe in absence — 
The queen's embark'd. 

Sar. And well ? say that much. 

Sal. Yes. 

Her transient weakness has pass'd o'er ; at least. 
It settled into tearless silence : her 
Pale face and glittering eye, after a glance 
Upon her sleeping children, were still fix'd 
Upon the palace towers as the swift galley 
Stole down the hurrying stream beneath the star- 
light; 
But she said nothing. 

Sar. Would I felt no more 

Than she has said ! 

Sal. 'Tis now too late to feel. 

Your feelings cannot cancel a sole pang : 
To change them, my advices bring sure tidings 
That the rebellious Medes and Chaldees, marshall'd 
By their two leaders, are already up 
In arms again ; and, serrying their ranks, 
Prepare to attack : they have apparently 
Been join'd by other satraps. 

Sar. What ! more rebels ? 

Let us be first, then. 



Scene I. 



SARDANAPALUS. 



321 



Sal. That were hardly prudent 

Now, though it was our first intention. If 
By noon to-morrow we are join'd by those 
I've sent for by sure messengers, we shall be 
In strength enough to venture an attack, 
Ay, and pursuit too : but till then, my voice 
Is to await the onset. 

Sae. I detest 

That waiting : though it seems so safe to fight 
Behind high walls, and hurl down foes into 
Deep fosses, or behold them sprawl on spikes 
Strew'd to receive them, still I like it not — 
My soul seems lukewarm ; but when I set on them. 
Though they were piled on mountains, I would 

have 
A pluck at them, or perish in hot blood ! — 
Let me then charge ! 

Sal. You talk like a young soldier. 

Sar. I am no soldier, but a man : speak not 
Of soldiership, I loathe the word, and those 
Who pride themselves upon it ; but direct me 
Where I may pour upon them. 

Sal. You must spare 

To expose your life too hastily : 'tis not 
Like mine or any other subject's breath ; 
The whole war turns upon it — with it ; this 
Alone creates it, kindles, and may quench it — 
Prolong it — end it. 

Sar. Then let us end both ! 

'Twere better thus, perhaps, than prolong either ; 
I'm sick of one, perchance of both. 

[A trumpet sounds tvithout. 

Sal. Hark ! 

Sar. Let us 

Reply, not listen. 

Sal. And your wound ! 

Sar. 'Tis bound— 

'Tis heal'd — I had forgotten it. Away ! 
A leech's lancet would have scratch'd me deeper ; ^ 
The slave that gave it might be well ashamed 
To have struck so weakly. 

Sal. Now, may none this hour 

Strike with a better aim ! 

Sar. Ay, if we conquer ; 

But if not, they will only leave to me 
A task they might have spared their king. Upon 
them! 

[Trumpet sounds again. 

Sal. I am with you. 

Sar. Ho, my arms ! again, my arms ! 

[Exeunt. 



^ " A leech's lancet would have done as much." — ^MS. 

2 This description of the sun rolling back the vapors is 
apparently imitated from a magnificent scene in the second 
book of Wordsworth's Excursion : — 



" Round them and above, 



Glitter, with dark recesses interposed, 
Casement, and cottage roof, and stems of trees 
21 



ACT V. 



SCENE L 



The same Hall vn the Palace. 

Myrrha and Balea. 

Myr. {at a window). The day at last has broken. 
What a night 
Hath usher'd it ! How beautiful in heaven ! 
Though varied with a transitory storm, 
More beautiful in that variety ! 
How hideous upon earth ! where peace and hope. 
And love and revel, in an hour were trampled 
By human passions to a human chaos. 
Not yet resolved to separate elements. — 
'Tis warring still ! And can the sun so rise. 
So bright, so rolling back the clouds into 
Vapors more lovely than the unclouded sky, 
With golden pinnacles, and snowy mountains. 
And billows purpler than the ocean's, making 
In heaven a glorious mockery of the earth, 
So like we almost deem it permanent ; 
So fleeting, we can scarcely call it aught 
Beyond a vision, 'tis so transiently 
Scatter'd along the eternal vault : ^ and yet 
It dwells upon the soul, and soothes the soul, 
And blends itself into the soul, until 
Sunrise and sunset form the haunted epoch 
Of sorrow and of love ; which they who mark noi^ 
Know not the realms where those twin genii' 
(Who chasten and who purify our hearts. 
So that we would not change their sweet rebukes 
For all the boisterous joys that ever shook 
The air with clamor) build the palaces 
Where their fond votaries repose and breathe 
Briefly ;— but in that brief cool calm inhale 
Enough of heaven to enable them to bear 
The rest of common, heavy, human hours, 
And dream them through in placid sufferance ; 
Though seemingly employ'd like all the rest 
Of toiling breathers in allotted tasks * 
Of pain or pleasure, two names for one feeling, 
Which our internal, restless agony 
Would vary in the sound, although the sense 
Escapes our highest efforts to be happy. 

Bal. You muse right calmly : and can you so watch 
The sunrise which may be our last ? 

Myr. It is 

Therefore that I so watch it, and reproach 
Those eyes, which never may behold it more, 



Half veil'd in vaporing cloud, the silver steam 
Of dews fast melting on their leafy boughs 
By the strong sunbeams smitten." 

8 " Sunrise and sunset form the epoch of 
Sorrow and love ; and they who mark them not 
Can ne'er hpld converse with," &c. — MS. 

* " Of laboring wretches in allotted tasks."— MS, 



322 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Act V. 



For having look'd upon it oft, too oft, 

Without the reverence and the rapture due 

To that which keeps all earth from being as fragile 

As I am in this form. Come, look upon it, 

The Chaldee's god, which, when I gaze upon, 

I grow almost a convert to your Baal. 

Bal. As now he reigns in heaven, so once on earth 
He sway'd. 

Myr. He sways it now far more, then ; never 

Had earthly monarch half the power and glory 
Which centres in a single ray of his. 

Bal. Surely he is a god ! 

Myr. So we Greeks deem too ; 

And yet I sometimes think that gorgeous orb 
Must rather be the abode of gods than one 
Of the immortal sovereigns. Now he breaks 
Through all the clouds, and fills my eyes with light 
That shuts the world out. I can look no more. 

Bal. Hark ! heard you not a sound ? 

Myr. No, 'twas mere fancy ; 

They battle it beyond the wall, and not 
As in late midnight conflict in the very 
Chambers : the palace has become a fortress 
Since that insidious hour ; and here, within 
The very centre, girded by vast courts 
And regal halls of pyl^mid proportions, 
Which must be carried one by one before 
They penetrate to where they then arrived. 
We are as much shut in even from the sound 
Of peril as from glory. 

Bal. But they reach'd 

Thus far before. 

Myr. Yes, by surprise, and were 

Beat back by valor : now at once we have 
Courage and vigUance to guard us. 

Bal. May they 

Prosper ! 

Myr. That is the prayer of many, and 
The dread of more : it is an anxious hour ; 
I strive to keep it from my thoughts. Alas ! 
How vainly ! 

Bal. It is said the king's demeanor 

In the late action scarcely more appall'd 
The rebels than astonish'd his true subjects. 

Myr. 'Tis easy to astonish or appall 
The vulgar mass which moulds a horde of slaves ; 
But he did bravely. 

Bal. Slew he not Beleses ? 

I heard the soldiers say he struck him down. 

Myr. The wretch was overthrown, but rescued to 
Triumph, perhaps, o'er one who vanquish'd him 
In fight, as he had spared him in his peril ; 
And by that heedless pity risk'd a crown. 

Bal. Hark! [slowly. 

Myr. You are right: some steps approach, but 

Enter Soldiers, bearing i/n Salemenes wounded, with 
a hrohen Javelin in his Side: they seat hvm upon 
one of the Couches which furnish the Apartment. 
Myr. Oh, Jove ! 



Bal. Then all is over. 

Sal. That is false. 

Hew down the slave who says so, if a soldier. 
Myr. Spare him — he's none : a mere court butter- 

fly, 

That flutters in the pageant of a monarch. 

Sal. Let him live on, then. 

Myr. So wilt thou, I trust. 

Sal. I fain would live this hour out, and the event, 
But doubt it. Wherefore did ye bear me here ? 

Sol. By the king's order. When the javelin struck 
you, 
You fell and fainted : 'twas his strict command 
To bear you to this hall. 

Sal. 'Twas not ill done : 

For seeming slain in that cold dizzy trance. 
The sight might shake our soldiers— but — 'tis vain, 
I feel it ebbing ! 

Myr. Let me see the wound ; 

I am not quite skilless : in my native land 
'Tis part of our instruction. War being constant, 
We are nerved to look on such things.^ 
^ Sol. Best extract 

The javelin. 

Myr. Hold ! no, no, it cannot be. 

Sal. I am sped, then ! 

Myr. With the blood that fast must follow 

The extracted weapon, I do fear thy life. 

Sal. And I not death. Where was the king when 
you 
Convey 'd me from the spot where I was stricken? 

Sol. Upon the same ground, and encouraging 
With voice and gesture the dispirited troops 
Who had seen you fall, and falter'd back. 

Sal. Whom heard ye 

Named next to the command ? 

Sol. I did not hear. 

Sal. Fly, then, and tell him, 'twas my last request 
That Zames take my post until the junction, 
So hoped for, yet delay'd, of Ofratanes, 
Satrap of Susa. Leave me here : our troops 
Are not so numerous as to spare your absence. 

Sol. But, prince 

Sal. Hence, I say ! Here's a courtier and 

A woman, the best chamber company. 
As you would not permit me to expire 
Upon the field, I'll have no idle soldiers 
About my sick couch. Hence ! and do my bidding ! 

[Exeunt the Soldiers. 

Myr. Gallant and glorious spirit ! must the earth 
So soon resign thee ? 

Sal. Gentle Myrrha, 'tis 

The end I would have chosen, had I saved 
The monarch or the monarchy by this ; 
As 'tis, I have not outlived them. 

Myr. You wax paler. 

Sal. Your hand ; this broken weapon but prolongs 
My pangs, without sustaining life enough 

1 " We are used to such inflictions."— MS. 



Scene I. 



SABDANAPALUS. 



323 



To make me useful : I would draw it forth, 
And my life with it, could I but hear how 
The fight goes. 

Enter Sardanapalus and Soldiers, 

Sar. My best brother ! 

SAii. And the battle 

Is lost? 

Sar. (despondingly). You see me here. 

Sal. I'd rather see you thus ! 

[ffe draws out the weapon from the wound, 
and dies. 

Sar. And thus I will be seen ; unless the succor. 
The last frail reed of our beleaguer'd hopes, 
Arrive with Ofratanes. 

Myr. Did you not 

Receive a token from your dying brother, 
Appointing Zames chief? 

Sar. I did. 

Myr. Where's Zames ? 

Sar. Dead. 

Myr. AndAltada? 

Sar. Dying. 

Myr. Pania? Sfero? 

Sar. Pania yet lives : but Sfero's fled, or captive. 
I am alone. 

Myr. And is all lost? 

Sar. Our walls. 

Though thinly mann'd, may still hold out against 
Their present force, or aught save treachery : 
But i' the field 

Myr. I thought 'twas the intent 

Of Salemenes not to risk a sally 
Till ye^were strengthen'd by the expected succors. 

Sar. /overruled him. 

Myr. Well, the fault's a brave one. 

Sar. But fatal. Oh, my brother ! I would give 
These realms, of which thou wert the ornament, 
The sword and shield, the sole redeeming honor. 

To call back But I will not weep for thee ; 

Thou shalt be mourn'd for as thou wouldst be moum'd. 

It grieves me most that thou couldst quit this life 

Believing that I could survive what thou 

Ilast died for — our long royalty of race. 

If I redeem it, I will give thee blood 

Of thousands, tears of millions, for atonement 

(The tears of all the good are thine already). 

If not, we meet again soon, — if the spirit 

Within us lives beyond ; — thou readest mine, 

And dost me justice now. Let me once clasp 

That yet warm hand, and fold that throbless heart 

[JSmbraces the bod/y. 
To this which beats so bitterly. Now, bear 
The body hence. 

Soldier. Where ? 

Sar. To my proper chamber. 

Place it beneath my canopy, as though 
The king lay there : when this is done, we will 
Speak farther of the rites due to such ashes. 

[Exeunt Soldiers with the body of Salemenes. 



Enter Pania. 

Sar. Well, Pania! have you placed the guards, 
and issued 
The orders fix'd on ? 

Pan. Sire, I have obey'd. 

Sar. And do the soldiers keep their hearts up ? 

Pan. Sire ? 

Sar. I'm answer'd ! When a king asks twice, and 
has 
A question as an answer to his question. 
It is a portent. What ! they are dishearten'd ? 

Pan. The death of Salemenes, and the shouts 
Of the exulting rebels on his fall, 
Have made them 

Sar. Rage — not droop — it should have been. 

We'll find the means to rouse them. 

Pan. Such a loss 

Might sadden even a victory. 

Sar. Alas ! 

Who can so feel it as I feel ? but yet. 
Though coop'd within these walls, they are strong, 

and we 
Have those without will break their way through 

hosts. 
To make their sovereign's dwelling what it was — 
A palace ; not a prison, nor a fortress. 

Enter an Officer, hastily. 

Sar. Thy face seems ominous. Speak ! 

Ofpi. I dare not. 

Sar. Dare not ? 

While millions dare revolt with sword in hand ! 
That's strange. I pray thee break that loyal silence 
Which loathes to shock its sovereign ; we can hear 
Worse than thou hast to tell. 

Pan. Proceed, thou hearest. 

Offi. The wall which skirted near the river's brink 
Is thrown down by the sudden inundation 
Of the Euphrates, which now rolling, swoln 
From the enormous mountains where it rises. 
By the late rains of that tempestuous region, 
O'erfloods its banks, and hath destroy'd the bulwark. 

Pan. That's a black augury ! it has been said 
For ages, " That the city ne'er should yield 
To man, until the river grew its foe." 

Sar. I can forgive the omen, not the ravage. 
How much is swept down of the wall ? 

Offi. About 

Some twenty stadia.^ 

Sar. And all this is left 

Pervious to the assailants ? 

Offi. For the present 

The river's fury must impede the assault ; 
But when he shrinks into his wonted channel. 
And may be cross'd by the accustom'd barks. 
The palace is their own. 

Sar. That shall be never. 

Though men, and gods, and elements, and omens, 

1 About two miles and a half. 



324 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Act V. 



Have risen up 'gainst one who ne'er provoked them, 
My fathers' house shall never be a cave 
For wolves to horde and howl in. 

Pan. With your sanction, 

I will proceed to the spot, and take such measures 
For the assurance of the vacant space 
As time and means permit. 

Sak. About it straight , 

And bring me back, as speedily as full 
And fair investigation may permit. 
Report of the true state of this irruption 
Of waters. [^Exeunt Pania and the Officer. 

Mye. Thus the very waves rise up 
Against you. 

Sar. They are not my subjects, girlj 

And may be pardon'd, since they can't be punish'd. 

Myr. I joy to see this portent shakes you not. 

Sar. I am past the fear of portents : they can tell me 
Nothing I have not told myself since midnight 
Despair anticipates such things. 

Myr. Despair ! 

Sar. No ; not despair precisely. When we know 
All that can come, and how to meet it, our 
Resolves, if firm, may merit a more noble 
Word than this to give it utterance. 
But what are words to us ? we have well nigh done 
With them and all things. 

Myr. Save one deed — the last 

And greatest to all mortals ; crowning act 
Of all that was — or is — or is to \f& — 
The only thing common to all mankind. 
So different in their births, tongues, sexes, natures. 
Hues, features, climes, times, feelings, intellects,^ 
Without one point of union save in this, 
To which we tend, for which we're born, and thread 
The labyrinth of mystery, call'd life. 

Sar. Our clew being well nigh wound out, let's be 
cheerful. 
They who have nothing more to fear may well 
Indulge a smile at that which once appall'd ; 
As children at discover' d bugbears. 

Re-enter Pania. 
Pan. 'Tis 

As was reported : I have order'd there 
A double guard, withdrawing from the wall 
Where it was strongest the required addition. 
To watch the breach occasion'd by the waters. 

Sar. You have done your duty faithfully, and as 
My worthy Pania ! further ties between us 
Draw near a close — I pray you take this key : 

{Gives a key. 
It opens to a secret chamber, placed 
Behind the couch in my own chamber. (Now 
Press'd by a nobler weight than e'er it bore — 

1 "Complexions, climes, eras, and intellects."— MS. 

2 " Athenseus makes these treasures amount to a thousand 
myriads of talents of gold, and ten times as many talents of 
silver, which is a sum that exceeds all credibility. A man is 
lost if he attempts to sum up the whole value ; which induces 



Though a long line of sovereigns have lain down 

Along its golden frame — as bearing for 

A time what late was Salemenes.) Search 

The secret covert to which this will lead you ; 

'Tis full of treasure ; ^ take it for yourself 

And your companions : there's enough to load ye, 

Though ye be many.^ Let the slaves be freed, too ; 

And all the inmates of the palace, of 

Whatever sex, now quit it in an hour. 

Thence launch the regal barks, once form'd for 

pleasure. 
And now to serve for safety, and embark. 
The river's broad and swoln, and uncommanded 
(More potent than a king) by these besiegers. 
Fly ! and be happy ! 

Pan. Under your protection ! 

So you accompany your faithful guard. 

Sar. No, Pania ! that must not be ; get thee hence. 
And leave me to my fate. 

Pan. 'Tis the first time 
I ever disobey' d : but now 

Sar. So all men 

Dare beard me now, and Insolence within 
Apes Treason from without. Question no further ; 
'Tis my command, my last command. Wilt thou 
Oppose it ? thou ! 

Pan. But yet — not yet. 

Sar. Well, then, 

Swear that you will obey when I shall give 
The signal. 

Pan. With a heavy but true heart, 

I promise. 

Sar. 'Tis enough. Now order here 

Fagots, pine-nuts, and wither'd leaves, and such 
Things as catch fire and blaze with one sole spark ; 
Bring cedar, too, and precious drugs, and spices, 
And mighty planks, to nourish a tall pile ; 
Bring frankincense and myrrh, too, for it is 
For a great sacrifice I build the pyre ! 
And heap them round yon throne. 

Pan. My lord ! 

Sar. I have said it, 

And you have sworn. 

Pan. And could keep my faith 

Without a vow. [Exit Pania. 

Myr. What mean you ? 

Sar. You shall know 

Anon — what the whole earth shall ne'er forget. 

Pania, returning with a Herald. 

Pan. My king, in going forth upon my duty, 
This herald has been brought before me, craving 
An audience. 

Sar. Let him speak. 

Her, The King Arbaces 



me to believe that Athenseus must have very much exagger- 
ated ; however, we may be assured, from his account, that the 
treasures were immensely great." — Kollin. 

3 " Ye will find the crevice 

To which the key fits, with a little care."— MS. 



Scene I. 



SARDANAPALUS. 



325 



SaR. What, crown'd already ? — But, proceed. 

IEIer. Beleses, 

The anointed high-priest 

Sak. Of what god, or demon ? 

With new kings rise new altars. But, proceed : 
You are sent to prate your masters' will, and not 
Reply to mine. 

Her. And Satrap Ofratanes 

Sar. Why, he is ours. 

Her. {shoioing a ring). Be sure that he is now 
In the camp of the conquerors : behold 
His signet-ring. 

Sar. 'Tis his. A worthy triad ! 

Poor Salemenes ! thou hast died in time 
To see one treachery the less : this man 
Was thy true friend and my most trusted subject 
Proceed. 

Her. They offer thee thy life, and freedom 
Of choice to single out a residence 
In any of the further provinces, 
Guarded and watch'd, but not confined in person. 
Where thou shalt pass thy days in peace ; but on 
Condition that the three young princes are 
Given up as hostages. 

Sar. {ironically). The generous victors! 

Her. I wait the answer. 

Sar. Answer, slave ! How long 

Have slaves decided on the doom of kings ? 

Her. Since they were free. 

Sar. Mouthpiece of mutiny ! 

Thou at the least shalt learn the penalty 
Of treason, though its proxy only. Pania ! 
Let his head be thrown from our walls within 
The rebels' lines, his carcass down the river. 
Away with him ! 

[Pania and the Guards seizing him. 

Pan. I never yet obey'd 

Your orders with more pleasure than the present. 
Hence with him, soldiers ! do not soil this hall 
Of royalty with treasonable gore ; 
Put him to rest without. 

Her. a single word : 

My office, king, is sacred. 

Sar. And what's mine f 

That thou shouldst come and dare to ask of me 
To lay it down ? 

Her. I but obey'd my orders 

At the same peril, if refused, as now 
Incurr'd by my obedience. 

Sar. So there are 

New monarchs of an hour's growth as despotic 
As sovereigns swathed in purple, and enthroned 
From birth to manhood ! 

Her. My life waits your breath. 

Yours (I speak humbly) — but it may be — yours 
May also be in danger scarce less imminent : 
Would it then suit the last hours of a line 
Such as is that of Nimrod, to destroy 
A peaceful herald, unarm'd, in his office ; 
And violate not only all that man 



Holds sacred between man and man — but that 
More holy tie which links us with the gods ? 

Sar. He's right. — Let him go free. — My life's last 
act 
Shall not be one of wrath. Here, fellow, take 

\_Gives him a golden cup from, a table near. 
This golden goblet, let it hold your wine. 
And think of me ; or melt it into ingots. 
And think of nothing but their weight and value. 

Her. I thank you doubly for my life, and this 
Most gorgeous gift, which renders it more precious. 
But must I bear no answer ? 

Sar. Yes, — I ask 

An hour's truce to consider. 

Her. But an hour's ? 

Sar. An hour's : if at the expiration of 
That time your masters hear no further from me. 
They are to deem that I reject their terms, 
And act befittingly. 

Her. I shall not fail 

To be a faithful legate of your pleasure. 

Sar. And hark ! a word more. 

Her. I shall not forget it, 

Whate'er it be. 

Sar. Commend me to Beleses ; 

And tell him, ere a year expire, I summon 
Him hence to meet me. 

Her. Where? 

Sar. At Babylon. 

At least from thence he will depart to meet me. 

Her. I shall obey you to the letter. {Exit Herald. 

Sar. Pania ! — 

Now, my good Pania ! — quick — with what I order'd. 

Pan. My lord, — the soldiers are already charged. 
And, see ! they enter. 

{Soldiers enter, and form a Pile about the 
Throne, &c. 

Sar. Higher, my good soldiers, 

And thicker yet ; and see that the foundation 
Be such as will not speedily exhaust 
Its own too subtle flame ; nor yet be quench'd 
With aught officious aid would bring to quell it. 
Let the throne form the core of it ; I would not 
Leave that, save fraught with fire unquenchable, 
To the new comers. Frame the whole as if 
'Twere to enkindle the strong tower of our 
Inveterate enemies. Now it bears an aspect ! 
How say you, Pania, will this pile suffice 
For a king's obsequies ? 

Pan. Ay, for a kingdom's. 

I understand yoa, now. 

Sar. And blame me ? 

Pan. No— 

Let me but fire the pile, and share it with you. 

Myr. That duty's mine. 

Pan. a woman's ! 

Myr. 'Tis the soldier's 

Part to die for his sovereign, and why not 
The woman's with her lover ? 

Pan. 'Tis most strange t 



326 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Act V. 



Myr. But not so rare, my Pania, as thou think'st it. 
In the mean time, live thou. — Farewell 1 the pile 
Is ready. 

Pan. I should shame to leave my sovereign 
With but a single female to partake 
His death. 

Sae. Too many far have heralded 

Me to the dust, already. Get thee hence ; 
Enrich thee. 

Pan. And live wretched ! 

Sae. Think upon 

Thy vow : — 'tis sacred and irrevocable. 

Pan. Since it is so, farewell. 

Sae. Search well my chamber. 

Feel no remorse at bearing off the gold ; 
Remember, what you leave you leave the slaves 
Who slew me : and when you have borne away 
All safe off to your boats, blow one long blast 
Upon the trumpet as you quit the palace. 
The river's brink is too remote, its stream 
Too loud at present to permit the echo 
To reach distinctly from its banks. Then fly, — 
And as you sail, turn back ; but still keep on 
Your way along the Euphrates : if you reach 
The land of Paphlagonia, where the queen 
Is safe with my three sons in Cotta's court, 
Say what you saw at parting, and request 
That she remember what I said at one 
Parting more mournful still. 

Pan. That royal hand I 

Let me then once more press it to my lips ; 
And these poor soldiers who throng round you, and 
Would fain die with you ! 

[The Soldiers and Pania throng round him, 
kissing his hand and the hem of his robe. 

Sae. My best ! my last friends ! 

Let's not unman each other — part at once : 
All farewells should be sudden, when for ever, 
Else they make an eternity of moments, 
And clog the last sad sands of life with tears. 
Hence, and be happy : trust me, I am not 
Now to be pitied ; or far more for what 
Is past than present ;— for the future, 'tis 
In the hands of the deities, if such 
There be : I shall know soon. Farewell — Farewell. 
{^Exeunt Pania and Soldiers. 

Myr. These men were honest : it is comfort still 
That our last looks should be on loving faces. 

Sar. And lovely ones, my beautiful ! — but hear 
me! 
If at this moment, — for we now are on 
The brink, — thou feel'st an inward shrinking from 
This leap through flame into the future, say it : 
I shall not love thee less ; nay, perhaps more, 
For yielding to thy nature ; and there's time 
Yet for thee to escape hence. 
/Myr. Shall I light 

One of the torches which lie heap'd beneath 
The ever-burning lamp that burns without. 
Before Baal's shrine, in the adjoining hall ? 



Sae. Do so. Is that thy answer? 

Mye. Thou shalt see. 

[Exit Myeeha. 

Sae. (solus). She's firm. My fathers! whom I will 
rejoin, 
It may be, purified by death from some 
Of the gross stains of too material being, 
I would not leave your ancient first abode 
To the defilement of usurping bondmen ; 
If I have not kept your inheritance 
As ye bequeath'd it, this bright part of it, 
Your treasure, your abode, your sacred relics 
Of arms and records, monuments and spoils. 
In which they would have revell'd, I bear with 

me 
To you in that absorbing element, j 

Which most personifies the soul as leaving 
The least of matter unconsumed before 
Its fiery workings : — and the light of this 
Most royal of funereal pyres shall be 
Not a mere pillar form'd of cloud and flame, 
A beacon in the horizon for a day, 
And then a mount of ashes, but a light 
To lesson ages, rebel nations, and 
Voluptuous princes. Time shall quench full many 
A people's records, and a hero's acts ; 
Sweep empire after empire, like this first 
Of empires, into nothing ; but even then 
Shall spare this deed of mine, and hold it up 
A problem few dare imitate, and none 
Despise — but, it may be, avoid the life 
Which led to such a consummation. 

Myeeha returns with a lighted Torch in one Hand, 
and a Cup in the other. 

Mye. Lo ! 

I've lit the lamp which lights us to the stars. 

Sae. And the cup ? 

Mye. 'Tis my country's custom to 

Make a libation to the gods. 

Sae. And mine 

To make libations amongst men. I've not 
Forgot the custom ; and although alone. 
Will drain one draught in memory of many 
A joyous banquet past. 

[Saedanapalus takes the cup, and after drink' 
ing and tinkling the reversed cup, as a d/rop 
falls, exclaims — 

And this libation 
Is for the excellent Beleses. 

Mye. Why 

Dwells thy mind rather upon that man's name 
Than on his mate's in villainy ? 

Sae. The one 

Is a mere soldier, a mere tool, a kind 
Of human sword in a friend's hand ; the other 
Is master-mover of his warlike puppet : 
But I dismiss them from my mind. — Yet pause. 
My Myrrha I dost thou truly follow me, 
Freely and fearlessly ? 



Scene I. 



SAKDANAPALUS. 



327 



Myr. And dost thou think 

A Greek girl dare not do for love, that which 
An Indian widow braves for custom ? ^ 

Sar. Then 

We but await the signal. 

Myr. It is long 

lu sounding. 

Sar. Now, farewell : one last embrace. 

Myr. Embrace, but not the last ; there is one more. 

Sar. True, the commingling fire will mix our 
ashes. 

Myr. And pure as is my love to thee, shall they, 
Purged from the dross of earth, and earthly passion. 
Mix pale with thine. A single thought yet irks me. 

Sar. Say it. 

Myr. It is that no kind hand will gather 

The dust of both into one urn. 

Sar. " The better: 

Rather let them be borne abroad upon 
The winds of heaven, and scatter'd into air. 
Than be polluted more by human hands 
Of slaves and traitors. In this blazing palace, 
And its enormous walls of reeking ruin. 
We leave a nobler monument than Egypt 
Hath piled in her brick mountains, o'er dead kings,^ 
Or kine^ for none know whether those proud piles 

1 " And what is there 



An Indian widow dares for custom, which 

A Greek girl dare not do for love?"— MS. 
2 " These lines are in bad taste enough, from the jingle be- 
tween kings and Mne, down to the absurdity of believing that 
Sardanapalus at such a moment would be likely to discuss a 
point of antiquarian curiosity. But they involve also an 
anachronism, inasmuch as, whatever date be assigned to the 
erection of the earlier pyramids, there can be no reason for 
apprehending that, at the fall of Nineveh, and while the 
kingdom and hierarchy of Egypt subsisted in their full 
splendor, the destination of those immense fabrics could 
have been a matter of doubt to any who might inquire con- 
cerning them. Herodotus, three hundred years later, may 
have been misinformed of these points ; but, when Sardana- 
palus lived, the erection of pyramids must, in all probability, 
have not been still of unfrequent occurrence, and the nature 
of their contents no subject of mistake or mystery." — Heber. 

* Here an anonymous critic suspects Lord Byron of hav- 
ing read old Fuller, who says, in his quaint way, " the pyr- 
amids, doting with age, have forgotten the names of their 
founders." 

* " In Sardanapalus Lord Byron has been far more fortu- 
nate than in the Doge of Venice, inasmuch as his subject is 
one eminently adapted not only to tragedy in general, but to 
that peculiar kind of tragedy which Lord Byron is anxious 
to recommend. The history of the last of the Assyrian kings 
is at once sufficiently well known to awaken that previous 
interest which belongs to illustrious names and early asso- 
ciations ; and sufficiently remote and obscure to admit of any 
modification of incident or character which a poet may find 
convenient. All that we know of Nineveh and its sovereigns 
is majestic, indistinct, and mysterious. We read of an exten- 
sive and civilized monarchy erected in the ages immediately 
succeeding the deluge, and existing in full might and majesty 
while the shores of Greece and Italy were unoccupied, except 
by roving savages. We read of an empire whose influence 
extended from Samarcand to Troy, and from the mountains 
of Judah to those of Caucasus, subverted, after a continuance 



Be for their monarch, or their ox-god Apis : 
So much for monuments that have forgotten 
Their very record ! ^ 

Myr. Then farewell, thou earth ! 

And loveliest spot of earth ! farewell, Ionia I 
Be thou still free and beautiful, and far 
Aloof from desolation ! My last prayer 
Was for thee, my last thoughts, save one, were of thee ! 

Sar. And that? 

Myr. Is yours. 

{^The trumpet of Pania sounds without. 

Sar. Hark ! 

Myr. Ifow! 

Sar. Adieu, Assyria ! 

I loved thee well, my own, my fathers' land, 
And better as my country than my kingdom. 
I sated thee with peace and joys ; and this 
Is my reward ! and now I owe thee nothing. 
Not even a grave. [He mounts the pile. 

Now, Myrrha ! 

Myr. Art thou ready ? 

Sar. As the torch in thy grasp. 

[Myrrha fires the pile. 

Myr. 'Tis fired ! I come. 

[As Myrrha springs forward to throw herself 
into thefiames, the Curtain falls. ^ 



of thirteen hundred years, and a dynasty of thirty genera- 
tions, in an almost incredibly short space of time, less by the 
revolt of two provinces than by the anger of Heaven and the 
predicted fury of natural and inanimate agents. And the 
influence which both the conquests and the misfortunes of 
Assyria appear to have exerted over the fates of the people 
for whom, of all others in ancient history, our strongest feel- 
ings are (from religious motives) interested, throws a sort of 
sacred pomp over the greatness and the crimes of the de- 
scendants of Nimrod, and a reverence which no other equally 
remote portion of profane history is likely to obtain with us. 
At the same time, all which we know is so brief, so general, 
and so disjointed, that we have few of those preconceived 
notions of the persons and facts represented, which in clas- 
sical dramas, if servilely followed destroy the interest, and 
if rashly departed from oflend the prejudices, of the reader 
or the auditor. An outline is given of the most majestic 
kind ; but it is an outline only, which the poet may fill up at 
pleasure ; and in ascribing, as Lord Byron has done for the 
sake of his favorite unities, the destruction of the Assyrian 
empire to the treason of one night, instead of the war of sev- 
eral years, he has neither shocked our better knowledge, nor 
incurred any conspicuous improbability. . . . Still, however, 
the development of Sardanapalus's character is incidental 
only to the plot of Lord Byron's drama; and though the 
unities have confined his picture within far narrower limits 
than he might otherwise have thought advisable, the char- 
acter is admirably sketched ; nor is there any one of the por- 
traits of this great master which gives us a more favorable 
opinion of his talents, his force of conception, his delicacy 
and vigor of touch, or the richness and harmony of his col- 
oring. He had, indeed, no unfavorable groundwork, even in 
the few hints supplied by the ancient historians, as to the 
conduct and history of the last and most unfortunate of the 
line of Belus. Though accused (whether truly or falsely) by 
his triumphant enemies, of the most revolting vices, and an 
eflFeminacy even beyond what might be expected from the 
last dregs of Asiatic despotism, we find Sardanapalus, when 
roused by the approach of danger, conducting his armies 



328 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



with a courage, a skill, and, for some time at least, with a 
success not inferior to those of his most warlike ancestors. 
We find him retaining to the last the fidelity of his most 
trusted servants, his nearest kindred, and no small propor- 
tion of his hardiest subjects. We see him providing for the 
safety of his wife, his children, and his capital city, with all 
the calmness and prudence of an experienced captain. We 
see him at length subdued, not by man, but by Heaven and 
the elements, and seeking his death with a mixture of hero- 
ism and ferocity which little accords with our notions of a 
weak or utterly degraded character. And even the strange 
story, variously told, and without further explanation scarcely 
intelligible, which represents him as building (or fortifying) 
two cities in a single day, and then deforming his exploits 
with an indecent image and inscription, would seem to imply 
a mixture of energy with his folly not impossible, perhaps, 
to the madness of absolute power, and which may lead us to 



impute his fall less to weakness than to an injudicious and 
ostentatious contempt of the opinions and prejudices of man- 
kind. Such a character — ^luxurious, energetic, misanthrop- 
ical—affords, beyond a doubt, no common advantages to the 
work of poetic delineation ; and it is precisely the character 
which Lord Byron most delights to draw, and which he has 
succeeded best in drawing."— Heber. 

"I remember Lord Byron mentioning that the story of 
Sardanapalus had been working in his brain for seven years 
before he commenced it." — Trelawney. 

The following is an extract from the Life of Dr. Parr : — 
" In the course of the evening the doctor cried out — ' Have 
you read Sardanapalus?' 'Yes, sir.' 'Right; and you 
couldn't sleep a wink after it?' 'No.' 'Eight, right — now 
don't say a word more about it to-night.' The memory of 
that fine poem seemed to act like a spell of horrible fascina- 
tion upon him." 



t!Lf)t ^too jFoscari 



AK mSTOEICAL TEAGEDY.» 



" The father softens, but the governor's resolved." — Critic. 



DEAMATIS PERSONS. 



MEN. 



Francis Foscaei, Doge of Venice. 
Jacopo Foscaei, Son of the Doge. 
James Loeedano, a Patrician. 
Maeco Memmo, a Chief of the Forty. 
Baebaeigo, a Senator. 

Other Senators, the Council of Ten, 
Guards, Attendants, &c, &c. 

WOMAN. 
Marina, Wife of young Foscari. 

Scene.— The Ducal Palace, Venice. 



1 " Begun June the 12th, completed July the 9th, Ravenna, 
1821.— ^yron."— MS. 

"The Two Foscari" was composed at Eavenna, between 
the 11th of June and the 10th of July, 1821, and published 
with " Sardanapalus " in the following December. " The Ve- 
netian story," writes Lord Byron to Mr. Murray, " is strictly 
historical. I am much mortified that Giflford don't take to 
my new dramas. To be sure, they are as opposite to the 
English drama as one thing can be to another ; but I have a 
notion that, if understood, they will, in time, find favor 
(though not on the stage) with the reader. The simplicity of 
plot is intentional, and the avoidance of rant also, as also the 
compression of the speeches in the more severe situations. 
What I seek to show in ' the Foscaris ' is the suppressed passions 
rather than the rant of the present day. For that matter— 
' Nay, if thou'lt mouth, 
I'll rant as well as thou—' 
would not be difficult, as I think I have shown in my younger 
productions — not dramatic ones, to be sure."— An account of 
the incidents on which this play is founded, is given in the 
Appendix.* 

2 "The disadvantage, and, in truth, absurdity, of sacrificing 
higher objects to a formal adherence to the unities (see ante, 
p. 291) is strikingly displayed in this drama. The whole in- 
terest here turns upon the younger Foscari having returned 
from banishment, in defiance of the law and its consequences, 



* See Appendix : The Two Foscari, Note A. 



CJe Ctoo jFoscari/ 



ACT I. 



SCENE I. 
A Hall in the Ducal Palace. 

Enter Loeedano^ and Baebaeigo, meeting. 

LOE. Where is the prisoner ? 

Bae. Reposing from 

The Question. 

LoE. The hour's past— fix'd yesterday 

For the resumption of his trial. — Let us 
Rejoin our colleagues in the council, and 
Urge his recall. 

Bae. Nay, let him profit by 

A few brief minutes for his tortured limbs ; 



from an unconquerable longing after his own country. Now, 
the only way to have made this sentiment palatable, the prac- 
ticable foundation of stupendous sufferings, would have been, 
to have presented him to the audience,wearing out his heart in 
exile, and forming his resolution to return, at a distance from 
his country, or hovering, in excruciating suspense,within sight 
of its borders. We might then have caught some glimpse of 
the nature of his motives, and of so extraordinary a character. 
But as this would have been contrary to one of the unities, 
we first meet with him led from " the Question," and after- 
wards taken back to it in the ducal palace, or clinging to the 
dungeon-walls of his native city, and exjilring from his dread 
of leaving them ; and therefore feel more wonder than sym- 
pathy, when we are told, that these agonizing consequences 
have resulted, not from guilt or disaster, but merely from the 
intensity of his love for his country."— Jeffrey. 

3 " The character of Loredano is well conceived and truly 
tragic. The deep and settled principle of hatred which ani- 
mates him, and which impels him to the commission of the 
most atrocious cruelties, may seem, at first, unnatural and 
overstrained. But not only is it historically true ; but, when 
the cause of that hatred (the supposed murder of his father 
and uncles), and when the atrocious maxims of Italian re- 
venge, and that habitual contempt of all the milder feelings 
are taken into consideration which constituted the glory of 
a Venetian patriot, we may conceive how much a principle 
might be not only avowed but exulted in by a Venetian who 
regarded the house of Foscari as, at once, the enemies of his 
family and his country."— Heber. 

(329) 



330 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Act I. 



He was o'erwrought by the Question yesterday, 
And may die under it if now repeated. 

LOE. Well? 

Bar. I yield not to you in love of justice, 

Or hate of the ambitious Foscari, 
Father and son, and all their noxious race ; 
But the poor wretch has suffer'd beyond nature's 
Most stoical endurance. 

Lor. Without owning 

His crime. 

Bar. Perhaps without committing any. 

But he avow'd the letter to the Duke 
Of Milan, and his sufferings half atone for 
Such weakness. 

Lor. We shall see. 

Bar. You, Loredano, 

Pursue hereditary hate too far. 

Lor. How far ? 

Bar. To extermination. 

Lor. When they are 

Extinct, you may say this. — Let's in to council. 

Bar. Yet pause — the number of our colleagues is 
not 
Complete yet ; two are wanting ere we can 
Proceed. 

Lor. And the chief judge, the Doge ? 

Bar. No — he. 

With more than Roman fortitude, is ever 
First at the board in this unhappy process 
Against his last and only son. 

Lor. True — true — 

His last. 

Bar. Will nothing move you ? 

Lor. Feels he, think you ? 

Bar. He shows it not. 

Lor. I have marked that — the wretch ! 

Bar. But yesterday, I hear, on his return 
To the ducal chambers, as he pass'd the threshold, 
The old man fainted. 

Lor. It begins to work, then. 

Bar. The work is half your own. 

Lor. And should be all mine — 

My father and my uncle are no more. 

Bar. I have read their epitaph, which says they 
died 
By poison.i 

Lor. When the Doge declared that he 

Should never deem himself a sovereign till 
The death of Peter Loredano, both 
The brothers sicken'd shortly : — he is sovereign. 

Bar. a wretched one. 

Lor. What should they be who make 

Orphans ? 

Bar. But did the Doge make you so ? 

1 " Veneno sublatus." The tomb is in the church of Santa 
Elena. 

2 " Loredano is accompanied, upon all emergencies, by a 
senator called Barbarigo— a sort of confidant or chorus— 
who comes for no end that we can discover, but to twit him 
with conscientious cavils and objections, and then to sec- 



I Lor. Yes. 

Bar. What solid proofs? 

Lor. When princes set themselves 

To work in secret, proofs and process are 
Alike made difficult; but I have such 
Of the first, as shall make the second needless. 

Bar. But you will move by law ? 

Lor. By all the laws 

Which he would leave us. 

Bar. They are such in this 

Our state as render retribution easier 
Than 'mongst remoter nations. Is it true 
That you have written in your books of commerce 
(The wealthy practice of our highest nobles), 
" Doge Foscari, my debtor for the deaths 
Of Marco and Pietro Loredano, 
My sire and uncle" ? 

Lor. It is written thus. 

Bar. And will you leave it unerased ? 

Lor. Till balanced. 

Bar. And how ? 

\_Two Senators pass over the stage, as in their way 
to " the Hall of the Council of TenJ^ 

Lor. You see the number is complete. 

Follow me. {Exit Loredano. 

Bar. (solus). Follow thee! I have follow'd long^ 
Thy path of desolation, as the wave 
Sweeps after that before it, alike whelming 
The wreck that creaks to the wild winds, and wretch 
Who shrieks within its riven ribs, as gush 
The waters through them ; but this son and sire 
Might move the elements to pause, and yet | 

Must I on hardily like them — Oh ! would 
I could as blindly and remorselessly ! — 
Lo, where he comes ! — Be still, my heart ! they are 
Thy foes, must be thy victims : wilt thou beat 
For those who almost broke thee ? ^ 

Enter Guards, with yovm,g FOSCARI as prisoner, &c. 

Guard. Let him rest. 

Signor, take time. 

Jac. Fos. I thank thee, friend, I'm feeble : ^ 

But thou mayst stand reproved. 

Guard. I'll stand the hazard. 

Jac. Fos. That's kind : — I meet some pity, but no 
mercy ; 
This is the first. 

Guard. And might be last, did they 

Who rule behold us. 

Bar. (advancing to the Guard). There is one who 
does : 
Yet fear not ; I will neither be thy judge 
Nor thy accuser : though the hour is past, 
Wait their last summons 1 am of " the Ten," 

end him by his personal countenance and authority." — 
Jeffrey. 

8 " Loredano is the only personage above mediocrity. The 
remaining characters are all unnatural, or feeble. Barbarigo 
is as tame and insignificant a confidant as ever swept after 
the train of his principal over the Parisian stage."— Hebee. 



Scene I. 



THE TWO FOSCARL 



381 



And waiting for that summons, sanction you 
Even by my presence : when the last call sounds, 
We'll in together. — Look well to the prisoner ! 

Jac. Fos. What voice is that ?— 'Tis Barbarigo's ! 
Ah! 
Our house's foe, and one of my few judges. 

Bar. To balance such a foe, if such there be, 
Thy father sits amongst thy judges. 

Jac. Fos. True, 

He judges. 

Bar. Then deem not the laws too harsh 
Which yield so much indulgence to a sire 
As to allow his voice in such high matter 
As the state's safety 

Jac. Fos. And his son's. I'm faint ; 

Let me approach, I pray you, for a breath 
Of air, yon window which o'erlooks the waters. 



Enter an Officer, who whispers Barbarigo. 

Bar. {to the Guard). Let him approach. I must 
not speak with him 
Further than thus : I have transgress'd my duty 
In this brief parley, and must now redeem it 
Within the Council Chamber. [Exit Barbarigo. 
[Guard conducting Jacopo Foscari to the window. 

Guard. There, sir, 'tis 

Open — How feel you ? 

Jac. Fos. Like a boy— Oh, Venice ! 

Guard. And your limbs ? 

Jac. Fos. Limbs ! how often have they borne me 
Bounding o'er yon blue tide, as I have skimm'd 
The gondola along in childish race, 
And, masqued as a young gondolier, amidst 
My gay competitors, noble as I, 
Raced for our pleasure, in the pride of strength ; 
While the fair populace of crowding beauties, 
Plebeian as patrician, cheer'd us on 
With dazzling smiles, and wishes audible, 
And waving kerchiefs, and applauding hands, 
Even to the goal ! — How many a time have I 
Cloven with arm still lustier, breast more daring. 
The wave all roughen' d ; with a swimmer's stroke 
Flinging the billows back from my drench'd hair, 
And laughing from my lip the audacious brine, 
Which kiss'd it like a wine-cup, rising o'er 



1 " This speech of Jacopo from the window, while describing 
the amusements of his youth, is written with a full feeling of 
the objects which it paints."— Heber. 

2 "And the hero himself, what is he? If there ever ex- 
isted in nature a case so extraordinary as that of a man who 
gravely preferred tortures and a dungeon at home, to a tem- 
porary residence in a beautiful island and a fine climate, 
at the distance of three days' sail, it is what few can be made 
to believe, and still fewer to sympathize with ; and which is, 
therefore, no very promising subject for dramatic represent- 
ation. For ourselves, we have little doubt that Foscari wrote 
the fatal letter with the view, which was imputed to him by 
his accusers, of obtaining an honorable recall from banish- 
ment, through foreign influence ; and that th^ color which, 
when detected, he endeavored to give to the transaction, 



The waves as they arose, and prouder still 
The loftier they uplifted me ; and oft. 
In wantonness of spirit, plunging down 
Into their green and glassy gulfs, and making 
My way to shells and sea-weed, all unseen 
By those above, till they wax'd fearful ; then 
Returning with my grasp full of such tokens 
As show'd that I had search'd the deep : exulting. 
With a far-dashing stroke, and drawing deep 
The long-suspended breath, again I spurn'd 
The foam which broke around me, and pursued 
My track like a sea-bird. — I was a boy then.i 

Guard. Be a man now : there never was more need 
Of manhood's strength. 

Jac. Fos. {looking from the lattice). My beautiful, 
my own. 
My only Venice — this is breath ! Thy breeze, 
Thine Adrian sea-breeze, how it fans my face ! 
Thy very winds feel native to my veins, 
And cool them into calmness ! How unlike 
The hot gales of the horrid Cyclades, 
Which howl'd about my Candiote dungeon, and 
Made my heart sick ! 

Guard. I see the color comes 

Back to your cheek: Heaven send you strength to 

bear 
What more may be imposed ! — I dread to think on't. 

Jac. Fos. They will not banish me again ? — No— no. 
Let them wring on ; I am strong yet. 

Guard. Confess, 

And the rack will be spared you. 

Jac. Fos. I confess'd 

Once — twice before : both times they exiled me. 

Guard. And the third time will slay you. 

Jac. Fos. Let them do so. 

So I be buried in my birth-place : better 
Be ashes here than aught that lives elsewhere. 

Guard. And can you so much love the soil which 
hates you ? 

Jac. Fos. The soil ! — Oh no, it is the seed of the 
soil 
Which persecutes me ; but my native earth 
Will take me as a mother to her arms. 
I ask no more than a Venetian grave, 
A dungeon, what they will, so it be here.^ 



was the evasion of a drowning man, who is reduced to catch 
at straws and shadows. But, if Lord Byron chose to assume 
this alleged motive of his conduct as the real one, it behoved 
him, at least, to set before our eyes the intolerable separation 
from a beloved country, the lingering home-sickness, the 
gradual alienation of intellect, and the fruitless hope that his 
enemies had at length relented, which were necessary to pro- 
duce a conduct so contrary to all usual principles of action as 
that which again consigned him to the racks and dungeons 
of his own country. He should have shown him to us, first, 
taking leave of Venice, a condemned and banished man ; 
next pining in Candia ; next tampering with the agents of 
government ; by which time, and not till then, we should 
have been prepared to listen with patience to his complaints, 
and to witness his suflFerings with interest as well as horror." 
—Heber. 



332 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Act L 



Enter an Officer. 

Offi. Bring in the prisoner ! 

GuAED. Signer, you hear the order. 

Jac. Fos. Ay, I am used to such a summons : 'tis 
The third time they have tortured me ; — then lend me 
Thine arm. [Tb the Guard. 

Offi. Take mine, sir ; 'tis my duty to 

Be nearest to your person. 

Jac. Fos. You ! — ^you are he 

Who yesterday presided o'er my pangs — 
Away ! — I'll walk alone. 

Offi. As you please, signor ; 

The sentence was not of my signing, but 
I dared not disobey the council when 
They 

Jac. Fos. Bade thee stretch me on their horrid 
engine. 
I pray thee touch me not — that is, just now ; 
The time will come they will renew that order. 
But keep off from me till 'tis issued. As 
I look upon thy hands, my curdling limbs 
Quiver with the anticipated wrenching. 

And the cold drops strain through my brow, as if 

But onward — I have borne it — I can bear it. — 
How looks my father ? 

Offi. With his wonted aspect. 

Jac. Fos. So does the earth, and sky, the blue of 
ocean. 
The brightness of our city, and her domes, 
The mirth of her Piazza, even now 
Its merry hum of nations pierces here, 
Even here, into these chambers of the unknown 
Who govern, and the unknown and the unnumber'd 
Judged and destroy'd in silence, — all things wear 
The self-same aspect, to my very sire ! 
Nothing can sympathize with Foscari, 
Not even a Foscari. — Sir, I attend you. 

lExeunt Jacopo FOSCARI, Officer, &c. 

Enter Memmo and another Senator. 

Mem. He's gone — we are too late : — think you "the 
Ten" 
Will sit for any length of time to-day ? 

Sen. They say the prisoner is most obdurate. 
Persisting in his first avowal ; but 
More I know not. 

Mem. And that is much ; the secrets 

Of yon terrific chamber are as hidden 
From us, the premier nobles of the state, 
As from the people. 

Sen. Save the wonted rumors, 

Which — like the tales of spectres, that are rife 
Near ruin'd buildings — never have been proved. 
Nor wholly disbelieved : men know as little 



1 She was a Contarini — 

" A daughter of the house that now among 
Its ancestors in monumental brass 
Numbers eight doges." — Rogees. 
On the occasion of her marriage with the younger Foscari, 



Of the state's real acts as of the grave's 
Unfathom'd mysteries. 

Mem. But with length of time 

We gain a step in knowledge, and I look 
Forward to be one day of the decemvirs. 

Sen. Or Doge ? 

Mem. Why, no ; not if I can avoid it. 

Sen. 'Tis the first station of the state, and may 
Be lawfully desired, and lawfully 
Attain'd by noble aspirants. 

Mem. To such 

I leave it ; though born noble, my ambition 
Is limited : I'd rather be an unit 
Of an united and imperial " Ten," 
Than shine a lonely, though a gilded cipher. — 
Wliom have we here ? the wife of Foscari ? 

Enter Maeina, with a female Attendant. 

Mar. What, no one ? — I am wrong, there still are 
two; 
But they are senators. 

Mem. Most noble lady. 

Command us. 

Mar. I command ! — Alas ! my life 

Has been one long entreaty, and a vain one. 

Mem. I understand thee, but I must not answer. 

Mar. {fiercely). True — none dare answer here save 
on the rack. 
Or question save those 

Mem. {interrupting her). High-born damel^ be- 
think thee ' 
Where thou now art. 

Mar. Where I now am !— :It was 

My husband's father's palace. 

Mem. The Duke's palace. 

Mar. And his son's prison! — True, I have not 
forgot it ; 
And if there were no other nearer, bitterer 
Remembrances, would thank the illustrious Memmo 
For pointing out the pleasures of the place. 

Mem. Be calm ! 

Mar. {looking up towards heaven). I am; but oh, 
thou eternal God ! 
Canst thou continue so, with such a world ? 

Mem. Thy husband yet may be absolved. 

Mar. He is, 

In heaven. I pray you, signor senator. 
Speak not of that ; you are a man of of&ce. 
So is the Doge ; he has a son at stake 
Now, at this moment, and I have a husband. 
Or had ; they are there within, or were at least 
An hour since, face to face, as judge and culprit: 
Will he condemn him f 

Mem. I trust not. 



the Bucentaur came out in its splendor; and a bridge of 
boats was thrown across the Canal Grande for the bridegroom, 
and his retinue of three hundred horse. According to Sanuto, 
the tournaments in the place of St. Mark lasted three days, 
and were attended by thirty thousand people. 



Scene I. 



THE TWO FOSCARI. 



333 



Mar. But if 

He does not, there are those will sentence both. 

Mem. They can. 

Mar. And with them power and will are one 

In wickedness : — my husband's lost ! 

Mem. Not so ; 

Justice is judge in Venice. 

Mar. If it were so, 

There now would be no Venice. But let it 
Live on, so the good die not, till the hour 
Of nature's summons; but "the Ten's " is quicker, 
And we must wait on't. Ah ! a voice of wail ! 

[^4 faint cry within. 

Sen, Hark! 

Mem. 'Twas a cry of— 

Mar. No, no ; not my husband's — 

Not Foscari's. 

Mem. The voice was — 

Mar. ]^ot his : no. 

He shriek ! No ; that should be his father's part, 
Not his — not his — he'll die in silence. 

[A faint groan again within. 

Mem. What ! 

Again ? 

Mar. His voice ! it seem'd so : I will not 
Believe it. Should he shrink, I cannot cease 
To love ; but — no — no — no — it must have been 
A fearful pang which wrung a groan from him. 

Sen. And, feeling for thy husband's wrongs, 
wouldst thou 
Have him bear more than mortal pain in silence ? 

Mar. We all must bear our tortures. I have not 
Left barren the great house of Foscari, 
Though they sweep both the Doge and son from 

life; 
I have endured as much in giving life 
To those who will succeed them, as they can 
In leaving it : but mine were joyful pangs : 
And yet they wrung me till I could have shriek'd, 
But did not ; for my hope was to bring forth 
Heroes, and would not welcome them with tears.^ 

Mem. All's silent now. 

Mar. Perhaps all's over ; but 

I will not deem it : he hath nerved himself, 
And now defies them. 



JEhUer an Officer 

Mem. How now, friend, what seek you ? 

Offi. a leech. The prisoner has fainted. 

[Exit Officer. 

Mem. Lady, 

'Twere better to retire. 

Sen. (offering to assist her). I pray thee do so. 

Mar. Off! / will tend him. 

Mem. You ! Kemember, lady ! 

Ingress is given to none within those chambers, 
Except "the Ten," and their familiars. 



1 "There is great dignity and beauty in the language of 
Marina, when she will not believe that her lord can be so 



Mar. Well 

I know that none who enter there return 
As they have enter'd — many never ; but 
They shall not balk my entrance. 

Mem. Alas! this 

Is but to expose yourself to harsh repulse, 
And worse suspense. 

Mar. Who shall oppose me ? 

Mem. They 

Whose duty 'tis to do so. 

Mar. 'Tis their duty 

To trample on all human feelings, all 
Ties which bind man to man, to emulate 
The fiends, who will one day requite them in 
Variety of torturing ! Yet I'll pass. 

Mem. It is impossible. 

Mar. That shall be tried. 

Despair defies even despotism : there is 
That in my heart would make its way through 

hosts 
With levell'd spears ; and think you a few jailers 
Shall put me from my path ? Give me, then, way ; 
This is the Doge's palace ; I am wife 
Of the Duke's son, the innocent Duke's son, 
And they shall hear this ! 

Mem. It will only serve 

More to exasperate his judges. 

Mar. What 

Are judges who give way to anger ? they 
Who do so are assassins. Give me way. 

[Exit Marina. 

Sen. Poor lady ! 

Mem. 'Tis mere desperation : she 

Will not be admitted o'er the threshold. 

Sen. And 

Even if she be so, cannot save her husband. 
But, see, the ofiicer returns. 

[The Officer passes over the stage with another 
persor 

Mem. I hardly 

Thought that "the Ten" had even this touch of 

pity, 

Or would permit assistance to this suflferer. 

Sen. Pity ! Is't pity to recall to feeling 
The wretch too happy to escape to death 
By the compassionate trance, poor nature's last 
Resource against the tyranny of pain ? 

Mem. I marvel they condemn him not at once. 

Sen. That's not their policy: they'd have him 
live. 
Because he fears not death ; and banish him, 
Because all earth, except his native land, 
To him is one wide prison, and each breath 

Of foreign air he draws seems a slow poison, 

Consuming but not killing. 

Mem. Circumstance 

Confirms his crimes, but he avows them not. 



far overcome by the rack as to utter an unseemly cry," — 
Heber. 



334 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Act I. 



Sen. None, save the Letter,^ which he says was 
written, 
Address'd to Milan's duke, in the full knowledge 
That it would fall into the senate's hands, 
And thus he should be reconvey'd to Venice. 

Mem. But as a culprit. 

Sen. Yes, but to his country ; 

And that was all he sought, — so he avouches. 

Mem. The accusation of the bribes was proved. 

Sen. Not clearly, and the charge of homicide 
Has been annull'd by the death-bed confession 
Of Nicolas Erizzo, who slew the late 
Chief of "the Ten." 2 

Mem. Then why not clear him ? 

Sen. That 

They ought to answer ; for it is well known 
That Almoro Donato, as I said, 
Was slain by Erizzo for private vengeance. 

Mem. There must be more in this strange process 
than 
The apparent crimes of the accused disclose — 
But here come two of "the Ten ;" let us retire. 

{Exeunt Memmo and Senator. 

Enter Loeedano and Bakbaeigo. 

Bae. {addressing LOE.). That were too much : be- 
lieve me, 'twas not meet 
The trial should go further at this moment. 

LoE. And so the council must break up, and Jus- 
tice 
Pause in her full career, because a woman 
Breaks in on our deliberations ? 

Bae. No, 

That's not the cause ; you saw the prisoner's state. 

LoE. And had he not recover'd ? 

Bae. To relapse 

Upon the least renewal. 

LoE. 'Twas not tried. 

Bae. 'Tis vain to murmur ; the majority 
In council were against you. 

LoE. Thanks to you, sir, 

And the old ducal dotard, who combined 
The worthy voices which o'erruled my own. 

1 " Night and day, 

Brooding on what he had been, what he was, 
'Twas more than he could bear. His longing fits 
Thicken'd upon him. His desire for home 
Became a madness ; and, resolved to go, 
If but to die, in his despair, he writes 
A letter to the sovereign prince of Milan 
(To him whose name, among the greatest now,* 
Had perish'd, blotted out at once and rased, 
But for the rugged limb of an old oak), 



* " Francesco Sforza. His father, when at work in the field, was accosted 
by some soldiers, and asked if he would enlist. ' Let me throw my mattock 
«n that oak,' he replied, 'and if it remains there, I will.' It remained 
there ; and the peasant, regarding it as a sign, enlisted. He became sol- 
dier, general, prince ; and his grandson, in the palace at Milan, said to 
Paulus Jovius, 'You behold these guards and this grandeur : I owe every 
thing to the branch of an oak, the branch that held my grandfather's mat- 
tock.' 



Bae. I am a judge ; but must confess that part 
Of our stern duty, which prescribes the Question, 
And bids us sit and see its sharp infliction, 
Makes me wish 

LoE. What? 

Bae. That you would sometimes feel, 

As I do always. 

LoE. Go to, you're a child, 

Infirm of feeling as of purpose, blown 
About by every breath, shook by a sigh. 
And melted by a tear — a precious judge 
For Venice ! and a worthy statesman to 
Be partner in my policy ! 

Bae. He shed 

No tears. 

LoE. He cried out twice. 

Bae. a saint had done so, 

Even with the crown of glory in his eye, 
At such inhuman artifice of pain 
As was forced on him ; but he did not cry 
For pity ; not a word nor groan escaped him, 
And those two shrieks were not in supplication. 
But wrung from pangs, and foUow'd by no prayers. 

LoE. He mutter'd many times between his teeth. 
But inarticulately. 

Bae. That I heard not; 

You stood more near him. 

LoE. I did so. 

Bae. Methought, 

To my surprise too, you were touch'd with mercy, 
And were the first to call out for assistance 
When he was failing. 

LoE. I believed that swoon 

His last. 

Bae. And have I not oft heard thee name 
His and his father's death your nearest wish ? 

LoE. If he dies innocent, that is to say. 
With his guilt unavow'd, he'll be lamented. 

Bae. What, wouldst thou slay his memory ? 

LoE. Wouldst thou have 

His state descend to his children, as it must, 
If he die unattainted ? 

Bae. War with them too ? 



Soliciting his influence with the state, 

And drops it to be found." — Rogeks. 
2 The extraordinary sentence pronounced against him, still 
existing among the archives of Venice, runs thus : — " Giacopo 
Foscari, accused of the murder of Hermolao Donato, has been 
arrested and examined ; and, from the testimony, evidence, 
and documents exhibited, it distinctly appears that he is guilty 
of the aforesaid crime ; nevertheless, on account of his obsti- 
nacy, and of enchantments and spells in his.possession, of which 
there are manifest proofs, it has not been possible to extract 
from him the truth, which is clear from parole and written 
evidence ; for, while he was on the cord, he uttered neither 
word nor groan, but only murmured something to himself 
indistinctly and under his breath ; therefore, cs the honor of 
the state requires, he is condemned to a more distant banish- 
ment in Candia." Will it be credited that a distinct proof 
of his innocence, obtained by the discovery of the real assas- 
sin, wrought no change in his unjust and cruel sentence?— 
See Venetian Sketches, vol, ii. p. 97. 



Scene I. 



THE TWO FOSCAKI. 



335 



Lor. With all their house, till theirs or mine are 
nothing. 

Bar. And the deep agony of his pale wife, 
And the repress'd convulsion of the high 
And princely brow of his old father, which 
Broke forth in a slight shuddering, though rarely, 
Or in some clammy drops, soon wiped away 
In stern serenity ; these moved you not ? 

[Exit LOREDANO. 
He's silent in his hate, as Foscari 
Was in his suflfering ; and the poor wretch moved me 
More by his silence than a thousand outcries 
Could have eflFected. 'Twas a dreadful sight 
When his distracted wife broke through into 
The hall of our tribunal, and beheld 
What we could scarcely look upon, long used 
To such sights. I must think no more of this, 
Lest I forget in this compassion for 
Our foes, their former injuries, and lose 
The hold of vengeance Loredano plans 
For him and me ; but mine would be content 
With lesser retribution than he thirsts for. 
And I would mitigate his deeper hatred 
To milder thoughts ; but for the present, Foscari 
Has a short hourly respite, granted at 
The instance of the elders of the council, 
Moved doubtless by his wife's appearance in 
The hall, and his own sufferings. — Lo ! they come : 
How feeble and forlorn ! I cannot bear 
To look on them again in this extremity : 
I'll hence, and try to soften Loredano. 

[Exit Babbarigo. 



ACT II. 

SCENE I. 

A Hall in the DoGE's Palace, 

The Doge and a Senator. 
Sen. Is it your pleasure to sign the report 
Now, or postpone it till to-morrow ? 

Doge. Now ; 

I overlook'd it yesterday : it wants 
Merely the signature. Give me the pen — 

[The Doge sits down and signs the paper. 
There, signor. 
Sen. {looking at the paper). You have forgot; it is 

not sign'd. 
Doge, Not sign'd ? Ah, I perceive my eyes begin 
To wax more weak with age. I did not see 
That I had dipp'd the pen without effect.^ 
Sen. {dipping the pen into the ink, and placing the 
paper before the Doge). Your hand, too, 
shakes, my lord : allow me, thus — 
Doge. 'Tis done, I thank you. 

1 "That I had dipp'd the pen too heedlessly."— MS. 



Sen. Thus the act confirm'd 

By you and by " the Ten" gives peace to Venice. 

Doge. 'Tis long since she enjoy'd it : may it be 
As long ere she resume her arms ! 

Sen. 'Tis almost 

Thirty-four years of nearly ceaseless warfare 
With the Turk, or the powers of Italy ; 
The state had need of some repose. 

Doge. No doubt : 

I found her Queen of Ocean, and I leave her 
Lady of Lombardy : it is a comfort 2 
That I have added to her diadem 
The gems of Brescia and Ravenna ; Crema 
And Bergamo no less are hers ; her realm 
By land has grown by thus much in my reign, 
While her sea-sway has not shrunk. 

Sen. 'Tis most true, 

And merits all our country's gratitude. 

Doge. Perhaps so. 

Sen. Which should be made manifest. 

Doge. I have not complain'd, sir. 

Sen. My good lord, forgive me. 

Doge. For what? 

Sen. My heart bleeds for you. 

Doge. For me, signor? 

Sen. And for your 

Doge. Stop ! 

Sen. It must have way, my lord : 

I have too many duties towards you 
And all your house, for past and present kindness, 
Not to feel deeply for your son. 

Doge. Was this 

In your commission ? 

Sen. What, my lord ? 

Doge. This prattle 

Of things you know not : but the treaty's sign'd : 
Return with it to them who sent you. 

Sen. I 

Obey. I had in charge, too, from the council. 
That you would fix an hour for their reunion. 

Doge. Say, when they will— now, even at this 
moment, 
If it so please them : I am the state's servant. 

Sen. They would accord some time for your re- 
pose. 

Doge. I have no repose ; that is, none which shall 
cause 
The loss of an hour's time unto the state. 
Let them meet when they will, I shall be found 
Where I should be, and what I have been ever. 

[Exit Senator. 
[ The Doge remains in silence. 

Enter an Attendant. 
Att. Prince! 
Doge. Say on. 

Att. The illustrious lady Foscari 

Requests an audience. 

* " Mistress of Lombardy— it is some comfort."— MS. 



336 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



Act H. 



Doge. Bid her enter. Poor 

Marina ! [Exit Attendant. 

[The Doge remains in silence as before. 

Enter Maeina. 

Mae. I have ventured, father, on 
Your privacy. 

Doge. I have none from you, my child. 

Command my time, when not commanded by 
The state. 

Mae. I wish'd to speak to you of him 

Doge. Your husband? 

Mae. And your son. 

Doge. Proceed, my daughter ! 

Mae. I had obtained permission from " the Ten " 
To attend my husband for a limited number 
Of hours. 

Doge. You had so. 

Mae. 'Tis revoked. 

Doge. By whom ? 

Mae. "The Ten."— When we had reach'd "the 
Bridge of Sighs," 
Which I prepared to pass with Foscari, 
The gloomy guardian of that passage first 
Demurr'd : a messenger was sent back to 
" The Ten ;" but as the court no longer sate, 
And no permission had been given in writing, 
I was thrust back, with the assurance that 
Until that high tribunal reassembled. 
The dungeon walls must still divide us 

Doge. True, 

The form has been omitted in the haste 
With which the court adjourn'd ; and till it meets, 
'Tis dubious. 

Mae. Till it meets ! and when it meets, 

They'll torture him again ; and he and I 
Must purchase, by renewal of the rack. 
The interview of husband and of wife. 
The holiest tie beneath the heavens ! — Oh, God ! 
Dost thou see this ? 

Doge. Child— child 

Mae. {abruptly). Call me not " child !" 

You soon will have no children — you deserve none — 
You, who can talk thus calmly of a son 
In circumstances which would call forth tears 
Of blood from Spartans ! Though these did not weep 
Their boys who died in battle, is it written 
That they beheld them perish piecemeal, nor 
Stretch'd forth a hand to save them ? 

Doge. You behold me : 

I cannot weep— I would I could ; but if 
Each white hair on this head were a young life, 
This ducal cap the diadem of earth, 
This ducal ring with which I wed the waves 
A talisman to still them — I'd give all 
For him. 

Mae. With less he surely might be saved. 

Doge. That answer only shows you know not 
Venice. 
Alas ! how should you ? she knows not herself, 



In all her mystery. Hear me — they who aim 
At Foscari, aim no less at his father ; 
The sire's destruction would not save the son ; 
They work by different means to the same end, 
And that is but they have not conquer'd yet. 

Mae. But they have crush'd. 

Doge. Nor crush'd as yet — I live. 

Mae. And your son — how long will he live ? 

Doge. I trust. 

For all that yet is past, as many years 
And happier than his father. The rash boy. 
With womanish impatience to return. 
Hath ruin'd all by that detected letter : 
A high crime, which I neither can deny 
Nor palliate, as parent or as Duke : 
Had he but borne a little, little longer 

His Candiote exile, I had hopes he has quench'd 

them — 
He must return. 

Mae. To exile? 

Doge. I have said it. 

Mae. And can I not go with him ? 

Doge. You well know 

This prayer of yours was twice denied before 
By the assembled " Ten," and hardly now 
Will be accorded to a third request. 
Since aggravated errors on the part 
Of your lord renders them still more austere. 

Mae. Austere ? Atrocious ! The old human fiends, 
With one foot in the grave, with dim eyes, strange 
To tears save drops of dotage, with long white 
And scanty hairs, and shaking hands, and heads 
As palsied as their hearts are hard, they counsel. 
Cabal, and put men's lives out, as if life 
Were no more than the feelings long extinguish'd 
In their accursed bosoms. 

Doge. You know not 

Mae. I do — I do — and so should you, methinks — 
That these are demons : could it be else that 
Men, who have been of women born and suckled — 
Who have loved, or talk'd at least of love — have 

given 
Their hands in sacred vows — have danced their babes 
Upon their knees, perhaps have mourn'd above them — 
In pain, in peril, or in death — who are, 
Or were at least in seeming, human, could 
Do as they have done by yours, and you yourself— 
You, who abet them ? 

Doge. I forgive this, for 

You know not what you say. 

Mae. You know it well, 

And feel it nothing. 

Doge. I have borne so much. 

That words have ceased to shake me. 

Mae. Oh, no doubt ! 

You have seen your son's blood flow, and your flesh 

shook not : 
And, after that, what are a woman's words ? 
No more than woman's tears, that they should shake 
you. 



Scene I. 



THE TWO FOSCARI. 



337 



Doge. Woman, this clamorous grief of thine, I tell 
thee, 
Is no more in the balance weigh'd with that 
Which but I pity thee, my poor Marina ! 

Mak. Pity my husband, or I cast it from me ; 
Pity thy son ! Thou pity ! — 'tis a word 
Strange to thy heart — how came it on thy lips ? 

Doge. I must bear these reproaches, though they 
wrong me. 
Couldst thou but read 

Mar. Tis not upon thy brow, 

Nor in thine eyes, nor in thine acts, — where then 
Should I behold this sympathy ? or shall ? 

Doge {pointing downwards). There. 

Mar. In the earth ? 

Doge. To which I am tending : when 

It lies upon this heart, far lightlier, though 
Loaded with marble, than the thoughts which press it 
Now, you will know me better. 

Mar. Are you, then, 

Indeed, thus to be pitied ? 

Doge, Pitied! None 

Shall ever use that base word, with which men 
Cloak their soul's hoarded triumph, as a fit one 
To mingle with my name ; that name shall be. 
As far as I have borne it, what it was 
When I received it. 

Mar. But for the poor children 

Of him thou canst not, or thou wilt not save, 
You were the last to bear it. 

Doge. Would it were so ! 

Better for him he never had been born ; 
Better for me. — I have seen our house dishonor'd. 

Mar. That's false ! A truer, nobler, trustier heart, 
More loving, or more loyal, never beat 
Within a human breast. I would not change 
My exiled, persecuted, mangled husband, 
Oppress'd but not disgraced, crush'd, overwhelm'd, 
Alive, or dead, for prince or paladin 
In story or in fable, with a world 
To back his suit. Dishonor'd ! — he dishonor'd ! 
I tell thee. Doge, 'tis Venice is dishonor'd ! 
His name shall be her foulest, worst reproach, 
For what he suffers, not for what he did. 
'Tis ye who are all traitors, tyrant ! — ye ! 
Did you but love your country like this victim 
Who totters back in chains to tortures, and 
Submits to all things rather than to exile, 
You'd fling yourselves before him, and implore 
His grace for your enormous guilt. 



1 "The interest of this play is founded upon feelings so 
peculiar or overstrained as to engage no sympathy ; and the 
whole story turns on incidents that are neither pleasing nor ] 
natural. The younger Foscari undergoes the rack twice • 
^once in the hearing of the audience), merely because he has 
chosen to feign himself a traitor, that he might be brought j 
back from undeserved banishment, and dies at last of pure 
dotage on this sentiment; while the elder Foscari submits, 
in profound and immovable silence, to this treatment of his 
son, lest, by seeming to feel for his unhappy fate, he should 
22 



Doge. He was 

Indeed all you have said. I better bore 
The deaths of the two sons Heaven took from me. 
Than Jacopo's disgrace. 

Mar. That word again ? 

Doge. Has he not been condemn'd ? 

Mar. Is none but guilt so ? 

Doge. Time may restore his memory — I would 
hope so. 

He was my pride, my but 'tis useless now — 

I am not given to tears, but wept for joy 
When he was born : those drops were ominous. 

Mar. I say he's innocent ! And were he not so. 
Is our own blood and kin to shrink from us 
In fatal moments ? 

Doge. I shrank not from him : 

But I have other duties than a father's ; 
The state would not dispense me from those duties ; 
Twice I demanded it, but was refused : 
They must then be fulfill'd.i 

Enter an Attendant. 

Att. a message from 

" The Ten." 

Doge. Who bears it ? 

Att. Noble Loredano, 

Doge. He ! — but admit him, [JSxit Attendant. 

Mar. Must I then retire ? 

Doge. Perhaps it is not requisite, if this 

Concerns your husband, and if not Well, signor. 

Your pleasure ! [ To Loredano entering. 

Lor. I bear that of " the Ten." 

Doge. They 

Have chosen well their envoy. 

Lor. 'Tis their choice 

Which leads me here. 

Doge. It does their wisdom honor, 

And no less to their courtesy. — Proceed. 

Lor, We have decided. 

Doge. We ? 

Lor. " The Ten " in council. 

Doge. What ! have they met again, and met without 
Apprising me ? 

Lor. They wisli'd to spare your feelings, 

No less than age. 

Doge. That's new — when spared they either? 

I thank them, notwithstanding. 

Lor. You know well 

That they have power to act at their discretion. 
With or without the presence of the Doge. 



be implicated in his guilt— though he is supposed guiltless. 
He, the doge, is afraid to stir hand or foot, to look or speak, 
while these inexplicable horrors arc transacting, on account 
of the hostility of one Loredano, who lords it in the council 
of 'the Ten,' nobody knows why or how; and who at last 
' enmeshes' both father and son in his toils, in spite of their 
passive obedience and non-resistance to his plans. They are 
silly flies for this spider to catch, and ' feed fat his ancient 
grudge upon.'"— Jeffrey, 



338 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Act II. 



Doge. 'Tis some years since I learn'd this, long 
before 
I became Doge, or dream'd of such advancement. 
You need not school me, signor : I sate in 
That council when you were a young patrician. 

Lor. True, in my father's time ; I have heard him 
and 
The admiral, his brother, say as much. 
Your highness may remember them ; they both 
Died suddenly. 

Doge. And if they did so, better 

So die than live on lingeringly in pain. [days out. 

LOE. No doubt: yet most men like to live their 

Doge. And did not they ? 

LOE. The grave knows best : they died, 

As I said, suddenly. 

Doge. Is that so strange, 

That you repeat the word emphatically ? 

Lor. So far from strange, that never was there death 
In my mind half so natural as theirs. 
Think you not so ? 

Doge. What should I think of mortals ? 

Lor. That they have mortal foes. 

Doge I understand you ; 

Your sires were mine, and you are heir in all things. 

Lor. You best know if I should be so. 

Doge. I do. 

Your fathers were my foes, and I have heard 
Foul rumors were abroad ; I have also read 
Their epitaph, attributing their deaths 
To poison. 'Tis perhaps as true as most 
Inscriptions upon tombs, and yet no less 
A fable. 

Lor. Who dares say so ? 

Doge. I ! 'Tis true 

Your fathers were mine enemies, as bitter 
As their son e'er can be, and I no less 
Was theirs ; but I was openly their foe : 
I never work'd by plot in council, nor 
Cabal in commonwealth, nor secret means 
Of practice against life by steel or drug. 
The proof is, your existence. 

Lor I fear not. 

Doge You have no cause, being what I am ; but 
were I 
That you would have me thought, you long ere now 
Were past the sense of fear. Hate on ; I care not. 

Lor. I never yet knew that a noble's life 
In Venice had to dread a Doge's frown. 
That is, by open means. 

Doge. But I, good signor, 

Am, or at least was, more than a mere duke, 
In blood, in mind, in means ; and that they know 
Who dreaded to elect me, and have since 
Striven all they dare to weigh me down : be sure, 
Before or since that period, had I held you 
At so much price as to require your absence, 
A word of mine had set such spirits to work 
As would have made you nothing. But in all things 
I have observed the strictest reverence ; 



Not for the laws alone, for those yott have strain'd 

(I do not speak of you but as a single 

Voice of the many) somewhat beyond what 

I could enforce for my authority. 

Were I disposed to brawl ; but, as I said, 

I have observed with veneration, like 

A priest's for the high altar, even unto 

The sacrifice of my own blood and quiet, 

Safety, and all save honor, the decrees. 

The health, the pride, and welfare of the state. 

And now, sir, to your business. 

Lor. 'Tis decreed, 

That, without further repetition of 
The Question, or continuance of the trial, 
Which only tends to show how stubborn guilt is 
(" The Ten," dispensing with the stricter law 
Which still prescribes the Question till a full 
Confession, and the prisoner partly having 
Avow'd his crime in not denying that 
The letter to the Duke of Milan's his), 
James Foscari return to banishment, 
And sail in the same galley which convey'd him. 

Mae. Thank God ! At least they will not drag him 
more 
Before that horrid tribunal. Would he 
But think so, to my mind the happiest doom, 
Not he alone, but all who dwell here, could 
Desire, were to escape from such a land. 

Doge. That is not a Venetian thought, my daughter. 

Mar. No, 'twas too human. May I share his exile ? 

Lor. Of this "the Ten" said nothing. 

Mar. ■ So I thought ! 

That were too human, also. But it was not 
Inhibited ? 

Lor. It was not named. 

Mar. {to the Doge). Then, father, 

Surely you can obtain or grant me thus much : 

[To Loredano. 
And you, sir, not oppose my prayer to be 
Permitted to accompany my husband. 

Doge. I will endeavor. 

Mar. And you, signor? 

Lor. Lady ! 

'Tis not for me to anticipate the pleasure 
Of the tribunal. 

Mar. Pleasure ! what a word 
To use for the decrees of 

Doge. Daughter, know you 

In what a presence you pronounce these things? 

Mar. a prince's and his subject's. 

Lor. Subject ! 

Mar. Oh! 

It galls you : — well, you are his equal, as 
You think ; but that you are not, nor would be, 
Were he a peasant : — well, then, you're a prince, 
A princely noble ; and what then am I ? 

Lor. The offspring of a noble house. 

Mar. And wedded 

To one as noble. What, or whose, then, is 
The presence that should silence my free thoughts ? 



Scene I. 



THE TWO FOSCARI. 



339 



Lor. The presence of your husband's judges. 

Doge. And 

The deference due even to the lightest word 
That falls from those who rule in Venice. 

Mar. Keep 

Those maxims for your mass of scared mechanics, 
Your merchants, your Dalmatian and Greek slaves, 
Your tributaries, your dumb citizens, 
And mask'd nobility, your sbirri, and 
Your spies, your galley and your other slaves, 
To whom your midnight carryings off and drownings. 
Your dungeons next the palace roofs, or under 
The water's level ; your mysterious meetings. 
And unknown dooms, and sudden executions, 
Your " Bridge of Sighs," i your strangling chamber, 

and 
Your torturing instruments, have made ye seem 
The beings of another and worse world ! 
Keep such for them : I fear ye not. I know ye ; 
Have known and proved your worst, in the infernal 
Process of my poor husband ! Treat me as 
Ye treated him : — you did so, in so dealing 
With him. Then what have I to fear from you, 
Even if I were of fearful nature, which 
I trust I am not? 

Doge. You hear, she speaks wildly. 

Mar. Xot wisely, yet not wildly. 

Lor. Lady! words 

Utter'd within these walls I bear no further 
Than to the threshold, saving such as pass 
Between the Duke and me on the state's service. 
Doge ! have you aught in answer ? 

Doge. Something from 

The Doge ; it may be also from a parent. 

Lor. My mission here is to the Doge. 

Doge. Then say 

The Doge will choose his own ambassador, 
Or state in person what is meet ; and for 
The father 

Lor. I remember mine. — Farewell ! 

I kiss the hands of the illustrious lady, 
And bow me to the Duke. {Exit Loredano. 

Mar. Are you content ? 

Doge. I am what you behold. 

Mar. And that's a mystery. 

Doge. All things are so to mortals ; who can read 
them 
Save he who made ? or, if they can, the few 
And gifted spirits, who have studied long 
That loathsome volume — man, and pored upon 
Those black and bloody leaves, his heart and brain,' 
But learn a magic which recoils upon 
The adept who pursues it ; all the sins 
We find in others, nature made our own ; 



' See CTi/e, p. 242. 

2 " The blackest leaf, his heart, and blankest, his brain. "- 

MS. 
' " Where hunger swallows all— where ever was 
The monarch who could bear a three days' fast?"— MS. 



All our advantages are those of fortune ; 

Birth, wealth, health, beauty, are her accidents, 

And when we cry out against Fate, 'twere well 

We should remember Fortune can take nought 

Save what she gave — the rest was nakedness, 

And lusts, and appetites, and vanities. 

The universal heritage, to battle 

With as we may, and least in humblest stations, 

Where hunger swallows all in one low want,' 

And the original ordinance, that man 

Must sweat for his poor pittance, keeps all passions 

Aloof, save fear of famine ! All is low. 

And false, and hollow — clay from first to last. 

The prince's urn no less than potter's vessel. 

Our fame is in men's breath,* our lives upon 

Less than their breath ; our durance upon days, 

Our days on seasons ; our whole being on 

Something which is not us ! — So, we are slaves, 

The greatest as the meanest — nothing rests 

Upon our will ; the will itself no less 

Depends upon a straw than on a storm ; ^ 

And when we think we lead, we are most led, 

And still towards death, a thing which comes as 

much 
Without our act or choice as birth, so that 
Methinks we must have sinn'd in some old world, 
And this is hell : the best is, that it is not 
Eternal. 

Mar. These are things we cannot judge 
On earth. 

Doge. And how then shall we judge each other, 
Who are all earth, and I, who am call'd upon 
To judge my son ? I have administer'd 
My country faithfully — victoriously — 
I dare them to the proof, the chart of what 
She was and is : my reign has doubled realms 
And, in reward, the gratitude of Venice 
Has left, or is about to leave, me single. 

Mar. And Foscari ? I do not think of such things, 
So I be left with him. 

Doge. You shall be so : 

Thus much they cannot well deny. 

Mar. And if 

They should, I will fly with him. 

Doge. That can ne'er be. 

And whither would you fly ? 

Mar. I know not, reck not — 

To Syria, Egypt, to the Ottoman — 
Any where, where we might respire unfetter'd. 
And live nor girt by spies, nor liable 
To edicts of inquisitors of state. 

Doge. What, wouldst thou have a renegade for 
husband, 
And turn him into traitor ? 



"What's fame? a fancied life in others' breath, 
A thing beyond us, ev'n before our death."— Pope. 

" the will itself dependent 

Upon a storm, a straw, and both alike 
Leading to death."— MS. 



340 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Act III. 



Mae. He is none ! 

The country is the traitress, which thrusts forth 
Her best and bravest from her. Tyranny 
Is far the worst of treasons. Dost thou deem 
None rebels except subjects? The prince who 
Neglects or violates his trust is more 
A brigand than the robber-chief. 

Doge. I cannot 

Charge me with such & breach of faith. 

Mar. No; thou 

Observ'st, obey'st such laws as make old Draco's 
A code of mercy by comparison. 

Doge. I found the law ; I did not make it. Were I 
A subject, still I might find parts and portions 
Fit for amendment ; but as prince, I never 
Would change, for the sake of my house, the charter 
Left by our fathers. 

Mae. Did they make it for 

The ruin of their children ? 

Doge. Under such laws, Venice 

Has risen to what she is— a state to rival 
In deeds, and days, and sway, and, let me add, 
In glory (for we have had Roman spirits 
Amongst us), all that history has bequeath'd 
Of Rome and Carthage in their best times, when 
The people sway'd by senates. 

Mae. Rather say, 

Groan'd under the stern oligarchs. 

Doge. Perhaps so ; 

But yet subdued the world : in such a state 
An individual, be he richest of 
Such rank as is permitted, or the meanest, 
Without a name, is alike nothing, when 
The policy, irrevocably tending 
To one great end, must be maintain'd in vigor. 

Mae. This means that you are more a Doge than 
father. 

Doge. It means, I am more citizen than either. 
If we had not for many centuries 
Had thousands of such citizens, and shall, 
I trust, have still such, Venice were no city. 

Mae. Accursed be the city where the laws 
Would stifle nature's ! 

Doge. Had I as many sons 

As I have years, I would have given them all. 
Not without feeling, but I would have given them 
To the state's service, to fulfill her wishes 
On the flood, in the field, or, if it must be, 
As it, alas ! has been, to ostracism, 
Exile, or chains, or whatsoever worse 
She might decree. 

Mae. And this is patriotism? 

To me it seems the worst barbarity. 
Let me seek out my husband: the sage "Ten," 
With all its jealousy, will hardly war 



1 For Mr. Hobhouse's account of the state dungeons of 
Venice, see Appendix : Historical Notes to Childe Harold, No. I. 

2 " V/hicli never can be read but, as 'twas written, 
By wretched beings."— MS. 



So far with a weak woman as deny me 
A moment's access to his dungeon. 

Doge. I'll 

So far take on myself, as order that 
You may be admitted. 

Mae. And what shall I say 

To Foscari from his father ? 

Doge. That he obey 

The laws. 

Mae. And nothing more? Will you not see him 
Ere he depart ? It may be the last time. [see! 

Doge. The last ! — my boy ! — the last time I shall 
My last of children ! Tell him I will come. 

[Exeunt. 



ACT III. 



SCENE I. 



The Prison of Jacopo Foscaei. 

J AC. Fos. {solus). No light, save yon faint gleam, 
which shows me walls 
Which never echo'd but to sorrow's sounds, 
The sigh of long imprisonment, the step 
Of feet on which the iron clank'd, the groan 
Of death, the imprecation of despair ! 
And yet for this I have return'd to Venice, 
With some faint hope, 'tis true, that time, which wears 
The marble down, had worn away the hate 
Of men's hearts ; but I kneW them not, and here 
Must I consume my own, which never beat 
For Venice but with such a yearning as 
The dove has for her distant nest, when wheeling 
High in the air on her return to greet 
Her callow brood. What letters are these which 

[Ajjproaching the wall. 
Are scrawl'd along the inexorable wall ? ^ 
Will the gleam let me trace them ? Ah ! the names 
Of my sad predecessors in this place. 
The dates of their despair, the brief words of 
A grief too great for many. This stone page 
Holds like an epitaph their history ; 
And the poor captive's tale is graven on 
His dungeon barrier, like the lover's record 
Upon the bark of some tall tree, which bears 
His own and his beloved's name. Alas ! 
I recognize some names familiar to me, 
And blighted like to mine, which I will add. 
Fittest for such a chronicle as this. 
Which only can be read, as writ, by wretches.^ 

[He engraves his name. 

Enter a Familiar of "the Ten."^ 
Fam. I bring you food. 



3 " Lord Byron, in this tragedy, has not ventured upon fur- 
ther deviation from historical truth than is fully authorized 
by the license of the drama. We may remark, however, that 
after Giacopo had been tortured, he was removed to the ducal 



Scene I. 



THE TWO FOSCARI. 



341 



I pray you set it down 
but my lips are parch'd — 



[better. 
: I am 



Jac. Fos. 
I am past hunger ; 
The water ! 

Fam. There. 

Jac. Fos. {after drinking). I thank you 

Fam. I am commanded to inform you that 
Your furtlier trial is postponed. 

Jac. Fos. Till when ? 

Fam. I know not. — It is also in my orders 
That your illustrious lady be admitted. 

Jac. Fos. Ah ! they relent, then, — I had ceased to 
hope it : 
'Twas time. 

Enter Marina. 

Mar. My best beloved ! 

Jac. Fos. {embracing her). My true wife, 
And only friend ! What happiness ! 

Mar. We'll part 

No more. 

Jac. Fos. How ! wouldst thou share a dungeon ? 

Mar. Ay, 

The rack, the grave, all — any thing with thee, 
But the tomb last of all, for there we shall 
Be ignorant of each other, yet I will 
Share that — all things except new separation ; 
It is too much to have survived the first. 
How dost thou ? How are those worn limbs ? Alas ! 
Why do I ask ? Thy paleness 

Jac. Fos. 'Tis the joy 

Of seeing thee again so soon, and so 
Without expectancy, has sent the blood 
Back to my heart, and left my cheeks like thine, 
For thou art pale too, my Marina ! 

Mar. 'Tis 

The gloom of this eternal cell, which never 
Knew sunbeam, and the sallow sullen glare 
Of the familiar's torch, which seems akin i 
To darkness more than light, by lending to 
The dungeon vapors its bituminous smoke. 
Which cloud whate'er we gaze on, even thine eyes — 
No, not thine eyes — they sparkle — how they sparkle ! 

Jac. Fos. And thine ! — but I am blinded by the 
torch. [here ? 

Mar. As I had been without it. Couldst thou see 

Jac. Fos. Nothing at first ; but use and time had 
taught me 
Familiarity with what was darkness ; 
And the gray twilight of such glimmerings as 
Glide through the crevices made by the winds 
Was kinder to mine eyes than the full sun. 
When gorgeously o'ergilding any towers 
Save those of Venice : but a moment ere 
Thou camest hither I was busy writing. 

apartments, not to one of the Pozzi; that his death occurred, 
not at Venice, but at Canea; that fifteen months elapsed be- 
tween his last condemnation and his father's deposition ; and 
that the death of the doge took place, not at the palace, but 
in his own house." — Venetian Skpiches, vol. ii. p. 105. 
^ " Of the familiar's torch, which seems to love 
Darkness far more than light." — MS. 



Mar. What? 

Jac. Fos. My name : look, 'tis there — recorded 
next 
The name of him who here preceded me, 
If dungeon dates say true. 

Mar. And what of him ? 

Jac. Fos. These walls are silent of men's ends ; 
they only 
Seem to hint shrewdly of them. Such stern walls 
AVere never piled on high save o'er the dead, 
Or those who soon must be so. — What of him? 
Thou askest. — What of me ? may soon be ask'd, 
With the like answer — doubt and di'eadful surmise — 
Unless thou tell'st my tale. 

Mar. / speak of thee ! 

Jac. Fos. And wherefore not? All then shall 
speak of me : 
The tyranny of silence is not lasting. 
And, though events be hidden, just men's groans 
Will burst all cerement, even a living grave's ! 
I do not doubt my memory, but my life ; 
And neither do I fear. 

Mar. Thy life is safe. 

Jac. Fos. And liberty ? 

Mar. The mind should make its own. 

Jac. Fos. That has a noble sound ; but 'tis a sound, 
A music most impressive, but too transient : 
The mind is much, but is not all. The mind 
Hath nerved me to endure the risk of death, 
And torture positive, far worse than death 
(If death be a deep sleep), without a groan. 
Or with a cry which rather shamed my judges 
Than me ; but 'tis not all, for there are things 
More "woeful— such as this small dungeon, where 
I may breathe many years. 

Mar. Alas ! and this 

Small dungeon is all that belongs to thee 
Of this wide realm, of which thy sire is prince. 

Jac. Fos. That thought would scarcely aid me to 
endure it. 
?Iy doom is common ; many are in dungeons, 
But none like mine, so near their father's palace ; 
But then my heart is sometimes high, and hope 
Will stream along those moted rays of light 
Peopled with dusty atoms, which afibrd 
Our only day : for, save the gaoler's torch. 
And a strange fire-fly, which was quickly caught 
Last night in yon enormous spider's net, 
I ne'er saw aught here like a ray. Alas ! 
I know if mind may bear us up, or no. 
For I have such, and shown it before men ; 
It sinks in solitude :^ my soul is social. 

Mar. I will be with thee. 

2 " Persons condemned to solitary confinement generally, 
we are assured, become either madmen or idiots, as mind or 
matter happens to predominate when the mysterious balance 
between them is destroyed. But they who are subjected to 
such a dreadful punishment are generally, like most perpe- 
trators of gross crimes, men of feeble internal resources. 
Men of talents, like Trenck, have been known, in the deepest 



342 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Act III. 



Jac. Fos. Ah ! if it were so ! 

But that they never granted — nor will grant, 
And I shall be alone : no men — no books — 
Those lying likenesses of lying men. 
I ask'd for even those outlines of their kind, 
Which they term annals, history, what you will, 
Which men bequeath as portraits, and they were 
Refused me,— so these walls have been my study, 
More faithful pictures of Venetian story. 
With all their blank, or dismal stains, than is 
The Hall not far from hence, which bears on high 
Hundreds of doges, and their deeds and dates. 

Mar. I come to tell thee the result of their 
Last council on thy doom. 

Jac. Fos. I know it— look I 

[He points to his limbs, as referring to the 
Question which he had undergone. 

Mar. No — no — no more of that : even they relent 
From that atrocity. 

Jac. Fos. What then? 

Mar. That you 

Return to Candia. 

Jac. Fos. Then my last hope's gone. 

I could endure my dungeon, for 'twas Venice ; 
I could support the torture, there was something 
In my native air that buoy'd my spirits up 
Like a ship on the ocean toss'd by storms, 
But proudly still bestriding the high waves, 
And holding on its course ; but there, afar. 
In that accursed isle of slaves, and captives. 
And unbelievers, like a stranded wreck. 
My very soul seem'd mouldering in my bosom, 
And piecemeal I shall perish, if remanded. 

Mar. And heref 

Jac. Fos. At once — by better means, as briefer. 
What ! would they even deny me my sires' sepulchre. 
As well as home and heritage ? 

Mar. My husband ! 

I have sued to accompany thee hence. 
And not so hopelessly. This love of thine 

seclusion and most severe confinement, to battle the foul 
fiend melancholy, and to come oflf conquerors, during a cap- 
tivity of years. Those who suffer imprisonment for the sake 
of their country or their religion have yet a stronger support, 
and may exclaim, though in a different sense from that of 
Othello, 'It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul.'"— Sir 
Walter Scott. 

1 In Lady Morgan's fearless and excellent work upon Italy 
I perceive the expression of " Eome of the Ocean " applied 
to Venice. The same phrase occurs in the Two Foscari. 
My publisher can vouch for me that the tragedy was written 
and sent to England some time before I had seen Lady Mor- 
gan's work, which I only received on the 16th of August. I 
hasten, however, to notice the coincidence, and to yield the 
originality of the phrase to her who first placed it before the 
public. I am the more anxious to do this, as I am informed 
(for I have seen but few of the specimens, and those acci- 
dentally) that there have been lately brought against me 
charges of plagiarism. — See post, note to the description of a 
shipwreck, Don Juan, c. ii. st. xxiv. 

2 The calenture. — A distemper peculiar to sailors in hot 
climates :— 



For an ungrateful and tyrannic soil 
Is passion, and not patriotism ; for me, 
So I could see thee with a quiet aspect. 
And the sweet freedom of the earth and air, 
I would not cavil about climes or regions. 
This crowd of palaces and prisons is not 
A paradise ; its first inhabitants 
Were wretched exiles. 

Jac. Fos. Well I know how wretched I 

Mar. And yet you see how, from their banishment 
Before the Tartar into these salt isles, 
Their antique energy of mind, all that 
Remain'd of Rome for their inheritance, 
Created by degrees an ocean-Rome ; i 
And shall an evil, which so often leads 
To good, depress thee thus ? 

Jac. Fos. Had I gone forth 

From my own land, like the old patriarchs, seeking 
Another region, with their flocks and herds ; 
Had I been cast out like the Jews from Zion, 
Or like our fathers, driven by Attila 
From fertile Italy, to barren islets, 
I would have given some tears to my late country. 
And many thoughts ; but afterwards address 'd 
Myself, with those about me, to create 
A new home and fresh state : perhaps I could 
Have borne this — though I know not. 

Mar. . Wherefore not? 

It was the lot of millions, and must be 
The fate of myriads more. 

Jac. Fos. Ay — we but hear 

Of the survivors' toil in their new lands, 
Their numbers and success ; but who can number 
The hearts which broke in silence at that parting. 
Or after their departure ; of that malady ^ 
Which calls up green and native fields to view 
From the rough deep, with such identity 
To the poor exile's fever'd eye, that he 
Can scarcely be restrain'd from treading them ? 
That melody ,3 which out of tones and tunes 

" So by a calenture misled, 

The mariner with rapture sees 
On the smooth ocean's azure bed 

Enamell'd fields and verdant trees : 
With eager haste he longs to rove 

In that fantastic scene, and thinks 
It must be some enchanted grove, 
And in he leaps, and down he sinks." — Swift. 
3 Alluding to the Swiss air and its effects. — The " Eanz des 
Vaches," played upon the bagpipe by the young cowkeepers 
on the mountains : — " An air," says Rousseau, " so dear to the 
Swiss that it was forbidden, under the pain of death, to play 
it to the troops, as it immediately drew tears from them, and 
made those who heard it desert, or die of what is called la 
maladie dupais, so ardent a desire did it excite to return to 
their country. It is in vain to seek in this air for energetic 
accents capable of producing such astonishing effects, for 
which strangers are unable to account from the music, which 
is in itself uncouth and wild. But it is from habit, recollec- 
tions, and a thousand circumstances, retraced in this tune 
by those natives who hear it, and reminding them of their 
country, former pleasures of their youth, and all their ways of 
living, which occasion a bitter reflection at having lost them." 



Scene I. 



THE TWO FOSCAKI. 



343 



Collects such pasture for the longing sorrow 

Of the sad mountaineer, when far away 

From his snow canopy of cliffs and clouds, 

That he feeds on the sweet, but poisonous thought, 

And dies. You call this weakness ! It is strength, 

I say, — the parent of all honest feeling. 

He who loves not his country, can love nothing. 

Mar. Obey her, then : 'tis she that puts thee forth. 

Jac. Fos. Ay, there it is : 'tis like a mother's curse 
Upon my soul — the mark is set upon me. 
The exiles you speak of went forth by nations, 
Their hands upheld each other by the way, 
Their tents were pitch'd together — I'm alone. 

Mar, You shall be so no more — I will go with thee. 

Jac. Fos. My best Marina ! — and our children ? 

Mar. They, 

I fear, by the prevention of the state's 
Abhorrent policy (which holds all ties 
As threads, which may be broken at her pleasure), 
"Will not be suffer'd to proceed with us. 

Jac. Fos. And canst thou leave them ? 

Mar. Yes. With many a pang. 

But — I can leave them, children as they are. 
To teach you to be less a child. From this 
Learn you to sway your feelings, when exacted 
By duties paramount ; and 'tis our first 
On earth to bear. 

Jac. Fos. Have I not borne ? 

Mar. Too much 

From tyrannous injustice, and enough 
To teach you not to shrink now from a lot, 
Which, as compared with what you have undergone 
Of late, is mercy. 

Jac. Fos. Ah ! you never yet 

Were far away from Venice, never saw 
Her beautiful towers in the receding distance, 
While every furrow of the vessel's track 
Seem'd ploughing deep into your heart ; you never 
Saw day go down upon your native spires 
So calmly with its gold and crimson glory. 
And after dreaming a disturbed vision 
Of them and theirs, awoke and found them not. 

ilAR. I will divide this with you. Let us think 
Of our departure from this much-loved city 
(Since you must love it, as it seems), and this 
Chamber of state, her gratitude allots you. 
Our children will be cared for by the Doge, 
And by my uncles : we must sail ere night. 

Jac. Fos. That's sudden. Shall I not behold my 
father? 

Mar. You will. 

Jac. Fos. Where ? 

Mar, Here, or in the ducal chamber — 

He said not which. I would that you could bear 
Your exile as he bears it. 

Jac. Fos. Blame him not. 

I sometimes murmur for a moment; but 
He could not now act otherwise. A show 
Of feeling or compassion on his part 
Would have but drawn upon his aged head 



Suspicion from " the Ten," and upon mine 
Accumulated ills. 

Mar. Accumulated ! 

What pangs are those they have spared you ? 

Jac. Fos. That of leaving 

Venice without beholding him or you. 
Which might have been forbidden now, as 'twas 
Upon my former exile. 

Mar. That is true. 

And thus far I am also the state's debtor. 
And shall be more so when I see us both 
Floating on the free waves— away — away — 
Be it to the earth's end, from this abhorr'd, 
Unjust, and 

Jac. Fos. Curse it not. If I am silent. 

Who dares accuse my country ? 

Mar. Men and angels ! 

The blood of myriads reeking up to heaven, 
The groans of slaves in chains, and men in dungeons, 
Mothers, and wives, and sons, and sires, and subjects, 
Held in the bondage of ten bald-heads ; and 
Though last, not least, thy silence. Couldst thou say 
Aught in its favor, who would praise like thee f 

Jac. Fos. Let us address us then, since so it must 
be, 
To our departure. Who comes here ? 

Enter Loredano, attended hy Familiars. 

Lor. {to the Familiars). Retire, 

But leave the torch. \_Exeunt the two Familiars. 

Jac. Fos. Most welcome, noble signer. 

I did not deem this poor place could have drawn 
Such presence hither. 

Lor. 'Tis not the first time 

I have visited these places. 

Mar. Nor would be 

The last, were all men's merits well rewarded. 
Came you here to insult us, or remain 
As spy upon us, or as hostage for us ? 

Lor. Neither are of my oflfice, noble lady ! 
I am sent hither to your husband, to 
Announce "the Ten's" decree. 

Mar. That tenderness 

Has been anticipated : it is known. 

Lor. As how? 

Mar. I have inform'd him, not so gently, 

Doubtless, as your nice feelings would prescribe. 
The indulgence of your colleagues : but he knew it. 
If you come for our thanks, take them, and hence ! 
The dungeon gloom is deep enough without you, 
And full of reptiles, not less loathsome, though 
Their sting is honester. 

Jac. Fos. I pray you, calm you. 

What can avail such words ? 

Mar. To let him know 

That he is known. 

Lor. Let the fair dame preserve 

Her sex's privilege. 

Mar. I have some sons, sir, 

Will one day thank you better. 



344 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Act III. 



LoE. You do well 

To nurse them wisely. Foscari — you know 
Your sentence, then ? 

Jac. Fos. Return to Candia ? 

Lor. True— 

For life. 

Jac. Fos. Not long. 

Lor. I said — for life. 

Jac. Fos. And I 

Repeat — not long. 

LOE. A year's imprisonment 

In Canea — afterwards the freedom of 
The whole isle. 

Jac. Fos. Both the same to me : the after 

Freedom as is the first imprisonment. 
Is't true my wife accompanies me ? 

Lor. Yes, 

If she so wills it. 

Mar. Who obtain'd that justice ? 

Lor. One who wars not with women. 

Mar. But oppresses 

Men : howsoever, let him have my thanks 
For the only boon I would have ask'd or taken 
From him or such as he is. 

Lor. He receives them 

As they are offer'd. 

Mar. May they thrive with him 

So much ! — no more. 

Jac. Fos. Is this, sir, your whole mission ? 

Because we have brief time for preparation. 
And you perceive your presence doth disquiet 
This lady, of a house noble as yours. 

Mar. Nobler! 

Lor. How nobler ? 

Mar. As more generous ! 

We say the " generous steed " to express the purity 
Of his high blood. Thus much I've learnt, although 
Venetian (who see few steeds save of bronze), 
From those Venetians who have skimm'd the coasts 
Of Egypt, and her neighbor Araby : 
And why not say as soon the " generous man" ? 
If race be aught, it is in qualities 
More than in years ; and mine, which is as old 
As yours, is better in its product, nay — 
Look not so stern — but get you back, and pore 
Upon your genealogic tree's most green 
Of leaves and most mature of fruits, and there 
Blush to find ancestors, who would have blush'd 
For such a son — thou cold inveterate hater ! 

Jac. Fos. Again, Marina ! 

Mar. Again ! still, Marina. 

See you not, he comes here to glut his hate 
With a last look upon our misery ? 
Let him partake it ! 

Jac. Fos. That were difficult. 

Mar. Nothing more easy. He partakes it now — 



1 " If the two Foscari do nothing to defeat the machinations 
of their remorseless foe, Marina, the wife of the younger, at 
li;a3t revenges them, by letting loose the venom of her tongue 



Ay, he may veil beneath a marble brow 

And sneering lip the pang, but he partakes it. 

A few brief words of truth shame the devil's servants 

No less than master ; I have probed his soul 

A moment, as the eternal fire, ere long, 

Will reach it always. See how he shrinks from me ! 

With death, and chains, and exile in his hand, 

To scatter o'er his kind as he thinks fit : 

They are his weapons, not his armor, for 

I have pierced him to the core of his cold heart. 

I care not for his frowns ! We can but die, 

And he but live, for him the very worst 

Of destinies : each day secures him more 

His tempter's. 

Jac. Fos. This is mere insanity. 

Mae. It may be so ; and who hath made us mad f 

Lor. Let her go on ; it irks not me. 

Mar. That's false ! 

You came here to enjoy a heartless triumph 
Of cold looks upon manifold griefs ! You came 
To be sued to in vain — to mark our tears, 
And hoard our groans — to gaze upon the wreck 
Which you have made a prince's son — my husband ; 
In short, to trample on the fallen — an office 
The hangman shrinks from, as all men from him ! 
How have you sped ? We are wretched, signer, as 
Your plots could make, and vengeance could desire us, 
And how feel you f 

Lor. As rocks. 

Mar. By thunder blasted : 

They feel not, but no less are shiver' d. Come, 
Foscari ; now let us go, and leave this felon, 
The sole fit habitant of such a cell, 
Which he has peopled often, but ne'er fitly 
Till he himself shall brood in it alone.^ 

Enter the DOGE. 

Jac. Fos. My father ! 

DooE [embracing him). Jacopo ! my son — my son ! 

Jac. Fos. My father still ! How long it is since I 
Have heard thee name my name — our name ! 

Doge. My boy ! 

Couldst thou but know 

Jac. Fos. I rarely, sir, have murmur'd. 

Doge. I feel too much thou hast not. 

Mae. Doge ! look there ! 

[^She points to LOREDANO. 

Doge. I see the man— what mean'st thou ? 

Mar. Caution . 

Lor. Being 

The virtue which this noble lady most 
May practice, she doth well to recommend it. 

Mar. Wretch ! 'tis no virtue, but the policy 
Of those who fain must deal perforce with vice : 
As such I recommend it, as I would 
To one whose foot was on an adder's path. 



upon their hateful oppressor, which she does without stint or 
measure, and in a strain of vehemence not inferior to that of 
the old queen Margaret in Kichard the Third."— Jeffrey. 



Scene I. 



THE TWO FOSCARI. 



345 



Doge. Daughter, it is superfluous ; I have long 
Known Loredano. 

Lor. You may knoAv him better. 

Mak. Yes ; worse he could not. 

Jac. Fos. Father, let not these 

Our parting hours be lost in listening to 
Reproaches, which boot nothing. Is it — is it, 
Indeed, our last of meetings? 

Doge. You behold 

These white hairs ! 

Jac. Fos. And I feel, besides, that mine 

Will never be so white. Embrace me, father ! 
I loved you ever — never more than now. 
Look to my children — to your last child's children : 
Let them be all to you which he was once, 
And never be to you what I am now. 
May I not see them also ? 

Mae. No — not here. 

Jac. Fos. They might behold their parent any- 
where. 

Mar. I would that they beheld their father in 
A place which would not mingle fear with love. 
To freeze their young blood in its natural current. 
They have fed well, slept soft, and knew not that 
Their sire was a mere hunted outlaw. Well 
I know his fate may one day be their heritage ; 
But let it only be their heritage, 
And not their present fee. Their senses, though 
Alive to love, are yet awake to terror ; 
And these vile damps, too, and yon thick green 

wave 
Which floats above the place where we now stand — 
A cell so far below the water's level. 
Sending its pestilence through every crevice. 
Might strike them : this is not their atmosphere, 
However you — and you — and, most of all. 
As worthiest — you, sir, noble Loredano ! 
May breathe it without jDrejudice. 

Jac. Fos. I have not 

Reflected upon this, but acquiesce. 
I shall depart, then, without meeting them ? 

Doge. Not so : they shall await you in my chamber. 

Jac. Fos. And must I leave them— aZZ ? 

Lor. You must. 

Jac. Fos. Not one ? 

Lor. They are the state's. 

Mar. I thought they had been mine. 

Lor. They are, in all maternal things. 

Mar. That is. 

In all things painful. If they're sick, they will 
Be left to me to tend them ; should they die, 
To me to bury and to mourn ; but if 
They live, they'll make you soldiers, senators, 
Slaves, exiles — what you will ; or if they are 
Females with portions, brides and bribes for nobles ! 
Behold the state's care for its sons and mothers ! 

Lor. The hour approaches, and the wind is fair. 

Jac. Fos. How know you that here, where the 
genial wind 
Ne'er blows in all its blustering freedom ? 



Lor. 'Twas so 

When I came here. The galley floats within 
A bow-shot of the " Riva di Schiavoni." 

Jac. Fos. Father ! I pray you to precede me, and 
Prepare my children to behold their father. 

Doge. Be firm, my son ! 

Jac. Fos. I will do my endeavor. 

Mar. Farewell ! at least to this detested dungeon , 
And him to whose good ofiices you owe 
In part your past imprisonment. 

Lor. And present 

Liberation. 

Doge. He speaks truth. 

Jac. Fos. No doubt ! but 'tis 

Exchange of chains for heavier chains I owe him. 
He knows this, or he had not sought to change them. 
But I reproach not. 

Lor. The time narrows, signer. 

Jac. Fos. Alas ! I little thought so lingeringly 
To leave abodes like this : but when I feel 
That every step I take, even from this cell, 
Is one away from Venice, I look back 
Even on these dull damp walls, and 

Doge. Boy ! no tears. 

Mar. Let them flow on : he wept not on the rack 
To shame him, and they cannot shame him now. 
They will relieve his heart — that too kind heart — 
And I will find an hour to wipe away 
Those tears, or add my own. I could weep now, 
But would not gratify yon wretch so far. 
Let us proceed. Doge, lead the way. 

Lor. {to the Familiar), The torch, there ! 

Mar, Yes, light us on, as to a funeral pyre. 
With Loredano mourning like an heir. 

Doge. My son, you are feeble ; take this hand. 

Jac. Fos. A2as ! 

Must youth support itself on age, and I 
Who ought to be the prop of yours ? 

Lor. Take mine. 

Mar. Touch it not, Foscari; 'twill sting you. 
Signor, 
Stand off! be sure, that if a grasp of yours 
Would raise us from the gulf wherein we are plunged, 
Nor hand of ours would stretch itself to meet it. 
Come, Foscari, take the hand the altar gave you ; 
It could not save, but will support you ever. 

{Exeunt. 



ACT IV. 

SCENE I. 
A Hall in the Ducal Palace, 

Enter Loredano and Barbarigo. 
Bar. And have you confidence in such a project? 
Lor. I have. 
Bar. 'Tis hard upon his years. 



346 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Act IV 



Lor. Say rather 

Kind to relieve him from the cares of state. 

Bar. 'Twill break his heart. 

Lor. Age has no heart to break. 

He has seen his son's half broken, and, except 
A start of feeling in his dungeon, never 
Swerved. 

Bar. In his countenance, I grant you, never ; 
But I have seen him sometimes in a calm 
So desolate, that the most clamorous grief 
Had nought to envy him within. "Where is he ? 

Lor. In his own portion of the palace, with 
His son, and the whole race of Foscaris. 

Bar. Bidding farewell. 

Lor. a last. As soon he shall 

Bid to his dukedom. 

Bar. When embarks the son ? 

Lor. Forthwith — when this long leave is taken. 'Tis 
Time to admonish them again. 

Bar. Forbear ; 

Retrench not from their moments. 

Lor. Not I, now 

We have higher business for our own. This day 
Shall be the last of the old Doge's reign. 
As the first of his son's last banishment, 
And that is vengeance. 

Bar. In my mind, too deep. 

Lor. 'Tis moderate — not even life for life, the 
rule 
Denounced of retribution from all time ; 
They owe me still my father's and my uncle's. 

Bar. Did not the Doge deny this strongly ? 

Lor. Doubtless. 

Bar. And did not this shake your suspicion ? 

Lor. No. 

Bar. But if this deposition should take place 
By our united influence in the council, 
It must be done with all the deference 
Due to his years, his station, and his deeds. 

Lor. As much of ceremony as you will. 
So that the thing be done. You may, for aught 
I care, depute the council on their knees 
(Like Barbarossa to the Pope), to beg him 
To have the courtesy to abdicate. 

Bar. What, if he will not? 

Lor. We'll elect another, 

And make him null. 

Bar. But will the laws uphold us ? 

Lor. What laws? — "The Ten" are laws; and if 
they were not, 
I will be legislator in this business. 

Bar. At your own peril ? 

Lor. There is none, I tell you. 

Our powers are such. 

Bar. But he has twice already 

Solicited permission to retire, 
And twice it was refused. 

Lor. The better reason 

To grant it the third time. 

Bar. Unask'd? 



Lor. It shows 

The impression of his former instances : 
If they were from his heart, he may be thankful : 
If not, 'twill punish his hypocrisy. 
Come, they are met by this time ; let us join them, 
And be thou fix'd in purpose for this once. 
I have prepared such arguments as will not 
Fail to move them, and remove him : since 
Their thoughts, their objects, have been sounded, do 

not 
You, with your wonted scruples, teach us pause, 
And all will prosper. 

Bar. Could I but be certain 

This is no prelude to such persecution 
Of the sire as has fallen upon the son, 
I would support you. 

Lor. He is safe, I tell you ; 

His fourscore years and five may linger on 
As long as he can drag them ; 'tis his throne 
Alone is aim'd at. 

Bar. But discarded princes 

Are seldom long of life. 

Lor. And men of eighty 

More seldom still. 

Bar. And why not wait these few years ? 

Lor. Because we have waited long enough, and he 
Lived longer than enough. Hence ! in to council ! 

\_Exeunt Loredano omd Barbarigo. 

Enter Memmo and a Senator. 

Sen. a summons to " the Ten !" Why so ? 

Mem. "The Ten" 

Alone can answer : they are rarely wont 
To let their thoughts anticipate their purpose 
By previous proclamation. We are summon'd— 
That is enough. 

Sen. For them, but not for us ; 

I would know why. 

Mem. You will know why anon, 

If you obey ; and, if not, you no less 
Will know why you should have obey'd. 

Sen. I mean not 

To oppose them, hut 

Mem. In Venice " hut " 's a traitor. 

But me no " huts,^* unless you would pass o'er 
The Bridge which few repass. 

Sen. I am silent. 

Mem. Why 

Thus hesitate? "The Ten" have call'd in aid 
Of their deliberation five and twenty 
Patricians of the senate — you are one. 
And I another ; and it seems to me 
Both honor'd by the choice or chance which leads us 
To mingle with a body so august. 

Sen. Most true. I say no more. 

Mem. As we hope, signor, 

And all may honestly (that is, all those 
Of noble blood may) one day hope to be 
Decemvir, it is surely for the senate's 
Chosen delegates a school of wisdom, to 



Scene I. 



THE TWO FOSCAEI. 



347 



Be thus admitted, though as novices, 
To view the mysteries. 

Sen. Let us view them : they. 

No doubt, are worth it. 

Mem. Being worth our lives 

If we divulge them, doubtless they are worth 
Something, at least to you or me. 

Sen. I sought not 

A place within the sanctuary ; but being 
Chosen, however reluctantly so chosen, 
I shall fulfill my office. 

Mem. Let us not 

Be latest in obeying "the Ten's" summons. 

Sen. All are not met, but I am of your thought 
So far — let's in. 

Mem. The earliest are most welcome 

In earnest councils — we will not be least so. 

[JSxeunt. 

Enter the Doge, Jacopo Foscari, and Marina. 

Jac. Fos. Ah, father ! though I must and will depart, 
Yet — ^yet — I pray you to obtain for me 
That I once more return unto my home,i 
Howe'er remote the period. Let there be 
A point of time, as beacon to my heart. 
With any penalty annex'd they please, 
But let me still return. 

Doge. Son Jacopo, 

Go and obey our country's will : 'tis not 
For us to look beyond. 

Jac. Fos. But still I must 

Look back. I pray vou think of me. 

Doge. Alas ! 

You ever were my dearest offspring, when 
They were more numerous, nor can be less so 
Now you are last ; but did the state demand 
The exile of the disinterred ashes 
Of your three goodly brothers, now in earth. 
And their desponding shades came flitting round 
To impede the act, I must no less obey 
A duty, paramount to every duty. 

Mar. My husband ! let us on : this but prolongs 
Our sorrow. 

Jac. Fos. But we are not summon'd yet ; 
The galley's sails are not unfurl'd :— who knows 
The wind may change. 

Mar. And if it do, it will not 

Change their hearts, or your lot : the galley's oars 
Will quickly clear the harbor. 

Jac. Fos. Oh, ye elements ! 

Where are your storms ? 

Mar. In human breasts. Alas ! 

Will nothing calm you ? 

Jac. Fos. Never yet did mariner 

Put up to patron saint such prayers for prosperous 



1 " Unnerved, and now unsettled in his mind 
From long and exquisite pain, he sobs and cries, 
Kissing the old man's cheek, ' Help me, my father ! 
Let me, I pray thee, live once more among ye : 



And pleasant breezes, as I call upon you. 
Ye tutelar saints of my own city ! which 
Ye love not with more holy love than I, 
To lash up from the deep the Adrian waves, 
And waken Auster, sovereign of the tempest ! 
Till the sea dash me back on my own shore 
A broken corse upon the barren Lido, 
Where I may mingle with the sands which skirt 
The land I love, and never shall see more ! 

Mar. And wish you this with me beside you ? 

Jac. Fos. No— 

No — not for thee, too good, too kind ! Mayst thou 
Live long to be a mother to those children 
Thy fond fidelity for a time deprives 
Of such support ! But for myself alone. 
May all the winds of heaven howl down the Gulf, 
And tear the vessel, till the mariners, 
Appall'd, turn their despairing eyes on me, 
As the Phenicians did on Jonah, then 
Cast me out from amongst them, as an offering 
To appease the waves. The billow which destroys me 
Will be more merciful than man, and bear me 
Dead, but still bear me to a native grave, 
From fishers' hands, upon the desolate strand. 
Which, of its thousand wrecks, hath ne'er received 
One lacerated like the heart which then • 
Will be — But wherefore breaks it not? why live I ? 

Mar, To man thyself, I trust, with time, to master 
Such useless passion. Until now thou wert 
A sufferer, but not a loud one : why, 
What is this to the things thou hast borne in silence — 
Imprisonment and actual torture ? 

Jac. Fos. Double, 

Triple, and tenfold torture ! But you are right, 
It must be borne. Father, your blessing. 

Doge. Would 

It could avail thee ! but no less thou hast it. 

Jac. Fos. Forgive 

Doge. What? 

Jac. Fos. My poor mother, for my birth, 

And me for having lived, and you yourself 
(As I forgive you) for the gift of life. 
Which you bestow'd upon me as my sire. 

Mar. What hast thou done ? 

Jac. Fos. Nothing. I cannot charge 

My memory with much save sorrow : but 
I have been so beyond the common lot 
Chasten'd and visited, I needs must think 
That I was wicked. If it be so, may 
What I have undergone here keep me from 
A like hereafter ! 

Mar. Fear not : that's reserved 

For your oppressors. 

Jac. Fos. Let me hope not. 

Mar. Hope not ? 



Let me go home.' ' My son,' returns the Doge, 
Mastering his grief, ' if thou art indeed my son, 
Obey. Thy country wills it.' " — Eogers. 



348 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Act IV. 



Jac. Fos. I cannot wish them all they have in- 
flicted. 

Mar, All ! the consummate fiends ! A thousandfold 
May the worm which ne'er dieth feed upon them ! 

Jac. Fos. They may repent. 

Mak. And if they do, Heaven will not 

Accept the tardy penitence of demons. 

Enter an Officer and Guards. 

Offi. Signor ! the boat is at the shore — the wind 
Is rising — we are ready to attend you. 

Jac. Fos. And I to be attended. Once more, father, 
Your hand ! 

Doge. Take it. Alas ! how thine own trembles ! 

Jac. Fos. No — you mistake ; 'tis yours that shakes, 
my father. 
Farewell ! 

Doge. Farewell ! Is there aught else? 

Jac. Fos. No— nothing. 

[To the Officer. 
Lend me your arm, good signor. 

Offi. You turn pale — 

Let me support you — paler — ho ! some aid there ! 
Some water ! 

Mak. Ah, he is dying ! 

Jac. Fos. Now, I'm ready— 

My eyes swim strangely — where's the door ? 

Mar. Away ! 

Let me support him — my best love ! Oh, God ! 
How faintly beats this heart — this pulse ! 

Jac. Fos. The light ! 

Is it the light ? — I am faint. 

{Officer presents him with water. 

Offi. He will be better. 

Perhaps, in the air. 

Jac. Fos. I doubt not. Father— wife— 

Your hands ! 

Mar. There's death in that damp clammy grasp. 
Oh, God ! — My Foscari, how fare you ? 

Jac. Fos. Well ! 

{He dies. 

Offi. He's gone ! 

Doge. He's free. 

Mar. No — no, he is not dead ; 

There must be life yet in that heart — he could not 
Thus leave me. 

Doge. Daughter ! 

Mar. Hold thy peace, old man ! 

I am no daughter now — thou hast no son. 
Oh, Foscari ! 

Offi. We must remove the body. 

Mar. Touch it not, dungeon miscreants ! your base 
office 
Ends with his life, and goes not beyond murder, 
Even by your murderous laws. Leave his remains 
To those who know to honor them. 

Offi. I must 

Inform the signory, and learn their pleasure. 

Doge. Inform the signory from me, the Doge, 
They have no further power upon those ashes : 



While he lived, he was theirs, as fits a subject — 
Now he is mine — my broken-hearted boy ! 

{Exit Officer. 

Mar. And I must live ! 

Doge. Your children live, Marina. 

Mar. My children ! true — they live, and I must 
live 
To bring them up to serve the state, and die 
As died their father. Ob ! what best of blessings 
Were barrenness in Venice ! Would my mother 
Had been so ! 

Doge. My unhappy children ! 

Mar. What! 

You feel it then at last — you ! — Where is now 
The stoic of the state ? 

Doge {throwing himself down hy the body). Here. 

Mar. Ay, weep on ! 

I thought you had no tears — you hoarded them 
Until they are useless ; but weep on ! he never 
Shall weep more — never, never more. 

Enter Loredano and Barbarigo. 

Lor. What's here ? 

Mar. Ah! the devil come to insult the dead! 
Avaunt ! 
Incarnate Lucifer ! 'tis holy ground. 
A martyr's ashes now lie there, which make it 
A shrine. Get thee back to thy place of torment ! 

Bar. Lady, we knew not of this sad event, 
But pass'd here merely on our path from council. 

Mar. Pass on. 

Lor. We sought the Doge. 

Mar. {pointing to the Doge, who is still on the 
ground by his son's body). He's busy, look, 
About the business you provided for him. 
Are ye content ? 

Bar. We will not interrupt 

A parent's sorrows. 

Mar. No, ye only make them. 

Then leave them. 

Doge {rising). Sirs, I am ready. 

Bar. No — not now. 

Lor. Yet 'twas important. 

Doge. If 'twas so, I can 

Only repeat — I am ready. 

Bar. It shall not be 

Just now, though Venice totter'd o'er the deep 
Like a frail vessel. I respect your griefs. 

Doge. I thank you. If the tidings which you bring 
Are evil, you may say them ; nothing further 
Can touch me more than him thou look'st on there ; 
If they be good, say on : you need not /ear 
That they can comfort me. 

Bar. I would they could ! 

Doge. I sj)oke not to you, but to Loredano. 
He understands me. 

Mar. Ah ! I thought it would be so. 

Doge. What mean you ? 

Mar. Lo ! there is the blood beginning 

To flow through the dead lips of Foscari— 



Scene I. 



THE TWO FOSCAKL 



349 



The body bleeds in presence of the assassin. 

{To LOREDANO.) Thou cowardly murderer by law, 

behold 
How death itself bears witness to thy deeds ! 

Doge. My child ! this is a fantasy of grief. 
Bear hence the body. {To his attendants.) Signers, 

if it please you. 
Within an hour I'll hear you. 

{Exeunt DoGE, Maeina, and attendants %oiih the 
body. Manent LoREDANO and Barbarigo. 

Bar. He must not 

Be troubled now. 

Lor. He said himself that nought 

Could give him trouble further. 

Bar. These are words ; 

But grief is lonely, and the breaking in 
Upon it barbarous. 

Lor. Sorrow preys upon 

Its solitude, and nothing more diverts it 
From its sad visions of the other world, 
Than calling it at moments back to this. 
The busy have no time for tears. 

Bar. And therefore 

You would deprive this old man of all business ? 

Lor. The thing's decreed. The giunta and "the 
Ten" 
Have made it law — who shall oppose that law ? 

Bar. Humanity ! 

Lor. Because his son is dead ? 

Bar. And yet unburied. 

Lor. Had we known this when 

The act was passing, it might have suspended 
Its passage, but impedes it not — once past. 

Bar. I'll not consent. 

Lor. You have consented to 

All that's essential — leave the rest to me. 

Bar. Why press his abdication now ? 

Lor. The feelings 

Of private passion may not interrupt 
The public benefit ; and what the state 
Decides to-day must not give way before 
To-morrow for a natural accident. 

Bar. You have a son. 

Lor. I have — and had a father. 

Bar. Still so inexorable ? 

I^R. Still. 

Bar. But let him 

Inter his son before we press upon him 
This edict. 

Lor. Let him call up into life 

My sire and uncle — I consent. Men may. 
Even aged men, be, or appear to be. 
Sires of a hundred sons, but cannot kindle 
An atom of their ancestors from earth. 
The victims are not equal : he has seen 
His sons expire by natural deaths, and I 
My sires by violent and mysterious maladies. 
I used no poison, bribed no subtle master 
Of the destructive art of healing, to 
Shorten the path to the eternal cure. 



His sons — and he had four — are dead, without 
My dabbling in vile drugs. 

Bar. And art thou sure 

He dealt in such ? 

Lor. Most sure. 

Bar. And yet he seems 

All openness. 

Lor. And so he seem'd not long 

Ago to Carmagnuola. 

Bar. The attainted 

And foreign traitor ? ^ 

Lor. Even so : when hp, 

After the very night in which " the Ten " 
(Join'd with the Doge) decided his destruction. 
Met the great Duke at daybreak with a jest, 
Demanding whether he should augur him 
"The good day or good night?" his Dogeship an- 

swer'd, 
" That he in truth had pass'd a night of vigil, 
In which (he added with a gracious smile) 
There often has been question about you." ^ 
'Twas true ; the question was the death resolved 
Of Carmagnuola, eight months ere he died ; 
And the old Doge, who knew him doom'd, smiled on 

him 
With deadly cozenage, eight long months before- 
hand — 
Eight months of such hypocrisy as is 
Learnt but in eighty years. Brave Carmagnuola 
Is dead ; so is young Foscari and his brethren — 
I never smiled on them. 

Bar. Was Carmagnuola 

Your friend ? 

Lor. He was the safeguard of the city. 

In early life its foe, but, in his manhood. 
Its saviour first, then victim. 

Bar. Ah ! that seems 

The penalty of saving cities. He 
Whom we now act against not only saved 
Our own, but added others to our sway. 

Lor. The Eomans (and we ape them) gave a crown 
To him who took a city ; and they gave 
A crown to him who saved a citizen 
In battle : the rewards are equal. Now, 
If we should measure forth the cities taken 
By the Doge Foscari, with citizens 
Destroy'd by him, or through him, the account 
Were fearfully against him, although narrow'd 
To private havoc, such as between him 
And my dead father. 

Bar. Are you then thus fix'd 

Lor. Why, what should change me ? 

Bar. That which changes me : 

But you, I know, are marble to retain 
A feud. But when all is accomplish'd, when 
The old man is deposed, his name degraded, 
His sons all dead, his family depress'd, 
And you and yours triumphant, shall you sleep ? 



1 Au historical fact. See Daru, torn. ii. 



350 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Act V. 



Lor. More soundly. 

Bar. That's an error, and you'll find it 

Ere you sleep with your fathers. 

Lor. They sleep not 

In their accelerated graves, nor will 
Till Foscari fills his. Each night I see them 
Stalk frowning round my couch, and, pointing towards 
The ducal palace, marshal me to vengeance. 

Bar, Fancy's distemperature ! There is no passion 
More spectral or fantastical than Hate ; 
Not even its opposite. Love, so peoples air 
With phantoms, as this madness of the heart. 

Enter an Officer. 

Lor. Where go you, sirrah ? 

Offi. By the ducal order 

To forward the preparatory rites 
For the late Foscari's interment. 

Bar. Their 

Vault has been often open'd of late years. 

Lor. 'Twill be full soon, and may be closed for ever. 

Offi. May I pass on ? 

Lor. You may. 

Bar. How bears the Doge 

This last calamity ? 

Offi. With desperate firmness. 

In presence of another he says little. 
But I perceive his lips move now and then ; 
And once or twice I heard him, from the adjoining 
Apartment, mutter forth the words — " My son !" 
Scarce audibly. I must proceed. {^Exit Officer. 

Bar. This stroke 

Will move all Venice in his favor. 

Lor. Right! 

We must be speedy ; let us call together 
The delegates appointed to convey 
The council's resolution. 

Bar. I protest 

Against it at this moment. 

Lor. As you please — 

I'll take their voices on it ne'ertheless, 
And see whose most may sway them, yours or mine. 
{Exeurvt Barbarigo and Loredano. 



ACT V. 

SCENE I. 

The Doge's Apartment. 

The Doge and Attendants. 
Att. My lord, the deputation is in waiting ; 
But add, that if another hour would better 
Accord with your will, they will make it theirs. 
Doge. To me all hours are alike. Let them ap- 
proach. [Exit Attendant. 
An Officer. Prince ! I have done your bidding. 



Doge. What command ? 

Offi. A melancholy one — to call the attendance 
Of 

Doge. True — true— true : I crave your pardon. I 
Begin to fail in apprehension, and 
Wax very old — old almost as my years. 
Till now I fought them ofi", but they begin 
To overtake me. 

Enter the Deputation, consisting of six of the Signory, 
and the Chief of the Ten. 

Noble men, your pleasure ! 

Chief op the Ten. In the first place, the council 
doth condole 
With the Doge on his late and private grief. 

Doge. No more — no more of that. 

Chief of the Ten. Will not the Duke 

Accept the homage of respect ? 

Doge. I do • 

Accept it as 'tis given — proceed. 

Chief of the Ten. "The Ten," 

With a selected giunta from the senate 
Of twenty-five of the best-born patricians, 
Having deliberated on the state 
Of the republic, and the o'erwhelming cares 
Which, at this moment, doubly must oppress 
Your years, so long devoted to your country, 
Have judged it fitting, with all reverence, 
Now to solicit from your wisdom (which 
Upon reflection must accord in this) 
The resignation of the ducal ring. 
Which you have worn so long and venerably : 
And to prove that they are not ungrateful, nor 
Cold to your years and services, they add 
An appanage of twenty hundred golden 
Ducats, to make retirement not less splendid 
Than should become a sovereign's retreat. 

Doge. Did I hear rightly ? 

Chief of the Ten. Need I say again ? 

Doge. No— Have you done ? 

Chief of the Ten. I have spoken. Twenty-four 
Hours are accorded you to give an answer. 

Doge. I shall not need so many seconds. 

Chief of the Ten. We 

Will now retire. 

Doge. Stay I Four and twenty hours 

Will alter nothing which I have to say. 

Chief op the Ten. Speak! 

Doge. When I twice before reiterated 

My wish to abdicate, it was refused me : 
And not alone refused, but ye exacted 
An oath from me that I would never more 
Renew this instance. I have sworn to die 
In full exertion of the functions which 
My country call'd me here to exercise. 
According to my honor and my conscience — 
I cannot break my oath. 

Chief op the Ten. Reduce us not 
To the alternative of a decree, 
Instead of your compliance. 



Scene I. 



THE TWO FOSCAKI. 



361 



Doge. Providence 

Prolongs my days to prove and chasten me ; 

But ye have no right to reproach my length 

Of days, since every hour has been the country's. 

I am ready to lay down my life for her, 

As I have laid down dearer things than life : 

But for my dignity — I hold it of 

The whole republic : when the general will 

Is manifest, then you shall all be answer'd.i 

Chief of the Ten. We grieve for such an answer ; 
but it cannot 
Avail you aught. 

Doge. I can submit to all things, 

But nothing will advance ; no, not a moment. 
What you decree — decree. 

Chief of the Ten. With this, then, must we 
Return to those who sent us ? 

Doge. You have heard me. 

Chief of the Ten. With all due reverence we 
retire. ]_Exeunt the Deputation, &c. 

Enter an Attendant. 
Att. My lord. 

The noble dame Marina craves an audience. 
Doge. My time is hers. 

Enter Makina. 

Mae. My lord, if I intrude — 

Perhaps you fain would be alone ? 

Doge. Alone ! 

Alone, come all the world around me, I 
Am now and evermore. But we will bear it. 

Mar. We will, and for the sake of those who are, 
Endeavor Oh, my husband ! 

Doge. Give it way : 

I cannot comfort thee. 

Mae. He might have lived. 

So form'd for gentle privacy of life. 
So loving, so beloved ; the native of 
Another land, and who so blest and blessing 
As my poor Foscari ? Nothing was wanting 
Unto his happiness and mine save not 
To be Venetian. 

Doge. Or a prince's son. 

Mae. Yes ; all things which conduce to other men's 
Imperfect happiness or high ambition, 
By some strange destiny, to him proved deadly. 
The country and the people whom he loved, 
The prince of whom he was the elder bom, 
And 

Doge. Soon may be a prince no longer. 



1 " Then was thj cup, old man, full to the brim. 
But thou wert yet alive ; and there was one, 
The soul and spring of all that enmity, 
Who would not leave thee; fastening on thy flank, 
Hungering and thirsting, still unsatisfied-, 
One of a name illustrious as thine own ! 
One of the Ten I one of the Invisible Three I 
'Twas Loredano. "When the whelps were gone, 
He would disludge the Lion from his den 



Mab. How ? 

Doge. They have taken my son from me, and now 
aim 

At my too long worn diadem and ring. 
Let them resume the gewgaws 1 

Mae. Oh, the tyrants ! 

In such an hour too ! 

Doge. 'Tis the fittest time ; 

An hour ago I should have felt it. 

Mar. And 

Will you not now resent it ? — Oh, for vengeance ! 
But he, who, had he been enough protected. 
Might have repaid protection in this moment, 
Cannot assist his father. 

Doge. Nor should do so 

Against his country, had he a thousand lives 
Instead of that 

Mae. They tortured from him. This 

May be pure patriotism. I am a woman : 
To me my husband and my children were 
Country and home. I loved him — how I loved him ! 
I have seen him pass through such an ordeal as 
The old martyrs would have shrunk from : he is gone. 
And I, who would have given my blood for him. 
Have nought to give but tears ! But could I compass 
The retribution of his wrongs ! — Well, well ! 
I have sons, who shall be men. 

Doge. Your grief distracts you. 

Mar. I thought I could have borne it, when I saw 
him 
Bow'd down by such oppression ; yes, I thought 
That I would rather look upon his corse 
Than his prolong'd captivity : — I am punish'd 
For that thought now. Would I were in his grave ! 

Doge. I must look on him once more. 

Mae. Come with me ! 

Doge. Is he 

Mar. Our bridal bed is now his bier. 

Doge. And he is in his shroud ! 

Mar. Come, come, old man ! 

{Exeunt the DoGE and Marina. 

Enter Barbaeigo and Loredano. 

Bar. {to an Attendant). Where is the Doge? 

Att. This instant retired hence 

With the illustrious lady his son's widow. 

Lor. Where? 

Att. To the chamber where the body lies. 

Bar. Let us return, then. 

LoE. You forget, you cannot. 

We have the implicit order of the giunta 



And, leading on the pack he long had led. 
The miserable pack that ever howl'd 
Against fallen Greatness, moved that Foscari 
Be Doge no longer: urging his great age; 
Calling the loneliness of grief, neglect 
Of duty, sullenness against the laws. 
— ' I am most willing to retire,' said he : 
' But I have sworn, and cannot of myself. 
Do with me as ye please.* " — Eogeks. 



352 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Act V. 



To await their coming here, and join them in 
Their oifice : they'll be here soon after us. 

Bar. And will they press their answer on the 
Doge? 

Lor. 'Twas his own wish that all should be done 
promptly. 
He answer'd quickly, and must so be answer'd ; 
His dignity is look'd to, his estate 
Cared for— what would he more ? 

Bar. Die in his robes : 

He could not have lived long ; but I have done 
My best to save his honors, and opposed 
This proposition to the last, though vainly. 
Why would the general vote compel me hither ? 

Lor. 'Twas fit that some one of such different 
thoughts 
From ours should be a witness, lest false tongues 
Should whisper that a harsh majority 
Dreaded to have its acts beheld by others. 

Bar. And not less, I must needs think, for the 
sake 
Of humbling me for my vain opposition. 
You are ingenious, Loredano, in 
Your modes of vengeance, nay, poetical, 
A very Ovid in the art of hating ; 
'Tis thus (although a secondary object, 
Yet hate has microscopic eyes) to you 
I owe, by way of foil to the more zealous, 
This undesired association in 
Your giunta's duties. 

Lor. How ! — my giunta ! 

Bar. Yours ! 

They speak your language, watch your nod, approve 
Your plans, and do your work. Are they not yours f 

Lor. You talk unwarily. 'Twere best they hear 
not 
This from you. 

Bar. Oh ! they'll hear as much one day 

From louder tongues than mine; they have gone 

beyond 
Even their exorbitance of power : and when 
This happens in the most contemn'd and abject 
States, stung humanity will rise to check it. 

Lor. You talk but idly. 

Bar. That remains for proof. 

Here come our colleagues. 

Enter the Deputation as before. 
Chief of the Ten. Is the Duke aware 
We seek his presence ? 
Att. He shall be inform'd. 

[Exit Attendant. 
Bar. The Duke is with his son. 
Chief of the Ten. If it be so, 

We will remit him till the rites are over. 
Let us return. 'Tis time enough to-morrow. 
Lor. {aside to Bar.). Now the rich man's hell-fire 
upon your tongue, 
Unquench'd, unquenchable ! I'll have it torn 
From its vile babbling roots, till you shall utter 



Nothing but sobs through blood, for this! Sage 

signers, 
I pray ye be not hasty. [Aloud to the others. 

Bar. But be human ! 

Lor. See, the Duke comes ! 

Enter the DoGE. 

Doge. I have obey'd your summons. 

Chief of the Ten. We come once more to urge 
our past request. 

Doge. And I to answer. 

Chief of the Ten. What? 

Doge. My only answer. 

You have heard it. 

Chief of the Ten. Hear you then the last de- 
cree, 
Definitive and absolute ! 

Doge. To the point- 

To the point ! I know of old the forms of office. 
And gentle preludes to strong acts — Go on ! 

Chief of the Ten. You are no longer Doge: 
you are released 
From your imperial oath as sovereign ; 
Your ducal robes must be put off"; but for 
Your services, the state allots the appanage 
Already mention'd in our former congress. 
Three days are left you to remove from hence, 
Under the penalty to see confiscated 
All your own private fortune. 

Doge. That last clause, 

I am proud to say, would not enrich the treasury. 

Chief of the Ten. Your answer, Duke ! 

Lor. Your answer, Francis Foscari ! 

Doge. If I could have foreseen that my old age 
Was prejudicial to the state, the chief 
Of the republic never would have shown 
Himself so far ungrateful, as to place 
His own high dignity before his country ; 
But this life having been so many years 
Not useless to that country, I would fain 
Have consecrated my last moments to her. 
But the decree being render'd, I obey.^ 

Chief of the Ten. If you would have the three 
days named extended. 
We willingly will lengthen them to eight. 
As sign of our esteem. 

Doge. Not eight hours, signor. 

Nor even eight minutes — there's the ducal ring, 

[Taking off his ring and cap. 
And there the ducal diadem. And so 
The Adriatic's free to wed another. 

Chief of the Ten. Yet go not forth so quickly. 

Doge. I am old, sir, 

And even to move but slowly must begin 
To move betimes. Methinks I see amongst you 
A face I know not — Senator ! your name, 
You, by your garb. Chief of the Forty ! 



" The act is pass'd— I will obey it."— MS. 



Scene I. 



THE TWO FOSCAKI. 



353 



Mem. Signer, 

I am the son of Marco Menmo.* 

Doge. Ah ! 

Your father was my friend. — But so')is and fathers ! — 
What, ho ! my servants there ! 

Att. My prince ! 

Doge. No prince — 

There are the princes of the prince! {Pointing to 

the Ten^s Deputation.) — Prepare 
To part from hence upon the instant. 

Chief of the Ten. AVhy 

So rashly ? 'twill give scandal. 

Doge. Answer that ; 

[To the Ten. 
It is your province. — Sirs, bestir yourselves : 

[To the Servants. 
There is one burden which I beg you bear 
With care, although 'tis past all further harm — 
But I will look to that myself. 

Bar. He means 

The body of his son. 

Doge. And call Marina, 

My daughter ! 

Enter Marina. 

Doge. Get thee ready ; we must mourn 

Elsewhere. 

Mar. And everywhere. 

Doge. True ; but in freedom. 

Without these jealous spies upon the great. 
Signers, you may depart : what would you more ? 
We are going : do you fear that we shall bear 
The palace with us ? Its old walls, ten times 
As old as I am, and I'm very old. 
Have served you, so have I, and I and they 
Could tell a tale ; but I invoke them not 
To fall upon you ! else they would, as erst 
The pillars of stone Dagon's temple on 
The Israelite and his Philistine foes. 
Such power I do believe there might exist 
in such a curse as mine, provoked by such 
As you ; but I curse not. Adieu, good signors ! 
May the next duke be better than the present. 

Lor. The present duke is Paschal Malipiero. 

Doge. Not till I pass the threshold of these doors. 

Lor. Saint Mark's great bell is soon about to toll 
For his inauguration. 

Doge. Earth and heaven ! 

Ye will reverberate this peal ; and I 
Live to hear this ! — the first Doge who e'er heard 
Such sound for his successor! Happier he, 
My attainted predecessor, stem Faliero — 
This insult at the least was spared him. 

LoR. What! 

Do you regret a traitor ? 

1 " He was deposed, 

He, who had reign'd so long and gloriously ; 
His ducal bonnet taken from his brow, 
His robes stript off, his seal and signet-ring 
Broken before him. But now nothing moved 
23 



Doge. No — I merely 

Envy the dead. 

Chief of the Ten. My lord, if you indeed 
Are bent upon this rash abandonment 
Of the state's palace, at the least retire 
By the private staircase, which conducts you towards 
The landing place of the canal. 

Doge. No. I 

Will now descend the stairs by which I mounted 
To sovereignty — the Giants' Stairs, on whose 
Broad eminence I was invested duke. 
My services have call'd me up those steps. 
The malice of my foes will drive me down them. 
There five and thirty years ago was I 
Install'd, and traversed these same halls, from which 
I never thought to be divorced except 
A corse— a corse, it might be, fighting for them — 
But not push'd hence by fellow citizens. 
But come ; my son and I will go together — 
He to his grave, and I to pray for mine. 

Chief op the Ten. What ! thus in public ? 

Doge. I was publicly 

Elected, and so will I be deposed. 
Marina ! art thou willing ? 

Mar. Here's my arm ! 

Doge. And here my staff: thus propp'd will I go 
forth. 

Chief of the Ten. It must not be— the people 
will perceive it. 

Doge. The people ! — There's no people, you well 
know it. 
Else you dare not deal thus by them or me. 
There is db populace, perhaps, whose looks 
May shame you ; but they dare not groan nor curse 

you. 
Save with their hearts and eyes. 

Chief of the Ten. You speak in passion. 

Else 

Doge. You have reason. I have spoken much 
More than my wont : it is a foible which 
Was not of mine, but more excuses you, 
Inasmuch as it shows that I approach 
A dotage which may justify this deed 
Of yours, although the law does not, nor will. 
Farewell, sirs ! 

Bar. You shall not depart without 

An escort fitting past and present rank. 
We will accompany, with due respect. 
The Doge unto his private palace. Say ! 
My brethren, will we not ? 

Different voices. Ay I— Ay ! 

Doge. You shall not 

Stir — in my train, at least. I enter 'd here 
As sovereign — I go out as citizen 
By the same portals, but as citizen. 

The meekness of his soul. All things alike ! 

Among the six that came with the decree, 

Foscari saw one he knew not, and inquired 

His name. ' I am the son of Marco Memmo.' 

' Ah !' he replied, ' thy father was my friend !' "—Rogers. 



354 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Act V. 



All these vain ceremonies are base insults, 
Which only ulcerate the heart the more, 
Applying poisons there as antidotes. 
Pomp is for princes — I am none ! — That's false, 
I am, but only to these gates. — Ah ! 

LoE. Hark ! 

\_The great hell of Saint Mark''s tolls. 

Bar. The bell ! 

Chief of the Ten. Saint Mark's, which tolls for 
the election 
Of Malipiero. 

Doge. Well I recognize 

The sound ! I heard it once, but once before. 
And that is five and thirty years ago ! 
Even then I was not young. 

Bar. Sit down, my lord ! 

You tremble. 

Doge. 'Tis the knell of my poor boy ! 

My heart aches bitterly. 

Bae. I pray you sit. 

Doge. No; my seat here has been a throne till 
now. 
Marina ! let us go. 

Mae. Most readily. 

Doge {walks a few steps, then stops). I feel athirst — 
will no one bring me here 
A cup of water ? 

Bae. I 

Mae. And I 

LoE. And I 

[The Doge takes a goblet from the hand 

of LOEEDANO. 

Doge. I take yours, Loredano, from the hand 
Most fit for such an hour as this. 

LOE. Why so ? 

Doge. 'Tis said that our Venetian crystal has 
Such pure antipathy to poisons as 
To burst, if aught of venom touches it. 
You bore this goblet, and it is not broken. 

LoE. Well, sir ! 

Doge. Then it is false, or you are true. 

For my own part, I credit neither; 'tis 
An idle legend. 

Mae. You talk wildly, and 

Had better now be seated, nor as yet 
Depart. Ah ! now you look as look'd my husband ! 

Bae. He sinks ! — support him ! — quick — a chair — 
support him ! 

Doge. The bell tolls on ! — let's hence — my brain's 
on fire ! 

Bae. I do beseech you, lean upon us ! 



1 The death of the elder Foscari took place not at the 
palace, but in his own house ; not immediately on his descent 
from the Giants' Stairs, but five days afterwards. " En en- 
tendant/' says M. de Sismondi, " le son des cloches, qui son- 
naient en actions de graces pour I'election de son succes- 
seur, il mourut subitement d'une hgmorrhagie causee par 
une veine qui s'eclata dans sa poitrine." " Before I was six- 
teen years of age," says Lord Byron, "I was witness to a 



Doge. No !— 

A sovereign should die standing. My poor boy ! 
Off with your arms ! — That bell ! 

{The Doge drops down and dies.^ 

Mae. My God ! My God ! 

Bae. {to Lor.). Behold! your work's completed ! 

Chief of the Ten. Is there then 

No aid ? Call in assistance ! 

Att. 'Tis all over. 

Chief of the Ten. If it be so, at least his obse- 
quies 
Shall be such as befits his name and nation, 
His rank, and his devotion to the duties 
Of the realm, while his age permitted him 
To do himself and them full justice. Brethren, 
Say, shall it not be so ? 

Bae. He has not had 

The misery to die a subject where 
He reign'd : then let his funeral rites be princely .2 

Chief of the Ten. We are agreed, then ? 

All, except LoR., answer, Yes. 

Chief of the Ten. Heaven's peace be with him ! 

Mae. Signors, your pardon : this is mockery. 
Juggle no more with that poor remnant, which, 
A moment since, while yet it had a soul 
(A soul by whom you have increased your empire, 
And made your power as proud as was his glory), 
You banish' d from his palace, and tore down 
From his high place, with such relentless coldness ; 
And now, when he can neither know these honors. 
Nor would accept them if he could, you, signors, 
Purpose with idle and superfluous pomp 
To make a pageant over what you trampled. 
A princely funeral will be your reproach, 
And not his honor. 

Chief of the Ten. Lady, we revoke not 
Our purposes so readily. 

Mae. I know it. 

As far as touches torturing the living. 
I thought the dead had been beyond even you, 
Though (some, no doubt) consign'd to powers which 

may 
Resemble that you exercise on earth. 
Leave him to me ; you would have done so for 
His dregs of life, which you have kindly shorten'd : 
It is my last of duties, and may prove 
A dreary comfort in my desolation. 
Grief is fantastical, and loves the dead. 
And the apparel of the grave. 

Chief of the Ten. Do you 

Pretend still to this office ? 



melancholy instance of the same effect of mixed passions 
upon a young person ; who, however, did not die in conse- 
quence, at that time, but fell a victim, some years after- 
wards, to a seizure of the same kind, arising from causes 
intimatelv connected with agitation of mind." ^qq post, 
Don Juan, c. iv. st. lix. 

2 By a decree of the council, the trappings of supreme 
power of which the doge had divested himself while living, 



Scene I. 



THE TWO FOSCAKI. 



355 



Mab. I do, signor. 

Though his possessions have been all consumed 
In the state's service, I have still my dowry. 
Which shall be consecrated to his rites, 
And those of [She stops with agitation. 

Chief of the Ten. Best retain it for your chil- 
dren. 

Mar. Ay, they are fatherless ; I thank you. 

Chief of the Ten. We 

Cannot comply with your request. His relics 
Shall be exposed with wonted pomp, and follow'd 
Unto their home by the new Doge, not clad 
As Doge, but simply as a senator. 

Mar. I have heard of murderers, who have in^err'd 
Their victims ; but ne'er heard, until this hour. 
Of so much splendor in hypocrisy 
O'er those they slew.i I've heard of widows' tears — 
Alas ! I have shed some — always thanks to you ! 
I've heard of heirs in sables — you have left none 



were restored to him when dead. ; and he was interred, with 
ducal magnificence, in the church of the Minorites, the new 
doge attending as a mourner. — See Daru. 

1 The Venetians appear to have had a particular turn for 
breaking the hearts of their doges. The following is another 
instance of the kind in the Doge Marco Barbarigo : he was 
succeeded by his brother Agostino Barbarigo, whose chief 
merit is here mentioned. — " Le doge, bless6 de trouver con- 
stamment un contradicteur et un censeur si amer dans son 
frfere, lui dit un jour en plein conseil: 'Messire Augustin, 
vous faites tout votre possible pour hater ma mort; vous 
vous flattez de me succgder; mais, si les autres vous con- 
naissent aussi-bien que je vous connais, ils n'auront garde 
de vous glire.' La-dessus il se leva, emu de colore, rentra 
dans son appartement, et mourut quelques jours apr&s. Ce 
fr&re, contre lequel U s'gtait emporte, fut precisement le 
successeur qu'on lui donna. C'^tait un merite dont on aimait 
i tenir compte ; surtout 3 un parent, de s'etre mis en opposi- 
tion avec le chef de la rgpublique."— Dabu, Hist, de Venise, 
vol. ii. p. 533. 

2 "L'fia pagcUa." An historical fact. See Hist, de Venise, 
par P. Daru, t. ii. p. 411. — Here the original MS. ends. The 
two lines which follow were added by Mr. Gifford. In the 
margin of the MS. Lord Byron has written,—" If the last line 
should appear obscure to those who do not recollect the his- 
torical fact, mentioned in the first act, of Loredano's inscrip- 
tion in his book of ' Doge Foscari, debtor for the deaths of my 
father and uncle,' you may add the following lines to the 
conclusion of the last act :— 

Chief of the Ten. For what has he repaid thee? 



To the deceased, so you would act the part 

Of such. Well, sirs, your will be done ! as one day 

I trust. Heaven's will be done too ! 

Chief of the Ten. Know you, lady, 

To whom ye speak, and perils of such speech ? 

Mar. I know the former better than yourselves ; 
The latter — like yourselves ; and can face both. 
Wish you more funerals ? 

Bar. Heed not her rash words ; 

Her circumstances must excuse her bearing. 

Chief of the Ten. We will not note them down. 

Bar. {turning to LoR., who is writing upon his 
tablets). What art thou writing. 

With such an earnest brow, upon thy tablets ? 

Lor. (pointing to the DOGE's body). That he has 
paid me ! ^ 

Chief of the Ten. What debt did he owe you ? 

Lor. a long and just one; Nature's debt and 
mine.^ [ Curtain falls. 



Lor. For my father's 

And father's brother's death — by his son's and own ! 
Ask GifFord about this."— E. 

3 " Considered as poems, we confess that ' Sardanapalus ' and 
' The Two Foscari ' appear to us to be rather heavy, verbose, 
and inelegant — deficient in the passion and energy which 
belongs to Lord Byron's other writings— and" still more in 
the richness of imagery, the originality of thought, and the 
sweetness of versification for which he used to be distin- 
guished. They are for the most part solemn, prolix, and 
ostentatious — lengthened out by large preparations for catas- 
trophes that never arrive, and tantalizing us with slight speci- 
mens and glimpses of a higher interest scattered thinly up 
and down many weary pages of pompous declamation. Along 
with the concentrated pathos and homestruck sentiments of 
his former poetry, the noble author seems also— we cannot 
imagine why — to have discarded the spirited and melodious 
versification in which they were embodied, and to have formed 
to himself a measure equally remote from the spring and 
vigor of his former compositions, and from the softness and 
inflexibility of the ancient masters of the drama. There are 
some sweet lines, and many of great weight and energy ; but 
the general march of the verse is cumbrous and unmusical. 
His lines do not vibrate like polished lances, at once strong 
and light, in the hands of his persons, but are wielded like 
clumsy batons in a bloodless affray. Instead of the graceful 
familiarity and idiom atical melodies of Shakspeare, it is apt, 
too, to fall into clumsy prose, in its approaches to the easy 
and colloquial style ; and, in the loftier passages, is occasion- 
ally deformed by low and common images that harmonize 
but ill with the general solemnity of the diction."— Jeffrey. 



Ef}t Beformetr Ctan^formeD 



A DEAMA.i 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

This production is founded partly on the story of 
a novel called "The Three Brothers," 2 published 
many years ago, from which M. G. Lewis's " Wood 
Demon" was also taken, and partly on the "Faust" 
of the great Goethe. The present publication con- 
tains the two first parts only, and the opening chorus 
of the third. The rest may, perhaps, appear hereaftert 



DRAMATIS PERSONiE. 



Steanger, afterwards C^SAR. 

Arnold. 

Bourbon. 

Philibert. 

Cellini. 

Bertha. 
Olimpia. 
Spirits, Soldiers, Citizens of Home, Priests, Peasants, &e. 

1 This drama was begun at Pisa in 1821, but was not pub- 
lished till January, 1824. Mr. Medwin says, — 

" On my calling on Lord Byron one morning, he produced 
the ' Deformed Transformed.' Handing it to Shelley he said — 
' Shelley, I have been writing a Faustish kind of drama ; tell 
me what you think of it.' After reading it attentively, 
Shelley returned it. ' Well,' said Lord B., ' how do you like 
it?' 'Least,' replied he, 'of any thing I ever saw of yours. 
It is a bad imitation of " Faust," and besides, there are two 
entire lines of Southey's in it.' Lord Byron changed color im- 
mediately, and asked hastily, ' What Knes ?' Shelley repeated, 
' And water shall see thee. 
And fear thee, and flee thee.' 
They are in the ' Curse of Kehama.' His lordship instantly 
threw the poem into the fire. He seemed to feel no chagrin 
at seeing it consume — at least his countenance betrayed none, 
and his conversation became more gay and lively than usual. 
Whether it was hatred of Southey, or respect for Shelley's 
opinion, which made him commit the act that I considered a 
sort of suicide, was always doubtful to me. I was never more 
surprised than to see, two years afterwards, the ' Deformed 
Transformed' announced (supposing it to have perished at 
Pisa) ; but it seems that he must have had another copy of 
the manuscript, or that he had rewritten it perhaps, without 
changing a word, except omitting the Kehama lines. His 
memory was remarkably retentive of his own writings. I be- 
lieve he could have quoted almost every line he ever wrote." 

Mrs. Shelley, whose copy of the " Deformed Transformed " 
lies before us, has written as follows on the fly-leaf: — 

"This had long been a favorite subject with Lord Byron. 
I think that he mentioned it also in Switzerland. I copied 
it — he sending a portion of it at a time, as it was finished, to 
me. At this time he had a great horror of its being said that 
he plagiarized, or that he studied for ideas, and wrote with 
diflSculty. Thus he gave Shelley Aikin's edition of the British 
Poets, that it might not be found in his house by some English 
lounger, and reported home : thus, too, he always dated when 
( 356 ) 



CJe Bttoxmtti Exan^foxmttiJ 



PART I. 

SCENE L 
A Forest. 

Miter Arnold and his Mother Bertha. 

Bert. Out, hunchback ! 

Arn. I was born so, mother ! * 

Bert. Out, 

Thou incubus ! Thou nightmare ! Of seven sons, 
The sole abortion ! 

Arn. Would that I had been so, 

And never seen the light ! 

Bert. I would so too ! 

But as thou hast — hence, hence — and do thy best ! 
That back of thine may bear its burden ; 'tis 
More high, if not so broad as that of others. 

he began and when he ended a poem, to prove hereafter how 
quickly it was done. I do not think that he altered a line in 
this drama after he had once written it down. He composed 
and corrected in his mind. I do not know how he meant to 
finish it ; but he said himself, that the whole conduct of the 
story was already conceived. It was at this time that a brutal 
paragraph alluding to his lameness appeared, which he re- 
peated to me ; lest I should hear it first from some one else. 
No action of Lord Byron's life— scarce a line he has written — 
but was influenced by his personal defect." 

2 Published in 1803, the work of a Joshua Pickersgill, jun. 

3 A clever anonymous critic thus sarcastically opens his 
notice of this poem : — " The reader has no doubt often heard 
of the devil and Dr. Faustus : this is but a new birth of the 
same unrighteous couple, who are christened, however, by 
the noble hierophant who presides over the infernal cere- 
mony,— Julius Caesar and Count Arnold. The drama opens 
with a scene between the latter, who is to all appearance a 
well-disposed young man, of a very deformed person, and his 
mother: this good lady, with somewhat less maternal piety 
about her than adorns the mother-ape in the fable, turns her 
dutifui incubus of a son out of doors to gather wood. Arnold, 
upon this, proceeds incontinently to kill himself, by falling, 
after the manner of Brutus, on his wood-knife : he is, how- 
ever, piously dissuaded from this guilty act, by — whom does 
the reader think? A monk, perhaps, or a Methodist preacher? 
no;— but by the devil himself, in the shape of a tall black 
man, who rises, like an African water-god, out of a fountain. 
To this stranger, after the exchange of a few sinister compli- 
ments, Arnold, without more ado, sells his soul, for the privi- 
lege of wearing the beautiful form of Achilles. In the midst 
of all this absurdity, we still, however, recognize the master- 
mind of our great poet : his bold and beautiful spirit flashes 
at intervals through the surrounding horrors, into which 
he has chosen to plunge after Goethe, his magnus Apollo." 

* "One of the few pages of Lord Byron's 'Memoranda,' 
which related to his early days, was where, in speaking of his 



Scene I. 



THE DEFOEMED TRANSFORMED. 



357 



Arn, It hears its burden ; — but, my heart ! "Will it 
Sustain that vhich you lay upon it, mother ? 
I love, or, at the least, I loved you : nothing 
Save you, in nature, can love aught like me. 
You nursed me — do not kill me ! 

Beet. Yes — I nursed thee. 

Because thou wert my first-born, and I knew not 
If there would be another unlike thee. 
That monstrous sport of nature. But get hence, 
And gather wood ! 

Arn. I will : but when I bring it, 

Speak to me kindly. Though my brothers are 
So beautiful and lusty, and as free 
As the free chase they follow, do not spurn me ; 
Our milk has been the same. 

Beet. As is the hedgehog's, 

Which sucks at midnight from the wholesome dam 
Of the young bull, until the milkmaid finds 
The nipple next day sore and udder dry.^ 
Call not thy brothers brethren ! Call me not 
Mother ; for if I brought thee forth, it was 
As foolish hens at times hatch vipers, by 
Sitting upon strange eggs. Out, urchin, out ! 

{Exit Bertha. 

Arn. {solus). Oh, mother! She is gone, and I 

must do 
Her bidding ; — wearily but willingly 
I would fulfill it, could I only hope 
A kind word in return. What shall I do ? 

[Arnold begins to cut wood: in doing this he 
wounds one of his hands. 
My labor for the day is over now. 
Accursed be this blood that flows so fast ; 
For double curses will be my meed now 
At home — What home ? I have no home, no kin. 
No kind — not made like other creatures, or 
To share their sports or pleasures. Must I bleed too 
Like them ? Oh that each drop which falls to earth 
Would rise a snake to sting them, as they have stung 

me! 
Or that the devil, to whom they liken me, 
Would aid his likeness ! If I must partake 
His form, why not his power ? Is it because 
I have not his will too ? For one kind word 
From her who bore me would still reconcile me 
Even to this hateful aspect. Let me wash 
The wound. 

[Arnold goes to a spring, and stoops to wash 
his hand : he starts back. 
They are right; and Nature's mirror shows me 
What she hath made me. I will not look on it 



own sensitiveness on the subject of his deformed foot, he 
described the feeling of horror and humiliation that came 
over him, when his mother, in one of her fits of passion, called 
him 'a lame brat T It may be questioned, whether this 
drama was not indebted for its origin to this single recollec- 
tion."— Moore. 

" Lord Byron's own mother, when in ill humor with him, 
used to make the deformity in his foot the subject of taunts 
and reproaches. She would (we quote from a letter written 



Again, and scarce dare think on't. Hideous wretch 
That I am ! The very waters mock me with 
My horrid shadow — like a demon placed 
Deep in the fountain to scare back the cattle 
From drinking therein. 

[He pauses. 
And shall I live on, 
A burden to the earth, myself, and shame 
Unto what brought me into life ! Thou blood. 
Which flowest so freely from a scratch, let me 
Try if thou wilt not in a fuller stream 
Pour forth my woes for ever with thyself 
On earth, to which I will restore at once 
This hateful compound of her atoms, and 
Eesolve back to her elements, and take 
The shape of any reptile save myself, 
And make a world for myriads of new worms ! 
This knife ! now let me prove if it will sever 
This wither'd slip of nature's nightshade — my 
Vile form — from the creation, as it hath 
The green bough from the forest. 

[Arnold places the knife in the ground, with 
the point upwards. 

Now 'tis set, 
And I can fall upon it. Yet one glance 
On the fair day, which sees no foul thing like 
Myself, and the sweet sun which warm'd me, but 
In vain. The birds — how joyously they sing ! 
So let them, for I would not be lamented : 
But let their merriest notes be Arnold's knell ; 
The fallen leaves my monument ; the murmur 
Of the near fountain my sole elegy. 
Now, knife, stand firmly, as I fain would fall ! 

\_As he rushes to throw himself upon the knife, his 
eye is suddenly caught by the fountain, which 
seems in motion. 
The fountain moves without a wind : but shall 
The ripple of a spring change my resolve ? 
No. Yet it moves again ! The waters stir. 
Not as with air, but by some subterrane 
And rocking power of the internal world. 
What's here ? A mist ! No more ? — 

{A cloud comes from the fountain. He stands 
gazing upon it ; it is dispelled, and a tall 
black man comes towards him. 
Arn. What would you ? Speak ! 

Spirit or man ? 

Stran. As man is both, why not 

Say both in one ? 

Arn. Your form is man's, and yet 

You may be devil. 



by one of her relations in Scotland) pass from passionate 
caresses to the repulsion of actual disgust ; then devour him 
with kisses again, and swear his eyes were as beautiful as his 
father's." — Quar. Rev. 

1 This is now generally believed to be a vulgar error ; the 
smallness of the animal's mouth rendering it incapable of the 
mischief laid to its charge. For an amusing controversy on 
the subject, see Gent. Mag., vols. Ixxx. and Ixxxi. 



358 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Part I. 



Stran. So many men are that 

"Wliich is so call'd or thought, that you may add me 
To which you please, without much wrong to either. 
But come : you wish to kill yourself; — pursue 
Your purpose. 

Aen. You have interrupted me. 

Stkan. What is that resolution which can e'er 
Be interrupted ? If I be the devil 
You deem, a single moment would have made you 
Mine, and for ever, by your suicide ; 
And yet my coming saves you. 

Arn. I said not 

You were the demon, but that your approach 
Was like one. 

Stean. Unless you keep company 

With him (and you seem scarce used to such high 
Society), you can't tell how he approaches ; 
And for his aspect, look upon the fountain, 
And then on me, and judge which of us twain 
Look likest what the boors believe to be 
Their cloven-footed terror. 

Aen. Do you — dare you 

To taunt me with my born deformity ? 

Stran. Were I to taunt a buflfalo with this 
Cloven foot of thine, or the swift dromedary 
With thy sublime of humps, the animals 
Would revel in the compliment. And yet 
Both beings are more swift, more strong, more mighty 
In action and endurance than thyself. 
And all the fierce and fair of the same kind 
With thee. Thy form is natural : 'twas only 
Nature's mistaken largess to bestow 
The gifts which are of others upon man. 

Arn. Give me the strength then of the bufi"alo's foot, 
When he spurs high the dust, beholding his 
Near enemy ; or let me have the long 
And patient swiftness of the desert-ship, 
The helmless dromedary ! — and I'll bear 
Thy fiendish sarcasm with a saintly patience. 

Stran. I will. 

Arn. {with surprise). Thou canst? 

Stran, Perhaps. Would you aught else ? 

Arn. Thou mockest me. 

Stran. Not I. Why should I mock 

What all are mocking ? That's poor sport, methinks. 
To talk to thee in human language (for 
Thou canst not yet speak mine), the forester 
Hunts not the wretched coney, but the boar. 
Or wolf, or lion, leaving paltry game 
To petty burghers, who leave once a year 
Their walls, to fill their household caldrons with 
Such scullion prey. The meanest gibe at thee, — 
Now I can mock the mightiest. 

Arn. Then waste not 

Thy time on me : I seek thee not. 



1 This is a well-known German superstition— a gigantic 
shadow produced by reflection on the Brocken. — The Brocken 
is the name of the loftiest of the Hartz mountains, a pictur- 
esque range which lies in the kingdom of Hanover. From 



Stran. Your thoughts 

Are not far firom me. Do not send me back : 
I am not so easily recall'd to do 
Good service. 
Arn. What wilt thou do for me ? 

Stran. Change 

Shapes with you, if you will, since yours so irks 

you; 
Or form you to your wish in any shape. 

Arn. Oh ! then you are indeed the demon, for 
Nought else would wittingly wear mine. 

Stran. I'll show thee 

The brightest which the world e'er bore, and give thee 
Thy choice. 
Arn. On what condition ? 

Stran. There's a question ! 

An hour ago you would have given your soul 
To look like other men, and now you pause 
To wear the form of heroes. 

Arn. No ; I will not. 

I must not compromise my soul. 

Stran. What soul, 

Worth naming so, would dwell in such a carcass ? 

Arn. 'Tis an aspiring one, whate'er the tenement 
In which it is mislodged. But name your compact ; 
Must it be sign'd in blood ? 
Stran. Not in your own. 

Arn. Whose blood then ? 

Stran. We will talk of that hereafter. 

But I'll be moderate with you, for I see 
Great things within you. You shall have no bond 
But your own will, no contract save your deeds. 
Are you content ? 
Arn. I take thee at thy word. 

Stran. Now then!— 

[The Stranger approaches the fountain, and 
turns to Arnold. 

A little of your blood. 
Arn. For what? 

Stran. To mingle with the magic of the waters, 
And make the charm effective. 
Arn. {holding out his wounded arm). Take it all. 
Stran. Not now. A few drops will suffice for this. 
[The Stranger takes some 0/ Arnold's blood in 
his hand, and casts it into the fountain. 
Shadows of beauty ! 

Shadows of power ! 
Pise to your duty — 
This is the hour ! 
Walk lovely and pliant 

From the depth of this fountain, 
As the cloud-shapen giant 

Bestrides the Hartz Mountain.^ 
Come as ye were. 
That our eyes may behold 



the earliest periods of authentic history, the Brocken has 
been the seat of the marvellous. For a description of the 
phenomenon alluded to by Lord Byron, see Sir David Brew- 
ster's " Natural Magic," p. 128. 



Scene I. 



THE DEFOEMED TKANSFOKMED. 



359 



The model in air 
Of the form I will mould, 

Bright as the Iris 

"When ether is spann'd ; — 
Such his desire is, [Pointing to ARNOLD. 

Such my command I 
Demons heroic — 

Demons who wore 
The form of the stoic 

Or sophist of yore — 
Or tlie shape of each victor, 

From Macedon's boy 
To each high Roman's picture 

Who breathed to destroy — 
Shadows of beauty ! 

Shadows of power ! 
Up to your duty — 
This is the hour ! 
[Various phantoms arise from the waters, and 
pass in succession before the Stranger and 
Arnold. 
Arn. What do I see ? 

Stran. The black-eyed Roman, with 

The eagle's beak between those eyes which ne'er 
Beheld a conqueror, or look'd along 
The land he made not Rome's, while Rome became 
His, and all theirs who heir'd his very name. 

Arn. The phantom's bald; my quest is beauty. 
Could I 
Inherit but his fame with his defects ! 
Stran. His brow was girt with laurels more than 
hairs. 
You see his aspect — choose it, or reject. 
I can but promise you his form : his fame 
Must be long sought and fought for. 

Arn. I will fight too, 

But not as a mock Csesar. Let him pass ; 
His aspect may be fair, but suits me not. 

Stran. Then you are far more difficult to please 
Than Cato's sister, or than Brutus' mother, 
Or Cleopatra at sixteen — an age 
When love is not less in the eye than heart. 
But be it so ! Shadow, pass on ! 

[ The phantom of Julius Ccesar disappears. 
Arn. And can it 

Be, that the man who shook the earth is gone, 
And left no footstep ? 

Stran. There you err. His substance 

Left graves enough, and woes enough, and fame 

^ In'one of Lord Byron's MS. diaries we find the following 
passage: — "Alcibiades is said to have been 'successful in all 
his battles' — but what battles? Name them! If you men- 
tion Caesar, or Hannibal, or Napoleon, you at once rush upon 
Pharsalia, Munda, Alesia, Cannae, Thrasymene, Trcbia, Lodi, 
Marengo, Jena, Austerlitz, Friedland, Wagram, Moskwa ; but 
it is less easy to pitch upon the victories of Alcibiades ; though 
they may be named too, though not so readily as the Leuctra 
and Mantinaea of Epaminondas, the Marathon of Miltiades, 
the Salamis of Theniistocles, and the Thermopylse of Leon- 
idas. Yet, upon the whole, it may be doubted whether there 
be a name of antiquity which comes down with such a gen- 



More than enough to track his memory ; 
But for his shadow, 'tis no more than yours, 
Except a little longer and less crook'd 
I' the sun. Behold another ! 

[A second phantom passes. 

Arn. Who is he ? 

Stran. He was the fairest and the bravest of 
Athenians. 1 Look uj^on him well. 

Arn. He is 

More lovely than the last. How beautiful ! 

Stran. Such was the curled son of Clinias; — 
Wouldst thou 
Invest thee with his form ? 

Arn. Would that I had 

Been born with it ! But since I may choose further, 
I will look further. 

[The shade of Alcibiades disappears. 

Stran. Lo ! behold again ! [eyed satyr, 

Arn. What ! that low, swarthy, short-nosed, round- 
With the wide nostrils and Silenus' aspect, 
The splay feet and low stature ! ^ I had better 
Remain that which I am. 

Stran. And yet he was 

The earth's perfection of all mental beauty, 
And personification of all virtue. 
But you reject him ? 

Arn. If his form could bring me 

That which redeem'd it — no. 

Stran. I have no power 

To promise that ; but you may try, and find it 
Easier in such a form, or in your own. 

Arn. No. I was not born for philosophy, 
Though I have that about me which has need on't. 
Let him fleet on. 

Stran. Be air, thou hemlock-drinker ! 

[The shadow of Socrates disappears : another rises. 

Arn. What's here ? whose broad brow and whose 
curly beard 
And manly aspect look like Hercules,^ 
Save that his jocund eye hath more of Bacchus 
Than the sad purger of the infernal world, 
Leaning dejected on his club of conquest. 
As if he knew the worthlessness of those 
For whom he had fought. 

Stran. It was the man who lost 

The ancient world for love. 

Arn. I cannot blame him. 

Since I have risk'd my soul because I find not 
That which he exchanged the earth for. 

eral charm as that of Alcibiades. Why? I cannot answer. 
Who can ?" 

2 " The outside of Socrates was that of a satyr and buffoon, 
but his soul was all virtue, and from within him came such 
divine and pathetic things as pierced the heart, and drew 
tears from the hearers."— Plato. 

3 " His face was as the heavens ; and therein stuck 

A sun and moon, which kept their course, and lighted 

The little O, the earth. 

His legs bestrid the ocean ; his rear'd arm 

Crested the world ; his voice was propertied 

As all the tuned spheres," &.c. — Shakspeare. 



360 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Part I. 



Stran. Since so far 

You seem congenial, will you wear his features ? 

Arn. No. As you leave me choice, I am difficult, 
If but to see the heroes I should ne'er 
Have seen else on this side of the dim shore 
Whence they float back before us. 

Stran. Hence, triumvir ! 

Thy Cleopatra's waiting. 

l^The shade of Antony disappears : another rises. 

Arn. Who is this ? 

Who truly looketh like a demi-god. 
Blooming and bright, with golden hair, and stature. 
If not more high than mortal, yet immortal 
In all that nameless bearing of his limbs, 
Which he wears as the sun his rays — a something 
Which shines from him, and yet is but the flashing 
Emanation of a thing more glorious still. 
Was he e'er human only ? i 

Stran. Let the earth speak, 

If there be atoms of him left, or even 
Of the more solid gold that form'd his urn. 

Arn. Who was this glory of mankind ? 

Stran. The shame 

Of Greece in peace, her thunderbolt in war — 
Demetrius the Macedonian, and 
Taker of cities. 

Arn. Yet one shadow more. [lap ! 

Stran. {addressing the shadow). Get thee to Lamia's 
\^The shade of Demetrius PoUorcetes vanishes : 
another rises. 

I'll fit you still, 
Fear not, my hunchback : if the shadows of 
That which existed please not your nice taste, 
I'll animate the ideal marble, till 
Your soul be reconciled to her new garment. 

Arn. Content ! I will fix here. 

Stran. I must commend 

Your choice. The godlike son of the sea-goddess. 
The unshorn boy of Peleus, with his locks 
As beautiful and clear as the amber waves 
Of rich Pactolus, roU'd o'er sands of gold, 
Soften'd by intervening crystal, and 
Eippled like flowing waters by the wind. 
All vow'd to Sperchius as they were — behold them ! 
And him — as he stood by Polixena, 
With sanction'd and with soften'd love, before 
The altar, gazing on his Trojan bride. 
With some remorse within for Hector slain 
And Priam weeping, mingled with deep passion 
For the sweet downcast virgin, whose young hand 



1 " The beauty and mien of Demetrius Poliorcetes were so 
inimitable that no statuary or painter could hit off a like- 
ness. His countenance had a mixture of grace and dignity, 
and was at once amiable and awful, and the unsubdued and 
eager air of youth was blended with the majesty of the hero 
and the king."— Plutarch. 

2 " Whosoever," says Lord Bacon, " hath any thing fixed in 
his person that doth induce contempt, hath also a perpetual 
spur in himself to rescue and deliver himself from scorn ; 
therefore, all deformed persons are extreme bold ; first, as in 



Trembled in his who slew her brother. So 
He stood i' the temple ! Look upon him as 
Greece look'd her last upon her best, the instant 
Ere Paris' arrow flew. 

Arn. I gaze upon him 

As if I were his soul, whose form shall soon 
Envelop mine. 

Stran. You have done well. The greatest 

Deformity should only barter with 
The extremest beauty, if the proverb's true 
Of mortals, that extremes meet. 

Arn. Come ! Be quick ! 

I am impatient. 

Stran. As a youthful beauty 

Before her glass. You both see what is not, 
But dream it is what must be. 

Arn. Must I wait? 

Stran. No ; that were a pity. But a word or two : 
His stature is twelve cubits ; would you so far 
Outstep these times, and be a Titan ? Or 
(To talk canonically) wax a son 
Of Anak? 

Arn. Why not ? 

Stran. Glorious ambition ! 

I love thee most in dwarfs ! A mortal of 
Philistine stature would have gladly pared 
His own Goliath down to a slight David : 
But thou, my manikin, wouldst soar a show 
Bather than hero. Thou shalt be indulged, 
If such be thy desire ; and yet, by being 
A little less removed from present men 
In figure, thou canst sway them more ; for all 
Would rise against thee now, as if to hunt 
A new-found mammoth : and their cursed engines, 
Their culverins, and so forth, would find way 
Through our friend's armor there, with greater ease 
Than the adulterer's arrow through his heel, 
Which Thetis had forgotten to baptize 
In Styx. 

Arn. Then let it be as thou de.em'st best. 

Stran. Thou shalt be beauteous as the thing thou 
And strong as what it was, and [seest> 

Arn. I ask not 

For valor, since deformity is daring.^ 
It is its essence to o'ertake mankind 
By heart and soul, and make itself the equal — 
Ay, the superior of the rest. There is 
A spur in its halt movements, to become 
All that the others cannot, in such things 
As still are free to both, to compensate 



their own defence, as being exposed to scorn, but in process 
of time by a general habit : also it stirreth in them industry, 
and especially of this kind, to watch and observe the weakness 
of others, that they may have somewhat to repay. Again, in 
their superiors it quencheth jealousy towards them, as per- 
sons that they think they may at pleasure despise; and it 
layeth their competitors and emulators asleep, as never be- 
lieving they should be in possibility of advancement till they 
see them in possession : so that upon the matter, in a great 
wit, deformity is an advantage to rising."— £'ssat/ Iv. 



Scene I. 



THE DEFOKMED TKANSFORMED. 



361 



For stepdame Nature's avarice at first. 

They woo with fearless deeds the smiles of fortune, 

And oft, like Timour the lame Tartar, win them.i 

Stran. Well spoken! and thou doubtless wilt 
remain 
Form'd as thou art. I may dismiss the mould 
Of shadow, which must turn to flesh, to incase 
This daring soul, which could achieve no less 
Without it. 

Arn. Had no power presented me 

The possibility of change, I would 
Have done the best which sjDirit may to make 
Its way with all deformity's dull, deadly, 
Discouraging weight upon me, like a mountain, 
In feeling, on my heart as on my shoulders — 
An hateful and unsightly molehill, to 
The eyes of happier men. I would have look'd 
On beauty in that sex which is the type 
Of all we know or dream of beautiful 
Beyond the world they brighten, with a sigh — 
Not of love, but despair ; nor sought to win. 
Though to a heart all love, what could not love me 
In turn, because of this vile crooked clog. 
Which makes me lonely. Nay, I could have borne 
It all, had not my mother spurn'd me from her. 
The she-bear licks her cubs into a sort 
Of shape ; — my dam beheld my shape was hopeless. 
Had she exposed me, like the Spartan, ere 
I knew the passionate part of life, I had 
Been a clod of the valley, — happier nothing 
Than what I am. But even thus, the lowest. 
Ugliest, and meanest of mankind, what courage 
And perseverance could have done, perchance 
Had made me something— as it has made heroes 
Of the same mould as mine. You lately saw me 
Master of my own life, and quick to quit it ; 
And he who is so is the master of 
Whatever dreads to die. 

Stran. Decide between 

What you have been, or will be. 

Arn. I have done so. 

You have open'd brighter prospects to my eyes, 
And sweeter to my heart. As I am now, 
I might be fear'd, admired, respected, loved 
Of all save those next to me, of whom I 
Would be beloved. As thou showest me 
A choice of forms, I take the one I view. 
Haste! haste! 

Stran. And what shall / wear ? 

Arn. Surely, he 

Who can command all forms will choose the highest, 
Something superior even to that which was 
Pelides now before us. Perhaps his 
Who slew him, that of Paris : or — still higher — 

1 " Lord Byron's chief incentive, when a boy, to distinc- 
tion, was that mark of deformity, by the acute sense of which 
he was first stung into the ambition of being great. In one 
of his letters to Mr. Hunt, he declares it to be his own opin- 
ion that ' an addiction to poetry is very generally the result 
of an uneasy mind in an uneasy body ; disease or deform- 



The poet's god, clothed in such limbs as are 
Themselves a poetry. 

Stran. Less will content me ; 

For I, too, love a change. 

Arn. Your aspect is 

Dusky, but not uncomely. 

Stran. If I chose, 

I might be whiter; but I have a penchant 
For black — it is so honest, and besides 
Can neither blush with shame nor pale with fear ; 
But I have worn it long enough of late, 
And now I'll take your figure. 
Arn. Mine ! 

Stran. Yes. You 

Shall change with Thetis' son, and I with Bertha, 
Your mother's offspring. People have their tastes : 
You have yours — I mine. 
Arn. Despatch ! Despatch ! 

Stran. Even so. 

\_The Stranger takes some earth and moulds 
it along the turf, and then addresses the phan- 
tom of Achilles. 
Beautiful shadow 

Of Thetis's boy ! 
Who sleeps in the meadow 

Whose grass grows o'er Troy : 
From the red earth, like Adam,'-^ 

Thy likeness I shape. 
As the being who made him, 

Whose actions I ape. 
Thou clay, be all glowing, 
Till the rose in his cheek 
Be as fair as, when blowing, 

It wears its first streak ! 
Ye violets, I scatter, 

Now turn into eyes I 
And thou, sunshiny water, 
Of blood take the guise ! 
Let these hyacinth boughs 
Be his long flowing hair, 
And wave o'er his brows. 
As thou wavest in air ! 
Let his heart be this marble 

I tear from the rock ! 
But his voice as the warble 

Of birds on yon oak ! 
Let his flesh be the purest 

Of mould, in which grew 
The lily-root surest, 

And drank the best dew I 
Let his limbs be the lightest 

Which clay can compound, 
And his aspect the brightest 
On earth to be found ! 

ity,' he adds, ' have been the attendants of many of our best : 
Collins mad — Chatterton, / think, mad — Cowper mad — Pope 
crooked— Milton blind,' Ac. &c." — Moore. 

2 Adam means " red earth," from which the first man was 
formed. 



362 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Part I. 



Elements, near me, 

Be mingled and stirr'd. 
Know me, and hear me. 
And leap to my word ! 
Sunbeams, awaken 

This earth's animation ! 
'Tis done ! He hath taken 
His stand in creation ! 
[Aenold falls senseless ; his soul passes into the 
shape of Achilles, which rises from the ground; 
while the phantom has disappeared, part by 
part, as the figure was formed from the 
earth. 
Arn. {in his new form). I love, and I shall be be- 
loved! Oh, life! 
At last I feel thee ! Glorious spirit ! 

Stran. Stop ! 

What shall become of your abandon'd garment, 
Yon hump, and lump, and clod of ugliness. 
Which late you wore, or were ? 

Arn. Who cares ? Let wolves 

And vultures take it, if they will. 

Stran. And if 

They do, and are not scared by it, you'll say 
It must be peace-time, and no better fare 
Abroad i' the fields. 

Arn. Let us but leave it there ; 

No matter what becomes on't. 

Stran. That's ungracious, 

If not ungrateful. Whatsoe'er it be. 
It hath sustain'd your soul full many a day. 

Arn. Ay, as the dunghill may conceal a gem 
Which is now set in gold, as jewels should be. 

Stran. But if I give another form, it must be 
By fair exchange, not robbery. For they 
Who make men without women's aid have long 
Had patents for the same, and do not love 
Your interlopers. The devil may take men. 
Not make them, — though he reap the benefit 
Of the original workmanship : — and therefore 
Some one must be found to assume the shape 
You have quitted. 
Arn. Who would do so ? 

Stran. That I know not. 

And therefore I must. 
Arn. You I 

Stran. I said it ere 

You inhabited your present dome of beauty. 

Arn. True. I forget all things in the new joy 
Of this immortal change. 

Stran. In a few moments 

I will be as you were, and you shall see 
Yourself for ever by you, as your shadow. 
Arn. I would be spared this. 
Stran. But it cannot be. 

What ! shrink already, being what you are, 
From seeing what you were ? 
Arn. Do as thou wilt. 

Stran. {to the late form of Arnold, extended on 
the earth). 



Clay ! not dead, but soulless ! 

Though no man would choose thee, 
An immortal no less 

Deigns not to refuse thee. 
Clay thou art ; and unto spirit 
All clay is of equal merit. 
Fire ! without which nought can live ; 
Fire ! but in which nought can live. 
Save the fabled salamander. 
Or immortal souls, which wander. 
Praying what doth not forgive. 
Howling for a drop of water. 

Burning in a quenchless lot : 
Fire ! the only element 
Where nor fish, beast, bird, nor worm, 

Save the worm which dieth not. 
Can preserve a moment's form. 
But must with thyself be blent : 
Fire ! man's safeguard and his slaughter : 
Fire ! Creation's first-born daughter. 
And Destruction's threaten'd son. 
When heaven with the world hath done : 
Fire ! assist me to renew 
Life in what lies in my view 

Stifl" and cold ! 
His resurrection rests with me and you ! 
One little, marshy spark of flame — 
And he again shall seem the same ; 
But I his spirit's place shall hold ! 
[An ignis-fatuus flits through the wood and rests 
on the brow of the body. The Stranger dis- 
appears : the body rises. 
AlLN. {in his new form). Oh! horrible! [thou? 

Stran. (m Arnold's late shape). What! tremblest 
Arn. Not so— 

I merely shudder. Where is fled the shape 
Thou lately worest ? 

Stran. To the world of shadows. 

But let us thread the present. Whither wilt thou ? 
Arn. Must thou be my companion ? 
Stran. Wherefore not? 

Your betters keep worse company. 
Arn. My betters ! 

Stran. Oh ! you wax proud, I see, of your new 
, form : 
I'm glad of that. Ungrateful too ! That's well ; 
You improve apace ; — two changes in an instant. 
And you are old in the world's ways already. 
But bear with me : indeed you'll find me useful 
Upon your pilgrimage. But come, pronounce 
Where shall we now be errant ? 

Arn. Where the world 

Is thickest, that I may behold it in 
Its workings. 

Stran. That's to say, where there is war 

And woman in activity. Let's see ! 
Spain — Italy — the new Atlantic world — 
Afric, with all its Moors. In very truth. 
There is small choice : the whole race are just now 
Tugging as usual at each other's hearts. 



Scene EL. 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED. 



363 



Arn. I have heard great things of Rome. 

Stkan. a goodly choice — 

And scarce a better to be found on earth, 
Since Sodom -vvas put out. The field is wide too ; 
For now the Frank, and Hun, and Spanish scion 
Of the old Vandals, are at play along 
The sunny shores of the world's garden. 

Arn. How 

Shall we proceed ? 

Stran. Like gallants, on good coursers. 

What, ho ! my chargers ! Never yet were better, 
Since Phaeton was upset into the Po. 
Our pages too ! 

Enter two Pages, with four coal-black horses. 

Arn. a noble sight ! 

Stran. And of 

A nobler breed. Match me in Barbary, 
Or your Kochlini race of Araby, 
With these ! 

Arn. The mighty steam, which volumes high 

From their proud nostrils, burns the very air ; 
And sparks of flame, like dancing fire-flies, wheel 
Around their manes, as common insects swarm 
Round common steeds towards sunset. 

Stean. Mount, my lord : 

They and I are your servitors. 

Arn. And these 

Our dark-eyed pages — what may be their names? 

Stran. You shall baptize them. 

Arn. What ! in holy water ? 

Stran. Why not ? The deeper sinner, better saint. 

Arn. They are beautiful, and cannot, sure, be 
demons. 

Stran. True; the devil's always ugly; and your 
beauty 
Is never diabolical. 

Arn. I'll call him 

Who bears the golden horn, and wears such bright 
And blooming aspect, Huon ; for he looks 
Like to the lovely boy lost in the forest. 
And never found till now. And for the other, 
AQd darker, and more thoughtful, who smiles not, 
But looks as serious though serene as night. 
He shall be Memnon, from the Ethiop king 
Whose statue turns a harper once a day. 
And you ? 

Stran, I have ten thousand names, and twice 
As many attributes ; but as I wear 
A human shape, will take a human name. 

Arn. More human than the shape (though it was 
mine once), 
I trust. 

Stran. Then call me Caesar. 

Arn. Why, that name 

Belongs to empires, and has been but borne 
By the world's lords. 

Stran. And therefore fittest for 

The devil in disguise — since so you deem me, 
Unless you call me pope instead. 



Arn. Well, then, 

Csesar thou shalt be. For myself, my name 
Shall be plain Arnold still. 

C^s. We'll add a title — 

" Count Arnold :" it hath no ungracious sound, 
And will look well upon a billet-doux. 

Arn. Or in an order for a battle-field. 

C^s. (sings). To horse! to horse! my coal-black 
steed 
Paws the ground and snufls the air ! 

There's not a foal of Arab's breed 
More knows whom he must bear ; 

On the hill he will not tire. 

Swifter as it waxes higher ; 

In the marsh he will not slacken, 

On the plain be overtaken ; 

In the wave he will not sink, 

Nor pause at the brook's side to drink ; 

In the race he will not pant, 

In the combat he'll not faint ! 

On the stones he will not stumble, 

Time nor toil shall make him humble ; 

In the stall he will not stiffen, 

But be winged as a griffin. 

Only flying with his feet : 

And will not such a voyage be sweet? 

Merrily ! merrily ! never unsound. 

Shall our bonny black horses skim over the ground ! 

From the Alps to the Caucasus, ride we, or fly ! 

For we'll leave them behind in the glance of an eye. 
[They mount their horses and disappear. 



SCENE II. 
A Camp before the Walls of Home. 

Arnold and C^sar. 

C^s. You are well enter'd now. 

Arn. Ay ; but my path 

Has been o'er carcasses : mine eyes are full 
Of blood. 

CiES. Then wipe them, and see clearly. Why I 
Thou art a conqueror ; the chosen knight 
And free companion of the gallant Bourbon, 
Late constable of France : and now to be 
Lord of the city which hath been earth's lord 
Under its emperors, and— changing sex, 
Not sceptre, an hermaphrodite of empire — 
Lady of the old world. 

Arn. How old f What ! are there 

New worlds ? 

C^s. To you. You'll find there are such shortly, 
By its rich harvests, new disease, and gold ; 
From one half of the world named a whole new one. 
Because you know no better than the dull 
And dubious notice of your eyes and ears. 

Arn. I'll trust them. 

C-ES. Do ! They will deceive you sweetly, 

And that is better than the bitter truth. 

Arn. Dog! 



364 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



Part I. 



C^S. Man ! 

Arn. Devil ! 

C^s. Your obedient humble servant. 

Arn. Say master rather. Thou hast lured me on, 
Through scenes of blood and lust, till I am here. 

C^s. And where wouldst thou be ? 

Arn. Oh, at peace— in peace. 

C^s. And where is that which is so ? From the star 
To the winding worm, all life is motion ; and 
In life commotion is the extremest point 
Of life. The planet wheels till it becomes 
A comet, and destroying as it sweeps 
The stars, goes out. The poor worm winds its way, 
Living upon the death of other things. 
But still, like them, must live and die, the subject 
Of something which has made it live and die. 
You must obey what all obey, the rule 
Of fix'd necessity : against her edict 
Rebellion prospers not. 

Arn. And when it prospers 

C^S. 'Tis no rebellion. 

Arn. Will it prosper now ? 

C^s. The Bourbon hath given orders for the as- 
sault, 
And by the dawn there will be work. 

Arn. Alas ! 

And shall the city yield ? I see the giant 
Abode of the true God, and his true saint, 
Saint Peter, rear its dome and cross into 
That sky whence Christ ascended from the cross, 
Which his blood made a badge of glory and 
Of joy (as once of torture unto him, 
God and God's Son, man's sole and only refuge). 

Cms,. 'Tis there, and shall be. 

Arn. What? 

CiES. The crucifix 

Above, and many altar shrines below. 
Also some culverins upon the walls. 
And harquebusses, and what not ; besides 
The men who are to kindle them to death 
Of other men. 

Arn. And those scarce mortal arches, 

Pile above pile of everlasting wall, 
The theatre where emperors and their subjects 
(Those subjects Romans) stood at gaze upon 
The battles of the monarchs of the wild 
And wood, the lion and his tusky rebels 
Of the then untamed desert, brought to joust 
In the arena (as right well they might. 
When they had left no human foe unconquer'd) ; 
Made even the forest pay its tribute of 
Life to their amphitheatre, as well 
As Dacia men to die the eternal death 
For a sole instant's pastime, and " Pass on 
To a new gladiator !" — Must it fall ? 



1 Suetonius relates of Julius Caesar that his baldness gave 
him much uneasiness, having often found himself, upon that 
account, exposed to the ridicule of his enemies; and that, 
therefore, of all the honors conferred upon him by the senate 



C^S. The city, or the amphitheatre ? 
The church, or one, or all ? for you confound 
Both them and me. 

Arn. To-morrow sounds the assault 

With the first cock-crow. 

CiES. Which, if it end with 

The evening's first nightingale, will be 
Something new in the annals of great sieges ; 
For men must have their prey after long toil. 

Arn. The sun goes down as calmly, and perhaps 
More beautifully, than he did on Rome 
On the day Remus leapt her wall. 

C^S. I saw him. 

Arn. You! 

CiES. Yes, sir. You forget I am or was 

Spirit, till I took up with your cast shape 
And a worse name. I'm Csesar and a hunchback 
Now. Well ! the first of Csesars was a bald-head, 
And loved his laurels better as a wig 
(So history says) than as a glory .1 Thus 
The world runs on, but we'll be merry still. 
I saw your Romulus (simple as I am) 
Slay his own twin, quickborn of the same womb, 
Because he leapt a ditch ('twas then no wall, 
Whate'er it now be) ; and Rome's earliest cement 
Was brother's blood ; and if its native blood 
Be spilt till the choked Tiber be as red 
As e'er 'twas yellow, it will never wear 
The deep hue of the ocean and the earth. 
Which the great robber sons of fratricide 
Have made their never-ceasing scene of slaughter 
For ages. 

Arn. But what have these done, their far 
Remote descendants, who have lived in peace, 
The peace of heaven, and in her sunshine of 
Piety? 

C^s. And what had they done, whom the old 
Romans o'erswept ?— Hark ! 

Arn. They are soldiers singing 

A reckless roundelay, upon the eve 
Of many deaths, it may be of their own. 

CiES. And why should they not sing as well as 
swans ? 
They are black ones, to be sure. 

Arn. So, you are learn'd, 

I see, too ? 

C^s. In my grammar, certes. I 

Was educated for a monk of all times. 
And once I was well versed in the forgotten 
Etruscan letters, and — were I so minded — 
Could make their hieroglyphics plainer than 
Your alphabet. 

Arn. And wherefore do you not ? 

C^S. It answers better to resolve the alphabet 
Back into hieroglyphics. Like your statesman. 



and people, there was none which he either accepted or used 
with so much pleasure as the right of wearing constantly a 
laurel crown. 



Scene II. 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED. 



365 



And prophet, pontiff, doctor, alchemist, 

Philosopher, and what not, they have built 

More Babels, without new dispersion, than 

The stammering young ones of the flood's dull ooze. 

Who fail'd and fled each other. Why ? why, marry. 

Because no man could understand his neighbor. 

They are wiser now, and will not separate 

For nonsense. Nay, it is their brotherhood, 

Their Shibboleth, their Koran, Talmud, their 

Cabala ; their best brick-work, wherewithal 

They build more [sneerer ! 

Arn. {intemcpting him). Oh, thou everlasting 
Be silent ! How the soldiers' rough strain seems 
Soften'd by distance to a hymn-like cadence ! 
Listen ! 

Cms. Yes. I have heard the angels sing. 

Arn. And demons howl. 

C^ES. And man, too. Let us listen : 

I love all music. 

Song of the Soldiers within. 
The black bands came over 

The Alps and their snow ; 
With Bourbon, the rover, 

They pass'd the broad Po. 
We have beaten all foemen. 

We have captured a king. 
We have turn'd back on no men, 

And so let us sing ! 
Here's the Bourbon for ever ! 

Though penniless all, 
We'll have one more endeavor 

At yonder old wall. 
With the Bourbon we'll gather 

At day-dawn before 
The gates, and together 

Or break or climb o'er 
The wall : on the ladder 

As mounts each firm foot. 
Our shout shall grow gladder, 

And death only be mute. 
With the Bourbon we'll mount o'er 

The walls of old Rome, 
And who then shall count o'er 

The spoils of each dome ? 
Up ! up with the lily ! 

And down with the keys ! 
In old Rome, the seven-hilly, 

We'll revel at ease. 
Her streets shall be gory. 

Her Tiber all red. 
And her temples so hoary 

Shall clang with our tread. 
Oh, the Bourbon ! the Bourbon! 

The Bourbon for aye ! 
Of our song bear the burden I 

And fire, fire away ! 



» Giarles of Bourbon was coosin to Francis I., and constable 
of France. Being bitterly persecuted by the queen-raother 



With Spain for the vanguard, 

Our varied host comes ; 
And next to the Spaniard 

Beat Germany's drums ; 
And Italy's lances 

Are couch'd at their mother ; 
But our leader from France is. 

Who warr'd with his brother. 
Oh, the Bourbon ! the Bourbon ! 

Sans country or home, 
We'll follow the Bourbon, 

To plunder old Rome. 

C^S. An indifferent song 

For those within the walls, methinks, to hear. 

Arn. Yes, if they keep to their chorus. But here 
comes 
The general with his chiefs and men of trust. 
A goodly rebel ! 

Enter the Constable Bourbon,^ " cum suis/' &c. &c. 

Phil. How now, noble prince. 

You are not cheerful ? 

BouRB. Why should I be so ? 

Phil. Upon the eve of conquest, such as ours. 
Most men would be so. 

BouRB. If I were secure ! 

Phil. Doubt not our soldiers. Were the walls of 
adamant, 
They'd crack them. Hunger is a sharp artillery. 

BouRB. That they will falter is my least of fears. 
That they will be repulsed, with Bourbon for 
Their chief, and all their kindled appetites 
To marshal them on — were those hoary walls 
Mountains, and those who guard them like the gods 
Of the old fables, I would trust my Titans ; — 
But now 

Phil. They are but men who war with mortals. 

BouRB. True : but those walls have girded in great 
ages, 
And sent forth mighty spirits. The past earth 
And present phantom of imperious Rome 
Is peopled with those warriors ; and methinks 
They flit along the eternal city's rampart, 
And stretch their glorious, gory, shadowy hands, 
And beckon me away! 

Phil. So let them ! Wilt thou 

Turn back from shadowy menaces of shadows ? 

BoURB. They do not menace me. I could have 
faced, 
Methinks, a Sylla's menace ; but they clasp, 
And raise, and wring their dim and deathlike hands, 
And with their thin aspen faces and fix'd eyes 
Fascinate mine. Look there ! 

Phil. I look upon 

A lofty battlement. 

BouRB. And there ! 



for having declined the honor of her hand, and also by the 
king, he transferred his services to the emperor Charles V. 



366 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Part I. 



Phil. Not even 

A. guard in sight ; they wisely keep below, 
Shelter'd by the gray parapet from some 
Stray bullet of our lansquenets, who might 
Practice in the cool twilight. 

BouRB. You are blind. 

Phil. If seeing nothing more than may be seen 
Be so. 

BoURB. A thousand years have mann'd the 
walls 
With all their heroes, — the last Cato stands 
And tears his bowels, rather than survive 
The liberty of that I would enslave. 
And the first Csesar with his triumphs flits 
From battlement to battlement. 

Phil. Then conquer 

The walls for which he conquer'd, and be greater ! 

BoURB. True : so I will, or perish. 

Phil. You can not. 

In such an enterprise to die is rather 
The dawn of an eternal day, than death. 

[Count Arnold and C^sar advance. 

Cms. And the mere men — do they too sweat 
beneath 
The noon of this same ever-scorching glory ? 

BOFRB. Ah ! 

Welcome the bitter hunchback ! and his master, 
The beauty of our host, and brave as beauteous. 
And generous as lovely. We shall find 
Work for you both ere morning. 

Cms. You will find, 

So please your highness, no less for yourself. 

BouRB. And if I do, there will not be a laborer 
if ore forward, hunchback ! 

C^s. You may well say so. 

For you have seen that back — as general, 
Placed in the rear in action — but your foes 
Have never seen it. 

BouBB. That's a fair retort. 

For I provoked it : — but the Bourbon's breast 
Has been, and ever shall be, far advanced 
In danger's face as yours, were you the devil. 

Cms. And if I were, I might have saved myself 
The toil of coming here. 

Phil. Why so ? 

C^s. One half 

Of your brave bands of their own bold accord 
Will go to him, the other half be sent. 
More swiftly, not less surely. 

BouRB. Arnold, your 

Slight crooked friend's as snake-like in his words 
As his deeds. 

C^s. Your highness much mistakes me. 

The first snake was a flatterer — I am none ; 
And for my deeds, I only sting when stung. 

BoURB. You are brave, and that's enough for me ; 
and quick 
In speech as sharp in action — and that's more. 
I am not alone a soldier, but the soldier's 
Comrade. 



C^s. They are but bad company, your highness : 
And worse even for their friends than foes, as 

being 
More permanent acquaintance. 

Phil. How now, fellow ! 

Thou waxest insolent, beyond the privilege 
Of a bufibon. 

C^s. You mean I speak the truth. 

I'll lie— it is as easy : then you'll praise me 
For calling you a hero. 

BouRB. Philibert! 

Let him alone ; he's brave, and ever has 
Been first, with that swart face and mountain shoul- 
der. 
In field or storm, and patient in starvation ; 
And for his tongue, the camp is full of license. 
And the sharp stinging of a lively rogue 
Is, to my mind, far preferable to 
The gross, dull, heavy, gloomy execration 
Of a mere famish'd, sullen, grumbling slave, 
Wliom nothing can convince save a full meal, 
And wine, and sleep, and a few maravedis. 
With which he deems him rich. 

Cms. It would be well 

If the earth's princes ask'd no more. 

BouRB. Be silent ! 

C^s. Ay, but not idle. Work yourself with 
words ! 
You have few to speak. 

Phil. What means the audacious prater ? 

C^s. To prate, like other prophets. 

BouRB. Philibert ! 

Why will you vex him ? Have we not enough 
To think on ? Arnold ! I will lead the attack 
To-morrow. 

Arn. I have heard as much, my lord. 

BOTIRB. And you will follow ? 

Arn. Since I must not lead. 

BoTJRB. 'Tis necessary for the further daring 
Of our too needy army, that their chief 
Plant the first foot upon the foremost ladder's 
First step. 

C^s. Upon its topmost, let us hope : 

So shall he have his full deserts. 

BouRB. The world's 

Great capital perchance is ours to-morrow. 
Through every change the seven-hill'd city hath 
Eetain'd her sway o'er natiohs, and the Csesars 
But yielded to the Alarics, the Alarics 
Unto the pontiffs. Roman, Goth, or priest. 
Still the world's masters ! Civilized, barbarian, 
Or saintly, still the walls of Romulus 
Have been the circus of an empire. Well ! 
'Twas their turn — now 'tis ours ; and let us hope 
That we will fight as well, and rule much better. 

Cms. No doubt, the camp's the school of civic 
rights. 
What would you make of Rome ? 

BouRB. That which it was. 

C^S. In Alaric's time ? 



Scene I. 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED. 



367 



BOURB. No, slave ! in the first Caesar's, 
"Whose name you bear like other curs 

Cjes. And kings ! 

'Tis a great mime for blood-hounds. 

BOURB. There's a demon 

In that fierce rattlesnake thy tongue. Wilt never 
Be serious ? 

Cms. On the eve of battle, no ; — 

That were not soldier-like. 'Tis for the general 
To be more pensive : we adventurers 
Must be more cheerful. Wherefore should we 

think ? 
Our tutelar deity, in a leader's shape, 
Takes care of us. Keep thought aloof from hosts ! 
If the knaves take to thinking, you will have 
To crack those walls alone. 

BouRB. You may sneer, since 

'Tis lucky for you that you fight no worse for't. 

CiES. I thank you for the freedom ; 'tis the only 
Pay I have taken in your highness' service. 

BouKB. Well, sir, to-morrow you shall pay your- 
self. 
Look on those towers ; they hold my treasury ; 
But, Philibert, we'll in to council. Arnold, 
We would request your presence. 

Arn. Prince ! my service 

Is yours, as in the field. 

BOFRB. In both we prize it. 

And yours will be a post of trust at daybreak. 

C2ES. And mine ? 

BouRB. To follow glory with the Bourbon. 

Good night ! 

Arn. (to C^SAR). Prepare our armor for the 
assault. 
And wait within my tent. 

[Exeunt Bourbon, Arnold, Philibert, &€. 

Cms. (solus). Within thy tent! 

Think'st thou that I pass from thee with my pres- 
ence? 
Or that this crooked coffer, which contain'd 
Thy principle of life, is aught to me 
Except a mask ? And these are men, forsooth ! 
Heroes and chiefs, the flower of Adam's bastards ! 
This is the consequence of giving matter 
The power of thought. It is a stubborn substance. 
And thinks chaotically, as it acts, 
Ever relapsing into its first elements. 
Well ! I must play with these poor puppets : 'tis 
The spirit's pastime in his idler hours. 
When I grow weary of it, I have business 
Amongst the stars, which these poor creatures 

deem 
Were made for them to look at. 'Twere a jest 

now 
To bring one down amongst them, and set fire 
Unto their ant-hill : how the pismires then 
Would scamper o'er the scalding soil, and, ceasing 
From tearing down each other's nests, pipe forth 
One universal orison ! Ha ! ha ! 

[Exit CiESAR. 



PART II. 

SCENE I. 

Before the Walls of Rome. — The Assault: the Army 
in motion, with ladders to scale the walls; BoUR- 
BON, with a white scarf over his armor, foremost. 

Chorus of Spirits in the air. 
1. 
'Tis the morn, but dim and dark. 
Whither flies the silent lark ? 
Whither shrinks the clouded sun ? 
Is the day indeed begun ? 
Nature's eye is melancholy 
O'er the city high and holy : 
But without there is a din 
Should arouse the saints within. 
And revive the heroic ashes 
Round which yellow Tiber dashes. 
Oh, ye seven hills ! awaken. 
Ere your very base be shaken ! 

2. 
Hearken to the steady stamp ! 
Mars is in their every tramp ! 
Not a step is out of tune. 
As the tides obey the moon ! 
On they march, though to self-slaughter, 
Regular as rolling water. 
Whose high waves o'ersweep the border 
Of huge moles, but keep their order. 
Breaking only rank by rank. 
Hearken to the armor's clank ! 
Look down o'er each frowning warrior, 
How he glares upon the barrier : 
Look on each step of each ladder. 
As the stripes that streak an adder. 

3. 

Look upon the bristling wall, 
Mann'd without an interval ! 
Round and round, and tier on tier. 
Cannon's black mouth, shining spear. 
Lit match, bell-mouth 'd musketoon, 
Gaping to be murderous soon ; 
All the warlike gear of old, 
Mix'd with what we now behold, 
In this strife 'twixt old and new. 
Gather like a locusts' crew. 
Shade of Remus ! 'tis a time 
Awful as thy brother's crime ! 
Christians war against Christ's shrine :— 
Must its lot be like to thine ? 



Near— and near — and nearer still, 
As the earthquake saps the hill. 
First with trembling, hollow motion, 
Like a scarce-awaken'd ocean. 



368 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



Part II. 



Then with stronger shock, and louder, 
Till the rocks are crush'd to powder, — 
Onward sweeps the rolling host ! 
Heroes of the immortal boast ! 
Mighty chiefs ! eternal shadows ! 
First flowers of the bloody meadows 
Which encompass Rome, the mother 
Of a people without brother ! 
Will you sleep when nations' quarrels 
Plough the root up of your laurels ? 
Ye who weep o'er Carthage burning, 
Weep not — strike ! for Rome is mourning ! i 

5. 
Onward sweep the varied nations ! 
Famine long hath dealt their rations. 
To the wall, with hate and hunger, 
Numerous as wolves, and stronger, 
On they sweep. Oh, glorious city, 
Must thou be a theme for pity ? 
Fight, like your first sire, each Roman ! 
Alaric was a gentle foeman, 
Match'd with Bourbon's black banditti ! 
Rouse thee, thou eternal city ; 
Rouse thee ! Rather give the torch 
With thine own hand to thy porch, 
Than behold such hosts pollute 
Your worst dwelling with their foot. 

6. 
Ah ! behold yon bleeding spectre ! 
Ilion's children find no Hector ; 
Priam's offspring loved their brother ; 
Rome's great sire forgot his mother, 
When he slew his gallant twin, 
With inexpiable sin. 
See the giant shadow stride 
O'er the ramparts high and wide ! 
When the first o'erleapt thy wall. 
Its foundation mourn'd thy fall. 
Now, though towering like a Babel, 
Who to stop his steps are able ? 
Stalking o'er thy highest dome, 
Remus claims his vengeance, Rome I 

7. 
Now they reach thee in their anger : 
Fire and smoke and hellish clangor 
Are around thee, thou world's wonder ! 
Death is in thy walls and under. 
Now the meeting steel first clashes, 
Downward then the ladder crashes, 
With its iron load all gleaming, 
Lying at its foot blaspheming ! 
Up again ! for every warrior 
Slain, another climbs the barrier. 

1 Scipio, the second Africanus, is said to have repeated a 
verse of Homer, and wept over the burning of Carthage. He 
had better have granted it a caoitulation. 



Thicker grows the strife ; thy ditches 
Europe's mingling gore enriches. 
Rome ! although thy wall may perish, 
Such manure thy fields will cherish. 
Making gay the harvest-home ; 
But thy hearths, alas ! oh, Rome ! — 
Yet be Rome amidst thine anguish, 
Fight as thou wast wont to vanquish ! 



Yet once more, ye old Penates ! 

Let not your quench'd hearths be Ate's ! 

Yet again, ye shadowy heroes. 

Yield not to these stranger Neros ! 

Though the son who slew his mother 

Shed Rome's blood, he was your brother: 

'Twas the Roman curb'd the Roman ; — 

Brennus was a baffled foeman. 

Yet again, ye saints and martyrs. 

Rise ! for yours are holier charters ! 

Mighty gods of temples falling, 

Yet in ruin still appalling ! 

Mightier founders of those altars, 

True and Christian,— strike the assaulters ! 

Tiber ! Tiber ! let thy torrent 

Show even nature's self abhorrent. 

Let each breathing heart dilated 

Turn, as doth the lion baited ! ^^ 

Rome be crush'd to one wide tomb, ^ y^ 

But be still the Roman's Rome ! ^ 

Bourbon, Arnold, C^sar, and others,, arrive at the 
foot of the wall. ARNOLD is about to plant his 
ladder. 

BouRB. Hold, Arnold ! I am first. 
Arn. Not so, my lord. 

BoTJRB. Hold, sir, I charge you ! Follow ! I am 
proud 
Of such a follower, but will brook no leader. 

[Bourbon plants his ladder, and begins to mount. 
Now, boys ! On ! on ! 

\A shot strikes him, and Bourbon falls. 
CiES. And off! 

Arn. Eternal powers ! 

The host will be appall'd, — but vengeance ! venge- 
ance! 
BOURB. 'Tis nothing — lend me your hand. 
[Bourbon takes Arnold by the hand, and rises ; 
but as he puts his foot on the step, falls again. 
Arnold ! I am sped. 
Conceal my fall — all will go well — conceal it ! 
Fling my cloak o'er what will be dust anon ; 
Let not the soldiers see it. 
Arn. You must be 

Removed ; the aid of 

Bourb. No, my gallant boy ; 

Death is upon me. But what is one life ? 
The Bourbon's spirit shall command them still. 
Keep them yet ignorant that I am but clay, 
Till they are conquerors — then do as you may. 



Scene II. 



THE DEFOKMED TRANSFOKMED. 



369 



C-SS. Would not your highness choose to kiss the 
cross ? 
We have no priest here, hut the hilt of sword 
May serve instead : — it did the same for Bayard.^ 

BouRB. Thou bitter slave ! to name him at this time ! 
But I deserve it. 

Aen. {to C^SAR). Villain, hold your peace! 

QjES. What, when a Christian dies ? Shall I not offer 
A Christian " Vade in pace " ? 

Arn. Silence ! Oh ! 

Those eyes are glazing which o'erlook'd the world. 
And saw no equal. 

BouRB. Arnold, shouldst thou see 

France But hark ! hark ! the assault grows 

warmer — Oh ! 
For but an hour, a minute more of life, 
To die within the wall ! Hence, Arnold, hence ! 
You lose time — they will conquer Rome without thee. 

Arn. And without thee ! 

BouRB. Not so ; I'll lead them still 

In spirit. Cover up my dust, and breathe not 
That I have ceased to breathe. Away ! and be 
Victorious ! 

Arn. But I must not leave thee thus. 

BouRB. You must— farewell— Up ! up! the world 
is winning. [BouRBON dies? 

QiES. [to Arnold). Come, count, to business. 

Arn. True. I'll weep hereafter. 

[Arnold covers Bourbon's body with a mantle^ 
and mounts the ladder, crying 
The Bourbon ! Bourbon ! On, boys ! Rome is ours ! 

C.ES. Good night, lord constable ! thou wert a man. 
[CiESAR follows Arnold ; they reach the battle- 
ment ; Arnold and C^sar are struck doivn. 

Cms. a precious somerset ! Is your countship in- 
jured? 

Arn. No. {Remounts the ladder. 

C.ES. A rare blood-hound, when his own is heated ! 
And 'tis no boy's play. Now he strikes them down ! 
His hand is on the battlement — he grasps it 
As though it were an altar ; now his foot 

Is on it, and What have we here ? — a Roman ? 

[A man falls. 
The first bird of the covey ! he has fallen 
On the outside of the nest. Why, how now, fellow ? 

Wounded Man. A drop of water ! 

QjES. Blood's the only liquid 

Nearer than Tiber. 

Wounded Man. I have died for Rome. [Dies. 

QlES. And so did Bourbon, in another sense. 
Oh tliese immortal men ! and their great motives ! 



^ "Finding himself mortally wounded, Bayard ordered one 
of his attendants to place him under a tree with his face 
towards the enemy, then, fixing his eyes on the guard of his 
sword, which he held up instead of a cross, he addressed his 
prayers to God, and in this posture he calmly waited the 
approach of death."— Robertson, Charles V. 

* "On the 1st of May, 1527, the Constahle and his army 
came in sight of Rome, and the next morning commenced 
the attack. Bourbon wore a white vest over his armor, in 
24 



But I must after my young charge. He is 
By this time i' the forum. Charge ! charge ! 

[C-ffiSAR mounts the ladder ; the scene closes. 

SCENE II. 

The City. — Combats between the Besiegers and 
Besieged in the streets. Inhabitants flying in con- 
fusion. 

Enter C^SAR. 
C^S. I cannot find my hero ; he is mix'd 
With the heroic crowd that now pursue 
The fugitives, or battle with the desperate. 
What have we here ? A cardinal or two 
That do not seem in love with martyrdom. 
How the old red-shanks scamper ! Could they doff 
Their hose as they have doff 'd their hats, 'twould be 
A blessing, as a mark the less for plunder. 
But let them fly ; the crimson kennels now 
Will not much stain their stockings, since the mire 
Is of the self-same purple hue. 

Enter a Party fighting. — Arnold at the head of the 
Besiegers. 

He comes. 
Hand in hand with the mild twins — Gore and Glory. 
Holla ! hold, count ! 

Arn. Away ! they must not rally. 

C^s. I tell thee, be not rash ; a golden bridge 
Is for a flying enemy. I gave thee 
A form of beauty, and an 
Exemption from some maladies of body. 
But not of mind, which is not mine to give. 
But though I gave the form of Thetis' son, 
I dipt thee not in Styx ; and 'gainst a foe 
I would not warrant thy chivalric heart 
More than Pelides' heel ; why then, be cautious, 
And know thyself a mortal still. 

Arn. And who 

With alight of soul would combat if he were 
Invulnerable ? That were pretty sport. 
Think'st thou I beat for hares when lions roar ? 

[Arnold rushes into the combat. 

Cms. a precious sample of humanity ! 
Well, his blood's up : and if a little's shed, 
'Twill serve to curb his fever. 

[Arnold engages with a Roman, who retires 
towards a portico. 

Arn. Yield thee, slave ! 

I promise quarter. 

Rom. That's soon said. 



order, he said, to be more conspicuous both to his friends and 
foes. He led on to the walls, and commenced a furious as- 
sault, which was repelled with equal violence. Seeing that 
his army began to waver, he seized a scaling-ladder from a 
soldier standing, and was in the act of ascending, when he 
was pierced by a musket-ball, and fell. Feeling that his 
wound was mortal, he desired that his body might be con- 
cealed from his soldiers, and instantly expired." — Rob- 
ertson. 



370 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Part II. 



Aen. And done — 

My word is known. 

Rom. So shall be my deeds. 

[^They re-engage. C^SAR comes forward. 

Cms. "Why, Arnold ! hold thine own : thou hast in 
A famous artisan, a cunning sculptor ; [hand 

Also a dealer in the sword and dagger. 
Not so, my musketeer ; 'twas he who slew 
The Bourbon from the wall. 

Aen. Ay, did he so ? 

Then he hath carved his monument. 

Rom. I yet 

May live to carve your betters'. 

C^S. Well said, my man of marble ! Benvenuto, 
Thou hast some practice in both ways ; and he 
Who slays Cellini will have work'd as hard 
As e'er thou didst upon Carrara's blocks.^ 

[Arnold disarms and wounds Cellini, hut 
slightly: the latter draws a pistol, and fires; 
then retires, and disappears through the 
portico. 

Cms. How farest thou ? Thou hast a taste, methinks, 
Of red Bellona's banquet. 

Aen. {staggers). 'Tis a scratch. 

Lend me thy scarf. He shall not 'scape me thus. 

C^S. Where is it ? 

Aen. In the shoulder, not the sword arm— 

And that's enough. I am thirsty : would I had 
A helm of water ! 

C^S. That's a liquid now 

In requisition, but by no means easiest - 
To come at. 

Aen. And my thirst increases ; — but 

I'll find a way to quench it. 

C^s. Or be quench'd 

Thyself. 

Aen. The chance is even ; we will throw 
The dice thereon. But I lose time in prating ; 
Prithee be quick. [C^SAR hinds on the scarf. 

And what dost thou so idly ? 
Why dost not strike ? 

C^s. Your old philosophers 

Beheld mankind, as mere spectators of 
The Olympic games. When I behold a prize 
Worth wrestling for, I may be found a Milo. 

Aen. Ay, 'gainst an oak. 

CiES. A forest, when it suits me : 

I combat with a mass, or not at all. 
Meantime, pursue thy sport as I do mine ; 
Which is just now to gaze, since all these laborers 
Will reap my harvest gratis. 

Aen. Thou art still 

A fiend ! 



1 "Levelling my arquebuse," says Benvenuto Cellini, "I 
discharged it with a deliberate aim at a person who seemed 
to be lifted above the rest ; but the mist prevented me from 
distinguishing whether he was on horseback or on foot. Then 
turning suddenly about oo Alessandro and Cecchino, I bid them 
fire off their pieces, and showed them how to escape every shot 
of the besiegers. Having accordingly fired twice for the en- 



CiES. And thou — a man. 
Aen. Why, such I fain would show me. 
C^S. True — as men are. 

Aen. And what is that ? 

C^S. Thou feelest and thou seest. 

\^Exit ArnoTjI), joining in the combat which still 

continues between detached parties. The scene 



SCENE III. ' 

Saint Peter's — The Interior of the Church — The Pope 
at the Altar — Priests, &c., crowding in confusion, 
and Citizens flying for refuge, pursued by Soldiery. 

Emter C^SAE. 

A Spanish Soldiee. Down with them, comrades ! 
seize upon those lamps ! 
Cleave yon bald-pated shaveling to the chine ! 
His rosary's of gold ! 

LtTTHEEAN SOLDIEE. Revenge ! revenge ! 
Plunder hereafter, but for vengeance now — 
Yonder stands Anti-Christ ! 

C^S. {interposing). How now, schismatic ? 

What wouldst thou ? 

LuTH. Sold. In the holy name of Christ, 

Destroy proud Anti-Christ. I am a Christian. 

C^S. Yea, a disciple that would make the founder 
Of your belief renounce it, could he see 
Such proselytes. Best stint thyself to plunder. 

LuTH. Sold. I say he is the devil. 

C^s. Hush ! keep that secret, 

Lest he should recognize you for his own. [he is 

Ltjth. Sold. Why would you save him ? I repeat 
The devil, or the devil's vicar upon earth. [rel 

C^S. And that's the reason : would you make a quar- 
With your best friends ? You had far best be quiet ; 
His hour is not yet come. 

LuTH. Sold. That shall be seen ! 

[ The I/vbtheran Soldier rtcshcs forward ; a shot 
strikes him from one of the Poj^e'^s Guards, 
and he falls at the foot of the Altar. 

Cms. {to the Lutheran). I told you so. 

LuTH. Sold. And will you not avenge me ? 

C^S. Not I ! You know that " Vengeance is tlie 
You see he loves no interlopers. [Lord's :" 

LuTH. Sold, {dying). Oh ! 

Had I but slain him, I had gone on high, 
Crown'd with eternal glory ! Heaven, forgive 
My feebleness of arm that reach'd him not, 
And take thy servant to thy mercy. 'Tis 
A glorious triumph still ; proud Babylon's 
No more ; the Harlot of the Seven Hills 

emy's once, I cautiously approached the walls, and perceived 
that there was an extraordinary confusion among the assail- 
ants, occasioned by our having shot the Duke of Bourbon ; 
he was, as I understood afterwards, that chief personage 
whom I saw raised above the rest."— Vol. i. p. 120. This, 
however, is one of the many stories in Cellini's amusing au- 
tobiography which nobody seems ever to have believed. 



Scene III. 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED. 



371 



Hath changed her scarlet raiment for sackcloth 
And ashes I [The Lutheran dies. 

Cjes. Yes, thine own amidst the rest. 

Well done, old Babel ! 

[The Guards defend themselves desperately, 
while the Pontiff escapes, by a private pas- 
sage, to the Vatican and the Castle of Saint 
Angela.^ 

Cms. Ha ! right nobly battled ! 

No-w, priest ! now, soldier ! the two great professions. 
Together by the ears and hearts ! I have not 
Seen a more comic pantomime since Titus 
Took Jewry. But the Romans had the best then ; 
Now they must take their turn. 

Soldiers. He hath escaped ! 

Follow ! [sage up, 

Another Sold. They have barr'd the narrow pas- 
And it is clogged with dead even to the door. [for't 

Cms. I am glad he hath escaped : he may thank me 
In part. I would not have his bulls abolish'd — 
'Twere worth one half our empire : his indulgences 
Demand some in return ; — no, no, he must not 
Fall ; — and besides, his now escape may furnish 
A future miracle, in future proof 
Of his infallibility. [To the Spanish Soldiery. 

Well, cut-throats ! 
What do you pause for? If you make not haste, 
There will not be a link of pious gold left. 
And you, too, Catholics ! Would ye return 
From such a pilgrimage without a relic ? 
The very Lutherans have more true devotion : 
See how they strip the shrines ! 

Soldiers. By holy Peter 

He speaks the truth ; the heretics will bear 
The best away. 

Cjes. And that were shame ! Go to ! 

Assist in their conversion. 

[The Soldiers disperse: many quit the Church, 
others enter. 

C^S. They are gone. 

And others come : so flows the wave on wave 
Of what these creatures call eternity, 
Deeming themselves the breakers of the ocean, 
While they are but its bubbles, ignorant 
That foam is their foundation. So, another ! 

Enter OlAyiVlx, flying from the pursuit — She springs 
upon the Altar. 
Sold. She's mine! 

Another Sold, (opposing the former). You lie, I 
track'd her first : and were she 
The Pope's niece, I'll not yield her. [They jight. 

3d Sold, {advancing towards Olimpia). You may 
settle 
Your claims ; I'll make mine good. 



1 The castle of St. Angelo was besieged from the 6th of 
May to the 5th of June, during which time slaughter and 
desolation, accompanied with every excess of impiety, ra- 
pine, and lust, on the side of the imperialists, devastated the 



Olimp. Infernal slave ! 

You touch me not alive. 
3d Sold, Alive or dead I 

Olimp. {embracing a massive crucifix). Respect 

your God ! 
3d Sold. Yes, when he shines in gold. 

Girl, you but grasp your dowry. 

[As he advances, Olimpia, with a strong and 
sudden effort, casts down the crucifix : it strikes 
the Soldier, who falls. 
3d Sold. Oh, great God ! 

Olimp. Ah! now you recognize him. 
3d Sold. My brain's crush'd ! 

Comrades, help, ho I All's darkness ! [He dies. 

Other Soldiers {coming up). Slay her, although 
she had a thousand lives : 
She hath kill'd our comrade. 

Olimp. Welcome such a death ! 

You have no life to give, which the worst slave 
Would take. Great God ! through thy redeeming Son, 
And thy Son's Mother, now receive me as 
I would approach thee, worthy her, and him, and thee I 

Enter Arnold. 

Arn. What do I see ? Accursed jackals ! 
Forbear ! [The dogs 

Cms. {aside and laughing). Ha! ha! here's equity! 
Have as much right as he. But to the issue ! 

Soldiers. Count, she hath slain our comrade. 

Arn. With what weapon ? 

Sold. The cross, beneath which he is crush'd; 
behold him 
Lie there, more like a worm than man ; she cast it 
Upon his head. 

Arn. Even so ; there is a woman 

Worthy a brave man's liking. Were ye such. 
Ye would have honor'd her. But get*ye hence. 
And thank your meanness, other God you have none, , 
For your existence. Had you touch'd a hair 
Of those dishevell'd locks, I would have thinn'd 
Your ranks more than the enemy. Away ! 
Ye jackals ! gnaw the bones the lion leaves, 
But not even these till he permits. 

A Sold, {murmuring). The lion 

Might conquer for himself then, 

Arn. {cuts him down). Mutineer ! 

Rebel in hell — ^you shall obey on earth ! 

[The Soldiers assault A"RNOLD. 

Arn. Come on ! I'm glad on't ! I Avill show you, slaves. 
How you should be commanded, and who led you 
First o'er the wall you were so sliy to scale, 
Until I waved my banners from its height, 
As you are bold within it. 

[Arnold mows down the foremost ; the rest 
throw down their arms. 



city of Rome. For this picture of horrors, see especially the 
"Sackage of Rome," by Jacopo Euonaparte, "gcntiluomo 
Samminiatese, che vi se trovd presente," and " Life of Cel- 
lini," vol. i. p. 124. 



372 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Part II. 



Soldiers. Mercy! mercy! 

Arn. Then learn to grant it. Have I taught you who 
Led you o'er Rome's eternal battlements ? 

Soldiers. We saw it, and we know it ; yet forgive 
A moment's error in the heat of conquest — 
The conquest which you led to. 

Arn. Get you hence ! 

Hence to your quarters ! you will find them fix'd 
In the Colonna palace. 

Olimp. (aside). In my father's 

House ! 

Arn. (to the Soldiers), Leave your arms; ye have 
no further need 
Of such : the city's render'd. And mark well 
You keep your hands clean, or I'll find out a stream 
As red as Tiber now runs, for your baptism. [obey ! 

Soldiers, (deposing their arms and departing). We 

Arn. (to Olimpia). Lady, you are safe. 

Olimp. I should be so. 

Had I a knife even ; but it matters not— 
Death hath a thousand gates ; and on the marble, 
Even at the altar foot, whence I look down 
Upon destruction, shall my head be dash'd. 
Ere thou ascend it. God forgive thee, man I 

Arn. I wish to merit his forgiveness, and 
Thine own, although I have not injured thee. 

Olimp. No ! Thou hast only sack'd my native land — 
No injury I — and made my father's house 
A den of thieves ! No injury ! — this temple — 
Slippery with Roman and with holy gore. 
No injury ! And now thou wouldst preserve me, 

To be but that shall never be I 

[She raises her, eyes to Heaven^ folds her robe 
round her, and prepares to dash herself down 
on the side of the Altar opposite to that where 
Arnold stands. 

Arn. • Hold! hold! 

I swear. 

Olimp. Spare thine already forfeit soul 
A perjury for which even hell would loathe thee. 
I know thee. 

Arn. No, thou know'st me not ; I am not 
Of these men, though 

Olimp. I judge thee by thy mates j 

It is for God to judge thee as thou art. 
I see thee purple with the blood of Rome ; 
Take mine, 'tis all thou e'er shalt have of me, 
And here, upon the marble of this temple. 
Where the baptismal font baptized me God's, 
I offer him a blood less holy 
But not less pure (pure as it left me then, 
A redeem'd infant) than the holy water 
The saints have sanctified ! 

[Olimpia waves her hand to Arnold with dis- 
dain, and dashes herself on the pavement from 
the Altar. 

Arn. Eternal God ! 

I feel thee now'! Help ! help ! She's gone. 

C^s. (approaches). I am here. 

Arn. Thou ! but oh, save her ! 



Cjes. (assisting him to raise Olimpia). She hath 
done it well ! 
The leap was serious. 

Arn. Oh ! she is lifeless I 

CiES. If 

She be so, I have nought to do with that : 
The resurrection is beyond me. 

Arn. Slave ! 

C^s. Ay, slave or master, 'tis all one : methinks 
Good words, however, are as well at times. 

Arn. Words ! — Canst thou aid her ? 

C^S. I will try. A sprinkling 

Of that same holy water may be useful. 

[He brings some in his helmet from the font. 

Arn. 'Tis mixed with blood. 

Cms. There is no cleaner now 

In Rome. 

Arn. How pale ! how beautiful ! how lifeless ! 
Alive or dead, thou essence of all beauty, 
I love but thee ! 

CiES. Even so Achilles loved 

Penthesilea : with his form it seems 
You have his heart, and yet it was no soft one. 

Arn. She breathes ! But no, 'twas nothing, or the last 
Faint flutter life disputes with death. 

CiES. She breathes. 

Arn. Thou sayst it? Then 'tis truth. 

C^S. You do me right — 

The devil speaks truth much oftener than he's deem'd : 
He hath an ignorant audience. [beats. 

Arn. (without attending to him). Yes! her heart 
Alas ! that the first beat of the only heart 
I ever wish'd to beat with mine should vibrate 
To an assassin's pulse. 

CiES. A sage reflection. 

But somewhat late i' the day. Where shall we bear her ? 
I say she l^ives. 

Arn. And will she live? 

C^s. As much 

As dust can. 

Arn. Then she is dead ! 

C^s. Bah ! bah ! You are so, 

And do not know it. She will come to life — 
Such as you think so, such as you now are ; 
But we must work by human means. 

Arn. We will 

Convey her unto the Colonna palace. 
Where I have pitch'd my banner. 

CiES. Come then ! raise her up ! 

Arn. Softly! 

C^s. As softly as they bear the dead, 

Perhaps because they cannot feel the jolting. 

Arn. But doth she live indeed ? 

C^s. Nay, never fear ! 

But, if you rue it after, blame not me. 

Arn. Let her but live I 

Cjes. The spirit of her life 

Is yet within her breast, and may revive. 
Count ! count ! I am your servant in all things, 
And this is a new office : — 'tis not oft 



Scene I. 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED. 



373 



I am employ'd in such ; but you perceive 
How stanch a friend is what you call a fiend. 
On earth you have often only fiends for friends ; 
Now / desert not mine. Soft ! bear her hence, 
The beautiful half-clay, and nearly spirit ! 
I am almost enamor'd of her, as 
Of old the angels of her earliest sex. 

Abn. Thou! 

C-fiS. I ! But fear not. I'll not be your rival. 

Aen. Rival! 

CiES. I could be one right formidable ; 

But since I slew the seven husbands of 
Tobias' future bride (and after all 
Was smoked out by some incense), I have laid 
Aside intrigue : 'tis rarely worth the trouble 
Of gaining, or — what is more difiicult — 
Getting rid of your prize again ; for there's 
The rub ! at least to mortals. 

Akn. Prithee, peace ! 

Softly ! methinks her lips move, her eyes open ! 

Css. Like stars, no doubt ; for that's a metaphor 
For Lucifer and Venus. 

Aen. To the palace 

Colonna, as I told you ! 

CiES. Oh ! I know 

My way through Rome. 

Aen. Now onward, onward ! Gently ! 

[Exeunt, bearing Olimpia. The scene closes. 



PART III. 

SCENE I. 



A Castle in the Apennines, surrounded by a wild but 
sm iling Country. Chorus of Feasants singi/ng before 
the Gables. 

CHOEUS. 
1. 
The wars are over, 

The spring is come ; 
The bride and her lover 
Have sought their home : 
They are happy, we rejoice ; 
Let their hearts have an echo in every voice I 



The spring is come ; the violet's gone, 

The first-born child of the early sun : 

With us she is but a winter's flower, 

The snow on the hills cannot blast her bower, 

And she lifts up her dewy eye of blue 

To the youngest sky of the self-same hue. 



And when the spring comes with her host 
Of flowers, that flower beloved the most 
Shrinks from the crowd that may confuse 
Her heavenly odor and virgin hues. 



Pluck the others, but still remember 
Their herald out of dim December — 
The morning star of all the flowers, 
The pledge of daylight's lengthen'd hours : 
Nor, midst the roses, e'er forget 
The virgin, virgin violet. 

Enter CjesaE. 
Cms. (singing). The wars are all over. 

Our swords are all idle, 

The steed bites the bridle. 
The casque's on the wall. 
There's rest for the rover ; 

But his armor is rusty. 

And the veteran grows crusty, 
As he yawns in the hall. 

He drinks — but what's drinking? 

A mere pause from thinking ! 
No bugle awakes him with life-and-death call. 

CHORUS. 
But the hound bayeth loudly, 

The boar's in the wood. 
And the falcon longs proudly 

To spring from her hood : 
On the wrist of the noble 

She sits like a crest. 
And the air is in trouble 

With birds from their nest. 

Cms. Oh ! shadow of glory ! 

Dim image of war ! 
But the chase hath no story, 

Her hero no star, 
Since Nimrod, the founder 

Of empire and chase. 
Who made the woods wonder 

And quake for their race. 
When the lion was young. 

In the pride of his might. 
Then 'twas sport for the strong 

To embrace him in fight ; 
To go forth, with a pine 

For a spear, 'gainst the mammoth, 
Or strike through the ravine 

At the foaming behemoth ; 
While man was in stature 

As towers in our time, 
The first-born of Nature, 

And, like her, sublime ! 

CHOEUS, 
But the wars are over. 
The spring is come ; 
The bride and her lover 
Have sought their home : 
They are happy, and we rejoice ; 
Let their hearts have an echo from every voice ! 

[Ecev/nt the Peasantry, singing. 



(taini 

A MYSTEEY.i 

Now the serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made." — Gen. ch. iii. ver. 1, 



TO 

SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART., 

THIS MYSTERY OF CAIN IS INSCRIBED, 

BY HIS OBLIGED FRIEND AND FAITHFUL SERVANT, 

THE AUTHOR. 



PREFACE. 

The following scenes are entitled "A Mystery," in 



1 "Cain" was begun at Ravenna, on the 16th of July 1821, 
completed on the 9th of September, and published, in the 
same volume with Sardanapalus and the Two Foscari, in De- 
cember. Perhaps no production of Lord Byron has been 
more generally admired, on the score of ability, than this 
" Mystery ;"— certainly none, on first appearing, exposed 
the author to a fiercer tempest of personal abuse. Besides 
being unmercifully handled in most of the critical journals 
of the day, " Cain " was made the subject of a solemn separate 
essay, entitled "A Remonstrance addressed to Mr. Murray 
respecting a recent publication— by Oxoniensis ;" of which 
we may here preserve a specimen : — 

"There is a method of producing conviction, not to be 
found in any of the treatises on logic, but which I am per- 
suaded you could be quickly made to understand ; it is the 
argumentum ad crumenam; and this, I trust, will be brought 
home to you in a variety of ways ; not least, I expect, in the 
profit you hope to make by the offending publication. As a 
bookseller, I conclude you have but one standard of poetic 
excellence— the extent of your sale. Without assuming any 
thing beyond the bounds of ordinary foresight, I venture to 
foretell, that in this case you will be mistaken : the book will 
disappoint your cupidity, as much as it discredits your feel- 
ing and discretion. Your noble employer has deceived you, 
Mr. Murray : he has profited by the celebrity of his name to 
palm upon you obsolete trash, the very offscourings of Bayle 
and Voltaire, which he has made you pay for as though it 
were first-rate poetry and sound metaphysics. But I tell you 
(and if you doubt it, you may consult any of the literary gen- 
tlemen who frequent your reading-room) that this poem, this 
' Mystery,' with which you have insulted us, is nothing more 
than a cento from Voltaire's novels, and the most objection- 
able articles in Bayle's Dictionary, servecf up in clumsy cut- 
tings of ten syllables, for the purpose of giving it the guise 
of poetry. 

"Still, though 'Cain' has no claims to originality, there 
are other objects to which it may be made subservient ; and 
so well are the noble author's schemes arranged, that in some 
of them he will be sure to succeed. 
(374) 



conformity with the ancient title annexed to dramas 
upon similar subjects, which were styled " Mysteries, 
or Moralities." The author has by no means taken 



"In the first place, this publication may be useful as a 
financial measure. It may seem hard to suspect that the 
high-souled philosophy, of which his lordship makes profes- 
sion, could be ' servile to the influence ' of money ; but you 
could tell us, sir, if you would, what sort of a hand your 
noble friend is at a bargain ; whether Plutus does not some- 
times go shares with Apollo in his inspirations. 

" In the second place (second I mean in point of order, for 
I do not presume to decide which motive predominates in 
his lordship's mind), the blasphemous impieties of 'Cain,' 
though nothing more in reality than the echo of often- 
refuted sophisms, by being newly dressed and put forth in 
a form easy to be remembered, may produce considerable 
effect ; that is, they may mislead the ignorant, unsettle the 
wavering, or confirm the hardened skeptic in his misbelief. 
These are consequences which Lord Byron must have con- 
templated ; with what degree of complacency he alone can tell. 

" But, in the third place, if neither of these things happens, 
and ' Cain ' should not prove either lucrative or mischievous, 
there is another point which Lord Byron has secured to him- 
self, so that he cannot be deprived of it, — the satisfaction of 
insulting those from whom he differs both in faith and prac- 
tice. . . . Now, at last, he quarrels with the very conditions 
of humanity, rebels against the Providence which guides and 
governs all things, and dares to adopt the language which 
had never before been attributed to any being but one, ' Evil, 
be thou my good.' Such, so far as we can judge, is Lord 
Byron." 

This critic's performance is thus alluded to in one of Lord 
Byron's letters to Mr. Douglas Kinnaird :— " I know nothing 
of Rivington's 'Remonstrance' by the 'eminent Church- 
man ;' but I suppose the man wants a living." On hearing 
that his publisher was threatened with more serious annoy- 
ances, in consequence of the appearance of the " Mystery," 
Lord Byron addressed the following letter to Mr. Murray :— 

" Pisa, February 8, 1822. 
" Attacks upon me were to be expected ; but I perceive one 
upon you in the papers, which I confess that I did not expect. 



CAIN. 375 

the same liberties with his subject which were com- mon, formerly, as may be seen by any reader curioius 



How or in what manner you can be considered responsible 
for what / publish, I am at a loss to conceive. 

"If 'Cain' be 'blasphemous,' Paradise Lost is blasphe- 
mous ; and the very words of the Oxford gentleman, ' Evil, j 
be thou my good,' are from that very poem, from the mouth j 
of Satan ; and is there any thing more in that of Lucifer in 
the Mystery? 'Cain' is nothing more than a drama, not a I 
piece of argument. If Lucifer and Cain speak as the first i 
murderer and the first rebel may be supposed to speak, j 
surely all the rest of the personages talk also according to 
their characters— and the stronger passions have ever been j 
permitted to the drama. j 

" I have even avoided introducing the Deity, as in Script- 
ure (though Milton does, and not very wisely either) ; but l 
have adopted his angel as sent to Cain instead, on purpose to j 
avoid shocking any feelings on the subject, by falling short | 
of what all uninspired men must fall short in, viz., giving an 
adequate notion of the effect of the presence of Jehovah. 
The old Mysteries introduced him liberally enough, and all 
this is avoided in the new one. 

"The attempt to bully you, because they think it won't 
succeed with me, seems to me as atrocious an attempt as ever 
disgraced the times. What ! when Gibbon's, Hume's, Priest- 
ley's, and Drummond's publishers have been allowed to rest 
in peace for seventy years, are you to be singled out for a 
work of fiction, not of history or argument? There miist be 
something at the bottom of this— some private enemy of your 
own : it is otherwise incredible. 

" I can only say, ' Me, me ; en adsum qui feci ;'— that any 
proceedings directed against you, I beg, may be transferred 
to me, who am willing, and ought, to endure them all ; — that 
if you have lost money by the publication, I will refund any 
or all of the copyright ;— that I desire you will say that both 
you and Mr. Gifford remonstrated against the publication, as 
also Mr. Hobhouse ; — that I alone occasioned it, and I alone 
am the person who, either legally or otherwise, should bear 
the burden. If they prosecute, I will come to England ; that 
is, if, by meeting it in my own person, I can save yours. Let 
me know. You sha'n't suffer for me, if I can help it. Make 
any use of this letter you please. 

" Yours ever, Ac, BYRON. 

" P. S. — I write to you about all this row of bad passions 
and absurdities with the summer moon (for here our winter 
is clearer than your dog-days) lighting the winding Arno, 
with all her buildings and bridges, — so quiet and still! — 
What nothings are we before the least of these stars I" 

An individual of the name of Benbow having pirated 
"Cain," Mr. Shadwell (now, 1836, Sir Lancelot, and Vice- 
Chancellor) applied to the Lord Chancellor (Eldon) for an 
injunction to protect Mr. Murray's property in the Mystery. 
The learned counsel, on the 9th of February, 1822, spoke as 
follows : — 

" This work professes to record, in a dramatic poem of three 
acts, the story contained in the book of Genesis. It is meant 
to rep'-'^sent the state of Cain's mind when it received those 
tempiations which led him to commit the murder of his bro- 
ther. The actors in the poem are few : they consist of Adam 
and Eve, Cain and Abel, and their two wives, with Lucifer, 
and, in the third act, the angel of the Lord. The book only 
docs that which was before done by Milton, and adheres more 
closely to the words contained in Scripture. The book, in 
the commencement, represents Cain in a moody, dissipated 
disposition, when the Evil Spirit tempts him to go forth with 
him to acquire knowledge. After the first act, he leads him 
through the abyss of space; and, in the third, Cain returns 
with a still more gloomy spirit. Although the poet puts pa.s- 
sagcs into his mouth, which of themselves are blasphemous 
and impious ; yet it is what Milton has done also, both in his 



Paradise Lost, and Regained. But those passages are power- 
fully combated by the beautiful arguments of his wife, Adah. 
It is true that the book represents what Scripture reprcscnl.s, 
— rthat he is, notwithstanding, instigated to destroy the altar 
of his brother, whom he is then led on to put to death ; but 
then the punishment of his crime follows in the very words 
of the Scripture itself. Cain's mind is immediately visited 
with all the horror of remorse, and he goes forth a wanderer 
uu the face of the earth. I trust I am the last person in the 
world who would attempt to defend a blasphemous or impious 
work ; but I say that this poem is as much entitled to the 
protection of the court, in the abstract, as either the Paradise 
Lost or the Paradise Regained. So confident am I of this, 
that I would at present undertake to compare it with those 
works, passage by passage, and show that it is perfectly as 
moral as those productions of Milton. Every sentence carri<.o 
with it, if I may use the expression, its own balsam. The 
authority of God is recognized ; and Cain's impiety and crime 
are introduced to show that its just punishment immediately 
followed. I repeat, that there is no reason why this work, 
taken abstractly, should not be protected as well as either 
of the books I have mentioned. I therefore trust that your 
lordship will grant this injunction m limine, and then the 
defendants may come in and show cause against it." 

The following is a note of the Lord Chancellor's judg- 
ment: — 

"This court, like the other courts of justice in this country, 
acknowledges Christianity as part of the law of the land. The 
jurisdiction of this court in protecting literary property is 
founded on this, — that where an action will lie for pirating a 
work, there the court, attending to the imperfection of that 
remedy, grants its injunction ; because there may be public- 
ation after publication which you may never be able to hunt 
down by proceeding in the other courts. But where such an 
action does not lie, I do not apprehend that it is according to 
the course of the courts to grant an injunction to protect the 
copyright. Now this publication, if it is one intended to villify 
and bring into discredit that portion of Scripture history to 
which it relates, is a publication with reference to which, if 
the principles on which the case of Dr. Priestley, at Warwick, 
was decided, be just principles of law, the party could not 
recover any damages in respect of a piracy of it. This court 
has no criminal jurisdiction; it cannot look on any thing as 
an offence; but in those cases it only administers justice for 
the protection of the civil rights of those who possess them, 
in consequence of being able to maintain an action. You have 
alluded to Milton's immortal work : it did happen in the course 
of last long vacation, amongst the solicitce jucunda oblivia vit<&, 
I read that work from beginning to end ; it is therefore quite 
fresh in my memory, and it appears to me that the great object 
of its author was to promote the cause of Christianity ; there are 
undoubtedly a great many passages in it, of which, if that were 
not its object, it would be very improper by law to vindicate 
the publication ; but, taking it altogether, it is clear that the 
object and effect were not to bring into disrepute, but to pro- 
mote, the reverence of our religion. Now the real question 
is, looking at the work before me, its preface, the poem, its 
manner of treating the subject, particularly with reference to 
the fall and the atonement, whether its intent be as innocent 
as that of the other with which you have compared it ; or 
whether it be to traduce and bring into discredit that part of 
sacred history. This question I have no right to try, because 
it lias been settkxl, after great difference of opinion among the 
learned, that it is for a jury to determine that point; and 
where, therefore, a reasonable doubt is entertained as to the 
character of the work (and it is impossible for me to say I 
have not a doubt, I hope it is a reasonable one), another course 
must be taken for determining what is its true nature and 
character. There is a great difficulty in these cases, because 



376 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



enough to refer to those very profane productions,^ 
whether in English, French, Italian, or Spanish. 
The author has endeavored to preserve the language 
adapted to his characters ; and where it is (and this 
is but rarely) taken from actual Scripture, he has 
made as little alteration, even of words, as the 
rhythm would permit. The reader will recollect 
that the book of Genesis does not state that Eve 
was tempted by a demon, but by " the serpent ;" and 
that only because he was " the most subtile of all the 
beasts of the field." Whatever interpretation the 
Eabbins and the Fathers may have put upon this, I 
take the words as I find them, and reply, with Bishop 
Watson upon similar occasions, when the Fathers 
were quoted to him, as Moderator in the schools of 
Cambridge, "Behold the Book '."—holding up the 
Scripture.2 It is to be recollected that my present 
subject has nothing to do with the New Testament, to 



it appears a strange thing to permit the multiplication of copies 
by way of preventing the circulation of a mischievous work, 
which I do not presume to determine that this is ; but that I 
cannot help : and the singularity of the case, in this instance, 
is more obvious, because here is a defendant who has multi- 
plied this work by piracy, and does not think proper to appear. 
If the work be of that character which a court of common law 
would consider criminal, it is pretty clear why he does not 
appear, because he would come confitens reus; and for the 
same reason the question may perhaps not be tried by an 
action at law and if it turns out to be the case, I shall be 
bound to give my own opinion. That opinion I express no 
further now than to say that, after having read the work, I 
cannot grant the injunction until you show me that you can 
maintain an action for it. If you cannot maintain an action, 
there is no pretence for granting an injunction ; if you should 
not be able to try the question at law with the defendant, I 
cannot be charged with impropriety if I then give my own 
opinion upon it. It is true that this mode of dealing with the 
work, if it be calculated to produce mischievous effects, opens 
a door for its dissemination ; but the duty of stopping the 
work does not belong to a court of equity, which has no crim- 
inal jurisdiction, and cannot punish or check the offence. 
If the character of the work is such that the publication of it 
amounts to a temporal offence, there is another way of pro- 
ceeding, and the publication of it should be proceeded against 
directly as an offence ; but whether this or any other work 
should be so dealt with, it would be very improper for me to 
form or intimate an opinion." 

The injunction was refused accordingly. The reader is 
referred to Mr. Moore's Notices for abundant evidence of the 
pain which Lord Byron suffered from the virulence of the 
attacks on " Cain," and the legal procedure above alluded to. 

Sir Walter Scott announced his acceptance of the dedica- 
tion in the following letter to Mr. Murray : — 

" Edinburgh, 4th December, 1821. 
" My DEAR Sir,— I accept with feelings of great obligation, 
the flattering proposal of Lord Byron to prefix my name to 
the very grand and tremendous drama of ' Cain.' I may be 
partial to it, and you will allow I have cause ; but I do not 
know that his Muse has ever taken so lofty a flight amid her 
former soarings. He has certainly matched Milton on his 
own ground. Some part of the language is bold, and may 
shock one class of readers, whose line will be adopted by 
others out of affectation or envy. But then they must con- 
demn the ' Paradise Lost,' if they have a mind to be consistent. 
The fiend-like reasoning and bold blasphemy of the fiend 
and of his pupil lead exactly to the point which was to be 



which no reference can be here made without anach- 
ronism. W^ith the poems upon similar topics I have 
not been recently familiar. Since I was twenty, I 
have never read Milton ; but I had read him so fre- 
quently before that this may make little difierence. 
Gesner's ** Death of Abel" I have never read since I 
was eight years of age, at Aberdeen. The general 
impression of my recollection is delight ; but of the 
contents I remember only that Cain's wife was called 
Mahala, and Abel's Thirza : in the following pages I 
have called them "Adah" and " Zillah," the earliest 
female names which occur in Genesis; they were 
those of Lamech's wives : those of Cain and Abel are 
not called by their names. Whether, then, a coinci- 
dence of subject may have caused the same in ex- 
pression, I know nothing, and care as little.^ 

The reader will please bear in mind (what few 
choose to recollect), that there is no allusion to a 



expected, — the commission of the first murder, and the ruin 
and despair of the perpetrator. 

" I do not see how any one can accuse the author himself 
of Manicheism. The devil talks the language of that sect, 
doubtless ; because, not being able to deny the existence of 
the Good Principle, he endeavors to exalt himself— the Evil 
Principle — to a seeming equality with the Good ; but such 
arguments, in the mouth of such a being, can only be used 
to deceive and to betray. Lord Byron might have made this 
more evident, by placing in the mouth of Adam, or of some 
good and protecting spirit, the reasons which render the ex- 
istence of moral evil consistent with the general benevolence 
of the Deity. The great key to the mystery is, perhaps, the 
imperfection of our own faculties, which see and feel strongly 
the partial evils which press upon us, but know too little ot 
the general system of the universe, to be aware how the ex- 
istence of these is to be reconciled with the benevolence of 
the great Creator. 

" To drop these speculations, you have much occasion for 
some mighty spirit, like Lord Byron, to come down and 
trouble the waters; for, excepting 'The John Bull,'* you 
seem stagnating strangely in London. 

Yours, my dear sir, very truly, 

"WALTER SCOTT. 

" To John Murray, Esq." 

1 See note to "Hints from Horace," /»05;!; Payne Collier's 
"Annals of the Stage," vol. i.; the "Histoire du TheMre 
Franpais," vol. ii., &c. 

2 " I never troubled myself with answering any arguments 
which the opponents in the divinity schools brought against 
the Articles of the Church, nor ever admitted their authority 
as decisive of a difiBculty ; but I used on such occasions to say 
to them, holding up the New Testament in my hand, *En 
sacrum codicem ? Here is the fountain of truth ; why do you 
follow the streams derived from it by sophistry, or polluted 
by the passions of man ?' " — Bp. WatsoTi's Life, vol. i. p. 63. 

8 Here follows, in the original draught,—" I am prepared 
to be accused of Manicheism, or some other hard name end- 
ing in ism, which make a formidable figure and awful sound 
in the eyes and ears of those who would be as much puzzled 
to explain the terms so bandied about, as the liberal and 
pious indulgers in such epithets. Against such I can defend 
myself, or, if necessary, I can attack in turn." 



* The pangent Sunday print so caUed had been established some little 
time before this letter was written, and had excited a sensation unequalled, 
in the recent history of the newspaper press. 



Scene I. 



CAIN. 



377 



future state in any of the books of Moses, nor indeed 
iu the Old Testament. ^ For a reason for this extra- 
ordinary omission he may consult Warburton's " Di- 
vine Legation ;" whether satisfactory or not, no better 
has yet been assigned. I have therefore supposed it new 
to Cain, without, I hope, any perversion of Holy Writ. 

With regard to the language of Lucifer, it was diffi- 
cult for me to make him talk like a clergyman upon 
the same subjects ; but I have done what I could to 
restrain him within the bounds of spiritual politeness. 

If he disclaims having tempted Eve in the shape of 
the Serpent, it is only because the book of Genesis has 
not the most distant allusion to anything of the kind, 
but merely to the Serpent in his serpentine capacity. 

Note. — The reader will perceive that the author 
has partly adopted in this poem the notion of Cuvier, 
that the world has been destroyed several times before 
tlie creation of man. This speculation, derived from 
tlie different strata and the bones of enormous and 
unknown animals found in them, is not contrary to 
the Mosaic account, but rather confirms it; as no 
human bones have yet been discovered in those 
strata, although those of many known animals are 
found near the remains of the unknown. The asser- 
tion of Lucifer, that the pre- Adamite world was also 
peopled by rational beings much more intelligent 
than man, and proportionably powerful to the mam- 
moth, &c. &c., is, of course, a poetical fiction to help 
him make out his case. 

I ought to add, that there is a " tramelogedia " of 
Alfieri, called " Abele." I have never read that, nor 
any other of the posthumous works of the writer, 
except his Life. 
Ravenna, Sept. 20, 1821. 



DRAMATIS PERSONS. 

Men. — Adam. 
Cain. 
Abel. 

Spikits.— Angel of the Lord. 

LUCIFEK. 

Women.— Eve. 
Adah. 

ZiLLAH. 



1 " There are numerous passages dispersed throughout the 
Old Testament, which import something more than ' an allu- 
sion to a future state.' In truth, the Old Testament abounds 
in phrases which imply the immortality of the soul, and 
which would be insignificant and hardly intelligible but 
upon that supposition. 'Then shall the dust return to the 
earth as it was, and the spirit return unto God who gave 
it.' Eccl. xii. 7. 'And many of them that sleep in the dust 
of the earth .shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some 
to shame: and they that be wise shall .shine as the bright- 
ness of the firmament; and they that turn many to right- 
eousness as the .stars for ever and ever.' Dan. x. 2. 'I know 
that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand in the lat- 
ter days upon the earth : and though after my skin worms 



OTafn: 

A MYSTERY.' 



ACT I. 
SCENE I. 



The Land without Paradise. — Time, Sunrise. 

Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Adah, Zillah, offering 
a Sacrifice. 

Adam. God, the Eternal ! Infinite ! All-wise !— 
Who out of darkness on the deep didst make 
Light on the waters with a word — all hail ! 
Jehovah, with returning light, all hail ! 

Eve. God ! who didst name the day, and sepra-ate 
Morning from night, till then divided never — 
Who didst divide the wave from wave, and call 
Part of thy work the firmament — all hail ! 

Abel. God ! who didst call the elements into 
Earth — ocean — air — and fire, and with the day 
And night, and worlds, which these illuminate, 
Or shadow, madest beings to enjoy them. 
And love both them and thee — all hail ! all hail ! 

Adah. God, the Eternal ! Parent of all things ! 
Who didst create these best and beauteous beings, 
To be beloved, more than all, save thee — 
Let me love thee and them : — All hail ! all hail ! 

Zillah. Oh, God! who loving, making, blessing 
all. 
Yet didst permit the serpent to creep in. 
And drive my father forth from Paradise, 
Keep us from further evil : — Hail ! all hail ! 

Adam. Son Cain, my first-born, wherefore art thou 
silent ? 

Cain. Why should I speak ? 

Adam. To pray.^ 

Cain. Have ye not pray'd ? 

Adam. We have, most fervently, 

Cain. And loudly : I 

Have heard you. 

Adam. So will God, I trust. 

Abel. Amen ! 

Adam. But thou, my eldest born, art silent still. 

Cain. 'Tis better I should be so. 

Adam. Wherefore so ? 



shall destroy my body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.' Job 
xix. 25." — Brit. Rev. 

2 "Lord Byron has thought proper to call this drama a 
' Mystery ;' the name which was given in our own country, 
before the Reformation, to those scenic representations of 
the mysterious events of our religion, which, indecent and 
unedifying as they seem to ourselves, were, perhaps, the 
principal means by which a knowledge of those events was 
conveyed to our rude and uninstructed ancestors. But, ex- 
cept in the topics on which it is employed, Lord Byron's 
Mystery has no resemblance to those which it claims as its 
prototypes." — Heber. 

8 "Prayer," said Lord Byron, at Cephalonia, "does not 
consist in the act of kneeling, nor in repeating certain words 



378 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Act I. 



Cain. I have nought to ask.* 

Adam. Nor aught to thank for ? '■* 

Cain. No, 

Adam. Dost thou not live ? 

Cain. Must I not die ? 

Eve. Alas ! 

The fruit of our forbidden tree begins 
To fall.3 

Adam. And we must gather it again. 
Oh, God! why didst thou plant the tree of know- 
ledge ? 

Cain. And wherefore pluck'd ye not the tree of 
life? 
Ye might have then defied him. 

Adam. Oh ! my son, 

Blaspheme not : these are serpent's words. 

Cain. Why not? 

The snake spoke truth : it was the tree of knowledge ; 
It was the tree of life : knowledge is good, 
And life is good ; and how can both be evil ? 

Eve. My boy ! thou speakest as I spoke, in sin, 
Before thy birth : let me not see renew'd 
My misery in thine. I have repented. 
Let me not see my ofispring fall into 
The snares beyond the walls of Paradise, 
Which e'en in Paradise destroy'd his parents. 
Content thee with what is. Had we been so, 
Thou now hadst been contented. — Oh, my son ! 

Adam. Our orisons completed, let us hence, 
Each to his task of toil — not heavy, though 
Needful : the earth is young, and yields us kindly 
Her fruits with little labor. 

Eve. Cain, my son, 

Behold thy father cheerful and resign'd. 
And do as he doth. [Exeunt Adam and Eve. 

ZiLLAH. Wilt thou not, my brother ? 

Abel. Why wilt thou wear this gloom upon thy 
brow. 
Which can avail thee nothing, save to rouse 
The Eternal anger ? 

Adah. My beloved Cain, 

Wilt thou frown even on me ? 



in a solemn manner. Devotion is the affection of the heart, 
and this I feel ; for when I view the wonders of creation, I bow 
to the majesty of Heaven ; and when I feel the enjoyment 
of life, health, and happiness, I feel grateful to God for having 
bestowed these upon me." — Kennedy's Conversations, p. 135. 
1 " Say then, shall man, deprived all power of choice, 

Ne'er raise to heaven the supplicating voice ? 

Not so ; but to the gods his fortunes trust ; 

Their thoughts are wise, their dispensations just. 

What best may profit or delight they know, 

And real good for fancied bliss bestow ; 

With eyes of pity they our frailties scan ; 

More dear to them, than to himself, is man." — Juv. 
" * Though the Deity is inclined,' says Owen, ' by his own 
benignity, to bless his creatures, yet he expects the outward 
expressions of devotion from the rational part of them.' This 
is certainly what Juvenal means to inculcate; hence his 
earnest recommendation of a due regard to the public and 
ceremonial part of religion." — Gifford. 



Cain. No, Adah ! no ; 

I fain would be alone a little while. 
Abel, I'm sick at heart; but it will pass. 
Precede me, brother — I will follow shortly. 
And you, too, sisters, tarry not behind ; 
Your gentleness must not be harslily met : 
I'll follow you anon. 

Adah. If not, I wiU 

Return to seek you here. 

Abel. The peace of God 

Be on your spirit, brother ! 

{Exeunt Abel, Zillah, and Adah. 

Cain (solus). And this is 

Life ! — Toil ! and wherefore should I toil ? — because 
My father could not keep his place in Eden. 
What had / done in this ? — I was unborn : 
I sought not to be born ; nor love the state 
To which that birth has brought me. Why did he 
Yield to the serpent and the woman ? or. 
Yielding, why sufier ? What was there in this ? 
The tree was planted, and why not for him ? 
If not, why place him near it, where it grew. 
The fairest in the centre ? They have but 
One answer to all questions, " 'Twas Ms will. 
And Ae is good." How know I that ? Because 
He is all-powerful, must all-good, too, follow ? 
I judge but by the fruits — and they are bitter — 
Which I must feed on for a fault not mine. 
Whom have we here ? — A shape like to the angels, 
Yet of a sterner and a sadder aspect 
Of spiritual essence : why do I quake ? 
Why should I fear him more than other spirits, 
Whom I see daily wave their fiery swords 
Before the gates round which I linger oft, 
In twilight's hour, to catch a glimpse of those 
Gardens which are my just inheritance, 
Ere the night closes o'er the inhibited walls 
And the immortal trees which overtop 
The cherubim-defended battlements ? 
If I shrink not from these, the fire-arm'd angels. 
Why should I quail from him wlio now approaches ? 
Yet he seems mightier far than them, nor less 



2 " I took out my ' Ogden on Prayer,' and read some of it. 
Dr. Johnson praised him. ' Abernethy,' said he, ' allows only 
of a physical effect of prayer upon the mind, which may be 
produced many ways as well as by prayer ; for instance, by 
meditation. Ogden goes further. In truth, we have the con- 
sent of all nations for the efficacy of prayer, whether offered 
up by individuals or by assemblies ; and revelation has told 
us it will be effectual.' "— Boswell, vol. iv. page 66, edition 
1835. 

3 " This passage affords a key to the temper and frame of 
mind of Cain throughout the piece. He disdains the limited 
existence allotted to him ; he has a rooted horror of death, 
attended with a vehement curiosity as to his nature ; and he 
nourishes a sullen anger against his parents, to whose mis- 
conduct he ascribes his degraded state. Added to this, he has 
an insatiable thirst for knowledge beyond the bounds pre- 
scribed to mortality ; and this part of the poem bears a strong 
resemblance to Manfred, whose counterpart, indeed, in the 
main points of character, Cain seems to be."— Campbkll. 



Scene I. 



CAIN. 



379 



Beauteous, and yet not all as beautiful 

As he hath been, and might be : sorrow seems 

Half of his immortality. ^ And is it 

So ? and can aught grieve save humanity ? 

He Cometh. 

Enter Ltjcifer.''* 

Lucifer. Mortal ! 

Cain. Spirit, who art thou ? 

Lucifer. Master of spirits. 

Cain. And being so, canst thou 

Leave them, and walk with dust ? 

Lucifer. I know the thoughts 

Of dust, and feel for it, and with you. 

Cain. How ! 

You know my thoughts ? 

Lucifer. They are the thoughts of all 

Worthy of thought ; — 'tis your immortal part 
Which speaks within you. 

Cain. What immortal part ? 

This has not been reveal'd : the tree of life 
Was withheld from us by my father's folly. 
While that of knowledge, by my mother's haste. 
Was pluck'd too soon ; and all the fx-uit is death ! 

Lucifer. They have deceived thee ; thou shalt live. 

Cain. I live, 

But live to die : and, living, see no thing 
To make death hateful, save an innate clinging, 
A loathsome, and yet all invincible 
Instinct of life, which I abhor, as I 
Despise myself, yet cannot overcome — 
And so I live. Would I had never lived ! 

Lucifer. Thou livest, and must live for ever: 
think not 



^ "Cain's description of the approach of Lucifer would 
>iave shone in the Paradise Lost. There is something spirit- 
ually fine in tliis conception of the terror of presentiment of 
coming evil."— Jeffrey. 

' "Of Lucifer, as drawn by Lord Byron, we absolutely 
know no evil: on the contrary, the impression which we 
receive of him is, from his first introduction, most favorable. 
He is not only endued with all the beauty, the wisdom, and 
the unconquerable daring which Milton has assigned him, 
and which may reasonably be supposed to belong to a spirit 
of so exalted a nature, but he is represented as unhappy 
without a crime, and as pitying our unhappiness. Even be- 
fore he appears, we are prepared (so far as the poet has had 
skill to prepare us) to sympathize with any spiritual being 
who is oppo.sed to the government of Jehovah. The conver- 
sations, the exhibitions which ensue, are all conducive to the 
same conclusion, that whatever is is evil, and that, had the 
devil been the Creator, he would have made his creatures 
happier. Above all, his arguments and insinuations are 
allowed to pass uncontradicted, or are answered only by 
overbearing force, and punishment inflicted not on himself 
but on his disciple. Nor is the intention less apparent, nor 
the poison less subtle, because the language employed is not 
indecorous, and the accuser of the Almighty does not descend 
to ribaldry or scurrilous invective."— Heber. 

"The Satan of Milton is no half-human devil, with enough 
of earth about him to tjqiify the malignant skeptic, and 
enough of heaven to throw a shade of sublimity on his very 
malignity. The Lucifer of Byron is neither a noble fiend 



The earth, which is thine outward covering, is 
Existence — it will cease, and thou wilt be 
No less than thou art now. 

Cain. No less ! and why 

No more ? 

Lucifer. It may be thou shalt be as we. 

Cain. And ye ? 

Lucifer. Are everlasting. 

Cain. Are ye happy ? 

Lucifer. We are mighty. 

Cain. Are ye happy ? 

Lucifer. No : art thou ? 

Cain. How should I be so ? Look on me ! 

Lucifer. Poor clay » 

And thou pretendest to be wretched ! Thou ! 

Cain. I am : — and thou, with all thy might, what 
art thou ? 

Lucifer. One who aspired to be what made thee, 
and 
Would not have made thee what thou art. 

Cain. Ah ! 

Thou look'st almost a god ; and 

Lucifer. I am none : 

And having fail'd to be one, would be nought 
Save what I am. He conquer'd ; let him reign ! 

Cain. Who? 

Lucifer. Thy sire's Maker, and the earth's. 

Cain. And heaven's, 

And all that in them is. So I have heard 
His seraphs sing ; and so my father saith. 

Lucifer. They say — what they must sing and say, 
on pain 
Of being that which I am — and thou art — 
Of spirits and of men. 



nor yet a villain fiend ; he does nothing, and he seems noth- 
ing; there is no poetry either of character or description 
about him; he is a poor sneaking, talking devil — a most 
wretched metaphysician, without wit enough to save him 
even from the damnation of criticism ; he speaks neither 
poetry nor common sense. Thomas Aquinas would have 
flogged him more for his bad logic than his unbelief; and 
St. Dunstan would have caught him by the nose ere the pur- 
blind fiend was aware." — Blackwood. 

" The impiety chargeable on this Mystery consists mainly 
in this— that the purposeless and gratuitous blasphemies put 
into the mouth of Lucifer and Cain are left unrefuted, so that 
they appear introduced for their own sake, and the design of 
the writer seems to terminate in them. There is no attempt 
made to prevent their leaving the strongest possible impres- 
sion on the reader's mind. On the contrary, the arguments, 
if such they can be called, levelled against the wisdom and 
goodness of the Creator, are put forth with the utmost inge- 
nuity. And it has been the noble poet's endeavor to palliate 
as much as possible the characters of the Evil Spirit and of 
the first Murderer; the former of whom is made an elegant, 
poetical, philosophical sentimentalist, a sort of Manfred, — the 
latter an ignorant, proud, and self-willed boy. Lucifer, too, 
is represented as denying all share in the temptation of 
Eve, which he throws upon the serpent "in his serpentine 
capacity;" the authqr pleading that be does so only because 
the book of Genesis has not the most distant allusion to any 
thing of the kind, and that a reference to the New Testament 
would be an anachronism."— jEfci. B£v, 



380 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



Act I. 



Cain. And-vrhatis that? 

Lucifer. Souls who dare use their immortality i — 
Souls who dare look the Omnipotent tyrant in 
His everlasting face, and tell him that 
His evil is not good ! If he has made, 
As he saith — which I know not, nor believe — 
But, if he made us — he cannot unmake : 
We are immortal : — nay, he'd have us so, 
That he may torture : — let him ! He is great — 
But, in his greatness, is no happier than 
We in our conflict : Goodness would not make 
Evil ; and what else hath he made ? But let him 
Sit on his vast and solitary throne, 
Creating worlds, to make eternity 
Less burdensome to his immense existence 
And unparticipated solitude ; 
Let him crowd orb on orb : he is alone 
Indefinite, indissoluble tyrant ; ^ 
Could he but crush himself, 'twere the best boon 
He ever granted : but let him reign on. 
And multiply himself in misery ! 
Spirits and Men, at least we sympathize — 
And, suffering in concert, make our pangs 
Innumerable more endurable, 
By the unbounded sympathy of all 
With all ! But He ! so wretched in his height, 
So restless in his wretchedness, must still 
Create, and recreate ^ 

Cain. Thou speak'st to me of things which long 
have swum 
In visions through my thought : I never could 
Reconcile what I saw with what I heard. 
My father and my mother talk to me 
Of serpents, and of fruits and trees : I see 
The gates of what they call their Paradise 
Guarded by fiery-sworded cherubim, 
Which shut them out, and me : I feel the weight 
Of daily toil, and constant thought : I look 



1 "In this long dialogue, the tempter tells Cain (who is 
thus far supposed to be ignorant of the fact) that the soul is 
immortal, and that ' souls who dare use their immortality ' 
are condemned by God to be wretched everlastingly. This 
sentiment, which is the pervading moral (if we may call it so) 
of the play, is developed in the lines which follow." — Heber. 
"There is nothing against the immortality of the soul in 
' Cain ' that I recollect. I hold no such opinions ;— but, in a 
drama, the first rebel and the first murderer must be made to 
talk according to their characters." — Byron Letters. 

2 "The poet rises to the sublime in making Lucifer first 
inspire Cain with the knowledge of his immortality — a por- 
tion of truth which hath the efElcacy of falsehood upon the 
victim; for Cain, feeling himself already unhappy, knowing 
that his being cannot be abridged, has the less scruple to de- 
sire to be as Lucifer, ' mighty.' The whole of this speech is 
truly Satanic— a daring and dreadful description given by 
everlasting despair, of the Deity." — Galt. 

3 " Create, and recreate— perhaps he'll make 
One day a Son unto himself— as he 

Gave you a father— and if he so doth, 
Mark me ! that Son will be a sacrifice."— MS. 



Around a world where I seem nothing, with 
Thoughts which arise within me, as if they 
Could master all things :— but I thought alone 
This misery was mme.— My father is 
Tamed down ; my mother has forgot the mind 
Which made her thirst for knowledge at the risk 
Of an eternal curse ; my brother is 
A watching shepherd boy, who offers up 
The firstlings of the fiock to him who bids 
The earth yield nothing to us without sweat ; 
My sister Zillah sings an earlier hymn 
Than the birds' matins ; and my Adah, my 
Own and beloved, she, too, understands not 
The mind which overwhelms me : never till 
Now met I aught to sympathize with me. 
'Tis well — I rather would consort with spirits. 

Lucifer. And hadst thou not been fit by thine own 
For such companionship, I would not now [soul 

Have stood before thee as I am : a serpent 
Had been enough to charm ye, as before.* 

Cain. Ah I didst thou tempt my mother ? 

Lucifer. I tempt none, 

Save with the truth : was not the tree the tree 
Of knowledge ? and was not the tree of life 
Still fruitful ? 5 Did / bid her pluck them not ? 
Did I plant things prohibited within 
The reach of beings innocent, and curious 
By their own innocence ?® I would have made ye 
Gods ; and even he who thrust ye forth, so thrust ye 
Because " ye should not eat the fruits of life, 
And become gods as we." Were those his words ? 

Cain. They were, as I have heard from those who 
heard them, 
In thunder. 

Lucifer. Then who was the demon ? He 
Who would not let ye live, or he who would 
Have made ye live for ever in the joy 
And power of knowledge ? 



4 " Have stood before thee as I am ; but chosen 
The serpent's charming symbol, as before." — MS. 

6 " The tree of life was doubtless a material tree, producing 
material fruit, proper as such for the nourishment of the 
body; but was it not also set apart to be partaken of as a 
symbol or sacrament of that celestial principle which nour- 
ishes the soul to immortality ?" — Bishop Horne. 

6 The Eclectic Reviewer, we believe the late Robert Hall, 
says, — " Innocence is not the cause of curiosity, but has, in 
every stage of society, been its victim. Curiosity has ruined 
greater numbers than any other passion ; and as, in its incip- 
ient actings, it is the most dangerous foe of innocence, so, 
when it becomes a passion, it is only fed by guilt. Innocence, 
indeed, is gone when desire has conceived the sin. Cain, in 
this drama, is made, like the Faust of Goethe, to be the vic- 
tim of curiosity ; and a fine moral might have been deduced 
from it." — Dr. Johnson, on the contrary, says,—" A generous 
and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly 
than by an eminent degree of curiosity. This passion is, per- 
haps, regularly heightened in proportion as the powers of the 
mind are elevated and enlarged. Curiosity is the thirst of 
the soul; it inflames and torments us, and makes us taste 
every thing with joy, however otherwise insipid, by which 
it may be quenched." 



Scene I. 



CAIN. 



381 



Cain. Would they had snatch'd both 

The fruits, or neither ! 

LrciFER. One is yours already ; 

The other may be still. 

Cain. How so? 

Lucifer. By being 

Yourselves, in your resistance. Nothing can 
Quench the mind, if the mind will be itself 
And centre of surrounding things — 'tis made 
To sway. 

Cain. But didst thou tempt my parents ? 

Lucifer. I ? 

Poor clay ! what should I tempt them for, or how ? 

Cain. They say the serpent was a spirit. 

Lucifer. "Who 

Saith that ? It is not written so on high : 
The proud One will not so far falsify. 
Though man's vast fears and little vanity 
Would make him cast upon the spiritual nature 
His own low failing. The snake was the snake — 
No more ; and yet not less than those he tempted, 
In nature being earth also — more in wisdom^ 
Since he could overcome them, and foreknew 
The knowledge fatal to their narrow joys. 
Think'st thou I'd take the shape of things that die ? 

Cain. But the thing had a demon ? 

Lucifer. He but woke one 

In those he spake to with his forky tongue. 
I tell thee that the serjient was no more 
Than a mere serpent : ask the cherubim 
Who guard the tempting tree. When thousand 



Have roll'd o'er your dead ashes, and your seed's, 

The seed of the then world may thus array 

Their earliest fault in fable, and attribute 

To me a shape I scorn, as I scorn all 

That bows to him, who made things but to bend 

Before his sullen, sole eternity ; 

But we, who see the truth, must speak it. Thy 

Fond parents listen'd to a creeping thing. 

And fell. For what should spirits tempt them ? What 

Was there to envy in the narrow bounds 

Of Paradise, that spirits who pervade 

Space but I speak to thee of what thou know'st 

not, 
"With all tliy tree of knowledge. 

Cain. But thou canst not 

Speak aught of knowledge which I would not know. 
And do not thirst to know, and bear a mind 
To know. 

Lucifer. And heart to look on? 

Cain. Be it proved. 

Lucifer. Darest thou look on death ? 

Cain. He has not yet 

Been seen. 

Lucifer. But must be undergone. 



1 " It may appear a very prosaic.but it is certainly a very obvi- 
ous criticism on these passages, that the young family of man- 
kind had, long ere this, been quite familiar with the death of 



Cain. My father 

Says he is something dreadful, and my mother 
Weeps when he's named ; and Abel lifts his eyes 
To heaven, and Zillah casts hers to the earth. 
And sighs a prayer ; and Adah looks on me, 
And speaks not. 

Lucifer. And thou ? 

Cain. Thoughts unspeakable 

Crowd in my breast to burning, when I hear 
Of this almighty Death, who is, it seems, 
Inevitable. Could I wrestle with him ? 
I wrestled with the lion, when a boy. 
In play, till he ran roaring from my gripe. 

Lucifer. It has no shapes but will absorb all 
things 
That bear the form of earth-born being. 

Cain. Ah ! 

I thought it was a being : who could do 
Such evil things to beings save a being ? 

Lucifer. Ask the Destroyer. 

Cain. Who ? 

. Lucifer. The Maker— call him 

Which name thou wilt ; he makes but to destroy. 

Cain. I knew not that, yet thought it, since I heard 
Of death : although I know not what it is. 
Yet it seems horrible. I have look'd out 
In the vast desolate night in search of him ; 
And when I saw gigantic shadows in 
The umbrage of the walls of Eden, checker'd 
By the far flashing of the cherubs' swords, 
I watch'd for what I thought his coming ;! for 
With fear rose longing in my heart to know 
What 'twas which shook us all — but nothing came. 
And then I turn'd my weary eyes from off 
Our native and forbidden Paradise, 
"Up to the lights above us, in the azure. 
Which are so beautiful : shall they, too, die ? 

Lucifer. Perhaps — but long outlive both thine 
and thee. 

Cain. I'm glad of that : I would not have them die — 
They are so lovely. What is death ? I fear, 
I feel, it is a dreadful thing ; but what, 
I cannot compass : 'tis denounced against us, 
Both them who sinn'd and sinn'd not, as an ill — 
What ill? 

Lucifer. To be resolved into the earth. 

Cain. But shall I know it ? 

Lucifer. As I know not death, 

I cannot answer. 

Cain. Were I quiet earth, 

That were no evil : would I ne'er had been 
Aught else but dust ! 

Lucifer. That is a grovelling wish, 

Less than thy father's, for he wish'd to know. 

Cain. But not to live, or wherefore pluck'd he not 
The life-tree? 



animali, some of whom Abel was in the habit of offering up as 
sacrifices; so that it is not quite conceivable that they should 
be so much at a loss to conjecture what death v as." — Jeffrey. 



382 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Act I. 



Lucifer. He was hinder'd. 

Cain. Deadly error ! 

Not to snatch first that fruit : — but ere he pluck'd 
The knowledge, he was ignorant of death. 
Alas ! I scarcely now know what it is, 
And yet I fear it — fear I know not what ! 

LlJCiFER. And I, who know all things, fear noth- 
ing: see 
What is true knowledge. 

Cain. Wilt thou teach me all ? 

Lucifer. Ay, upon one condition. 

Cain. Name it. 

Lucifer. That 

Thou dost fall down and worship me — thy Lord. 

Cain. Thou art not the Lord my father worships. 

Lucifer. No. 

Cain. His equal ? 

Lucifer. No; — I have nought in common with 
him! 
Nor would : I would be aught above — beneath — 
Aught save a sharer or a servant of 
His power. I dwell apart ; but I am great : — 
Many there are who worship me, and more 
Who shall — be thou amongst the first. 

Cain. I never 

As yet have bow'd unto my father's God, 
Although my brother Abel oft implores 
That I would join with him in sacrifice : — 
Why should I bow to thee ? 

Lucifer. Hast thou ne'er bow'd 

To him ? 

Cain. Have I not said it? — need I say it ? 
Could not thy mighty knowledge teach thee that ? 

Lucifer. He who bows not to him has bow'd to me ! 

Cain. But I will bend to neither. 

Lucifer. Ne'ertheless, 

Thou art my worshipper : not worshipping 
Him makes thee mine the same. 

Cain. And what is that ? 

Lucifer. Thou'lt know here — and hereafter. 

Cain. Let me but 

Be taught the mystery of my being. 

Lucifer. Follow 

Where I will lead thee. 

Cain. But I must retire 
To till the earth — for I had promised 

Lucifer. What? 

Cain. To cull some first-fruits. 

Lucifer. Why ? 

Cain. To ofler up 

With Abel on an altar. 

Lucifer. Saidst thou not 

Thou ne'er hadst bent to him who made thee ? 

Cain. Yes— 
But Abel's earnest prayer has wrought upon me ; 
The ofiering is more his than mine — and Adah 

Lucifer. Why dost thou hesitate ? 

Cain. She is my sister ; 

Born on the same day, of the same womb ; and 
She wrung from me, with tears, this promise ; and 



Rather than see her weep, I would, methinks, 
Bear all — and worship aught. 

Lucifer. Then follow me I 

Cain. I will.^ 

Enter Adah. 

Adah. My brother, I have come for thee ; 

It is our hour of rest and joy — and we 
Have less without thee. Thou hast labor'd not 
This morn ; but I have done thy task : the fruits 
Are ripe, and glowing as the light which ripens : 
Come away. 

Cain. Seest thou not ? 

Adah. I see an angel ; 

We have seen many : will he share our hour 
Of rest ? — he is welcome. 

Cain. But he is not like 

The angels we have seen. 

Adah. Are there, then, others ? 

But he is welcome, as they were : they deign'd 
To be our guests — will he ? 

Cain {to Lucifer). Wilt thou? 

Lucifer. I ask 

Thee to be mine. 

Cain. I must away with him. 

Adah. And leave us ? 

Cain. Ay. 

Adah. And me f 

Cain. Beloved Adah ! 

Adah. Let me go with thee. 

Lucifer. No, she must not. 

Adah. Who 

Art thou that steppest between heart and heart ? 

Cain. He is a god. 

Adah. How know'st thou ? 

Cain. He speaks like 

A god. 

Adah. So did the serpent, and it lied. 

Lucifer. Thou errest, Adah ! — was not the tree that 
Of knowledge ? 

Adah. Ay — to our eternal sorrow. 

Lucifer. And yet that grief is knowledge — so he 
lied not : 
And if he did betray you, 'twas with truth ; 
And truth in its own essence cannot be 
But good. 

Adah. But all we know of it has gather'd 
Evil on ill : expulsion from our home, 
And dread, and toil, and sweat, and heaviness ; 
Remorse of that which was — and hope of that 
Which Cometh not. Cain ! walk not with this spirit. 
Bear with what we have borne, and love me — I 
Love thee. 

Lucifer. More than thy mother, and thy sire ? 

Adah. I do. Is that a sin, too ? 

Lucifer. No, not yet : 

It one day will be in your children. 



1 " The first interview of Lucifer with Cain is full of sub- 
limity."— Jeffrey. 



Scene I. 



CAIN. 



383 



Adah. What I 

Must not my daughter love her brother Enoch? 

Lucifer. Not as thou lovest Cain. 

Adah. Oh, my God ! 

Shall they not love and bring forth things that love 
Out of their love ? have they not drawn their milk 
Out of this bosom ? was not he, their father, 
Bom of the same sole womb, in the same hour 
With me? did we not love each other? and 
In multiplying our being multiply 
Things wliich will love each other as we love 
Them ? — And as I love thee, my Cain ! go not 
Forth with this spirit ; he is not of ours. 

Lucifer. The sin I speak of is not of my making, 
And cannot be a sin in you — whate'er 
It seem in those who will replace ye in 
Mortality.^ 

Adah. What is the sin which is not 
Sin in itself? Can circumstance make sin 
Or virtue ? — if it doth, we are the slaves 
Of 

Lucifer. Higher things than ye are slaves : and 
higher 
Than them or ye would be so, did they not 
Prefer an independency of torture 
To the smooth agonies of adulation. 
In hymns and harpings, and self-seeking prayers. 
To that which is omnipotent, because 
It is omnipotent, and not from love, 
But terror and self-hope. 

Adah. Omnipotence 

Must be all goodness. 

Lucifer. Was it so in Eden ? 

Adah. Fiend! tempt me not with beauty; thou 
art fairer 
Than was the serpent, and as false. 

Lucifer. As true. 

Ask Eve, your mother : bears she not the knowledge 
Of good and evil ? 

Adah. Oh, my mother! thou 

Hast pluck'd a fruit more fatal to thine offspring 
Than to thyself; thou at the least hast pass'd 
Thy youth in Paradise, in innocent 
And happy intercourse with happy spirits : 
But we, thy children, ignorant of Eden, 
Are girt about by demons, who assume 
The words of God, and tempt us with our own 
Dissatisfied and curious thoughts — as thou 
Wert work'd on by the snake, in thy most flush'd 
And heedless, harmless wantonness of bliss. 
I cannot answer this immortal thing 
Which stands before me ; I can not abhor him ; 
I look upon him with a pleasing fear, 
And yet I fly not from him : in his eye 

1 It is impossible not to be struck with the resemblance 
belwi'en many of these passages and others in Manfred. 

' Mr. Jeffrey's eulogium on this, perhaps the most Shak-. 
spearian speech in Lord Byron's tragedies, seems cold enough. 
He says: — "Adah, the wife of Cain, enters, and shrinks from 
the daring and blasphemous speech which is passing between 



There is a fastening attraction which. 
Fixes my fluttering eyes on his ; my heart 
Beats quick ; he awes me, and yet draws mo near, 
Nearer and nearer: — Cain — Cain — save me from 
him! 2 

Cain. What dreads my Adah ? This is no ill spirit. 

Adah. He is not God — nor God's : I have beheld 
The cherubs and the seraphs ; he looks not 
Like them. 

Cain. But there are spirits loftier still — 

The archangels. 

Lucifer. And still loftier than the archangels. 

Adah. Ay — but not blessed. 

Lucifer. If the blessedness 

Consists in slavery — no. 

Adah. I have heard it said, 

The seraphs love most — cherubim knoiv most — 
And this should be a cherub — since he loves not. 

Lucifer. And if the higher knowledge quenches 
love. 
What must he he you cannot love when known ? ^ 
Since the all-knowing cherubim love least. 
The seraphs' love can be but ignorance : 
That they are not compatible, the doom 
Of thy fond parents, for their daring, proves. 
Choose betwixt love and knowledge — since there is 
No other choice : your sire hath chosen already : 
His worship is but fear. 

Adah. Oh, Cain ! choose love. 

Cain. For thee, my Adah, I choose not — it was 
Bom with me — but I love nought else. 

Adah. Our parents ? 

Cain. Did they love us when they snatch'd from 
the tree 
That which hath driven us all from Paradise ? 

Adah. We were not born then — and if we had 
been. 
Should we not love them and our children, Cain ? 

Cain. My little Enoch ! and his lisping sister I 
Could I but deem them happy, I would half 

Forget but it can never be forgotten 

Through thrice a thousand generations ! never 

Shall men love the remembrance of the man 

Who sow'd the seed of evil and mankind 

In the same hour ! They pluck'd the tree of science 

And sin — and, not content with their own sorrow, 

Begot me — thee — and all the few that are, 

And all the unnumber'd and innumerable 

Multitudes, millions, myriads, which may be, 

To inherit agonies accumulated 

By ages ! — and / must be sire of such things ! 

Thy beauty and thy love — my love and joy. 

The rapturous moment and the placid hour,* 

All we love in our children and each other, 

him and the Spirit. Her account of the fascination which he 
exercises over her is magnificent." 

3 " What can he he who places love in ignorance?"— MS. 

< This "placid hour" of Cain is, we fear, from a source 
which it will do Lord B. no credit to name, — the romance of 
" Faublas." 



384 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Act I. 



But lead them and ourselves through many years 
Of sin and pain — or few, but still of sorrow, 
Intercheck'd with an instant of brief pleasure, 
To Death — the unknown! Methinks the tree of 

knowledge 
Hath not fulfill'd its promise : — if they sinn'd, 
At least they ought to have known all things that 

are 
Of knowledge — and the mystery of death. 
What do they know ? — that they are miserable. 
What need of snakes and fruits to teach us that? 

Adah. I am not wretched, Cain, and if thou 
Wert happy 

Cain. Be thou happy, then, alone — 

I will have nought to do with happiness. 
Which humbles me and mine. 

Adah. Alone I could not, 

Nor would be happy : but with those around us, 
I think I could be so, despite of death, 
Which, as I know it not, I dread not, though 
It seems an awful shadow — ^if I may 
Judge from what I have heard. 

LuciFEK, And thou couldst not 

Alone, thou sayst, be happy? 

Adah. Alone ! Oh, my God ! 

Who could be happy and alone, or good ? 
To me my solitude seems sin ; unless 
When I think how soon I shall see my brother, 
His brother, and our children, and our parents. 

Lucifer. Yet thy God is alone ; and is he happy ? 
Lonely, and good ? 

Adah. He is not so ; he hath 

The angels and the mortals to make happy, 
And thus becomes so in diffusing joy. 
What else can joy be, but the spreading joy ? 

Lucifer. Ask of your sire, the exile fresh from 
Eden; 
Or of his first-born son : ask your own heart ; 
It is not tranquil. 

Adah. Alas ! no ! and you — 

Are you of heaven ? 

Lucifer. If I am not, inquire 

The cause of this all-spreading happiness 
(Which you proclaim) of the all-great and good 
Maker of life and living things ; it is 
His secret, and he keeps it. We must bear, 
And some of us resist, and both in vain. 
His seraphs say ; but it is worth the trial, 
Since better may not be without : there is 
A wisdom in the spirit, which directs 
To right, as in the dim blue air the eye 
Of you, young mortals, lights at once upon 
The star which watches, welcoming the morn. 

1 " In the drawing of Cain himself there is much vigorous 
expression. It seems, however, as if, in the effort to give to 
Lucifer that 'spiritual politeness' which the poet professes 
to have in view, he has reduced him rather below the stand- 
ard of diabolic dignity which was necessary to his dramatic 
interest. He has scarcely 'given the devil his due.' We 
thought Lord Byron knew better. Milton's Satan, with his 



Adah. It is a beautiful star ; I love it for 
Its beauty. 

Lucifer. And why not adore ? 

Adah. Our father 

Adores the Invisible only. 

Lucifer. But the symbols 

Of the Invisible are the loveliest 
Of what is visible ; and yon bright star 
Is leader of the host of heaven. 

Adah. Our father 

Saith that he has beheld the God himself 
Who made him and our mother. 

Lucifer. Hast thou seen him '> 

Adah. Yes — in his works. 

Lucifer. But in his being ? 

Adah. No- 

Save in my father, who is God's own image ; 
Or in his angels, who are like to thee — 
And brighter, yet less beautiful and powerful 
In seeming : as the silent sunny noon. 
All light, they look upon us ; but thou seem'st 
Like an ethereal night, where long white clouds 
Streak the deep purple, and unnumber'd stars 
Spangle the wonderful mysterious vault 
With things that look as if they would be suns ; 
So beautiful, unnumber'd, and endearing, 
Not dazzling, and yet drawing us to them. 
They fill my eyes with tears, and so dost thou. 
Thou seem'st unhappy : do not make us so, 
And I will weep for thee.i 

Lucifer. Alas ! those tears ! 
Couldst thou but know what oceans will be shed 

Adah. By me ? 

Lucifer. By all. 

Adah. What all? 

Lucifer. The million millions-^ 

The myriad myriads — the all-peopled earth — 
The unpeopled earth — and the o'er-peopled hell, 
Of which thy bosom is the germ. 

Adah. Oh, Cain ! 

This spirit curseth us. 

Cain. Let him say on ; 

Him will I follow. 

Adah. Whither? 

Lucifer. To a place 

Whence he shall come back to thee in an hour ; 
But in that hour see things of many days. 

Adah. How can that be ? 

Lucifer. Did not your Maker make 

Out of old worlds this new one in few days ? 
And cannot I, who aided in this work, 
Show in an hour what he hath made in many, 
Or hath destroy'd in few ? 

faded majesty, and blasted but not obliterated glory, holds us 
suspended between terror and amazement, with something 
like awe of his spiritual essence and lost estate; but Lord 
^yron has introduced him to us as elegant, pensive, and 
beautiful, with an air of sadness and suffering that ranks 
him with the oppressed, and bespeaks our pity." — British 
Critic. 



Scene I. 



CAIN. 



385 



Will he, 



Cain. Lead on. 

Adah. 
In sooth, return within an hour ? 

Lucifer. He shall. 

With us acts are exempt from time, and we 
Can crowd eternity into an hour, 
Or stretch an hour into eternity : 
We breathe not by a mortal measurement — 
But that's a mystery. Cain, come on with me. 

Adah. Will he return ? 

Lucifer. Ay, woman ! he alone 

Of mortals from that place (the first and last 
Who shall return, save One), shall come back to 

thee. 
To make that silent and expectant world 
As populous as this : at present there 
Are few inhabitants. 

Adah. Where dwellest thou ? 

Lucifer. Throughout all space. Where should I 
dwell ? Where are 
Thy God or Gods — there am I : all things are 
Divided with me : life and death — and time — 
Eternity — and heaven and earth — and that 
Which is not heaven nor earth, but peopled with 
Those who once peopled or shall people both — 
These are my realms I So that I do divide 
His, and possess a kingdom which is not 
His. If I were not that which I have said. 
Could I stand here ? His angels are within 
Your vision. 

Adah. So they were when the fair serpent 

Spoke with our mother first. 

Lucifer. Cain ! thou hast heard. 

If thou dost long for knowledge, I can satiate 
That thirst ; nor ask thee to partake of fruits 
Which shall deprive thee of a single good 
The conqueror has left thee. Follow me. 

Cain. Spirit, I have said it. 

{Exeunt Lucifer and Cain. 

Adah {follows, exclaiming). Cain! my brother! 
Cain!i 



ACT II. 

SCENE I. 



The Abyss of Space. "^ 
Cain I tread on air, and sink not ; yet I fear 

To sink. 
Lucifer. Have faith in me, and thou shalt be 

Borne on the air, of which I am the prince. 
Cain. Can I do so without impiety ? 



1 "The act concludes with the departure of Cain, under 
the guidance of his new monitor, to see the place of departed 
spirits. Their flight, in the next, across the abyss of space, 
and amid the unnumbered suns and systems which it com- 
prises, is very fine."— Heber. 

' " In the second act the demon carries his disciple through 
25 



Lucifer. Believe — and sink not ! doubt — and 
perish ! thus 
Would run the edict of the other God, 
Who names me demon to his angels ; they 
Echo the sound to miserable things. 
Which, knowing nought beyond their shallow senses. 
Worship the word which strikes their ear, and deem 
Evil or good what is proclaim'd to them 
In their abasement. I will have none such : 
Worship or worship not, thou shalt behold 
The worlds beyond thy little world, nor be 
Amerced for doubts beyond thy little life, 
With torture of my dooming. There will come 
An hour, when, toss'd upon some water-drops,* 
A man shall say to a man, " Believe in me, 
And walk the waters ;" and the man shall walk 
The billows and be safe. / will not say. 
Believe in me, as a conditional creed 
To save thee ; but fly with me o'er the gulf 
Of space an equal flight, and I will show 
What thou dar'st not deny, — the histoiy 
Of past, and present, and of future worlds. 

Cain. Oh, god, or demon, or whate'er thou art, 
Is yon our earth ? 

Lucifer. Dost thou not recognize 

The dust which form'd your father ? 

Cain. Can it be ? 

Yon small blue circle, swinging in far ether. 
With an inferior circlet near it still, 
Which looks like that which lit our earthly night ? 
Is this our Paradise ? Where are its walls. 
And they who guard them ? 

Lucifer. Point me out the site 

Of Paradise. 

Cain. How should I ? As we move 

Like sunbeams onward, it grows small and smaller. 
And as it waxes little, and then less, 
Gathers a halo round it, like the light 
Which shone the roundest of the stars, when I 
Beheld them from the skirts of Paradise : 
Methinks they both, as we recede from them, 
Appear to join the innumerable stars 
Which are around us ; and, as we move on, 
Increase their myriads. 

Lucifer. And if there should be 

Worlds greater than thine own, inhabited 
By greater things, and they themselves far more 
In number than the dust of thy dull earth. 
Though multiplied to animated atoms. 
All living, and all doom'd to death, and wretched. 
What wouldst thou think ? 

Cain. I should be proud of thought 

Which knew such things. 



all the limits of space, and expounds to him, in very lofty and 
obscure terms, the destinies of past and future worlds. They 
have a great deal of exceptionable talk."— Jeffrey. 



8 "An hour when, walking on a petty lake, 
A man shall say," &c. — MS. 



386 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Act n. 



Lucifer. But if that high thought were 
Liuk'd to a servile mass of matter, and, 
Knowing such things, aspiring to such things, 
And science still beyond them, were chain'd down 
To the most gross and petty paltry wants, 
All foul and fulsome, and the very best 
Of thine enjoyments a sweet degradation, 
A most enervating and filthy cheat 
To lure thee on to the renewal of 
Fresh souls and bodies, all foredoom'd to be 
As frail, and few so happy ^ 

Cain. Spirit! I 

Know nought of death, save as a dreadful thing 
Of which I have heard my parents speak, as of 
A hideous heritage I owe to them 
No less than life ; a heritage not happy. 
If I may judge, till now. But, spirit! if 
It be as thou hast said (and I within 
Feel the prophetic torture of its truth). 
Here let me die : for to give birth to those 
Who can but sufier many years, and die, 
Methinks is merely propagating death. 
And multiplying murder. 

LuciFEE. Thou canst not 

All die — there is what must survive. 

Cain. The Other 

Spake not of this unto my father, when 
He shut him forth from Paradise, with death 
Written upon his forehead. But at least 
Let what is mortal of me perish, that 
I may be in the rest as angels are. 

Lucifer. / am angelic : wouldst thou be as I am ? 

Cain. I know not what thou art ; I see thy power, 
And see thou show'st me things beyond my power, ■ 
Beyond all power of my born faculties. 
Although inferior still to my desires 
And my conceptions. 

Lucifer. What are they which dwell 

So humbly in their pride, as to sojourn 
With worms in clay ? 

Cain. And what art thou who dwellest 

So haughtily in spirit, and canst range 
Nature and immortality — and yet 
Seem'st sorrowful ? 



1 " It is nothing less than absurd to suppose that Lucifer 
cannot well be expected to talk like an orthodox divine, and 
that the conversation ot the first Rebel and the first Murderer 
was not likely to be very unexceptionable; or to plead the 
authority of Milton, or the authors of the old mysteries, for 
such offensive colloquies. The fact is that here, the whole 
argument — and a very elaborate and specious argument it is — 
is directed against the goodness or the power of the Deity ; 
and there is no answer so much as attempted to the offensive 
doctrines that are so strenuously inculcated. The devil and 
his pupil have the field entirely to themselves, and are en- 
countered with nothing but feeble obtestations and unreason- 
ing horrors. Nor is this argumentative blasphemy a mere 
incidental deformity that arises in the course of an action 
directed to the common sympathies of our nature. It forms, 
on the contrary, the great staple of the piece, and occupies, 
we should think, not less than two thirds of it ; so that it is 



Lucifer. I seem that which I am ; 

And therefore do I ask of thee, if thou 
Wouldst be immortal ? 

Cain. Thou hast said, I must be 

Immortal in despite of me. I knew not 
This until lately — but since it must be, 
Let me, or happy or unhappy, learn 
To anticipate my immortality. 

Lucifer. Thou didst before I came upon thee. 

Cain. How ? 

Lucifer. By suffering. 

Cain. And must torture be immortal ? 

Lucifer. We and thy sons will try. But now, 
behold! 
Is it not glorious ? 

Cain. Oh, thou beautiful 

And unimaginable ether ! and 
Ye multiplying masses of increased 
And still increasing lights ! what are ye ? what 
Is this blue wilderness of intervenient 
Air, where ye roll along, as I have seen 
The leaves along the limpid streams of Eden ? 
Is your course measured for ye ? Or do ye 
Sweep on in your unbounded revelry 
Through an aerial universe of endless 
Expansion — at which my soul aches to think — 
Intoxicated with eternity ? 
Oh, God ! Oh, Gods ! or whatsoe'er ye are ! 
How beautiful ye are ! how beautiful 
Your works, or accidents, or whatsoe'er 
They may be ! Let me die, as atoms die 
(If that they die), or know ye in your might 
And knowledge ! My thoughts are not in this hour 
Unworthy what I see, though my dust is ; 
Spirit ! let me expire, or see them nearer. 

Lucifer. Art thou not nearer ? look back to thine 
earth ! 

Cain. Where is it ? I see nothing save a mass 
Of most innumerable lights ? 

Lucifer. Look there ! 

Cain. I cannot see it. 

Lucifer. Yet it sparkles still. 

Cain. That !— yonder ! 

Lucifer. Yea. 



really difficult to believe that it was written for any other 
purpose than to inculcate these doctrines, or, at least, to dis- 
cuss the question upon which they bear. Now, we can cer- 
tainly have no objection to Lord Byron writing an essay on 
the origin of evil, and sifting the whole of that vast and per- 
plexing subject with the force and the freedom that would be 
expected and allowed in a fair philosophical discussion ; but 
we do not think it fair thus to argue it partially and cow. amore, 
in the name of Lucifer and Cain, without the responsibility 
or the liability to answer that would attach to a philosoph- 
ical disputant, and in a form which both doubles the danger, 
if the sentiments are pernicious, and almost precludes his 
opponents from the possibility of a reply."— Jeffrey. — 
"What does Jeffrey mean by elaborate f Why! they were 
written as fast as I could put pen to paper, in the midst of 
evolutions, and revolutions, and persecutions, and proscrip- 
tions, of all who interested me in Italy."— ^j/row Letters 



Scene I. 



CAIN. 



387 



Cain. And wilt thou tell me so ? 

\yhy, I have seen the fire-flies and fire-worms 
Sprinkle the dusky groves and the green banks 
In the dim twilight, brighter than yon world 
Which bears them. 

Lucifer. Thou hast seen both worms and worlds, 
Each bright and sparkling— what dost think of them ? 

Cain. That they are beautiful in their own sphere, 
And that the night, which makes both beautiful, 
The little shining fire-fly in its flight. 
And the immortal star in its great course. 
Must both be guided. 

LuciFEK. But by whom or what ? 

Cain. Show me. 

Lucifer. Dar'st thou behold ? 

Cain. How know I what 

I dare behold? As yet, thou hast shown nought 
I dare not gaze on further. 

Lucifer. On, then, with me. 

Wouldst thou behold things mortal or immortal ? 

Cain. Why, what are things ? 

Lucifer. Both partly : but what doth 

Sit next thy heart ? 

Cain. The things I see. 

Lucifer. But what 

Sate nearest it ? 

Cain. The things I have not seen. 

Nor ever shall — the mysteries of death, [have died, 

Lucifer. What, if I show to thee things which 
As I have shown thee much which cannot die ? 

Cain. Do so. 

Lucifer. Away, then ! on our mighty wings. 

Cain. Oh ! how we cleave the blue ! The stars fade 
from us ! 
The earth ! where is my earth ? Let me look on it, 
For I was made of it. 

Lucifer. 'Tis now beyond thee. 

Less, in the universe, than thou in it ; 
Yet deem not that thou canst escape it ; thou 
Shalt soon return to earth, and all its dust : 
'Tis part of thy eternity, and mine. 

Cain. WTiere dost thou lead me ? 

Lucifer. To what was before thee ! 

The phantasm of the world ; of which thy world 
Is but the wreck. 

Cain. What ! is it not then new ? 

Lucifer. No more than life is ; and that was ere 
thou 
Or /were, or the things which seem to us 
Greater than either: many things will have 
No end ; and some, which would pretend to have 
Had no beginning, have had one as mean 
As thou ; and mightier things have been extinct 
To make way for much meaner than we can 
Surmise ; for moments only and the space 
Have been and must be all unchangeable. 
But changes make not death, except to clay; 
But thou art clay, — and canst but comprehend 
That which was clay, and such thf)u shalt behold. 

Cain. Clay, spirit ! what thou wilt, I can survey. 



Lucifer. Away, then ! 

Cain. But the lights fade from me fast. 

And some till now grew larger as we approach'd. 
And wore the look of worlds. 

Lucifer. And such they are. 

Cain. And Edens in them ? 

Lucifer. It may be. 

Cain. And men ? 

Lucifer. Yea, or things higher. 

Cain. Ay ? and serpents too ? 

Lucifer. Wouldst thou have men without them ? 
must no reptiles 
Breathe save the erect ones ? 

Cain. How the lights recede ! 

Where fly we ? 

Lucifer. To the world of phantoms, which 
Are beings past, and shadows still to come. 

Cain. But it ws dark and dark — the stars are 
gone! 

Lucifer. And yet thou seest. 

Cain. 'Tis a fearful light : 

No sun, no moon, no lights innumerable. 
The very blue of the empui-pled night 
Fades to a dreary twilight, yet I see 
Huge dusky masses : but unlike the worlds 
We were' approaching, which, begirt with light, 
Seem'd full of life even when their atmosphere 
Of light gave way, and show'd them taking shapes 
Unequal, of deep valleys and vast mountains ; 
And some emitting sparks, and some displaying 
Enormous liquid plains, and some begirt 
With luminous belts, and floating moons, which took, 
Like them, the features of fair earth : — instead. 
All here seems dark and dreadful. 

Lucifer. But distinct. 

Thou seekest to behold death, and dead things ? 

Cain. I seek it not ; but as I know there are 
Such, and that my sire's sin makes him and me, 
And all that we inherit, liable 
To such, I would behold at once, what I 
Must one day see perforce. 

Lucifer. Behold ! 

Cain. 'Tis darkness. 

Lucifer. And so it shall be ever ; but we will 
Unfold its gates ! 

Cain. Enormous vapors roll 

Apart — what's this ? 

Lucifer. Enter ! 

Cain. Can I return ? 

Lucifer. Return ! be sure : how else should death 
be peopled ? 
Its present realm is thin to what it will be. 
Through thee and thine. 

Cain. The clouds still open wide 

And wider, and make widening circles round us. 

Lucifer. Advance ! 

Cain. And thou ! 

Lucifer. Fear not — without me thou 

Couldst not have gone beyond thy world. On ! on 1 
[They disappear through the clouds. 



388 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Act II. 



SCENE II. 
Hades.^ 

Enter Lucifer and Cain. 

Cain. How silent and how vast are these dim worlds ! 
For they seem more than one, and yet more peopled 
Than the huge brilliant luminous orbs which swung 
So thickly in the upper air, that I 
Had deem'd them rather the bright populace 
Of some all unimaginable heaven. 
Than things to be inhabited themselves, 
But that on drawing near them I beheld 
Their swelling into palpable immensity 
Of matter, which seem'd made for life to dwell on, 
Eather than life itself. But here, all is 
So shadowy and so full of twilight, that 
It speaks of a day past. 

Lttcifee. It is the realm 

Of death. — Wouldst have it present ? 

Cain. Till I know 

That which it really is, I cannot answer. 
But if it be as I have heard my father 
Deal out in his long homilies, 'tis a thing — 
Oh God ! I dare not think on't ! Cursed be 
He who invented life that leads to death ! 
Or the dull mass of life, that, being life. 
Could not retain, but needs must forfeit it — 
Even for the innocent ! 

1 " It is not very easy to perceive what natural or rational 
object the devil proposes to himself in carrying his disciple 
through the abyss of space, to show him that repository of 
which we remember hearing something in our infant days, 
' where the old moons are hung up to dry.' To prove that 
there is a life beyond the grave was surely no part of his bus- 
iness when he was engaged in fostering the indignation of 
one who repined at the necessity of dying. And, though it 
would seem that entire Hades is, in Lord Byron's picture, a 
place of suffering, yet, when Lucifer himself had premised 
that these sufferings were the lot of those spirits who had 
sided with him against Jehovah, is it likely that a more accu- 
rate knowledge of them would increase Cain's eagerness for 
the alliance, or that he would not rather have inquired whether 
a better fortune did not await the adherents of the triumphant 
side ? At all events, the spectacle of many ruined worlds was 
more likely to awe a mortal into submission than to rouse him 
to hopeless resistance ; and, even if it made him a hater of 
God, had no natural tendency to render him furious against 
a brother who was to be his fellow sufferer."— Heber. 

2 " Death, the last and most dreadful of all evils, is so far 
from being one, that it is the infallible cure for all others : — 

' To die, is landing on some silent shore, 
Where billows never beat, nor tempests roar : 
Ere well we feel the friendly stroke, 'tis o'er.' 
But was it an evil ever so great, it could not be remedied but 
by one much greater, which is, by living for ever : by which 
means our wickedness, unrestrained by the prospect of a 
future state, would grow so unsupportable, our sufferings so 
intolerable by perseverance, and our pleasures so tiresome by 
repetition, that no being in the universe could be so com- 
pletely miserable as a species of immortal men. We have no 
reason, therefore, to look upon death as an evil, or to fear it 
as a punishment, even without any supposition of a future 
life ; but if we consider it as a passage to a more perfect state, 



Lucifer. Dost thou curse thy father ? 

Cain. Cursed he not me in giving me my birth ? 
Cursed he not me before my birth, in daring 
To pluck the fruit forbidden ? 

Lucifer. Thou sayst well : 

The curse is mutual 'twixt thy sire and thee — 
But for thy sons and brother ? 

Cain. Let them share it 

With me, their sire and brother ! What else is 
Bequeath'd to me ? I leave them my inheritance. 
Oh, ye interminable gloomy realms 
Of swimming shadows and enormous shapes, 
Some fully shown, some indistinct, and all 
Mighty and melancholy — what are ye ? 
Live ye, or have ye lived ? 

Lucifer. Somewhat of both. 

Cain. Then what is death ? 

Lucifer. What ! Hath not he who made ye 

Said 'tis another life ? 

Cain. Till now he hath 

Said nothing, save that all shall die.^ 

Lucifer. Perhaps 

He one day will unfold that further secret. 

Cain. Happy the day ! 

Lucifer. Yes ; happy ! when unfolded, 

Through agonies unspeakable, and clogg'd 
With agonies eternal, to innumerable 
Yet unborn myriads of unconscious atoms. 
All to be animated for this only ! 

or a remove only in an eternal succession of still improving 
states (f6r which we have the strongest reasons), it will theu 
appear a new favor from the divine munificence ; and a man 
must be as absurd to repine at dying as a traveller would be 
who proposed to himself a delightful tour through various 
unknown countries, to lament that he cannot take up his 
residence at the first dirty inn which he baits at on the road. 
The instability of human life, or of the changes of its succes- 
sive periods, of which we so frequently complain, are no more 
than the necessary progress of it to this necessary conclu- 
sion ; and are so far from being evils deserving these com- 
plaints, that they are the source of our greatest pleasures, as 
they are the source of all novelty, from which our greatest 
pleasures are ever derived. The continual successions of 
seasons in the human life, by daily presenting to us new 
scenes, render it agreeable, and, like those of the year, afford 
us delights by their change, which the choicest of them could 
not give us by their continuance. In the spring of life, the 
gilding of the sunshine, the verdure of the fields, and the 
variegated paintings of the sky, are so exquisite in the eyes 
of infants at their first looking abroad into a new world, as 
nothing perhaps afterwards can equal. The heat and vigor 
of the succeeding summer of youth ripen for us new pleas- 
ures — the blooming maid, the nightly revel, and the jovial 
chase; the serene autumn of complete manhood feasts us 
with the golden harvest of our worldly pursuits: nor is the 
hoary winter of old age destitute of its peculiar comforts and 
enjoyments, of which the recollection and relation of those 
past are perhaps none of the least; and at last death opens 
to us a new prospect, from whence we shall probably look 
back upon the diversions and occupations of this world with 
the same contempt we do now on our tops and hobby-horses, 
and with the same surprise that they could ever so much 
entertain or engage us." — Jenyns. — " These," says Dr. John- 
son, ^^ are sentiments which, though not new, may he read with 
pleasure and profit, to the thousandth repetition." 



Scene II. 



CAIN. 



389 



Cain. What are these mighty phantoms which I see 
Floating around me ? — They wear not the form 
Of the intelligences I have seen 
Round our regretted and unenter'd Eden, 
Nor wear the form of man as I have view'd it 
In Adam's, and in Abel's, and in mine, 
Nor in my sister-bride's, nor in ray children's : 
And yet they have an aspect, which, though not 
Of men nor angels, looks like something which, 
If not the last, rose higher than the first. 
Haughty, and high, and beautiful, and full 
Of seeming strength, but of inexplicable 
Shape ; for I never saw such. They bear not 
The wing of seraph, nor the face of man. 
Nor form of mightiest brute, nor aught that is 
Now breathing ; mighty yet and beautiful 
As the most beautiful and mighty which 
Live, and yet so unlike them, that I scarce 
Can call them living. 

Lucifer. Yet they lived. 

Cain. Where ? 

Lucifer. Where 

Thou livest. 

Cain. When? 

Lucifer. On what thou callest earth 

They did inhabit. 

Cain. Adam is the first. 

Lucifer. Of thine, I grant thee — but too mean to be 
The last of these. 

Cain. And what are they ? 

Lucifer. That which 

Thou Shalt be. 

Cain. But what were they ? 

Lucifer. Living, high, 

Intelligent, good, great, and glorious things, 
As much superior unto all thy sire, 
Adam, could e'er have been in Eden, as 
The sixty-thousandth generation shall be, 
In its dull damp degeneracy, to 
Thee and thy son ; — and how weak they are, judge 
By thy own flesh. 

Cain. Ah me ! and did they perish ? 

Lucifer. Yes, from their earth, as thou wilt fade 
from thine. 

Cain. But was mine theirs? 

Lucifer. It was. 

Cain. But not as now. 

It is too little and too lowly to 
Sustain such creatures.' 

Llcifer. True, it was more glorious. 

Cain. And wherefore did it fall ? 

Lucifer. Ask him who fells. 



' "If, accorfling to some sjieculations, you could prove the 
world many thousand years older than the Mosaic chronol- 
ogy—or if you crMjId knock up Adam and Eve, and the Apple 
and Serpent— still, what is to be put up in their stead ?— or 
how is the difficulty removed? Things must have had a be- 
j?inning, and what matters it when or Joowf I sometimes 
think that man may be the relic of some higher material 
being wrecked in a former world, and degenerated in the 



Cain. But how? 

Lucifer. By a most crushing and inexorable 

Destruction and disorder of the elements, 
Which struck a world to chaos, as a chaos 
Subsiding has struck out a world : such things, 
Though rare in time, are frequent in eternity. — 
Pass on, and gaze upon the past. 

Cain. 'Tis awful ! 

Lucifer. And true. Behold these phantoms ! they 
were once 
Material as thou art. 

Cain. And must I be 

Like them ? 

Lucifer. Let him who made thee answer that. 
I show thee what thy predecessors are. 
And what they were thou feelest, in degree 
Inferior as thy petty feelings and 
Thy pettier portion of the immortal part 
Of high intelligence and earthly strength. 
What ye in common have with what they had 
Is life, and what ye shall have — death : the rest 
Of your poor attributes is such as suits 
Reptiles engender'd out of the subsiding 
Slime of a mighty universe, crush 'd into 
A scarcely-yet shaped planet, peopled with 
Things whose enjoyment was to be in blindness — 
A Paradise of Ignorance, from which 
Knowledge was barr'd as poison. But behold 
What these superior beings are or were ; 
Or, if it irk thee, turn thee back and till 
The earth, thy task — I'll waft thee there in safety. 

Cain. No : I'll stay here. 

Lucifer. How long ? 

Cain. For ever ! Since 

I must one day return here from the earth, 
I rather would remain ; I am sick of all 
That dust has shown me — let me dwell in shadows. 

Lucifer. It cannot be : thou now beholdest as 
A vision that which is reality. 
To make thyself fit for this dwelling, thou 
Must pass through what the things thou seest have 

pass'd — 
The gates of death. 

Cain. By what gate have we enter'd 

Even now ? 

Lucifer. By mine ! But, plighted to return, 
My spirit buoys thee up to breathe in regions 
Where all is breathless save thyself. Gaze on ; 
But do not think to dwell here till thine hour 
Is come. 

Cain. And these, too ; can they ne'er repass 
To earth again ? 



hardship and struggle through chaos into conformity, or 
something like it — as we see Laplanders, Esquimaux, Ac, 
inferior, in the present date, as the elements become more 
inexorable. But even then, this higher pre-Adamite sup- 
posititious creation must have had an origin and a Creator ; 
for a Creator is a more natural imagination than a fortuitous 
concourse of atoms : all things remount to a fountain, though 
they may flow to an ocean." — Byron I/iary, 1821. 



390 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Act II. 



Lucifer. Their earth is gone for ever — 

So changed by its convulsion, they would not 
Be conscious to a single present spot 
Of its new scarcely hardened surface — 'twas — 
Oh, what a beautiful world it was !^ 

Cain. And is. 

It is not with the earth, though I must till it, 
I feel at war, but that I may not profit 
By what it bears of beautiful untoiling, 
Nor gratify my thousand swelling thoughts 
With knowledge, nor allay my thousand fears 
Of death and life. 

Lucifer. What thy world is, thou seest, 

But canst not comprehend the shadow of 
That which it was. 

Cain. And those enormous creatures. 

Phantoms inferior in intelligence 
(At least so seeming) to the things we have pass'd, 
Resembling somewhat the wild habitants 
Of the deep woods of earth, the hugest which 
Boar nightly in the forest, but ten-fold 
In magnitude and terror ; taller than 
The cherub-guarded walls of Eden, with 
Eyes flashing like the fiery swords which fence them, 
And tusks projecting like the trees stripp'd of 
Their bark and brandies — what were they ? 

Lucifer. That which 

The Mammoth is in thy world ; — but these lie 
By myriads underneath its surface. 

Cain. But 

None on it? 2 

Lucifer. No : for thy frail race to war 
With them would render the curse on it useless — 
'Twould be destroy'd so early. 

Cain. But why warf 

Lucifer. You have forgotten the denunciation 
Which drove your race from Eden — war with all 

things. 
And death to all things, and disease to most things, 

1 Mr. Giflford having, through Mr. Murray, suggested the 
propriety of omitting a portion of this dialogue, Lord Byron 
replied :— " The two passages cannot be altered without mak- 
ing Lucifer talk like the bishop of London, which would not 
be in the character of the former. The notion is from Cuvier 
(that of the old worlds). The other passage is also in charac- 
ter ; if nonsense, so much the better, because then it can do 
no harm ; and the sillier Satan is made, the safer for every 
body. As to ' alarms,' &c., do you really think such things 
ever led any body astray ? Are these people more impious 
than Milton's Satan? or the Prometheus of ^Eschylus? or 
even than 'the Sadducees,' the 'Fall of Jerusalem' of Mil- 
man, Ac? Are not Adam, Eve, Adah, and Abel, as pious as 
the Catechism ? Giflford is too wise a man to think that such 
things can have any serious effect : who was ever altered by 
a poem? I beg leave to observe that there is no creed or 
personal hypothesis of mine in all this; but I was obliged to 
make Cain and Lucifer talk consistently ; and surely this has 
always been permitted to poesy. Cain is a proud man; if 
Lucifer promised him kingdom, &c., it would elate him : the 
object of the demon is to depress him still further in his own 
estimation than he was before, by showing him infinite 
things and his own abasement, till he falls into the frame 
of mind that leads to the catastrophe, from mere iniernal 



And pangs, and bitterness ; these were the fruits 
Of the forbidden tree. 

Cain. But animals — 

Did they, too, eat of it, that they must die ? [you, 

Lucifer. Your Maker told ye, they were made for 
As you for him. — You would not have their doom 
Superior to your own ? Had Adam not 
Fallen, all had stood. 

Cain. Alas! the hopeless wretches! 

They too must share my sire's fate, like his sons ; 
Like them, too, without having shared the apple ; 
Like them, too, without the so dear-bought knowledge ! 
It was a lying tree — for we know nothing. 
At least it promised knowledge at the price 
Of death — but knowledge still : but what knows man ? 

Lucifer. It may be death leads to the highest 
knowledge ; 
And being of all things the sole thing certain, 
At least leads to the surest science : therefore 
The tree was true, though deadly. 

Cain. These dim realms ! 

I see them, but I know them not. 

Lucifer. Because 

Thy hour is yet afar, and matter cannot 
Comprehend spirit wholly — but 'tis something 
To know there are such realms. 

Cain. We knew already 

That there was death. 

Lucifer. But not what was beyond it. 

Cain. Nor know I now. 

Lucifer. Thou knowest that there is 

A state, and many states beyond thine own — 
And this thou knewest not this morn. 

Cain. But all 

Seems dim and shadowy. 

Lucifer. Be content ; it will 
Seem clearer to thine immortality. ~— ^.„ 

Cain. And yon immeasurable liquid space 
Of glorious azure which floats on beyond us, 

irritation, not premeditation, or envy of Abel (which would 
have made him contemptible), but from rage and fury against 
the inadequacy of his state to his conceptions, and which dis- 
charges itself rather against life, and the Author of life, than 
the mere living. His subsequent remorse is the natural effect 
of looking on his sudden deed. Had the deed hQQn premed- 
itated, his repentance would have been tardier." 

2 " Hades is a place, in Lord Byron's description, very dif- 
ferent from all that we had anticipated. " He supposes that 
the world which we now inhabit had been preceded by many 
successive worlds, which had each, in turn, been created and 
ruined ; and the inhabitants of which he describes, on grounds 
suflUciently probable for poetry, as proportioned, in bodily and 
intellectual strength, to those gigantic specimens of animal 
existence whose remains still perplex the naturalist. But 
he not only places the pre-Adamite giants in Hades, but the 
ghosts of the Mammoth and Megatherion, their contempora- 
ries, and, above all, the phantoms of the worlds themselves 
which these beings inhabited, with their mountains, oceans, 
and forests, all gloomy and sad together, and (we suppose he 
means) in a state of eternal suffering. We really think that 
this belongs to that species of sublime which is considerably 
less than a single step removed from the ridiculous."— 
Heber. 



Scene II. 



CAIN. 



391 



Which looks like water, and which I should deem 
The river which flows out of Paradise 
Past my own dwelling, but that it is bankless 
And boundless, and of an ethereal hue — 
What is it ? 

LuciFEK. There is still some such on earth, 
Although inferior, and thy children shall 
Dwell near it — 'tis the phantasm of an ocean. 

Cain. 'Tis like another world ; a liquid sun — 
And those inordinate creatures sporting o'er 
Its shining surface ? 

Lucifer. Are its inhabitants, 

The past leviathans. 

Cain. And yon immense 

Serpent, which rears its dripping mane and vasty 
Head ten times higher than the haughtiest cedar 
Forth from the abyss, looking as he could coil 
Himself around the orbs we lately look'd on — 
Is he not of the kind which bask'd beneath 
The tree in Eden ? 

Ll'CIFER. Eve, thy mother, best 

Can tell what shape of serpent tempted her. 

Cain. This seems too terrible. No doubt the other 
Had more of beauty. 

LuciFEE. Hast thou ne'er beheld him ? 

Cain. Many of the same kind (at least so call'd), 
But never that precisely which persuaded 
The fatal fruit, nor even of the same aspect. 

Lucifer. Your father saw him not? 

Cain. No : 'twas my mother 

Who tempted him — she tempted by the serpent. 

Lucifer. Good man! whene'er thy wife, or thy 
sons' wives 
Tempt thee or them to aught that's new or strange. 
Be sure thou seest first who hath tempted them. ■ 

Cain. Thy precept comes too late : there is no more 
For serpents to tempt woman to. 

Lucifer. But there 

Are some things still which woman may tempt man 

to, 
And man tempt woman :— let thy sons look to it ! 
My counsel is a kind one ; for 'tis even 
Given chiefly at my own expense : 'tis true, 
'Twill not be follow'd, so there's little lost. 

Cain. I understand not this. 

Lucifer. The happier thou !— 

Thy world and thou are still too young! Thou 

thinkost 
Thyself most wicked and unhappy : is it 
Not 80 ? 

Cain. For crime, I know not; but for pain, 
I have felt much. 

Lucifer, First-born of the first man ! 

Thy present state of sin — and tliou art evil, 
Of sorrow — and thou sufFerost, are both Eden 
In all its innocence compared to what 
Thmi shortly mayst be ; and that state again 
In its redoubled wretchedness, a Paradise 
To what thy sons' sons' sons, accumulating 
In generations like to dust (which they 



In fact but add to), shall endure and do. — 
Now let us back to earth ! 

Cain. And wherefore didst thou 

Lead me here only to inform me this? 

Lucifer. Was not thy quest for knowledge ? 

Cain. Yes ; as being 

The road to happiness. 

Lucifer. If truth be so, 

Thou hast it. 

Cain, Then my father's God did well 

When he prohibited the fatal tree. 

Lucifer. But had done better in not planting it. 
But ignorance of evil doth not save 
From evil ; it must still roll on the same, 
A part of all things. 

Cain. Not of all things. No : 

I'll not believe it — for I thirst for good. 

Lucifer. And who and what doth not ! Who covets 
evil 
For its own bitter sake ? — None — nothing ! 'tis 
The leaven of all life, and lifelessness. 

Cain. Within those glorious orbs which we beheld. 
Distant, and dazzling, and innumerable, 
Ere we came down into this phantom realm, 
111 cannot come : they are too beautiful. 

Lucifer. Thou hast seen them from afar — 

Cain. And what of that ? 

Distance can but diminish glory — they. 
When nearer, must be more ineffable. 

Lucifer. Approach the things of earth most beau- 
tiful. 
And judge their beauty near. 

Cain. I have done this — 

The loveliest thing I know is loveliest nearest. 

Lucifer. Then there must be delusion.— What is 
that. 
Which being nearest to thine eyes is still 
More beautiful than beauteous things remote ? 

Cain. My sister Adah. — All the stars of heaven, 
The deep blue noon of night, lit by an orb 
Which looks a spirit, or a spirit's world — 
The hues of twilight — the sun's gorgeous coming — 
His setting indescribable, which fills 
My eyes with pleasant tears as I behold 
Him sink, and feel my heart float softly with him 
Along that western paradise of clouds — 
The forest shade — the green bough — the bird's voice — 
The vesper bird's, which seems to sing of love. 
And mingles with the song of cherubim, 
As the day closes over Eden's walls ;— 
All these are nothing, to my eyes and heart. 
Like Adah's face : I turn from earth and heaven 
To gaze on it. 

Lucifer. 'Tis fair as frail mortality. 
In the first dawn and bloom of young creation, 
And earliest embraces of earth's parents, 
Can make its offspring; still it is delusion. 

Cain. You think so, being not her brother. 

Lucifer. Mortal ! 

My brotherhood's with those who have no children. 



392 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Act II. 



Cain. Then thou canst hare no fellowship with us. 

Lucifer. It may be that thine own shall be for me. 
But if thou dost possess a beautiful 
Being beyond all beauty in thine eyes, 
Why art thou wretched ? 

Cain. Why do I exist? 

Why art thou wretched ? why are all things so ? 
Ev'n he who made us must be, as the maker 
Of things unhappy ! To produce destruction 
Can surely never be the task of joy, 
And yet my sire says he's omnipotent : 
Then why is evil — he being good ? I ask'd 
This question of my father ; and he said, 
Because this evil only was the path 
To good. Strange good, that must arise from out 
Its deadly opposite ! ^ I lately saw 
A lamb stung by a reptile : the poor suckling 
Lay foaming on the earth, beneath the vain 
And piteous bleating of its restless dam ; 
My father pluck'd some herbs, and laid them to 
The wound ; and by degrees the helpless wretch 
Eesumed its careless life, and rose to drain 
The mother's milk, who o'er it tremulous 
Stood licking its reviving limbs with joy. 
Behold, my son ! said Adam, how from evil 
Springs good ! 

Lucifer. What didst thou answer ? 

Cain. Nothing; for 

He is my father : but I thought, that 'twere 
A better portion for the animal 
Never to have been stung at all, than to 
Purchase renewal of its little life 
With agonies unutterable, though 
Dispell'd by antidotes. 

Lucifer. But as thou saidst 

Of all beloved things thou lovest her 
Who shared thy mother's milk, and giveth hers 
Unto thy children 

Cain. Most assuredly : 

What should I be without her ? 

Lucifer. What am I ? 

Cain. Dost thou love nothing? 

Lucifer. What does thy God love ? 

Cain. All things, my father says ; but I confess 
I see it not in their allotment here. [love 

Lucifer. And, therefore, thou canst not see if I 
Or no, except some vast and general purpose. 
To which particular things must melt like snows. 

Cain. Snows ! what are they ? 

Lucifer. Be happier in not knowing 

What thy remoter offspring must encounter ; 
But bask beneath the clime which knows no winter. 

Cain. But dost thou not love something like thy- 
self? 



" God Almighty ! 
There is some soul of goodness in things evil, 
"Would men observingly distill it out ; 
For our bad neighbors make us early stirrers, 
"Which is both healthful and good husbandry ; 



Lucifer. And dost thou love thyself f 

Cain. Yes, but love more 

What makes my feelings more endurable. 
And is more than myself, because I love it. 

Lucifer. Thou lovest it because 'tis beautiful, 
As was the apple in thy mother's eye ; 
And when it ceases to be so, thy love 
Will cease, like any other appetite. 

Cain. Cease to be beautiful ! how can that be ? 

Lucifer. With time. 

Cain. But time has pass'd, and hitherto 

Even Adam and my mother both are fair : 
Not fair like Adah and the seraphim — 
But very fair. 

Lucifer. All that must pass away 
In them and her. 

Cain. I'm sorry for it ; but 

Cannot conceive my love for her the less. 
And when her beauty disappears, methinks 
He who creates all beauty will lose more 
Than me in seeing perish such a work. 

Lucifer. I pity thee who lovest what must perish. 

Cain. And I thee who lov'st nothing. 

Lucifer. And thy brother- 

Sits he not near thy heart ? 

Cain. Why should he not ? 

Lucifer. Thy father loves him well — so does thy 
God. 

Cain. And so do I. 

Lucifer. 'Tis well and meekly done. 

Cain. Meekly! 

Lucifer. He is the second born of flesh, 

And is his mother's favorite. 

Cain. Let him keep 

Her favor, since the serpent was the first 
To win it. 

Lucifer. And his father's ? 

Cain. What is that 

To me ? should I not love that which all love ? 

Lucifer. And the Jehovah — the indulgent Lord, 
And bounteous planter of barr'd Paradise — 
He, too, looks smilingly on Abel. 

Cain. I 

Ne'er saw him, and I know not if he smiles. 

Lucifer. But you have seen his angels. 

Cain. 

Lucifer. 

Sufficiently to see they love your brother : 
His sacrifices are acceptable. 

Cain. So be they ! wherefore speak to me of this? 

Lucifer. Because thou hast thought of this ere now. 

Cain. And if 

I have thought, why recall a thought that- {he 

pauses, as agitated) — Spirit I 



Besides, they are our outward consciences, 
And preachers to us all ; admonishing, 
That we should dress us fairly for our end. 
Thus may we gather honey from the weed, 
And make a moral of the devil himself." — Shaks. 



Rarely. 
But 



Scene II. 



CAIN. 



393 



Here we are in thy world : speak not of mine. 

Thou hast shown me wonders : thou hast shown me 

those 
Mighty pre- Adamites who walk'd the earth 
Of which ours is the wreck : thou hast pointed out 
Myriads of starry worlds, of whicli our own 
Is the dim and remote companion, in 
Infinity of life : thou hast shown me shadows 
Of that existence with the dreaded name 
Which my sire brought us — Death ; ^ thou hast shown 

me much — 
But not all : show me where Jehovah dwells, 
In his especial Paradise, — or thine. 
Where is it ? 

Lucifer. Here, and o'er all space. 

Cain. But ye 

Have some allotted dwelling— as all things ; 
Clay has its earth, and other worlds their tenants ; 
All temporary breathing creatures their 
Peculiar element ; and things which have 
Long ceased to breathe our breath, have theirs, thou 

sayst ; 
And the Jehovah and thyself have thine — 
Ye do not dwell together ? 

Lucifer. No, we reign 

Together ; but our dwellings are asunder. 

Cain. Would there were only one of ye ! perchance 
An unity of purpose might make union 
In elements which seem now jarr'd in storms. 
How came ye, being spirits, wise and infinite, 
To separate ? Are ye not as brethren in 
Your essence, and your nature, and your glory ? 

Lucifer. Art thou not Abel's brother ? 

Cain. We are brethren, 

And so we shall remain ; but were it not so, 
Is spirit like to flesh ? can it fall out ? 
Infinity with Immortality ? 
Jarring and turning space to misery — 
For what? 

Lucifer. To reign. 

Cain. Did ye not tell me that 

Ye are both eternal ? 

Lucifer. Yea I 

Cain. And what I have seen, 

Yon blue immensity, is boundless ? 

Lucifer. Ay. 

Cain. And cannot ye both reign then ? — is there 
not 
Enough ? — why should ye difier ? 

1 " Which my sire shrinks from— Death,"— MS. 

2 In Lord Byron's Diary for January 28, 1821, we find the 
following entry:- 

" Tlwughtfor a Speech of Lucifer, in the Tragedy of Cain. 
Were Death an evil, would / let thee live? 
Fool ! live as I live— as thy father lives, 
And thy sons' sons shall live for evermore!" 
• " It would be to no purpose to suppose two such opposite 
principles. For, arlrnit that a b(;ing infinitely mischievous 
were infinitely cunning and infinitely powerful, yet it could 
do no evil, becau.se, the opposite principle of infinite good- 
ness being also infinitely wise and powerful, they would tie 



Lucifer. We both reign. 

Cain. But one of you makes evil. 

Lucifer. Which ? 

Cain. Thou! for 

If thou canst do man good, why dost thou not ? 

Lucifer. And why not he who made ? /made ye 
not; 
Ye are his creatures, and not mine. 

Cain. Then leave us 

His creatures, as thou sayst we are, or show me 
Thy dwelling, or his dwelling. 

Lucifer. I could show thee 

Both ; but the time will come thou shalt see one 
Of them for evermore.^ 

Cain. And why not now ? 

Lucifer. Thy human mind hath scarcely grasp to 
gather 
The little I have shown thee into calm 
And clear thought : and thou wouldst go on aspiring 
To the great double Mysteries ! the two Principles !^ 
And gaze upon them on their secret thrones ! 
Dust ! limit thy ambition ; for to see 
Either of these would be for thee to perish ! 

Cain. And let me perish, so I see them ! 

Lucifer. There 

The son of her who snatch'd the apple spake ! 
But thou wouldst only perish, and not see them ; 
That sight is for the other state. 

Cain. Of death? 

Lucifer. That is the prelude. 

Cain. Then I dread it less, 

Now that I know it leads to something definite. 

Lucifer. And now I will convey thee to thy world, 
Where thou shalt multiply the race of Adam, 
Eat, drink, toil, tremble, laugh, weep, sleep, and die. 

Cain. And to what end have I beheld these things 
Which thou hast shown me ? 

Lucifer. Didst thou not require 

Knowledge ? And have I not, in what I show'd, 
Taught thee to know thyself? 

Cain. Alas ! I seem 

Nothing. 

Lucifer. And this should be the human sum 
Of knowledge, to know mortal nature's nothingness ; 
Bequeath that science to thy children, and 
'Twill spare them many tortures. 

Cain. Haughty spirit ! 

Thou speak'st it proudly ; but thyself, though proud, 
Hast a superior. 

up one another's hands ; so that, upon this supposition, the 
notion of a deity would signify just nothing; and, by virtue 
of the eternal opposition and equality of these principles, 
they would keep one another at perpetual bay ; and, being 
an equal match for one another, instead of being two deities, 
they would be two idols, able to do neither good nor evil." — 
TiLLOTSON. "Moral evil is occasioned by free will, which 
implies choice between good and evil. With all the evil that 
there is, there is no man but would rather be a free agent 
than a mere machine without the evil ; and what is best for 
each individual must be best for the whole. If a man would 
rather be the machine, I cannot agree with him." — Johnson. 



394 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



Act III. 



LrrciFER. No ! by heaven, which he 

Holds, and the abyss, and the immensity 
Of worlds and life, which I hold with him— No ! 
I have a victor — true ; but no superior. 
Homage he has from all — but none from me : 
I battle it against him, as I battled 
In highest heaven. Through all eternity, 
And the unfathomable gulfs of Hades, 
And the interminable realms of space, 
And the infinity of endless ages, 
All, all, will I dispute ! And world by world, 
And star by star, and universe by universe. 
Shall tremble in the balance, till the great 
Conflict shall cease, if ever it shall cease. 
Which it ne'er shall, till he or I be quench'd ! 
And what can quench our immortality, 
Or mutual and irrevocable hate ? 
He as a conqueror will call the conquer' d 
Evil; but what will be the good he gives ? 
Were I the victor, his works would be deem'd 
The only evil ones. And you, ye new 
And scarce born mortals, what have been his 

gifts 
To you already, in your little world ? i 

Cain. But few ! and some of those but bitter. 

Lucifer. Back 

With me, then, to thine earth, and try the rest 
Of his celestial boons to you and yours. 
Evil and good are things in their own essence, 
And not made good or evil by the giver ; 
But if he gives you good — so call him ; if 
Evil springs from him, do not name it mine, 
Till ye know better its true fount ; and judge 
Not by words, though of spirits, but the fruits 
Of your existence, such as it must be. 
One good gift has the fatal apple given — 
Your reason : — let it not be over-sway'd 
By tyrannous threats to force you into faith 
'Gainst all external sense and inward feeling : 
Think and endure, — and form an inner world 
In your own bosom — where the outward fails ; 
So shall you nearer be the spiritual 
Nature, and war triumphant with your own.^ 

[They disappear. 



1 " Whatever we enjoy is purely a free gift from our Cre- 
ator ; but that we enjoy no more, can never sure be deemed 
an injury, or a just reason to question his infinite benev- 
olence. All our happiness is owing to his goodness ; but that 
it is no greater is owing only to ourselves ; that is, to our not 
having any inherent right to any happiness, or even to any 
existence at all."— Jenyns. 

2 " As to the question of the origin of evil. Lord Byron has 
neither thrown any new light upon it, nor darkened the 
previous knowledge which we possessed. It remains just 
where it was, in its mighty, unfathomed obscurity. His 
lordship may, it is true, have recapitulated some of the argu- 
ments with a more concise and cavalier air than the old 
schoolmen or fathers ; but the result is the same. There is 
no poetical road to metaphysics. In one view, however, 
which our rhapsodist has taken of the subject, we conceive 



ACT III. 



SCENE I. 



The Earth near Eden, as in Act I. 

Enter Cain and Adah. 

Adah. Hush ! tread softly, Cain. 

Cain. I will ; but wherefore ? 

Adah. Our little Enoch sleeps upon yon bed 
Of leaves, beneath the cypress. 

Cain. Cypress! 'tis 

A gloomy tree, which looks as if it mourn'd 
O'er what it shadows ; wherefore didst thou choose it 
For our child's canopy ? 

Adah. Because its branches 

Shut out the sun like night, and therefore seem'd 
Fitting to shadow slumber. 

Cain. Ay, the last— 

And longest ; but no matter — lead me to him. 

[They go up to the child. 
How lovely he appears . his little cheeks. 
In their pure incarnation, vying with 
The rose leaves strewn beneath them. 

Adah. And his lips, too, 

How beautifully parted ! No ; you shall not 
Kiss him, at least not now : he will awake soon. 
His hour of midday rest is nearly over ; 
But it were pity to disturb him till 
'Tis closed. 

Cain. You have said well ; I will contain 

My heart till then. He smiles, and sleeps ! — Sleep on, 
And smile, thou little, young inheritor 
Of a world scarce less young : sleep on, and smile ! 
Thine are the hours and days when both are cheering 
And innocent ! thou hast not pluck'd the fruit — 
Thou know'st not thou art naked ! Must the time 
Come thou shalt be amerced for sins unknown, 
Which were not thine nor mine ? But now sleep on ! 
His cheeks are reddening into deeper smiles. 
And shining lids are trembling o'er his long 
Lashes, dark as the cypress which waves o'er them ; 
Half open, from beneath them the clear blue 
Laughs out, although in slumber. He must dream — 



he has done well. He represents the temptations held out 
to Cain by Satan, as constantly succeeding and correspond- 
ing to some previous discontent and gloomy disposition in 
his own mind ; so that Lucifer is little more than the person- 
ified demon of his imaginatio ; and further, the acts of guilt 
and folly into which Cain is hurried are not treated as acci- 
dental, or as occasioned by passing causes, but as springing 
from an internal fury, a morbid state akin to frenzy, a mind 
dissatisfied with itself and all things, and haunted by an 
insatiable, stubborn longing after knowledge rather than 
happiness, and a fatal proneness to dwell on the evil side of 
things rather than the good. We here see the dreadful con- 
sequences of not curbing this disposition (which is after all, 
perhaps, the sin that most easily besets humanity) exempli- 
fied in a striking point of view ; and we so far think that the 
moral to be derived from a perusal of this Mystery is a val- 
uable one."— Jeffrey. 




Ilhnart L C< 



^ ID) ^ M, 



SCEXE I. 



CAIN. 



395 



Of what ? Of Paradise !— Ay ! dream of it, 
My disinherited boy ! 'Tis but a dream ; 
For never more thyself, thy sons, nor fathers, 
Shall walk in that forbidden place of joy ! ^ 

Adah. Dear Cain! Nay, do not whisper o'er our 
son 
Such melancholy yearnings o'er the past : 
Why wilt thou always mourn for Paradise ? 
Can we not make another ? 

Cain. Where ? 

Adah. Here, or 

Where'er thou wilt : where'er thou art, I feel not 
The want of this so much regretted Eden. 
Have I not thee, our boy, our sire, and brother, 
And Zillah — our sweet sister, and our Eve, 
To whom we owe so much besides our birth ? 

Cain. Yes — death, too, is amongst the debts we 
owe her. 

Adah. Cain ! that proud spirit, who withdrew thee 
hence. 
Hath sadden'd thine still deeper. I had hoped 
The promised wonders which thou hast behelH, 
Visions, thou sayst, of past and present worlds, 
Would have composed thy mind into the calm 
Of a contented knowledge ; but I see 
Thy guide hath done thee evil : still I thank him, 
And can forgive him all, that he so soon 
Hath given thee back to us. 

Cain. So soon ? 

Adah. 'Tis scarcely 

Two hours since ye departed : two long hours 
To me, but only hours upon the sun. 

Cain. And yet I have approach'd that sun, and seen 
Worlds which he once shone on, and never more 
Shall light; and worlds he never lit : methought 
Years had roU'd o'er my absence. 

Adah. Hardly hours. 

Cain. The mind then hath capacity of time, 
And mea.sures it by that which it beholds, 
Pleasing or painful ; little or almighty. 
I had beheld the immemorial works 
Of endless beings ; skirr'd extinguish'd worlds ; 
And, gazing on eternity, methought 
I had borrow'd more by a few drops of ages 
From its immensity ; but now I feel 
My littleness again. Well said the spirit, 
That I was nothing ! 

Adah. Wherefore said he so? 

Jehovah said not that. 

Cain. No : he contents him 

With making us the nothing which we are ; 
And after flattering dust with glimpses of 
Eden and Immortality, resolves 
It back to dust again — for what ? 

Adah. Thou know'st— 

Even for our parents' error. 



1 "The censorious may say what they will, but there are 
speeches in the mouth of Cain and Adah, especially regard- 
ing their child, which nothing in English poetry but the 



Cain. What is that 

To us ? they sinn'd, then let them die ! 

Adah. Thou hast not spoken well, nor is that 
thought 
Thy own, but of the spirit who was with thee. 
Would /could die for them, so they might live ! 

Cain. Why, so say I — provided that one victim 
Might satiate the insatiable of life. 
And that our little rosy sleeper there 
Miglit never taste of death nor human sorrow. 
Nor hand it down to those who spring from him. 

Adah. How know we that some such atonement 
one day 
May not redeem our race ? 

Cain. By sacrificing 

The harmless for the guilty ? what atonement 
Were there ? why, we are innocent : what have we 
Done, that we must be victims for a deed 
Before our birth, or need have victims to 
Atone for this mysterious, nameless sin — 
If it be such a sin to seek for knowledge ? 

Adah. Alas ! thou sinnest now, my Cain : thy words 
Sound impious in mine ears. 

Cain. Then leave me ! 

Adah. Never, 

Though thy God left thee. 

Cain. Say, what have we here ? 

Adah. Two altars, which our brother Abel made 
During thine absence, whereupon to offer 
A sacrifice to God on thy return. 

Cain. And how knew he, that / would be so ready 
With the burnt offerings, which he daily brings 
With a meek brow, whose base humility 
Shows more of fear than worship, as a bribe 
To the Creator ? 

Adah. Surely, 'tis well done. 

Cain. One altar may sufiice ; I have no offering. 

Adah. The fruits of the earth, the early, beautiful 
Blossom and bud, and bloom of flowers and fruits. 
These are a goodly offering to the Lord, 
Given with a gentle and a contrite spirit. 

Cain. I have toil'd, and till'd, and sweaten in the 
sun 
According to the curse : — must I do more ? 
For what should I be gentle ? for a war 
With all the elements ere they will yield 
The bread we eat ? For what must I be grateful ? 
For being dust, and grovelling in the dust, 
Till I return to dust ? If I am nothing— 
For nothing shall I be an hypocrite. 
And seem well pleased with pain ? For what should I 
Be contrite ? for my father's sin, already 
Expiate with what we all have undergone, 
And to be more than expiated by 
The ages prophesied, upon our seed. 
Little deems our young blooming sleeper, there, 



* wood-notes wild ' of Shakspeare ever equalled."— Sie Eoer< 
TON Brydges. 



396 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Act hi. 



The germs of an eternal misery 

To myriads is within him ! better 'twere 

I snatch'd him in his sleep, and dash'd him 'gainst 

The rocks, than let him live to 

Adah. Oh, my God ! 

Touch not the child — my child ! thy child ! Oh, Cain ! 

Cain. Fear not ! for all the stars, and all the power 
Which sways them, I would not accost yon infant 
With ruder greeting than a father's kiss. 

Adah. Then, why so awful in thy speech ? 

Cain. I said, 

'Twere better that he ceased to live, than give 
Life to so much of sorrow as he must 
Endure, and, harder still, bequeath ; but since 
That saying jars you, let us only say — 
'Twere better that he never had been born. 

Adah. Oh, do not say so ! Where were then the 
joys, 
The mother's joys of watching, nourishing. 
And loving him ? Soft ! he awakes. Sweet Enoch ! 

{She goes to the child. 
Oh, Cain ! look on him ; see how full of life. 
Of strength, of bloom, of beauty, and of joy. 
How like to me — how like to thee, when gentle, 
For then we are all alike ; is't not so, Cain ? 
Mother, and sire, and son, our features are 
Reflected in each other ; as they are 
In the clear waters, when they are gentle, and 
When thou art gentle. Love us, then, my Cain ! 
And love thyself for our sakes, for we love thee. 
Look ! how he laughs and stretches out his arms, 
And opens wide his blue eyes upon thine, 
To hail his father ; while his little form 
Flutters as wing'd with joy. Talk not of pain ! 
The childless cherubs well might envy thee 
The pleasures of a parent ! Bless him, Cain ! 
As yet he hath no words to thank thee, but 
His heart will, and thine own too.^ 

Cain. Bless thee, boy ! 

If that a mortal blessing may avail thee, 
To save thee from the serpent's curse I 

Adah. It shall. 

Surely a father's blessing may avert 
A reptile's subtlety. 

Cain. Of that I doubt ; 

But bless him ne'ertheless. 

Adah. Our brother comes. 

Cain. Thy brother Abel. 

Enter Abel. 
Abel. Welcome, Cain ! My brother ! 

The peace of God be on thee. 
Cain. Abel, hail ! 

Abel. Our sister tells me that thou hast been wan- 
dering. 



1 "The third act shows us Cain gloomily lamenting over 
the future fortunes of his infant son, and withstanding all 
the consolations and entreaties of Adah, who is anxious to 
soften him to the task of submission a^nd to a participation 



In high communion with a spirit, far 

Beyond our wonted range. Was he of those 

We have seen and spoken with, like to our father ? 

Cain. No. 

Abel. Why then commune with him ? he may be 
A foe to the Most High. 

Cain. And friend to man. 

Has the Most High been so — if so you term him ? 

Abel. Term him! your words are strange to-day, 
my brother. 
My sister Adah, leave us for awhile — 
We mean to sacrifice. 

Adah. Farewell, my Cain ; 

But first embrace thy son. May his soft spirit, 
And Abel's pious ministry, recall thee 
To peace and holiness ! 

\_Exit Adah, with her child. 

Abel. Where hast thou been ? 

Cain. I know not. 

Abel. Nor what thou hast seen ? 

Cain. The dead. 

The im0ortal, the unbounded, the omnipotent, 
The overpowering mysteries of space — 
The innumerable worlds that were and are — 
A whirlwind of such overwhelming things. 
Suns, moons, and earths, upon their loud-voiced 

spheres 
Singing in thunder round me, as have made me 
Unfit for mortal converse ; leave me, Abel. 

Abel. Thine eyes are flashing with unnatural 
light- 
Thy cheek is flush'd with an unnatural hue — 
Thy words are fraught with an unnatural sound — 
What may this mean ? 

Cain. It means. 1 pray thee, leave me. 

Abel. Not till we have pray'd and sacrificed to- 
gether. 

Cain. Abel, I pray thee, sacrifice alone — 
Jehovah loves thee well. 

Abel. Both well, I hope. 

Cain. But thee the better : I care not for that ; 
Thou art fitter for his worship than I am ; 
Revere him, then — but let it be alone — 
At least, without me. 

Abel. Brother, I should ill 

Deserve the name of our great father's son, 
If, as my elder, I revered thee not. 
And in the worship of our God call'd not 
On thee to join me, and precede me in 
Our priesthood — 'tis thy place. 

Cain. But I have ne'er 

Asserted it. 

Abel. The more my grief; I pray thee 
To do so now : thy soul seems laboring in 
Some strong delusion ; it will calm thee. 



in the sacrifice which his brother is about to offer. Here are 
some passages of no common beauty. That which strikes us 
most is where the parents are hanging over their sleeping 
boy.' 



Scene I. 



CAIN. 



397 



Cain. No ; 

Nothing can calm me more. Calm ! say I ? Never 
Knew I what cahn was in the soul, although 
I have seen the elements still'd. My Abel, leave me ! 
Or let me leave thee to thy pious purpose. 

Abel. Neither ; we must perform our task together. 
Spurn me not. 

Cain. If it must be so well, then, 

What shall I do? 

Abel. Choose one of those two altars. 

Cain. Choose for me : they to me are so much turf 
And stone. 

Abel. Choose thou ! 

Cain. I have chosen. 

Abel. 'Tis the highest, 

And suits thee, as the elder. Now prepare 
Thine offerings. 

Cain. Where are thine ? 

Abel. Behold them here — 

The firstlings of the flock, and fat thereof — 
A shepherd's humble offering. 

Cain. I have no flocks ; 

I am a tiller of the ground, and must 
Yield what it yieldeth to my toil — its fruit : 

\_IIe gathers fruits. 
Behold them in their various bloom and ripeness. 

{They dress their altars, and kindle a flame 
upon them. 

Abel. My brother, as the elder, offer first 
Thy prayer and thanksgiving with sacrifice. 

Cain. No — I am new to this ; lead thou the way, 
And I will follow— as I may. 

A.B'EL {kneeling). Oh, God! 

Who made us, and who breathed the breath of life 
Within our nostrils, who hath blessed us. 
And spared, despite our father's sin, to make 
His children all lost, as they might have been. 
Had not thy justice been so temper'd with 
The mercy which is thy delight, as to 
Accord a pardon like a Paradise, 
Compared with our great crimes : — Sole Lord of light, 
Of good, and glory, and eternity ! 
Without whom all were evil, and with whom 
Nothing can err, except to some good end 
Of thine omnipotent benevolence — 
Inscrutable, but still to be fulfill'd — 
Accept from out thy humble first of shepherds' 
First of the first-born flocks — an offering. 
In itself nothing — as what offering can be 
Auglit unto tliee? — but yet accept it for 
The thanksgiving of him who spreads it in 
The face of thy high heaven, bowing his own 
Even to the dust, of which he is, in honor 
Of thee, and of thy name, for evermore ! 

Cain {standing erect during this speech). Spirit! 
whatc'er or whosoe'er thou art. 
Omnipotent, it may be— and, if good, 
Shown in the exemption of tliy deeds from evil ; 
Jehovah upon earth ! and God in heaven 1 
And it may be with other names, because 



Thine attributes seem many, as thy works : — 

If thou must be propitiated with prayers, 

Take them ! If thou must be induced with altars. 

And soften'd with a sacrifice, receive them ! 

Two beings here erect them unto thee. [smokes 

If thou lov'st blood, the shepherd's shrine, which 

On my right hand, hath shed it for thy service 

In the first of his flock, whose limbs now reek 

In sanguinary incense to thy skies ; 

Or if the sweet and blooming fruits of earth. 

And milder seasons, which the unstain'd turf 

I spread them on now offers in the face 

Of the broad sun which ripen'd them, may seem 

Good to thee, inasmuch as they have not 

Suffer' d in limb or life, and rather form. 

A sample of thy works, than supplication 

To look on ours ! If a shrine without victim. 

And altar without gore, may win thy favor. 

Look on it ! and for him who dresseth it, 

He is — such as thou mad'st him ; and seeks nothing 

Which must be won by kneeling : if he's evil, ^ 

Strike him ! thou art omnipotent, and mayst — 

For what can he oppose ? If he be good. 

Strike him, or spare him, as thou wilt ! since all 

Rests upon thee ; and good and evil seem 

To have no power themselves, save in thy will ; 

And whether that be good or ill I know not, 

Not being omnipotent, nor fit to judge 

Omnipotence, but merely to endure 

Its mandate; which thus far I have endured. . ' 

{The fire upon the altar of Abel kindles into a 

column of the brightest flame, and ascends to 

heaven; while a whirlwind throws down tlie 

altar of Cain, and scatters the fruits abroad 

upon the earth. 
Abel {kneeling). Oh, brother, pray! Jehovah's 

wroth with thee. 
Cain. Why so? 

Abel. Thy fruits are scatter'd on the earili, 

Cain. From earth they came, to earth let them 

return ; 
Their seed will bear fresh fruit there ere the summer : 
Thy burnt flesh-off 'ring prospers better ; see 
How heav'n licks up the flames, when thick with 

blood! 
Abel. Think not upon my offering's acceptance, 
Cut make another of thine own before 
It is too late. 

Cain. I will build no more altars. 

Nor suffer any. — 
Abel {rising). Cain ! what meanest thou ? 
Cain. To cast down yon vile flatt'rer of the clouds, 
The smoky harbinger of tliy dull pray'rs— 
Thine altar, with its blood of lambs and kids. 
Which fed on milk, to be destroy 'd in blood. 
Abel {opposing him). Thou shalt not: — add not 

impious works to impious 
Words ! lot that altar stand— 'tis hallow'd now 
By the immortal pleasure of Jehovah 
In his acceptance of the victims. 



398 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Act III. 



Cain, His ! 

His pleasure ! what was his high pleasure in 
The fumes of scorching flesh and smoking blood, 
To the pain of the bleating mothers, wliich 
Still yearn for their dead offspring? or the pangs 
Of the sad ignorant victims underneath 
Thy pious knife ? Give way ! this bloody record 
Shall not stand in the sun, to shame creation ! 

Abel. Brother, give back ! thou shalt not touch my 
With violence : if that thou wilt adopt it, [altar 

To try another sacrifice, 'tis thine. 

Cain. Another sacrifice ! Give way, or else 
That sacrifice may be 

Abel. What mean'st thou ? 

Cain. Give- 

Give way ! — thy God loves blood !— then look to it : — 
Give way, ere he hath more ! 

Abel. In his great name, 

I stand between thee and the shrine which hath 
Had his acceptance. 

Cain. If thou lov'st thyself, 
Stand back till I have strew'd this turf along 
Its native soil :- — else 

Abel {opposing him). I love God far more 
Than life.i 

Cain {striking him with a brand, on the temples, 
which he snatches from the altar). Then take 
thy life unto thy God, 
Since he loves lives. 

Abel {falls). What hast thou done, my brother? 

Cain. Brother! 

Abel. Oh, God ! receive thy servant, and 

Forgive his slayer, for he knew not what 
He did — Cain, give me — give me thy hand ; and tell 
Poor Zillah 

Cain {after a moment's stupefaction). 3£y hand! 
'tis all red, and with — 
What? 

{^A long pause. — Looking slowly round. 
Where am I ? alone ! Where's Abel ? where 
Cain ? Can it be that I am he ? My brother, 
Awake ! — why liest thou so on the green earth ? 
'Tis not the hour of slumber ; — why so pale ? 

What, hast thou ! thou wert full of life this morn ! 

Abel ! I pray thee, mock me not ! I smote 
Too fiercely, but not fatally. Ah, why 

1 "It is evident that Lord Byron had studied his subject 
very deeply ; and, though he has varied a little from, or gone 
a little beyond, the letter of Scripture, which is very concise, 
yet he has apparently entered with great exactness into the 
minds of Cain and Abel in this most interesting scene ; and 
were it allowable to ascribe to the author of a dramatic work 
the principles or feelings of all or any of his characters, ex- 
cept as adopting them for his particular purpose, one would 
be at a loss to say whether Lord Byron ought most to be iden- 
tified with Cain or with Abel, — so appropriately has he main- 
tained the character of each," — Grant's Notes on Cain, p. 401. 

2 " As a whole, this scene is heavy and clumsily managed. 
It can hardly fail to strike the reader as a defect in poetry, 
no less than a departure from history, that the event which 
is the catastrophe of the drama is no otherwise than inci- 



Wouldst thou oppose me ? This is mockery ; 
And only done to daunt me : — 'twas a blow — 
And but a blow. Stir — stir — nay, only stir ! [me ! 
Why, so — that's well! — thou breath'st! breathe upon 
Oh, God! Oh, God! 

Abel {very faintly). What's he who speaks of God ? 

Cain. Thy murderer. 

Abel. Then may God forgive him ! Cain, 

Comfort poor Zillah : — she has but one brother 
Now. [Abel dies? 

Cain. And I none ! — Who makes me brotherless ? 
His eyes are open ! then he is not dead ! 
Death is like sleep ; and sleep shuts down our lids. 
His lips, too, are apart ; why then he breathes ! 
And yet I feel it not. — His heart ! — his heart ! 

Let me see, doth it beat ? methinks No ! — no ! 

This is a vision, else I am become 
The native of another and worse world. 
The earth swims round me : — what is this ? — 'tis wet ; 
[Puts his hand to his brow, and then looks at it. 
And yet there are no dews ! 'Tis blood— my blood — 
My brother's and my own ! and shed by me ! 
Then what have I further to do with life. 
Since I have taken life from my own flesh ? 
But he cannot be dead ! — Is silence death ? 
No ; he will wake : then let me Avatch by him. 
Life cannot be so slight, as to be quench'd 
Thus quickly ! — he hath spoken to me since — 
What shall I say to him ?— My brother ! — No : 
He will not answer to that name ; for brethren 
Smite not each other. Yet — yet— speak to me. 
Oh ! for a word more of that gentle voice, 
That I may bear to hear my own again ! 

Enter Zillah. 
Zillah. I heard a heavy sound ; what can it be ? 
'Tis Cain ; and watching by my husband. What 
Dost thou there, brother? Doth he sleep? Oh, 

heav'n ! 
What means this paleness, and yon stream ? — Noi, no ! 
It is not blood ; for who would shed his blood ? 
Abel I what's this ? — who hath done this ? He moves 

not; 
He breathes not : and his hands drop down from mine 
With stony lifelessness ! Ah ! cruel Cain ! 
Why cam'st thou not in time to save him from 



dentally, we may say accidentally, produced by those which 
precede it. Cain, whose whole character is represented in 
Scripture as envious and malicious rather than impious, — 
this Cain, as painted by Lord Byron, has no quarrel with his 
brother whatever, nor, except in a single word, does he inti- 
mate any jealousy of him. Two acts, and half the third, are 
passed without our advancing a single step towards the con- 
clusion ; and Abel at length falls by a random blow given in 
a struggle of which the object is not his destruction, but the 
overthrow of Jehovah's altar. If we could suppose a reader 
to sit down to the perusal of the drama in ignorance of its 
catastrophe, he could scarcely be less surprised by its term- 
ination in such a stroke of chance-medley, than if Abel had 
been made to drop down in an apoplexy, or Cain to die of 
grief over his body."— Heber. 



Scene I. 



CAIN. 



399 



This violence ? Whatever hath assail'd him, 
Thou wert the stronger, and shouldst have stepp'd in 
Between him and aggression ! Father ! — Eve I — 
Adah ! — come hither ! Death is in the world ! 

[Exit ZiLLAH, calling on her Parents, &c. 
Cain {solus). And who hath brought him there? — 
I — who abhor 
The name of Death so deeply, that the thought 
P'rapoison'd all my life, before I knew 
His aspect — I have led him here, and giv'n 
My brother to his cold and still embrace. 
As if he would not have asserted his 
Inexorable claim without my aid. 
I am awake at last — a dreary dream 
Had madden'd me ; — but he shall ne'er awake ! 

Enter Adam, Eve, Adah, and Zillah. 

Adam. A voice of woe from Zillah brings me here. — 
What do I see ? — 'Tis true !— My son ! — my son ! 
Woman, behold the serpent's work, and thine ! 

[To Eve. 

Eve. Oh ! speak not of it now : the serpent's fangs 
Are in my heart. My best beloved, Abel ! 
Jehovah ! this is punishment beyond 
A mother's sin, to take him from me ! 

Adam. Who, 

Or what hath done this deed ? — speak, Cain, since thou 
Wert present ; was it some more hostile angel, 
Who walks not with Jehovah ? or some wild 
Brute of the forest? 

Eve. Ah ! a livid light 
Breaks through, as from a thunder-cloud ! yon brand, 
^Massy and bloody ! snatch'd from off the altar. 
And black with smoke, and red with 

Adam. Speak, my son ! 

Speak, and assure us, wretched as we are. 
That we are not more miserable still. 

Adah. Speak, Cain ! and say it was not thou! 

Eve. It was. 

I see it now — he hangs his guilty head, 
And covers his ferocious eye with hands 
Incarnadine. 

Adah, Mother, thou dost him wrong — 

Cain ! clear thee from this horrible accusal. 
Which grief wrings from our parent. 

Eve. Hear, Jehovah ! 
May the eternal serpent's curse be on him ! 
For he was fitter for his seed than ours. 
May all his days be desolate. May 

Adah. Hold ! 

Curse him not, mother, for he is thy son — 
Ctirse him not, mother, for he is my brother, 
And my betroth'd. 

Eve. He hath left thee no brother — 

Zillah no husband — me no son ! for thus 

^ The three last lines were not in the original MS. In for- 
warding them to Mr. Murray, to be added to Eve's speech, 
Ix)rd Byron says — " There's as pretty a piece of imprecation 
for you, when joined to the lines already sent, as you may 
wish to meet with in the course of your business. But don't 



\ 



I curse him from my sight for evennore I 
All bonds I break between us, as he broke 

That of his nature, in yon Oh, death ! death ! 

Why didst thou not take me, who first incurr'd 

thee? 
Why dost thou not so now ? 

Adam. Eve ! let not this. 

Thy natural grief, lead to impiety ! 
A heavy doom was long forespoken to us ; 
And now that it begins, let it be borne 
In such sort as may show our God that we 
Are faithful servants to his holy will. 
. Eve {pointing to Cain). His will ! ! the will of yon 

incarnate spirit 
Of death, whom I have brought upon the earth 
To strew it with the dead. May all the curses 
Of life be on him ! and his agonies 
Drive him forth o'er the wilderness, like us ', 

From Eden, till his childrep do by him 
As he did by his brother ! i' May the swords 
And wings of fiery cherubim pursue him 
By day and night — snakes spring up in his path — 
Earth's fruits be ashes in his mouth — the leaves 
On which he lays his head to sleep be strew'd 
With scorpions ! I May his dreams be of his victim ! 
His waking a continual dread of death ! 
May the clear rivers turn to blood as he 
Stoops down to stain them with his raging lip ! 
May every element shun or change to him ! 
May he live in the pangs which others die with ! 
And death itself wax something worse than death 
To him who first acquainted him with man ! 
Hence, fratricide ! henceforth that word is Cain, 
Through all the coming myriads of mankind, , 

Who shall abhor thee, though thou wert their sire ! 
>i^May the grass wither from thy feet ! the woods "' 
I Deny thee shelter ! earth a home ! the dust >J- < 
t A grave ! the sun his light ! and heaven her God! ^ ^ 

[Exit Eve. 

Adam. Cain ! get thee forth : we dwell no more 
together. 

Depart ! and leave the dead to me 1 am 

Henceforth alone — we never must meet more. 

Adah. Oh, part not with him thus, my father : do 
not 
Add thy deep curse to Eve's upon his head ! 

Adam. I curse him not : his spirit be his curse. 
Come, Zillah ! 

Zillah. I must watch my husband's corse. 

Adam. We will return again, when he is gone 
Who hath provided for us this dread office.- 
Come, Zillah ! 

Zillah. Yet one kiss on yon pale clay. 

And tliose lips once so warm — my heart! my heart! 
[Exeunt Adam and Zillah, weeping. 



forget the addition of these three lines, which are clinchers 
to Eve's speech. Let me know what GiflTord thinks, for I 
have a good opinion of the piece, as poetry; it is in my gay 
metaphysical style, and in the Manfred line." 



400 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



Act III. 



Adah. Cain ! thou hast heard, we must go forth. I 
am ready, 
So shall our children be. I will bear Enoch, 
And you his sister. Ere the sun declines 
Let us depart, nor walk the wilderness 
Under the cloud of night. — Nay, speak to me, 
To me — thine own. 

Cain. Leave me ! 

Adah. Why, all have left thee. 

Cain. And wherefore lingerest thou? Dost thou 
not fear 
To dwell with one who hath done this ? 

Adah. I fear 

Nothing except to leave thee, much as I 
Shrink from the deed which leaves thee brotherless. 
I must not speak of this — it is between thee 
And the great God. 

A Voice from within exclaims, Cain ! Cain ! 

Adah. Hear'st thou that voice ? 

The Voice within. Cain! Cain! 

Adah. It soundeth like an angel's tone. 

Enter the Angel of the Lord. 

Ang-el. Where is thy brother Abel ? 

Cain. Am I then 

My brother's keeper ? 

Angel. Cain ! what hast thou done ? 

The voice of thy slain brother's blood cries out, 
Even from the ground, unto the Lord ! — Now art thou 
Cursed from the earth, which open'd late her mouth 
To drink thy brother's blood from thy rash hand. 
Henceforth, when thou shalt till the ground, it shall 

not 
Yield thee her strength : a fugitive shalt thou 
Be from this day, and vagabond on earth ! 

Adah. This punishment is more than he can bear. 
Behold, thou driv'st him from the face of earth, 
And from the face of God shall he be hid. 
A fugitive and vagabond on earth, 
'Twill come to pass, that whoso findeth him 
Shall slay him. 

Cain. Would they could ! but who are they 

Shall slay me? Where are these on the lone earth. 
As yet unpeopled ? 

Angel. Thou hast slain thy brother. 

And who shall warrant thee against thy son ? 

Adah. Angel of Light ! be merciful, nor say 
That this poor aching breast now nourishes 
A murderer in my boy, and of his father. 

Angel. Then he would but be what his father is. 
Did not the milk of Eve give nutriment 
To him thou now seest so besmear'd with blood ? 
The fratricide might well engender parricides. — 
But it shall not be so — the Lord thy God 
And mine commandeth me to set his seal 

1 The "four rivers" which flowed round Eden, and con- 
sequently the only waters with which Cain was acquainted 
upon earth. 

2 " The catastrophe is brought about with great dramatic 



On Cain, so that he may go forth in safety. 
Who slayeth Cain, a sevenfold vengeance shall 
Be taken on his head. Come hither ! 

Cain. What 

Wouldst thou with me ? 

Angel. To mark upon thy brow 

Exemption from such deeds as thou hast done. 

Cain. No, let me die ! 

Angel. It must not be. 

\_The Angel sets the mark on Cain's brow, 

Cain. It burns 

My brow, but nought to that which is within it. 
Is there more ? let me meet it as I may. 

Angel. Stern hast thou been and stubborn from 
the womb. 
As the ground thou must henceforth till ; but he 
Thou slew'st was gentle as the flocks he tended. 

Cain. After the fall too soon was I begotten ; 
Ere yet my mother's mind subsided from 
The serpent, and my sire still mourn'd for Eden. 
That which I am, I am ; I did not seek 
For life, nor did I make myself; but could I 
With my own death redeem him from the dust — 
And why not so ? let him return to day. 
And I lie ghastly ! so shall be restored 
By God the life to him he loved ; and taken 
From me a being I ne'er loved to bear. 

Angel. Who shall heal murder ? what is done ia 
done ; 
Go forth ! fulfill thy days ! and be thy deeds 
Unlike the last ! {The Angel disappears. 

Adah. He's gone, let us go forth ; 

I hear our little Enoch cry within 
Our bower. 

Cain. Ah ! little knows he what he weeps for ! 
And I who have shed blood cannot shed tears ! 
But the four rivers i would not cleanse my soul. 
Think'st thou my boy will bear to look on me ? 

Adah. If I thought that he would not, I would — 

Cain {interrupting her). No, 

No more of threats : we have had too many of them : 
Go to our children ; I will follow thee. 

Adah. I will not leave thee lonely with the dead ; 
Let us depart together.^ 

Cain. Oh ! thou dead 

And everlasting witness ! whose unsinking 
Blood darkens earth and heaven ! what thou now art 
I know not ! but if thou seest what I am, 
I think thou wilt forgive him, whom his God * 
Can ne'er forgive, nor his own soul. — Farewell ! 
I must not, dare not touch what I have made thee. 
I, who sprung from the same womb with thee, drain'd 
The same breast, clasp'd thee often to my own, 
In fondness brotherly and boyish, I 
Can never meet thee more, nor even dare 

skill and effect. The murderer is sorrowful and confounded, 
—his parents reprobate and renounce him, — his wife clings 
to him with eager and unhesitating affection ; and they wan- 
der forth together into the vast solitude of the universe."— 
Jeffrey. 



Scene I. 



CAIN. 



401 



To do that for thee, which thou shouldst have done 
For me — compose thy limbs into their grave — 
The first grave yet dug for mortality. 
But who hath dug that grave ? Oh, earth ! Oh, eaxth 1 
For all the fruits thou hast render'd to me, I 
Give thee back this. — Now for the wilderness. 

[Adah stoops down and kisses the body of 
Abel. 
Adah. A dreary, and an early doom, my brother, 
Has been thy lot ! Of all who mourn for thee, 
I alone must not weep. My office is 
Henceforth to dry up tears, and not to shed them : 
But yet, of all who mourn, none mourn like me. 
Not only for thyself, but him who slew thee. 
Now, Cain ! I will divide thy burden with thee. 



' The reader has seen what Sir "Walter Scott's general 
opinion of " Cain " was, in the letter appended to the dedi- 
cation, ante, p. 376. Mr. Moore's was conveyed to Lord Byron 
in these words : — 

" I have read Foscari and Cain. The former does not please 
me so highly as Sardanapalus. It has the fault of all those 
violent Venetian stories ; being unnatural and improbable, 
and therefore, in spite of all your fine management of them, 
appealing but remotely to one's sympathies. But Cain is 
wonderful — terrible — never to be forgotten. If I am not 
mistaken, it will sink deep into the world's heart ; and while 
many will shudder at its blasphemy, all must fall prostrate 
l)efore its grandeur. Talk of ^schylus and his Prometheus ! 
here is the true spirit both of the poet— and the devil." 

Lci-d Byron's answer to Mr. Moore on this occasion contains 
the substance of all that he ever thought fit to advance in 
defence of the assaulted points in his " Mystery :" — 

"With respect to religion," he says, "can I never convince 
you that / hold no such opinions as the characters in that 
drama, which seems to have frightened every body? My 
ideas of a character may run away with me: like all imagin- 
ative men, I, of course, embody myself with the character, 
while I draw it, but not a moment after the pen is from oflT 
the paper." 

He thus alludes to the effects of the critical tempest excited 
by " Cain," in the eleventh canto of " Don Juan :" — 

" In twice five years the ' greatest living poet,' 

Like to the champion in the fisty ring. 
Is call'd on to support his claim, or show it, 

Although 'tis an imaginary thing. 
Even I— albeit I'm sure I did not know it. 

Nor sought of foolscap subjects to be king- 
Was reckon'd, a considerable time, 
The grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme. 

" But Juan was my Moscow, and Faliero 
• My Leipsic, and my Mont Saint Jean seems Cain." 

We shall now present the reader with a few of the most 
f-laboratc sumraaric-s of the contemporary critics, — favorable 
and unfavorable, — beginning with the Edinburgh Review. 

Mr. Jeffrey says, — "Though 'Cain' abounds in beautiful 
passages, and shows more power, perhaps, than any of the 
author's dramatical compositions, we regret very much that 
it should ever have been published. . . . Lord Byron has no 
priestlike cant or priestlike reviling to apprehend from us. 
We do not charge him Avith boing either a disciple or an 
apostle of Lucifer; nor do we describe his poetry as a mere 
compound of blasphemy and obscurity. On the contrary, we 
arc inclined to believe that he wishes well tp the happiness of 
26 



Cain. Eastward from Eden will we take our way : 
'Tis the most desolate, and suits my steps. 

Adah. Lead ! thou shalt be my guide, and may 
our God 
Be thine ! Now let us carry forth our children. 

Cain. And he who lietli there was childless. I 
Have dried the fountain of a gentle race. 
Which might have graced his recent marriage 

couch. 
And might have temper'd this stern blood of mine, 
Uniting with our children Abel's offspring ! 
Oh, Abel ! 

Adah. Peace be with him ! 

Cain. But with me ! ^ 

\Extmii. 



mankind, and are glad to testify that his poems abound with 
sentiments of great dignity and tenderness, as well as pas- 
sages of infinite sublimity and beauty. . . . Philosophy and 
poetry are both very good things in their way ; but, in our 
opinion, they do not go very well together. It is but a poor 
and pedantic sort of poetry that seeks to embody nothing but 
metaphysical subtleties and absti'act deductions of reason — 
and a very suspicious philosophy that aims at establishing its 
doctrines by appeals to the passions and the fancy. Though 
such arguments, however, are worth little in the schools, it 
does not follow that their effect is inconsiderable in the world. 
On the contrary, it is the mischief of all poetical paradoxes, 
that, from the very limits and end of poetry, which deals only 
in obvious and glancing views, they are never brought to the 
fair test of argument. An allusion to a doubtful topic will 
often pass for a definitive conclusion on it ; and, clothed in 
beautiful language, may leave the most pernicious impres- 
sions behind. We therefore think that poets ought fairly to 
be confined to the established creed and morality of their 
country, or to the actual passions and sentiments of man- 
kind ; and that poetical dreamers and sophists who pretend 
to theorize according to their feverish fancies, without a war- 
rant from authority or reason, ought to be banished the 
commonwealth of letters. In the courts of morality, poets 
are unexceptionable witnesses ; they may give in the evidence, 
and depose to facts whether good or ill; but we demur to 
their arbitrary and self-pleasing summing up ; they are sus- 
pected ywcZg-es, and not very often safe advocates, where great 
questions are concerned, and universal principles brought to 



The Reviewer in the Quarterly was the late Bishop Heber. 
His article ends as follows : — 

"We do not think, indeed, that there is much vigor or 
poetical propriety in any of the characters of Lord Byron's 
Mystery. Eve, on one occasion, and one only, expresses 
herself with energy, and not even then with any great depth 
of that maternal feeling which the death of her favorite son 
was likely to excite in her. Adam moralizes without dignity. 
Abel is as dull as he is pious. Lucifer, though his first appear- 
ance is well conceived, is as sententious and sarcastic as a 
Scotch metaphysician ; and the gravamina which drive Cain 
into impiety are circumstances which could only produce a 
similar effect on a weak and sluggish mind, — the necessity of 
exertion and the fear of death ! Yet, in the happiest climate 
of earth, and amid the early vigor of nature, it would be 
absurd to describe (nor has Lord Byron so described it) the 
toil to which Cain can have been subject as excessive or bur- 
den.some. And he is made too happy in his love, too extrava- 
gantly fond of his wife and his child, to have much leisure for 
those gloomy thoughts which belong to disappointed ambi- 
tion and jaded licentiousness. Nor, though there are some 



402 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



passages in this drama of no common power, is the general 
tone of its poetry so excellent as to atone for these imperfec- 
tions of design. The dialogue is cold and constrained. The 
descriptions are like the shadows of a phantasmagoria, at once 
indistinct and artificial. Except Adah, there is no person in 
whose fortunes we are interested ; and we close the book with 
no distinct or clinging recollection of any single passage in it, 
• and with the general impression only that Lucifer has said 
much and done little, and that Cain has been unhappy with- 
out grounds and wicked without an object. But if, as a poem, 
Cain is little qualified to add to Lord Byron's reputation, we 
are unfortunately constrained to observe that its poetical 
defects are the very smallest of its demerits. It is not, indeed, 
as some both of its admirers and its enemies appear to have 
supposed, a direct attack on Scripture and on the authority 
of Moses. The expressions of Cain and Lucifer are not more 
offensive to the ears of piety than such discourses must neces- 
sarily be, or than Milton, without oflFeiice, has put into the 
mouths of beings similarly situated. And though the inten- 
tion is evident which has led the Atheists and Jacobins (the 
terms are convertible) of our metropolis to circulate the work 
in a cheap form among the populace, we are not ourselves 
of opinion that it possesses much power of active mischief, 
or that many persons will be very deeply or lastingly im- 
pressed by insinuations which lead to no practical result, and 
difficulties which so obviously transcend the range of human 
experience." 

It is not unamusing to compare the above with the follow- 
ing paragraph in one of the bishop's private letters at the 
time: — 

"I have been very busy since I came home in reviewing 
Lord Byron's dramatic poems. Of course, I have had occa- 
sion to find a reasonable quantity of fault, but I do not think 
that I have done him injustice. ' Pereant qui ante nos nostra 
dixerunt.' I should have liked to have taken up the same 
ground in a great degree with Jeffrey ; but as it will never do 
to build on another man's foundation, I have been obliged to 
break ground on a different side of the fortress, though not, I 
think, so favorable a one, and with the disadvantage of con- 
tending against a rival, who has conducted his attack with 
admirable taste and skill." 

The following extract is from Mr. Campbell's magazine :— 

"'Cain' is altogether of a higher order than 'Sardana- 
palus' and the 'Two Foscari.' Lord Byron has not, indeed, 
fulfilled our expectations of a gigantic picture of the first 
murderer ; for there is scarcely any passion, except the im- 
mediate agony of rage, which brings on the catastrophe ; and 
Cain himself is little more than the subject of supernatural 
agency. This piece is essentially nothing but a vehicle for 
striking allusions to the mighty abstractions of Death and 
Life, Eternity and Time ; for vast but dim descriptions of the 
regions of space, and for daring disputations on that great 
problem, the origin of evil. The groundwork of the argu- 
ments on the awful subjects handled is very commonplace ; 
but they are arrayed in great majesty of language, and con- 
ducted with a frightful audacity. The direct attacks on the 
goodness of God are not, perhaps, taken apart, bolder than 
some passages of Milton ; but they inspire quite a different 
sensation ; because, in thinking of Paradise Lost, we never 
regard the Deity, or Satan, as other than great adverse 
powers, created by the imagination of the poet. The per- 
sonal identity which Milton has given to his spiritual intelli- 
gences, — the local habitations which he has assigned them,— 
the material beauty with which he has invested their forms, 
—all these remove the idea of impurity from their discourses. 
But we know nothing of Lord Byron's Lucifer, except his 
speeches : he is invented only that he may utter them ; and 
the whole appears an abstract discussion, held for its own 
sake, not maintained in order to serve the dramatic consist- 
ency of the persons. He has made no attempt to imitate 



Milton's plastic power ;— that power by which our great poet 
has made his Heaven and Hell, and the very regions of space, 
sublime realities, palpable to the imagination, and has traced 
the lineaments of his angelic messengers with the precision 
of a sculptor. The Lucifer of 'Cain' is a mere bodiless 
abstraction, — the shadow of a dogma; and all the scenery 
over which he presides is dim, vague, and seen only in faint 
outline. There is, no doubt, a very uncommon power dis- 
played, even in this shadowing out of the ethereal journey of 
the spirit and his victim, and in the vast sketch of the world 
of phantasms at which they arrive: but they are utterly 
unlike the massive grandeurs of Milton's creation. We are 
far from imputing intentional impiety to Lord Byron for this 
Mystery ; nor, though its language occasionally shocks, do we 
apprehend any danger will arise from its perusal." 

So much for the professed Eeviewers. "We shall conclude 
with a passage from Sir Egerton Brydges's " Letters on the 
Character and Genius of Lord Byron :" — 

" One of the pieces which have had the effect of throwing 
the most unfavorable hues, not upon the brilliancy of Lord 
Byron's poetry, but upon its results to society, is ' Cain.' Yet, 
it must be confessed, that there is no inconsiderable portion 
of that poem which is second only to portions of similar 
import in Milton, — and many of them not second; in a style 
still sweeter and more eloquent, and with equal force, grand- 
eur, and purity of sentiment and conception ; such as the 
most rigidly-religious mind would have read, if it had come 
from Milton, or any other poet whose piety was not suspected, 
as the effusion of something approaching to holy inspiration. 

"Let us then task our candor, and inquire of ourselves, 
whether he who could write such passages could mean wrong? 
Let us recollect, that as the rebellious and blasphemous 
speeches he has put into the mouths of Lucifer and Cain 
are warranted by Milton's example, and the fact of Cain's 
transgression recorded in the Bible, the omission of the 
design and filling up a character who should answer all 
those speeches might be a mere defect in the poet's judg- 
ment. He might think that Lucifer's known character as 
an Evil Spirit precluded his arguments from the sanction of 
authority; and that Cain's punishment, and the denunci- 
ations which accompanied it, were a sufficient warning. I 
know not that any objection has been made to ' Heaven and 
Earth.' It has the same cast of excellence as the more perfect 
parts of ' Cain,' but, perhaps, not quite so intense in degree. 

" It seems as if Lord Byron persuaded himself, with regard 
to his own being, that he had always within him two contrary 
spirits of good and evil contending for the dominion over him, 
and thus reconciled those extraordinary flights of intellect- 
ual elevation and purity with a submission to the pride, the 
ferocity, the worldly passion, the worldly enjoyments, the 
corporeal pastimes, the familiar humor, the vulgarisms, the 
rough and coarse manliness, to which he alternately surren- 
dered himself, and which the good-natured public chose to 
consider as the sole attributes of his personal character. 
Much of his time, however, must have been spent in the 
musings by which these high poems, so compacted of the 
essence of thought, were produced; and, in all this large 
portion of his existence here, his imagination must have 
borne him up on its wings into ethereal regions, far above 
the gross and sensual enjoyments of this grovelling earth. 
Did he deal, as minor poets deal, in mere splendor of words, 
his poetry would be no proof of this ; but he never does so : — 
there is always a breathing soul beneath his words, 

' That o'er-informs the tenement of clay :' 

it is like the fragrant vapor that rises in incense from the 
earth through the morning dew ; and when we listen to his 
lyre, 

' Less than a god we think there cannot dwell 

Within the hollow of that shell, 

That sings so sweetly and so well !' 



CAIN. 



403 



" If Lord Pyron thought that, however loudly noisy voices 
might salute hira with a rude and indiscriminate clamor of 
applause, his poems were not received with the taste and 
judgment they merited, and that severe and cruel comments 
were attached to them by those who assumed to themselves 
authority, and who seldom allowed the genius without per- 
verting it into a cause of censure, that more than outweighed 
the praise ; those fumes of flattery which are imputed as the 
causes of a delirium that led him into extravagances, out- 
raging decorum and the respect due to the public, never, in 
fact, reached him. To confer 'faint praise' is 'to damn;' to 
confer praise in a wrong place is to insult and provoke. Lord 
Byron, therefore, had not, after all, the encouragement that is 
most favorable to ripen the richest fruit; and it was a firm 
and noble courage that still prompted him to persevere. 

" For this reason, as well as for others, I think his foreign 
residences were more propitious to the energies of his Muse 
than a continued abode in England would have been. The 
poison of the praises that were insidious did not reach him 
so soon ; and he was not beset by treacherous companions, 
mortifying gossip, and that petty intercourse with ordinary 
society which tames and lowers the tone of the mind. To 
mingle much with the world is to be infallibly degraded by 
familiarity ; not to mingle, at least, among the busy and the 
known, is to incur the disrespect to which insignificance is 
subjected. Lord Byron's foreign residence exempted him 
from these evils : he saw a few intimate friends, and he cor- 
responded with a few others; but such an intercourse does 
not expose to similar effects. The necessary knowledge and 



necessary hints may thus be conveyed; but not all the 
pestilent chills which general society is so oflicious to uu- 
veil. 

"If Lord Byron had not had a mind with a strong spring 
of virtue within it, I think that he would have thrown down 
his pen at some of the attacks he received, and given himself 
up to the sensual pleasures of his rank for the remainder of 
his life. The finer parts of his poems were of such spiritual 
splendor, and so pure, though passionate, an elevation, that 
they ought to have redeemed any parts which were open to 
doubt from a malevolent construction, and even have eclipsed 
and rendered unnoticeable many positive faults. Lord By- 
ron's style, like his thoughts, had every variety: it did not 
attempt (as is the common practice) to make poetry by the 
metaphorical and the figurative ; it followed his thoughts, 
and was a part of them : it did not fatigue itself to render 
clear by illustration or important by ornament, because the 
thought was clear or important in itself. 

"I remember, when I first read 'Cain,' I thought it, as a 
composition, the most enchanting and irresistible of all Lord 
Byron's works ; and I think so still. Some of the sentiments, 
taken detachedly, and left unanswered, are no doubt danger- 
ous, and therefore ought not to have been so left ; but the 
class of readers whom this poem is likely to interest are of so 
very elevated a cast, and the effect of the poetry is to refine, 
spiritualize, and illumine the imagination with such a sort of 
unearthly sublimity, that the mind of these, I am persuaded, 
will become too strong to incur any taint thus predicted, from 
the defect which has been so much insisted on." 



Witxntt; or, tJ)e Ini)etitance: 

A TEAGEDY.i 



TO 

THE ILLUSTE^IOUS GOETHE, 

BY ONE OF HIS HUMBLEST ADMIRERS, 
THIS TRAGEDY IS DEDICATED. 



PEEFACE. 

The following drama is taken entirely from the 
"German's Tale, Kruitzner,'' published many years 
ago in Lee's Canterbury Tales; written (I believe) 
by two sisters, of whom one furnished only this story 
and another, both of which are considered superior 
to the remainder of the collection .^ I have adopted 
the characters, plan, and even the language, of many 



1 The tragedy of " Werner " was begun at Pisa, December 
18, 1821, completed January 20, 1822, and published in Lon- 
don in the November following. The reviews of " Werner " 
were, without exception, unfavorable. One critique of the 
time thus opens : — 

" Who could be so absurd as to think, that a dramatist has 
nc Tight to make free with other people's fables ? On the con- 
trary, we are quite aware that that particular species of genius 
which is exhibited in the construction of plots, never at any 
period flourished in England. We all know that Shakspeare 
himself took his stories from Italian novels, Danish sagas, 
English Chronicles Plutarch's Lives — from anywhere rather 
than from his own invention. But did he take the whole of 
Hamlet, or Juliet, or Richard the Third, or Antony and Cleo- 
patra, from any of these foreign sources ? Did he not invent, in 
the noblest sense of the word, all the characters of his pieces ? 
Who dreams that any old Italian novelist, or ballad-maker, 
could have formed the imagination of such a creature as 
Juliet? Who dreams that the Hamlet of Shakspeare, the 
princely enthusiast, the melancholy philosopher, that spirit 
refined even to pain, that most incomprehensible and unap- 
proachable of all the creations of human genius, is the same 
being, in any thing but the name, with the rough, strong- 
hearted, bloody-handed Amlett of the north? Who is there 
that supposes Goethe to have taken the character of his Faust 
from the nursery rhymes and penny pamphlets about the 
devil and Doctor Faustus? Or who, to come nearer home, 
imagines that Lord Byron himself found his Sardanapalus 
in Dionysius of Halicarnassus ? 

"But here Lord Byron has invented nothing — absolutely 

NOTHING. There is not one incident in his play, not even 

the most trivial, that is not to be found in Miss Lee's novel, 

occurring exactly in the same manner, brought about by 

(404) 



parts of this story. Some of the characters are modi- 
fied or altered, a few of the names changed, and one 
character, Ida of Stralenheim, added by myself: but 
in the rest the original is chiefly followed. When I 
was young (about fourteen, I think), I first read this 
tale, which made a deep impression upon me; and 
may, indeed, be said to contain the germ of much 
that I have since written. I am not sure that it ever 
was very popular ; or, at any rate, its popularity has 



exactly the same agents, and producing exactly the same 
eflfects on the plot. And then as to the characters— not only 
is every one of them to be found in ' Kruitzner,' but every 
one is to be found there more fully and powerfully developed. 
Indeed, but for the preparations which we had received from 
our old familiarity with Miss Lee's own admirable work, we 
rather incline to think that we should have been unable to 
comprehend the gist of her noble imitator, or rather copier, 
in several of what seem to be meant for his most elaborate 
delineations. The fact is, that this undeviating closeness, 
this humble fidelity of imitation, is a thing so perfectly new 
in any thing worthy the name of literature, that we are sure 
no one who has not read the Canterbury Tales will be able 
to form the least conception of what it amounts to. 

" Those who have never read Miss Lee's book, will, h®w- 
ever, be pleased with this production ; for, in truth, the story 
is one of the most powerfully conceived, one of the most 
picturesque, and at the same time instructive stories, that 
we are acquainted with. 

" ' Kruitzner, or the German's Tale,' possesses mystery, and 
yet clearness, as to its structure ; strength of characters, and 
admirable contrast of characters; and, above all, the most 
lively interest, blended with and subservient to the most 
affecting of moral lessons." 

The reader will find a minute analysis, introduced by the 
above remarks, in Blackwood, vol. xii. p. 710. 

2 This is not correct. "The Young Lady's Tale, or the 
Two Emilies," and "The Clergyman's Tale, or Pembroke," 
were contributed by Sophia Lee, the author of " The Recess," 
the comedy of " The Chapter of Accidents," and " Almedya, 
a Tragedy," who died in 1824. The "German's Tale," and 
all the others in the Canterbury Collection, were written by 
Harriet, the younger of the sisters. 



Scene I. 



WERNER. 



406 



since been eclipsed by that of other great writers in 
the same department. But I have generally found 
that those who had read it, agreed with me in their 
estimate of the singular power of mind and concep- 
tion which it develops. I should also add conception, 
rather than execution ; for the story might, perhaps, 
have been developed with greater advantage. Amongst 
those whose opinions agreed with mine upon this story, 
I could mention some very high names : but it is not 
necessary, nor indeed of any use ; for every one must 
judge according to his own feelings. I merely refer 
the reader to the original story, that he may see to 
what extent I have borrowed from it; and am not 
unwilling that he should find much greater pleasure 
in perusing it than the drama which is founded upon 
its contents. 

I had begun a drama upon this tale so far back as 
1815 (the first I ever attempted, except one at thir- 
teen years old, called " Ulric and Ilvina" which I 
had sense enough to burn), and had nearly completed 
an act, when I was interrupted by circumstances. 
This is somewhere amongst my papers in England ; 
but as it has not been found, I have rewritten the 
first, and added the subsequent acts. 

The whole is neither intended, nor in any shape 
adapted, for the stage.^ 
Pisa, February, 1822. 



DRAMATIS PERSON.^. 



Men. 



-Werner. 
Ulric. 

Stralenheim. 
Idenstein. 
Gabor. 
Fritz. 
Henrick. 
Eric. 
Arnheim. 
Meister. 

RODOLPH. 
LUDWIG. 



TTom^Ti.— Josephine. 

Ida Stralenheim. 



Scene.— Partly on the Frontier of Silesia, and partly 
in Siegendorf Castle, near Prague. 

Time.— The Close of the Thirty Years' War. 



1 Werner la, however, the only one of T^rd Byron's dramas 
that proved successful in representation. It is still (1836) in 
possession of the stage. 

» "Werner— we mean Kruitzner— is admirably drawn. 
Who does not recognize in him the portrait of too com- 
mon a character? The man of shining talent, ardent mind, 



WIB.ttntt* 



ACT I. 

SCENE I. 

The Hall of a decayed Palace near a small Town on 
the Northern Frontier of Silesia — the Night tem- 
pestuous. 

Werner 2 and Josephine his wife. 

Jos. My love, be calmer ! 

Wer. I am calm. 

Jos. To me— 

Yes, but not to thyself: thy pace is hurried. 
And no one walks a chamber like to ours 
With steps like thine when his heart is at rest. 
Were it a garden, I should deem thee happy. 
And stepping with the bee from flower to flower ; 
But here ! 

Wer. 'Tis chill ; the tapestry lets through 
The wind to which it waves : my blood is frozen. 

Jos. Ah, no ! 

Wer. {smiling). Why ! wouldst thou have it so? 

Jos. I would 

Have it a healthful current. 

Wer. Let it flow 

Until 'tis spilt or check'd — how soon, I care not. 

Jos. And am I nothing in thy heart ? 

Wer. All— all. 

Jos. Then canst thou wish for that which must 
break mine ? 

Wer. {approaching her slowly). But for thee I had 
been — no matter what, 
But much of good and evil ; what I am. 
Thou knowest ; what I might or should have been, 
Thou knowest not ; but still I love thee, nor 
Shall aught divide us. 

[Werner walks on abruptly, and then approaches 
Josephine. 

The storm of the night 
Perhaps affects me ; I am a thing of feelings, 
And have of late been sickly, as, alas ! 
Thou know'st by sufferings more than mine, my love ! 
In watching me. 

Jos. To see thee well is much— 
To see thee happy 

Wer. Where hast thou seen such ? 

Let me be wretched with the rest ! 

Jos. But think 

How many in this hour of tempest shiver 

powerful connections, brilliant prospects, who, after squan- 
dering away all in wanton .self-indulgence, having lived only 
for himself, finds himself bankrupt in fortune and character, 
the prey of bitter regret, yet unrepentant, as selfish in re- 
morse as in his gayety. All that is incon.sistent in the char- 
acter of Kruitzner is rendered still more so in the Werner of 
the drama."— jE!e/. R&v. 



406 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Act I. 



] 



Beneath the biting wind and heavy rain, 
Whose every drop bows them down nearer earth, 
Which hath no chamber for them save beneath 
Her surface. 

Wee. And that's not the worst : who cares 

For chambers ? rest is all. The wretches whom 
Thou namest — ay, the wind howls round them, and 
The dull and dropping rain saps in their bones 
The creeping marrow. I have been a soldier, 
A hunter, and a traveller, and am 
A beggar, and should know the thing thou talk'st of. 

Jos. And art thou not now shelter'd from them all ? 

Web,. Yes. And from these alone. 

Jos. And that is something. 

Wer. True — to a peasant. 

Jos. Should the nobly born 

Be thankless for that refuge which their habits 
Of early delicacy render more 
Needful than to the peasant, when the ebb 
Of fortune leaves them on the shoals of life ? 

Wer. It is not that, thou know'st it is not : we 
Have borne all this, I'll not say patiently, 
Except in thee — but we have borne it. 

Jos. Well? 

Wer. Something beyond our outward suflferings 
(though 
These were enough to gnaw into our souls) 
Hath stung me oft, and, more than ever, noto, 
When, but for this untoward sickness, which 
Seized me upon this desolate frontier, and ^ 
Hath wasted, not alone my strength, but means, 
And leaves us — no ! this is beyond me ! — but 
For this I had been happy " — thou been happy — 
The splendor of my rank sustain'd — my name — 
My father's name — been still upheld ; and, more 
Than those 

Jos. (abruptly). My son — our son — our Ulric, 
Been clasp'd again in these long-empty arms. 
And all a mother's hunger satisfied. 
Twelve years ! he was but eight then : — beautiful 
He was, and beautiful he must be now, 
My Ulric ! my adored ! 

Wer. I have been full oft 

The chase of Fortune : now she hath o'ertaken 



1 " In this play, Lord Byron adopts the same nerveless and 
pointless kind of blank verse, which was a sorrow to every 
body in his former dramatic essays. It is, indeed, ' most un- 
musical, most melancholy.' — ' Ofs,' ' tos,' ' ands,' ' fors,' ' bys,» 
* buts,' and the like, are the most common conclusions of a 
line ; there is no ease, no flow, no harmony, ' in linked sweet- 
ness long drawn out :' neither is there any thing of abrupt 
fiery vigor to compensate for these defects." — Blackwood. 

2 " In this drama there is absolutely no poetry to be found ; 
and if the measure of verse which is here dealt to us be a 
sample of what we are to expect for the future, we have only 
to entreat that Lord Byron will drop the ceremony of cutting 
up his prose into lines of ten, eleven, or twelve syllables (for 
he is not very punctilious on this head), and favor us with it 
in its natural state. It requires no very cunning alchemy 
to transmute his verse into prose, nor, reversing the ex- 
periment, to convert his plain sentences into verses like his 



My spirit where it cannot turn at bay, — 
Sick, poor, and lonely. 

Jos. Lonely ! my dear husband ? 

Wer. Or worse — involving all I love, in this 
Far worse than solitude. Alone, I had died, 
And all been over in a nameless grave. 

Jos. And I had not outlived thee ; but pray take 
Comfort ! We have struggled long ; and they who strive 
With Fortune win or weary her at last. 
So that they find the goal, or cease to feel 
Further. Take comfort, — we shall find our boy. 

Wer. We were in sight of him, of everything 
Which could bring compensation for past sorrow — 
And to be baffled thus ! 

Jos. We are not baffled. 

Wer. Are we not penniless ? 

Jos. We ne'er were wealthy. 

Wer. But I was born to wealth, and rank, and 
power ; 
Enjoy'd them, loved them, and, alas ! abused them, 
And forfeited them by my father's wrath. 
In my o'er-fervent youth ; but for the abuse 
Long sufferings have atoned. My father's death 
Left the path open, yet not without snares. 
This cold and creeping kinsman, who so long 
Kept his eye on me, as the snake upon 
The fluttering bird, hath ere this time outstept me, 
Become the master of my rights, and lord 
Of that which lifts him up to princes in , 

Dominion and domain. .>-*— ^ 

Jos. Who knows ? our son 

May have return'd back to his grandsire, and 
Even now uphold thy rights for thee ? 

Wer. 'Tis hopeless. 

Since his strange disappearance from my father's 
Entailing, as it were, my sins upon 
Himself, no tidings have reveal'd his course. 
I parted with him to his grandsire, on 
The promise that his anger would stop short 
Of the third generation ; but Heaven seems 
To claim her stern prerogative, and visit 
Upon my boy his father's faults and follies. 

Jos. I must hope better still, — at least we have yet 
Baffled the long pursuit of Stralenheim. 



own. — 'When,' says "Werner, 'but for this untoward sick- 
ness, which seized me upon this desolate frontier, and hath 
wasted, not alone my strength, but means, and leaves us — 
no ! this is beyond me ! but for this I had been happy.' — 
This is, indeed, beyond us. If this be poetry, then we were 
wrong in taking his lordship's preface for prose. It will run 
on ten feet as well as the rest. 

' Some of the characters are modified 
Or altered, a few of the names changed, and 
One character, Ida of Stralenheim, 
Added by myself; but in the rest the 
Original is chiefly followed. When 
I was young (about fourteen, I think) I 
First read this tale, which made a deep impression 
Upon me,' — 
Nor is there a line in these so lame and halting, but we could 
point out many in the drama as bad."— Campbell. 



Scene I. 



WEENEE. 



407 



Wer. We should have done, but for this fatal sick- 
ness; 
More fatal than a mortal malady, 
Because it takes not life, but life's sole solace ; 
Even now I feel my spirit girt about 
By the snares of this avaricious fiend ; — 
How do I know he hath not track'd us here? 

Jos. He does not know thy person ; and his spies, 
"Who so long watch 'd thee, have been left at Ham- 
burgh. 
Our unexpected journey, and this change 
Of name, leaves all discovery far behind : 
None hold us here for aught save what we seem. 

Wer. Save what we seem ! save what we are — 
sick beggars. 
Even to our very hopes. — Ha ! ha ! 

Jos. Alas ! 

That bitter laugh ! 

Wer, Who would read in this form 

The high soul of the son of a long line ? 
Who, in this garb, the heir of princely lands ? 
Who, in this sunken, sickly eye, the pride 
Of rank and ancestry ? In this worn cheek 
And famine-hollow'd brow, the ford of halls 
Which daily feast a thousand vassals ? 

Jos. You 

Ponder'd not thus upon these worldly things, 
>Iy Werner! when you deign'd to choose for bride 
The foreign daughter of a wandering exile. 

Wer. An exile's daughter with an outcast son 
Were a fit marriage ; but I still had hopes 
To lift thee to the state we both were born for. 
Your father's house was noble, though decay'd ; 
And worthy by its birth to match with ours. 

Jos. Your father did not think so, though 'twas 
noble ; 
But had my birth been all my claim to match 
With thee, I should have deem'd it what it is. 

Wer. And what is that in thine eyes ? 

Jos. All which it 

Has done in our behalf, — nothing. 

Wer. How,— nothing ? 

Jos. Or worse ; for it has been a canker in 
Thy heart from the beginning : but for this, 
V'e had not felt our poverty but as 
Millions of myriads feel it, cheerfully ; 
But for these phantoms of thy feudal fathers. 
Thou mightst have earn'd thy bread, as thousands 

earn it ; 
Or, if that seem too humble, tried by commerce, 
Or other civic means, to amend thy fortunes. 

Wer. (ironically). And been an Hanseatic burgher? 
Excellent! 

Jos. Whate'er thou mightet have been, to me thou 
What no state hir^'h or low can ever change, [art 

My heart's first choice; — which chose thee, knowing 
neither 



1 "The most amusing fellow in the drama is Monsieur 
Idenstein ; who makes the finest speech, too, beyond com- 



Thy birth, thy hopes, thy pride; nought, save thy 

sorrows : 
While they last, let me comfort or divide them : 
When they end, let mine end with them, or thee ! 

Wer. My better angel ! such I have ever found thee ; 
This rashness, or this weakness of my temper, 
Ne'er raised a thought to injure thee or thine. 
Thou didst not mar my fortunes : my own nature 
In youth was such as to unmake an empire, 
Had such been my inheritance ; but now, 
Chasten'd, subdued, outworn, and taught to know 
Myself— to lose this for our son and thee ! 
Trust me, when, in my two-and-twentieth spring, 
My father barr'd me from my fathers' house, 
The last sole scion of a thousand sires 
(For I was then the last), it hurt me less 
Than to behold my boy and my boy's mother 
Excluded in their innocence from what 
My faults deserved — exclusion ; although then 
My passions were all living serpents, and 
Twined like the Gorgon's round me. 

\^A loud knocking is heard. 

Jos. Hark ! 

Wer. a knocking! 

Jos. Who can it be at this lone hour ? We have 
Few visitors. 

Wer. And poverty hath none. 

Save those who come to make it poorer still. 
Well, I am prepared. 

[Werner puts his hand into his bosom, as if to 
search for some weapon. 

Jos. Oh 1 do not look so. I 

Will to the door. It cannot be of import 
In this lone spot of wintry desolation : — 
The very desert saves man from mankind. 

[She goei to the door. 

Enter Idenstein.^ 

Iden. a fair good evening to my fairer hostess 
And worthy What's your name, my friend ? 

Wer. Are you 

Not afraid to demand it? 

Iden. Not afraid ? 

Egad ! I am afraid. You look as if 
I ask'd for something better than your name, 
By the face you put on it. 

Wer. Better, sir ! 

Iden. Better or worse, like matrimony : what 
Shall I say more ? You have been a guest this month 
Here in the prince's palace— (to be sure. 
His highness had resign'd it to the ghosts 
And rats these twelve years — but 'tis still a palace) — 
I say you have been our lodger, and as yet 
We do not know your name. 

Wer. My name is Werner. 

Iden. A goodly name, a very worthy name. 
As e'er was gilt upon a trader's board : 



parison, of any of the personages, 
where he got it." — JEcl. Rev. 



The only wonder is, 



408 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Act I. 



I have a cousin in the lazaretto 
Of Hamburgh, who has got a wife who bore 
The same. He is an officer of trust, 
Surgeon's assistant (hoping to be surgeon). 
And has done miracles i' the way of business. 
Perhaps you are related to my relative. 

Wer. To yours ? 

Jos. Oh, yes ; we are, but distantly. 

[Aside to Weener. 
Cannot you humor the dull gossip till 
We learn his purpose ? 

IDEN. Well, I'm glad of that ; 

I thought so all along, such natural yearnings 
Play'd round my heart : — blood is not water, cousin ; 
And so let's have some wine, and drink unto 
Our better acquaintance : relatives should be 
Friends. 

Wer. You appear to have drunk enough already ; 
And if you had not, I've no wine to offer, 
Else it were yours : but this you know, or should know : 
You see I am poor, and sick, and will not see 
That I would be alone ; but to your business ! 
What brings you here ? 

Iden. Why, what should bring me here ? 

Wer. I know not, though I think that I could guess 
That which will send you hence. 

Jos. {aside). Patience, dear Werner ! 

Iden. You don't know what has happen'd, then ? 

Jos. How should we ? 

Iden. The river has o'erflow'd. 

Jos. Alas ! we have known 

That to our sorrow for these five days ; since 
It keeps us here. 

Iden. But what you don't know is, 

That a great personage, who fain would cross 
Against the stream and three postilions' wishes, 
Is drown' d below the ford, with five post-horses, 
A monkey, and a mastiff, and a valet. 

Jos. Poor creatures ! are you sure ? 

Iden. Yes, of the monkey, 

And the valet, and the cattle ; but as yet 
We know not if his excellency's dead 
Or no ; your noblemen are hard to drown, 
As it is fit that men in office should be ; 
But what is certain is, that he has swallow'd 
Enough of the Oder to have burst two peasants ; 
And now a Saxon and Hungarian traveller, 
Who, at their proper peril, snatch'd him from 
The whirling river, have sent on to crave 
A lodging, or a grave, according as 
It may turn out with the live or dead body. 

Jos. And where will you receive him ? here, I hope. 
If we can be of service — say the word. 

Iden. Here ? no ; but in the prince's own apartment, 
As fits a noble guest : — 'tis damp, no doubt. 



1 " Gabor is a most inexplicable personage : he is always on 
the point of turning out something more than he proves to 
be. A sort of mysterious horror is thrown round his im- 
palpability, in the tale; but, in the drama, he is only a 



Not having been inhabited these twelve years : 
But then he comes from a much damper place, 
So scarcely will catch cold in't, if he be 
Still liable to cold — and if not, why 
He'll be worse lodged to-morrow : ne'ertheless, 
I have order'd fire and all appliances 
To be got ready for the worst — that is, 
In case he should survive. 

Jos. Poor gentleman ! 

I hope he will, with all my heart. 

Wer. Intendant, 

Have you not learn'd his name ? My Josephine, 

[Aside to his wife. 
Eetire : I'll sift this fool. [Uxit Josephine. 

Iden. His name ? oh Lord ! 

Who knows if he hath now a name or no ? 
'Tis time enough to ask it when he's able 
To give an answer ; or if not, to put 
His heir's upon his epitaph. Methought 
Just now you chid me for demanding names ? 

Wer. True, true, I did so ; you say well and wisely. 

Enter Gabor.^ 

Gab. If I intrude,* I crave 

Iden. Oh, no intrusion . 

This is the palace ; this a stranger like 
Yourself; I pray you make yourself at home : 
But Where's his excellency ? and how fares he ? 

Gab. Wetly and wearily, but out of peril : 
He paused to change his garments in a cottage 
(Where I doff'd mine for these, and came on hither), 
And has almost recover'd from his drenching. 
He will be here anon. 

Iden. What ho, there ! bustle ! 

Without there, Herman, Weilburg, Peter, Conrad ! 

[Gives directions to different servants who enter. 
A nobleman sleeps here to-night — see that 
All is in order in the damask chamber — 
Keep up the stove — I will myself to the cellar— 
And Madame Idenstein (my consort, stranger) 
Shall furnish forth the bed apparel ; for. 
To say the truth, they are marvellous scant of this ] 
Within the palace precincts, since his highness 
Left it some dozen years ago. And then 
His excellency will sup, doubtless ? 

Gab. Faith ! 

I cannot tell ; but I should think the pillow 
Would please him better than the table after 
His soaking in your river : but for fear 
Your viands should be thrown away, I mean 
To sup myself, and have a friend without 
Who will do honor to your good cheer with 
A traveller's appetite. 

Iden. But are you sure '-v.,,,^^^ 

His excellency But his name : what is it ? 



sentimental, moody, high-mettled soldier of fortune, whose 
appearances and disappearances are alike singularly inop' 
portune, and who ends in a mere mercenary. His character 
is, we think, decidedly a failure."— ^ci. Jtev. 






Scene I. 



AVERNER. 



409 



Gab. I do not know. 

Iden. And yet you saved his life. 

Gab. I help'd my friend to do so. 

Iden. Well, that's strange, 

To save a man's life whom you do not know. 

Gab. Not so ; for there are some I know so well, 
I scarce should give myself the trouble. 

Iden. Pray, 

Good friend, and who may you be ? 

Gab. By my family, 

Hungarian. 

Iden. Which is call'd ? 

Gab. It matters little. 

Iden. (aside). I think that all the world are grown 
anonymous, 
Since no one cares to tell me what he's call'd ! 
Pray, has his excellency a large suite ? 

Gab. Sufficient. 

Iden. How many ? 

Gab. I did not count them. 

We came up by mere accident, and just 
la time to drag him through his carriage window. 

Iden. Well, what would I give to save a great man ! 
No doubt you'll have a swingeing sum as recompense. 

Gab. Perhaps. 

Iden. Now, how much do you reckon on ? 

Gab. I have not yet put up myself to sale : 
In the mean time, my best reward would be 
A glass of your Hockheimer — a green glass, 
Wreath'd with rich grapes and bacchanal devices, 
O'erflowing with the oldest of your vintage ; 
For which I promise you, in case you e'er 
Run hazard of being drown'd (although I own 
It seems, of all deaths, the least likely for you), 
I'll pull you out for nothing. Quick, my friend. 
And think, for every bumper I shall quaff, 
A wave the less may roll above your head. 

Iden. {aside). I don't much like this fellow — close 
and dry 
He seems, two things which suit me not : however, 
Wine he shall have ; if that unlock him not, 
I shall not sleep to-night for curiosity. 

{Exit Idenstein. 

Gab. {to Werner). This master ofthe ceremonies is 
The intendant of the palace, I presume : 
'Tis a fine building, but decay'd. 

Wer, The apartment 

Design'd for him you rescued will be found 
In fitter order for a sickly guest. 

Gab. I wonder then you occupied it not, 
For you seem delicate in health. 

Wer. {quickly). Sir! 

Gab. Pray 

Excuse me : have I said aught to offend you ? 

Wer. Nothing : but we are strangers to each other. 

Gab. And that's the reason I would have us less so : 
I thought our bustling host without had said 
You were a chance and passing guest, the counterpart 
Of me and my companions. 

Wer. Very true. 



Gab. Then, as we never met before, and never, 
It may be, may again encounter, why, 
I thought to cheer up this old dungeon here 
(At least to me) by asking you to share 
The fare of my companions and myself. 

Wer. Pray, pardon me ; my health 

Gab. Even as you please. 

I have been a soldier, and perhaps am blunt 
In bearing. 

Wer. I have also served, and can 

Requite a soldier's greeting. 

Gab. In what service ? 

The Imperial ? 

Wer. {quickly, and then interrupting himself). I 
commanded — no — I mean 
I served ; but it is many years ago, 
When first Bohemia raised her banner 'gainst 
The Austrian. 

Gab. Well, that's over now, and peace 

Has tum'd some thousand gallant hearts adrift 
To live as they best may ; and, to say truth, 
Some take the shortest. 

Wer. What is that? 

Gab. Whate'er 

They lay their hands on. All Silesia and 
Lusatia's woods are tenanted by bands 
Of the late troops, who levy on the country 
Their maintenance : the Chatelains must keep 
Their castle walls — beyond them 'tis but doubtful 
Travel for your rich count or full-blown baron. 
My comfort is that, wander where I may, 
I've little left to lose now. 

Wer. And I — nothing. 

Gab. That's harder still. You say you were a 
soldier. 

Wer. I was. 

Gab. You look one still. All soldiers are 

Or should be comrades, even though enemies. 
Our swords when drawn must cross, our engines aim 
(While levell'd) at each other's hearts; but when 
A truce, a peace, or what you will, remits 
The steel into its scabbard, and lets sleep 
The spark which lights the matchl ock, we are brethren. 
You are poor and sickly — I am not rich, but healthy ; 
I want for nothing which I cannot want ; 
You seem devoid of this — wilt share it ? 

[Gabor pulls out hispv/rse. 

Wer. Who 

Told you I was a beggar? 

Gab. You yourself, 

In saying you were a soldier during peace-time. 

Wer. {looking at him with suspicion). You know 
me not ? 

Gab. I know no man, not even 

Myself: how should I then know one I ne'er 
Beheld till half an hour since? 

Wer. Sir, I thank you. 

Your offer's noble were it to a friend. 
And not unkind as to an unknown stranger, 
Though scarcely prudent; but no less I thank you. 



410 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Act I. 



I am a beggar in all save his trade ; 
And when I beg of any one, it shall be 
Of him who was the first to ofier what 
Few can obtain by asking. Pardon me. [Exit. 

Gab. (solus). A goodly fellow by his looks, though 
worn, 
As most good fellows are, by pain or pleasure. 
Which tear life out of us before our time ; 
I scarce know which most quickly : but he seems 
To have seen better days, as who has not 
Who has seen yesterday ? — But here approaches 
Our sage intendant, with the wine : however, 
For the cup's sake I'll bear the cupbearer. 

Enter Idenstein. 

Iden. 'Tis here ! the supernaculum ! twenty years 
Of age, if 'tis a day. 

Gab. Which epoch makes 

Young women and old wine ; and 'tis great pity. 
Of two such excellent things, increase of years. 
Which still improves the one, should spoil the 

other. 
Fill full — Here's to our hostess !— your fair wife ! 

[Takes the glass. 

Iden. Fair! — Well, I trust your taste in wine is 
equal 
To that you show for beauty ; but I pledge you 
Nevertheless. 

Gab. Is not the lovely woman 

I met in the adjacent hall, who, with 
An air, and port, and eye, which would have better 
Beseem'd this palace in its brightest days 
(Though in a garb adapted to its present 
Abandonment), return'd my salutation — 
Is not the same your spouse ? 

Iden. I would she were ! 

But you're mistaken : — that's the stranger's wife. 

Gab. And by her aspect she might be a prince's : 
Though time hath touch'd her too, she still retains 
Much beauty, and more majesty. 

Iden. And that 

Is more than I can say for Madame Idenstein, 
At least in beauty : as for majesty, 
She has some of its properties which might 
Be spared — but never mind ! 

Gab. I don't. But who 

ilay be this stranger ? He too hath a bearing 
Above his outward fortunes. 

Iden. There I differ. 

He's poor as Job, and not so patient; but 
Who he may be, or what, or aught of him, 
Except his name (and that I only learn'd 
To-night), I know not. 

Gab, But how came he here? 

Iden. In a most miserable old caleche, . 
About a month since, and immediately 
Fell sick, almost to death. He should have died. 

Gab. Tender and true I — but why ? 

Iden. Why, what is life 

Without a living ? He has not a stiver. 



Gab. In that case, I much wonder that a person 
Of your apparent prudence should admit 
Guests so forlorn into this noble mansion. 
. Iden. That's true; but pity, as you know, does 

make 
One's heart commit these follies ; and besides, 
They had some valuables left at that time. 
Which paid their way up to the present hour ; 
And so I thought they might as well be lodged 
Here as at the small tavern, and I gave them 
The run of some of the oldest palace rooms. 
They served to air them, at the least as long 
As they could pay for firewood. 

Gab. Poor souls ! 

Iden. Ay, 

Exceeding poor. 

Gab. And yet unused to poverty. 

If I mistake not. Whither were they going ? 

Iden. Oh ! Heaven knows where, unless to heaven 
itself. 
Some days ago that look'd the likeliest journey 
For Werner. 

Gab. Werner ! I have heard the name : 

But it may be a feign'd one. 

Iden. Like enough I 

But hark ! a noise of wheels and voices, and 
A blaze of torches from without. As sure 
As destiny, his excellency's come. 
I must be at my post : will you not join me, 
To help him from his carriage, and present 
Your humble duty at the door ? 

Gab. I dragg'd him 

From out that carriage when he would have given 
His barony or county to repel 
The rushing river from his gurgling throat. 
He has valets now enough : they stood aloof then, 
Shaking their dripping ears upon the shore. 
All roaring " Help !" but offering none ; and as 
For duty (as you call it) — I did mine theriy 
Now do yours. Hence, and bow and cringe him here ! 

Iden. /cringe ! — but I shall lose the opportunity — 
Plague take it ! he'll be here, and I not there ! 

[Exit Idenstein hastily. 

Re-enter Werner. 

Wer. {to himself). I heard a noise of wheels and 
voices. How 
All sounds now jar me! {Perceiving Gabor.) Still 

here ! Is he not 
A spy of my pursuer's ? His frank offer 
So suddenly, and to a stranger, wore 
The aspect of a secret enemy ; 
For friends are slow at such. 

Gab. Sir, you seem rapt ; 

And yet the time is not akin to thought. 
These old walls will be noisy soon. The baron. 
Or count (or whatsoe'er this half-drown'd noble 
May be), for whom this desolate village and 
Its lone inhabitants show more respect 
Than did the elements, is come. 



Scene I. 



WEKNER. 



411 



Iden. {without). This way— 

This way, your excellency : — have a care, 
The staircase is a little gloomy, and 
Somewhat decay'd ; but if we had expected 
So high a guest — Pray take my arm, my lord ! 

Enter Stralenheim, Idenstein, and Attendants— 

partly his own, and partly Retainers of the Domain 

of which Idenstein is Intendant. 

Stkal. I'll rest me here a moment. 

Iden. {to the servants). Ho ! a chair ! 

Instantly, knaves ! [STRALENHEIM sits doion. 

Wer. {aside). 'Tis he ! 

Stral. I'm better now. 

Who are these strangers ? 

Iden. Please you, my good lord. 

One says he is no stranger. 

Wer. {aloud and hastily). Who says that? 

{They look at him ivith surprise. 

Iden. Why, no one spoke of you, or to you ! — but 
Here's one his excellency may be pleased 
To recognize. [Pointing to Gabor. 

Gab. I seek not to disturb 

His noble memory. 

Stral. I apprehend 

This is one of the strangers to whose aid 
I owe my rescue. Is not that the other? 

[Pointing to Wernee. 
My state when I was succor'd must excuse 
My uncertainty to whom I owe so much. 

Iden. He ! — no, my lord, he rather wants for rescue 
Than can aflford it. 'Tis a poor sick man. 
Travel-tired, and lately risen from a bed 
From whence he never dream'd to rise. 

Stral. Methought 

That there were two. 

Gab. There were, in company ; 

But, in the service render'd to your lordship, 
I needs must say but one, and he is absent. 
The chief part of whatever aid was render'd 
Was his: it was his fortune to be first. 
My will was not inferior, but his strength 
And youth outstripp'd me ; therefore do not waste 
Your thanks on me. I was but a glad second 
Unto a nobler principal. 

Stral. Where is he ? 

An Atten. My lord, he tarried in the cottage where 
Your excellency rested for an hour, 
And said he would be here to-morrow. 

Stral. Till 

That hour arrives, I can but offer thanks. 
And then 

Gab. I seek no more, and scarce deserve 

So much. My comrade may speak for himself. 

Stral. {fixing his eyes upon Werner: then aHde). 
It cannot be ! and yet lie must be look'd to. 
'Tis twenty years since I beheld him with 
These eyes; and, though my agents still have kept 
Theirs on him, policy has held aloof 
My own from his, not to alarm him into 



Suspicion of my plan. Why did I leave 

At Hamburgh those who would have made assurance 

If this be he or no ? I thought, ere now. 

To have been lord of Siegendorf, and parted 

In haste, though even the elements appear 

To fight against me, and this sudden flood 

May keep me prisoner here till 

[He pauses, and looks at Werner ; then resumes. 

This man must 
Be watch'd. If it is he, he is so changed, 
His father, rising from his grave again. 
Would pass him by unknown. I must be wary : 
An error would spoil all. 

Iden. Your lordship seems 

Pensive. Will it not please you to pass on ? 

Stral. 'Tis past fatigue which gives my weigh'd- 
down spirit 
An outward show of thought. I will to rest. 

Iden. The prince's chamber is prepared, with all 
The very furniture the prince used when 
Last here, in its full splendor. 

{Aside.) Somewhat tatter'd, 
And devilish damp, but fine enough by torchlight ; 
And that's enough for your right noble blood 
Of twenty quarterings upon a hatchment ; 
So let their bearer sleep 'neath something like one 
Now, as he one day will for ever lie. 

Stral. {rising and turning to Gabob). Goodnight, 
good people ! Sir, I trust to-morrow 
Will find me apter to requite your service. 
In the mean time I crave your company 
A moment in my chamber. 

Gab. I attend you. 

Stral. {after a few steps, pauses, and, calls Wer- 
ner). Friend! 

Wer. Sir! 

Iden. Sir ! Lord— oh Lord ! Why don't you say 
His lordship, or his excellency ? Pray, 
My lord, excuse this poor man's want of breeding : 
He hath not been accustom'd to admission 
To such a presence. 

Steal, {to Idenstein). Peace, intendant! 

Iden. Oh ! 

I am dumb. 

Steal, {to Werner). Have you been long here ? 

Wer. Long? 

Steal. I sought 

An answer, not an echo. •» 

Wer. You may seek 

Both from the walls. I am not used to answer 
Those whom I know not. 

Stral. Indeed ! Ne'ertheless, 

You might reply with courtesy to what 
Is ask'd in kindness. 

Wer. When I know it such, 

I will requite — that is, reply — in unison. 

Stral. The intendant said you had been detain'd 
by sickness — 
If I could aid you — ^journeying the same way ? 

Wer. {quickly). I am not journeying the same way. 



412 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Act I. 



Stral. How know ye 

That, ere you know my route ? 

Wer. Because there is 

But one way that the rich and poor must tread 
Together. You diverged from that dread path 
Some hours ago, and I some days : henceforth 
Our roads must lie asunder, though they tend 
All to one home. 

Stral. Your language is above 

Your station. 

Wer. {Utterly). Is it? 

Stral. Or, at least, beyond 

Your garb. 

Wer. 'Tis well that it is not beneath it, 
As sometimes happens to the better clad. 
But, in a word, what would you with me ? 

Stral. {startled). I? 

Wer. Yes — ^you ! You know me not, and question 
me. 
And wonder that I answer not — not knowing 
My inquisitor. Explain what you would have. 
And then I'll satisfy yourself, or me. 

Stral. I knew not that you had reasons for reserve. 

Wer. Many have such : — Have you none ? 

Stral. None which can 

Interest a mere stranger. 

Wer. Then forgive 

The same unknown and humble stranger, if 
He wishes to remain so to the man 
Who can have nought in common with him. 

Stral. Sir 

I will not balk your humor, though untoward • 
I only meant you service — but good night ! 
Intendant, show the way ! ( To Gabor.) Sir, you will 
with me ? 
\_Exeu'nt Stralenheim and Attendants, IDEN- 
stein and Gabor. 

Wer. {solus). 'Tis he ! I am taken in the toils. Be- 
fore 
I quitted Hamburgh, Giulio, his late steward, 
Inform'd me, that he had obtain'd an order 
From Brandenburg's elector, for the arrest 
Of Kruitzner (such the name I then bore), when 
I came upon the frontier ; the free city 
Alone preserved my freedom — till I left 
Its walls — fool that I was to quit them ! But 
I deem'd this humble garb, and route obscure, 
Had baffled the slow hounds in their pursuit. 
What's to be done ? He knows me not by person. 
Nor could aught, save the eye of apprehension, 
Have recognized him, after twenty years, 
We met so rarely and so coldly in 
Our youth. But those about him ! Now I can 
Divine the frankness of the Hungarian, who 
No doubt is a mere tool and spy of Stralenheim's, 
To sound and to secure me. Without means ! 
Sick, poor — begirt too with the flooding rivers. 
Impassable even to the wealthy, with 
All the appliances which purchase modes 
Of overpowering peril, with men's lives, — 



How can I hope ! An hour ago methought V 
My state beyond despair ; and now, 'tis such, ' 
The past seems paradise. Another day. 
And I'm detected, — on the very eve 
Of honors, rights, and my inheritance, 
When a few drops of gold might save me still 
In favoring an escape. 

Enter Idenstein and Fritz in conversation. 

Fritz. Immediately. 

Iden. I tell you 'tis impossible. 

Fritz, It must 

Be tried, however ; and if one express 
Fail, you must send on others, till the answer 
Arrives from Frankfort, from the commandant. 

Iden, I will do what I can. 

Fritz. And recollect 

To spare no trouble ; you will be repaid 
Tenfold, 

Iden. The baron is retired to rest ? 

Fritz. He hath thrown himself into an easy chair 
Beside the fire, and slumbers ; and has order'd 
He may not be disturb'd until eleven. 
When he will take himself to bed. 

Iden, Before 

An hour is past I'll do my best to serve him. 

Fritz. Remember! [Uxit Fritz. 

Idbn. The devil take these great men ! they 

Think all things made for them. Now here must I 
Rouse up some half a dozen shivering vassals 
From their scant pallets, and, at peril of 
Their lives, despatch them o'er the river towards 
Frankfort. Methinks the baron's own experience 
Some hours ago might teach him fellow-feeling : 
But no, " it must," and there's an end. How now 
Are you there. Mynheer Werner ? 

Wer. You have left 

Your noble guest right quickly. 

Iden. Yes — he's dozing, 

And seems to like that none should sleep besides. 
Here is a packet for the commandant 
Of Frankfort, at all risks and all expenses ; 
But I must not lose time : Good night ! [JExit, 

Wer. " To Frankfort !" 

So, so, it thickens! Ay, "the commandant." 
This tallies well with all the prior steps 
Of this cool, calculating fiend, who walks 
Between me and my father's house. No doubt 
He writes for a detachment to convey me 
Into some secret fortress. — Sooner than 

This 

[Werner looks around, and snatches up a knife 
lying on a table in a recess. 

Now I am master of myself at least. 
Hark, — footsteps ! How do I know that Stralenheim 
Will wait for even the show of that authority 
Which is to overshadow usurpation ? 
That he suspects me's certain. I'm alone ; 
He with a numerous train. I weak ; he strong 
In gold, in numbers, rank, authority. 



1 



Scene I. 



WERNER 



413 



I nameless, or involving in my name 

Destruction, till I reach my own domain ; 

He full-blown with his titles, which impose 

Still further on these obscure petty burghers 

Than they could do elsewhere. Hark ! nearer still ! 

I'll to the secret passage, which communicates 

With the No ! all is silent — 'twas my fancy ! — 

Still as the breathless interval between 

The flash and thunder : — I must hush my soul 

Amidst its perils. Yet I will retire, 

To see if still be unexplored the passage 

I wot of: it will serve me as a den 

Of secrecy for some hours, at the worst. 

[Werner draws a panel, and exit, closing it 
after him. 

Enter Gabor and Josephine. 

Gab. Where is your husband ? 

Jos. Here, I thought : I left him 

Not long since in his chamber. But these rooms 
Have many outlets, and he may be gone 
To accompany the intendant. 

Gab. Baron Stralenheim 

Put many questions to the intendant on 
The subject of your lord, and, to be plain, 
I have my doubts if he means well. 

Jos. Alas ! 

What can there be in common with the proud 
And wealthy baron, and the unknown Werner ? 

Gab. That you know best. 

Jos. Or, if it were so, how 

Come you to stir yourself in his behalf. 
Rather than that of him whose life you saved ? 

Gab. I help'd to save him, as in peril ; but 
I did not pledge myself to serve him in 
Oppression. I know well these nobles, and 
Their thousand modes of trampling on the poor. 
I have proved them ; and my spirit boils up when 
I find them practicing against the weak : — 
This is my only motive. 

Jos. It would be 

Not easy to persuade my consort of 
Your good intentions. 

Gab. Is he so suspicious ? 

Jos. He was not once; but time and troubles 
have 
Made him what you beheld. 

Gab. I'm sorry for it. 

Suspicion is a heavy armor, and 
Witii its own weight impedes more than protects. 
Good night ! I trust to meet with him at daybreak. 

{Exit Gabor. 

Re-enter Idenstein and some Peasants. JOSEPHINE 
retires up the Hall. 

First Peasant. But if I'm drown'd ? 

Iden. Why, you will be well paid for't. 

And have risk'd more than drowning for as much, 
I doubt not. 

Second Peasant. But our wives and families ? 



iDEN. Cannot be worse off than they are, and may 
Be better. 

Third Peasant. I have neither, and will venture. 

Iden. That's right. A gallant carle, and fit to be 
A soldier. I'll promote you to the ranks 
In the prince's body-guard — if you succeed : 
And you shall have besides, in sparkling coin, 
Two thalers. 

Third Peasant. No more ! 

Iden. Out upon your avarice ! 

Can that low vice alloy so much ambition ? 
I tell thee, fellow, that two thalers in 
Small change will subdivide into a treasure. 
Do not five hundred thousand heroes daily 
Risk lives and souls for the tithe of one thaler ? 
When had you half the sum ? 

Third Peasant. Never — but ne'er 

The less I must have three. 

Iden. Have you forgot 

Whose vassal you were born, knave ? 

Third Peasant. No— the prince's, 

And not the stranger's. 

Iden. Sirrah ! in the prince's 

Absence, I am sovereign ; and the baron is 
My intimate connection ; — " Cousin Idenstein ! 
(Quoth he) you'll order out a dozen villains." 
And so, you villains ! troop — march — march I say ; 
And if a single dog's-ear of this packet 
Be sprinkled by the Oder — look to it ! 
For every page of paper, shall a hide 
Of yours be stretch'd as parchment on a drum, 
Like Ziska's skin, to beat alarm to all 
Refractory vassals, who cannot effect 
Impossibilities. — Away, ye earth-worms 1 

{Exit, driving them out. 

Jos. {coming forward). I fain would shun these 
scenes, too oft repeated. 
Of feudal tyranny o'er petty victims ; 
I cannot aid, and will not witness such. 
Even here, in this remote, unnamed, dull spot, 
The dimmest in the district's map, exist 
The insolence of wealth in poverty 
O'er something poorer still — the pride of rank 
In servitude, o'er something still more servile ; 
And vice in misery affecting still 
A tatter' d splendor. What a state of being ! 
In Tuscany, my own dear sunny land. 
Our nobles were but citizens and merchants, 
Like Cosmo. We had evils, but not such 
As these ; and our all-ripe and gushing valleys 
Made poverty more cheerful, where each herb 
Was in itself a meal, and every vine 
Rain'd, as it were, the beverage which makes glad 
The heart of man ; and the ne'er unfelt sun 
(But rarely clouded, and when clouded, leaving 
His warmth behind in memory of his beams) 
Makes the worn mantle, and the thin robe, less 
Oppressive than an emperor's jewell'd purple. 
But, here ! the despots of the north appear 
To imitate the ice-wind of their clime. 



414 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Act II. 



Searching the shivering vassal through his rags, 

To wring his soul — as the bleak elements 

His form. And 'tis to be amongst these sovereigns 

My husband pants ! and such his pride of birth — 

That twenty years of usage, such as no 

Father born in a humble state could nerve 

His soul to persecute a son withal. 

Hath changed no atom of his early nature ; 

But I, born nobly also, from my father's 

Kindness was taught a different lesson. Father ! 

May thy long-tried and now rewarded spirit 

Look down on us and our so long desired 

Ulric ! I love my son, as thou didst me ! 

What's that ? Thou, Werner ! can it be ? and thus ? 



Enter Weenee, hastily, with the Tcnife in his hand, by 
the secret panel, which he closes hurriedly after him. 

Wer. {not at first recognizing her). Discover 'd! 

then I'll stab {recognizing her.) 

Ah! Josephine, 
Why art thou not at rest ? 

Jos. What rest? My God! 

What doth this mean ? [phine. 

Wee. {showing a rouleau). Here's gold — gold, Jose- 
Will rescue us from this detested dungeon. 

Jos. And how obtain'd ? — that knife ! 

Wee. 'Tis bloodless — yet. 

Away ! we must to our chamber. 

Jos. But whence comest thou ? 

Wee. Ask not ! but let us think where we shall go — 
This — this will make us way — {showing the gold) — 
I'll fit them now. 

Jos. I dare not think thee guilty of dishonor. 

Wee. Dishonor! 

Jos. I have said it. 

Wee. Let us hence. 

'Tis the last night, I trust, that we need pass here. 

Jos. And not the worst, I hope. 

Wee. Hope ! I make sure. 

But let us to our chamber. 

Jos. Yet one question — 

What hast thou done ? 

Wee. {fiercely). Left one thing undone, which 

Had made all well : let me not think of it ! 
Away ! 

Jos. Alas, that I should doubt of thee ! 

[Exeunt. 



ACT II. 

SCENE I. 

A Hall in the same Palace, 

Enter Idenstein and Others. 
Iden. Fine doings ! goodly doings ! honest doings ! 
A baron pillaged in a prince's palace 1 
Where, till this hour, such a sin ne'er was heard of. 



1 "Your printer has made an odd mistake: — 'poor as a 
morise,' instead of 'poor as a miser.' Tlie expression may 



Feitz. It hardly could, unless the rats despoil'd 
The mice of a few shreds of tapestry. 

Iden. Oh ! that I e'er should live to see this day ! 
The honor of our city's gone for ever. 

Feitz. Well, but now to discover the delinquent.: 
The baron is determined not to lose 
This sum without a search. 

Iden. And so am I. 

Feitz. But whom do you suspect ? 

Iden. Suspect ! all people 

Without— within — above — below — Heaven help me ! 

Feitz. Is there no other entrance to the chamber ? 

Iden. None whatsoever. 

Feitz. Are you sure of that ? 

Iden. Certain. I have lived and served here since 
my birth. 
And if there were such, must have heard of such, 
Or seen it. 

Feitz. Then it must be some one who 
Had access to the antechamber. 

Iden. Doubtless. 

Feitz. The man called Werner's poor ! 

Iden. Poor as a miser.i 

But lodged so far off, in the other wing. 
By which there's no communication with 
The baron's chamber, that it can't be he. 
Besides, I bade him " good night " in the hall, 
Almost a mile off, and which only leads 
To his own apartment, about the same time 
When this burglarious, larcenous felony 
Appears to have been committed. 

Feitz. There's another, 

The stranger 

Iden. The Hungarian ? 

Feitz. He who help'd 

To fish the baron from the Oder. 

Iden. Not 

Unlikely, But hold — might it not have been 
One of the suite ? 

Feitz. How ? We, sir ! 

Iden. No — not you, 

But some of the inferior knaves. You say 
The baron was asleep in the great chair — 
The velvet chair — in his embroider'd night-gown ; 
His toilet spread before him, and upon it 
A cabinet with letters, papers, and 
Several rouleaux of gold ; of which one only 
Has disappear'd : — the door unbolted, with 
No difficult access to any. 

Feitz. Good sir, 

Be not so quick ; the honor of the corps 
Which forms the baron's household's unimpeach'd 
From steward to scullion, save in the fair way 
Of peculation ; such as in accounts, 
Weights, measures, larder, cellar, buttery. 
Where all men take their prey ; as also in 
Postage of letters, gathering of rents, 

seem strange, but it is only the translation of 'semper avarus 
eget !' "—Lord Byron to Mr. Murray. 



Scene I. 



WEKNER 



415 



Purveying feasts, and understanding with 
The honest trades -who furnish noble masters : 
But for your petty, picking, downright thievery, 
We scorn it as we do board-wages. Then 
Had one of our folks done it, he would not 
Have been so poor a spirit as to hazard 
His neck for one rouleau, but have swoop'd all ; 
Also the cabinet, if portable. 

Iden. There is some sense in that 

Feitz. No, sir, be sure 

*Twas none of our corps ; but some petty, trivial 
Picker and stealer, without art or genius. 
The only question is — Who else could have 
Access, save the Hungarian and yourself? 

Iden. You don't mean me ? 

Feitz. No, sir ; I honor more 

Your talents 

Iden. And my principles, I hope. 

Feitz, Of course. But to the point : What's to be 
done? 

Iden. Nothing — but there's a good deal to be said. 
We'll offer a reward ; move heaven and earth, 
And the police (though there's none nearer than 
Frankfort) ; post notices in manuscript 
(For we've no printer) ; and set by my clerk 
To read them (for few can, save he and I) ; 
We'll send out villains to strip beggars, and 
Search empty pockets ; also, to arrest 
All gipsies, and ill-clothed and sallow people. 
Prisoners we'll have at least, if not the culprit; 
And for the baron's gold — if 'tis not found, 
At least he shall have the full satisfaction 
Of melting twice its substance in the raising 
The ghost of this rouleau. Here's alchemy 
For your lord's losses ! 

Feitz. He hath found a better. 

Iden. Where? 

Feitz. In a most immfaf^ inheritance. 

The late Count Siegendorf, his distant kinsman, 
Is dead near Prague, in his castle, and my lord 
Is on his way to take possession. 

Iden. Was there 

No heir? 

Feitz. Oh, yes ; but he has disappear'd 
Long from the world's eye, and perhaps the world. 
A prodigal son, beneath his father's ban 
For the last twenty years ; for whom his sire 
Refused to kill the fatted calf; and, therefore, 
If living, he must chew the husks still. But 
The baron would find means to silence him. 
Were he to reappear : he's politic. 
And has much influence with a certain court. 

Iden. He's fortunate. 

Feitz. 'Tis true, there is a grandson. 

Whom the late count reclaim'd from his son's hands, 
And educated as his heir ; but then 
His birth is doubtful. 

Iden. How so? 

Feitz. His sire made 

A left-hand, love, imprudent sort of marriage, 



With an Italian exile's dark-eyed daughter : 
Noble, they say, too ; but no match for such 
A house as Siegendorf 's. The grandsire ill 
Could brook the alliance ; and could ne'er be brought 
To see the parents, though he took the son. 

Iden. If he's a lad of mettle, he may yet 
Dispute your claim, and weave a web that may 
Puzzle your baron to unravel. 

Feitz. Why, 

For mettle, he has quite enough : they say. 
He forms a happy mixture of his sire 
And grandsire's qualities, — impetuous as 
The former, and deep as the latter ; but 
The strangest is, that he too disappear'd 
Some months ago. 

Iden. The devil he did ! 

Feitz. Why, yes : 

It must have been at his suggestion, at 
An hour so critical as was the eve 
Of the old man's death, whose heart was broken 
by it. 

Iden. Was there no cause assign'd ? 

Feitz. Plenty, no doubt. 

And none perhaps the true one. Some averr'd 
It was to seek his parents ; some because 
The old man held his spirit in so strictly 
(But that could scarce be, for he doted on him) : 
A third believed he wish'd to serve in war, 
But peace being made soon after his departure. 
He might have since return'd, were that the motive ; 
A fourth set charitably have surmised. 
As there was something strange and mystic in him. 
That in the wild exuberance of his nature 
He had join'd the black bands, who lay waste Lusatia, 
The mountains of Bohemia and Silesia, 
Since the last years of war had dwindled into 
A kind of general condottiero system 
Of bandit warfare ; each troop with its chief, 
And all against mankind. 

Iden. That cannot be. 

A young heir, bred to wealth and luxury. 
To risk his life and honors with disbanded 
Soldiers and desperadoes ! 

Feitz. Heaven best knows ! 

But there are human natures so allied 
Unto the savage love of enterprise. 
That they will seek for peril as a pleasure, 
I've heard that nothing can reclaim your Indian, 
Or tame the tiger, though their infancy 
Were fed on milk and honey. After all. 
Your Wallenstein, your Tilly and Gustavus, 
Your Bannier, and your TorstensoL and Weimar, 
Were but the same thing upon a grand scale ; 
And now that they are gone, and peace proclaim'd, 
They who would follow the same pasti^ie must 
Pursue it on their own account. Here comes 
The baron, and the Saxon stranger, who 
Was his chief aid in yesterday's escape, 
But did not leave the cottage by the Oder 
Until this morning. 



416 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



AOT II. 



Enter Stralenheim and Ulric.i 

Steal. Since you have refused 
All compensation, gentle stranger, save 
Inadequate thanks, you almost check even them. 
Making me feel the worthlessness of words. 
And blush at my own barren gratitude, 
They seem so niggardly, compared with what 
Your courteous courage did in my behalf 

Ulk. I pray you press the theme no further. 

Steal. But 

Can I not serve you ? You are young, and of 
That mould which throws out heroes ; fair in favor ; 
Brave, I know, by my living now to say so ; 
And doubtlessly, with such a form and heart, 
Would look into the fiery eyes of war. 
As ardently for glory as you dared 
An obscure death to save an unknown stranger, 
In an as perilous, but opposite, element. 
You are made for the service : I have served ; 
Have rank by birth and soldiership, and friends. 
Who shall be yours. 'Tis true this pause of peace 
Favors such views at present scantily ; 
But 'twill not last, men's spirits are too stirring ; 
And, after thirty years of conflict, peace 
Is but a petty war, as the times show us 
In every forest, or a mere arm'd truce. 
War will reclaim his own ; and, in the mean time, 
You might obtain a post, which would ensure 
A higher soon, and, by my influence, fail not 
To rise. I speak of Brandenburg, wherein 
I stand well with the elector ; in Bohemia, 
Like you, I am a stranger, and we are now 
Upon its frontier. 

Ule. You perceive my garb 

Is Saxon, and of course my service due 
To my own sovereign. If I must decline 
Your offer, 'tis with the same feeling which 
Induced it. 

Steal. Why, this is mere usury ! 
I owe my life to you, and you refuse 
The acquittance of the interest of the debt, 
To heap more obligations on me, till 
I bow beneath them. 

Ule. You shall say so when 

I claim the payment. 

Steal. Well, sir, since you will not — 

You are nobly born ? 

Ule. I have heard my kinsmen say so. 

Steal. Your actions show it. Might I ask your 

Ule. Ulric. [name? 

Steal. Your house's ? 

Ule. When I'm worthy of it, 

I'll answer you. 



1 " The characters are any thing but original. . . . Ulric is 
only the Giaour, Conrad, Lara, Alp, &c., &c., rehashed and 
served up as a Bohemian. 'Coelum, non animum mutant.' 
It is the old mess with a new sauce. Compare him particu- 
larly with ^j^ara, and you must be struck with the resem- 
blance. P.oth high-born— both leaving home mysteriously— 
both sup;pected of being linked with desperate characters — 



Sjeal. {aside). Most probably an Austrian, 
Whom these unsettled times forbid to boast 
His lineage on these wild and dangerous frontiers. 
Where the name of his country is abhorr'd, 

{Aloud to Feitz and Idenstein. 
So, sirs ! how have ye sped in your researches ? 

Iden. Indifferent well, your excellency. 

Steal. Then 

I am to deem the plunderer is caught? 

Iden. Humph ! — not exactly. 

Steal. Or at least suspected ? 

Iden. Oh ! for that matter, very much suspected. 

Steal. Who may he be ? 

Iden. Why, don't you know, my lord ? 

Steal. How should I ? I was fast asleep. 

Iden. And so 

Was I, and that's the cause I know no more 
Than does your excellency. 

Steal. Dolt! 

Iden. Why, if 

Your lordship, being robb'd, don't recognize 
The rogue ; how should I, not being robb'd, identify 
The thief among so many ? In the crowd. 
May it please your excellency, your thief looks 
Exactly like the rest, or rather better : 
'Tis only at the bar and in the dungeon 
That wise men know your felon by his features ; 
But I'll engage, that if seen there but once. 
Whether he be found criminal or no. 
His face shall be so. 

Steal, {to Feitz). Prithee, Fritz, inform me 
What hath been done to trace the fellow ? 

Feitz. Faith ! 

My lord, not much as yet, except conjecture. 

Steal. Besides the loss (which, I must own, affects 
me 
Just now materif Uy), I needs would find 
The villain out r^ ^public motives ; for 
So dexterous a spoiler, who could creep 
Through my attendants, and so many peopled 
And lighted chambers, on my rest, and snatch 
The gold before my scarce-closed eyes, would soon 
Leave bare your borough. Sir Intendant ! 

Iden. True, 

If there were aught to carry off, my lord. 

Ule. What is all this ? 

Steal. You join'd us but this morning, 

And have not heard that I was robb'd last night. 

Ule. Some rumor of it reach'd me as I pass'd 
The outer chambers of the palace, but 
I know no further. 

Steal. It is a strange business ; 

The intendant can inform you of the facts. 

both returning to play the magnifico— both charged with 
heavy crimes, by people who had met them while absent on 
their wild exploits, and both ready to get rid of their accu- 
sers by the summary process of murder. Both are, moreover, 
very fine speakers, valiant men, high-browed, bright-eyed» 
black-haired."— Maginn. 



Scene I. 



WEKNER. 



417 



Iden. Most willingly. You see 

Stral. {impatiently). Defer your tale, 

Till certain of the hearer's patience. 

Iden. That 
Can only be approved by proofs. You see 

Steal, {again interrupting him, and addressing 
Ulric). In short, I was asleep upon a chair, 
My cabinet before me, with some gold 
Upon it (more than I much like to lose. 
Though in part only) : some ingenious person 
Contrived to glide through all my own attendants, 
Besides those of the place, and bore away 
A hundred golden ducats, which to find 
I would be fain, and there's an end. Perhaps 
You (as I still am rather faint) would add 
To yesterday's great obligation, this, 
Though slighter, yet not slight, to aid these men 
(Who seem but lukewarm) in recovering it? 

Ulr. Most willingly, and without loss of time — 
{To Idenstein.) Come hither, mynheer! 

Iden. But so much haste bodes 

Right little speed, and 

Ulr. Standing motionless 

None ; so let's march : we'll talk as we go on. 

Iden. But 

Ulr. Show the spot, and then I'll answer you, 

Fritz. I will, sir, with his excellency's leave. 

Stral. Do so, and take yon old ass with you, 

Fritz. Hence ! 

Ulr. Come on, old oracle, expound thy riddle ! 

[Exit tvith Idenstein and Fritz. 

Stral. {soltis). A stalwart, active, soldier-looking 
stripling. 
Handsome as Hercules ere his first labor. 
And with a brow of thought beyond his years 
When in repose, till his eye kindles up 
In answering yours. I wish I could engage him : 
I have need of some such spirits near me now, 
For this inheritance is worth a struggle. 
And though I am not the man to yield without one. 
Neither are they who now rise up between me 
And my desire. The boy, they say, 's a bold one ; 
But he hath play'd the truant in some hour 
Of freakish folly, leaving fortune to 
Champion his claims. That's well. The father, whom 
For years I've track'd, as does the blood-hound, never 
In sight, but constantly in scent, had put me 
To fault ; but here I have him, and that's better. 
It must be he ! All circumstance proclaims it; 
And careless voices, knowing not the cause 
Of my inquiries, still confirm it. — Yes, 
The man, his bearing, and the mystery 
Of his arrival, and the time ; the account, too. 
The intendant gave (for I have not beheld her) 
Of his wife's dignified but foreign aspect ; 
Besides the antipathy with wliich we met, 
As snakes and lions shrink back from each other 
By secret instinct that both must be foes 
Deadly, without being natural prey to either; 
All — all — confirm it to my mind. However, 
27 



We'll grapple, ne'ertheless. In a few hours 

The order comes from Frankfort, if these waters 

Rise not the higher (and the weather favors 

Their quick abatement), and I'll have him safe 

Within a dungeon, where he may avouch 

His real estate and name ; and there's no harm done, 

Should he prove other than I deem. This robbery 

(Save for the actual loss) is lucky also : 

He's poor, and that's suspicious — he's unknown, 

And that's defenceless. — True, we have no proofs 

Of guilt, — but what hath he of innocence ? 

Were he a man indifierent to my prospects 

In other bearings, I should rather lay 

The inculpation on the Hungarian, who 

Hath something which I like not ; and alone 

Of all around, except the intendant, and 

The prince's household and my own, had ingress 

Familiar to the chamber. 

Enter Gabor. 

Friend, how fare you ? 

Gab. As those who fare well everywhere, when they 
Have supp'd and slumber'd, no great matter how — 
And you, my lord ? 

Stral. Better in rest than purse : 

Mine inn is like to cost me dear. 

Gab. I heard 

Of your late loss ; but 'tis a trifle to 
One of your order. 

Stral, You would hardly think so, 

Were the loss yours. 

Gab. I never had so much 

(At once) in my whole life, and therefore am not 
Fit to decide. But I came here to seek you. 
Your couriers are turn'd back — I have outstripp'd 

them. 
In my return. 

Stral. You!— Why? 

Gab. I went at daybreak, 

To watch for the abatement of the river, 
As being anxious to resume my journey. 
Your messengers were all check'd like myself; 
And, seeing the case hopeless, I await 
The current's pleasure. 

Stral. Would the dogs were in it ! 

Why did they not, at least, attempt the passage ? 
I order'd this at all risks. 

Gab. Could you order 

The Oder to divide, as Moses did 
The Red Sea (scarcely redder than the flood 
Of the swoln stream), and be obey'd, perhaps 
They might have ventured. 

Stral. I must see to it : 

The knaves! the slaves! — but they shall smar^for 
this. [Exit Stralenheim. 

Gab. (solus). There goes my noble, feudal, self- 
will'd baron ! 
Epitome of what brave chivalry 
The preux chevaliers of the good old times 
Have left us. Yesterday he would have given 



418 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Act II. 



His lands (if he hath any), and, still dearer, 
His sixteen quarterings, for as much fresh air 
As would have fill'd a bladder, while he lay 
Gurgling and foaming half way through the window 
Of his o'erset and water-logg'd conveyance ; 
And now he storms at half a dozen wretches 
Because they love their lives too ! Yet, he's right : 
'Tis strange they should, when such as he may put 

them 
To hazard at his pleasure. Oh, thou world ! 
Thou art indeed a melancholy jest ! [JExit Gaboe. 



SCENE II. 
The Apartment of Werner, in the Palace. 

Enter Josephine and Ulric. 

Jos. Stand back, and let me look on thee again ! 
My Ulric ! — my beloved ! — can it be — 
After twelve years ? 

Ulr. My dearest mother ! 

Jos. Yes ! 

My dream is realized — how beautiful ! — 
How more than all I sigh'd for ! Heaven, receive 
A mother's thanks ! — a mother's tears of joy ! 
This is indeed thy work ! — At such an hour, too, 
He comes not only as a son, but saviour. 

Ulr. If such a joy await me, it must double 
What I now feel, and lighten from my heart 
A part of the long debt of duty, not 
Of love (for that was ne'er withheld) — forgive me ! 
This long delay was not my fault.i 

Jos. I know it. 

But cannot think of sorrow now, and doubt 
If I e'er felt it, 'tis so dazzled from 
My memory by this oblivious transport ! — 
My son ! 

Enter Werner. 

Wer. What have we here, — more strangers ? 

Jos. No ! 

Look upon him ! What do you see ? 

Wer. a stripling. 

For the first time 

Ulr. {kneeling). For twelve long years, my father! 

Wer. Oh, God ! 

Jos. He faints ! 

Wer. No — I am better now— 

Ulric! {Embraces him.) 

Ulr. My father, Siegendorf ! 

Wer. {starting). Hush! boy — 

The walls may hear that name ! 

U^R. What then? 

Wer. Why, then— 

But we will talk of that anon. Remember, 



^ " Ulric behaves tar too hopefully and too dutifully for an 
assassin and a hngand. He is of the Giaour and the Lara 
orderT-a Westall ruffian."— £'c/. Rev. 



I must be known here but as Werner. Come ! 
Come to my arms again ! Why, tliou look'st all 
I should have been, and was not. Josej)hine ! 
Sure 'tis no father's fondness dazzles me ; 
But, had I seen that form amid ten thousand 
Youth of the choicest, my heart would have chosen 
This for my son ! 

Ulr. And yet you knew me not ! 

Wer. Alas ! I have had that upon my soul, 
Which makes me look on all men with an eye 
That only knows the evil at first glance. 

Ulr. My memory served me far more fondly : I 
Have not forgotten aught ; and ofttimes in 
The proud and princely halls of— (I'll not name them, 
As you say that 'tis perilous) — but i' the pomp 
Of your sire's feudal mansion, I look'd back 
To the Bohemian mountains many a sunset, 
And wept to see another day go down 
O'er thee and me, with those huge hills between us. 
They shall not part us more. 

Wer. I know not that. 

Are you aware my father is no more ? 

Ulr. Oh, heavens ! I left him in a green old age, 
And looking like the oak, worn, but still steady 
Amidst the elements, whilst younger trees 
Fell fast around him. 'Twas scarce three months since. 

Wer. Why did you leave him ? 

Jos. {embracing Ulric). Can you ask that question ? 
Is he not here f 

Wer. True : he hath sought his parents, 

And found them ; but, oh ! how, and in what state ! 

Ulr. All shall be better'd. What we have to do 
Is to proceed, and to assert our rights, 
Or rather yours ; for I waive all, unless 
Your father has disposed in such a sort 
Of his broad lands as to make mine the foremost, 
So that I must prefer my claim for form : 
But I trust better, and that all is yours. 

Wer. Have you not heard of Stralenheimi* 

Ulr. I saved 

His life but yesterday : he's here. 

Wer. You saved 

The serpent who will sting us all ! 

Ulr. You speak 

Riddles : what is this Stralenheim to us ? 

Wer. Every thing. One who claims our father's 
lands : 
Our distant kinsman, and our nearest foe. 

Ulr. I never heard his name till now. The count, 
Indeed, spoke sometimes of a kinsman, who, 
If his own line should fail, might be remotely 
Involved in the succession ; but his titles 
Were never named before me — and what then ? 
His right must yield to ours. 

Wer. Ay, if at Prague ; 

But here he is all-powerful ; and has spread 
Snares for thy father, which, if hitherto 
He hath escaped them, is by fortune, not 
By favor. 

Ulr. Doth he personally know you ? 



Scene II. 



WERNER 



419 



Wer. No ; but he guesses shrewdly at my person, 
As he betray'd last night ; and I, perhaps, 
But owe my temporary liberty 
To his uncertainty. 

Ulr. I think you wrong him 

(Excuse me for the phrase) ; but Stralenheim 
Is not what you prejudge him, or, if so. 
He owes me something both for past and present. 
I saved his life, he therefore trusts in me. 
He hath been plunder'd too, since he came hither 
Is sick ; a stranger ; and as such not now 
Able to trace the villain who hath robb'd him : 
I have pledged myself to do so ; and the business 
Which brought me here was chiefly that : ^ but I 
Have found, in searching for another's dross, 
My own whole treasure — you, my parents ! 

Wer. [agitatedly). Who 

Taught you to mouth that name of " villain" ? 

Ulr. What 

More noble name belongs to common thieves ? 

Wer. Who taught you thus to brand an unknown 
being 
With an infernal stigma ? 

Ulr. My own feelings 

Tauglit me to name a ruffian from his deeds. 

Wer. Who taught you, long-sought and ill-found 
boy ! that 
It would be safe for my own son to insult me ? 

Ulr. I named a villain. What is there in common 
With such a being and my father ? 

Wer. Every thing ! 

That ruffian is thy father ! 2 

Jos. Oh, my son ! 
Believe him not — and yet! {her voice falters.) 

Ulr. {starts, looks earnestly at Werner, and then 
smjs slowly). And you avow it? 

Wer. Ulric ! before you dare despise your father. 
Learn to divine and judge his actions. Young, 
Rash, new to life, and rear'd in luxury's lap, 
Is it for you to measure passion's force. 
Or misery's temptation ? Wait — (not long. 
It Cometh like the night, and quickly) — Wait ! — 
Wait till, like me, your hopes are blighted ^ — till 
Sorrow and shame are handmaids of your cabin ; 



^ The following is the original passage in the novel: — 
"'Stralenheim,' said Conrad, 'does not appear to be alto- 
gether the man you take him for : but were it even otlierwise, 
he owes me gratitude not only for the past, but for what he 
supposes to be my present employment. I saved his life, and 
he therefore places confidence in me. He hath been robbed 
last night — is sick— a stranger — and in no condition to dis- 
cover the villain who has plundered him ; and the business on 
which I sought the intendant was chiefly that,'" &e. — Lee. 

2 '"And who,' said he, 'has entitled you to brand thus 
with ignominious epithets a boing you do not know? Who 
has taught you that it would be even safe for my son to insult 
me?* — 'It is not necessary to know the person of a ruffian,' 
replied Conrad indignantly, 'to give him the appellation he 
merits: and what is there in common between my father and 
such a charactf-r?'— 'Every thing,' said Siegendorf, bitterly, 
' for that ruffian was your father!' "—Ibid. 



Famine and poverty your guests at table ; 

Despair your bed-fellow — then rise, but not 

From sleep, and judge ! Should that day e'er arrive — 

Should you see then the serpent, who hath coil'd 

Himself around all that is dear and noble 

Of you and yours, lie slumbering in your path. 

With but his folds between your steps and happiness, 

When he, who lives but to tear from you name, 

Lands, life itself, lies at your mercy, with 

Chance your conductor ; midnight for your mantle ; 

The bare knife in your hand, and earth asleep, 

Even to your deadliest foe ; and he, as 'twere, 

Inviting death, by looking like it, while 

His death alone can save you : — Thank your God 

If then, like me, content with petty plunder 

You turn aside 1 did so. 

Ulr. But 

Wer. {abruptly). Hear me ! 

I will not brook a human voice — scarce dare 
Listen to my own (if that be human still) — 
Hear me ! you do not know this man — I do.* 
He's mean, deceitful, avaricious. You 
Deem yourself safe, as young and brave ; but learn 
None are secure from desperation, few 
From subtilty. My worst foe, Stralenheim, 
Housed in a prince's palace, couch'd within 
A prince's chamber, lay below my knife ! 
An instant — a mere motion — the least impulse — 
Had swept him and all fears of mine from earth. 
He was within my power — my knife was raised — 
Withdrawn — and I'm in his : — are you not so ? 
Who tells you that he knows you not ? Who says 
He hath not lured you here to end you ? or 
To plunge you, with your parents, in a dungeon ? 

[He pauses. 

Ulr. Proceed — proceed! 

Wer. Me he hath ever known, 

And hunted through each change of time — name — 

fortune — 
And why not you f Are you more versed in men ? 
He wound snares round me ; flung along my path 
Reptiles, whom, in my youth, I would have spurn'd 
Even from my presence ; but, in spurning now 
Fill only with fresh venom. Will you be 



3 " ' Conrad, before you thus presume to chastise me with 
your eye, learn to understand my actions. Young and inex- 
perienced in the world — reposing hitherto in the bosom of 
indulgence and luxury, is it for you to judge of the force of 
the passions, or the temptations of misery? Wait till, like 
me, you have blighted your fairest hopes— have endured 
humiliation and sorrow — poverty and famine — before you 
pretend to judge of their effects on you ! Should that miser- 
able day ever arrive,' " &c. — IMd. 

♦ "'You do not know this man,' continued he: 'I do! I 
believe him to be mean, sordid, deceitful ! You will conceive 
yourself safe, because you are young and brave! Learn, 
however, none are so secure but desperation or subtilty may 
reach them ! Stralenheim, in the palace of a prince, was in 
my power! My knife was held over him— I forbore— and I 
am now in his,' " <fec. &c.—Ibi(l. 



420 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Act II. 



More patient ? Ulric ! — Ulric ! — there are crimes 
Made venial by the occasion, and temptations 
Which nature cannot master or forbear .^ 

Ulr. {who looks first at him, and then at Josephine). 
My mother ! 

Wer. Ah ! I thought so : you have now 

Only one parent. I have lost alike 
Father and son, and stand alone. 

Ulr. But stay ! 

[Werner rushes out of the chamber, 

Jos. {to Ulric). Follow him not, until this storm 
of passion 
Abates. Think'st thou, that were it well for him, 
IhadnotfoUow'd? 

Ulr. I obey you, mother. 

Although reluctantly. My first act shall not 
Be one of disobedience. 

Jos. Oh ! he is good ! 

Condemn him not from his own mouth, but trust 
To me, who have borne so much with him, and for 

him. 
That this is but the surface of his soul. 
And that the depth is rich in better things. 

Ulr. These then are but my father's principles ? 
My mother thinks not with him ? 

Jos. Nor doth he 

Think as he speaks. Alas ! long years of grief 
Have made him sometimes thus. 

Ulr. Explain to me 

More clearly, then, these claims of Stralenheim, 
That, when I see the subject in its bearings, 
I may prepare to face him, or at least 
To extricate you from your present perils. 
I pledge myself to accomplish this — ^but would 
I had arrived a few hours sooner ! 

Jos. Ay ! 

Hadst thou but done so ! 

Enter Gabor and Idenstein, with Attendants. 

Gab. {to Ulric). I have sought you, comrade. 
So this is my reward ! 

Ulr. What do you mean ? 

Gab. 'Sdeath ! have I lived to these years, and for 
this! 
{To Idenstein.) But for your age and folly, I 
would 

Iden. Help ! 

Hands off! Touch an intendant ! 

Gab. Do not think 

I'll honor you so much as save your throat 
From the Bavenstone ^ by choking you myself. 

Iden. I thank you for the respite : but there are 
Those who have greater need of it than me. 

Ulr. Unriddle this vile wrangling, or 

1 " ' Me he has known invariably through every change of 
fortune or of name— and why not you ? Me he has entrapped 
—are you more discreet? He has wound the snares of 
Idenstein around me ; — of a reptile whom, a few years ago, 
I would have spurned from my presence, and whom, in spurn- 
ing now, I have furnished with fresh venom. Will you be 



Gab. At once, then, 

The baron has been robb'd, and upon me 
This worthy personage has deign'd to fix 
His kind suspicions — me ! whom he ne'er saw 
Till yester evening. 

Iden. Wouldst have me suspect 

My own acquaintances ? You have to learn 
That I keep better company. 

Gab. You shall 

Keep the best shortly, and the last for all men. 
The worms ! you hound of malice ! 

[Gabor seizes on him. 

Ulr. {interfering). Nay, no violence ; 

He's old, unarm'd — be temperate, Gabor ! 

Gab. {letting go Idenstein). True : 

I am a fool to lose myself because 
Fools deem me knave : it is their homage. 

Ulr. {to Idenstein). How 

Fare you ? 

Help! 

I have help'd you. 

Kill him ! then 



Iden. 
Ulr. 
Iden. 
I'll say so. 
Gab. 
Iden. 



I am calm — live on ! 

That's more 

Than you shall do, if there be judge or judgment 
In Germany. The baron shall decide ! 

Gab. Does he abet you in your accusation ? 
Iden. Does he not ? 

Gab. Then next time let him go sink 

Ere I go hang for snatching him from drowning. 
But here he comes ! 

Enter Stralenheim. 

Gab. {goes up to him). My noble lord, I'm here ! 

Stral. Well, sir I 

Gab. Have you aught with me ? 

Stral. What should I 

Have with you ? 

Gab. You know best, if yesterday's 

Flood has not wash'd away your memory ; 
But that's a trifle. I stand here accused. 
In phrases not equivocal, by yon 
Intendant, of the pillage of your person 
Or chamber : — is the charge your own or his ? 

Stral. I accuse no man. 

Gab. Then you acquit me, baron ? 

Stral. I know not whom to accuse, or to r.cquit. 
Or scarcely to suspect. 

Gab. But you at least 

Should know whom not to suspect. I am insulted — 
Oppress'd here by these menials, and I look 
To you for remedy — teach them their duty ! 
To look for thieves at home were part of it, 

more patient? Conrad, Conrad, there are crimes rendered 
venial by the occasion, and temptations too exquisite for 
human fortitude to master or forbear,' " &c. — Lee. 

2 The Eavenstone, " Eabenstein," is the stone gibbet of 
Germany, and so called from the ravens perching on it.— See 
ante, p. 223. 



Scene II. 



WEENER. 



421 



If duly taught ; but, in one word, if I 
Have an accuser, let it be a man 
Worthy to be so of a man like me. 
I am your equal. 

Steal. You ! 

Gab. Ay, sir ; and, for 

Aught that you know, superior ; but proceed — 
I do not ask for hints, and surmises, 
And circumstance, and proofs : I know enough 
Of what I have done for you, and what you owe me, 
To have at least waited your payment rather 
Than paid myself, had I been eager of 
Your gold. I also know, that were I even 
The villain I am deem'd, the service render'd 
So recently would not permit you to 
Pursue me to the death, except through shame, 
Such as would leave your scutcheon but a blank. 
But this is nothing : I demand of you 
Justice upon your unjust servants, and 
From your own lips a disavowal of 
All sanction of their insolence : thus much 
You owe to the unknown, who asks no more, 
And never thought to have ask'd so much. 

Steal. This tone 

May be of innocence. 

Gab. 'Sdeath ! who dare doubt it, 

Except such villains as ne'er had it? 

Steal. You 

Are hot, sir. 

Gab. Must I turn an icicle 

Before the breath of menials, and their master ? 

Steal. Ulric ! you know this man ; I found him in 
Your company. 

Gab. We found you in the Oder ; 

Would we had left you there ! 

Steal. I give you thanks, sir. 

Gab. I've eam'd them; but might have earn'd 
more from others. 
Perchance, if I had left you to your fate. 

Steal. Ulric ! you know this man ? 

Gab. No more than you do. 

If he avouches not my honor. 

Ule. I 

Can vouch your courage, and, as far as my 
Own brief connection led me, honor. 

Steal. Then 

I'm satisfied. 

Gab. (ironically). Right easily, methinks. 
What is the spell in his asseveration 
More than in mine ? 

Steal. I merely said that / 

Was satisfied — not that you are absolved. 

Gab. Again ! Am I accused or no ? 

Steal. Go to ! 

You wax too insolent. If circumstance 
And general suspicion be against you, 
Is the fault mine ? Is't not enough that I 
Decline all question of your guilt or innocence ? 

Gab. My lord, my lord, this is mere cozenage, 
A vile equivocation ; you well know 



Your doubts are certainties to all around you — 
Your looks a voice — your frowns a sentence ; you 
Are practicing your power on me — because 
You have it ; but beware ! you know not whom 
You strive to tread on. 

Steal. Threat'st thou ? 

Gab. Not so much 

As you accuse. You hint the basest injury, 
And I retort it with an open warning. 

Steal. As you have said, 'tis true I owe you some- 
thing. 
For which you seem disposed to pay yourself. 

Gab. Not with your gold. 

Steal. With bootless insolence. 

[To /m* Attendants and Idenstein. 
You need not further to molest this man. 
But let him go his way. Ulric, good morrow ! 

[JSxit Stealenheim, Idenstein, and Attend- 
ants. 

Gab. (following), I'll after him and 

Ule. (stopping him). Not a step. 

Gab. Who shall 

Oppose me ? 

Ule. Your own reason, with a moment's 

Thought. 

Gab. Must I bear this ? 

Ule. Pshaw ! we all must bear 

The arrogance of something higher than 
Ourselves — the highest cannot temper Satan, 
Nor the lowest his vicegerents upon earth. 
I've seen you brave the elements, and bear 
Things which had made this silkworm cast his 

skin — 
And shrink you from a few sharp sneers and words ? 

Gab. Must I bear to be deem'd a thief? If 'twere 
A bandit of the woods, I could have borne it — 
There's something daring in it ; — but to steal 
The moneys of a slumbering man ! — 

Ule. It seems, then, 

You are not guilty ? 

Gab. Do I hear aright ? 

You too I 

Ule. I merely ask'd a simple question. 

Gab. If the judge ask'd me, I would answer 
"No"— 
To you I answer thus. (He draws.) 

Ule. (drawing). With all my heart I 

Jos. Without there ! Ho I help ! help !— Oh, God ! 
here's murder ! 

{Exit Josephine, shrieking. 

Gaboe and Uleic fight. Gaboe is disarmed just 
as Stealenheim, Josephine, Idenstein, &c., 
re-enter. 

Jos. Oh ! glorious heaven ! He's safe 1 
Steal, (to Josephine). Who's safe ? 

Jos. My 

Ule. (interrupting her with a stern look, and twm- 
ing afterwards to STEALENHEIM). Both 1 

Here's no great liarm done. 



422 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Act II. 



Steal. What hath caused all this ? 

Ulr. You, baron, I believe ; but as the effect 
Is harmless, let it not disturb you. — Gabor ! 
There is your sword ; and when you bare it next. 
Let it not be against your friends. 

[Ulric pronounces the last words slowly and em- 
phatically in a low voice to Gaboe. 

Gab. I thank you 

Less for my life than for your counsel. 

Steal. These 

Brawls must end here. 

Gab. {taking his sword ). They shall. You have 
wrong'd me, Ulric, 
More with your unkind thoughts than sword : I would 
The last were in my bosom rather than 
The first in yours. I could have borne yon noble's 
Absurd insinuations — ignorance 
And dull suspicion are a part of his 
Entail will last him longer than his lands. — 
But I may fit him yet : — you have vanquish'd me. 
I was the fool of passion to conceive 
That I could cope with you, whom I had seen 
Already proved by greater perils than 
Rest in this arm. We may meet by and by, 
However — but in friendship. [Exit Gabor. 

Steal. I will brook 

No more ! This outrage following up his insults. 
Perhaps his guilt, has cancell'd all the little 
I owed him heretofore for the so- vaunted 
Aid which he added to your abler succor. 
Ulric, you are not hurt ? — 

Ulr. Not even by a scratch. 

Stral. [to Idenstein). Intendant! take your 
measures to secure 
Yon fellow : I revoke my former lenity. 
He shall be sent to Frankfort with an escort 
The instant that the waters have abated. 

Iden. Secure him ! He hath got his sword again — 
And seems to know the use on't ; 'tis his trade, 
Belike ; — I'm a civilian. 

Stral. Fool ! are not 

Yon score of vassals dogging at your heels 
Enough to seize a dozen such ? Hence ! after him ! 

Ulr. Baron, I do beseech you ! 

Stral. I must be 

Obey'd. No words ! 

Iden. Well, if it must be so— 

March, vassals ! I'm your leader, and will bring 
The rear up : a wise general never should 
Expose his precious life — on which all rests. 
I like that article of war. 

[Exit Idenstein and Attendants. 

Stral. Come hither, 

Ulric ; what does that woman here ? Oh ! now 
I recognize her, 'tis the stranger's wife 
Whom they name " Werner." 

Ulr. 'Tis his name. 

Stral. Indeed ! 

Is not your husband visible, fair dame ? — 

Jos. Who seeks him ? 



Stral. No one— for the present ; but 

I fain would parley, Ulric, with yourself 
Alone. , 

Ulr. I will retire with you. 

Jos. Not so : 

You are the latest stranger, and command 
All places here. 
{Aside to Ulric, as she goes out.) Oh, Ulric ! have a 

care — 
Remember what depends on a rash word ! 

Ulr. {to Josephine). Fear not ! — 

[Exit Josephine. 

Stral. Ulric, I think that I may trust you : 
You saved my life — and acts like these beget 
Unbounded confidence. 

Ulr. Say on. 

Steal. Mysterious 

And long-engender'd circumstances 
(To be now fully enter'd on) have made 
This man obnoxious — perhaps fatal to me. 

Ulr. Who ? Gabor, the Hungarian ? 

Stral. No— this " Werner "— 

With the false name and habit. 

Ulr. How can this be ? 

He is the poorest of the poor — and yellow 
Sickness sits cavern'd in his hollow eye : 
The man is helpless. 

Stral. He is — 'tis no matter ; — 

But if he be the man I deem (and that 
He is so, all around us here — and much 
That is not here — confirm my apprehension), 
He must be made secure ere twelve hours further. 

Ulr. And what have I to do with this ? 

Steal. I have sent 

To Frankfort, to the governor, my friend 
(I have the authority to do so by 
An order of the house of Brandenburg), 
For a fit escort — but this cursed flood 
Bars all access, and may do for some hours. 

Ule. It is abating. 

Steal. That is well. 

Ule. * But how 

Am I concern'd? 

Steal. As one who did so much 

For me, you cannot be indifferent to 
That which is of more import to me than 
The life you rescued. — Keep your eye on him ! 
The man avoids me, knows that I now know him. — 
Watch him ! — as you would watch the wild boar when 
He makes against you in the hunter's gap — 
Like him he must be spear'd. 

Ule. Why so ? 

Steal. He stands 

Between me and a brave inheritance ! 
Oh ! could you see it ! But you shall. 

Ule. I hope so. 

Steal. It is the richest of the rich Bohemia, 
Unscathed by scorching war. It lies so near 
The strongest city, Prague, that fire and sword 
Have skimm'd it lightly : so that now, besides 



I 



f 1 



Scene I. 



WERNER. 



423 



Its own exuberance, it bears double value, 
Confronted with whole realms far and near 
Made deserts. 

Ulr. You describe it faithfully. 

Steal. Ay, could you see it, you would say so — but. 
As I have said, you shall. 

Ulr, I accept the omen. 

Steal. Then claim a recompense from it and me, 
Such as both may make worthy your acceptance 
And services to me and mine for ever. 

Ulr. And this sole, sick, and miserable wretch — 
This wayworn stranger — stands between you and 
This Paradise ? — (As Adam did between 
The devil and his.) — {Aside.'] 

Steal. He doth. 

Ulr. Hath he no right ? 

Stral. Right ! none. A disinherited prodigal, 
Who for these twenty years disgraced his lineage 
In all his acts — but chiefly by his marriage, 
And living amidst commerce-fetching burghers, 
And dabbling merchants, in a mart of Jews. 

Ule. He has a wife, then ? 

Steal. You'd be sorry to 

Call auch your mother. You have seen the woman 
He calls his wife. 

Ulr. Is she not so ? 

Steal. * No more 

Than he's your father : — an Italian girl, 
The daughter of a banish'd man, who lives 
On love and poverty with this same Werner. 

Ulr. They are childless, then ? 

Stral. There is or was a bastard, 

Whom the old man — the grandsire (as old age 
Is ever doting) took to warm his bosom. 
As it went chilly downward to the grave : 
But the imp stands not in my path — he has fled. 
No one knows whither ; and if he had not, 
His claims alone were too contemptible 
To stand. — Why do you smile ? 

Ulr. At your vain fears : 

A poor man almost in his grasp — a child 
Of doubtful birth — can startle a grandee ! 

Stral. All's to be fear'd, where all is to be gain'd. 

Ulr. True ; and aught done to save or to obtain it. 

Stral. You have harp'd the very string next to 
my heart. 
I may depend upon you ? 

Ulr. 'Twere too late 

To doubt it. 

Stral. Let no foolish pity shake 
Your bosom (for the appearance of the man 
Is pitiful) — he is a wretch, as likely 
To have robb'd me as the fellow more .suspected. 
Except that circumstance is less against him ; 
He being lodged far off", and in a chamber 
Without approach to mine : and, to say truth, 
I think too well of blood allied to mine. 
To deem he would descend to such an act: 
Besides, he was a soldier, and a brave one 
Once — though too rash. 



Ulr. And they, my lord, we know 

By our experience, never plunder till 
They knock the brains out first — which makes them 

heirs. 
Not thieves. The dead, who feel nought, can lose 

nothing. 
Nor e'er be robb'd : their spoils are a bequest — 
No more. 

Steal. Go to ! you are a wag. But say 
I may be sure you'll keep an eye on this man. 
And let me know his slightest movement towards 
Concealment or escape ? 

Ule. You may be sure 

You yourself could not watch him more than I 
Will be his sentinel. 

Steal. By this you make me 

Yours, and for ever. 

Ule. Such is my intention. {Exeunt. 



ACT III. 

SCENE I. 



A Hall in the same Palace, from whence the secret 
Passage leads. 

Enter Weenee and Gabor. 

Gab. Sir, I have told my tale : if it so please you 
To give me refuge for a few hours, well — 
If not, I'll try my fortune elsewhere. 

Wee. How 

Can I, so wretched, give to Misery 
A shelter ? — wanting such myself as much 
As e'er the hunted deer a covert 

Gab. Or 

The wounded lion his cool cave. Methinks 
You rather look like one would turn at bay, 
And rip the hunter's entrails. 

Wee. Ah ! 

Gab. I care not 

If it be so, being much disposed to do 
The same myself. But will you shelter me ? 
I am oppress'd like you — and poor like you — 
Disgraced 

Wee. {abruptly). Who told you that I was dis- 
graced ? 

Gab. No one ; nor did I say you were so: with 
Your poverty my likeness ended ; but 
I said / was so — and would add, with truth, 
As undeservedly as you. 

Wee, Again I 

As/? 

Gab. Or any other honest man. 
What the devil would you have ? You don't believe 

me 
Guilty of this base theft ? 

Wee. No, no— I cannot. 



424 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Act III. 



:1 

I 



Gab. Why that's my heart of honor! yon young 
gallant — 
Your miserly intendant and dense noble — 
All — all suspected me ; and why ? because 
I am the worst clothed, and least named amongst 

them; 
Although, were Momus' lattice in your breasts. 
My soul might brook to open it more widely 
Than theirs : but thus it is— you poor and helpless— 
Both still more than myself. 

Wee. How knew you that ? 

Gab. You're right : I ask for shelter at the hand 
Which I call helpless ; if you now deny it, 
I were well paid. But you, who seem to have proved 
The wholesome bitterness of life, know well, 
By sympathy, that all the outspread gold 
Of the New World the Spaniard boasts about, 
Could never tempt the man who knows its worth 
Weigh'd at its proper value in the balance, 
Save in such guise (and there I grant its power, 
Because I feel it) as may leave no nightmare 
Upon his heart o' nights. 

Wee. What do you mean ? 

Gab. Just what I say; I thought my speech was 
plain : 
You are no thief— nor I — and, as true men, 
Should aid each other. 

Wee. It is a damn'd world, sir. 

Gab. So is the nearest of the two next, as 
The priests say (and no doubt they should know best), 
Therefore I'll stick by this — as being loth 
To suffer martyrdom, at least with such 
An epitaph as larceny upon my tomb. 
It is but a night's lodging which I crave : 
To-morrow I will try the waters, as 
The dove did, trusting that they have abated. 

Wee. Abated ? Is there hope of that ? 

Gab. There was 

At noontide. 

Wee. Then we may be safe. 

Gab. Are you 

In peril ? 

Wee. Poverty is ever so. 

Gab. That I know by long practice. Will you not 
Promise to make mine less ? 

Wee. Your poverty ? 

Gab. No — you don't look a leech for that disorder ; 
I meant my peril only : you've a roof. 
And I have none ; I merely seek a covert. 

Wee. Rightly ; for how should such a wretch as I 
Have gold ? 

Gab. Scarce honestly, to say the truth on't, 

Although I almost wish you had the baron's. 

Wee. Dare you insinuate ? 

Gab. What ? 

Wee. Are you aware 

To whom you speak ? 

Gab. No ; and I am not used 

Greatly to care. {A noise heard without.) But hark ! 
they come ! 



Wee. Who come ? 

Gab. The intendant and his man-hounds after me : 
I'd face them — but it were in vain to expect 
Justice at hands like theirs. Where shall I go ? 
But show me any place. I do assure you. 
If there be faith in man, I am most guiltless : 
Think if it were your own case ! 

Wee, {aside). Oh, just God ! 

Thy hell is not hereafter ! Am I dust still ? 

Gab. I see you're moved ; and it shows well in you : 
I may live to requite it. 

Wee. Are you not 

A spy of Stralenheim's ? 

Gab. Not I ! and if 

I were, what is there to espy in you ? 
Although, I recollect, his frequent question 
About you and your spouse might lead to some 
Suspicion ; but you best know — what — and why. 
I am his deadliest foe. 

Wee. Youf 

Gab. After such 

A treatment for the service which in part 
I render'd him, I am his enemy : 
If you are not his friend, you will assist me. 

Wee. I will. 

Gab. But how? 

Wee. {showing the panel). There is a secret spring : 
Remember, I discover'd it by chance, 
And used it but for safety. 

Gab. Open it, 

And I will use it for the same. 

Wee. I found it, 

As I have said : it leads through winding walls 
(So thick as to bear paths within their ribs. 
Yet lose no jot of strength or stateliness). 
And hollow cells, and obscure niches, to 
I know not whither ; you must not advance : 
Give me your word. 

Gab. It is unnecessary : 

How should I make my way in darkness through 
A Gothic labyrinth of unknown windings ? 

Wee. Yes, but who knows to what place it may 
lead? 
I know not — (mark you !) — but who knows it might 

not 
Lead even into the chamber of your foe ? 
So strangely were contrived these galleries 
By our Teutonic fathers in old days. 
When man built less against the elements 
Than his next neighbor. You must not advance 
Beyond the two first windings ; if you do 
(Albeit I never pass'd them), I'll not answer 
For what you may be led to. 

Gab. But I will. 

A thousand thanks ! 

Wee. You'll find the spring more obvious 

On the other side ; and, when you would return, 
It yields to the least touch. 

Gab. I'll in— farewell ! 

[Gaboe goes in hy the secret panel. 



Scene I. 



WEENER. 



426 



Wer. (soltcs). What have I done? Alas! what had 
I done 
Before to make this fearful ? Let it be 
Still some atonement that I save the man, 
Whose sacrifice had saved perhaps my own — 
They come ! to seek elsewhere what is before them ! 

Enter Idenstein and Others. 

Iden. Is he not here ? He must have vanish'd then 
Through the dim Gothic glass by pious aid 
Of pictur'd saints upon the red and yellow 
Casements, through which the sunset streams like 

sunrise 
On long pearl-color'd beards and crimson crosses. 
And gilded crosiers, and cross'd arms, and cowls, 
And helms, and twisted armor, and long swords. 
All the fantastic furniture of windows 
Dim with brave knights and holy hermits, whose 
Likeness and fame alike rest in some panes 
Of crystal, which each rattling wind proclaims 
As frail as any other life or glory. 
He's gone, however. 

Wer. Whom do you seek ? 

Iden. A villain. 

Wer. Why need you come so far, then ? 

Iden. In the search 

Of him who robb'd the baron. 

Wer. Are you sure 

You have divined the man ? 

Iden. As sure as you 

Stand there : but where's he gone ? 

Wer. Who ? 

Iden. He we sought. 

Wer. You see he is not here. 

Iden. And yet we traced him 

Up to this hall. Are you accomplices ? 
Or deal you in the black art? 

Wer. I deal plainly, 

To many men the blackest. 

Iden. It may be 

I have a question or two for yourself 
Hereafter; but we must continue now 
Our search for t'other. 

Wer. You had best begin 

Your inquisition now : I may not be 
So patient always. 

Iden. I should like to know, 

In good sooth, if you really are the man 
That Stralenheim's in quest of. 

Wer. Insolent I 

Said you not that he was not here ? 

Iden. Yes, one; 

But there's another whom he tracks more keenly. 
And soon, it may be, with authority 
Both paramount to his and mine. But, come ! 
Bustle, my boys ! we are at fault. 

[Exit Idenstein and Attendants. 

Wer. In what 

A maze hath my dim destiny involved me ! 
And one base sin hath done me less ill than 



The leaving undone one far greater. Down, 

Thou busy devil, rising in my heart ! 

Thou art too late ! I'll nought to do with blood. 

Enter Uleic. 

Ulr. I sought you, father. 

Wer. Is't not dangerous ? 

Ulr. No ; Stralenheim is ignorant of all 
Or any of the ties between us : more — 
He sends me here a spy upon your actions, 
Deeming me wholly his. 

Wer. I cannot think it; 

'Tis but a snare he winds about us both, 
To swoop the sire and son at once. 

Ulr. I cannot 

Pause in each petty fear, and stumble at 
The doubts that rise like briers in our path. 
But must break through them, as an unarm'd carle 
Would, though with naked limbs, were the wolf 

rustling 
In the same thicket where he hew'd for bread. 
Nets are for thrushes, eagles are not caught so : 
We'll overfly or rend them. 

Wer. Show me how f 

Ulr. Can you not guess ? 

Wer. I cannot. 

Ulr. That is strange. 

Came the thought ne'er into your mind last night f 

Wer. I understand you not. 

Ulr. Then we shall never 

More understand each other. But to change 
The topic 

Wer. You mean to pursue it, as 

'Tis of our safety. 

Ulr. Eight ; I stand corrected. 

I see the subject now more clearly, and 
Our general situation in its bearings. 
The waters are abating ; a few hours 
Will bring his summon'd myrmidons from Frankfort, 
When you will be a prisoner, perhaps worse, 
And I an outcast, bastardized by practice 
Of this same baron to make way for him. 

Wer. And now your remedy ! I thought to escape 
By means of this accursed gold ; but now 
I dare not use it, show it, scarce look on it. 
Methinks it wears upon its face my guilt 
For motto, not the mintage of the state ; 
And, for the sovereign's head, my own begirt 
With hissing snakes, which curl around my temples, 
And cry to all beholders, Lo ! a villain ! 

Ulr. You must not use it, at least now ; but take 
This ring. [He gives Werner a jewel. 

Wer. a gem ! It was my father's ! 

Ulr. And 

As such is now your own. With this you must 
Bribe the intendant for his old caleche 
And horses to pursue your route at sunrise, 
Together with my mother. 

Wer. And leave you, 

So lately found, in peril too ? 



426 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Act III. 



Ulr. Fear nothing ! 

The only fear were if we fled together, 
For that would make our ties beyond all doubt. 
The waters only lie in flood between 
This burgh and Frankfort ; so far's in our favor. 
The route on to Bohemia, though encumber'd, 
Is not impassable ; and when you gain 
A few hours' start, the difficulties will be 
The same to your pursuers. Once beyond 
The frontier, and you're safe. 

Wee,. My noble boy ! 

Ulr. Hush! hush! no transports: we'll indulge 
in them 
In Castle Siegendorf ! Display no gold : 
Show Idenstein the gem (I know the man, 
And have look'd through him) : it will answer thus 
A double purpose. Stralenheim lost gold — 
No jewel : therefore it could not be his ; 
And then the man who was possest of this 
Can hardly be suspected of abstracting 
The baron's coin, when he could thus convert 
This ring to more than Stralenheim has lost 
By his last night's slumber. Be not over timid 
In your address, nor yet too arrogant. 
And Idenstein will serve you. 

Wer. I will follow 

In all things your direction. 

Ulr. I would have 

Spared you the trouble ; but had I appear'd 
To take an interest in you, and still more 
By dabbling with a jewel in your favor, 
All had been known at once. 

Wer. My guardian angel ! 

This overpays the past. But how wilt thou 
Fare in our absence ? 

Ulr. Stralenheim knows nothing 

Of me as aught of kindred with yourself. 
I will biit wait a day or two with him 
To lull all doubts, and then rejoin my father. 

Wer. To part no more 

Ulr. I know not that ; but at 

The least we'll meet again once more. 

Wer, My boy ! 

My friend ! my only child, and sole preserver ! 
Oh, do not hate me ! 

Ulr. Hate my father ! 

Wer. Ay, 

My father hated me. Why not my son ? 

Ulr. Your father knew you not as I do. 

Wer. Scorpions 

Are in thy words ! Thou know me ? in this guise 
Thou canst not know me, I am not myself; 
Yet (hate me not) I will be soon. 

Ulr. I'll wait I 

In the mean time be sure that all a son 
Can do for parents shall be done for mine. 

Wer. I see it, and I feel it ; yet I feel 
Further — that you despise me. 

Ulr. Wherefore should I ? 

Wer. Must I repeat my humiliation ? 



Ulr. No! 

I have fathom'd it and you. But let us talk 
Of this no more. Or if it must be ever. 
Not now. Your error has redoubled all 
The present difficulties of our house, 
At secret war with that of Stralenheim : 
All we have now to think of is to baffle 
Him. I have shown one way. 

Wer. The only one, 

And I embrace it, as I did my son. 
Who show'd himself and father's safety in 
One day. 

Ulr. You shall be safe ; let that suffice. 
Would Stralenheim's appearance in Bohemia 
Disturb your right, or mine, if once we were 
Admitted to our lands ? 

Wer. Assuredly, 

Situate as we are now, although the first 
Possessor might, as usual, prove the strongest, 
Especially the next in blood. 

Ulr. Blood! 'tis 

A word of many meanings ; in the veins, 
And out of them, it is a different thing — 
Aiid so it should be, when the same in blood 
(As it is call'd) are aliens to each other, 
Like Theban brethren : when a part is bad, 
A few spilt ounces purify the rest. 

Wer. I do not apprehend you. 

Ulr. That may be— 

And should, perhaps — and yet but get ye ready ; 

You and my mother must away to-night. 

Here comes the intendant: sound him with the 

gem; 
'Twill sink into his venal soul like lead 
Into the deep, and bring up slime and mud, 
And ooze too, from the bottom, as the lead doth 
With its greased understratum ; but no less ,^_^ 
Will serve to warn our vessels through these shoals. 
The freight is rich, so heave the line in time ! 
Farewell ! I scarce have time, but yet your hand, 
My father ! 

Wer. Let me embrace thee ! 

Ulr. We may be 

Observed : subdue your nature to the hour ! 
Keep off" from me as from your foe ! 

Wer. Accursed 

Be he who is the stifling cause which smothers 
The best and sweetest feeling of our hearts ; 
At^uch an hour too ! 

Ulr. Yes, curse — it will ease you ! 

Here is the intendant. 

Enter Idenstein. 

Master Idenstein, 
How fare you in your purpose ? Have you caught 
The rogue ? 
Iden. No, faith ! 

Ulr. Well, there are plenty more : 

You may have better luck another chase. 
Where is the baron ? 



Scene II. 



WEKNER. 



427 



Iden. Gone back to his chamber : 

And, now I think on't, asking after you 
With nobly-born impatience. 

Ulr. Your great men 

Must be answer'd on the instant, as the bound 
Of the stung steed replies unto the spur : 
'Tis well they have horses, too; for, if they had 

not, 
I fear that men must draw their chariots, as 
They say kings did Sesostris. 

Iden. Who was he ? 

Ulr. An old Bohemian— an imperial gipsy. 

Iden. A gipsy or Bohemian, 'tis the same, 
For they pass by both names. And was he one ? 

Ulr. I've heard so; but I must take leave. In- 
tendant. 
Your servant ! — Werner {to Werner slightly), if that 

be your name, 
Yours. {Exit Ulric. 

Iden. A well-spoken, pretty-faced young man ! 
And prettily behaved ! He knows his station, 
You see, sir : how he gave to each his due 
Precedence ! 

Wer. I perceived it, and applaud 

His just discernment and your own. 

Iden. That's well— 

That's very well. You also know your place, too ; 
And yet I don't know that I knoAV your place. 

Wer. [showing the ring). Would this assist your 
knowledge ? 

Iden. How !— What !— Eh ! 

A jewel ! 

Wer. 'Tis your own on one condition. 

Iden. Mine ! — Name it ! 

Wer. That hereafter you permit me 

At thrice its value to redeem it : 'tis 
A family ring. 

Iden. A family ! — yours ! — a gem ! 

I'm breathless ! 

Wer. You must also furnish me. 

An hour ere daybreak, with all means to quit 
This place. 

Iden. But is it real ? Let me look on it : 

Diamond, by all that's glorious ! 

Wer. Come, I'll trust you ; 

You have guess'd, no doubt, that I was born above 
My present seeming. 

Iden. I can't say I did. 

Though this looks like it : this is the true breeding 
Of gentle blood ! 

Wer. I have important reasons 

For wishing to continue privily 
My journey hence. 

Iden. So then you are the man 

Whom Stralenheim's in quest of? 

Wer. I am not ; 

But being taken for him might conduct 
So much embarrassment to me just now, 
And to the baron's self hereafter — 'tis 
To spare both that I would avoid all bustle. 



Iden. Be you the man or no, 'tis not my business ; 
Besides, I never should obtain the half 
From this proud, niggardly noble, who would raise 
The country for some missing bits of coin. 
And never offer a precise reward — 
But this ! — another look ! 

Wer. Gaze on it freely ; 

At day-dawn it is yours. 

Iden. Oh, thou sweet sparkler ! 

Thou more than stone of the philosopher 1 
Thou touchstone of Philosophy herself! 
Thou bright eye of the Mine ! thou loadstar of 
The soul ! the true magnetic Pole to which 
All hearts point duly north, like trembling needles ! 
Thou flaming Spirit of the Earth ! which, sitting 
High on the monarch's diadem, attractest 
More worship than the majesty who sweats 
Beneath the crown which makes his head ache, like 
Millions of hearts which bleed to lend it lustre ! 
Shalt thou be mine ? I am, methinks, already 
A little king, a lucky alchemist ! — 
A wise magician, who has bound the devil 
Without the forfeit of his soul. But come, 
Werner, or what else ? 

Wer. Call me Werner still ; 

You may yet know me by a loftier title. 

Iden. I do believe in thee ! thou art the spirit 
Of whom I long have dream'd in a low garb. — 
But come, I'll serve thee : thou shalt be as free 
As air, despite the waters ; let us hence : 
I'll show thee I am honest — (oh, thou jewel !) 
Thou shalt be furnish'd, Werner, with such means 
Of flight, that if thou wert a snail, not birds 
Should overtake thee. — Let me gaze again ! 
I have a foster brother in the mart 
Of Hamburgh skill'd in precious stones. How many 
Carats may it weigh? — Come, Werner, I will wing 
thee. \_Exeunt. 

SCENE 11. 

Stralenheim's Chamber. 

Stralenheim and Fritz. 

Fritz. All's ready, my good lord I 

Stkal. I am not sleepy, 

And yet I must to bed ; I fain would say 
To rest, but something heavy on my spirit, 
Too dull for wakefulness, too quick for slumber, 
Sits on me as a cloud along the sky. 
Which will not let the sunbeams through, nor yet 
Descend in rain and end, but spreads itself 
'Twixt earth and heaven, like envy between man 
And man, an everlasting mist: — I will 
Unto my pillow. 

Fritz. May you rest there well ! 

Stral. I feel, and fear, I shall. 



Fritz. 



And wherefore fear ? 



Stral. I know not why, and therefore do fear more, 
Because an undescribable but 'tis 



428 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Act III. 



All folly. Were the locks (as I desired) 
Changed, to-day, of this chamber ? for last night's 
Adventure makes it needful. 

Fkitz. Certainly, 

According to your order, and beneath 
The inspection of myself and the young Saxon 
Who saved your life. I think they call him " Ulric." 

Steal. You think! you supercilious slave! what 
right 
Have you to tax your memory, which should be 
Quick, proud, and happy to retain the name 
Of him who saved your master, as a litany 
Whose daily repetition marks your duty ?— 
Get hence ! ^'You think,''' indeed! you who stood still 
Howling and dripping on the bank, whilst I 
Lay dying, and the stranger dash'd aside 
The roaring torrent, and restored me to 
Thank him — and despise you. ''You think!" and 

scarce 
Can recollect his name ! I will not waste 
More words on you. Call me betimes. 

Feitz. Good night ! 

I trust to-morrow will restore your lordship 
To renovated strength and temper. 

[The scene closes. 



SCENE III. 

The secret Passage. 

Gaboe {solus). Four — 

Five — six hours have I counted, like the guard 
Of outposts on the never-merry clock : 
That hollow tongue of time, which, even when 
It sounds for joy, takes something from enjoyment 
With every clang. 'Tis a perpetual knell, 
Though for a marriage feast it rings : each stroke 
Peals for a hope the less ; the funeral note 
Of Love deep-buried without resurrection 
In the grave of Possession ; while the knoll 
Of long-lived parents finds a jovial echo 
To triple Time in the son's ear. 

I'm cold — 
I'm dark ; I've blown my fingers — number'd o'er 
And o'er my steps — and knock'd my head against 
Some fifty buttresses — and roused the rats 
And bats in general insurrection, till 
Their cursed pattering feet and whirling wings 
Leave me scarce hearing for another sound. 
A light ! It is at distance (if I can 
Measure in darkness distance) : but it blinks 
As through a crevice or a keyhole, in 
The inhibited direction : I must on. 
Nevertheless, from curiosity. 
A distant lamplight is an incident 
In such a den as this. Pray Heaven it lead me 
To nothing that may tempt me ! Else — Heaven aid me 
To obtain or to escape it ! Shining still ! 
Were it the star of Lucifer himself, 



Or he himself girt with its beams, I could 

Contain no longer. Softly ! mighty well ! 

That corner's turn'd — so — ah ! no ! — right ! it draws 

Nearer. Here is a darksome angle — so. 

That's weather'd, — Let me pause. — Suppose it leads 

Into some greater danger than that which 

I have escaped — no matter, 'tis a new one ; 

And novel perils, like fresh mistresses, 

Wear more magnetic aspects : I will on. 

And be it where it may — I have my dagger, 

Which may protect me at a pinch.— Burn still. 

Thou little light ! Thou art my ignis fatuus ! 

My stationary Will-o'-the-wisp ! — So ! so ! 

He hears my invocation, and fails not. 

4.The scene closes. 



SCENE IV. 
A Garden. 

Enter Weenee. 

Wee. I could not sleep — and now the hour's at 
hand ; 
All's ready. Idenstein has kept his word ; 
And station'd in the outskirts of the town, 
Upon the forest's edge, the vehicle 
Awaits us. Now the dwindling stars begin 
To pale in heaven ; and for the last time I ^ 
Look on these horrible walls. Oh ! never, never 
Shall I forget them. Here I came most poor, 
But not dishonor'd : and I leave them with 
A stain, — if not upon my name, yet in 
My heart !— a never-dying canker-worm. 
Which all the coming splendor of the lands. 
And rights, and sovereignty of Siegendorf 
Can scarcely lull a moment. I must find 
Some means of restitution, which would ease 
My soul in part ; but how without discovery ? — 
It must be done, however ; and I'll pause 
Upon the method the first hour of safety. 
The madness of my misery led to this 
Base infamy ; repentance must retrieve it : 
I will have nought of Stralenheim's upon 
My spirit, though he would grasp all of mine ; 
Lands, freedom, life, — and yet he sleeps as soundly. 
Perhaps, as infancy, with gorgeous curtains 
Spread for his canopy, o'er silken pillows. 

Such as when Hark ! what noise is that ? Again ! 

The branches shake; and some loose stones have 

fallen 
From yonder terrace. 

[Uleic leaps down from, the terrace. 
Ulric ! ever welcome ! 
Thrice welcome now ! this filial 

Ule. Stop! Before 

We approach, tell me 

Wee. Why look you so ? 

Ule. Do I 

Behold my father, or 



Scene IV. 



WEKNER. 



429 



Wer. What? 

Ulb, An assassin ? 

Wer. Insane or insolent ! 

Ulr. Reply, sir, as 

You prize your life, or mine ! 

Wer. To what must I 

Answer ? 

Ulr. Are you or are you not the assassin 
Of Stralenheim ? 

Wer. I never was as yet 

The murderer of any man. What mean you ? 

Ulr. Did not you this night (as the night before) 
• Retrace the secret passage ? Did you not 

j Again revisit Stralenheim's chamber ? and 

[Ulric pauses. 

Wer. Proceed. 

Ulr. Died he not by your hand ? 

Wer. Great God ! 

Ulr. You are innocent, then! my father's inno- 
cent! 
Embrace me! Yes, — your tone — your look — yes, 

yes, — 
Yet say so. 

Wer. If I e'er, in heart or mind. 

Conceived deliberately such a thought. 
But rather strove to trample back to hell 
Such thoughts — if e'er they glared a moment through 
The irritation of my oppress'd spirit — 
May heaven be shut for ever from my hopes 
As from mine eyes ! 

Ulr. But Stralenheim is dead. 

Wer. 'Tis horrible ! 'tis hideous, as 'tis hateful ! — 
But what have I to do with this ? 

Ulr. No bolt 

Is forced ; no violence can be detected. 
Save on his body. Part of his own household 
Have been alarm'd ; but as the intendant is 
Absent, I took upon myself the care 
Of mustering the police. His chamber has. 
Past doubt, been enter'd secretly. Excuse me, 
If nature 

Wer. Oh, my boy ! what unknown woes 

Of dark fatality, like clouds, are gathering 
Above our house ! 

Ulr. My father 1 I acquit you I 

But will the world do so? will even the judge, 
If But you must away this instant. 

Wer. No ! 

I'll face it. Who shall dare suspect me ? 

Ulr. Yet 

You had no guests — no visitors — no life 
Breathing around you, save my mother's? 

Wer. Ah I 

The Hungarian ! 

Ulr. He is gone ! he disappear'd 

Ere sunset. 

Wer. No ; I hid him in that very 

ConceaPd and fatal gallery. 

Ulr. There I'll find him. 

[Ulric is going. 



Wer. It is too late ; he had left the palace ere 
I quitted it. I found the secret panel 
Open, and the doors which lead from that hall 
Which masks it : I but thought he had snatch'd tl^e 

' silent 
And favorable moment to escape 
The myrmidons of Idenstein, who were 
Dogging him yester even. 

Ulr. You reclosed 

The panel ? 

Wer. Yes ; and not without reproach 

(And inner trembling for the avoided peril) 
At his dull heedlessness, in leaving thus 
His shelterer's asylum to the risk 
Of a discovery. 

Ulr. You are sure you closed it ? 

Wer. Certain. 

Ulr. That's well ; but had been better if 
You ne'er had turn'd it to a den for [He pauses. 

Wer. Thieves ! 

Thou wouldst say : I must bear it and deserve it ; 
But not 

Ulr. No, father ; do not speak of this 

This is no hour to think of petty crimes. 
But to prevent the consequence of great ones. 
Why would you shelter this man ? 

Wer. Could I shun it ? 

A man pursued by my chief foe ; disgraced 
For my own crime ; a victim to my safety. 
Imploring a few hours' concealment from 
The very wretch who was the cause he needed 
Such refuge. Had he been a wolf, I could not 
Have in such circumstances thrust him forth. 

Ulr. And like the wolf he hath repaid you. But 
It is too late to ponder thus : — you must 
Set out ere dawn. I will remain here to 
Trace the murderer, if 'tis possible. 

Wer. But this my sudden flight will give the Jilo- 
loch 
Suspicion two new victims in the lieu 
. Of one, if I remain. The fled Hungai-ian, 
Who seems the culprit, and 

Ulr. Who seems f Who else 

Can be so ? 

Wer. Not I, though just now you doubted — 
You, my son ! — doubted 

Ulr. And do you doubt of him 

The fugitive ? 

Wer. Boy ! since I fell into 

The abyss of crime (though not of such crime), I, 
Having seen the innocent oppress'd for me, 
May doubt even of the guilty's guilt. Your heart 
Is free, and quick with virtuous wrath to accuse 
Appearances ; and views a criminal 
In Innocence's shadow, it may be, 
Because 'tis dusky. 

Ulr. And if I do so. 

What will mankind, who know you not, or knew 
But to oppress ? You must not stand the hazard. 
Away ! — I'll make all easy. Idenstein 



430 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Act IV. 



Will for his own sake and his jewel's hold 
His peace — he also is a partner in 

Your flight — moreover 

, Wee,. Fly ! and leave my name 

Link'd with the Hungarian's, or preferr'd as poorest, 
To bear the brand of bloodshed ? 

Ulr. Pshaw ! leave anything 

Except our father's sovereignty and castles, 
For which you have so long panted, and in vain ! 
What name f You have no name, ^nce that you bear 
Is feign'd. 

Wer. Most true ; but still I would not have it 
Engraved in crimson in men's memories, 
Though in this most obscure abode of men — 
Besides, the search 

Ule. I will provide against 

Aught that can touch you. No one knows you here 
As heir of Siegendorf : if Idenstein 
Suspects, 'tis hut suspicion, and he is 
A fool : his folly shall have such employment, 
Too, that the unknown Werner shall give way 
To nearer thoughts of self The laws (if e'er 
Laws reach'd this village) are all in abeyance 
With the late general war of thirty years, 
Or crush'd, or rising slowly from the dust, 
To which the march of armies trampled them. 
Stralenheim, although noble, is unheeded 
Here, save as such — without lands, influence. 
Save what hath perish'd with him. Few prolong 
A week beyond their funeral rites their sway 
O'er men, unless by relatives, whose interest 
Is roused : such is not here the case ; he died 
Alone, unknown, — a solitary grave. 
Obscure as his deserts, without a scutcheon. 
Is all he'll have, or wants. If / discover 
The assassin, 'twill be well — if not, believe me 
None else ; though all the full-fed train of menials 
May howl above his ashes (as they did 
Around him in his danger on the Oder), 
Will no more stir a finger now than then. 
Hence ! hence ! I must not hear your answer. — Look ! 
The stars are almost faded, and the gray 
Begins to grizzle the black hair of niglit. 
You shall not answer : — Pardon me that I 
Am peremptory ; 'tis your son that speaks. 
Your long-lost, late-found son. — Let's call my mother ! 
Softly and swiftly step, and leave the rest 
To me : I'll answer for the event as far 
As regards you, and that is the chief point. 
As my first duty, which shall be observed. 
We'll meet in Castle Siegendorf— once more 
Our banners shall be glorious ! Tliink of that 
Alone, and leave all other thoughts to me, 
Whose youth may better battle with them. — Hence I 
And may your age be happy ! — I will kiss 
My mother once more, then Heaven's speed be with 
you! 

Wer. This counsel's safe — but is it honorable ? 

Ulr. To save a father is a child's chief honor. 

{Exeunt. 



ACT IV. 

SCENE I. 

A Gothic Hall in the Castle of Siegendorf, near 
Prague. 

Enter Eric and Henrick, Retainers of the Count. 

Eric. So, better times are come at last ; to these 
Old walls new masters and high wassail — both 
A long desideratum. 

Hen. Yes, for masters, 

It might be unto those who long for novelty, 
Though made by a new grave : but as for wassail, 
Methinks the old Count Siegendorf maintain'd 
His feudal hospitality as high 
As e'er another prince of the empire. 

Eric. Why, 

For the mere cup and trencher, we no doubt 
Fared passing well ; but as for merriment 
And sport, without which salt and sauces season 
The cheer but scantily, our sizings were 
Even of the narrowest. 

Hen. The old count loved not 

The roar of revel ; are you sure that this does ? 

Eric. As yet he hath been courteous as he's boun- 
teous. 
And we all love him. 

Hen. His reign is as yet 

Hardly a year o'erpast its honeymoon. 
And the first year of sovereigns is bridal : 
Anon, we shall perceive his real sway 
And moods of mind. 

Eric. Pray Heaven he keep the present ! 

Then his brave son. Count Ulric — there's a knight ! 
Pity the wars are o'er ! 

Hen. Why so ? 

Eric. Look on him ! 

And answer that yourself. 

Hen. He's very youthful, 

And strong and beautiful as a young tiger. 

Eric. That's not a faithful vassal's likeness. 

Hen. But 

Perhaps a true one. 

Eric. Pity, as I said. 

The wars are over : in the hall, who like 
Count Ulric for a well-supported pride. 
Which awes, but yet ofiends not ? in the field, 
Who like him with his spear in hand, when, gnashing 
His tusks, and ripping up from right to left 
The howling hounds, the boar makes for the thicket? 
Who backs a horse, or bears a hawk, or wears 
A sword like him ? Whose j)lume nods knightlier ? 

Hen. No one's, I grant you. Do not fear, if war 
Be long in coming, he is of that kind 
Will make it for himself, if he hath not 
Already done as much. 

Eric, What do you mean ? 

Hen. You can't deny his train of followers 
(But few our native fellow vassals born 



Scene I. 



WERNEK. 



431 



On the domain) are such a sort of knaves 
As {Pauses.) 

Eric. What? 

Hen. The war (you love so much) leaves living. 
Like other parents, she spoils her worst children. 

Eric. Nonsense ! they are all brave, iron-visaged 
fellows, 
Such as old Tilly loved. 

Hen. And who loved Tilly ? 
Ask that at Magdebourg — or for that matter 
Wallenstein either ; — they are gone to 

Eric. Rest ; 

But what beyond 'tis not ours to pronounce. 

Hen. I wish they had left us something of their 
rest. * 

The country (nominally now at peace) 
Is overrun with — God knows who : they fly 
By night, and disappear Avith sunrise ; but 
Leave us no less desolation, nay, even more. 
Than the most open warfare. 

Eric. But Count Ulric — 

What has all this to do with him ? 

Hen. With him ! 

He might prevent it. As you say he's fond 

Of war, why makes he it not on those marauders ? 

Eric. You'd better ask himself. 

Hen. I would as soon 

Ask the lion why he laps not milk. 

Eric. And here he comes ! 

Hen. The devil ! you'll hold your tongue ? 

Eric. Why do you turn so pale ? 

Hen. 'Tis nothing— but 

Be silent. 

Eric. I will, upon what you have said. 

Hen. I assure you I meant nothing, — a mere sport 
Of words, no more ; besides, had it been otherwise, 
He is to espouse the gentle baroness, 
Ida of Stralenheim, the late baron's heiress ; 
And she, no doubt, will soften whatsoever 
Of fierceness the late long intestine wars 
Have given all natures, and most unto those 
Who were born in them, and bred up upon 
The knees of Homicide; sprinkled, as it were, 
With blood even at their baptism. Prithee, peace 
On all that I have said ! 

Enter Ulric and Rodolph. 

Good morrow, count. 

Ulr. Good morrow, worthy Henrick. Eric, is 
All ready for the chase? 

Eric. The dogs are order'd 

Down to the forest, and the vassals out 
To beat the bushes, and the day looks promising. 
Shall I call forth your excellency's suite ? 
What courser will you please to mount ? 

Ulr. The dun, 

Walstein. 

Eric. I fear he scarcely has recover'd 
The toils of Monday : 'twas a noble chase : 
You spear'd/at<r with your own hand. 



Ulr. True, good Eric; 

I had forgotten — let it be the gray, then. 
Old Ziska : he has not been out this fortnight. 

Eric. He shall be straight caparison'd. How 
many 
Of your immediate retainers shall 
Escort you ? 

Ulr. I leave that to Weilburg, our 

Master of the horse. {^Exit Eric. 

Rodolph I 

Rod. My lord ! 

Ulr. The news 

Is awkward from the — (Rodolph jootw^s to Henrick.) 
How now, Henrick ? why ' 
Loiter you here ? 

Hen. For your commands, my lord. 

Ulr. Go to my father, and present my duty. 
And learn if he would aught with me before 
I mount. [Exit Henrick. 

Rodolph, our friends have had a check 
Upon the frontiers of Franconia, and 
'Tis rumor'd that the column sent against them 
Is to be strengthen'd. I must join them soon. 

Rod. Best wait for further and more sure advices. 

Ulr. I mean it — and indeed it could not well 
Have fallen out at a time more opposite 
To all my plans. 

Rod. It will be difficult 

To excuse your absence to the count your father. 

Ulr. Yes, but the unsettled state of our domain 
In high Silesia will permit and cover 
My journey. In the mean time, when we are 
Engaged in the chase, draw off the eighty men 
Whom Wolffe leads — keep the forests on your route : 
You know it well ? 

Rod. As well as on that night 

When we 

Ulr. We will not speak of that until 

We can repeat the same witli like success : 
And when you have join'd, give Rosenberg this letter. 

{Gives a letter. 
Add further, that I have sent this slight addition 
To our force with you and Wolffe, as herald of 
My coming, though I could but spare them ill 
At this time, as my father loves to keep 
Full numbers of retainers round the castle. 
Until this marriage, and its feasts and fooleries, 
Are rung out with its peal of nuptial nonsense. 

Rod. I thought you loved the lady Ida ? 

Ulr. Why, 

I do so — but it follows not from that 
I would bind in my youth and glorious years, 
So brief and burning, with a lady's zone, 
Although 'twere that of Venus ; — but I love her, 
As woman should be loved, fairly and solely. 

Rod. And constantly ? 

Ulr. I think so ; for I love 

Nought else. — But I have not the time to pause 
Upon these gewgaws of the heart. Great things 
We have to do ere long. Speed ! speed 1 good Rodolph ! 



432 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



A.CT IV. 



Rod. On my return, however, I shall find 
The baroness Ida lost in Countess Siegendorf ? 

Ulr. Perhaps : my father wishes it ; and sooth 
'Tis no bad policy : this union with 
The last bud of the rival branch at once 
Unites the future and destroys the past. 

E.OD. Adieu. 

Ule. Yet hold — we had better keep together 

Until the chase begins ; then draw thou off, 
And do as I have said. 

EOD. I will. But to 

Return — 'twas a most kind act in the count 
Your father to send up to Konigsberg 
For this fair orphan of the baron, and 
To hail her as his daughter. 

Ulr. Wondrous kind ! 

Especially as little kindness till 
Then grew between them. 

Rod. The late baron died 

Of a fever, did he not ? 

Ulr. How should I know ? 

Rod. I have heard it whisper'd there was something 
strange 
About his death — and even the place of it 
Is scarcely known. 

Ulr. Some obscure village on 

The Saxon or Silesian frontier. 

Rod. He 

Has left no testament — no farewell words . 

Ulr. I am neither confessor nor notary, 
So cannot say. 

Rod. Ah ! here's the lady Ida. 

Enter Ida Stealenheim.i 

Ule. You are early, my sweet cousin ! 

Ida. Not too early, 

Dear Ulric, if I do not interrupt you. 
Why do you call me " cousin " ? 

Ulr. {smiling). Are we not so? 

Ida. Yes, but I do not like the name ; methinks 
It sounds so cold, as if you thought upon 
Our pedigree, and only weigh'd our blood. 

Ulr. {starting). Blood! 

Ida. Why does yours start from your cheeks ? 

Ulr. Ay! doth it? 

Ida. It doth — but no ! it rushes like a torrent 
Even to your brow again. 

Ule. {recovering himself). And if it fled, 
It only was because your presence sent it 
Back to my heart, which beats for you, sweet cousin ! 

Ida. " Cousin " again. 

Ule. Nay, then, I'll call you sister. 

Ida. I like that name still worse. — Would we had 
ne'er 
Been aught of kindred ! 

Ule. {gloomily). Would we never had ! 



^ " Ida, the new personage, is a precocious girl of fifteen, in 
a great hurry to be married ; and who has very little to do in 
the business of the play, but to produce an effect by fainting 



Ida. Oh, heavens ! and can you wish that ? 

Ulr. Dearest Ida ! 

Did I not echo your own wish ? 

Ida. Yes, Ulric, 

But then I wish'd it not with such a glance, 
And scarce knew what I said ; but let me be 
Sister, or cousin, what you will, so that 
I still to you am something. 

Ulr. You shall be 

All— all 

Ida. And you to me are so already ; 

But I can wait. 

Ulr. Dear Ida 

Ida. Call me Ida, 

Your Ida, for I would be yours, none else's — 
Indeed I have none else left, since my poor father — 

\^She pauses. 

Ulr. You have mine — you have me. 

Ida. Dear Ulric, how I wish 

My father could but view my happiness, 
Which wants but this ! 

Ulr. Indeed ! 

Ida. You would have loved him, 

He you ; for the brave ever love each other : 
His manner was a little cold, his spirit 
Proud (as is birth's prerogative) ; but under 

This grave exterior Would you had known each 

other ! 
Had such as you been near him on his journey. 
He had not died without a friend to soothe 
His last and lonely moments. 

Ulr. Who says that f 

Ida. What? 

Ulr. That he dded alone. 

Ida. The general rumor, 

And disappearance of his servants, who 
Have ne'er return'd : that fever was most deadly 
Which swept them all away. 

Ule. If they were near him, 

He could not die neglected or alone. 

Ida. Alas ! what is a menial to a death-bed. 
When the dim eye rolls vainly round for what 
It loves ? — They say he died of a fever. 

Ule. Say f 

It was so. 

Ida. I sometimes dream otherwise. 

Ule. All dreams are false. 

Ida. And yet I see him as 

I see you. 

Ulr. Where f 

Ida. In sleep — I see him lie 

Pale, bleeding, and a man with a raised knife 
Beside him. 

Ulr. But you do not see his face f 

Ida {looking at him). No ! Oh, my God I do you? 

Ulr. Why do you ask ? 



at the discovery of the villainy of her beloved, and partially 
touching on it in a previous scene."— ^c^. Rev. 



Scene I. 



WEENEK. 



433 



Ida. Because you look as if you sa^'' a murderer ! 

Ule. {agitatedly). Ida, this is mere childishness ; 
your weakness 
nfects me, to my shame ; but as all feelings 
Of yours are common to me, it affects me. 
Prithee, sweet child, change 

Ida. Child, indeed ! I have 

Full fifteen summers. [A bugle sounds. 

Rod. Hark, my lord, the bugle ! 

Ida (peevishly to Rodolph). Why need yqu tell 
him that ? Can he not hear it 
Without your echo ? 

Rod. Pardon me, fair baroness ! 

Ida. I will not pardon you, unless you earn it 
By aiding me in my dissuasion of 
Count Ulric from the chase to-day. 

Rod. You will not. 

Lady, need aid of mine. 

Ule. I must not now 

Forego it. 

Ida. But you shall ! 

Ule. Shall ! 

Ida. Yes, or be 

No true knight. — Come, dear Ulric ! yield to me 
In this, for this one day : the day looks heavy. 
And you are turn'd so pale and ill. 

Ule. You jest. 

Ida. Indeed I do not :— ask of Rodolph. 

Rod. Truly, 

My lord, within this quarter of an hour 
You have changed more than e'er I saw you change 
In years. 

Ule. 'Tis nothing ; but if 'twere, the air 
Would soon restore me. I'm the true chameleon. 
And live but on the atmosphere ; your feasts 
In castle halls, and social banquets, nurse not 
My spirit — I'm a forester and breather 
Of the steep mountain-tops, where I love all 
The eagle loves. 

Ida. Except his prey, I hope. 

Ule. Sweet Ida, wish me a fair chase, and I 
Will bring you six boars' heads for trophies home. 

Ida. And will you not stay, then ? You shall not 
go! 
Come ! I will sing to you. 

Ule. Ida, you scarcely 

Will make a soldier's wife. 

Ida. I do not wish 

To be so ; for I trust these wars are over, 
And you will live in peace on your domains. 

Enter Weenee as Count Siegendoef. 

Ule. My father, I salute you, and it grieves me 
With such brief greeting. — You have heard our bugle ; 
The vassals wait. 

SiEG. So let them. — You forget 

To-morrow is the appointed festival 
In Prague for peace restored. You are apt to follow 
The chase with such an ardor as will scarce 
Permit you to return to-day, or if 



Return'd, too much fatigued to join to-morrow 
The nobles in our marshall'd ranks. 

Ule. You, count, 

Will well supply the place of both — I am not 
A lover of these pageantries. 

SiEG. No, Ulric : 

It were not well that you alone of all 
Our young nobility 

Ida. And far the noblest 

In aspect and demeanor. 

SiEG. {to Ida). True, dear child. 

Though somewhat frankly said for a fair damsel 
But, Ulric, recollect too our position, 
So lately reinstated in our honors. 
Believe me, 'twould be mark'd in any house. 
But most in ours, that ONE should be found wanting 
At such a time and place. Besides, the Heaven 
Which gave us back our own, in the same moment 
It spread its peace o'er all, hath double claims 
On us for thanksgiving : first, for our country ; 
And next, that we are here to share its blessings. 

Ule. {aside). Devout, too ! Well, sir, I obey at once. 

{Then aloud to a Servant.) Ludwig, dismiss the train 

without 1 lExit Ludwig. 

Ida. And so 

You yield at once to him what I for hours 
Might supplicate in vain, 

SiEG. {smiling). You are not jealous 

Of me, I trust, my pretty rebel ! who 
Would sanction disobedience against all 
Except thyself? But fear not; thou shalt rule him 
Hereafter with a fonder sway and firmer. 

Ida. But I should like to govern now. 

SiEG. You shall, 

Your harp, which by the way awaits you with 
The countess in her chamber. She complains 
That you are a sad truant to your music : 
She attends you. 

Ida. Then good morrow, my kind kinsmen ! 

Ulric, you'll come and hear me ? 

Ule. By and by. 

Ida. Be suie I'll sound it better than your bugles ; 
Then pray you be as punctual to its notes : 
I'll play you King Gustavus' march. 

Ule. And why not 

Old Tilly's? 

Ida. Not that monster's ! I should think 

My harp-strings rang with groans, and not with music. 
Could aught of Ms sound on it :— but come quickly ; 
Your mother will be eager to receive you. {Exit. 

SiEG. Ulric, I wish to speak with you alone. 

Ule. My time's your vassal. 
{Aside to RoDOLPH.) Rodolph, hence ! and do 

As I directed : and by his best speed 
And readiest means let Rosenberg reply. 

Rod. Count Sicgendorf, command you aught? I 
am bound 
Upon a journey past the frontier. 

SiEG. {starts). Ah! — 

Where ? on what frontier ? 



434 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



Act IV. 



Rod. The Silesian, on 

My way— {aside to Uleic.)— TTAere shall I say? 

Ulr. {aside to Rodolph). To Hamburgh. 

{Aside to himself.) That 
"Word will, I think, put a firm padlock on 
His further inquisition. 

Rod. Count, to Hamburgh. 

SiEG. {agitated). Hamburgh! No, I have nought 
to do there, nor 
Am aught connected with that city. Then 
God speed you ! 

Rod. Fare ye well. Count Siegendorf ! 

[Exit Rodolph. 

SiEG. Ulric, this man, who has just departed, is 
One of those strange companions whom I fain 
Would reason with you on. 

Ulr. My lord, he is 

Noble by birth, of one of the first houses 
In Saxony. 

SiEG. I talk not of his birth. 

But of his bearing. Men speak lightly of him. 

Ulr. So they will do of most men. Even the 
monarch 
Is not fenced from his chamberlain's slander, or 
The sneer of the last courtier whom he has made 
Great and ungrateful. 

SiEG. If I must be plain. 

The world speaks more than lightly of this Rodolph : 
They say he is leagued with the " black bands " who 

still 
Ravage the frontier. 

Ulr. And will you believe 

The world ? 

SiEG. In this case — yes. 

Ulr. In any case, 

I thought you knew it better than to take 
An accusation for a sentence. 

SiEG. Son ! 

I understand you ; you refer to but 

My destiny has so involved about me 

Her spider web, that I can only flutter 

Like the poor fly, but break it not. Take heed, 

Ulric ; you have seen to what the passions led me : 

Twenty long years of misery and famine [chance, 

Quench'd them not — twenty thousand more, per- 

Ilereaffcer (or even here in moments which 

Might date for years, did Anguish make the dial). 

May not obliterate or expiate 

The madness and dishonor of an instant. 

Ulric, be warn'd by a father ! — I was not 

By mine, and you behold me I 

Ulr. I behold 

The prosperous and beloved Siegendorf, 
Lord of a prince's appanage, and honor'd 
By those he rules and those he ranks with. 

SiEG. Ah ! 

"Why wilt thou call me prosperous, while I fear 
For thee ? Beloved, when thou lovest me not? 
All hearts but one may beat in kindness for me — 
But if my son's is cold ! 



Ulr. "Who dare say that ? 

SiEG. None else but I, who see it— feel it— keener 
Than would your adversary, who dared say so, 
Your sabre in his heart ! But mine survives 
The wound. 

Ulr. You err. My nature is not given 

To outward fondling : how should it be so. 
After twelve years' divorcement from my parents ? 

SiEG. And did not I too pass those twelve torn 
. years 
In a like absence ? But 'tis vain to urge you — 
Nature was never call'd back by remonstrance. 
Let's change the theme. I wish you to consider 
That these young violent nobles of high name. 
But dark deeds (ay, the darkest, if all Rumor 
Reports be true), with whom thou consortest, 
"Will lead thee 

Ulr. {impatiently). I'll be led by no man. 

SiEG. Nor 

Be leader of such, I would hope : at once 
To wean thee from the perils of thy youth 
And haughty spirit, I have thought it well 
That thou shouldst wed the lady Ida— more 
As thou appear' st to love her. 

Ulr. I have said 

I will obey your orders, were they to 
Unite with Hecate — can a son say more ? 

SiEG. He says too much in saying this. It is not 
The nature of thine age, nor of thy blood. 
Nor of thy temperament, to talk so coolly. 
Or act so carelessly, in that which is 
The bloom or blight of all men's happiness 
(For Glory's pillow is but restless if 
Love lay not down his cheek there) : some strong bias, 
Some master fiend is in thy service, to 
Misrule the mortal who believes him slave. 
And makes his every thought subservient ; else 
Thou'dst say at once — " I love young Ida, and 
"Will wed her;" or, " I love her not, and all 
The powers of earth shall never make me." — So 
"Would I have answer'd. 

Ulr. Sir, you wed for love. 

SiEG. I did, and it has been my only refuge 
In many miseries. 

Ulr. Which miseries 

Had never been but for this love-match. 

SiEG. Still 

Against your age and nature ! Who at twenty 
E'er answer'd thus till now ? 

Ulr. Did you not warn me 

Against your own example? 

SiEG. Boyish sophist ! 

In a word, do you love, or love not, Ida ? 

Ulr. What matters it, if I am ready to 
Obey you in espousing her ? 

SiEG. As far 

As you feel, nothing, but all life for her. 
She's young — all-beautiful — adores you — is 
Endow'd with qualities to give happiness. 
Such as rounds common life into a dream 



Scene I. 



WEENEE. 



435 



Of something which your jsoets cannot paint, 
And (if it were not wisdom to love virtue) 
For which Philosophy might barter Wisdom ; 
And giving so much happiness, deserves 
A little in return. I would not have her 
Break her heart for a man who has none to break ; 
Or wither on her stalk like some pale rose 
Deserted by the bird she thought a nightingale. 
According to the Orient tale. She is 

Ulr. The daughter of dead Stralenheim, your foe : 
I'll wed her, ne'ertheless ; though, to say truth. 
Just now I am not violently transported 
In favor of such unions. 

SiEG. But she loves you. 

Ulr. And I love her, and therefore would think 
twice. 

SiEG. Alas ! Love never did so. 

Ulr. Then 'tis time 

He should begin, and take the bandage from 
His eyes, and look before he leaps ; till now 
He hath ta'en a jump i' the dark. 

SlEG. But you consent ? 

Ulr. I did, and do. 

SlEG. Then fix the day. 

Ulr. 'Tis usual. 

And certes courteous, to leave that to the lady. 

SlEG. / will engage for her. 

Ulr. So will not I 

For any woman : and as what I fix, 
I fain would see unshaken, when she gives 
Her answer, I'll give mine. 

SiEG. But 'tis your office 

To woo. 

Ulr. Count, 'tis a marriage of your making. 
So be it of your wooing ; but to please you 
I will now pay my duty to my mother. 
With whom, you know, the lady Ida is. — 
What would you have ? You have forbid my stirring 
For manly sports beyond the castle walls, 
And I obey ; you bid me turn a chamberer, 
To pick up gloves, and fans, and knitting needles. 
And list to songs and tunes, and watch for smiles. 
And smile at pretty prattle, and look into 
The eyes of feminine, as though they were 
The stars receding early to our wish 
Upon the dawn of a world-winning battle — 
What can a son or man do more ? \_Exit Ulric. 

SlEG. {solus). Too much !— 

Too much of duty, and too little love ! 
He pays me in the coin he owes me not : 
For such hath been my wayward fate, I could not 
Fulfill a parent's duties by his side 
Till now ; but love he owes me, for my thoughts 
Ne'er loft him, nor my eyes long'd without tears 
To see my child again, and now I have found him ! 
But how ! — obedient, but with coldness ; duteous 
In my sight, but with carelessness ; mysterious — 
Abstracted — distant — much given to long absence. 
And where — none know — in league with the most 
riotous 



Of our young nobles ; though, to do him justice, 
He never stoops down to their vulgar pleasures ; 
Yet there's some tie between them which I cannot 
Unravel. They look up to him — consult him — 
Throng round him as a leader : but with me 
He hath no confidence ! Ah ! can I hope it 
After — what ! doth my father's curse descend 
Even to my child ? Or is the Hungarian near 
To shed more blood ? or — Oh ! if it should be ! 
Spirit of Stralenheim, dost thou walk these walls 
To wither him and his — who, though they slew 

not, 
Unlatch'd the door of death for thee ? 'Twas not 
Our fault, nor is our sin : thou wert our foe, 
And yet I spared thee when my own destruction 
Slept with thee, to awake with thine awakening ! 
And only took — Accursed gold ! thou liest 
Like poison in my hands ; I dare not use thee, 
Nor part from thee ; thou camest in such a guise, 
Methinks thou wouldst contaminate all hands 
Like mine. Yet I have done, to atone for thee. 
Thou villainous gold ! and thy dead master's doom, 
Though he died not by me or mine, as much 
As if he were my brother ! I have ta'en 
His orphan Ida — cherish'd her as one 
Who will be mine. 

Enter an Attendant. 
Atten. The abbot, if it please 

Your excellency, whom you sent for, waits 
Upon you. {Exit Attendant. 

Enter the Prior Albert. 

Prior. Peace be with these walls, and all 
Within them ! 

SlEG. Welcome, welcome, holy father ! 
And may thy prayer be heard ! — all men have need 
Of such, and I 

Prior. Have the first claim to all 

The prayers of our community. Our convent, 
Erected by your ancestors, is still 
Protected by their children. 

SlEG. Yes, good father ; 

Continue daily orisons for us 
In these dim days of heresies and blood. 
Though the schismatic Swede, Gustavus, is 
Gone home. 

Prior. To the endless home of unbelievers, 
Where there is everlasting wail and woe. 
Gnashing of teeth, and tears of blood, and fire 
Eternal, and the worm which dieth not! 

SlEG. True, father : and to avert those pangs from 
one. 
Who, though of our most faultless holy church. 
Yet died without its last and dearest offices, 
Which smooth the soul through purgatorial pains, 
I have to offer humbly this donation 
In masses for his spirit. 

[SiEGENDORF offers the gold which he had taken 
from Stralenheim. 



436 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Act V. 



Prior. Count, if I 

Receive it, 'tis becaiise I know too well 
Refusal would offend you. Be assured 
The largess shall be only dealt in alms, 
And every mass no less sung for the dead. 
Our house needs no donations, thanks to yours, 
Which has of old endow'd it ; but from you 
And yours in all meet things 'tis fit we obey. 
For whom shall mass be said ? 

SiEG. {faltering). For — for — the dead. 

Prior. His name ? 

SiEG. 'Tis from a soul, and not a name, 

I would avert perdition. 

Prior. I meant not 

To pry into your secret. "We will pray 
For one unknown, the same as for the proudest. 

SiEG. Secret! I have none; but, father, he who's 
gone 
Might have one ; or, in short, he did bequeath — 
No, not bequeath — but I bestow this sum 
For pious purposes. 

Prior. A proper deed 

In the behalf of our departed friends. 

SlEG. But he who's gone was not my friend, but 
foe. 
The deadliest and the stanchest. 

Prior. Better still ! 

To employ our means to obtain heaven for the souls 
Of our dead enemies is worthy those 
Who can forgive them living. 

SiEG. But I did not 

Forgive this man. I loathed him to the last. 
As he did me. I do not love him now. 
But 

Prior. Best of all ! for this is pure religion ! 
You fain would rescue him you hate from hell — 
An evangelical compassion — with 
Your own gold too ! 

SlEG. Father, 'tis not my gold. 

Prior. Whose then ? You said it was no legacy. 

SiEG. No matter whose — of this be sure, that he 
Who own'd it never more will need it, save 
In that which it may purchase from your altars : 
'Tis yours, or theirs. 



Is there no blood upon it ? 
there's worse than blood — eternal 



Alas! 



Prior. 

SiEG. No; but 

shame ! 
Prior. Did he who own'd it die in his bed f 

SlEG. 

He did. 

Prior. Son ! you relapse into revenge. 
If you regret your enemy's bloodless death, 

SiEG. His death was fathomlessly deep in blood. 

Prior. You said he died in his bed, not battle. 

SiEG. He 

Died, I scarce know — but — he was stabb'd i' the dark, 
And now you have it — perish'd on his pillow 
By a cut-throat ! — Ay ! — you may look upon me ! 
I am not the man. I'll meet your eye on that point, 
As I can one day God's. 



Prior. Nor did he die 

By means, or men, or instrument of yours? 

SiEG. No ! by the God who sees and strikes ! 

Prior. Nor know you 

Who slew him ? 

SiEG. I could only guess at one, 

And he to me a stranger, unconnected, 
As unemploy'd. Except by one day's knowledge, 
I never saw the man who was suspected. 

Prior. Then you are free from guilt. 

^lEG. {eagerly). Oh ! a?/i I ?— say ! 

Prior. You have said so, and know best. 

SiEG. Father ! I have spoken 

The truth, and nought but truth, if not the whole : 
Yet say I am not guilty ! for the blood 
Of this man weighs on me, as if I shed it. 
Though, by the Power who abhorreth human blood, 
I did not ! — nay, once spared it, when I might 
And could — ay, perhaps, should (if our self-safety 
Be e'er excusable in such defences 
Against the attacks of over-potent foes) : 
But pray for him, for me, and all my house ; 
For, as I said, though I be innocent, 
I know not why, a like remorse is on me. 
As if he had fallen by me or mine. Pray for me, 
Father ! I have pray'd myself in vain. 

Prior. I will. 

Be comforted ! You are innocent, and should 
Be calm as innocence. 

SiEG. But calmness is not 

Always the attribute of innocence. 
I feel it is not. 

Prior. But it will be so. 

When the mind gathers up its truth within it. 
Remember the great festival to-morrow, 
In which you rank amidst our chiefest nobles. 
As well as your brave son ; and smooth your aspect, 
Nor in the general orison of thanks 
For bloodshed stopt, let blood you shed not rise 
A cloud upon your thoughts. This were to be 
Too sensitive. Take comfort, and forget 
Such things, and leave remorse unto the guilty. 

{^Exeunt-,. 



ACT V. 

SCENE 1. 



I 



A large and magnificent Gothic Hall in the Castle of 
Siegendorf, decorated with Trophies, Banners, and 
Arms of that FamMy. 

Enter Arnheim and Meister, attendants of Count 
SlEGENDORP. 
Arn. Be quick ! the count will soon return : the 
ladies 
Already are at the portal. Have you sent 
The messengers in search of him he seeks for ? 



i 



Scene I. 



WERNER 



437 



Meis. I have, in all directions, over Prague, 
As far as the man's dress and figure could 
By your description track him. The devil take 
These revels and processions ! All the pleasure 
(If such there be) must fall to the spectators. 
I'm sure none doth to us who make the show. 

Akn. Gro to ! my lady countess comes. 

Meis. I'd rather 

Ride a day's hunting on an outworn jade, 
Than follow in the train of a great man 
In these dull pageantries. 

Akn. Begone ! and rail 

Within. [Exeunt. 

Enter the Countess Josephine Siegendokf and 
Ida Stralenheim. 

Jos. Well, Heaven be praised, the show is over ! 

Ida, How can you say so? Never have I dreamt 
Of aught so beautiful. The flowers, the boughs, 
The banners, and the nobles, and the knights. 
The gems, the robes, the plumes, the happy faces. 
The coursers, and the incense, and the sun 
Streaming through the stain'd windows, even the tombs, 
Which look'd so calm, and the celestial hymns, 
Which seem'd as if they rather came from heaven 
Than mounted there. The bursting organ's peal 
Rolling on high like an harmonious thunder ; 
The white robes and the lifted eyes ; the world 
At peace ! and all at peace with one another ! 
Oh, my sweet mother ! [Embracing JOSEPHINE. 

Jos. My beloved child ! 

For such, I trust, thou shalt be shortly. 

Ida. Oh! 

I am so already. Feel how my heart beats ! 

Jos. It does, my love ; and never may it throb 
With aught more bitter. 

Ida. Never shall it do so ! 

How should it ? What should make us grieve ? I hate 
To hear of sorrow : how can we be sad, 
Who love each otlier so entirely ? You, 
The count, and Tlric, and your daughter Ida. 

Jos. Poor child ! 

Ida. Do you pity me ? 

Jos. No : I but envy, 

And that in Sorrow, not in the world's sense 
Of the universal vice, if one vice be 
More general than another. 

Ida. I'll not hear 

A word against a world which still contains 
You and my Ulric. Did you ever see 
Aught like him ? How he tower'd amongst them all ! 
How all eyes follow'd him ! The flowers fell faster — 
Rain'd from each lattice at his feet, methought, 
Than before all the rest ; and where he trod 
I dare be sworn that they grow still, nor e'er 
Will wither. 

Jos. You will spoil himj little flatterer, 

If he should hear you. 

Ida. But he never will. 

I dare not say so much to him — I fear him-. 



Jos. Why so? he loves you well. 

Ida. But I can never 

Shape my thoughts of him into words to him : 
Besides, he sometimes frightens me. 

Jos. How so ? 

Ida. a cloud comes o'er his blue eyes suddenly, 
Yet he says nothing. 

Jos. It is nothing : all men. 

Especially in these dark troublous times, 
Have much to think of. 

Ida. But I cannot think 

Of aught save him. 

Jos. Yet there are other men. 

In the world's eye, as goodly. There's, for instance, 
The young Count Waldorf, who scarce once with- 
drew 
His eyes from yours to-day. 

Ida. I did not see him. 

But Ulric. Did you not see at the moment 
When all knelt, and I wept ? and yet methought. 
Through my fast tears, though they were thick and 

warm, 
I saw him smiling on me. 

Jos. I could not 

See aught save heaven, to which my eyes were raised 
Together with the people's. 

Ida. I thought too 

Of heaven, although I look'd on Ulric. 

Jos. Come, 

Let us retire ; they will be here anon 
Expectant of the banquet. We will lay 
Aside these nodding plumes and dragging trains. 

Ida. And, above all, these stiflf and heavy jewels, 
Which make my head and heart ache, as both throb 
Beneath their glitter o'er my brow and zone. 
Dear mother, I am with you. [Exeunt. 

Enter COUNT SiEGENDOEF, in full dress, from the 
solemnity, and LUDWIG. 

SiEG. Is he not found ? 

LUD. Strict search is making every where ; and if 
The man be in Prague, be sure he will be found. 

SiEG. Where's Ulric ? 

LuD. He rode round the other way 

With some young nobles ; but he left them soon ; 
And, if I err not, not a minute since 
I heard his excellency, with his train. 
Gallop o'er the west drawbridge. 

Enter Ulric, splendMly dressed. 

SiEG. {to Ludwig). See they cease not 

Their quest of him I have described. [Exit LuDWiG. 

Oh, Ulric ! 
How have I long'd for thee ! 

Ulr. Your wish is granted— 

Behold me ! 

SiEG. I have seen the murderer. 

Ulr. Whom? Where? 

SiEG. The Hungarian, who slew Stralenheim. 

Ulr. You dream. 



438 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Act V. 



SiEG. I live ! and as I live, I saw him — 

Heard him ! he dared to utter even my name. 

Ulr. What name ? 

SiEG. Werner ! Hwas mine. 

Ulb. It must be so 

No more : forget it. 

SiEG. Never! never! all 

My destinies were woven in that name : 
It will be not engraved upon my tomb, 
But it may lead me there. 

Ule. To the point — the Hungarian ? 

SlEG. Listen! — The church was throng'd; the 
hymn was raised ; 
" Te Deum^^ peal'd from nations, rather than 
From choirs, in one great cry of " God be praised " 
For one day's peace, after thrice ten dread years. 
Each bloodier than the former : I arose, 
With all the nobles, and as I look'd down 
Along the lines of lifted faces, — from 
Our banner'd and escutcheon'd gallery, I 
Saw, like a flash of lightning (for I saw 
A moment and no more), what struck me sightless 
To all else — the Hungarian's face ! I grew 
Sick ; and when I recover'd from the mist 
Which curl'd about my senses, and again 
Look'd down, I saw him not. The thanksgiving 
Was over, and we march'd back in procession. 

Ulr. Continue. 

SiEG. When we reach'd the Muldau's bridge. 

The joyous crowd above, the numberless 
Barks mann'd with revellers in their best garbs, 
Which shot along the glancing tide below, 
The decorated street, the long array. 
The clashing music, and the thundering 
Of far artillery, which seem'd to bid 
A long and loud farewell to its great doings, 
The standards o'er me, and the tramplings round, 
The roar of rushing thousands, — all — all could not 
Chase this man from my mind, although my senses 
No longer held him palpable. 

Ulr. You saw him 

No more, then ? 

SlEG. I look'd, as a dying soldier 
Looks at a draught of water, for this man : 
But still I saw him not ; but in his stead 

Ulr. What in his stead? 

SiEG. My eye for ever fell 

Upon your dancing crest : the loftiest 
As on the loftiest and the loveliest head 
It rose the highest of the stream of plumes. 
Which overflow'd the glittering streets of Prague. 

Ulr. What's this to the Hungarian ? 

SiEG. Much ; for I 

Had almost then forgot him in my son ; 
When just as the artillery ceased, and paused 
The music, and the crowd embraced in lieu 
Of shouting, I heard in a deep, low voice, 
Distinct and keener far upon my ear 
Than the late cannon's volume, this word — " Werner /" 

Ulr. Uttered by 



SiEG. Him ! I turn'd— and saw— and fell. 

Ulr. And wherefore ? Were you seen ? 

SiEG. The officious care 

Of those around me dragg'd me from the spot, 
Seeing my faintness, ignorant of the cause : 
You, too, were too remote in the procession 
(The old nobles being divided from their children) 
To aid me. 

Ulr. But I'll aid you now. 

SiEG. In what? 

Ulr. In searching for this man, or When he's 

found 
What shall we do with him ? 

SiEG. I know not that. 

Ulr. Then wherefore seek ? 

SiEG. Because I cannot rest 

Till he is found. His fate, and Stralenheim's, 
And ours, seem intertwisted ! nor can be 
Unravell'd till 

Enter an Attendant. 
Atten. a stranger to wait on 

Your excellency. 
SiEG. Who? 

Atten. He gave no name. 

SiEG. Admit him, ne'ertheless. 

[^The Attendant introduces Gabor, and 
afterwards exit. 

Ah! 
Gab. 'Tis, then, Werner ! 

SiEG. {haughtily). The same you knew, sir, by that 

name ; and you ! 
Gab. {looking round). I recognize you both : father 
and son, 
It seems. Count, I have heard that you, or yours. 
Have lately been in search of me : I am here. 
SlEG. I have sought you, and have found you : you 
are charged 
(Your own heart may inform you why) with such 

A cripae as {He pauses. 

Gab. Give it utterance, and then 

I'll meet the consequences. 
SiEG. You shall do so — 

Unless 

Gab. First, who accuses me ? 

SiEG. All things, 

If not all men : the universal rumor — 
My own presence on the spot — the place — the time— 
And every speck of circumstance unite 
To fix the blot on you. 

Gab. And on me only f 

Pause ere you answer : is no other name, 
Save mine, stain'd in this business ? 

SiEG. Trifling villain ! 

Who play'st with thine own guilt! Of ail that 

breathe 
Thou best dost know the innocence of him 
'Gainst whom thy breath would blow thy bloody 

slander. 
But I will talk no further with a wretch, 



Scene I. 



WEKNER. 



439 



Further than justice asks. Answer at once, 
And without quibbling, to my charge. 

Gab. 'Tis false ! 

SlEG. Who says so ? 

Gab. I. 

SlEG. And how disprove it ? 

Gab. By 

The presence of the murderer. 

SlEG. Name him ! 

Gab. He 

May have more names than one. Your lordship 

had so 
Once on a time. 

SlEG. If you mean me, I dare 

Your utmost. 

Gab. You may do so, and in safety ; 

I know the assassin. 

SlEG. Where is he ? 

Gab. {pointing to Uleic). Beside you ! 

[Ulkic rushes forward to attack Gaboe, ; 
SlEGENDOEF interposes. 

SlEG. Liar and fiend ! but you shall not be slain ; 
These walls are mine, and you are safe within them. 

[He turns to Ulric. 
Ulric, repel this calumny, as I 
Will do. I avow it is a growth so monstrous, 
I could not deem it earth-born : but be calm ; 
It will refute itself. But touch him not. 

[Ulric endeavors to compose himself. 

Gab. Look at him, count, and then hear me. 

SlEG. {first to Gabor, and then looking at Ulric). 

I hear thee. 
My God ! you look '- 

Ulr. How ? 

SiEG. As on that dread night 

When we met in the garden. 

Ulr. {composes himself). It is nothing. 

Gab. Count, you are bound to hear me. I came 
hither 
Not seeking you, but sought. When I knelt down 
Amidst the people in the church, I dream'd not 
To find the beggar'd Werner in the seat 
Of senators and princes ; but you have call'd me, 
And we have met. 

SiEG. Go on, sir. 

Gab. Ere I do so. 

Allow me to inquire who profited 
By Stralenheim's death ? Was't I — as poor as ever ; 
And poorer by suspicion on my name ! 
The baron lost in that last outrage neither 
Jewels nor gold ; his life alone was sought, — 
A life which stood between the claims of others 
To honors and estates scarce less than princely. 

SiEG. These hints, as vague as vain, attach no less 
To me than to my son. 

Gab. I can't help that. 

But let the consequence alight on him 
Who feels himself the guilty one among us. 
I speak of you. Count Siegendorf, because 
I know you innocent, and deem you just. 



But ere I can proceed— cZore you protect me ? 
Dare you command me ? 

[Siegendorf first looks at the Hungarian, and 
then at Ulric, who has unbuckled his sabre, 
and is drawing lines with it on the floor — 
still in its sheath. 

Ulr. {looks at his father and says) 

Let the man go on ! 

Gab. I am unarm'd, count — bid your son lay down 
His sabre. 

Ulr. {offers it to him contemptuously). 
Take it. 

Gab. No, sir, 'tis enough 

That we are both unarm'd — I would not choose 
To wear a steel which may be stain'd with more 
Blood than came there in battle. 

Ulr. {casts the sabre from him in contempt). 

It — or some 
Such other weapon, in my hands — spared yours 
Once, when disarm'd and at my mercy. 

Gab. True— 

I have not forgotten it : you spared me for 
Your own especial purpose — to sustain 
An ignominy not my own. 

Ulr. Proceed. 

The tale is doubtless worthy the relator. 
But is it of my father to hear further ? 

[To Siegendorf. 

SiEG. {takes his son by the hand). My son, I know 
my own innocence, and doubt not 
Of yours — but I have promised this man patience ; 
Let him continue. 

Gab. I will not detain you 

By speaking of myself much : I began 
Life early — and am what the world has made me. 
At Frankfort on the Oder, where I pass'd 
A winter in obscurity, it was 
My chance at several places of resort 
(Which I frequented sometimes, but not often) 
To hear related a strange circumstance 
In February last. A martial force. 
Sent by the state, had, after strong resistance, 
Secured a band of desperate men, supposed 
Marauders from the hostile camp. — They proved, 
However, not to be so — but banditti, 
Whom either accident or enterprise 
Had carried from their usual haunt — the forests 
Which skirt Bohemia — even into Lusatia. 
Many amongst them were reported of 
High rank — and martial law slept for a time. 
At last they were escorted o'er the frontiers, 
And placed beneath the civil jurisdiction 
Of the free town of Frankfort. Of their fate, 
I know no more. 

SiEG. And what is this to Ulric ? 

Gab. Amongst them there was said to be one man 
Of wonderful endowments : — birth and fortune. 
Youth, strength, and beauty, almost superhuman. 
And courage as unrivall'd, were proclaim'd 
His by the public rumor ; and his sway. 



440 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Act V. 



Not only over his associates, but 

His judges, was attributed to witchcraft, 

Such was his influence : — I have no great faith 

In any magic save that of the mine — 

I therefore deem'd him wealthy. — But my soul 

Was rousgd with various feelings to seek out 

This prodigy, if only to behold him. 

SiEG. And did you so ? 

Gab. You'll hear. Chance favor'd me : 

A popular affray in the public square 
Drew crowds together — it was one of those 
Occasions where men's souls look out of them. 
And show them as they are — even in their faces : 
The moment my eye met his, I exclaim'd, 
" This is the man !" though he was then, as since, 
With the nobles of the city. I felt sure 
I had not err'd, and watch'd him long and nearly ; 
I noted down his form — his gesture — features. 
Stature, and bearing — and amidst them all, 
'Midst every natural and acquired distinction, 
I could discern, methought, the assassin's eye 
And gladiator's heart. 

Ulk. {smiling). The tale sounds well. 

Gab. And may sound better. — He appear'd to me 
One of those beings to whom Fortune bends 
As she doth to the daring — and on whom 
The fates of others oft depend ; besides, 
An indescribable sensation drew me 
Near to this man, as if my point of fortune 
Was to be fix'd by him. — There I was wrong. 

SlEG. And may not be right now. 

Gab. I foUow'd him. 

Solicited his notice — and obtain'd it — 
Though not his friendship : — it was his intention 
To leave the city privately — we left it 
Together — and together we arrived 
In the poor town where Werner was conceal'd, 

And Stralenheim was succor'd Now we are on 

The verge — dare you hear further ? 

SiEG. I must do so — 

Or I have heard too much. 

Gab. I saw in you 

A man above his station — and if not 
So high, as now I find you, in my then. 
Conceptions, 'twas that I had rarely seen 
Men such as you appear'd in height of mind 
In the most high of worldly rank ; you were 
Poor, even to all save rags : I would have shared 
My purse, though slender, with you — you refused it. 

SiEG. Doth my refusal make a debt to you. 
That thus you urge it ? 

Gab. Still you owe me something. 

Though not for that ; and I owed you my safety. 
At least my seeming safety, when the slaves 
Of Stralenheim pursued me on the grounds 
That I had robb'd him. 

SiEG. I conceal'd you — I, 

Whom and whose house you arraign, reviving viper ! 

Gab, I accuse no man — save in my defence. 
You, count, have made yourself accuser — -judge : 



Your hall's my court, your heart is my tribunal. 
Be just, and 7'11 be merciful ! 

SiEG. You merciful !— 

You ! Base calumniator ! 

Gab. I. 'Twill rest 

With me at last to be so. You conceal'd me- 
In secret passages known to yourself. 
You said, and to none else. At dead of night. 
Weary with watching in the dark, and dubious 
Of tracing back my way, I saw a glimmer. 
Through distant crannies, of a twinkling light : 
I follow'd it, and reach'd a door — a secret 
Portal — which open'd to the chamber, where. 
With cautious hand and slow, having first undone 
As much as made a crevice of the fastening, 
I look'd through and beheld a purple bed, 
And on it Stralenheim ! — 

SiEG. Asleep ! And yet 

You slew him 1 — Wretch ! 

Gab. He was already slain, 

And bleeding like a sacrifice. My own 
Blood became ice. 

SiEG. But he was all alone ! 

You saw none else ? You did not see the 

{He pauses from agitation. 

Gab. No, 

He, whom you dare not name, nor even I 
Scarce dare to recollect, was not then in 
The chamber. 

SiEG. {to Ulric). Then, my boy ! thou art guiltless 
still— 
Thou bad'st me say I was so once — Oh ! now 
Do thou as much ! 

Gab. Be patient ! I can not 

Eecede now, though it shake the very walls 
Which frown above us. You remember, — or 
If not, your son does, — that the locks were changed 
Beneath his chief inspection on the morn 
Which led to this same night : how he had enter'd 
He best knows — but within an antechamber. 
The door of which was half ajar, I saw 
A man who wash'd his bloody hands, and oft 
With stern and anxious glance gazed back upon 
The bleeding body — but it moved no more. 

SiEG. Oh ! God of fathers ! 

Gab. I beheld his features 

As I see yours — but yours they were not, though 
Eesembling them — behold them in Count Ulric's ! 
Distinct, as I beheld them, though the expression 
Is not now what it then was ; — but it was so 
When I first charged him with the crime — so lately. 

SiEG. This is so [end ! 

Gab. {interrupting him). Nay — but hear me to the 
Now you must do so. — I conceived myself 
Betray' d by you and him (for now I saw 
There was some tie between you) into this 
Pretended den of refuge, to become 
The victim of your guilt ; and my first thought 
Was vengeance: but, though arm'd with a short 
poniard 



Scene I. 



WERNER. 



441 



(Having left my sword without), I was no match 
For him at any time, as had been proved 
That morning — either in address or force. 
I turn'd, and fled — i' the dark : chance rather than 
Skill made me gain the secret door of the hall, 
And thence the chamber where you slept : if I 
Had found you leaking, Heaven alone can tell 
What vengeance and suspicion might have prompted ; 
But ne'er slept guilt as Werner slept that night. 

SlEG. And yet I had horrid dreams ! and such brief 
sleep, 
The stars had not gone down when I awoke. 
Why didst thou spare me ? I dreamt of my father — 
And now my dream is out ! 

Gab. 'Tis not my fault, 

If I have read it. — Well ! I fled and hid me — 
Chance led me here after so many moons — 
And show'd me Werner in Count Siegendorf ! 
Werner, whom I had sought in huts in vain, 
Inhabited the palace of a sovereign ! 
You sought me and have found me — now you know 
My secret, and may weigh its worth. 

^ns,G. {after a pause). Indeed! 

Gab. Is it revenge or justice which inspires 
Your meditation ? 

SlEG. Neither — I was weighing 

The value of your secret. 

Gab. You shall know it 

At once : — When you were poor, and I, though poor, 
Eich enough to relieve such poverty 
As might have envied mine, I offer'd you 
My purse — you would not share it : — I'll be franker 
"With you : you are wealthy, noble, trusted by 
The imperial powers — you understand me ? 

SiEG. Yes. 

Gab. Not quite. You think me venal, and scarce 
true: 
'Tis no less true, however, that my fortunes 
Have made me both at present. You shall aid me ; 
I would have aided you — and also have 
Been somewhat damaged in my name to save 
Yours and your son's. Weigh well what I have 
said. 

Si EG. Dare you await the event of a few minutes' 
Deliberation ? 

Gab. {casts his eyes on Ulric, who is leaning 
against a pillar). If I should do so? 

SlEG. I pledge my life for yours. Withdraw into 
This tower. [ Opens a turret door. 

Gab. {hesitatingly). This is the second safe asylum 
You have oflfer'd me. 

SiEG. And was not the first so . 

Gab. I know not that even now — but will approve 
The second. I have still a further shield. — 
I did not enter Prague alone ; and should I 
Be put to rest with Stralenheim, there are 

1 "Gab. I have yet an additional security — I did not enter 
Prague a solitary individual ; and there are tongues without 
that will speak for me, although I should even share the fate 



Some tongues without will wag in my behalf. 
Be brief in your decision ! ^ 

SiEG. I will be so. — 

My word is sacred and irrevocable 
Within these walls, but it extends no further. 

Gab. I'll take it for so much. 

SiEG. {points to Uleic's sabre still upon the 
ground). Take also that — 

I saw you eye it eagerly, and him 
Distrustfully. 

Gab. {takes up the sabre). I will ; and so provide 
To sell my life — not cheaply. 

[Gabor goes into the turret, which Siegendoef 
closes. 

SiEG. {advances to Ulric). Now, Count Ulric! 
For son I dare not call thee — What sayst thou ? 

Ulr. His tale is true. 

SlEG. True, monster ! 

Ulr. Most true, father ! 

And you did well to listen to it : what 
We know, we can provide against. He must 
Be silenced. 

SiEG. Ay, with half of my domains; 

And with the other half, could he and thou 
Unsay this villainy. 

Ulr. It is no time 

For trifling or dissembling. I have said 
His story's true ; and he too must be silenced. 

SiEG. How so ? 

Ulr. As Stralenheim is. Are you so dull 

As never to have hit on this before ? 
When we met in the garden, what except 
Discovery in the act could make me know 
His death ? Or had the prince's household been 
Then summon'd, would the cry for the police 
Been left to such a stranger ? Or should I 
Have loiter' d on the way ? Or could you, Werner, 
The object of the baron's hate and fears. 
Have fled, unless by many an hour before 
Suspicion woke ? I sought and fathom 'd you, 
Doubting if you were false or feeble : I 
Perceived you were the latter : and yet so 
Confiding have I found you, that I doubted 
At times your weakness. 

SlEG. Parricide ! no less 

Than common stabber! What deed of my life. 
Or thought of mine, could make you deem me fit 
For your accomplice ? 

Ulr. Father, do not raise 

The devil you cannot lay between us. This 
Is time for union and for action, not 
For family disputes. While you were tortured, 
Could I be calm ? Think you that I have heard 
This fellow's tale without some feeling ? — You 
Have taught me feeling for you and myself; 
For whom or what else did you ever teach it ? 



of Stralenheim. Let your deliberation be short. Sieg. My 
promise is solemn, sacred, irrevocable : it extends not, how- 
ever, beyond these walls."— Lee. 



442 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Act V. 



SlEG. Oh! my dead father's curse! 'tis working 
now. 

Ulr. Let it work on ! the grave will keep it down ! 
Ashes are feeble foes : it is more easy 
To baffle such, than countermine a mole, 
Which winds its blind but living path beneath you. 
Yet hear me still ! — If you condemn me, yet 
Kemember who hath taught me once too often 
To listen to him ! Who proclaim'd to me 
That there were crimes made venial by the occasion ? 
That passion was our nature ? that the goods 
Of Heaven waited on the goods of fortune ? 
Who show'd me his humanity secured 
By his nerves only ? Who deprived me of 
All power to vindicate myself and race 
In open day ? By his disgrace which stamp'd 
(It might be) bastardy on me, and on 
Himself— a felon'' s brand ! The man who is 
At once both warm and weak invites to deeds 
He longs to do, but dare not. Is it strange 
That I should act what you could think? We have 

done 
With right and wrong ; and now must only ponder 
Upon effects, not causes. Stralenheim, 
Whose life I saved from impulse, as, unknown, 
I would have saved a peasant's or a dog's, I slew 
Known as our foe — but not from vengeance. He 
Was a rock in our way which I cut through, 
As doth the bolt, because it stood between us 
And our true destination — but not idly. 
As stranger I preserved him, and he owed me 
His life : when due, I but resumed the debt. 
He, you, and I stood o'er a gulf wherein 
I have plunged our enemy. You kindled first 
The torch — you show'd the path ; now trace me that 
Of safety — or let me ! 

SiEG. I have done with life ! 

Ulr. Let us have done with that which cankers 
life- 
Familiar feuds and vain recriminations 
Of things which cannot be undone. We have 
No more to learn or hide : I know no fear, 
And have within these very walls men who 
(Although you know them not) dare venture all 

things. 
You stand high with the state ; what passes here 
Will not excite her too great curiosity : 
Keep your own secret, keep a steady eye. 
Stir not, and speak not ; — leave the rest to me ; 
We must have no third babblers thrust between us. 

[Exit Ulric. 

SiEG. (solus). Am I awake? are these my fathers' 
halls? 
And yon — my son ? My son ! mine ! who have ever 
Abhorr'd both mystery and blood, and yet 
Am plunged into the deepest hell of both 1 
I must be speedy, or more will be shed — 
The Hungarian's ! — Ulric — he hath partisans. 
It seems : I might have guess'd as much. Oh, fool I 
Wolves prowl in company. He hath the key 



(As I too) of the opposite door which leads 
Into the turret. Now then ! or once more 
To be the father of fresh crimes, no less 
Than of the criminal ! Ho ! Gabor ! Gabor ! 

\^Exit into the turret, closing the door after him. 



SCENE II. 
The Interior of the Turret. 

Gabor and Siegendorf. 

Gab. Who calls? 

SiEG. I— Siegendorf! Take these, and fly ! 

Lose not a moment I 

{Tears off a diamond star and other jewels, and, 
thrusts them into Gabor's hand. 

Gab. What am I to do 

With these ? 

SiEG. Whate'er you will : sell them, or hoard, 

And prosper ; but delay not, or you are lost ! 

Gab. You pledged your honor for my safety ! 

SiEG. " And 

Must thus redeem it. Fly ! I am not master, 
It seems, of my own castle — of my own 
Retainers — nay, even of these very walls, 
Or I would bid them fall and crush me ! Fly ! 
Or you will be slain by 

Gab. Is it even so? 

Farewell, then ! Recollect, however, count, 
You sought this fatal interview I 

SiEG. I did : 

Let it not be more fatal still ! — Begone I 

Gab. By the same path I enter'd ? 

SiEG. Yes ; that's safe still : 

But loiter not in Prague ; — you do not know 
With whom you have to deal. 

Gab. I know too well — 

And knew it ere yourself, unhappy sire ! 
Farewell! {Exit Gaboe. 

SiEG. {solus and listening). He hath clear'd the 
staircase. Ah 1 I hear 
The door sound loud behind him ! He is safe ! 

Safe ! — Oh, my father's spirit ! — I am faint 

{He leans down upon a stone seat, near the wall 
of the tower, in a drooping posture. 

Enter Ulric, with others armed, and with weapons 
drawn. 
Ulr. Despatch ! — he's there ! 

LuD. The count, my lord ! 

Ulr. {recognizing Siegendorf). You here, sir ! 
SiEG. Yes : if you want another victim, strike ! 
Ulr. {seeing him stript of his jewels). Where is the 
ruffian who hath plunder' d. you? 
Vassals, despatch in search of him I You see 
'Twas as I said — the wretch hath stript my father 
Of jewels which might form a prince's heirloom ! 
Away ! I'll follow you forthwith. 

{Exeunt all hut Siegendorf and Ulric. 



Scene II. 



WERNER. 



443 



What's this ? 
Where is the villain ? 

SiEG. There are two, sir : which 

Are you in quest of? 

Ule. Let us hear no more 

Of this : he must be found. You have not let him 
Escape ? 

SiEG. He's gone. 

Ule. With your connivance ? 

SiEG. With 

My fullest, freest aid. 

Ule. Then fare you well ! 

[Uleic is going. 

SiEG. Stop! I command — entreat — implore! Oh, 
Ulric! 
Will you then leave me ? 

Ule. What ! remain to be 

Denounced — dragg'd, it may be, in chains; and 

all 
By your inherent weakness, half-humanity. 
Selfish remorse, and temporizing pity. 
That sacrifices your whole race to save 
A wretch to profit by our ruin ! No, count. 
Henceforth you have no son ! 

SlEG. I never had one ; 

And would you ne'er had borne the useless name ! 
"VNTiere will you go ? I would not send you forth 
Without protection. 

Ule. Leave that unto me. 

I am not alone ; nor merely the vain heir 
Of your domains ; a thousand, ay, ten thousand 
Swords, hearts, and hands, are mine. 

SlEG. The foresters ! 

With whom the Hungarian found you first at Frank- 
fort I 



Ule. Yes — men — who are worthy of the name! 
Go tell 
Your senators that they look well to Prague ; 
Tlieir feast of peace was early for the times ; 
There are more spirits abroad than have been laid 
With Wallenstein ! 

Enter Josephine and Ida. 

Jos. What is't we hear ? My Siegendorf ! 

Thank Heav'n, I see you safe ! 

SiEG. Safe I 

Ida. ' Yes, dear father ! 

SiEG. No, no ; I have no children : never more 
Call me by that worst name of parent. 

Jos. What 

Means my good lord ! 

SiEG. That you have given birth 

To a demon ! 

Ida (taking Ulric'S hand ). Who shall dare say 
this of Ulric ? 

SiEG. Ida, beware ! there's blood upon that hand. 

Ida {stooping to kiss it). I'd kiss it off, though it 
were mine. 

SiEG. It is so ! 

Ule. Away ! it is your father's ! \_Exit Uleic. 

Ida. Oh, great God ! 

And I have loved this man ! 

[Ida falls senseless — Josephine stands speech- 
less with horror. 

SiEG. The wretch hath slain 

Them both ! — My Josephine ! we are now alone ! 
Would we had ever been so ! — All is over 
For me ! — Now open wide, my sire, thy grave ; 
Thy curse hath dug it deeper for thy son 
In mine !— The race of Siegendorf is past 1 



out^ of JFtrlenes^: 



A SEEIES OF POEMS, OEIGINAL AND TBANSLATED.» 



Virginibus puerisque canto.— Horace, lib. iii. Ode 1. 
M^t' ap ju.6 ju,aA' aivee, (JLrJTe tl veiKei. — HoMER, Iliad, X. 249. 
He whistled as he went, for want of thought. — Dryden. 



THE EIGHT HONOEABLE FEEDEEICK, EAEL OF CAELISLE, 

KNIGHT OF THE GARTER, ETC. ETC., 
THE SECOND EDITION OF THESE POEMS IS INSCRIBED, 

BY HIS OBLIGED WARD AND AFFECTIONATE KINSMAN,2 

THE AUTHOR. 



PEEFACE.3 

In submitting to the public eye the following col- 
lection, I have not only to combat the difficulties that 
writers of verse generally encounter, but may incur 
the charge of presumption for obtruding myself on 
the world, when, without doubt, I might be, at my 
age, more usefully employed. 

These productions are the fruits of the lighter hours 
of a young man who has lately completed his nine- 
teenth year. As they bear the internal evidence of a 
boyish mind, this is, perhaps, unnecessary information. 
Some few were written during the disadvantages of 
illness and depression of spirits: under the former 
influence, " Childish Eecollections," in partic- 
ular, were composed. This consideration, though it 
cannot excite the voice of praise, may at least arrest 
the arm of censure. A considerable portion of these 
poems have been privately printed, at the request and 
for the perusal of my friends. I, am sensible that the 
partial and frequently injudicious admiration of a 
social circle is not the criterion by which poetical 
genius is to be estimated, yet, " to do greatly," we must 
"dare greatly;" and I have hazarded my reputation 
and feelings in publishing this volume. "I have 
passed the Eubicon," and must stand or fall by the 
" cast of the die." In the latter event, I shall submit 
without a murmur ; for, though not without solicitude 
for the fate of these effusions, my expectations are by 

1 First published in 1807. 
- 2 Isabella, the daughter of William, fourth Lord Byron 
(great-great uncle of the poet), became, in 1742, the wife of 
Henry, fourth earl of Carlisle, and was the mother of the 
fifth earl, to whom this dedication was addressed. This 
(444) 



no means sanguine. It is probable that I may have 
dared much and done little; for, in the words of 
Cowper, "it is one thing to write what may please 
our friends, who, because they are such, are apt to be 
a little biassed in our favor, and another to write 
what may please every body; because they who have 
no connection, or even knowledge of the author, will 
be sure to find fault if they can." To the truth of 
this, however, I do not wholly subscribe : on the con- 
trary, I feel convinced that these trifles will not be 
treated with injustice. Their merit, if they possess 
any, will be liberally allowed : their numerous faults, 
on the other hand, cannot expect that favor which 
has been denied to others of maturer years, decided 
character, and far greater ability. 

I have not aimed at exclusive originality, still less 
have I studied any particular model for imitation : 
some translations are given, of which many are para- 
phrastic. In the original pieces there may appear a 
casual coincidence with authors whose works I have 
been accustomed to read ; but I have not been guilty 
of intentional plagiarism. To produce any thing en- 
tirely new, in an age so fertile in rhyme, would be a 
Herculean task, as every subject has already been 
treated to its utmost extent. Poetry, however, is not 
my primary vocation ; to divert the dull moments of 
indisposition, or the monotony of a vacant hour, 
urged me "to this sin:" little can be expected from 
so unpromising a muse. My wreath, scanty as it 

lady was a poetess in her way. The Fairy's Answer to Mrs. 
Greville's "Prayer of Indifference," in Pearch's Collection, 
is usually ascribed to her. 

8 This preface was omitted in the second edition. 



HOURS OF IDLENESS. 



445 



must be, is all I shall derive from these productions ; 
and I shall never attempt to replace its fading leaves, 
or pluck a single additional sprig from groves where 
I am, at best, an intruder. Though accustomed, in 
my younger days, to rove a careless mountaineer on 
the Highlands of Scotland, I have not, of late years, 
had the benefit of such pure air, or so elevated a res- 
idence, as might enable me to enter the lists with 
genuine bards, who have enjoyed both these advan- 
tages. But they derive considerable fame, and a few 
not less profit, from their productions ; while I shall 
expiate my rashness as an interloper, certainly with- 
out the latter, and in all probability with a very 
slight share of the former. I leave to others " virum 
volitare per ora." I look to the few who will hear 
with patience " dulce est desipere in loco." To the 
former worthies I resign, without repining, the hope 
of immortality, and content myself with the not very 
magnificent prospect of ranking amongst "the mob 
of gentlemen who write;"— my readers must deter- 
mine whether I dare say " with ease," or the honor 
of a posthumous page in " The Catalogue of Eoyal 
and Noble Authors," — a work to which the Peerage 
is under infinite obligations, inasmuch as many names 
of considerable length, sound, and antiquity, are 
thereby rescued from the obscurity which unluckily 
overshadows several voluminous productions of their 
illustrious bearers. 

With slight hopes, and some fears, I publish this 
first and last attempt. To the dictates of young am- 
bition may be ascribed many actions more criminal 
and equally absurd. To a few of my own age the 
contents may afford amusement : I trust they will, at 
least, be found harmless. It is highly improbable, 
from my situation and pursuits hereafter, that I 
should ever obtrude myself a second time on the 
public; nor, even, in the very doubtful event of 
present indulgence, shall I be tempted to commit a 
future trespass of the same nature. The opinion of 
Dr. Johnson on the Poems of a noble relation of 
mine,^ " That when a man of rank appeared in the 
character of an author, he deserved to have his merit 



1 The Earl of Carlisle, whose works have long received 
the meed of public applause, to which, by their intrinsic 
worth, they were well entitled. 

2 The passage referred to by Lord Byron occurs in Bos- 
well's Life of Johnson, vol. viii. p. 91, ed. 1835. Dr. John- 
son's letter to Mrs. Chapone, criticising, on the whole 
favorably, the earl's tragedy of "The Father's Revenge," 
is inserted in the same volume, p. 242. 

2 The author claims the indulgence of the reader more for 
this piece than, perhaps, any other in the collection ; but as 
it was written at an earlier period than the rest (being com- 
posed at the age of fourteen), and his first essay, he preferred 
submitting it to the indulgence of his friends in its present 
state, to making either addition or alteration. 

* " My first dash into poetry was as early as 1800. It was 
the ebullition of a passion for my first cousin, Margaret Parker 
(daughter and granddaughter of the two Admirals Parker), 
one of the most beautiful of evanescent beings. I have long 
forgotten the verse ; but it would be difficult for me to forget 
her— her dark eyes — her long eye-lashes — her completely 



handsomely allowed," ^ can have little weight with 
verbal, and still less with periodical, censors; but 
were it otherwise, I should be loth to avail myself of 
the privilege, and would rather incur the bitterest 
censure of anonymous criticism, than triumph in 
honors granted solely to a title. 



J^oiirjs of TOettejss, 



ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG LADY, 

COUSIN TO THE ATJTHOE, AND VERY DEAR TO HIM.' 

Hush'd are the winds, and still the evening gloom, 
Not e'en a zephyr wanders through the grove, 

Whilst I return, to view my Margaret's tomb. 
And scatter flowers on the dust I love. 

Within this narrow cell reclines her clay, 

That clay, where once such animation beam'd : 

The King of Terrors seized her as his prey ; 
Not worth, nor beauty, have her life redeem'd. 

Oh ! could that King of Terrors pity feel. 
Or Heaven reverse the dread decrees of fate, 

Not here the mourner would his grief reveal, 
Not here the muse her virtues would relate. 

But wherefore weep ? Her matchless spirit soars 
Beyond where splendid shines the orb of day ; 

And weeping angels lead her to those bowers 
Where endless pleasures virtue's deeds repay. 

And shall presumptuous mortals Heaven arraign. 
And, madly, godlike Providence accuse ? 

Ah I no, far fly from me attempts so vain ; — 
I'll ne'er submission to my God refuse. 

Yet is remembrance of those virtues dear, 
Yet fresh the memory of that beauteous face ; 

Still they call forth my warm afiection's tear, 
Still in my heart retain their wonted place. 

1802.* 



Greek cast of face and figure! I was then about twelve — 
she rather older, perhaps a year. She died about a year or 
two afterwards, in consequence of a fall, which injured her 
spine, and induced consumption. Her sister Augusta (by 
some thought still more beautiful) died of the same malady; 
and it was, indeed, in attending her, that Margaret met with 
the accident which occasioned her death. My sister told 
me, that when she went to see her, shortly before her death, 
upon accidentally mentioning my name, Margaret colored, 
throughout the paleness of mortality, to the eyes, to the great 
astonishment of my .sister, who knew nothing of our attach- 
ment, nor could conceive why my name should affect her at 
such a time. I knew nothing of her illness — being at Har- 
row and in the country— till she was gone. Some years 
after, I made an attempt at an elegy— a very dull one. I do 
not recollect scarcely any thing equal to the transparent 
beauty of my cousin, or to the sweetness of her temper, 
during the short period of our intimacy. She looked as if 
she had been made out of a rainbow— all beauty and peace." 
—Byron Diary, 1821. 



446 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Let Folly smile, to view the names 
Of thee and me in friendship twined ; 

Yet Virtue will have greater claims 
To love, than rank with vice combined. 

And though unequal is thy fate, 
Since title deck'd my higher birth ! 

Yet envy not this gaudy state ; 
Thine is the pride of modest worth. 

Our souls at least congenial meet. 
Nor can thy lot my rank disgrace ; 

Our intercourse is not less sweet. 
Since worth of rank supplies the place. 

November, 1802. 



TO D .2 

In thee, I fondly hoped to clasp 
A friend, whom death alone could sever ; 

Till envy, with malignant grasp, 
Detach'd thee from my breast for ever. 

True, she has forced thee from my breast, 
Yet, in my heart thou keep'st thy seat ; 

There, there thine image still must rest, 
Until that heart shall cease to beat. 

And, when the grave restores her dead, 

When life again to dust is given. 
On thy dear breast I'll lay my head — 

Without thee, where would be my heaven ? 

February, 1803, 



1 This little poem, and some others in the collection, refer 
to a boy of Lord Byron's own age, son of one of his tenants 
at Newstead, for whom, he had formed a romantic attach- 
ment, of earlier date than any of his school friendships. 

2 Lord Delawarr. The idea of printing a collection of 
his poems first occurred to Lord Byron in the parlor of 
that cottage, which, during his visit to Southwell, had be- 
come his adopted home. Miss Pigot, who was not before 
aware of his turn for versifying, had been reading aloud 
the Poems of Burns, when young Byron said, that " he, too, 
was a poet sometimes, and would write down for her some 
verses of his own which he remembered." He then, with a 
pencil, wrote these lines, " To D ," 

3 This poem appears to have been, in its original state, 
intended to commemorate the death of the same lowly-born 
youth, to whom the affectionate verses given in the opposite 
column were addressed : — 

" Though low thy lot, since in a cottage born," &c. 
But, in the altered form of the epitaph, not only this passage, 
but every other containing an allusion to the low rank of his 
young companion, is omitted ; while, in the added parts, the 
introduction of such language as — 

" What though thy sire lament his failing line," 
seems calculated to give an idea of the youth's station in life, 
wholly different from that which the whole tenor of the ori- 
ginal epitaph warrants. "That he grew more conscious," 
says Mr. Moore, " of his high station, as he approached to 
manhood, is not improbable, and this wish to sink his early 



EPITAPH ON A FRIEND.s 

'Acrrrjp Trpli/ (Jikv eXa/xires ivl ^wolcriv ewos. — LaERTIUS. 

Oh, Friend ! for ever loved, for ever dear ! 
What fruitless tears have bathed thy honor'd bier, 
What sighs re-echo'd to thy parting breath. 
Whilst thou wast struggling in the pangs of death ! 
Could tears retard the tyrant in his course ; 
Could sighs avert his dart's relentless force ; 
Could youth and virtue claim a short delay. 
Or beauty charm the spectre from his prey ; 
Thou still hadst lived to bless my aching sight, 
Thy comrade's honor and thy friend's delight. 
If yet thy gentle spirit hover nigh 
The spot where now thy mouldering ashes lie, 
Here wilt thou read, recorded on my heart, 
A grief too deep to trust the sculptor's art. 
No marble marks thy couch of lowly sleep. 
But living statues there are seen to weep ; 
Affliction's semblance bends not o'er thy tomb, 
Affliction's self deplores thy youthful doom. 
What though thy sire lament his failing line, 
A father's sorrows cannot equal mine ! 
Though none, like thee, his dying hour will cheer. 
Yet other offspring soothe his anguish here : 
But, who with me shall hold thy former place? 
Thine image, what new friendship can efface ? 
Ah ! none ! — a father's tears will cease to flow, 
Time will assuage an infant brother's woe ; 
To all, save one, is consolation known. 
While solitary friendship sighs alone. 

1803. 



friendship with the young cottager may have been a result of 
that feeling." The following is a copy of the lines as they 
first appeared in the private volume : — 

" Oh, Boy ! for ever loved, for ever dear ! 
What fruitless tears have bathed thy honor'd bier ! 
What sighs re-echo'd to thy parting breath, 
While thou wast struggling in the pangs of death ! 
Could tears retard the tyrant in his course ; 
Could sighs avert his dart's relentless force ; 
Could youth and virtue claim a short delay, 
Or beauty charm the spectre from his prey ; 
Thou still hadst lived to bless my aching sight, 
Thy comrade's honor, and thy friend's delight. 
Though low thy lot, since in a cottage horn, 
No titles did thy humble name adorn, 
To me, far dearer was thy artless love 
Than all the joys wealth, fame, and friends could prove: 
For thee alone I lived, or wish'd to live ; 
Oh God ! if impious, this rash word forgive ! 
Heart-broken now, I wait an equal doom, 
Content to join thee in thy turf-clad tomb ; 
Where, this frail form composed in endless rest, 
I'll make my last cold pillow on thy breast ; 
That breast where oft in life I've laid my head. 
Will yet receive me mouldering with the dead ; 
This life resign'd, without one parting sigh. 
Together in one bed of earth we'll lie ! 
Together share the fate to mortals given ; 
Together mix our dust^ and hope for heaven." 



HOURS OF IDLENESS. 



447 



A FRAGMENT. 

When, to their airy hall, my fathers' voice 
Sliall call my spirit, joyful in their choice ; 
When, poised upon the gale, my form shall ride, 
Or, dark in mist, descend the mountain's side ; 
Oh ! may my shade behold no sculptured urns, 
To mark the spot where earth to earth returns ! 
No lengthen'd scroll, no praise-encumber'd stone; 
My epitaph shall be my name alone : ^ 
If that with honor fail to crown my clay, 
Oh ! may no other fame my deeds repay ! 
That, only that, shall single out the spot ; 
By that remember'd, or with that forgot. 

1803. 



ON LEAVING NEWSTEAD ABBEY.^ 

"Why dost thou build the hall, son of the winged days? 
Thou lookest from thy tower to-day: yet a few years, and 
the blast of the desert comes, it howls in thy empty court." 

— OSSIAN. 

Through thy battlements, Newstead, the hollow 
winds whistle ; 
Thou, the hall of my fathers, art gone to decay : 
In thy once smiling garden, the hemlock and thistle 
Have choked up the rose which late bloom'd in the 
way. 

Of the mail-cover'd barons, who proudly to battle 
Led their vassals from Europe to Palestine's plain,^ 

The escutcheon and sliield, which with every blast 
rattle. 
Are the only sad vestiges now that remain. 

1 Of the sincerity of this youthful aspiration, the poet has 
left repeated proofs. By his will, drawn up in 1811, he di- 
rected, that "no inscription, save his name and age, should 
be written on his tomb ;" and, in 1819, he wrote thus to Mr. 
Murray : — " Some of the epitaphs at the Certosa cemetery, at 
Fcrrara, pleased me more than the more splendid monuments 
at Bologna; for instance— 

' Martini Luigi 

Implora pace.' 
Can any thing be more full of pathos? I hope whoever may 
survive me will see those two words, and no more, put over me." 

2 The priory of Newstead, or de Novo Loco, in Sherwood, 
was founded about the year 1170, by Henry II., and dedicated 
to God and the Virgin. It was in the reign of Henry VIII., 
on the dissolution of the monasteries, that, by a royal grant, 
it was added, with the lands adjoining, to the other posses- 
sions of the Byron family. The favorite upon whom they 
were confcrrfd, was the grand-nephew of the gallant soldier 
•who fought by the side of Richmotid at Bosworth, and is 
distinguished from the other knights of the same Christian 
name, in the family, by the title of "Sir John Byron the 
Little, with tbe great board." A portrait of this personage 
was one of the few family j^ictures with which the walls of the 
abbey, while in the possession of the poot, were decorated. 

' There being no rocord of any of Lord Byron's ancestors 
having been engaged in the Holy "Wars, Mr. Moore suggests, 
that the poet may have had no other authority for this notion, 
than the tradition which he found connected with certain 
strange groups of heads, which are represented on the old 



No more doth old Robert, with harp-stringing num- 
bers, 
Raise a flame in the breast for the war-laurell'd 
wreath ; 
Near Askalon's towers, John of Horistan * slumbers, 
Unnerved is the hand of his minstrel by death. 

Paul and Hubert, too, sleep in the valley of Cressy ;5 
For the safety of Edward and England they fell : 

My fathers I the tears of your country redress ye ; 
How you fought, how you died, still her annals can 
tell. 

On Marston,^ with Rupert '^ 'gainst traitors contending, 
Four brothers enrich'd with their blood the bleak 
field ; 

For the rights of a monarch their country defending, 
Till death their attachment to royalty seal'd.^ 

Shades of heroes, farewell ! your descendant, departing 
From the seat of his ancestors, bids you adieu ! 

Abroad, or at home, your remembrance imparting 
New courage, he'll think upon glory and you. 

Though a tear dim his eye at this sad separation, 
'Tis nature, not fear, that excites his regret ; 

Far distant he goes, with the same emulation. 
The fame of his fathers he ne'er can forget. 

That fame, and that memory, still will he cherish ; 

He vows that he ne'er will disgrace your renown : 
Like you will he live, or like you will he perish : 

When decay'd, may he mingle his dust with your 



1803. 



panel-work in some of the chambers at Newstead. In one 
of these groups, consisting of three heads, strongly carved 
and projecting from the panel, the centre figure evidently 
represents a Saracen or Moor, with an European female on 
one side of him, and a Christian soldier on the other. In a 
second group, the female occupies the centre, while on either 
side is the head of a Saracen, with the eyes fixed earnestly 
upon her. Of the exact meaning of these figures there is 
nothing known ; but the tradition is, that they refer to a love 
adventure of the age of the Crusades. 

* "In the park of Horscley," says Thoroton, "there was 
a castle, some of the ruins of which are yet visible, called 
Horistan Castle, which was the chief mansion of Balph de 
Burun's successors." 

5 Two of the family of Byron are enumerated as serving 
with distinction in the siege of Calais, under Edward III., and 
as among the knights who fell on the glorious field of Cressy. 

6 The battle of Marston Moor, where the adherents of 
Charlos I. were defeated. 

7 Son of the elector palatine, and nephew to Charles I. 
He afterwards commanded the fleet in the reign of Charles II. 

8 Sir Nicholas Byron served with distinction in the Low 
Countries; and, iu the Great Bcbcllion, ho was one of the 
first to take up arms in the royal cause. After the battle of 

I Edgohill, he was made colon el -general of Cheshire and 
Shropshire, and governor of Chester. "He was," says Clar- 
endon, " a person of great affability and dexterity, as well as 
martial knowledge, which gave great life to the designs of 
the well affected ; and, with the encouragement of some gen- 



448 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



LINES 

WRITTEN IN "LETTERS TO AN ITALIAN NUN AND 
AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN: BY J. J. ROUSSEAU; 
FOUNDED ON FACTS." 

" Away, away, your flattering arts 
May now betray some simple hearts ; 
And you will smile at their believing, 
And they shall weep at your deceiving." 

ANSWER TO THE FOREGOING, ADDRESSED TO 

MISS . 

Dear, simple girl, those flattering arts, 

From which thou'dst guard frail female hearts, 

Exist but in imagination, — 

Mere phantoms of thine own creation ; 

For he who views that witching grace. 

That perfect form, that lovely face. 

With eyes admiring, oh ! believe me. 

He never wishes to deceive thee : 

Once in thy polish'd mirror glance, 

Thou'lt there descry that elegance, 

Which from our sex demands such praises, 

But envy in the other raises : 

Then he who tells thee of thy beauty, 

Believe me, only does his duty : 

Ah ! fly not from the candid youth ; 

It is not flattery, — 'tis truth. 

July, 1804. 



ADRIAN'S ADDRESS TO HIS SOUL WHEN 
DYING.i 

[Animula ! vagula, blandula, 
Hospes comesque corporis, 
Quae nunc abibis in loca — 
Pallidula, rigida, nudula, 
Nee, ut soles, dabis jocos?] 

Ah ! gentle, fleeting, wav'ring sprite, 
Friend and associate of this clay ! 

To what unknown region borne. 
Wilt thou now wing thy distant flight ? 
No more with wonted humor gay. 

But pallid, cheerless, and forlorn. 

tlemen of North Wales, he raised such a power of horse and 
foot, as made frequent skirmishes with the enemy, sometimes 
with notable advantage, never with signal loss." — In 1643, 
Sir John Byron was created Baron Byron of Rochdale in the 
county of Lancaster ; and seldom has a title been bestowed 
for such high and honorable services as those by which he 
deserved the gratitude of his royal master. Through almost 
every page of the History of the Civil Wars, we trace his 
name in connection with the varying fortunes of the king, 
and find him faithful, persevering, and disinterested to the 
last. " Sir John Biron," says Mrs. Hutchinson, " afterwards 
Lord Biron, and all his brothers, bred up in arms, and valiant 
men in their own persons, were all passionately the king's." 
We find also, in the reply of Colonel Hutchinson, when 
governor of Nottingham, to his cousin-german Sir Richard 
Byron, a noble tribute to the chivalrous fidelity of the race. 
Sir Richard, having sent to prevail on his relative to sur- 
render the castle, received for answer, that " except he found 
his own heart prone to such treachery, he might consider 



TRANSLATION FROM CATULLUS. 

AD LESBIAM. 

Equal to Jove that youth must be — 

Greater than Jove he seems to me — 

Who, free from Jealousy's alarms. 

Securely views thy matchless charms : 

That cheek, which ever dimpling glows, 

That mouth, from whence such music flows, 

To him, alike, are always known, 

Reserved for him, and him alone. 

Ah, Lesbia ! though 'tis death to me, 

I cannot choose but look on thee ; 

But, at the sight, my senses fly ; 

I needs must gaze, but, gazing, die ; 

Whilst trembling with a thousand fears, 

Parch'd to the throat my tongue adheres. 

My pulse beats quick, my breath heaves short, 

My limbs deny their slight support. 

Cold dews my pallid face o'erspread. 

With deadly languor droops my head. 

My ears with tingling echoes ring. 

And life itself is on the wing ; , 

My eyes refuse the cheering light. 

Their orbs are veil'd in starless night : 

Such pangs my nature sinks beneath, 

And feels a temporary death. 



TRANSLATION OF THE EPITAPH ON VIRGIL 
AND TIBULLUS. 

BY DOMITIUS MARSUS. 

He who sublime in epic numbers roll'd, 
And he who struck the softer lyre of love, 

By Death's 2 unequal hand alike controll'd. 
Fit comrades in Elysian regions move ! 

there was, if nothing else, so much of a Byron's blood in 
him, that he should very much scorn to betray or quit a 
trust he had undertaken." — On the monument of Richard, 
the second Lord Byron, who lies buried in the chancel of 
Hucknal-Tokard church, there is the following inscription : — 
" Beneath, in a vault, is interred the body of Richard Lord 
Byron, who, with the rest of his family, being seven brothers, 
faithfully served King Charles the First in the civil wars, 
who suffered much for their loyalty, and lost all their present 
fortunes ; yet it pleased God so to bless the humble endeav- 
ors of the said Richard Lord Byron, that he repurchased 
part of their ancient inheritance, which he left to his pos- 
terity, with a laudable memory for his great piety and 
charity." 

1 This and several little pieces that follow appear to be 
fragments of school exercises done at Harrow. 

2 The hand of Death is said to be unjust or unequal, as 
Virgil was considerably older than TibuUus at his decease. 



HOURS OF IDLENESS. 



449 



IMITATION OF TIBULLUS. 

" Sulpicia ad Cerintlium."— i>i6. 4. 

Cruel Cerinthus ! does the fell disease 

Which racks ray breast your fickle bosom please? 

Alas ! I wish'd but to o'ercome the pain, 

That I might live for love and you again ; 

But now I scarceK shall bewail my fate : 

By death alone I can avoid your hate. 



TRANSLATION FROM CATULLUS. 

[Lugete, Veneres, Cupidinesque, <fec.J 

Ye Cupids, droop each little head, 
Nor let your wings with joy be spread. 
My Lesbia's favorite bird is dead, 

Whom dearer than her eyes she loved ; 
For he was gentle, and so true, 
Obedient to her call he flew, 
No fear, no wild alarm he knew. 

But lightly o'er her bosom moved : 

And softly fluttering here and there. 
He never sought to cleave the air. 
But chirrup'd oft, and, free from care, 

Tuned to her ear his grateful strain. ^ 
Now having pass'd the gloomy bourne 
From whence he never can return, 
His death and Lesbia's grief I mourn, 

Who sighs, alas ! but sighs in vain.- 

Oh ! curst be thou, devouring grave ! 
Whose jaws eternal victims crave. 
From whom no earthly power can save, 

For thou hast ta'en the bird away : 
From thee my Lesbia's eyes o'erflow, 
Her swollen cheeks with weeping glow ; 
Thou art the cause of all her woe, 

Receptacle of life's decay. 



IMITATED FROM CATULLUS. 

TO ELLEN. 

Oh ! might I kiss those eyes of fire, 
A million scarce would quench desire : 
Still would I steep my lips in bliss, 
And dwell an age on every kiss : 
Nor then my soul should sated be ; 
Still would I kiss and cling to thee : 
Nought should my kiss from thine dissever; 
Still would we kiss, and kiss for ever; 
E'en though the numbers did exceed 
The yellow harvest's countless seed. 
To part would be a vain endeavor : 
Could I desist ? — ah ! never — never ! 
29 



TRANSLATION FROM HORACE. 

[Justum et tenacem propositi virum, Ac.] 

The man of firm and noble soul 
No factious clamors can control ; 
No threat'ning tyrant's darkling brow 

Can swerve him from his just intent : 
Gales the warring waves which plough. 

By Auster on the billows spent, 
To curb the Adriatic main, 
Would awe his fix'd, determined mind in vain. 

Ay, and the red right arm of Jove, 
Hurtling his lightnings from above, 
With all his terrors there unfurl'd. 

He would unmoved, unawed, behold. 
The flames of an expiring world. 

Again in crashing chaos roll'd. 
In vast promiscuous ruin hurl'd. 
Might light his glorious funeral pile : 
Still dauntless 'midst the wreck of earth he'd smile. 



FROM ANACREON. 

[©eAw keyelv ArpeiSa?, <. t. A.] 

I "WISH to tune my quivering lyre 
To deeds of fame and notes of fire ; 
To echo, from its rising swell. 
How heroes fought and nations fell, 
When Atreus' sons advanced to war, 
Or Tji-rian Cadmus roved afar ; 
But still, to martial strains unknown. 
My lyre recurs to love alone. 
Fired with the hope o^ future fame, 
I seek some nobler hero's name ; 
The dying chords are strung anew. 
To war, to war, my harp is due : 
With glowing strings, the epic strain 
To Jove's great son I raise again ; 
Alcides and his glorious deeds, 
Beneath whose arm the Hydra bleeds 
All, all in vain ; my wayward lyre 
Wakes silver notes of soft desire. 
Adieu, ye chiefs renown'd in arms ! 
Adieu the clang of war's alarms ! 
To other deeds my soul is strung. 
And sweeter notes shall now be sung ; 
My harp shall all its powers reveal. 
To tell the tale my heart must feel : 
Love, love alone, my lyre shall claim, 
In songs of bliss and sighs of flame. 



FROM ANACREON. 

[MecorvACTiai? noO' wpai?, k. t. K.] 

'TWAS now the hour when Night had driven 
Her car half round yon sable heaven ; 



450 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Bootes, only, seem'd to roll 

His arctic charge around the pole ; 

While mortals, lost in gentle sleep, 

Forgot to smile, or ceased to weep : 

At this lone hour, the Paphian boy, 

Descending from the realms of joy. 

Quick to my gate directs his course, 

And knocks with all his little force. 

My visions fled, alarm'd I rose, — 

" What stranger breaks my blest repose ?" 

" Alas !" replies the wily child, 

In faltering accents sweetly mild, 

" A hapless infant here I roam. 

Far from my dear maternal home. 

Oh ! shield me from the wintry blast ! 

The nightly storm is pouring fast. 

No prowling robber lingers here. 

A wandering baby who can fear?" 

I heard his seeming artless tale, 

I heard his sighs upon the gale : 

My breast was never pity's foe, 

But felt for all the baby's woe. 

I drew the bar, and by the light. 

Young Love, the infant, met my sight ; 

His bow across his shoulders flung. 

And thence his fatal quiver hung 

(Ah ! little did I think the dart 

Would rankle soon within my heart). 

With care I tend my weary guest. 

His little fingers chill my breast ; 

His glossy curls, his azure wing, 

Which droop with nightly showers, I wring : 

His shivering limbs the embers warm ; 

And now reviving from the storm. 

Scarce had he felt his wonted glow, 

Than swift he seized his slender bow : — 

" I fain would know, my gentle host," 

He cried, " if this its strength has lost ; 

I fear, relax'd with midnight dews. 

The strings their former aid refuse." 

With poison tipt, his arrow flies. 

Deep in my tortured heart it lies ; 

Then loud the joyous urchin laugh'd : — 

" My bow can still impel the shaft : 

'Tis firmly fix'd, thy sighs reveal it ; 

Say, courteous host, canst thou not feel it?" 



FROM THE PROMETHEUS VINCTUS OF 
JESCHYLUS. 

[MijSaji*' 6 ndvra. vefitov, k. t. A.J 

Great Jove, to whose almighty throne 
Both gods and mortals homage pay. 

Ne'er may my soul thy power disown. 
Thy dread behests ne'er disobey. 



1 " My first Harrow verses (that is, English, as exercises), 
a translation of a chorus from the Prometheus of JEschylus, 
were received by Dr. Drury, my grand patron (our head 



Oft shall the sacred victim fall 
In sea-girt Ocean's mossy hall ; 
My voice shall raise no impious strain 
'Gainst him who rules the sky and azure main. 

How different now thy joyless fate. 

Since first Hesione thy bride. 
When placed aloft in godlike state. 
The blushing beauty by thy side. 
Thou sat'st, while reverend Ocean smiled, 
And mirthful strains the hours beguiled, 
The Nymphs and Tritons danced around, 
Nor yet thy doom was fix'd, nor Jove relentless 
frown'd.i 

Harrow, Dec. 1, 1804. 



TO EMMA. 



Since now the hour is come at last. 
When you must quit your anxious lover 

Since now our dream of bliss is past. 
One pang, my girl, and all is over, 

Alas ! that pang will be severe, 

Which bids us part to meet no more ; 

Which tears me far from one so dear, 
Departing for a distant shore. 

Well ! we have pass'd some happy hours, 
And joy will mingle with our tears; 

When thinking on these ancient towers. 
The shelter of our infant years ; 

Where from this Gothic casement's height, 
We view'd the lake, the park, the dell ; 

And still, though tears obstruct our sight, 
We lingering look a last farewell. 

O'er fields through which we used to run. 
And spend the hours in childish play ; 

O'er shades where, when our race was done, 
Reposing on my breast you lay ; 

Whilst I, admiring, too remiss. 
Forgot to scare the hovering flies, 

Yet envied every fly the kiss 
It dared to give your slumbering eyes : 

See still the little painted bark. 
In which I row'd you o'er the lake ; 

See there, high waving o'er the park, 
The elm I clamber'd for your sake. 

These times are past— our joys are gone, 
You leave me, leave this happy vale ; 

These scenes I must retrace alone : 
Without thee what will they avail ? 



master), but coolly. No one had, at that time, the least 
notion that I should subside into poesy." — Byron Diary. 



HOURS OF IDLENESS. 



451 



Who can conceive, who has not proved, 
The anguish of a last embrace ? 

When, torn from all von fondly loved, 
You bid a long adieu to peace. 

This is the deepest of our woes, 

For this these tears our cheeks bedew ; 

This is of love the final close. 
Oh, Grod ! the fondest, last adieu ! 



TO M. S. G. 



Whene'er I view those lips of thine, 
Their hue invites my fervent kiss ; 

Yet I forego that bliss divine, 
Alas ! it were unhallow'd bliss. 

Whene'er I dream of that pure breast, 
How could I dwell upon its snows ! 

Yet is the daring wish represt. 
For that — would banish its repose. 

A glance from thy soul-searching eye 
Can raise with hope, depress with fear ; 

Yet I conceal my love, — and why ? 
I would not force a painful tear. 

I ne'er have told my love, yet thou 
Hast seen my ardent flame too well ; 

And shall I plead my passion now. 
To make thy bosom's heaven a hell ? 

No ! for thou never canst be mine. 
United by the priest's decree : 

By any ties but those divine. 
Mine, my beloved, thou ne'er shalt be. 

Then let the secret fire consume, 

Let it consume, thou shalt not know • 

With joy I court a certain doom. 
Rather than spread its guilty glow. 

I will not ease my tortured heart. 
By driving dove-eyed peace from thine ; 

Rather than such a sting impart. 

Each thought presumptuous I resign. 

Yes ! yield those lips, for which I'd brave 
More than I here shall dare to tell ; 

Thy innocence and mine to save, — 
I bid thee now a last farewell. 

Yes ! yield that breast, to seek despair, 
And hope no more thy soft embrace ; 

Which to obtain my soul would dare 
All, all reproach — but thy disgrace. 

At least from guilt shalt thou be free, 
No matron shall thy shame reprove ; 

Though cureless pangs may prey on me, 
No martyr shalt thou be to love. 



TO CAROLINE. 

Think'ST thou I saw thy beauteous eyes, 
Suflused in tears, implore to stay ; 

And heard unmoved thy plenteous sighs. 
Which said far more than words can say ? 

Though keen the grief thy tears exprest. 
When love and hope lay both o'erthrown, 

Yet still, my girl, this bleeding breast 
Throbb'd with deep sorrow as thine own. 

But when our cheeks with anguish glow'd, 
When thy sweet lips were join'd to mine. 

The tears that from my eyelids flow'd 
Were lost in those which fell from thine. 

Thou couldst not feel my burning cheek, 
Thy gushing tears had quench'd its flame ; 

And as thy tongue essay'd to speak. 
In sighs alone it breathed my name. 

And yet, my girl, we weep in vain. 
In vain our fate in sighs deplore ; 

Remembrance only can remain, — 
But that will make us weep the more. 

Again, thou best beloved, adieu ! 

Ah ! if thou canst, o'ercome regret; 
Nor let thy mind past joys review, — 

Our only hope is to forget ! 



TO CAROLINE. 

When I hear you express an affection so warm, 
Ne'er think, my beloved, that I do not believe ; 

For your lip would the soul of suspicion disarm. 
And your eye beams a ray which can never deceive. 

Yet still this fond bosom regrets, while adoring, 
That love, like the leaf, must fall into the sere ; 

That age will come on, when remembrance, deploring. 
Contemplates the scenes of her youth with a tear; 

That the time must arrive, whei>, no longer retaining 
Their auburn, those locks must wave thin to the 
breeze, 

When a few silver hairs of those tresses remaining. 
Prove nature a prey to decay and disease. 

Tis this, my beloved, which spreads gloom o'er my 
features. 

Though I ne'er shall presume to arraign the decree 
Which God has proclaim'd as the fate of his creatures, 

In the death which one day will deprive you of rae. 

Mistake not, sweet skeptic, the cause of emotion. 
No doubt can the mind of your lover invade ; 

He worships each look with such faithful devotion, 
A smile can enchant, or a tear can dissuade. 



452 



BYKON^S WOKKS. 



But as death, my beloved, soon or late shall o'ertake us, 
And our breasts, which alive with such sympathy- 
glow, 

Will sleep in the grave till the blast shall awake us, 
When calling the dead, in earth's bosom laid low, — 

Oh! then let us drain, while we may, draughts of 
pleasure. 
Which from passion like ours may unceasingly flow ; 
Let us pass round the cup of love's bliss in full 
measure, 
And quaff the contents as our nectar below. 



TO CAROLINE. 

Oh ! when shall the grave hide for ever my sorrows ? 

Oh ! when shall my soul wing her flight from this 
clay? 
The present is hell, and the coming to-morrow 

But brings, with new torture, the curse of to-day. 

From my eye flows no tear, from my lips flow no curses, 
I blast not the fiends who have hurl'd me from bliss : 

For poor is the soul which bewailing rehearses 
Its querulous grief, when in anguish like this. 

Was my eye, 'stead of tears, with red fury flakes 

bright'ning. 

Would my lips breathe a flame which no stream 

could assuage, [lightning. 

On our foes should my glance launch in vengeance its 

With transport my tongue give a loose to its rage. 

But now tears and curses, alike unavailing, 
Would add to the souls of our tyrants delight ; 

Could they view us our sad separation bewailing, 
Their merciless hearts would rejoice at the sight. 

Yet still, though we bend with a feign'd resignation. 
Life beams not for us with one ray that can cheer ; 

Love and hope upon earth bring no more consolation ; 
In the grave is our hope, for in life is our fear. 

Oh ! when, my adored, in the tomb will they place me. 
Since, in life, love and friendship for ever are fled ? 

If again in the mansion o'f death I embrace thee, 
Perhaps they will leave unmolested the dead. 

1805. 



1 Lord Strangford's translations of Camoens's Amatory 
Poems, Verses, and Little's Poems, are mentioned by Mr. 
Moore as having been at this period the favorite study of 
Lord Byron. 

2 " The latter years of Camoens present a mournful picture, 
not merely of individual calamity, but of national ingrati- 
tude. He whose best years had been devoted to the service 
of his country, he vfho had taught her literary fame to rival 
the proudest efforts of Italy itself, and who seemed born to 
revive the remembrance of ancient gentility and Lusian 
heroism, was compelled to wander through the streets, a 



STANZAS TO A LADY, 

WITH THE POEMS OP CAMOENS.l 

This votive pledge of fond esteem. 

Perhaps, dear girl ! for me thou'lt prize ; 

It sings of Love's enchanting dream, 
A theme we never can despise. 

Who blames it but the envious fool, 
The old and disappointed maid ; 

Or pupil of the prudish school, 
In single sorrow doom'd to fade ? 

Then read, dear girl ! with feeling read, 
For thou wilt ne'er be one of those ; 

To thee in vain I shall not plead 
In pity for the poet's woes. 

He was in sooth a genuine bard ; 

His was no faint, fictitious flame . 
Like his, may love be thy reward. 

But not thy hapless fate the same.* 



THE FIRST KISS OF LOVE. 

A Bap^iTO? fie ^opSacs 

'Eptora /W.OWOV rjxel. — AnaCREON. 

Away with your fictions of flimsy romance ; 

Those tissues of falsehood which folly has wove : 
Give me the mild beam of the soul -breathing glance, 

Or the rapture which dwells on the first kiss of love. 

Ye rhymers, whose bosoms with fantasy glow, 
Whose pastoral passions are made for the grove ; 

From what blest inspiration your sonnets would flow, 
Could you ever have tasted the first kiss of love ! 

If Apollo should e'er his assistance refuse, 
Or the Nine be disposed from your service to rove, 

Invoke them no more, bid adieu to the muse, 
And try the effect of the first kiss of love. 

I hate you, ye cold compositions of art ! 

Though prudes may condemn me, and bigots re- 
prove, 
I court the effusions that spring from the heart. 

Which throbs with delight to the first kiss of love. 



wretched dependent on casual contribution. One friend 
alone remained to smooth his downward path, and guide 
his steps to the grave with gentleness and consolation. It 
was Antonio, his slave, a native of Java, who had accom- 
panied Camoens to Europe, after having rescued him from 
the waves, when shipwrecked at the mouth of the Mecon. 
This faithful attendant was wont to seek alms throughout 
Lisbon, and at night shared the produce of the day with 
his poor and broken-hearted master. But his friendship was 
employed in vain. Camoens sank beneath the pressure of 
penury and disease, and died in an almshouse early in the 
year 1579."— Strangford. 



HOUKS OF IDLENESS. 



453 



Your shepherds, your flocks, those fantastical themes, 
Perhaps may amuse, yet they never can move 

Arcadia displays but a region of dreams : 

What are visions like these to the first kiss of love ? 

Oh ! cease to affirm that man, since his birth, 

From Adam till now, has with wretchedness strove ; 

borne portion of paradise still is on earth, 
Aud Eden revives in the first kiss of love. 

When age chills the blood, when our pleasures are 
past — 

For years fleet away with the wings of the dove — 
The dearest remembrance will still be the last. 

Our sweetest memorial the first kiss of love. 



ON A CHANGE OF MASTERS AT A GREAT 
PUBLIC SCHOOL.! 

Where are those honors, Ida! once your own, 
When Probus^ fill'd your magisterial throne ? 
As ancient Rome, fast falling to disgrace, 
Hail'd a barbarian in her Caesar's place, 
So you, degenerate, share as hard a fate, 
And seat Pomposus where your Probus sate. 
Of narrow brain, yet of a narrower soul, 
Pomposus 3 holds you in his harsh control ; 
Pomposus, by no social virtue sway'd. 
With florid jargon, and with vain parade ; 
With noisy nonsense, and new-fangled rules, 
Such as were ne'er before enforced in schools. 
Mistaking pedantry for learning's laws, 
He governs, sanction'd but by self-applause ; 
With him the same dire fate attending Rome 
Ill-fated Ida I soon must stamp your doom ; 
Like her o'erthrown, for ever lost to fame, 
No trace of science left you, but the name. 

July, 1805. 



1 In March, 180o, Dr. Drury retired from his situation of 
head master at Harrow, and was succeeded by Dr. Butler. 

* "Dr. Drury, whom I plagued sufficiently, was the best, 
the kindest (and yet strict, too) friend I ever had; and I look 
ujKin him still a.s a father."— J9yron Diary. 

3 " At Harrow I was a most unpopular boy, but led latterly, 
and have retain<;d many of my school friend.ships, and all 
my dislikes — (except to Dr. Butler, whom I treated rebel- 
liouply and have been sorry ever since." — Byron Diary. — 
The reconciliation which took place between him and Dr. 
lUiller, before his departure for Greece, in 1809, is, says Mr. 
Moore, "one of those instances of placability and pliable- 
ne&s with which his life aVjounded. Not content with this 
private atonement to the doctor, it was hLs intention, had 
he published another erlition of the Hours of Idleness, to 
8ub.stitute, for the offensive verses against that gentleman, 
a frank avowal of the wrong he had been guilty of in giving 
vent to them." 

♦ In looking over my papers to select a few additional 
poems for this second edition, I found the above lines, 
which I had totally forgotten, composed in the summer of 
1805, a short time previous to my departure from Harrow. 



TO THE DUKE OF DORSET.* 

Dorset !^ whose early steps with mine have stray'd, 
Exploring every path of Ida's glade ; 
i Whom still afiection taught me to defend, 
I And made me less a tyrant than a friend, 
I Though the harsh custom of our youthful band 
i Jiade thee obey, and gave mc to command ; ^ 
I Thee, on whose head a few short years will shower 
\ The gift of riches and the pride of power ; 
E'en now a name illustrious is thine own, 
1 Renown'd in rank, not far beneath the throne. 
i Yet, Dorset, let not this seduce thy soul 
I To shun fair science, or evade control, 
Though passive tutors,'^ fearful to dispraise 
The titled child, whose future breath may raise, 
View ducal errors with indulgent eyes, 
And wink at faults they tremble to chastise. 

When youthful parasites, who bend the knee 
To wealth, their golden idol, not to thee, — 
And even in simple boyhood's opening dawn 
Some slaves are found to flatter and to fawn, — 
When these declare, " that pomp alone should wait 
On one by birtn predestined to be great ; 
I That books were only meant for drudging fools, 
I That gallant spirits scorn the common rules ;" 
Relieve them not ; — they point the path to shame, 
Aud seek to blast the honors of thy name. 
Turn to the few in Ida's early throng. 
Whose souls disdain not to condemn the wropg ; 
Or if, amidst the comrades of thy youth, 
None dare to raise the sterner voice of truth, 
Ask thine own heart ; 'twill bid thee, boy, forbear ; 
For well I know that virtue lingers there. 

Yes ! I have mark'd thee many a passing day, 
But now neAV scenes invite me far away ; 
Yes ! I have mark'd within that generous mind 
A soul, if well matured, to bless mankind. 
Ah ! though myself by nature haughty, wild, 
Whom Indiscretion hail'd her favorite child ; 



They were addressed to a young schoolfellow of high rank, 
who had been my frequent companion in some rambles 
through the neighboring country: however, he never saw 
the lines, and most probably never will. As, on a reperusal, 
I found them not worse than some other pieces in the collec- 
tion, I have now published them, for the first time, after a 
slight revision. 

6 George-.Tohn-Frederick, fourth duke of Dorset, born 
November 15, 1793. This amiable nobleman was killed by 
a fall from his horse, while hunting near Dublin, February 
22, 1815, being on a visit at the time to his mother, the 
duchess-dowager, and her second husband, Charles Earl (jC 
Whitworth, then lord lieutenant of Ireland. 

6 At every public school the junior boys are completely 
subservient to the upper forms till they attain a seat in the 
higher classes. From this state of probation, very properly, 
no rank is exempt; but after a certain period, they command 
in turn those who succeed. 

"> Allow me to disclaim any personal allusions, even th« 
most distant: I merely mention generally what is too often 
the weakness of preceptors. 



454 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Though every error stamps me for her own, 
And dooms my fall, I fain would fall alone ; 
Though my proud heart no precept now can tame, 
I love the virtues which I cannot claim. 

'Tis not enough, with other sons of power, 
To gleam the lambent meteor of an hour ; 
To swell some peerage page in feeble pride, 
With long-drawn names that grace no page beside ; 
Then share with titled crowds the common lot — 
In life just gazed at, in the grave forgot ; 
While nought divides thee from the vulgar dead. 
Except the dull cold stone that hides thy head. 
The mouldering 'scutcheon, or the herald's roll. 
That well-emblazon'd but neglected scroll. 
Where lords, unhonor'd, in the tomb may find 
One spot, to leave a worthless name behind. 
There sleep, unnoticed as the gloomy vaults 
That veil their dust, their follies, and their faults, 
A race, with old armorial lists o'erspread. 
In records destined never to be read. 
Fain would I view thee, with prophetic eyes, 
Exalted more among the good and wise, 
A glorious and a long career pursue, 
As first in rank, the first in talent too : 
Spurn every vice, each little meanness shun ; 
Not Fortune's minion, but her noblest son. 

Turn to the annals of a former day ; 
Bright are the deeds thine earlier sires display. 
One, though a courtier, lived a man of worth, 
And call'd, proud boast ! the British drama forth.i 
Another view, not less renown'd for wit ; 
Alike for courts, and camps, or senates fit ; 
Bold in the field, and favor'd by the Nine ; 
In every splendid part ordain'd to shine ; 
Far, far distinguish'd from the glittering throng. 
The pride of princes, and the boast of song.'-* 
Such were thy fathers ; thus preserve their name ; 
Not heir to titles only, but to fame. 
The hour draws nigh, a few brief days will close. 
To me, this little scene of joys and woes; 
Each knell of Time now warns me to resign [mine : 
Shades where Hope, Peace, and Friendship all were 
Hope, that could vary like the rainbow's hue. 
And gild their pinions as the moments flew ; 



1 "Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, was born in 1527. 
While a student of the Inner Temple, he wrote his tragedy 
of Gorboduc, which was played before Queen Elizabeth at 
Whitehall, in 1561. His tragedy, and his contribution of 
the Induction and legend of the Duke of Buckingham to 
the ' Mirror for Magistrates,' compose the poetical history of 
Sackville. The rest of it was political. In 1604, he was created 
Earl of Dorset by James I. He died suddenly at the council 
table in consequence of a dropsy on the brain."— Campbell. 

2 Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset, was born in 1637, and 
died in 1706. He was esteemed the most accomplished man 
of his day, and alike distinguished in the voluptuous court of 
Charles II. and the gloomy one of William III. He behaved 
with considerable gallantry in the sea-fight with the Dutch 
in 1665; on the day previous to which he is said to have com- 
posed his celebrated song, To all you Ladies now at Land. 
His character has been drawn in the highest colors by 
Dryden, Pope, Prior, and Congreve. 



Peace, that reflection never frown'd away, 
By dreams of ill to cloud some future day ; 
Friendship, whose truth let childhood only tell ; 
Alas ! they love not long, who love so well. 
To these adieu ! nor let me linger o'er 
Scenes hail'd, as exiles hail their native shore, 
Beceding slowly through the dark-blue deep, 
Beheld by eyes that mourn, yet cannot weep. 

Dorset, farewell ! I will not ask one part 
Of sad remembrance in so young a heart ; 
The coming morrow from thy youthful mind 
Will sweep my name, nor leave a trace behind. 
And yet, perhaps, in some maturer year. 
Since chance has thrown us in the self-same sphere, 
Since the same senate, nay, the same debate. 
May one day claim our suffrage for the state. 
We hence may meet, and pass each other by, 
With faint regard, or cold and distant eye. 

For me, in future, neither friend nor foe, 
A stranger to thyself, thy weal or woe. 
With thee no more again I hope to trace 
The recollection of our early race ; 
No more, as once, in social hours rejoice. 
Or hear, unless in croAvds, thy well-known voice : 
Still, if the wishes of a heart untaught 
To veil those feelings which perchance it ought, 
If these, — but let me cease the lengthen'd strain, — 
Oh ! if these wishes are not breathed in vain. 
The guardian seraph who directs thy fate 
Will leave thee glorious, as he found thee great.'^ 

1805. 



FRAGMENT. 



WRITTEN SHORTLY AFTER THE MARRIAGE OP MISS 
CHAWORTH. 
Hills of Annesley ! bleak and barren. 

Where my thoughtless childhood stray'd, 
How the northern tempests, warring. 
Howl above thy tufted shade ! 

Now no more, the hours beguiling. 

Former favorite haunts I see ; 
Now no more my Mary smiling 

Makes ye seem a heaven to me.* 1805. 

3 " I have just been, or rather ought to be, very much 
shocked by the death of the Duke of Dorset. We were at 
school together, and there I was passionately attached to 
him. Since, we have never met, but once, I think, since 
1805— and it would be a paltry affectation to pretend that I 
had any feeling for him worth the name. Bvit there was a 
time in my life when this event would have broken my 
heart; and all I can say for it now is that it is not worth 
breaking. The recollection of what I once felt, and ought to 
have felt now, but could not, set me pondering, and finally 
into the train of thought which you have in your hands."— 
Byron Letters, 1815.— The verses referred to were those mel- 
ancholy ones, beginning,—" There's not a joy the world can 
give, like those it takes away." 

* The circumstances which lent so peculiar an interest to 
Lord Byron's introduction to the family of Chaworth, are 
sufficiently explained in the "Notices of his Life." "The 
young lady herself combined," says Mr. Moore, "with the 



HOURS OF IDLENESS. 



455 



GRANTA. A Medley. 

'ApYWpeats Aoy;^aicri fiaxov koL TrdvTa Kpanjaacs. 

Oh! could Le Sage's^ demon's gift 

Be realized at my desire, 
This night my trembling form he'd lift 

To place it on Saint Mary's spire. 

Then would, unroof 'd, old Granta's halls 

Pedantic inmates full display ; 
Fellows who dream on lawn or stalls, 

The price of venal votes to pay. 

Then would I view each rival wight, 

Petty and Palmerston survey ; 
Who canvass there with all their might, 

Against the next elective day.^ 

Lo ! candidates and voters lie' 
All lull'd in sleep, a goodly number : 

A race renown'd for piety, 
Whose conscience won't disturb their slumber. 

Lord H ,* indeed, may not demur ; 

Fellows are sage, reflecting men : 
They know preferment can occur 

But very seldom, — now and then. 

They know the Chancellor has got 

Some pretty livings in disposal : 
Each hopes that one may be his lot, 

And therefore smiles on his proposal. 

Now from the soporific scene 

I'll turn mine eye, as night grows later, 
To view, unheeded and unseen. 

The studious sons of Alma Mater. 



There, in apartments small and damp. 
The candidate for college prizes 

Sits poring by the midnight lamp ; 
Goes late to bed, yet early rises. 

He surely well deserves to gain them. 
With all the honors of his college, 

Who, striving hardly to obtain them. 
Thus seeks unprofitable knowledge : 

Who sacrifices hours of rest 
To scan precisely metres Attic ; 

Or agitates his anxious breast 
In solving problems mathematic : 

Who reads false quantities in Seale,* 
Or puzzles o'er the deep triangle ; 

Deprived of many a wholesome meal ; 
In barbarous Latin ^ doom'd to wrangle ; 

Renouncing every pleasing page 
From authors of historic use ; 

Preferring to the letter'd sage 
The square of the hypothenuse.'' 

Still, harmless are these occupations. 
That hurt none but the hapless student. 

Compared with other recreations. 
Which bring together the imprudent ; 

Whose daring revels shock the sight, 
When vice and infamy combine. 

When drunkenness and dice invite, 
As every sense is steep'd in wine. 

Not so the methodistic crew, 
Who plans of reformation lay : 

In humble attitude they sue, 
And for the sins of others pray : 



many worldly advantages that encircled her, much personal 
beauty, and a disposition the most amiable and attaching. 
Though already fully alive to her charms, it was at this 
period (1804) that the young poet seems to have drunk deep- 
est of that fascination whose effects were to be so lasting ; six 
short weeks which he passed in her company being suflBcient 
to lay the foundation of a feeling for all life. With the sum- 
mer holidays ended this dream of his youth. He saw Miss 
Chaworth once more in the succeeding year, and took his 
last farewoll of her on that hill near Annesley, which, in his 
poem of 'The Dream,' he describes so happily as 'crowned 
with a peculiar diadem.' " In August, 1805, she was married 
to John Musters, Esq.; anc^died at Wiverton Hall, in Febru- 
ary, 1832, in consequence, it is believed, of the alarm and 
danger to which she had been exposed during the sack of 
Colwick Hall by a party of rioters from Nottingham. The 
unfortunate lady had been in a feeble state of health for 
several y<ars, and she and her daughter were obliged to take 
shelt'^r from the violence of the mob in a shrubbery, where, 
partly from cold, partly from terror, her constitution su.s- 
tained a shock which it wanted vigor to resist. 

^ The I>iaV)le Boiteux of Le Sage, where Asmodeus, the 
demon, places Don C'leofas on an elevated situation, and 
unrooCi the houses for inspection. 



2 On the death of Mr. Pitt, in January, 1806, Lord Henry 
Petty and Lord Palmerston were candidates to represent the 
University of Cambridge in parliament. 

8 In the private volume, the fourth and fifth stanzas ran 
thus : — 

" One on his power and place depends. 

The other on— the Lord knows what! 
Each to some eloquence pretends. 
Though neither will convince by that. 

"The first, indeed, may not demur; 
Fellows are sage reflecting men," &c. 

* Edward-Harvey Hawke, third Lord Hawke. His lord- 
ship died in 1824. 

!» Scale's publication on Greek Metres displays considerable 
talent and ingenuity, but, as might be expected in so difficult 
a work, is not remarkable for accuracy. 

<> The Latin of the schools is of the canine species, and not 
very intelligible. 

7 The discovery of Pythagoras, that the square of the liy- 
pothenu.-<e is equal to the squares of the other two sides of a 
right-anij'led triangle. 



456 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Forgetting that their pride of spirit, 

Their exultation in their trial, 
Detracts most largely from the merit 

Of all their boasted self-denial. 

'Tis morn : — from these I turn my sight. 

What scene is this which meets the eye ? 
A numerous crowd, array'd in white,^ 

Across the green in numbers fly. 

Loud rings in air the chapel bell ; 

'Tis hush'd : — what sounds are these I hear ? 
The organ's soft celestial swell 

Rolls deeply on the list'ning ear. 

To this is join'd the sacred song, 
The royal minstrel's hallow'd strain ; 

Though he who hears the music long 
Will never wish to hear again. 

Our choir would scarcely be excused, 

Even as a band of raw beginners ; 
All mercy now must be refused 

To such a set of croaking sinners. 

If David, when his toils were ended, 
Had heard these blockheads sing before him, 

To us his psalms had ne'er descended, — 
In furious mood he would have tore 'em. 

The luckless Israelites, when taken 

By some inhuman tyrant's order. 
Were ask'd to sing, by joy forsaken, 

On Babylonian river's border. 

. Oh ! had they sung in notes like these, 
Inspired by stratagem or fear. 
They might have set their hearts at ease, 
The devil a soul had stay'd to hear. 

ut if I scribble longer now. 
The deuce a soul will stay to read : 
My pen is blunt, my ink is low ; 
'Tis almost time to stop, indeed. 

Therefore, farewell, old Granta's spires ! 

No more, like Cleofas, I fly ; 
No more thy theme my muse inspires : 

The reader's tired, and so am I. 

1806. 

1 On a saint's day, the students wear surplices in chapel. 

2 " My school-friendships were with me passions (for I was 
always violent) ; but I do not know that there is one which 
has endured (to be sure some have been cut short by death) 
till no-w."— Byron Diary, 1821. 

8 " At Harrow I fought my way very fairly. I think I 
lost but one battle out of seven."— /feid 

•* They show a tomb in the churchyard at Harrow, com- 
manding a view over "Windsor, which was so well known to 
be his favorite resting-place, that the boys called it " Byron's 
Tomb ;" and here, they say, he used to sit for hours, wrapt 
np in thought. 

6 For the display of his declamatory powers, on the speech- 
days, he selected always the most vehement passages ; such 



ON A DISTANT VIEW OF THE VILLAGE AND 
SCHOOL OF HARROW ON THE HILL. 

Oh ! mihi prseteritos referat si Jupiter annos. — Virgil. 

Ye scenes of my childhood, whose loved recollection 
Embitters the present, compared with the past ; 

Where science first dawn'd on the powers of reflection, 
And friendships were form'd, too romantic to last ; ^ 

Where fancy yet joys to trace the resemblance 
Of comrades, in friendship and mischief allied ; 

How welcome to me your ne'er-fading remembrance, 
Which rests in the bosom, though hope is denied ! 

Again I revisit the hills where we sported. 

The streams where we swam, and the fields where 
we fought ; ^ 
The school where, loud warn'd by the bell, we re- 
sorted. 
To pore o'er the precepts by pedagogues taught. 

Again I behold where for hours I have ponder'd 
As reclining, at eve, on yon tombstone * I lay ; 

Or round the steep brow of the churchyard I wander'd, 
To catch the last gleam of the sun's setting ray. 

I once more view the room, with spectators sur- 
rounded. 
Where, as Zanga,^ I trod on Alonzo o'erthrown ; 
While, to swell my young pride, such applauses re- 
sounded, 
I fancied that Mossop^ himself was outshone : 

Or, as Lear, I pour'd forth the deep imprecation. 
By my daughters, of kingdom and reason deprived ; 

Till, fired by loud plaudits "^ and self-adulation, 
I regarded myself as a Garrick revived. 

Ye dreams of my boyhood, how much I regret you ! 

Unfaded your memory dwells in my breast ; 
Though sad and deserted, I ne'er can forget you : - 

Your pleasures may still be in fancy possest. 

To Ida full oft may remembrance restore me,^ 
While fate shall the shades of the future unroll ! 

Since darkness o'ershadows the prospect before me. 
More dear is the beam of the past to my soul. 

as the speech of Zanga over the body of Alonzo, and Lear's 
address to the storm. 

6 Mossop, a contemporary of Garrick, famous for his per- 
formance of Zanga. 

7 " My grand patron. Dr. Drury, had a great notion that I 
should turn out an orator, from my fluency, my turbulence, 
my voice, my copiousness of declamation, and my action." — 
Byron Diary. 

8 In the private volume the two last stanzas ran — 

" I thought this poor brain, fever'd even to madness, 
Of tears, as of reason, for ever was drain'd ; 

But the drops which now flow down this bosom of sadness, 
Convince me the springs have some moisture retain'd. 



HOUES OF IDLENESS. 



467 



But if, throu<?li the course of the years which await me, 

Some new scene of pleasure should open to view, 
I will say, while with rapture the thought shall elate 
me, 
" Oh ! such were the days which my infancy knew." 

1806. 



TO M . 

On ! did those eyes, instead of fire. 
With bright but mild affection shine, 

Though they might kindle less desire, 
Love, more than mortal, would be thine. 

For thou art form'd so heavenly fair, 
Howe'er those orbs may wildly beam, 

We must admire, but still despair ; 
That fatal glance forbids esteem. 

When Nature stamp'd thy beauteous birth, 
So much perfection in thee shone, 

Slie fear'd that, too divine for earth, 

The skies might claim thee for their own : 

Therefore, to guard her dearest work, 
Lest angels might dispute the prize, 

She bade a secret lightning lurk 
Within those once celestial eyes. 

These might the boldest sylph appall. 
When gleaming with meridian blaze ; 

Thy beauty must enrapture all ; 

But who can dare thine ardent gaze ? 

'Tis said that Berenice's hair 

In stars adorns the vault of heaven ; 

But they would ne'er permit thee there. 
Thou wouldst so far outshine the seven. 

For did those eyes as planets roll, 
Thy sister lights would scarce appear : 

E'en suns, which systems now control, 
Would twinkle dimly through their sphere.^ 



TO WOMAN. 

Woman ! experience might haVe told me, 
That all must love thee who behold thee : 
Surely experience might have taught 
Thy firmest promises are nought: 
But, placed in all thy charms before me. 
All I forget, but to adore thee. 



"Sweet scenes of my childhood ! your blest recollection 
Has wrung from these eyelids, to weeping long dead. 

In torrents the tears of my warmest affection, 
The last and the fondest I ever shall shed." 

' "Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, 
Having some business, do introat her eyes 
To twinkle in their spheres till they return." — Siiaks. 



Oh, memory ! thou choicest blessing 

When join'd with hope, when still possessing ; 

But how much cursed by every lover 

When hope is fled and passion's over. 

Woman, that fair and fond deceiver. 

How promi)t are striplings to believe her ! 

How throbs the pulse w'hen first we view 

The eye that rolls in glossy blue, 

Or sparkles black, or mildly throws 

A beam from under hazel brows ! 

How quick we credit every oath. 

And hear her plight the willing troth ! 

Fondly we hope 'twill last for aye, 

When lo ! she changes in a day. 

This record will for ever stand, 

"Woman, thy vows are traced in sand."^ 



TO M. S. G. 



When I dream that you love me, you'll surely forgive ; 

Extend not your anger to sleep ; 
For in visions alone your affection can live, — 

I rise, and it leaves me to weep. 

Then, Morpheus ! envelop my faculties fast, 

Shed o'er me your languor benign ; 
Should the dream of to-night but resemble the last. 

What rapture celestial is mine ! 

They tell us that slumber, the sister of death. 

Mortality's emblem is given ; 
To fate how I long to resign my frail breath, 

If this be a foretaste of heaven ! 

Ah ! frown not, sweet lady, unbend your soft brow, 

Nor deem me too happy in this ; 
If I sin in my dream, I atone for it now, 

Thus doom'd but to gaze upon bliss. 

Though in visions, sweet lady, perhaps you may smile, 

Oh ! think not my penance deficient ! 
When dreams of your presence my slumbers beguile, 

To awake will be torture sufficient. 



TO MAKY, 

ON EECEIVING HER PICTURE.' 

This faint resemblance of thy charms, 
Though strong as mortal art could give, 

My constant heart of fear disarms, 
Revives my hopes, and bids me live. 



2 The last line is almost a literal translation from a Span- 
ish proverb. 

8 Of this "Mary," who is not to be confounded with the 
heiress of Annesley, or "Mary" of Aberdeen, all that has 
been ascertained is that she was of an humble, if not equiv- 
ocal, station in life, and that she had long light golden hair, 
"of which," says Mr. Moore, "the poet used to show a lock, 
as well 08 her picture, among his friends." 



458 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Here I can trace the locks of gold 
Which round thy snowy forehead wave, 

The cheeks which sprung from beauty's mould, 
The lips which made me beauty's slave. 

Here I can trace — ah, no ! that eye, 

Whose azure floats in liquid fire, 
Must all the painter's art defy, 

And bid him from the task retire. 

« Here I behold its beauteous hue ; 

But Where's the beam so sweetly straying,^ 
Which gave a lustre to its blue. 

Like Luna o'er the ocean playing? 

Sweet copy ! far more dear to me. 

Lifeless, unfeeling as thou art, 
Than all the living forms could be. 

Save her who placed thee next my heart. 

She placed it, sad, with needless fear. 
Lest time might shake my wavering soul, 

Unconscious that her image there 
Held every sense in fast control. 



Through hours, through years, through time, 
cheer ; 

My hope, in gloomy moments, raise ; 
In life's last conflict 'twill appear, 

And meet my fond expiring gaze. 



'twill 



TO LESBIA. 



Lesbia ! since far from you I've ranged, 
Our souls with fond affection glow not ; 

You say 'tis I, not you, have changed, 
I'd tell you why, — but yet I know not. 

Your polish' d brow no cares have crost ; 

And, Lesbia ! we are not much older 
Since, trembling, first my heart I lost. 

Or told my love, with hope grown bolder. 

Sixteen was then our utmost age. 

Two years have lingering pass'd away, love ! 
And now new thoughts our minds engage. 

At least I feel disposed to stray, love ! 

*Tis I that am alone to blame, 

I, that am guilty of love's treason ; 
Since your sweet breast is still the same. 

Caprice must be my only reason, 

A In the private volume— 

" But Where's the beam of soft desire ? 
Which gave a lustre to its blue, 
Love, only love, could e'er inspire." 

* The occurrence took place at Southwell, and the beau- 



I do not, love ! suspect your truth, 
With jealous doubt my bosom heaves not; 

Warm was the passion of my youth, 
One trace of dark deceit it leaves not. 

No, no, my flame was not pretended ; 

For, oh ! I loved you most sincerely ; 
And — though our dream at last is ended — 

My bosom still esteems you dearly. 

No more we meet in yonder bowers ; 

Absence has made me prone to roving; 
But older, firmer hearts than ours 

Have found monotony in loving. 

Your cheek's soft bloom is unimpair'd. 
New beauties still are daily bright'ning, 

Your eye for conquest beams prepared. 
The forge of love's resistless lightning. 

Arm'd thus, to make their bosoms bleed. 
Many will throng to sigh like me, love ! 

More constant they may prove, indeed ; 
Fonder, alas ! they ne'er can be, love ! 



LINES ADDEESSED TO A YOUNG LADY. 

[As the author was discharging his pistols in a garden, two 
ladies passing near the spot were alarmed by the sound of a 
bullet hissing near them ; to one of whom the following 
stanzas were addressed the next morning.2] 

Doubtless, sweet girl ! the hissing lead. 
Wafting destruction o'er thy charms. 

And hurtling 3 o'er thy lovely head. 
Has fill'd that breast with fond alarms. 

Surely some envious demon's force, 
Vex'd to behold such beauty here, 

Impell'd the bullet's viewless course, 
Diverted from its first career. 

Yes ! in that nearly fatal hour 
The ball obey'd some hell-born guide ; 

But Heaven, with interposing power. 
In pity turn'd the death aside. 

Yet, as perchance one trembling tear 

Upon that thrilling bosom fell ; 
W^hich I, th' unconscious cause of fear. 

Extracted from its glistening cell : 

tiful lady to whom the lines were addressed was Miss Hou- 
son. 

3 This word is used by Gray, in his poem to the Fatal Sis- 
ters :— 

" Iron sheet of arrowy shower 
Hurtles through the darken'd air." 



MM 



HOUES OF IDLENESS. 



459 



Say, what dire penance can atone 
For such an outrage done to thee ? 

Arraign'd before thy beauty's throne, 
What punishment wilt thou decree ? 

Might I perform the judge's part. 
The sentence I should scarce deplore ; 

It only would restore a heart 

Which but belong'd to thee before. 

The least atonement I can make 

Is to become no longer free ; 
Henceforth I breathe but for thy sake, 

Thou shalt be all in all to me. 

But thou, perhaps, mayst now reject 

Such expiation of my guilt : 
Come then, some other mode elect ; 

Let it be death, or what thou wilt. 

Choose then, relentless ! and I swear 
Nought shall thy dread decree prevent 

Yet hold — one little word forbear ! 
Let it be aught but banishment. 



LOVE'S LAST ADIEU. 

aei fxe <}>evyei.. — AnaCREON. 



Aei 



The roses of love glad the garden of life, 
Though nurtured 'mid weeds dropping pestilent dew, 

Till time crops the leaves with unmerciful knife. 
Or prunes them for ever, in love's last adieu ! 

In vain with endearments we soothe the sad heart. 
In vain do we vow for an age to be true ; 

The chance of an hour may command us to part. 
Or death disunite us in love's last adieu 1 

Still Hope, breathing peace through the grief-swollen 
breast. 

Will whisper, " Our meeting we yet may renew :" 
With this dream of deceit half our sorrow's represt, 

Nor taste we the poison of love's last adieu ! 

Oh ! mark you yon pair : in the sunshine of youth 
Love twined round their childhood his flow'rs as 
they grew ; « 

They flourish awhile in the season of truth. 
Till chill'd by the winter of love's last adieu! 



1 In law every person is an infant who has not attained 
the age of twenty-one. 

« " When I went up to Trinity, in 1805, at the age of sev- 
enteen and a half, I was miserable and untoward to a degree. 
I was wretched at leaving Harrow — wretched at going to 
Cambridge instead of Oxford — wretched from some private 
domestic circumstances of different kinds, and, consequently, 
about as unsocial as a wolf taken from the troop."— Z>mry. 



Sweet lady ! why thus doth a tear steal its way 
Down a cheek which outrivals thy bosom in hue ? 

Yet why do I ask ? — to distraction a prey, 
Thy reason has perish'd with love's last adieu ! 

Oh ! who is yon misanthrope, shunning mankind ? 

From cities to caves of the forest he flew : 
There, raving, he howls his complaint to the wind ; 

The mountains reverberate love's last adieu ! 

Now hate rules a heart which in love's easy chains 
Once passion's tumultuous blandishments knew ; 

Despair now inflames the dark tide of his veins ; 
He ponders in frenzy on love's last adieu ! 

How he envies the wretch with a soul wrapt in steel ! 

His pleasures are scarce, yet his troubles are few, 
Who laughs at the pang which he never can feel, 

And dreads not the anguish of love's last adieu ! 

Youth flies, life decays, even hope is o'ercast ; 

No more with love's former devotion we sue : 
He spreads his young wing, he retires with the blast ; 

The shroud of aiFection is love's last adieu ! 

In this life of probation for rapture divine, 
Astrea declares that some penance is due ; 

From him who has worshipp'd at love's gentle shrine, 
The atonement is ample iu love's last adieu ! 

Who kneels to the god, on his altar of light 
Must myrtle and cypress alternately strew : 

His myrtle, an emblem of purest delight ; 
His cypress, the garland of love's last adieu ! 



DAM^TAS. 

In law an infant,^ and in years a boy, 

In mind a slave to every vicious joy ; 

From every sense of shame and virtue wean'd ; 

In lies an adept, in deceit a fiend ; 

Versed in hypocrisy, while yet a child ; 

Fickle as wind, of inclinations wild ; 

Woman his dupe, his heedless fi'iend a tool ; 

Old in the world, though scarcely broke from school ; 

Damsetas ran through all the maze of sin, 

And found the goal when others just begin: 

Even still conflicting passions shake his soul. 

And bid him drain the dregs of pleasui-e's bowl ; 

But, pall'd with vice, he breaks his former chain. 

And what was once his bliss appears his bane.^ 

Mr. Moore adds, "The sort of life which young Byron led at 
this period, between the dissipations of London and of Cam- 
bridge, without a home to welcome or even the roof of a 
single relative to receive him, was but little calculated to 
render him satisfied either with himself or the world. Unre- 
stricted as he was by deference to any will but his own, even 
the pleasures to which he was naturally most inclined pre- 
maturely palled upon him, for want of those best zests of all 
enjoyment— rarity and restraint." 



460 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



TO MARION. 

Marion ! why that pensive brow ? 

What disgust to life hast thou ? 

Change that discontented air ; 

Frowns become not one so fair. 

'Tis not love disturbs thy rest, 

Love's a stranger to thy breast ; 

He in dimpling smiles appears, 

Or mourns in sweetly timid tears, 

Or bends the languid eyelid down, 

But shuns the cold forbidding frown. 

Then resume thy former fire, 

Some will love, and all admire ; 

While that icy aspect chills us, 

Nought but cool indifference thrills us. 

Wouldst thou wandering hearts beguile, 

Smile at least, or seem to smile. 

Eyes like thine were never meant 

To hide their orbs in dark restraint. 

Spite of all thou fain wouldst say. 

Still in truant beams they play. 

Thy lips — but here my modest Muse 

Her impulse chaste must needs refuse : 

She blushes, curt'sies, frowns — in short she 

Dreads lest the subject should transport me ; 

And flying off in search of reason. 

Brings prudence back in proper season. 

All I shall therefore say (whate'er 

I think, is neither here nor there) 

Is, that such lips, of looks endearing, 

Were form'd for better things than sneering : 

Of smoothing compliments divested, 

Advice at least's disinterested ; 

Such is my artless song to thee. 

From all the flow of flattery free ; 

Counsel like mine is like a brother's : 

My heart is given to some others ; 

That is to say, unskill'd to cozen, 

It shares itself among a dozen. 

Marion, adieu ! oh, prithee slight not 
This warning, though it may delight not ; 
And, lest my precepts be displeasing 
To those who think remonstrance teasing, 
At once I'll tell thee our opinion 
Concerning woman's soft dominion : 
Howe'er we gaze with admiration 
On eyes of blue or lips carnation, 
Howe'er tbe flowing locks attract us, 
Howe'er those beauties may distract us, 
Still fickle, we are prone to rove. 
These cannot fix our souls to love ; 



It is not too severe a stricture 
To say they form a pretty picture ; 
But wouldst thou see the secret chain 
Which binds us in your humble train, 
To hail you queens of all creation. 
Know, in a word, 'tis Animation. 



1 See ante, p. 457, note. 

2 In the above little piece the author has been accused by 
some candid readers of introducing the name of a lady from 
whom he was some hundred miles distant at the time this 
was written ; and poor Juliet, who has slept so long in " the 
tomb of all the Capulets," has been converted, with a trifling 



TO A LADY 

WHO PRESENTED TO THE AUTHOR A LOCK OF 
HAIR BRAIDED WITH HIS OWN, AND APPOINTED 
A NIGHT IN DECEMBER TO MEET HIM IN THE 
GARDEN.l 

These locks, which fondly thus entwine, 

In firmer chains our hearts confine, 

Than all th' unmeaning protestations 

Which swell with nonsense love orations. 

Our love is fix'd, I think we've proved it ; 

Nor time, nor place, nor art have moved it ; 

Then wherefore should we sigh and whine. 

With groundless jealousy repine. 

With silly whims and fancies frantic, 

Merely to make our love romantic ? 

Why should you weep like Lydia Languish, 

And fret with self-created anguish ? 

Or doom the lover you have chosen. 

On winter nights to sigh half frozen ; 

In leafless shades to sue for pardon, 

Only because the scene's a garden ? 

For gardens seem, by one consent. 

Since Shakspeare set the precedent, 

Since Juliet first declared her passion, 

To form the place of assignation.^ 

Oh ! would some modern muse inspire, 

And seat her by a sea-coal fire ; 

Or had the bard at Christmas written, 

And laid the scene of love in Britain, 

He surely, in commiseration. 

Had changed the place of declaration. 

In Italy I've no objection ; 

Warm nights are proper for reflection ; 

But here our climate is so rigid, 

That love itself is rather frigid : 

Think on our chilly situation, 

And curb this rage for imitation ; 

Then let us meet, as oft we've done, 

Beneath the influence of the sun ; 

Or, if at midnight I must meet you. 

Within your mansion let me greet you : 

There we can love for hours together, 

Much better, in such snowy weather. 



alteration of her name, into an English damsel, walking in a 
garden of their own creation, during the month of December, 
in a village where the author never passed a winter. Such 
has been the candor of some ingenious critics. We would 
advise these liberal commentators on taste and arbiters of 
decorum to read Shakspeare. 



HOUES OF IDLENESS. 



461 



Than placed in all th' Arcadian groves 
That ever witness'd rural loves ; 
Then, if my passion fail to please, 
Next night I'll be content to freeze ; 
No more I'll give a loose to laughter, 
But curse mv fate for ever after,^ 



OSCAR OF ALVA.' 



How sweetly shines through azure skies, 
The lamp of heaven on Lora's shore ; . 

WTiere Alva's hoary turrets rise, 
And hear the din of arms no more ! 

But often has yon rolling moon 
On Alva's casques of silver play'd ; 

And view'd, at midnight's silent noon. 
Her chiefs in gleaming mail array 'd : 

And on the crimson'd rocks beneath, 
Which scowl o'er ocean's sullen flow. 

Pale in the scatter'd ranks of death, 
She saw the gasping warrior low ; 

While many an eye which ne'er again 
Could mark the rising orb of day, 

Turn'd feebly from the gory plain, 
Beheld in death her fading ray. 

Once to those eyes the lamp of Love, 
They blest her dear propitious light; 

But now she glimmer'd from above, 
A sad, funereal torch of night. 

Faded is Alva's noble race, 

And gray her towers are seen afar ; 

No more her heroes urge the chase. 
Or roll the crimson tide of war. 

But who was last of Alva's clan? 

Why grows the moss on Alva's stone ? 
Her towers resound no steps of man, 

They echo to the gale alone. 



' Having heard that a very severe and indelicate censure 
has been passed on the above poem, I beg leave to reply in 
a quotation from an admixed work, " Carr'a Stranger in 
France:"— "As we were contemplating a painting on a large 
scale, in which, among other figures, is the uncovered whole 
length of a warrior, a prudish-looking lady, who seemed to 
have touched the age of desperation, after having attent- 
ively surveyed it through her glass, observed to her party, 
that there was a great deal of indecorum in that picture. 
Madame S. shrewdly whispered in my ear, 'that the inde- 
corum was in the remark.' " 



And when that gale is fierce and high, 

A sound is heard in yonder hall ; 
It rises hoarsely through the sky, 

And vibrates o'er the mouldering wall. 

Yes, when the eddying tempest sighs, 
It shakes the shield of Oscar brave ; 

But there no more his banners rise. 
No more his plumes of sable wave. 

Fair shone the sun on Oscar's birth. 
When Angus hail'd his eldest born ; 

The vassals round their chieftain's hearth 
Crowd to applaud the happy morn. 

They feast upon the mountain deer. 
The pibroch raised its piercing note : ' 

To gladden more their highland cheer, 
The strains in martial numbers float : 

And they who heard the war-notes wild 
Hoped that one day the pibroch's strain 

Should play before the hero's child 
While he should lead the tartan train. 

Another year is quickly past. 

And Angus hails another son ; 
His natal day is like the last, 

Nor soon the jocund feast was done. 

Taught by their sire to bend the bow, 

On Alva's dusky hills of wind. 
The boys in childhood chased the roe, 

And left their hounds in speed behind. ..--^ 

But ere their years of youth are o'er. 
They mingle in the ranks of war ; 

They lightly wheel the bright claymore, 
And send the whistling arrow far. 

Dark was the flow of Oscar's hair. 
Wildly it stream'd along the gale; 

But Allan's locks were bright and fair, 
And pensive seem'd his cheek, and pale. 

But Oscar own'd a hero's soul, 

His dark eye shone through beams of truth ; 
Allan had early learn'd control, 

And smooth his words had been from youth. 



2 The catastrophe of this tale was suggested by the story 
of " Jeronyrae and Lorenzo," in the first volume of Schiller's 
Armenian, or the Ghost-Seer. It also bears some resem- 
blance to a scene in the third act of Macbeth. 

3 Loi-d Byron falls into a very common error, that of mis- 
takingj/ibroch, which means a particular sort of tune, for the 
Instrument on which it is played, the bagpipe. Almost every 
foreign tourist, — Nodier for example, — does the same. The 
nader will find this little slip noticed in the article from tho 
I^dinburgh Review appended to these pagea. 



462 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Both, both were brave : the Saxon spear 
Was sliiver'd oft beneath their steel ; 

And Oscar's bosom scorn'd to fear, 
But Oscar's bosom knew to feel ; 

While Allan's soul belied his form, 
Unworthy with such charms to dwell : 

Keen as the lightning of the storm, 
On foes his deadly vengeance fell. 

From high Southannon's distant tower 
Arrived a young and noble dame ; 

With Kenneth's lands to form her dower, 
Glenalvon's blue-eyed daughter came ; 

And Oscar claim'd the beauteous bride, 
And Angus on his Oscar smiled ; 

It soothed the father's feudal pride 
Thus to obtain Glenalvon's child. 

Hark to the pibroch's pleasing note ! 

Hark to the swelling nuptial song ! 
In joyous strains the voices float. 

And still the choral peal prolong. 

See how the heroes' blood-red plumes 
Assembled wave in Alva's hall ; 

Each youth his varied plaid assumes, 
Attending on their chieftain's call. 

It is not war their aid demands. 

The pibroch plays the song of peace ; 

To Oscar's nuptials throng the bands. 
Nor yet the sounds of pleasure cease. 

But where is Oscar ? sure 'tis late : 
Is this a bridegroom's ardent flame ? 

While thronging guests and ladies wait. 
Nor Oscar nor his brother came. 

At length young Allan join'd the bride : 
"Why comes not Oscar?" Angus said: 

" Is he not here?" the youth replied ; 
" With me he roved not o'er the glade 

" Perchance, forgetful of the day, 
'Tis his to chase the bounding roe ; 

Or ocean's waves prolong his stay ; 
Yet Oscar's bark is seldom slow." 

" Oh, no!" the anguish'd sire rejoin'd, 
" Nor chase nor wave my boy delay ; 

Would he to Mora seem unkind ? 
Would aught to her impede his way ? 

" Oh, search, ye chiefs ! oh, search around ! 

Allan, with these through Alva fly ; 
Till Oscar, till my son is found, 

Haste, haste, nor dare attempt reply." 



All is confusion — through the vale 
The name of Oscar hoarsely rings, 

It rises on the murmuring gale. 
Till night expands her dusky wings ; 

It breaks the stillness of the night, 
But echoes through her shades in vain, 

It sounds through morning's misty light. 
But Oscar comes not o'er the plain. 

Three days, three sleepless nights, the chief 
For Oscar search'd each mountain cave ; 

Then hope is lost ; in boundless grief, 
His locks in gray -torn ringlets wave. 

" Oscar ! my son ! — thou God of Heav'n, 
Eestore the prop of sinking age ! 

Or if that hope no more is given. 
Yield his assassin to my rage. 

" Yes, on some desert rocky shore 
My Oscar's whiten'd bones must lie ; 

Then grant, thou God ! I ask no more, 
With him his frantic sire may die ! 

" Yet he may live, — away, despair ! 

Be calm, my soul ! he yet may live ; 
T'arraign my fate, my voice forbear ! 

Oh, God ! my impious prayer forgive. 

" What, if he live for me no more, 

I sink forgotten in the dust. 
The hope of Alva's age is o'er ; 

Alas ! can pangs like these be just ?" 

Thus did the hapless parent mourn. 
Till Time, which soothes severest woe, 

Had bade serenity return. 

And made the teardrop cease to flow. 

For still some latent hope survived 
That Oscar might once more appear ; 

His hope now droop'd and now revived. 
Till Time had told a tedious year. 

Days roll'd along, the orb of light 
Again had run his destined race ; 

No Oscar bless'd his father's sight. 
And sorrow left a fainter trace. 

For youthful Allan still remain'd, 

And now his father's only joy : 
And Mora's heart was quickly gain'd, 

For beauty crown'd the fair-hair'd boy. 

She thought that Oscar low was laid, 
And Allan's face was wondrous fair ; 

If Oscar lived, some other maid 
Had claim'd his faithless bosom's care. 



HOURS OF IDLENESS. 



463 



And Angus said, if one year more 
In fruitless hope was pass'd away, 

His fondest scruples should be o'er, 
And he would name their nuptial day. 

Slow roll'd the moons, but blest at last 
Arrived the dearly destined morn ; 

The year of anxious trembling past, 
What smiles the lovers' cheeks adorn ! 

Hark to the pibroch's pleasing note ! 

Hark to the swelling nuptial song ! 
In joyous strains the voices float. 

And still the choral peal prolong. 

Again the clan, in festive crowd. 

Throng through the gate of Alva's hall ; 

The sounds of mirth re-echo loud. 
And all their former joy recall. 

But who is he, whose darken'd brow 
Glooms in the midst of general mirth ? 

Before his eyes' far fiercer glow 

The blue flames curdle o'er the hearth. 

Dark is the robe which wraps his form, 
And tall his plume of gory red ; 

His voice is like the rising storm. 
But light and trackless is his tread. 

'Tis noon of night, the pledge goes round, 
The bridegroom's health is deeply quaff''d 

With shouts the vaulted roofs resound, 
And all combine to hail the draught. 

Sudden the stranger chief arose, 

And all the clamorous crowd are hush'd ; 
And Angus' cheek with wonder glows. 

And Mora's tender bosom blush'd. 

" Old man !" he cried, " this pledge is done ; 

Thou saw'st 'twas duly drunk by me : 
It hail'd the nuptials of thy son : 

Now will I claim a pledge from thee. 

" While all around is mirth and joy. 
To bless thy Allan's happy lot, 

Say, hadst thou ne'er another boy ? 
Say, why should Oscar be forgot ?" 

" Alas !" the hapless sire replied, 
The big tear starting as he spoke, 

" When Oscar left my hall, or died, 
This aged heart was almost broke. 

" Thrice has the earth revolved her course 
Since Oscar's form has bless'd my sight ; 



1 Beltane Tree, a Highland festival on the first of May, 
held near fires lighted for the occasion. — Beal-tain means the 



And Allan is my last resource, 
Since martial Oscar's death or flight." 

" 'Tis well," replied the stranger stern, 
And fiercely flash'd his rolling eye : 

" Thy Oscar's fate I fain would learn ; 
Perhaps the hero did not die. 

" Perchance, if those whom most he loved 
Would call, thy Oscar might return ; 

Perchance the chief has only roved ; 
For him thy beltane yet may burn.i 

" Fill high the bowl the table round. 
We will not claim the pledge by stealth ; 

With wine let every cup be crown'd ; 
Pledge me departed Oscar's health." 

' " With all my soul," old Angus said, 
And fill'd his goblet to the brim ; 
" Here's to my boy ! alive or dead, 
I ne'er shall find a son like him." 

** Bravely, old man, this health has sped ; 

But why does Allan trembling stand ? 
Come, drink remembrance of the dead, 

And raise thy cup with firmer hand." 

The crimson glow of Allan's face 
Was turn'd at once to ghastly hue ; 

The drops of death each other chase 
Adown in agonizing dew. 

Thrice did he raise the goblet high. 
And thrice his lips refused to taste ; 

For thrice he caught the stranger's eye 
On his with deadly fury placed. 

" And is it thus a brother hails 
A brother's fond remembrance here ? 

If thus afiection's strength prevails, 
What might we not expect from fear?" 

Roused by the sneer, he raised the bowl, 
" Would Oscar now could share our mirth !" 

Internal fear appall'd his soul ; 
He said, and dash'd the cup to earth, 

" 'Tis he ! I hear my murderer's voice I" 
Loud shrieks a darkly gleaming form. 

" A murderer's voice I" the roof replies, 
And deeply swells the bursting storm. 

The tapers wink, the chieftains shrink. 
The stranger's gone, — amidst the crew 

A form was seen in tartan green. 
And tall the shade terrific grew. 

fire of Baal, and the name still preserves the primeval origin 
of this Celtic superstition. 



464 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



His waist was bound with a broad belt round, 
His plume of sable stream'd on high ; 

But his breast was bare, with the red wounds there, 
And fix'd was the glare of his glassy eye. 

And thrice he smiled, with his eye so wild, 

On Angus bending low the knee ; 
And thrice he frown'd on a chief on the ground, 

Whom shivering crowds with horror see. 

The bolts loud roll, from pole to pole, \^ 

The thunders through the welkin ring, X. 

And the gleaming form, through the mist of the 
storm. 
Was borne on high by the whirlwind's wing. 

Cold was the feast, the revel ceased. 

Who lies upon the stony floor ? 
Oblivion press'd old Angus' breast, 

At length his life-pulse throbs once more, 

" Away, away ! let the leech essay 
To pour the light on Allan's eyes :" 

His sand is done, — his race is run ; 
Oh ! never more shall Allan rise ! 

But Oscar's breast is cold as clay, 

His locks are lifted by the gale : 
And Allan's barbed arrow lay 

With him in dark Glentanar's vale. 

And whence the dreadful stranger came, 

Or who, no mortal wight can tell ; 
But no one doubts the form of flame, 

For Alva's sons knew Oscar well. 

Ambition nerved young Allan's hand, 

Exulting demons wing'd his dart ; 
While Envy waved her burning brand, 

And pour'd her venom round his heart. 

Swift is the shaft from Allan's bow ; 

Whose streaming life-blood stains his side ? 
Dark Oscar's sable crest is low, 

The dart has drunk his vital tide. 

And Mora's eye could Allan move, 
She bade his wounded pride rebel ; 

Alas ! that eyes which beam'd with love 
Should urge the soul to deeds of hell. 

Lo ! seest thou not a lonely tomb 

Which rises o'er a warrior dead ? 
It glimmers through the twilight gloom ; 

Oh ! that is Allan's nuptial bed. 

Far, distant far, the noble grave 

Which held his clan's great ashes stood ; 

And o'er his corse no banners wave. 
For they were stain'd with kindred blood. 



What minstrel gray, what hoary bard, 
Shall Allan's deeds on harp-strings raise ? 

The song is glory's chief reward. 
But who can strike a murderer's praise ? 

Unstrung, untouch'd, the harp must stand, 
No minstrel dare the theme awake ; 

Guilt would benumb his palsied hand, 

His harp in shuddering chords would break. 

No lyre of fame, no hallow'd verse, 
Shall sound his glories high in air : 

A dying father's bitter curse, 
A brother's death-groan echoes there. 



THE EPISODE OF NISUS AND EURYALUS. 

A PARAPHRASE FROM THE ^NEID, LIB. IX. 

NiSTJS, the guardian of the portal, stood. 

Eager to gild his arms with hostile blood ; 

Well skill'd in fight the quivering lance to wield. 

Or pour his arrows through th' embattled field : 

From Ida torn, he left his sylvan cave. 

And sought a foreign home, a distant grave. 

To watch the movements of the Daunian host, 

With him Euryalus sustains the post ; 

No lovelier mien adorn'd the ranks of Troy, 

And beardless bloom yet graced the gallant boy ; 

Though few the seasons of his youthful life, 

As yet a novice in the martial strife, 

'Twas his, with beauty, valor's gifts to share — 

A soul heroic, as his form was fair : 

These burn with one pure flame of generous love ; 

In peace, in war, united still they move ; 

Friendship and glory form their joint reward ; 

And now combined they hold their nightly guard. 

" What god," exclaim'd the first, " instills this fire? 
Or, in itself a god, what great desire ? 
My laboring soul, with anxious thought oppress'd, 
Abhors this station of inglorious rest ; 
The love of fame with this can ill accord, 
Be 't mine to seek for glory with my sword. 
Seest thou yon camp, with torches twinkling dim, 
Where drunken slumbers wrap each lazy limb ? 
Where confidence and ease the watch disdain, 
And drowsy Silence holds her sable reign ? 
Then hear my thought : — In deep and sullen grief 
Our troojps and leaders mourn their absent chief: 
Now could the gifts and promised prize be thine 
(The deed, the danger, and the fame be mine), 
Were this decreed, beneath yon rising mound, 
Methinks, an easy path perchance were found ; 
Which past, I speed my way to Pallas' walls, 
And lead iEneas from Evander's halls." 



HOURS OF IDLENESS. 



465 



With equal ardor fired, and warlike joy, 
His glowing friend address'd the Dardan boy : — 
" These deeds, ray Nisus, shalt thou dare alone ? 
Must all the fame, the peril, be thine own? 
Am I by thee despised, and left afar. 
As one unfit to share the toils of war ? 
Not thus his son the great Opheltes taught; 
Not thus my sire in Argive combats fought ; 
Not thus, when Ilion fell by heavenly hate, 
I track'd ^neas through the walks of fate : 
Thou know'st my deeds, my breast devoid of fear. 
And hostile life-drops dim my gory spear. 
Here is a soul with hope immortal burns, 
And life, ignoble life, for glory spurns. 
Fame, fame is cheaply earn'd by fleeting breath : 
The price of honor is the sleep of death." 

Then Nisus : — " Calm thy bosom's fond alarms, 
Thy heart beats fiercely to the din of arms. 
More dear thy worth and valor than my own, 
I swear by him who fills Olympus' throne ! 
So may I triumph, as I speak the truth, 
And clasp again the comrade of my youth ! 
But should I fall, — and he who dares advance 
Through hostile legions must abide by chance, — 
If some Rutulian arm, with adverse blow. 
Should lay the friend who ever loved thee low. 
Live thou, such beauties I would fain preserve. 
Thy budding years a lengthen'd term deserve. 
When humbled in the dust, let some one be, 
Whose gentle eyes will shed one tear for me ; 
Whose manly arm may snatch me back by force, 
Or wealth redeem from foes my captive corse ; 
Or, if my destiny these last deny. 
If in the spoiler's power my ashes lie, 
Thy pious care may raise a simple tomb, 
To mark thy love, and signalize my doom. 
Why should thy doting wretched mother weep 
Her only boy, reclined in endless sleep ? 
Who, for thy sake, the tempest's fury dared. 
Who, for thy sake, war's deadly peril shared ; 
Who braved what woman never braved before, 
And left her native for the Latian shore," 
" In vain you damp the ardor of my soul," 
Replied Euryalus ; " it scorns control ! 
Hence, let us haste !" — their brother guards arose, 
Roused by their call, nor court again repose ; 
The pair, buoy'd up on Hope's exulting wing, 
Their stations leave, and speed to seek the king. , 

Now o'er the earth a solemn stillness ran, 
And lull'd alike the cares of brute and man ; 
Save where the Dardan leaders nightly hold 
Alternate converse, and their plans unfold. 
On one great point the council are agreed, 
An instant message to their prince decreed ; 
Each lean'd upon the lance he well could wield, 
And poised with easy arm his ancient shield ; 
When Nisus and his friend their leave request 
To offer sometliing to their high behest. 
30 



With anxious tremors, yet unawed by fear, 
The faithful pair before the throne appear : 
lulus greets them ; at his kind command. 
The elder first address'd the hoary band. 

"With patience " (thus Hyrtacides began) 
"Attend, nor judge from youth our humble plan. 
Where yonder beacons half expiring beam. 
Our slumbering foes of future conquest dream, 
Nor heed that we a secret path have traced, 
Between the ocean and the portal placed, 
Beneath the covert of the blackening smoke, 
Whose shade securely our design will cloak ; 
If you, ye chiefs, and fortune will allow, — 
We'll bend our course to yonder mountain's brow, 
Where Pallas' walls at distance meet the siglit, 
Seen o'er the glade, when not obscured by night : 
Then shall iEneas in his pride return, 
While hostile matrons raise their offsijring's urn ; 
And Latian spoils and purpled heaps of dead 
Shall mark the havoc of our hero's tread. 
Such is our purpose, not unknown the way ; 
Where yonder torrent's devious waters stray, 
Oft have we seen, when hunting by the stream. 
The distant spires above the valleys gleam." 

Mature in years, for sober wisdom famed. 
Moved by the speech, Alethes here exclaim'd, — 
" Ye parent gods ! who rule the fate of Troy, 
Still dwells the Dardan spirit in the boy ; 
When minds like these in striplings thus ye 

raise. 
Yours is the godlike act, be yours the praise ; 
In gallant youth, my fainting hopes revive. 
And Ilion's wonted glories still survive." 
Then in his warm embrace the boys he press'd, 
And, quivering, strain'd them to his aged breast 
With tears the burning cheek of each bedew'd, 
And, sobbing, thus his first discourse renew'd : 
" What gift, my countrymen, what martial prize 
Can we bestow, which you may not despise ? 
Our deities the first best boon have given — 
Internal virtues are the gift of Heaven. 
What poor rewards can bless your deeds on earth, 
Doubtless await such young, exalted worth, 
^neas and Ascanius shall combine 
To yield applause far, far surpassing mine." 

lulus then :— " By all the powers above ! 
By those Penates who my country love ! 
By hoary Vesta's sacred fane, I swear. 
My hopes are all in you, ye generous pair ! 
Restore my father to my grateful sight. 
And all my sorrows yield to one delight. 
Nisus ! two silver goblets are thine own. 
Saved from Arisba's stately domes o'erthrown ! 
My sire secured them on that fatal day. 
Nor left such bowls an Argive robber's prey ; 
Two massy tripods, also, shall be thine; 
Two talents polish'd from the glittering mine ; 



466 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



An ancient cup, which Tyrian Dido gave, 

While yet our vessels press'd the Punic wave : 

But when the hostile chiefs at length bow down, 

When great jEneas wears Hesperia's crown, 

The casque, the buckler, and the fiery steed 

Which Turnus guides with more than mortal speed, 

Are thine ; no envious lot shall then be cast, 

I pledge my word, irrevocably past : 

Nay more, twelve slaves, and twice six captive dames, 

To soothe thy softer hours with amorous flames, 

And all the realms which now the Latins sway, 

The labors of to-night shall well repay. 

But thou, my generous youth, whose tender years 

Are near my own, whose worth my heart reveres, 

Henceforth afiection, sweetly thus begun, 

Shall join our bosoms and our souls in one ; 

Without thy aid, no glory shall be mine ; 

Without thy dear advice, no great design ; 

Alike through life esteem'd, thou godlike boy, 

In war my bulwark, and in peace my joy." 

To him Euryalus : — " No day shall shame 
The rising glories which from this I claim. 
Fortune may favor, or the skies may frown, 
But valor, spite of fate, obtains renown. 
Yet, ere from hence our eager steps depart. 
One boon I beg, the nearest to my heart : 
My mother, sprung from Priam's royal line, 
Like thine ennobled, hardly less divine. 
Nor Troy nor king Acestes' realms restrain 
Her feeble age from dangers of the main ; 
Alone she came, all selfish fears above, 
A bright example of maternal love. 
Unknown the secret enterprise I brave, 
Lest grief should bend my parent to the grave ; 
From this alone no fond adieus I seek. 
No fainting mother's lips have press'd my cheek ; 
By gloomy night and thy right hand I vow 
Her parting tears would shake my purpose now : 
Do thou, my prince, her failing age sustain. 
In thee her much-loved child may live again ; 
Her dying hours with pious conduct bless. 
Assist her wants, relieve her fond distress : 
So dear a hope must all my soul inflame, 
To rise in glory, or to fall in fame." 
Struck with a filial care so deeply felt. 
In tears at once the Trojan warriors melt ; 
Faster than all, lulus' eyes o'erflow ; 
Such love was his, and such had been his woe. 
" All thou hast ask'd, receive," the prince replied ; 
" Nor this alone, but many a gift beside. 
To cheer thy mother's years shall be my aim, 
Creusa's i style but wanting to the dame. 
Fortune an adverse wayward course may run. 
But bless'd thy mother in so dear a son. 
Now, by my life ! — my sire's most sacred oath — 
To thee I pledge my full, my firmest troth, 



1 The mother of lulus, lost on the night when Troy was 
taken. 



All the rewards which once to thee were vow'd, 

If thou shouldst fall, on her shall be bestow'd." 

Thus spoke the weeping prince, then forth to view 

A gleaming falchion from the sheath he drew ; 

Lycaon's utmost skill had graced the steel, 

For friends to envy and for foes to feel : 

A tawny hide, the Moorish lion's spoil. 

Slain 'midst the forest, in the hunter's toil, 

Mnestheus to guard the elder youth bestows, 

And old Alethes' casque defends his brows. 

Arm'd, thence they go, while all th' assembled train. 

To aid their cause, implore the gods in vain. 

More than a boy, in wisdom and in grace, 

lulus holds amidst the chiefs his place : 

His prayer he sends ; but what can prayers avail. 

Lost in the murmurs of the sighing gale ? 

The trench is pass'd, and, favor'd by the night. 
Through sleeping foes they wheel their wary flight. 
When shall the sleep of many a foe be o'er ? 
Alas ! some slumber who shall wake no more ! 
Chariots and bridles, mix'd with arms, are seen ; 
And flowing flasks, and scatter'd troops between : 
Bacchus and Mars to rule the camp combine ; 
A mingled chaos this of war and wine. 
" Now," cries the first, " for deeds of blood prepare. 
With me the conquest and the labor share : 
Here lies our path ; lest any hand arise, 
Watch thou, while many a dreaming chieftain dies : 
I'll carve our passage through the heedless foe, 
And clear thy road with many a deadly blow." 
His whispering accents then the youth repress'd, 
And pierced proud Bhamnes through his panting 

breast : 
Stretch'd at his ease, th' incautious king reposed ; 
Debauch, and not fatigue, his eyes had closed : 
To Turnus dear, a prophet and a prince. 
His omens more than augur's skill evince ; 
But he, who thus foretold the fate of all. 
Could not avert his own untimely fall. 
Next Remus' armor-bearer, hapless, fell. 
And three unhappy slaves the carnage swell ; 
The charioteer along his courser's sides 
Expires, the steel his sever'd neck divides ; 
And, last, his lord is number'd with the dead : 
Bounding convulsive, flies the gasping head ; 
From the swoll'n veins the blackening torrents 

pour ; 
Stain'd is the couch and earth with clotting gore. 
Young Lamyrus and Lamus next expire, 
And gay Serranus, fill'd with youthful fire ; 
Half the long night in childish games was pass'd ; 
Lull'd by the potent grape, he slept at last : 
Ah ! happier far had he the morn survey'd. 
And till Aurora's dawn his skill display'd. 

In slaughter'd fold, the keepers lost in sleep, 
His hungry fangs a lion thus may steep ; 
'Mid the sad flock, at dead of night he prowls. 
With murder glutted, and in carnage rolls : 



HOUES OF IDLENESS. 



467 



Insatiate still, throngh teeming herds he roams ; 
In seas of gore the lordly tyrant foams. 

Nor less the other's deadly vengeance came, 
But falls on feeble crowds without a name ; 
His wound unconscious Fadus scarce can feel, 
Yet wakeful Rhaesus sees the threatening steel ; 
His coward breast behind a jar he hides, 
And vainly in the weak defence confides ; 
Full in his heart, the falchion searched his veins, 
The reeking weapon bears alternate stains ; 
Through wine and blood, commingling as they flow. 
One feeble spirit seeks the shades below. 
Now where Messapus dwelt they bend their way, 
Whose fires emit a faint and trembling ray ; 
There, unconfined, behold each grazing steed, 
Unwatch'd, unheeded, on the herbage feed : 
Brave Nisus here arrests his comrade's arm, 
Too flush'd with carnage, and with conquest warm : 
" Hence let us haste, the dangerous path is pass'd ; 
Full foes enough to-night have breathed their last : 
Soon will the day those eastern clouds adorn ; 
Now let us speed, nor tempt the rising morn." 

What silver arms, with various art emboss'.d. 
What bowls and mantles in confusion toss'd, 
They leave regardless ! yet one glittering prize 
Attracts the younger hero's wandering eyes ; 
The gilded harness Rhamnes' coursers felt, 
The gems which stud the monarch's golden belt : 
This from the pallid corse was quickly torn, 
Once by a line of former chieftains worn. 
Th' exulting boy the studded girdle wears, 
Messapus' helm his head in triumph bears ; 
Then from the tents their cautious steps they bend. 
To seek the vale where safer paths extend. 

Just at this hour, a band of Latian horse 
To Tumus' camp pursue their destined course : 
While the slow foot their tardy march delay, 
The knights, impatient, spur along the way : 
Three hundred mail-clad men, by Volscens led. 
To Tumus with their master's promise sped : 
Now they approach the trench, and view the walls, 
When, on the left, a light reflection falls; 
The plunder'd helmet, through the waning night, 
Sheds forth a silver radiance, glancing bright. 
Volscens with question loud the pair alarms : — 
" Stand, stragglers ! stand ! why early thus in arms ? 
From whence? to whom ?" — He meets with no reply ; 
Trusting the covert of the night, they fly : 
The thicket's depth with hurried pace they tread. 
While round the wood the hostile squadron spread. 

With brakes entangled, scarce a path between, 
Dreary and dark appears the sylvan scene: 
Euryalus his heavy spoils impede. 
The boughs and winding turns his steps mislead ; 
But Nisus scours along the forest's maze 
To where Latinus' steeds in safety graze, 



Then backward o'er the plain his eyes extend. 
On every side they seek his absent friend. 
" Oh, God ! my boy," he cries, " of me bereft, 
In what impending perils art thou left !" 
Listening he runs— above the waving trees. 
Tumultuous voices swell the passing breeze ; %. 
The war-cry rises, thundering hoofs around 
Wake the dark echoes of the trembling ground. 
Again he turns, of footsteps hears the noise ; 
The sound elates, the sight his hope destroys : 
The hapless boy a ruflSan train surround. 
While lengthening shades his weary way confound ; 
Him with loud shouts the furious knights pursue. 
Struggling in vain, a captive to the crew. 
What can his friend 'gainst thronging numbers dare ? 
Ah ! must he rush his comrade's fate to share ? 
What force, what aid, what stratagem essay. 
Back to redeem the Latian spoiler's prey ? 
His life a votive ransom nobly give. 
Or die with him for whom he wish'd to live ? 
Poising with strength his lifted lance on high, 
On Luna's orb he cast his frenzied eye : — 
" Goddess serene, transcending every star ! 
Queen of the sky, whose beams are seen afar ! 
By night heaven owns thy sway, by day the grove, 
When, as chaste Dian, here thou deign'st to rove ; 
If e'er myself, or sire, have sought to grace 
Thine altars with the produce of the chase. 
Speed, speed my dart to pierce yon vaunting crowd, 
To free my friend, and scatter far the proud." 
Thus having said, the hissing dart he flung ; 
Through parted shades the hurtling weapon sung ; 
The thirsty point in Sulmo's entrails lay, 
Transfix'd his heart, and stretch'd him on the clay : 
He sobs, he dies, — the troop in wild amaze, 
Unconscious whence the death, with horror gaze. 
While pale they stare, through Tagus' temples riven, 
A second shaft with equal force is driven : 
Fierce Volscens rolls around his lowering eyes ; 
Veil'd by the night, secure the Trojan lies. 
Burning with wrath, he view'd his soldiers fall. 
" Thou youth accurst, thy life shall pay for all !" 
Quick from the sheath his flaming glaive he drew. 
And, raging, on the boy defenceless flew. 
Nisus no more the blackening shade conceals. 
Forth, forth he starts, and all his love reveals; 
Aghast, confused, his fears to madness rise, 
And pour these accents, shrieking as he flies : 
" Me, me, — your vengeance hurl on me alone ; 
Here sheathe the steel, my blood is all your own. 
Ye starry spheres ! thou conscious Heaven ! attest ! 
He could not — durst not^lo ! the guile confest! 
All, all was mine, — his early fate suspend; 
He only loved too well his hapless friend : 
Spare, spare, ye chiefs ! from him your rage remove ; 
His fault was friendship, all his crime was love." 
He pray'd in vain ; the dark assassin's sword 
Pierced the fair side, the snowy bosom gored ; 
Lowly to earth inclines his plume-clad crest. 
And sanguine torrents mantle o'er his breast: 



468 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



As some young rose, whose blossom scents the air, 
Languid in death, expires beneath the share ; 
Or crimson poppy, sinking with the shower, 
Declining gently, falls a fading flower ; 
Thus, sweetly drooping, bends his lovely head, 
And lingering beauty hovers round the dead. 

But fiery Nisus stems the battle's tide. 
Revenge his leader, and despair his guide ; 
Volscens he seeks amidst the gathering host, 
Volscens must soon appease his comrade's ghost ; 
Steel, flashing, pours on steel, foe crowds on foe ; 
Rage nerves his arm, fate gleams in every blow ; 
In vain beneath unnumber'd wounds he bleeds, 
Nor wounds, nor death, distracted Nisus heeds ; 
In viewless circles wheel'd, his falchion flies, 
Nor quits the hero's grasp till Volscens dies ; 
Deep in his throat its end the weapon found. 
The tyrant's soul fled groaning through the wound. 
Thus Nisus all his fond affection proved — 
Dying, revenged the fate of him he loved ; 
Then on his bosom sought his wonted place. 
And death was heavenly in his friend's embrace. 

Celestial pair ! if aught my verse can claim, 
Wafted on Time's broad pinion, yours is fame ! 
Ages on ages shall your fate admire. 
No future day shall see your names expire. 
While stands the Capitol, immortal dome ! 
And vanquish'd millions hail their empress, Rome ! 



TRANSLATION FROM THE MEDEA OF 
EURIPIDES. 

['Epa)T6? vjrep fiev ayav, k. t. X.] 

When fierce conflicting passions urge 

The breast where love is wont to glow, 
What mind can stem the stormy surge 

Which rolls the tide of human woe ? 
The hope of praise, the dread of shame, 

Can rouse the tortured breast no more ; 
The wild desire, the guilty flame, 

Absorbs each wish it felt before. 

But if affection gently thrills 

The soul by purer dreams possest. 
The pleasing balm of mortal ills 

In love can soothe the aching breast : 
If thus thou comest in disguise. 

Fair Venus ! from thy native heaven, 
What heart unfeeling would despise 

The sweetest boon the gods have given ? 



1 Medea, who accompanied Jason to Corinth, was deserted 
by him for the daughter of Creon, king of that city. The 
chorus from which this is taken here addresses Medea; 
though a considerable liberty is taken with the original, 
by expanding the idea, as also in some other parts of the 
translation. 



But never from thy golden bow 

May I beneath the shaft expire ! 
Whose creeping venom, sure and slow, 

Awakes an all-consuming fire : 
Ye racking doubts ! ye jealous fears ! 

With others wage internal war ; 
Repentance, source of future tears, 

From me be ever distant far ! 

May no distracting thoughts destroy 

The ^oly calm of sacred love ! 
May all the hours be wing'd with joy, 

Which hover faithful hearts above ! 
Fair Venus ! on thy myrtle shrine 

May I with some fond lover sigh. 
Whose heart may mingle pure with mine — 

With me to live, with me to die. 

My native soil ! beloved before, 

Now dearer as my peaceful home, 
Ne'er may I quit thy rocky shore, 

A hapless banish'd wretch to roam ! 
This very day, this very hour. 

May I resign this fleeting breath ! 
Nor quit my silent humble bower ; 

A doom to me far worse than death. 

Have I not heard the exile's sigh. 

And seen the exile's silent tear, 
Through distant climes condemn'd to fly, 

A pensive weary wanderer here ? 
Ah, hapless dame ! ^ no sire bewails, 

No friend thy wretched fate deplores, 
No kindred voice with rapture hails 

Thy steps within a stranger's doors. 

Perish the fiend whose iron heart, 

To fair affection's truth unknown. 
Bids her he fondly loved depart, 

Unpitied, helpless, and alone ; 
Who ne'er unlocks with silver key^ 

The milder treasures of his soul, — 
May such a friend be far from me. 

And ocean's storms between us roll ! 



THOUGHTS SUGGESTED BY A COLLEGE 
EXAMINATION. 

High in the midst, surrounded by his peers, 
Magnus' his ample front sublime uprears : 
Placed on his chair of state, he seems a god. 
While Sophs and Freshmen tremble at his nod. 

2 The original is KaOapav o.voi^ai'Ti K\^Sa <j)pevS)v, literally, 
"disclosing the bright key of the mind." 

3 No reflection is here intended against the person men- 
tioned under the name of Magnus. He is merely represented 
as performing an unavoidable function of his office. Indeed, 
such an attempt could only recoil upon myself; as that gen- 



HOURS OF IDLENESS. 



469 



As all around sit wrapt in speechless gloom, 
His voice in thunder shakes the sounding dome ; 
Denouncing dire reproach to luckless fools, 
Unskill'd to plod in mathematic rules. 

Happy the youth in Euclid's axioms tried, 
Though little versed in any art beside ; 
Who, scarcely skill'd an English line to pen, 
Scans Attic metres with a critic's ken. 
What, though he knows not how his fathers bled, 
When civil discord piled the fields with dead, 
When Edward bade his conquering bands advance, 
Or Henry trampled on the crest of France : 
Though marvelling at the name of Magna Charta, 
Yet well he recollects the laws of Sparta ; 
Can tell what edicts sage Lycurgus made, 
While Blackstone's on the shelf neglected laid ; 
Of Grecian dramas vaunts the deathless fame, 
Of Avon's bard remembering scarce the name. 

Such is the youth whose scientific pate 
Class-honors, medals, fellowships, await ; 
Or even, perhaps, the declamation prize, 
If to such glorious height he lifts his eyes. 
But lo ! no common orator can hope 
The envied silver cup within his scope. 
Not that our heads much eloquence require, 
Th' Athenian's! glowing style, or Tully's fire. 
A manner clear or warm is useless, since 
We do not try by speaking to convince. 
Be other orators of pleasing proud : 
We speak to please ourselves, not move the 

crowd : 
Our gravity prefers the muttering tone, 
A proper mixture of the squeak and groan : 
No borrow'd grace of action must be seen ; 
The slightest motion would displease the Dean ; 2 



tleman is now as much distinguished by his eloquence, and 
the dignified propriety with which he fills his situation, as 
he was in his younger days for wit and conviviality. — Dr. 
William Mansel was, in 1790, appointed to the headship of 
Trinity College, by Mr. Pitt. While a bachelor of arts, he 
distinguished himself as the author of several jeux cCesprit. 
Dr. Jowett, of Trinity Hall, having amused both himself and 
the public by a pretty little fairy garden, with narrow gravel 
walks, besprinkled with shells and pellucid pebbles, and en- 
closed by a Chinese railing. Dr. Mansel wrote the following 
lines thereon : — 

" A little garden little Jowett made, 

And fenced it with a little palisade ; 

If you would know the taste of little Jowett, 

This little garden won't a little show it." 

He was indebted to the influence of his pupil, the late Mr. 
Perceval, for his subsequent promotion, in 1808, to the see of 
Bristol. He is supposed to have materially a-ssisted in the 
" Pursuits of Literature." His lordship died at Trinity Lodge 
in June, 1820, 

1 Demosthenes. 

2 In most colleges, the fellow who superintends the chapel 
bcrvice is called dean. 



Whilst every staring graduate would prate 
Against what he could never imitate. 

The man who hopes t' obtain the promised cup 
Must in one posture stand, and ne'er look up ; 
Nor stop, but rattle over every word — 
No matter what, so it can not be heard. 
Thus let him hurry on, nor think to rest : 
Who speaks the fastest's sure to speak the best ; 
Who utters most within the shortest space 
May safely hope to win the wordy race. 

The sons of science these, who, thus repaid, 
Linger in ease in Granta's sluggish shade ; 
Where on Cam's sedgy banks supine they lie, 
Unknown, unhonor'd live, unwept-for die : 
Dull as the pictures which adorn their halls, 
They think all learning fix'd within their walls : 
In manners rude, in foolish forms precise, 
All modern arts affecting to despise ; 
Yet prizing Bentley's, Brunck's, or Porson's^ note. 
More than the verse on which the critic wrote : 
Vain as their honors, heavy as their ale, 
Sad as their wit, and tedious as their tale ; 
To friendship dead, though not untaught to feel 
When Self and Church demand a bigot zeal. 
With eager haste they court the lord of power. 
Whether 'tis Pitt or Petty rules the hour ; * 
To him, with suppliant smiles, they bend the head, 
While distant mitres to their eyes are spread. 
But should a storm o'erwhelm him with disgrace, 
They'd fly to seek the next who fill'd his place. 
Such are the men who learning's treasures guard ! 
Such is their practice, such is their reward ! 
This much, at least, we may presume to say — 
The premium can't exceed the price they pay. 

1806. 



3 The present Greek professor of Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge — a man whose powers of mind and writings may, 
perhaps, justify their preference.— In a letter written in 
1818, Lord Byron says : — " I remember to have seen Person 
at Cambridge, in the hall of our college, and in private par- 
ties ; and I never can recollect him except as drunk or brutal, 
and generally both : I mean in an evening ; for in the hall 
he dined at the dean's table, and I at the vice-master's, and 
he then and there appeared sober in his demeanor; but I 
have seen him, in a private party of undergraduates, take 
up a poker to them, and heard him use language as black- 
guard as his action. Of all the disgusting brutes, sulky, 
abusive, and intolerable, Person was the most bestial, as far 
as the few times I saw him went. He was tolerated in this 
state amongst the young men fbr his talents ; as the Turks 
think a madman inspired, and bear with him. He used to 
recite, or rather vomit, pages of all languages, and could hic- 
cup Greek like a Helot; and certainly Sparta never shocked 
her children with a grosser exhibition than this man's in- 
toxication." 

* Since this was written, Lord Henry Petty has lost his 
place, and subsequently (I had almost said consequently) the 
honor of representing the university. A fact so glaring re- 
quires no comment.— Lord Henry Petty is now (1836) Mar- 
quess of Lansdowne. 



470 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



TO A BEAUTIFUL QUAKER. 

Sweet girl ! though only once we met, 
That meeting I shall ne'er forget ; 
And though we ne'er may meet again, 
Remembrance will thy form retain. 
I would not say, " I love," but still 
My senses struggle with my will : 
In vain, to drive thee from my breast. 
My thoughts are more and more represt ; 
In vain I check the rising sighs. 
Another to the last replies : 
Perhaps this is not love, but yet 
Our meeting I can ne'er forget. 

What though we never silence broke, 

Our eyes a sweeter language spoke ; 

The tongue in flattering falsehood deals, 

And tells a tale it never feels : 

Deceit the guilty lips impart. 

And hush the mandates of the heart ; 

But soul's interpreters, the eyes, 

Spurn such restraint, and scorn disguise. 

As thus our glances oft conversed. 

And all our bosoms felt rehearsed. 

No spirit, from within, reproved us, 

Say rather, " 'twas the spirit moved us." 

Though what they utter'd I repress. 

Yet I conceive thou'lt partly guess ; 

For as on thee my memory ponders, 

Perchance to me thine also wanders. 

This for myself, at least, I'll say. 

Thy form appears through night, through day : 

Awake, with it my fancy teems ; 

In sleep, it smiles in fleeting dreams : 

The vision charms the hours away, 

And bids me curse Aurora's ray 

For breaking slumbers of delight 

Which make me wish for endless night. 

Since, oh ! whate'er my future fate. 

Shall joy or woe my steps await. 

Tempted by love, by storms beset, 

Thine image I can ne'er forget. 

1 These verses were written at Harrowgate, in Aug. 1806. 

2 The cornelian of these verses was given to Lord Byron 
by the Cambridge chorister, Eddlestone, whose musical tal- 
ents first introduced him to the young poet's acquaintance, 
and for whom he appears to have entertained subsequently a 
sentiment of the most romantic friendship. 

3 In a letter to Miss Pigot, of Southwell, written in June, 
1807, Lord Byron thus describes Eddlestone : — " He is exactly 
to an hour two years younger than myself, nearly my height, 
very thin, very fair complexion, dark eyes, and light locks. 
My opinion of his mind you already know ; I hope I shall 
never have occasion to change it." Eddlestone, on leaving 
his choir, entered into a mercantile house in the metropolis, 
and died of a consumption in 1811. On hearing of his death. 
Lord Byron thus wrote to the mother of his fair correspond- 
ent : — " I am about to write to you on a silly subject, and yet 
I cannot well do otherwise. You may remember a corne- 
lian, which some years ago I consigned to Miss Pigot, indeed 
gave to her, and now I am about to make the most selfish 



Alas ! again no more we meet, 
No more our former looks repeat ; 
Then let me breathe this parting prayer. 
The dictate of my bosom's care : 
" May Heaven so guard my lovely quakei^ 
That anguish never can o'ertake her ; 
That peace and virtue ne'er forsake her, 
But bliss be aye her heart's partaker I 
Oh ! may the happy mortal, fated 
To be, by dearest ties, related. 
For her each hour new joys discover, 
And lose the husband in the lover I 
May that fair bosom never know 
What 'tis to feel the restless woe 
Which stings the soul, with vain regret, 
Of him who never can forget I" ^ 



THE CORNELIAN.^ 

No specious splendor of this stone 

Endears it to my memory ever ; 
With lustre only once it shone. 

And blushes modest as the giver.^ 

Some, who can sneer at friendship's ties, 
Have, for my weakness, oft reproved me ; 

Yet still the simple gift I prize. 
For I am sure the giver loved me. 

He ofier'd it with downcast look. 

As fearful that I might refuse it ; 
I told him, when the gift I took. 

My only fear should be to lose it. 

This pledge attentively I view'd. 

And sparkling as I held it near, 
Methought one drop the stone bedew'd. 

And ever since I've loved a tear. 

Still, to adorn his humble youth, 
Nor wealth nor birth their treasures yield ; 

and rude of requests. The person who gave it to me, when I 
was very young, is dead ; and though a long time has elapsed 
since we met, as it was the only memorial I possessed of that 
person (in whom I was very much interested), it has acquired 
a value by this event I could have wished it never to have 
borne in my eyes. If, therefore. Miss Pigot should have pre- 
served it, I must, under these circumstances, beg her to ex- 
cuse my requesting it to be transmitted to me, and I will 
replace it by something she may remember me by equally 
well. As she was always so kind as to feel interested in the 
fate of him who formed the subject of our conversation, you 
may tell her that the giver of that cornelian died in May 
last, of a consumption, at the age of twenty-one, — making 
the sixth, within four months, of friends and relations that 
I have lost between May and the end of August." The cor- 
nelian heart was returned accordingly; and, indeed, Miss 
Pigot reminded Lord Byron that he had left it with her as a 
deposit, not as a gift. It is now in the possession of the 
Hon. Mrs. Leigh. 



HOUES OF IDLENESS. 



471 



But he who seeks the flowers of truth, 
Must quit the garden for the field. 

'Tis not the plant uprear'd in sloth, 
Which beauty shows, and sheds perfume : 

The flowers which yield the most of both 
In Nature's wild luxuriance bloom. 

Had Fortune aided Nature's care, 
For once forgetting to be blind. 

His would have been an ample share, 
If well proportion'd to his mind. 

But had the goddess clearly seen, 
His form had fix'd her fickle breast; 

Her countless hoards would his have been. 
And none remain'd to give the rest. 



AN OCCASIONAL PROLOGUE, 

DELIVERED PREVIOUS TO THE PERFORMANCE OF 
""the "WHEEL OF FORTUNE" AT A PRIVATE 
THEATRE.1 

Since the refinement of this polish'd age 

Has swept immoral raillery from the stage ; 

Since taste has now expunged licentious wit. 

Which stamp'd disgrace on all an author writ; 

Since now to please with purer scenes we seek, 

Nor dare to call the blush from Beauty's cheek ; 

Oh ! let the modest Muse some pity claim, 

And meet indulgence, though she find not fame. 

Still, not for her alone we wish respect, 

Others appear more conscious of defect : 

To-night no veteran Roscii you behold, 

In all the arts of scenic action old ; 

No Cook, no Kemble, can salute you here. 

No Siddons draw the sympathetic tear ; 

To-night you throng to witness the dehut^ 

Of embryo actors, to the Drama new : 

Here, then, our almost unfledged wings we try ; 

Clip not our pinions ere the birds can fly : 

Failing in this our first attempt to soar, 

Drooping, alas ! we fall to rise no more. 

Not one poor trembler only fear betrays. 

Who hoi)(;s, yet almost dreads, to meet your praise ; 

But all our dramatis personte wait 

In fond suspense this crisis of their fate. 



1 " When I was a youth I was reckoned a good actor. Be- 
sides Harrow speeches, in which I shone, I enacted Pcnrud- 
dock, in the '\\Tieel of Fortune,' and Tristram Fickle, in 
the farce of the 'Weathercock,' for throe nights, in some 
private theatricals at Southwell, in 180G, with great applause. 
The occasional prologue for our volunteer play was also of 
my composition. The other performers were young ladies 
and gentlemen of the neighborhood ; and the whole went off 
with great effect upon our good-natured audience." — Byron 
Diary, 1821. 



No venal views our progress can retard. 
Your generous plaudits are our sole reward. 
For these, each Hero all his power displays, 
Each timid Heroine shrinks before your gaze. 
Surely the last will some protection find ; 
None to the softer sex can prove unkind ; 
While Youth and Beauty form the female shield, 
The sternest censor to the fair must yield. 
Yet, should our feeble efibrts nought avail. 
Should, after all, our best endeavors fail. 
Still let some mercy in your bosoms live, 
And, if you can't applaud, at least forgive. 



ON THE DEATH OF MR. FOX. 

THE FOLLOWING ILLIBERAL IMPROMPTU APPEARED 
IN A MORNING PAPER. 

" Our nation's foes lament on Fox's death. 
But bless the hour when Pitt resign'd his breath : 
These feelings wide, let sense and truth undue, 
We give the palm where Justice points its due." 

TO WHICH THE AUTHOR OF THESE PIECES SENT 
THE FOLLOWING REPLY. 

Oh, factious viper ! whose envenom'd tooth 
Would mangle still the dead, perverting truth ; 
What though our " nation's foes " lament the fate. 
With generous feeling, of the good and great, 
Shall dastard tongues essay to blast the name 
Of him whose meed exists in endless fame ? 
When Pitt expired in plenitude of power, 
Though ill success obscured his dying hour, 
Pity her dewy wings before him spread. 
For noble spirits " war not with the dead :" 
His friends, in tears, a last sad requiem gave. 
As all his errors slumber'd in the grave ; 
He sunk, an Atlas bending" 'neath the weight 
Of cares o'erwhelming our conflicting state : 
When, lo ! a Hercules in Fox appear'd, 
Who for a time the ruin'd fabric rear'd : 
He, too, is fall'n, who Britain's loss supplied. 
With him our fast-reviving hopes have died ; 
Not one great people only raise his urn, 
All Europe's far-extended regions mourn. 
" These feelings wide, let sense and truth undue. 
To give the palm where Justice points its due ;" 



2 This prologue was written by the young poet, between 
stages, on his way from Harrowgate. On getting into the 
carriage at Chesterfield, he said to his companion, "Now, 
Pigot, I'll spin a prologue for our play ;" and before they 
reached Mansfield he had completed his task,— interrupting 
only once his rhyming reverie, to ask the proper pronuncia- 
tion of the French word " dtbut," and, on being answered, 
exclaiming, "Ay, that will do for rhyme to 'riezA'.'" The 
epilogue, which was from the pen of the Rev. Mr. Becner, 
waa delivered by Lord Byrou. 



472 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Yet let not canker'd Calumny assail, 

Oi round our statesman wind her gloomy veil. 

Fox ! o'er whose corse a mourning world must weep, 

Whose dear remains in honor'd marble sleep ; 

Foi whom, at last, e'en hostile nations groan, 

While friends and foes alike his talents own ; 

Fox shall in Britain's future annals shine. 

Nor e'en to Pitt the patriot's palm resign ; 

Which Envy, wearing Candor's sacred mask. 

For Pitt, and Pitt alone, has dared to ask.i 



THE TEAR. 



" O lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros 
Ducentium ortus ex animo ; quater 
Felix ! in imo qui scatentem 
Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit." — Geay, 

When Friendship or Love our sympathies move. 
When Truth in a glance should appear, 

The lips may beguile with a dimple or smile, 
But the test of affection's a Tear. 

Too oft is a smile but the hypocrite's wile. 

To mask detestation or fear ; 
Give me the soft sigh, whilst the soul-telling eye 

Is dimm'd for a time with a Tear. 

Mild Charity's glow, to us mortals below, 

Shows the soul from barbarity clear ; 
Compassion will melt where this virtue is felt, 

And its dew is diffused in a Tear. 

The man doom'd to sail with the blast of the gale. 

Through billows Atlantic to steer. 
As he bends o'er the wave which may soon be his grave. 

The green sparkles bright with a Tear. 

The soldier braves death for a fanciful wreath 

In Glory's romantic career ; 
But he raises the foe when in battle laid low, 

And bathes every wound with a Tear. 

If with high-bounding pride he return to his bride. 

Renouncing the gore-crimson'd spear. 
All his toils are repaid when, embracing the maid, 

From her eyelid he kisses the Tear. 

Sweet scene of my youth ! '^ seat of Friendship and 
Truth, 

Where love chased each fast-fleeting year. 
Loth to leave thee, I mourn'd, for a last look I turn'd. 

But thy spire was scarce seen through a Tear. 

i The "illiberal impromptu" appeared in the Morning 
Post, and Lord Byron's " reply " in the Morning Chronicle. 
3 Harrow. 



Though my vows I can pour to my Mary no more, 

My Mary to Love once so dear ; 
In the shade of her bower I remember the hour 

She rewarded those vows with a Tear. 

By another possest, may she live ever blest ! 

Her name still my heart must revere : 
With a sigh I resign what I once thought was mine, 

And forgive her deceit with a Tear. 

Ye friends of my heart, ere from you I depart, 

This hope to my breast is most near : 
If again we shall meet in this rural retreat, 

May we meet, as we part, with a Tear. 

When my soul wings her flight to the regions of night. 
And my corse shall recline on its bier. 

As ye pass by the tomb where my ashes consume, 
Oh ! moisten their dust with a Tear. 

May no marble bestow the splendor of woe. 

Which the children of vanity rear ; 
No fiction of fame shall blazon my name ; 

And all I ask — all I wish — is a Tear. 

October 26. 1806. 



REPLY TO SOME VERSES OF J. M. B. PIGOT, 
ESQ., ON THE CRUELTY OF HIS MISTRESS. 

Why, Pigot, complain of this damsel's disdain, 

Why thus in despair do you fret ? 
For months you may try, yet, believe me, a sigh 

Will never obtain a coquette. 

Would you teach her to love ? for a time seem to rove ; 

At first she may frown in a pet ; 
But leave her awhile, she shortly will smile, 

And then you may kiss your coquette. 

For such are the airs of these fanciful fairs, 

They think all our homage a debt : 
Yet a partial neglect soon takes an efiect. 

And humbles the proudest coquette. 

Dissemble your pain, and lengthen your chain. 

And seem her hauteur to regret ; 
If again you shall sigh, she no more will deny 

That yours is the rosy coquette. 

If still, from false pride, your pangs she deride, 

This whimsical virgin forget ; 
Some other admire, who will melt with your fire, 

And laugh at the little coquette. 

For me, I adore some twenty or more, 

And love them most dearly ; but yet. 
Though my heart they enthrall, I'd abandon them all, 

Did they act like your blooming coquette. 



HOURS OF IDLENESS. 



473 



No longer repine, adopt this design, 
And break through her slight- woven net ; 

Away with despair, no longer forbear 
To fly from the captious coquette. 

Then quit her, my friend ! your bosom defend. 

Ere quite with her snares you're beset : 
Lest your deep-wounded heart, when incensed by the 
smart, 
Should lead you to curse the coquette. 

October 27, 1S06. 



TO THE SIGHING STREPHON. 

Your pardon, my friend, if my rhymes did ofiend ; 

Your pardon, a thousand times o'er : 
From friendship I strove your pangs to remove. 

But I swear I will do so no more. 

Since your beautiful maid your flame has repaid. 

No more I your folly regret ; 
She's now most divine, and I bow at the shrine 

Of this quickly reformed coquette. 

Yet still, I most own, I should never have known 
From your verses what else she deserved ; 

Your pain seem'd so great, I pitied your fate. 
As your fair was so devilish reserved. 

Since the balm-breathing kiss of this magical miss 
Can such wonderful transports produce ; 

Since the "world you forget, when your lips once 
have met," 
My counsel will get but abuse. 

You say, when " I rove, I know nothing of love ;" 

'Tis true, I am given to range ; 
If I rightly remember, I've loved a good number. 

Yet there's pleasure, at least, in a change. 

I will not advance, by the rules of romance. 

To humor a whimsical fair ; 
Though a smile may delight, yet a frown won't 
affright, 

Or drive me to dreadful despair. 

While my blood is thus warm I ne'er shall reform. 

To mix in the Platonists' school ; 
Of this I am sure, was my passion so pure, 

Thy mistress would think me a fool. 



^ Miss Elizabeth Pigot, of Southwell, to whom several of 
Lord Byron's earliest letters were addressed. 

' Lachin y Gair, or, as it is pronounced in the Erse, Loch 
na Garr, towers proudly pre-eminent in the Northern High- 
lands, near Invercauld. One of our modem tourists men- 
tions it as the highest mountain, perhaps, in Great Britain. 



And if I should shun everj woman for one, 
"Whose image must fill my whole breast — 

Whom I must prefer, and sigh but for her — 
What an insult 'twould be to the rest I 

Now, Strephon, good bye ; I cannot deny 
Your passion appears most absurd ; 

Such love as you plead is pure love indeed, 
For it only consists in the word. 



TO ELIZA. 



Eliza, what fools are the Mussulman sect. 
Who to woman deny the soul's future existence ! 

Could they see thee, Eliza, they'd own their defect, 
And this doctrine would meet with a general resist- 
ance. 

Had their prophet possess'd half an atom of sense. 
He ne'er would have women from paradise driven ; 

Instead of his houris, a flimsy pretence. 
With women alone he had peopled his heaven. 

Yet still, to increase your calamities more. 
Not content with depriving your bodies of spirit, 

He allots one poor husband to share amongst four ! — 
With souls you'd dispense ; but this last who could 
bear it? 

His religion to please neither party is made ; 

On husbands 'tis hard, to the wives most uncivil ; 
Still I can't contradict, what so oft has been said, 

" Though women are angels, yet wedlock's the 
devil." 



LACHIN Y GAIR.« 

Away, ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of roses ! 

In you let the minions of luxury rove ; 
Restore me the rocks, where the snow-flake reposes, 

Though still they are sacred to freedom and love : 
Yet, Caledonia, beloved are thy mountains. 

Round their white summits though elements war ; 
Though cataracts foam 'stead of smooth-flowing 
fountains, 

I sigh for the valley of dark Loch na Garr. 



Be this as it may, it is certainly one of the most sublime and 
picturesque amongst our "Caledonian Alps." Its appear- 
ance is of a dusky hue, but the summit is the seat of eternal 
snows. Near Lachin y Gair I spent some of the early part 
of my life, the recollection of which has given birth to these 
stanzas. 



474 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Ah ! there my young footsteps in infancy wander'd ; 

My cap was the bonnet* my cloak was the plaid ;i 
On chieftains long perish'd my memory ponder'd, 

As daily I strode through the pine-cover'd glade ; 
I sought not my home till the day's dying glory 

Gave place to the rays of the bright polar star ; 
For fancy was cheer'd by traditional story, 

Disclosed by the natives of dark Loch na Garr. 



" Shades of the dead ! have I not heard your voices 

Eise on the night-rolling breath of the gale ?" 
Surely the soul of the hero rejoices, 

And rides on the wind, o'er his own Highland vale. 
Eound Loch na Garr while the stormy mist gathers, 

Winter presides in his cold icy car : 
Clouds there encircle the forms of my fathers ; 

They dwell in the tempests of dark Loch na Garr. 



" Ill-starr'd,2 though brave, did no visions foreboding 

Tell you that fate had forsaken your cause ?" 
Ah ! were you destined to die at Culloden,^ 

Victory crown'd not your fall with applause : 
Still were you happy in death's earthy slumber, 

You rest with your clan in the caves of Braemar;* 
The pibroch resounds, to the piper's loud number, 

Your deeds on the echoes of dark Loch na Garr. 



Years have roU'd on. Loch na Garr, since I left you. 

Years must elapse ere I tread you again : 
Nature of verdure and flow'rs has bereft you, 

Yet still are you dearer than Albion's plain. 
England ! thy beauties are tame and domestic 

To one who has roved o'er the mountains afar : 
Oh for the crags that are wild and majestic ! 

The steep frowning glories of dark Loch na Garr ! ^ 



1 This word is erroneously pronounced plad : the proper 
pronunciation (according to the Scotch) is shown by the 
orthography. 

2 I allude here to my maternal ancestors, " the Gordons," 
many of whom fought for the unfortunate Prince Charles, 
better known by the name of the Pretender. This branch was 
nearly allied by blood, as well as attachment, to the Stuarts. 
George, the second earl of Huntley, married the princess 
Annabella Stuart, daughter of James the First of Scotland. 
By her he left four sons : the third, Sir William Gordon, t 
have the honor to claim as one of my progenitors. 

3 Whether any perished in the battle of Culloden, I am not 
certain ; but, as many fell in the insurrection. I have used 
the name of the principal action, "pars pro toto." 

* A tract of the Highlands so called. There is also a Castle 

of Braemar. 
6 In " The Island," a pgem written a year or two before 

Lord Byron's death, we have these lines— 

" He who first met the Highlands' swelling blue 

Will love each peak that shows a kindred hue. 

Hail in each crag a friend's familiar face. 

And clasp the mountain in his mind's embrace. 

Long have I roam'd through lands which are not mine, 

Adored the Alp, and loved the Apennine, 



TO EOMANCE. 

Pakent of golden dreams, Eomance ! 

Auspicious queen of childish joys, 
Who lead'st along, in airy dance, 

Thy votive train of girls and boys ; 
At length, in spells no longer bound, 

I break the fetters of my youth ; 
No more I tread thy mystic round, 

But leave thy realms for those of Tvuth. 

And yet 'tis hard to quit the dreams 

Which haunt the unsuspicious soul. 
Where every nymph a goddess seems, 

Whose eyes through rays immortal roll ; 
While Fancy holds her boundless reign, 

And all assume a varied hue ; 
When virgins seem no longer vain, 

And even woman's smiles are true. 

And must we own thee but a name. 

And from thy hall of clouds descend ? 
Nor find a sylph in every dame, 

A Pylades^ in every friend ? 
But leave at once thy realms of air 

To mingling bands of fairy elves ; 
Confess that woman's false as fair, 

And friends have feeling for — themselves. 

With shame I own I've felt thy sway, 

Eepentant, now thy reign is o'er : 
No more thy precepts I obey. 

No more on fancied pinions soar. 
Fond fool ! to love a sparkling eye, 

And think that eye to truth was dear ; 
To trust a passing wanton's sigh, 

And melt beneath a wanton's tear ! 



Revered Parnassus, and beheld the steep 
Jove's Ida and Olympus crown the deep : 
But 'twas not all long ages' lore, nor all 
Their nature held me in their thrilling thrall ; 
The infant rapture still survived the boy, 
And Loch na Garr with Ida look'd o'er Troy, 
Mix'd Celtic memories with the Phrygian mount, 
And Highland linns with Castalie's clear fount." 
"When very young" (he adds in a note), "about eight 
years of age, after an attack of the scarlet fever at Aberdeen, 
I was removed, by medical advice, into the Highlands, and 
from this period I date my love of mountainous countries. I 
can never forget the effect, a few years afterwards, in Eng- 
land, of the only thing I had long seen, even in miniature, of 
a mountain, in the Malvern Hills. After I returned to Chel- 
tenham, I used to watch them every afternoon, at sunset, 
with a sensation which I cannot describe." 

8 It is hardly necessary to add, that Pylades was the com- 
panion of Orestes, and a partner in one of those friendships 
which, with those of Achilles and Patroclus, Nisus and Eu- 
ryalus, Damon and Pythias, have been handed down to pos- 
terity as remarkable instances of attachments, which in all 
probability never existed beyond the imagination of the poet, 
or the page of an historian or modern novelist. 



HOUKS OF IDLENESS. 



475 



Romance ! disgusted with deceit, 

Far from thy motley court I fly, 
• Where Affectation holds her seat, 

And sickly Sensibility ; 
Whose silly tears can never flow 

For any pangs excepting thine ; 
Who turns aside from real woe, 

To steep in dew thy gaudy shrine. 

Now join with sable Sympathy, 

With cypress crown'd, array'd in weeds. 
Who heaves with thee her simple sigh. 

Whose breast for every bosom bleeds ; 
And call thy sylvan female choir, 

To mourn a swain for ever gone, 
Who once could glow with equal fire. 

But bends not now before thy throne. 

Ye genial nymphs, whose ready tears 

On all occasions swiftly flow ; 
Whose bosoms heave with fancied fears. 

With fancied flames and frenzy glow ; 
Say, will you mourn my absent name, 
, Apostate from your gentle train ? 
■ An infant bard at least may claim 

From you a sympathetic strain. 

Adieu ! fond race ! a long adieu ! 

The hour of fate is hovering nigh ; 
E'en now the gulf appears in view. 

Where unlamented you must lie : 
Oblivion's blackening lake is seen, 

Convulsed by gales you cannot weather ; 
Where you, and eke your gentle queen, 

Alas ! must perish altogether. 



ANSWER TO SOME ELEGANT VERSES 

SENT BY A FRIEND TO THE AUTHOR, COMPLAINING 
THAT ONE OF HIS DESCRIPTIONS WAS RATHER 
TOO WARMLY DRAWN. 

" But if any old lady, knight, priest, or physician, 
Should condemn me for printing a second edition ; 
If good Madam Squintum my work should abuse, 
May I venture to give her a smack of my muse?" 

New Bath Guide. 

Candor compels me, Becher ! i to commend 
The verse which blends the censor with the friend. 
Your strong yet just reproof extorts applause 
From me, the heedless and imprudent cause. 

» The Rev. John Becher, prebendary of Southwell, the 
well-known author of several philanthropic plans for the 
amelioration of the condition of the poor. In this gentleman 
the youthful poet found not only an honest and judicious 
critic, but a sincere friend. To his care the superintendence 
of the second edition of "Hours of Idleness," during its 
progress through a country press, wa.s intrusted, and at his 
suggestion several corrections and omissions were made. 
" I must return you," says Lord Byron, in a letter written 



For this wild error which pervades my strain, 
I sue for pardon, — must I sue in vain ? 
The wise sometimes from Wisdom's ways depart : 
Can youth then hush the dictates of the heart ? 
Precepts of prudence curb, but can't control. 
The fierce emotions of the flowing soul. 
When Love's delirium haunts the glowing mind, 
Limping Decorum lingers far behind : 
Vainly the dotard mends her prudish pace, 
Outstript and vanquish'd in the mental chase. 
The young, the old, have worn the chains of love ; 
Let those they ne'er confined my lay reprove : 
Let those whose souls contemn the pleasing power 
Their censures on the hapless victim shower. 
Oh ! how I hate the nerveless, frigid song. 
The ceaseless echo of the rhyming throng, 
Whose labor'd lines in chilling numbers flow. 
To paint a pang the author ne'er can know ! 
The artless Helicon I boast is youth ; — 
My lyre, the heart ; my muse, the simple truth. 
Far be 't from me the " virgin's mind " to " taint :" 
Seduction's dread is here no slight restraint. 
The maid whose virgin breast is void of guile, 
Whose wishes dimple in a modest smile. 
Whose downcast eye disdains the wanton leer. 
Firm in her virtue's strength, yet not severe — 
She whom a conscious grace shall thus refine 
Will ne'er be " tainted" by a strain of mine. 
But for the nymph whose premature desires 
Torment her bosom with unholy fires, 
No net to snare her willing heart is spread ; 
She would have fallen, though she ne'er had read. 
For me, I fain would please the chosen few. 
Whose souls, to feeling and to nature true. 
Will spare the childish verse, and not destroy 
The light effusions of a heedless boy. 
I seek not glory from the senseless crowd ; 
Of fancied laurels I shall ne'er be proud ; 
Their warmest plaudits I would scarcely prize. 
Their sneers or censures I alike despise. 

November 26, 1806. 



ELEGY ON NEWSTEAD ABBEY.2 

" It is the voice of years that are gone ! they roll before me 
with all their deeds." — Ossian. 

Newstead ! fast-falling, once-resplendent dome ! 

Religion's shrine ! repentant Henry's ^ pride ! 
Of warriors, monks, and dames the cloister'd tomb. 

Whose pensive shades around thy ruins glide, 



in February, 1808, "my best acknowledgments for the in- 
terest you have taken in me and my poetical bantlings, and 
I shall ever be proud to show how much I esteem the advice 
and the adviser." 

2 As one poem on this subject is already printed, the author 
had, originally, no intention of inserting the following. It is 
now added at the particular request of some friends. 

8 Henry II. founded Newstead soon after the murder of 
Thomas S. Becket, See ante, p. 447, note. 



476 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Hail to thy pile ! more honor'd in thy fall 
Than modern mansions in their pillar'd state ; 

Proudly majestic frowns thy vaulted hall, 
Scowling defiance on the blasts of fate. 

No mail-clad serfs,i obedient to their lord, 
In grim array the crimson 2 cross demand ; 

Or gay assemble round the festive board 
Theii chief's retainers, an immortal band : 

Else might inspiring Fancy's magic eye 
Retrace their progress through the lapse of time, 

Marking each ardent youth, ordain'd to die, 
A votive pilgrim in Judea's clime. 

But not from thee, dark pile! departs the chief; 

His feudal realm in other regions lay : 
In thee the wounded conscience courts relief. 

Retiring from the garish blaze of day. 

Yes ! in thy gloomy cells and shades profound 
The monk abjured a world he ne'er could view ; 

Or blood-stain'd guilt repenting solace found, 
Or innocence from stern oppression flew. 

A monarch bade thee from that wild arise, 
Where Sherwood's outlaws once were wont to prowl : 

And Superstition's crimes, of various dyes, 
Sought Shelter in the priest's protecting cowl. 

Where now the grass exhales a murky dew, 
The humid pall of life-extinguish'd clay, 

In sainted fame the sacred fathers grew, 
Nor raised their pious voices but to pray. "^ ~ .. 

Where now the bats their wavering wings extend 
Soon as the gloaming ^ spreads her waning shade. 

The choir did oft their mingling vespers blend. 
Or matin orisons to Mary* paid. 

Years roll on years ; to ages, ages yield ; 

Abbots to abbots, in a line, succeed : 
Religion's charter their protecting shield 

Till royal sacrilege their doom decreed. 

One holy Henry rear'd the Gothic walls, 
And bade the pious inmates rest in peace ; 

Another Henry ^ the kind gift recalls. 
And bids devotion's hallow'd echoes cease. 



1 This word is used by Walter Scott, in his poem, " The 
Wild Huntsman ;" synonymous with vassal. 

2 The red cross was the badge of the crusaders. 

3 As "gloaming," the Scottish word for twilight, is far 
more poetical, and has been recommended by many eminent 
literary men, particularly by Dr. Moore in his Letters to 
Burns, I have ventured to use it on account of its harmony. 

* The priory was dedicated to the Virgin. 

6 At the dissolution of the monasteries, Henry VIII. 
bestowed Newstead Abbey on Sir John Byron. See ante, 
p. 447, note. 



Vain is each threat or supplicating prayer ; 

He drives them exiles from their blest abode, 
To roam a dreary world in deep despair — 

No friend, no home, no refuge, but their God. 

Hark how the hall, resounding to the strain. 
Shakes with the martial music's novel din ! 

The heralds of a warrior's haughty reign. 
High crested banners wave thy walls within. 

Of changing sentinels the distant hum. 
The mirth of feasts, the clang of burnish'd arms. 

The braying trumpet, and the hoarser drum. 
Unite in concert with increased alarms. 

An abbey once, a regal fortress^ now, 

Encircled by insulting rebel powers. 
War's dread machines o'erhang thy threatening brow, 

And dart destruction in sulphureous showers. 

Ah, vain defence ! the hostile traitor's siege. 

Though oft repulsed, by guile o'ercomes the brave ; 

His thronging foes oppress the faithful liege. 
Rebellion's reeking standards o'er him wave. ..^ 

Not unavenged the raging baron yields ; 

The blood of traitors smears the purple plain ; 
Unconquer'd still, his falchion there he wields, 

And days of glory yet for him remain. 

Still in that hour the warrior wished to strew 
Self-gather'd laurels on a self-sought grave ; 

But Charles' protecting genius hither flew. 

The monarch's friend, the monarch's hope, to save. 

Trembling, she snatch'd him "^ from th' unequal strife, 

In other fields the torrent to repel ; 
For nobler combats, here, reserved his life. 

To lead the band where godlike Falkland ^ fei).. 

From thee, poor pile ! to lawless plunder given. 
While dying groans their painful requiem sound. 

Far difierent incense now ascends to heaven, 
Such victims wallow on the gory ground. 

There many a pale and ruthless robber's corse, 
Noisome and ghast, defiles thy sacred sod ; 

O'er mingling man, and horse commix'd with horse. 
Corruption's heap, the savage spoilers trod. 



® Newstead sustained a considerable siege in the war 
between Charles I. and his parliament. 

7 Lord Byron, and his brother Sir William, held high 
commands in the royal army. The former was general-in- 
chief in Ireland, lieutenant of the Tower, and governor to 
James, Duke of York, afterwards the unhappy James II. ; 
the latter had a principal share in many actions. 

8 Lucius Gary, Lord Viscount Falkland, the most accom- 
plished man of his age, was killed at the battle of Newbury, 
charging in the ranks of Lord Byron's regiment of cavalry. 






HOURS OF IDLENESS. 



477 



Graves, long with rank and sighing weeds o'erspread, 
Ransack'd, resign perforce their mortal mould : 

From ruffian fangs escape not e'en the dead, 
Raked from repose in search of buried gold. 

Hush'd is the harp, unstrung the warlike lyre, 
The minstrel's palsied hand reclines in death ; 

No more he strikes the quivering chords with fire, 
Or sings the glories of the martial wreath. 

At length the sated murderers, gorged with prey, 

Retire ; the clamor of the fight is o'er ; 
Silence again resumes her awful SAvay, 

And sable Horror guards the massy door. 

Here Desolation holds her dreary court : 
What satellites declare her dismal reign ! 

Shrieking their dirge, ill-omen'd birds resort, 
To flit their vigils in the hoary fane. 

Soon a new morn's restoring beams dispel 
The clouds of anarchy from Britain's skies ; 

The fierce usurper seeks his native hell, 
And Nature triumphs as the tyrant dies. 

With storms she welcomes his expiring groans ; 

Whirlwinds, responsive, greet his laboring breath 
Earth shudders as her caves receive his bones, 

Loathing 1 the offering of so dark a death. 

The legal ruler ^ now resumes the helm, 

He guides through gentle seas the prow of state ; 

Hope cheers, with wonted smiles, the peaceful realm. 
And heals the bleeding wounds of wearied hate. 

The gloomy tenants, Newstead ! of thy cells. 

Howling, resign their violated nest ; 
Again the master on his tenure dwells, 

Enjoy'd, from absence, with enraptured zest. 

Vassals, within thy hospitable pale. 

Loudly carousing, bless their lord's return ; 

Culture again adorns the gladdening vale. 
And matrons, once lamenting, cease to mourn. 

1 This is an historical fact. A violent tempest occurred 
immediately subsequent to the death or interment of Crom- 
well, which occasioned many disputes between his partisans 
and the cavaliers: both interpreted the circumstance into 
divine interposition; but whether as approbation or con- 
demnation, we leave for the casuists of that age to decide. I 
have made such use of the occurrence as suited the subject of 
my poem. 

« Charles IL 

« During the lifetime of the fifth Lord Byron, there was 
found in this lake — where it is supposed to have been thrown 
for concealment by the monks — a large brass eagle, in the 
body of which, on its being sent to be cleaned, was discovered 
a secret aperture, concealing within it a number of ancient 
documents connected with the rights and privileges of the 
foundation. At the sale of the old lord's effects, in 177G, j 
thU eagle was purchased by a watchmaker of Nottingham ; 
and it now forms, through the liberality of Sir Richard Kaye, 
an appropriate ornament of the fine old church of Southwell. 

* " Come what may," wrote Lord Byron to his mother, in 



A thousand songs on tuneful echo float. 
Unwonted foliage mantles o'er the trees ; 

And hark ! the horns proclaim a mellow note, 
The hunters' cry hangs lengthening on the breeze. 

Beneath their coursers' hoofs the valleys shake : 
What fears, what anxious hopes, attend the chase ! 

The dying stag seeks refuge in the lake ; ^ 
Exulting shouts announce the finish'd race. 

Ah, happy days ! too happy to endure ! 

Such simple sports our plain forefathers knew : 
No splendid vices glitter'd to allure ; 

Their joys were many, as their cares were few. 

From these descending, sons to sires succeed ; 

Time steals along, and Death uprears his dart ; 
Another chief impels the foaming steed. 

Another crowd pursue the panting hart. 

Newstead ! what saddening change of scene is thine ! 

Thy yawning arch betokens slow decay ! 
The last and youngest of a noble line 

Now holds thy mouldering turrets in his sway. 

Deserted now, he scans thy gray worn towers,- 
Thy vaults, where dead of feudal ages sleep ; 

Thy cloisters, pervious to the wintry showers ; 

These, these he views, and views them but to weep. 

Yet are his tears no emblem of regret : 
Cherish'd affection only bids them flow. 

Pride, hope, and love forbid him to forget, 
But warm his bosom with impassion'd glow. 

Yet he prefers thee to the gilded domes 
Or gewgaw grottos of the vainly great • 

Yet lingers 'mid thy damp and mossy tombs. 
Nor breathes a murmur 'gainst the will of fate.* 

Haply thy sun, emerging, yet may shine. 

Thee to irradiate with meridian ray ; ^ 
Hours splendid as the past may still be thine. 

And bless thy future as thy former day.^ 

March, 1809, " Newstead and I stand or fall together. I have 
now lived on the spot ; I have fixed my heart upon it ; and 
no pressure, present or future, shall induce me to barter the 
last vestige of our inheritance. I have that pride within 
me which will enable me to support difficulties. I can endure 
privations; but could I obtain, in exchange for Newstead 
Abbey, the first fortune in the country, I would reject the 
proposition. Set your mind at ease on that score; I feel 
like a man of honor, and I will not sell Newstead." 

5 "We cannot," says the Critical Review for September, 
1807, "but hail, with something of prophetic rapture, the 
hope conveyed in the closing stanza — 

' Haply thy sun, emerging, yet may shine,' " &c. 

« The reader who turns from this elegy to the stanzas de- 
scriptive of Newstead Abbey and the surrounding scenery, in 
the thirteenth canto of Don Juan, cannot fail to remark how 
frequently the leading thoughts in the two pieces are the 
same ; or to be delighted and instructed, in comparing the 
juvenile sketch with the bold touches and mellow coloring 
of the master's picture. 



478 



BYEON^S WOEKS. 



CHILDISH RECOLLECTIONS.i 

" I cannot but remember such things were, 
And were most dear to me," 

When slow Disease, with all her host of pains, 
Chills the warm tide which flows along the veins ; 
When Health, affrighted, spreads her rosy wing, 
And flies with every changing gale of spring ; 
Not to the aching frame alone confined. 
Unyielding pangs assail the drooping mind : 
What grisly forms, the spectre-train of woe. 
Bid shuddering Nature shrink beneath the blow, 
With Resignation wage relentless strife, 
While Hope retires appall'd, and clings to life ! 
Yet less the pang when, through the tedious hour, 
Remembrance sheds around her genial power. 
Calls back the vanish'd days to rapture given. 
When love was bliss, and Beauty form'd our heaven ; 
Or, dear to youth, portrays each childish scene. 
Those fairy bowers, where all in turn have been. 
As when through clouds that pour the summer storm 
The orb of day unveils his distant form. 
Gilds with faint beams the crystal dews of rain, 
And dimly twinkles o'er the watery plain ; 
Thus, while the future dark and cheerless gleams. 
The sun of memory, glowing through my dreams. 
Though sunk the radiance of his former blaze, 
To scenes far distant points his paler rays ; 
Still rules my senses with unbounded sway, 
The past confounding with the present day. 

Oft does my heart indulge the rising thought, 
Which still recurs, unlook'd for and unsought ; 
My soul to Fancy's fond suggestion yields. 
And roams romantic o'er her airy fields. 
Scenes of my youth, developed, crowd to view, 
To which I long have bade a last adieu ! 
Seats of delight, inspiring youthful themes ; 
Friends lost to me for aye, except in dreams ; 



1 These verses were composed while Lord Byron was 
suffering under severe illness and depression of spirits. " I 
was laid," he says, " on my back, when that schoolboy thing 
was written, or rather dictated— expecting to rise no more, 
my physician having taken his sixteenth fee." In the private 
volume the poem opened with the following lines :— 
" Hence ! thou unvarying song of varied loves, 
Which youth commends, maturer age reproves ; 
Which every rhyming bard repeats by rote. 
By thousands echo'd to the self-same note ! 
Tired of the dull, unceasing, copious strain, 
My soul is panting to be free again. 
Farewell 1 ye nymphs propitious to my verse. 
Some other Damon will your charms rehearse ; 
Some other paint his pangs, in hope of bliss, 
Or dwell in rapture on your nectar'd kiss. 
Those beauties, grateful to my ardent sight, 
No more entrance my senses in delight ; 
Those bosoms, form'd of animated snow, 
Alike are tasteless and unfeeling now. 
These to some happier lover I resign — 
The memory of those joys alone is mine. 



Some who in marble prematurely sleep, 

Whose forms I now remember but to weep ; 

Some who yet urge the same scholastic course 

Of early science, future fame the source; 

Who, still contending in the studious race, 

In quick rotation fill the senior place. 

These with a thousand visions now unite, 

To dazzle, though they please, my aching sight.^ 

Ida ! blest spot, where Science holds her reign. 

How joyous once I join'd thy youthful train ! 

Bright in idea gleams thy lofty spire, 

Again I mingle with thy playful choir ; 

Our tricks of mischief, every childish game. 

Unchanged by time or distance, seem the same ; 

Through winding paths along the glade, I trace 

The social smile of every welcome face ; 

My wonted haunts, my scenes of joy and woe, 

Each early boyish friend, or youthful foe, 

Our feuds dissolved, but not my friendship past, — 

I bless the former, and forgive the last. 

Hours of my youth ! when, nurtured in my breast, 

To love a stranger, friendship made me blest ; — 

Friendship, the dear peculiar bond of youth. 

When every artless bosom throbs with truth ; 

Untaught by worldly wisdom how to feign. 

And check each impulse with prudential rein ; 

When all we feel, our honest souls disclose — 

In love to friends, in open hate to foes ; 

No varnish'd tales the lips of youth repeat, 

No dear-bought knowledge purchased by deceit. 

Hypocrisy, the gift of lengthen'd years. 

Matured by age, the garb of prudence wears. 

When now the boy is ripen'd into man, 

His careful sire chalks forth some wary plan ; 

Instructs his son from candor's path to shrink, 

Smoothly to speak, and cautiously to think ; 

Still to assent, and never to deny — 

A patron's praise can well reward the lie : 

And who, when Fortune's warning voice is heard, 

Would lose his opening prospects for a word ? 



Censure no more shall brand my humble name. 
The child of passion and the fool of fame. 
Weary of love, of life, devour'd with spleen, 
I rest a perfect Timon, not nineteen. 
World ! I renounce thee 1 all my hope's o'ercast ; 
One sigh I give thee, but that sigh's the last. 
Friends, foes, and females, now alike adieu ! 
Would I could add remembrance of you too ! 
Yet though the future dark and cheerless gleams, 
The curse of memory, hovering in my dreams, 
Depicts with glowing pencil all those years. 
Ere yet my cup, empoison'd, flow'd with tears ; 
Still rules my senses with tyrannic sway, 
The past confounding with the present day. 

" Alas ! in vain I check the maddening thought ; 
It still recurs, unlook'd for and unsought : 
My soul to Fancy's," &c., &c., as at line 29. 

2 The next fifty-six lines, to — 

" Here first remember'd be the joyous band," 
I were added in the first edition of Hours of Idleness. 



HOUKS OF IDLENESS. 



479 



Although against that word his heart rebel, 
And truth indignant all his bosom swell. 

Away with themes like this ! not mine the task 
From flattering fiends to tear the hateful mask ; 
Let keener bards delight in satire's sting ; 
My fancy soars not on Detraction's wing : 
Once, and but once, she aim'd a deadly blow, 
To hurl defiance on a secret foe ; 
But when that foe, from feeling or from shame, 
The cause unknown, yet still to me the same, 
Warn'd by some friendly hint, perchance, retired. 
With this submission all her rage expired. 
From dreaded pangs that feeble foe to save, 
She hush'd her young resentment, and forgave ; 
Or, if my muse a pedant's portrait drew, 
POMPOSUS' 1 virtues are but known to few : 
I never fear'd the young usurper's nod, 
And he who wields must sometimes feel the rod. 
If since on Granta's failings, known to all 
Who share the converse of a college hall, 
She sometimes trifled in a lighter strain, 
'Tis past, and thus she will not sin again. 
Soon must her early song for ever cease. 
And all may rail when I shall rest in peace. 

Herefirst remember'd be the joyous band, 
Who hail'd me chief,^ obedient to command ; 
Who join'd with me in every boyish sport — 
Their first adviser, and their last resort ; 
Nor shrunk beneath the upstart pedant's frown. 
Or all the sable glories of his gown ; ^ 
Wlio, thus transplanted from his father's school — 
Unfit to govern, ignorant of rule — 



^ Dr, Butler, then head master of Harrow school. Had 
Lord Byron published another edition of these poems, it ap- 
pears, from a loose sheet in his handwriting, to have been 
his intention, instead of the passage beginning — " Or, if my 
muse a pedant's portrait drew," to insert — 
" If once my muse a harsher portrait drew, 
Warm with her wrongs, and deem'd the likeness true, 
By cooler judgment taught, her faults she owns, — 
With noble minds a fault confess'd, atones." 
2 When Dr. Drury retired, in 1805, three candidates pre- 
sented themselves for the vacant chair, Messrs. Drury, Evans, 
and Butler. "On the first movement to which this contest 
gave rise in the school, young Wildman," says Moore, "was 
at the head of the party for Mark Drury, while Byron held 
himself aloof from any. Anxious, however, to have him as 
an ally, one of the Drury faction said to Wildman — 'Byron, I 
know, will not join, because he does not choose to act second 
to any one ; but, by giving up the leadership to him, you may 
at once secure him.' " This Wildman accordingly did, and 
Byron took the command. 

' Instead of this couplet, the private volume has the fol- 
lowing four lines :— 

" Careless to soothe the pedant's furious frown, 
Scarcely respecting his majestic gown ; 
By which, in vain, he gain'd a borrow'd grace, 
Adding new terror to his sneering face." 
* Dr. Drury. This most able and excellent man retired 
from his situation in March, 1805, after having resided thirty- 



Succeeded him, whom all unite to praise. 

The dear preceptor of my early days ! 

Probtjs,* the pride of science, and the boast, 

To Ida now, alas ! for ever lost. 

With him, for years, we search'd the classic page. 

And fear'd the master, though we loved the sage : 

Retired at last, his small yet peaceful seat. 

From learning's labor is the blest retreat. 

POMPOSUS fills his magisterial chair; 

POMPOSUS governs, — but, ray muse, forbear : * 

Contempt, in silence, be the pedant's lot ; 

His name and precepts be alike forgot ; 

No more his mention shall my verse degrade, — 

To him my tribute is already paid. 

High, through those elms, with hoary branches 
crown'd, 
Fair Ida's bower adorns the landscape round ; 
There Science, from her favor'd seat, surveys 
The vale where rural Nature claims her praise. 
To her awhile resigns her youthful train. 
Who move in joy, and dance along the plain ; 
In scatter'd groups each favor'd haunt pursue, 
Repeat old pastimes, and discover new ; 
Flush'd with his rays, beneath the noontide sun, 
In rival bands, between the wickets run. 
Drive o'er the sward the ball with active force. 
Or chase with nimble feet its rapid course. 
But these with slower steps direct their way, 
Where Brent's cool waves in limpid currents stray ; 
While yonder few search out some green retreat, 
And arbors shade them from the summer heat : 
Others again, a pert and lively crew. 
Some rough and thoughtless stranger placed in view, 



five years at Harrow; the last twenty as head master, an 
office he held with equal honor to himself and advantage to 
the very extensive school over which he presided. Pane- 
gyric would here be superfluous: it would be useless to 
enumerate qualifications which were never doubted. A con- 
siderable contest took place between three rival candidates 
for his vacant chair : of this I can only say, 

Si mea cum vestris valuissent vota, Pelasgi ! 
Non foret ambiguus tanti certaminis'hferes. 

— Such was Byron's parting eulogy on Dr. Drury. It may be 
interesting to see by the side of it the doctor's own ac- 
count of his pupil, when first committed to his care : — " I 
took," says the doctor, " my young disciple into my study, 
and endeavored to bring him forward by inquiries as to his 
former amusements, employments, and associates, but with 
little or no effect ; and I soon found that a wild mountain colt 
had been submitted to my management. But there was mind 
in his eye. His manner and temper soon convinced me, that 
he might be led by a silken string to a point, rather than by 
a cable; — and on that principle I acted." 

6 To this passage, had Lord Byron pulilished another 
edition of Hours of Idleness, it was his intention to give the 
following turn : — 

" Another fills his magisterial chair ; 
Reluctant Ida owns a stranger's care; 
Oh ! may like honors crown his future name ; 
If such his virtues, such shall be his fame." 



480 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



With frolic quaint their antic jests expose, 

And tease the grumbling rustic as he goes ; 

Nor rest with this, but many a passing fray 

Tradition treasures for a future day ; 

" 'Twas here the gather'd swains for vengeance fought. 

And here we earn'd the conquest dearly bought ; 

Here have we fled before superior might, 

And here renew'd the wild tumultuous fight." 

While thus our souls with early passions swell, 

In lingering tones resounds the distant bell ; 

Th' allotted hour of daily sport is o'er, 

And Learning beckons from her temple's door. 

No splendid tablets grace her simple hall. 

But ruder records fill the dusky wall ; 

There, deeply carved, behold ! each tyro's name 

Secures its owner's academic fame ; 

Here mingling view the names of sire and son — 

The one long graved, the other just begun : 

These shall survive alike when son and sire 

Beneath one common stroke of fate expire ; ^ 

Perhaps their last memorial these alone, 

Denied in death a monumental stone. 

Whilst to the gale in mournful cadence wave 

The sighing weeds that hide their nameless grave. 

And here my name, and many an early friend's, 

Along the wall in lengthen'd line extends. 

Though still our deeds amuse the youthful race, 

Who tread our steps, and fill our former place, 

Who young obey'd their lords in silent awe. 

Whose nod commanded, and whose voice was law ; 

And now, in turn, possess the reins of power. 

To rule the little tyrants of an hour ; 

Though sometimes, with the tales of ancient day, 

They pass the dreary winter's eve away — 

" And thus our former rulers stemm'd the tide, 

And thus they dealt the combat side by side ; 

Just in this place the mouldering walls they scaled. 

Nor bolts nor bars against their strength avail'd ; ^ 

Here Probiis came, the rising fray to quell, 

And here he falter'd forth his last farewell ; 

And here one night abroad they dared to roam, 

While bold Pomposus bravely stay'd at home ;" 

While thus they speak, the hour must soon arrive, 

When names of these, like ours, alone survive : 



^ I During a rebellion at Harrow, the poet prevented the 
school-room from being burnt down, by pointing out to the 
boys the names of their fathers and grandfathers on the 
walls. 

2 Lord Byron elsewhere thus describes his usual course of 
life while at Harrow — " always cricketing, rebelling, rowing, 
and in all manner of mischiefs." One day, in a fit of defiance, 
he tore down all the gratings from the window of the hall ; and 
when called upon by Dr. Butler to say why he had committed 
this violence, answered, with stern coolness, " because they 
darkened the room." 

3 This description of what the young poet felt in 1806, on 
encountering in the world any of his former schoolfellows, 
falls far short of the page in which he records an accidental 
meeting with Lord Clare, on the road between Imola and 
Bologna, in 1821. " This meeting," he says, " annihilated for 
a moment all the years between the present time and the 



Yet a few years, one general wreck will whelm 
The faint remembrance of our fairy realm. 

Dear honest race ! though now we meet no more. 
One last long look on what we were before — 
Our first kind greetings, and our las^ adieu — 
Drew tears from eyes unused to weep with you. 
Through splendid circles, fashion's gaudy world, 
Where folly's glaring standard waves unfurl'd, 
I plunged to drown in noise my fond regret. 
And all I sought or hoped w^as to forget. 
Vain wish ! if chance some well-remember'd face, 
Some old companion of my early race, 
Advanced to claim his friend with honest joy, 
My eyes, my heart, proclaim'd me still a boy ; 
The glittering scene, the fluttering groups around, 
Were quite forgotten when my friend was found ; 
The smiles of beauty — (for, alas ! I've known 
What 'tis to bend before Love's mighty throne) — 
The smiles of beauty, though those smiles were 

dear, 
Could hardly charm me, when that friend was 

near : 
My thoughts bewilder'd in the fond surprise, 
The woods of Ida danced before my eyes ; 
I saw the sprightly wand'rers pour along, 
I saw and join'd again the joyous throng; 
Panting, again I traced her lofty grove. 
And friendship's feelings triumph'd over love.' 

Yet why should I alone with such delight 
Retrace the circuit of my former flight ? 
Is there no cause beyond the common claim 
Endear'd to all in childhood's very name ? 
Ah ! sure some stronger impulse vibrates here. 
Which whispers friendship will be doubly dear, 
To one who thus for kindred hearts must roam, 
And seek abroad the love denied at home. 
Those hearts, dear Ida, have I found in thee — 
A home, a world, a paradise to me. 
Stern Death forbade my orphan youth to share 
The tender guidance of a father's care. 
Can rank, or e'en a guardian's name, supply 
The love which glistens in a father's eye ? 



days of Harrow. It was a new and inexplicable feeling, like 
rising from the grave, to me. Clare too was much agitated- 
more in appearance than was myself; for I could feel his heart 
beat to his fingers' ends, unless, indeed, it was the pulse of 
my o^n which made me think so. We were but five minutes 
together, and on the public road ; but I hardly recollect an 
hour of my existence which could be weighed against them." 
— We may also quote the following interesting sentences of 
Madame Guiccioli: — "In 1822 (says she), a few days before 
leaving Pisa, we were one evening seated in the garden of the 
Palazzo Lanfranchi. At this moment a servant announced 
Mr, Hobhouse. The slight shade of melancholy diffused over 
Lord Byron's face gave instant place to the liveliest joy ; but 
it was so great, that it almost deprived him of strength. A 
fearful paleness came over his cheeks, and his eyes were filled 
with tears as he embraced his friend: his emotion was so 
great that he was forced to sit down." 



PIOURS OF IDLENESS. 



481 



For this can wealth or title's sound atone, 
Made, by a parent's early loss, my own ? i 
What brother springs a brother's love to seek? 
What sister's gentle kiss has prest ray cheek? 
For me how dull the vacant moments rise, 
To no fond bosora link'd by kindred ties ! 
Oft in the progress of some fleeting dream 
Fraternal smiles collected round me seem ; 
While still the visions to my heart are prest, 
The voice of love will murmur in my rest : 
I hear — I wake — and in the sound rejoice ; 
I hear again, — but, ah ! no brother's voice. 
A hermit, 'midst of crowds, I fain must stray 
Alone, though thousand pilgrims fill the way ; 
While these a thousand kindred wreaths entwine, 
I cannot call one single blossom mine : 
What then remains ? in solitude to groan, 
To mix in friendship, or to sigh alone. 
Thus must I cling to some endearing hand. 
And none more dear than Ida's social band. 

Alonzo ! 2 best and dearest of my friends, 
Thy name ennobles him Mho thus commends ; 
From this fond tribute thou canst gain no praise ; 
The praise is his who now that tribute pays. 
Oh I in the promise of thy early youth. 
If hope anticipate the words of truth, 
Some loftier bard shall sing thy glorious name. 
To build his own upon thy deathless fame. 
Friend of my heart, and foremost of the list 
Of those with whom I lived supremely blest. 
Oft have we drain'd the font of ancient lore ; 
Though drinking deeply, thirsting still the more. 



1 " It has been reserved for our own time to produce one 
distinguished example of the Muse having descended upon 
a bard of a wounded spirit, and lent her lyre to tell, and wo 
trust to soothe, aflOlictions of no ordinary description ; afflic- 
tions originating probably in that singular combination of 
feeling, which has been called the poetical temperament, 
and which has so often saddened the days of those on whom 
it has been conferred. If ever a man could lay claim to that 
character in all its strength and all its weakness, with its 
unbounded range of enjoyment, and its exquisite sensibility 
of pleasure and pain, it must certainly be granted to Lord 
Byron. His own talc is partly told in two lines of Lara:— 
' Left by his sire, too young such loss to know. 
Lord of himself— that heritage of woe !' "— 

Sir Walter Scott. 

* The Hon. John Wingfield, of the Coldstream Guards, 
brother to Richard, fourth Viscount Powerscourt. He diod 
of a fever, in his twentieth year, at Coimbra, May 14, 1811. — 
"Of aU human beings," says Lord Byron, "I was, perhaps, 
at one time the most attached to poor Wingfield. I had 
known him the better half of his life, and the happiest part 
of mine." On hearing of the death of his beloved school- 
fellow, he added the following stanzas to the first canto of 
Childe Harold :— 

" And thou, ray friend ! — since unavailing woe 
Bursts from my heart, and mingles with the strain — 
Had the sword laid thee with the mighty low, 
Pride might forbid ev'n Friendship to complain : 
But thus unlaurell'd to descend in vain, 
31 



Yet, when confinement's lingering hour was done, 

Our sports, our studies, and our souls were one : 

Together we impell'd the flying ball ; 

Together waited in our tutor's hall ; 

Together join 'd in cricket's manly toil, 

Or shared the produce of the river's spoil ; 

Or, plunging from the green declining shore. 

Our pliant limbs the buoyant billows bore ; 

In every element, unchanged, the same. 

All, all that brothers should be, but the name. 

Nor yet are you forgot, my jocund boy ! 
Davus,^ the harbinger of childish joy ; 
For ever foremost in the ranks of fun. 
The laughing herald of the harmless pun ; 
Yet with a breast of such materials made — 
Anxious to please, of pleasing half afraid ; 
Candid and liberal, with a heart of steel 
In danger's path, though not untaught to feel. 
Still I remember, in the factious strife, 
The rustic's musket aim'd against my life : * 
High poised in air the massy weapon hung, 
A cry of horror burst from every tongue ; 
Whilst I, in combat with another foe. 
Fought on, unconscious of th' impending blow ; 
Your arm, brave boy, arrested his career — 
Forward you sprung, insensible to fear ; 
Disarm'd and baffled by your conquering hand. 
The grovelling savage roll'd upon the sand : 
An act like this, can simple thanks repay ?^ "■ — 
Or all the labors of a grateful lay ? 
Oh no ! whene'er my breast forgets the deed. 
That instant, Davus, it deserves to bleed. 



By all forgotten, save the lonely breast. 
And mix unbleeding with the boasted slain, 
While Glory crowns so many a meaner crest! 
What hadst thou done to sink so peacefully to rest ? 

" Oh, known the earliest, and esteem'd the most. 
Dear to a heart where nought was left so dear ! 
Though to my hopeless days for ever lost, 
In dreams deny me not to see thee here !" &c. 
3 The Rev. John Cecil Tattersall, B.A., of Christ Church, 
Oxford; who died Dec. 8, 1812, at Hall's Place, Kent, aged 
twenty-four. " His mind," says a writer in the Gent. Mag., 
"was comprehensive and perspicuous; his affections warm 
and sincere. Through extreme aversion to hypocrisy, he 
was so far from assuming the false appearances of virtue, 
that much of his real excellence was unseen, whilst he was 
eager to acknowledge every fault into which he was led. He 
was an ardent friend, a stranger to feelings of enmity; he 
lived in good faith towards men, and died with hope in 
God." 

♦ The "factious strife" here recorded, was accidentally 
brought on by the breaking up of school, and the di-smiasal 
of some volunteers from drill, both happening at the same 
hour. On this occasion, it appears, the butt-end a musket 
was aimed at Byron's head, and would have filled him to the 
ground, but for the interposition of Tattersall. 
^ In the private volume : — 

"Thus did you save that life I scarcely prize— 
A life unworthy such a sacrifice." 



482 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Lyctjs ! ^ on me thy claims are justly great : 
Thy milder vii'tues could my muse relate, 
To thee alone, unrivall'd, would belong 
The feeble efforts of my lengthen'd song.^ 
Well canst thou boast, to lead in senates fit, 
A Spartan firmness with Athenian wit : 
Though yet in embryo these perfections shine, 
Lycus ! thy father's fame will soon be thine. 
Where learning nurtures the superior mind, 
What may we hope from genius thus refined ! 
When time at length matures thy growing years. 
How wilt thou tower above thy fellow peers ! 
Prudence and sense, a spirit bold and free, 
With honor's soul, united beam in thee. 

Shall fair Euryalus^ pass by unsung? 
From ancient lineage, not unworthy sprung : 
What though one sad dissension bade us part? 
That name is yet embalm'd within my heart ; 
Yet at the mention does that heart rebound. 
And palpitate, responsive to the sound. 
Envy dissolved our ties, and not our will : 
We once were friends, — I'll think we are so still.* 
A form unmatch'd in nature's partial mould, 
A heart untainted, we in thee behold : 



1 John Fitzgibbon, second earl of Clare, born June 2, 
1792. His father, whom he succeeded Jan. 28, 1802, was for 
nearly twelve years lord chancellor of Ireland. See ante, 
p. 480, note. His lordship is now (1832) governor of Bom- 
bay. " I never," says Lord Byron, in 1821, " hear the word 
' Clare,^ without a beating of the heart even now; and I 
write it with feelings of 1803-4-5, ad infinitum." Of the 
tenaciousness with which he clung to all the kindly impres- 
sions of his youth, there can be no stronger proof than the 
interesting fact, that after his death almost all the notes and 
letters which his principal school favorites had ever addressed 
to him were found preserved carefully among his papers. 
The following is the indorsement upon one of them : — " This 
and another letter were written at Harrow, by my then and, 
I hope, ever beloved friend. Lord Clare, when we were both 
school-boys ; and sent to my study in consequence of some 
childish misunderstanding, — the only one which ever arose 
between us. It was of short duration, and I retain this note 
solely for the purpose of submitting it to his perusal, that 
we may smile over the recollection of the insignificance of 
our first and last quarrel." 

2 In the private volume, the following lines conclude this 
character : — 

" For ever to possess a friend in thee, 

"Was bliss unhoped, though not unsought by me. 

Thy softer soul was fonn'd for love alone, 

To ruder passions and to hate unknown ; 

Thy mind, in union with thy beauteous form, 

Was gentle, but unfit to stem the storm. 

That face, an index of celestial worth, 

Proclaim'd a heart abstracted from the earth. 

Oft, when depress'd with sad foreboding gloom, 

I sat reclined upon our favorite tomb, 

I've seen those sympathetic eyes o'erflow 

With kind compassion for thy comrade's woe ; 

Or when less mournful subjects form'd our themes, 

We tried a thousand fond romantic schemes, 



Yet not the senate's thunder thou shalt wield, 
Nor seek for glory in the tented field ; 
To minds of ruder texture these be given — 
Thy soul shall nearer soar its native heaven. 
Haply, in polish'd courts might be thy seat. 
But that thy tongue could never forge deceit : 
The courtier's supple bow and sneering smile, 
The flow of compliment, the slippery wile. 
Would make that breast with indignation burn. 
And all the glittering snares to tempt thee spurn. 
Domestic happiness will stamp thy fate ; 
Sacred to love, unclouded e'er by hate ; 
The world admire thee, and thy friends adore ; — 
Ambition's slave alone would toil for more. 

Now last, but nearest, of the social band. 
See honest, open, generous Cleon^ stand; 
With scarce one speck to cloud the pleasing scene, 
No vice degrades that purest soul serene. 
On the same day our studious race begun. 
On the same day our studious race was run ; 
Thus side by side we pass'd our first career. 
Thus side by side we strove for many a year ; 
At last concluded our scholastic life, 
We neither conquer'd in the classic strife : 



Oft hast thou sworn, in friendship's soothing tone, 
Whatever wish was mine must be thine own." 
3 George-John, fifth Earl Delawarr, born Oct. 26, 1791; 
succeeded his father, John-Eichard, July 28, 1795. This 
ancient family have been barons by the male line from 
1342; their ancestor, Sir Thomas West, having been sum- 
moned to parliament as Lord West, the 16th Edw. II. We 
find the following notices in some hitherto unpublished let- 
ters of Lord Byron :— " Harrow, Oct. 25, 1804. — I am happy 
enough and comfortable here. My friends are not numerous, 
but select. Among the principal I rank Lord Delawarr, who 
is very amiable, and my particular friend." "Nov. 2, 1804. — 
Lord Delawarr is considerably younger than me, but the 
most good-tempered, amiable, clever fellow in the universe. 
To all which he adds the quality (a good one in the eyes of 
women) of being remarkably handsome, Delawarr and my- 
self are, in a manner, connected ; for one of my forefathers, 
in Charles the First's time, married into their family." 

* It is impossible to peruse the following extract of a letter 
addressed to Lord Clare, in February, 1807, without acknowl- 
edging the noble candor and conscientiousness of the writer. 
— " You will be astonished to hear I have lately written to 
Delawarr, for the purpose of explaining (as far as possible, 
without involving some old friends of mine in the business) 
the cause of my behavior to him during my last residence 
at Harrow, which you will recollect was rather en cavalier. 
Since that period I have discovered he was treated with 
injustice, both by those who misrepresented his conduct, and 
by me in consequence of their suggestions. I have, there- 
fore, made all the reparation in my power, by apologi2dng for 
my mistake, though with very faint hopes of success. How- 
ever, I have eased my own conscience by the atonement, 
which is humiliating enough to one of my disposition ; yet I 
could not have slept satisfied with the reflection of having, 
even unintentionally, injured any individual. I have done 
all that could be done to repair the injury." 

6 Edward Noel Long, Esq, — to whom a subsequent poem is 
addressed. See p, 489. 



HOUES OF IDLENESS. 



483 



As speakers * each supports an equal name, 
And crowds allow to both a partial fame : 
To soothe a youthful rival's early pride, 
Though Cleon's candor would the palm divide, 
Yet candor's self compels me now to own 
Justice awards it to my friend alone. 

Oh ! friends regretted, scenes for ever dear, 
Remembrance hails you with her warmest tear ! 
Drooping, she bends o'er pensive Fancy's urn, 
To trace the hours which never can return ; 
Yet with the retrospection loves to dwell,' 
And soothe the sorrows of her last farewell ! 
Yet greets the triumph of my boyish mind, 
As infant laurels round my head were twined, 
"When Pkobus* praise repaid my lyric song,' 
Or placed me higher in the studious throng ; 



1 This alludes to the public speeches delivered at the school 
where the author was educated. 

* Thus in the private volume — 

" Yet in the retrospection finds relief, 

And revels in the luxury of grief." 
' "I remember that my first declamation astonished Dr. 
Drury into some unwonted (for he was economical of such) 
and sudden compliments, before the declaimers at our first 
rehearsal." — Byron Diary. 

* "I certainly was much pleased with Lord Byron's atti- 
tude, gesture, and delivery, as well as with his composition. 
All who spoke on that day adhered, as usual, to the letter of 
their composition, as in the earlier part of his delivery did 
Lord Byron. But, to my surprise, he suddenly diverged 
from the written composition, with a boldness and rapidity 
sufficient to alarm me, lest he should fail in memory as to 
the conclusion. There was no failure;— he came round to 
the close of his composition without discovering any impedi- 
ment and irregularity on the whole. I questioned him, why 
he had altered his declamation. He declared he had made 
no alteration, and did not know, in speaking, that he had 
deviated from it one letter. I believed him, and from a 
knowledge of his temperament am convinced, that, fully 
impressed with the sense and substance of the subject, he 
was hurried on to expressions and colorings more striking 
than what his pen had expressed." — Dr. Dkury. 

6 In the private volume the poem concludes thus :— 
" When, yet a novice in the mimic art, 
I feign'd the transports of a vengeful heart — 
When as the Royal Slave I trod the stage. 
To vent in Zanga more than mortal rage — 
The praise of Probus made me feel more proud 
Than all the plaudits of the list'ning crowd. 
" Ahl vain endeavor in this childish strain 
To soothe the woes of which I thus complain ! 
What can avail this fruitless loss of time, . 
To measure sorrow in a jingling rhyme ! 
No social solace from a friend is near. 
And heartless strangers drop no feeling tear. 
I seek not joy in woman's sparkling eye : 
The smiles of beauty cannot check the sigh. 
Adieu, thou world ! thy pleasure's still a dream, 
Thy virtue but a visionary theme ; 
Thy years of vice on years of folly roll, 
Till gr&ining death assigns the destined goal. 



"I am not a Joseph," said Lord Byron, In 1821, "nor a Sclplo; but I 
safely afSm, that I never in my life seduced any woman." 



'We Itnow enough even of Lord Byron's private history to give our 



Or when my first harangue received applause,^ 

His sage instruction the primeval cause. 

What gratitude to him my soul possest. 

While hope of dawning honors fill'd my breast ! 

For all my humble fame, to him alone 

The praise is due, Avho made that fame my own.^ 

Oh 1 could I soar above these feeble lays, 

These young effusions of my early days. 

To him my muse her noblest strain would give : 

The song might perish, but the theme might 

live. 
Yet why for him the needless verse essay ? 
His honor'd name requires no vain display : 
By every son of grateful Ida blest. 
It finds an echo in each youthful breast ; 
A fame beyond the glories of the proud. 
Or all the plaudits of the venal crowd.^ 



Where all are hastening to the dread abode. 
To meet the judgment of a righteous God ; 
Mix'd in the concourse of the thoughtless throng, 
A mourner 'midst of mirth, I glide along; 
A wretched, isolated, gloomy thing. 
Curst by reflection's deep corroding sting ; 
But not that mental sting which stabs within, 
The dark avenger of unpunish'd sin ; 
The silent shaft which goads the guilty wretch 
Extended on a rack's untiring stretch : 
Conscience that sting, that shaft to him supplies — 
His mind the rack from which he ne'er can rise. 
For me, whate'er my folly, or my fear, 
One cheerful comfort still is cherish'd here : 
No dread internal haunts my hours of rest, 
No dreams of injured innocence infest;* 
Of hope, of peace, of almost all bereft. 
Conscience, my last but welcome guest, is left. 
Slander's empoison'd breath may blast my name, 
Envy delights to blight the buds of fame ; 
Deceit may chill the current of my blood. 
And freeze affection's warm impassion'd flood ; 
Presaging horror darken every sense ; — 
Even here will conscience be my best defence. 
My bosom feeds no ' worm which ne'er can die ;' f 
Not crimes I mourn, but happiness gone by. 
Thus crawling on with many a reptUe vile. 
My heart is bitter, though ray cheek may smile : 
No more with former bliss my heart is glad ; 
Hope yields to anguish, and my soul is sad : 
From fond regret no future joy can save ; 
Remembrance slumbers only in the grave." 

« " To Dr. Drury," observes Moore, " Lord Byron has left 
on record a tribute of affection and respect, which, like the 
reverential regard of Drydcn for Dr. Busby, will long asso- 
ciate together honorably the names of the poet and the mas- 
ter." The above is not, however, the only one. In a note to 
the fourth canto of Childe Harold, he says, " My preceptor 
was the best and worthiest friend I ever possessed, whose 
warnings I have remembered but too well, though too late — 
when I have erred, and whose counsels I have but followed 
when I have done well or wisely. If ever this imperfect 
record of my feelings towards him should reach his eyes, let 
it remind him of one who never thinks of him but with 



warrant that, though his yonth may have shared somewhat too largely in 
the indiscretions of those left too early masters of their own actions and 
fortunes, falsehood and malice alone can impute to him any real cause for 
hopeless remorse, or gloomy melancholy."— Sib Waltkk Scott. 



484 



BYRON'S WOEKS. 



•7 



Ida ! not yet exhausted is the theme, 
Nor closed the progress of my youthful dream. 
How many a friend deserves the grateful strain ! 
What scenes of childhood still unsung remain ! 
Yet let me hush this echo of the past, 
This parting song, the dearest and the last ; 
And brood in secret o'er those hours of joy. 
To me a silent and a sweet employ. 
While, future hope and fear alike unknown, 
I think with pleasure on the past alone ; 
Yes, to the past alone my heart confine. 
And chase the phantom of what once was mine. 



Ida! still o'er thy hills in joy preside. 
And proudly steer through time's eventful tide ; 
Still may thy blooming sons thy name revere. 
Smile in thy bower, but quit thee with a tear ; — 
That tear, perhaps, the fondest which will flow. 
O'er their last scene of happiness below. 
Tell me, ye hoary few, who glide along. 
The feeble veterans of some former throng, 
Whose friends, like autumn leaves by tempests whirl'd, 
Are swept for ever from this busy world ; 
Eevolve the fleeting moments of your youth. 
While Care as yet withheld her venom'd tooth ; 
Say if remembrance days like these endears 
Beyond the rapture of succeeding years ? 
Say, can ambition's fever'd dream bestow 
So sweet a balm to soothe your hours of woe ? 
Can treasures, hoarded for some thankless son. 
Can royal smiles, or wreaths by slaughter won, 
Can stars or ermine, man's maturer toys 
(For glittering baubles are not left to boys). 
Recall one scene so much beloved to view. 
As those where Youth her garland twined for you ? 
Ah, no ! amidst the gloomy calm of age 
You turn with faltering hand life's varied page ; 
Peruse the record of your days on earth, 
Unsullied only where it marks your birth ; 
Still lingering pause above each checker'd leaf. 
And blot with tears the sable lines of grief; 
Where Passion o'er the theme her mantle threw. 
Or weeping Virtue sigh'd a faint adieu ; 
But bless the scroll which fairer words adorn. 
Traced by the rosy finger of the morn ; 
When Friendship bow'd before the shrine of Truth, 
And Love, without his pinion,^ smiled on Youth. 



gratitude and veneration — of one who would more gladly 
boast of having been his pupil, if by more closely follow- 
ing his injunctions, he could reflect any honor upon his in- 
structor." We extract the following from some unpublished 
letters of Lord Byron : — 

" Harrow, Nov. 2, 1804. There is so much of the gentleman, 
80 much mildness and nothing of pedantry in his character, 
that I cannot help liking him, and will remember his instruc- 
tions with gratitude as long as I live. He is the best master 
we ever had, and at the same time respected and feared." 
"Nov. 11, 1804. I revere Dr. Drury. He is never violent, 
never outrageous. I dread offending him; — not, however, 



ANSWER TO A BEAUTIFUL POEM, ENTITLED 
"THE COMMON LOT." 2 

Montgomery ! true, the common lot 

Of mortals lies in Lethe's wave ; 
Yet some shall never be forgot — 

Some shall exist beyond the grave. 

" Unknown the region of his birth," 

The hero 3 rolls the tide of war ; 
Yet not unknown his martial worth, 

Which glares a meteor from afar. 

His joy or grief, his weal or woe. 

Perchance may 'scape the page of fame ; 

Yet nations now unborn will know 
The record of his deathless name. 

The patriot's and the poet's frame 
Must share the common tomb of all : 

Their glory will not sleep the same ; 
That will arise, though empires fall. 

The lustre of a beauty's eye 
Assumes the ghastly stare of death ; 

The fair, the brave, the good must die. 
And sink the yawning grave beneath. 

Once more the speaking eye revives, 

Still beaming through tlie lover's strain; 

For Petrarch's Laura still survives : 
She died, but ne'er will die again. 

The rolling' seasons pass away. 

And Time, untiring, waves his wing ; 

Whilst honor's laurels ne'er decay, 
But bloom in fresh, unfading spring. 

All, all must sleep in grini repose. 

Collected in the silent tomb ; 
The old and young, with friends and foes, 

Fest'ring alike in shrouds, consume. 

The mouldering marble lasts its day. 
Yet falls at length an useless fane ; 

To ruin's ruthless fangs a prey, 

The wrecks of pillar'd pride remain. 



through fear ; but the respect I bear him makes me unhappy 
when I am under his displeasure." 

1 " L'Amitig est I'Amour sans ailes," is a French proverb. 
See a subsequent poem, under this title. 

2 Written by James Montgomery, author of "The Wan- 
derer of Switzerland," &c. ^ 

3 No particular hero is here alluded to. The exploits of 
Bayard, Nemours, Edward the Black Prince, and in more 
modern times the fame of Marlborough, Frederick the Great, 
Count Saxe, Charles of Sweden, &c., are familiar to every his- 
torical reader, but the exact places of their birth are knpwn 
to a very small proportion of their admirers. 



HOURS OF IDLENESS. 



485 



What, though the sculpture be destroy'd, 
From dark oblivion meant to guard ; 

A bright renown shall be eujoy'd 
By those whose virtues claim reward. 

Then do not say the common lot 
Of all lies deep in Lethe's wave ; 

Some few who ne'er will be forgot 
Shall burst the bondage of the grave. 



REMEMBRANCE. 

'Tis done ! — I saw it in my dreams : 

No more with Hope the future beams ; 
My days of happiness are few : 

Chill'd by misfortune's wintry blast, 

My dawn of life is overcast, 
Love, Hope, and Joy, alike adieu 1 
Would I could aid Remembrance too ! 

1806. [First published, 1832.] 



TO A LADY 



WHO PRESENTED THE AUTHOR WITH THE VELVET 
BAND WHICH BOUND HER TRESSES. 

This band, which bound thy yellow hair, 
Is mine, sweet girl ! thy pledge of love ; 

It claims my warmest, dearest care, 
Like relics left of saints above. 

Oh ! I will wear it next my heart ; 

'Twill bind my soul in bonds to thee : 
From me again 'twill ne'er depart, 

But mingle in the grave with me. 

The dew I gather from thy lip 

Is not so dear to me as this; 
That I but for a moment sip, 

And banquet on a transient bliss : 

ThU will recall each youthful scene, 
E'en when our lives are on the wane ; 

The leaves of Love will still be green 
When Memory bids them bud again. 

Oh! little lock of golden hue, 

In gently waving ringlet curl'd. 
By the dear head on which you grew, 

I would not lose you for a world. 



Not though a thousand more adorn 
The polish'd brow where once you shone, 

Like rays which gild a cloudless morn, 
Beneath Columbia's fervid zone. 

1806. [First published, 1832.] 



LINES 



ADDRESSED TO THE REV. J. T. BECHER, ON HIS 
ADVISING THE AUTHOR TO MIX MORE WITH 
SOCIETY. 

Dear Becher, you tell me to mix with mankind ; 

I cannot deny such a precept is wise ; 
But retirement accords with the tone of my mind : 

I will not descend to a world I despise. 

Did the senate or camp my exertions require, 
Ambition might prompt me, at once, to go forth ; 

When infancy's years of pi-obation expire. 
Perchance I may strive to distinguish my birth. 

The fire in the cavern of Etna conceal'd, 
Still mantles unseen in its secret recess ; 

At length, in a volume terrific reveal'd, 

No torrent can quench it, no bounds can repress.^ 

Oh ! thus, the desire in my bosom for fame 
Bids me live but to hope for posterity's praise. 

Could I soar with the phoenix on pinions'of flame, 
With him I would wish to expire in the blaze. 

For the life of a Fox, of a Chatham the death, 
What censure, what danger, what woe would I brave ! 

Their lives did not end when they yielded their breath ; 
Their glory illumines the gloom of their grave. 

Yet why should I mingle in Fashion's full herd ? 

Why crouch to her leaders, or cringe to her rules ? 
Why bend to the proud, or applaud the absurd ? 

Why search for delight in the friendship of fools ? 

I have tasted the sweets and the bitters of love ; 

In friendship I early was taught to believe ; 
My passion the matrons of prudence reprove ; 

I have found that a friend may profess, yet deceive. 

To me what is wealth ? — it may pass in an hour. 
If tyrants prevail, or if Fortune should frown : 

To me what is title ? — the phantom of power ; 
To me what is fashion ? — I seek but renown. 



1 The true reason of tho haughty distance at which Byron, 
both at this period and afterwards, stood apart from his more 
opulent neighbors, is to be found (says Mr. Moore) "in his 
mortifying consciousness of the inadequacy of his own means 
to his rank, and the proud dread of being made to feel his own 
inferiority by persons to whom, in every other respect, he 



knew himself superior." Mr. Becher frequently expostulated 
with him on this unsociablencss ; and one of his friendly re- 
monstrances drew forth these lines, so remarkably prefiguring 
the splendid burst with which Lord Byron's volcanic genius 
was ere long to open upon the world. 



486 



BYRON'S WOEKS. 



Deceit is a stranger as yet to my soul : 

I still am unpracticed to varnish the truth : 

Then why should I live in a hateful control ? 
Why waste upon folly the days of my youth ? 



1806. 



THE DEATH OF CALMAR AND ORLA. 

AN IMITATION OF MACPHEESON'S OSSIAN.l 

Dear are the days of youth 1 Age dwells on their 
remembrance through the mist of time. In the twi- 
light he recalls the sunny hours of morn. He lifts 
his spear with trembling hand. "Not thus feebly 
did I raise the steel before my fathers !" Past is the 
race of heroes! But their fame rises on the harp; 
their souls ride on the wings of the wind ; they hear 
the sound through the sighs of the storm, and rejoice 
in their hall of clouds ! Such is Calmar. The gray 
stone marks his narrow house. He looks down from 
eddying tempests : he rolls his form in the whirlwind, 
and hovers on the blast of the mountain. 

In Morven dwelt the chief; a beam of war to 
Fingal. His steps in the field were marked in blood. 
Lochlin's sons had fled before his angry spear ; but 
mild was the eye of Calmar ; soft was the flow of his 
yellow locks : they streamed like the meteor of the 
night. No maid was the sigh of his soul : his thoughts 
were given to friendship, — to dark-haired Orla, de- 
stroyer of heroes ! Equal were their swords in battle ; 
but fierce was the pride of Orla: — gentle alone to 
Calmar. Together they dwelt in the cave of Oithona. 

From Lochlin, Swaran bounded o'er the blue waves. 
Erin's sons fell beneath his might. Fingal roused 
his chiefs to combat. Their ships cover the ocean. 
Their hosts throng on the green hills. They come to 
the aid of Erin. 

Night rose in clouds. Darkness veils the armies : 
but the blazing oaks gleam through the valley. The 
sons of Lochlin slept : their dreams were of blood. 
They lift the spear in thought, and Fingal flies. Not 
so the host of Morven. To watch was the post of 
Orla. Calmar stood by his side. Their spears were 
in their hands. Fingal called his chiefs : they stood 
around. The king was in the midst. Gray were his 
locks, but strong was the arm of the king. Age 
withered not his powers. "Sons of Morven," said 
the hero, " to-morrow we meet the foe. But where is 
Cuthullin, the shield of Erin ? He rests in the halls 
of Tura; he knows not of our coming. "Who will 
speed through Lochlin to the hero, and call the chief 
to arms? The path is by the swords of foes; but 
many are my heroes. They are thunderbolts of war. 
Speak, ye chiefs ! Who will arise ?" 

" Son of Trenmor ! mine be the deed," said dark- 
haired Orla, "and mine alone. What is death to 



1 It may be necessary to observe, that the story, though 
considerably varied in the catastrophe, is taken from " Nisus 



me ? I love the sleep of the mighty, but little is the 
danger. The sons of Lochlin dream. I will seek 
car-borne Cuthullin. If I fall, raise the song of 
bards; and lay me by the stream of Lubar." " And 
shalt thou fall alone?" said fair-haired Calmar. 
" Wilt thou leave thy friend afar ? Chief of Oithona ! 
not feeble is my arm in fight. Could I see thee die, 
and not lift the spear ? No, Orla ! ours has been the 
chase of the roebuck, and the feast of shells ; ours be 
the path of danger ; ours has been the cave of Oith- 
ona ; ours be the narrow dwelling on the banks of 
Lubar." " Calmar," said the chief of Oithona, " why 
should thy yellow locks be darkened in the dust of 
Erin ? Let me fall alone. My father dwells in his 
hall of air : he will rejoice in his boy ; but the blue- 
eyed Mora spreads the feast for her son in Morven. 
She listens to the steps of the hunter on the heath, 
and thinks it is the tread of Calmar. Let her not 
say, * Calmar has fallen by the steel of Lochlin : he 
died with gloomy Orla, the chief of the dark brow.' 
Why should tears dim the azure eye of Mora ? Why 
should her voice curse Orla, the destroyer of Calmar ? 
Live, Calmar ! Live to raise my stone of moss ; live 
to revenge me in the blood of Lochlin. Join the 
song of bards above my grave. Sweet will be the 
song of death to Orla, from the voice of Calmar. My 
ghost shall smile on the notes of praise." " Orla," 
said the son of Mora, "could I raise the song of 
death to my friend ? Could I give his fame to the 
winds ? No, my heart would speak in sighs : faint 
and broken are the sounds of sorrow. Orla! our 
souls shall hear the song together. One cloud shall 
be ours on high : the bards will mingle the names of 
Orla and Calmar." 

They quit the circle of the chiefs. Their steps are 
to the host of liochlin. The dying blaze of oak dim 
twinkles through the night. The northern star points 
the path to Tura. Swaran, the king, rests on his 
lonely hill. Here the troops are mixed : they frown 
in sleep; their shields beneath their heads. Their 
swords gleam at distance in heaps. The fires are 
faint; their embers fail in smoke. All is hushed; 
but the gale sighs on the rocks above. Lightly wheel 
the heroes through the slumbering band. Half the 
journey is past, when Mathon, resting on his shield, 
meets the eye of Orla. It rolls in flame, and glistens 
through the shade. His spear is raised on high. 
"Why dost thou bend thy brow, chief of Oithona?" 
said fair-haired Calmar: "we are in the midst of 
foes. Is this a time for delay ?" " It is a time for 
vengeance," said Orla of the gloomy brow. " Mathon 
of Lochlin sleeps : seest thou his spear ? Its point 
is dim with the gore of my father. The blood of 
Mathon shall reek on mine; but shall I slay him 
sleeping, son of Mora ? No ! he shall feel his wound : 
my fame shall not soar on the blood of slumber. 
Rise, Mathon, rise! The son of Conna calls; thy 

and Euryalus," of which episode a translation is already given 
in the present volume. 



HOURS OF IDLENESS. 



487 



life 13 hia; rise to combat." Mathon starts from 
sleep; but did he rise alone? No: the gathering 
chiefs bound on the plain. " Fly ! Calmar, fly !" said 
dark-haired Orla. " Mathon is mine. I shall die in 
joy: but Lochlin crowds around. Fly through the 
shade of night." Orla turns. The helm of Mathon 
is cleft ; his shield falls from his arm : he shudders 
in his blood. He rolls by the side of the blazing oak. 
Strumon sees him fall : his wrath rises : his weapon 
glitters on the head of Orla: but a spear pierced his 
eye. His brain gushes through the wound, and 
foams on the spear of Calmar. As roll the waves of 
the Ocean on two mighty barks of the north, so pour 
the men of Lochlin on the chiefs. As, breaking the 
surge in foam, proudly steer the barks of the north, 
so rise the chiefs of Morven on the scattered crests of 
Lochlin, The din of arms came to the ear of Fingal. 
He strikes his shield; his sons throng around; the 
people pour along the heath. Ryno bounds in joy. 
Ossian stalks in his arms. Oscar shakes the spear. 
The eagle wing of Fillan floats on the wind. Dread- 
ful is the clang of death ! many are the widows of 
Lochlin ! Morven prevails in its strength. 

Mom glimmers on the hills : no living foe is seen; 
but the sleepers are many; grim they lie on Erin. 
The breeze of ocean lifts their locks ; yet they do not 
awake. The hawks scream above their prey. 

Whose yellow locks wave o'er the breast of a chief? 
Bright as the gold of the stranger, they mingle with 
the dark hair of his friend. 'Tis Calmar : he lies on 
the bosom of Orla. Theirs is one stream of blood. 
Fierce is the look of the gloomy Orla. He breathes 
not ; but his eye is still a flame. It glares in death 
unclosed. His hand is grasped in Cal mar's; but 
Calmar lives! he lives, though low. "Else," said 
the king, " rise, son of Mora : 'tis mine to heal the 
wounds of heroes. Calmar may yet bound on the 
hills of Morven." 

" Never more shall Calmar chase the deer of Mor- 
ven with Orla," said the hero. "What were the 
chase to me alone ? Who should share the spoils of 
battle with Calmar? Orla is at rest! Eough was 
thy soul, Orla ! yet soft to me as the dew of morn. 
It glared on others in lightning : to me a silver beam 
of night. Bear my sword to blue-eyed Mora ; let it 
hang in my empty hall. It is not pure from blood : 
but it could not save Orla. Lay me with my friend. 
Raise the song when I am dark !" 

They are laid by the stream of Lubar. Four gray 
stones mark the dwelling of Orla and Calmar. When 
Swaran was bound, our sails rose on the blue waves. 
The winds gave our barks to Morven : — the bards 
raised the song. 

" What form rises on the roar of clouds ? Whose 

1 I fear Laing's late edition has completely overthrown 
every hope that Macpherson's Ossian might prove the trans- 
lation of a scries of poems complete in themselves ; but, while 
the imposture is discovered, the merit of the work remains 
undisputed, thou(,'h not without faults — particularly, in somo 
parts, turgid and bombastic diction. The present humble 



dark ghost gleams on the red streams of tempests ? 
His voice rolls on the thunder. 'Tis Orla, the brown 
chief of Oithona, He was unmatched in war. Peace 
to thy soul, Orla! thy fame will not perish. Nor 
thine, Calmar I Lovely wast thou, son of blue-eyed 
Moi-a; but not harmless was thy sword. It hangs in 
thy cave. The ghosts of Lochlin shriek around its 
steel. Hear thy praise, Calmar! It dwells on the 
voice of the mighty. Thy name shakes on the echoes 
of Morven. Then raise thy fair locks, son of Mora. 
Spread them on the arch of the rainbow ; and smile 
through the tears of the storm." i 



L'AMITIE EST L' AMOUR SANS AILES.2 

Why should my anxious breast repine, 

Because my youth is fled? 
Days of delight may still be mine ; 

AflFection is not dead. 
In tracing back the years of youth, 
One firm record, one lasting truth 

Celestial consolation brings ; 
Bear it, ye breezes, to the seat, 
Where first my heart responsive beat, — 

" Friendship is Love without his wings!" 

Through few, but deeply checker'd years, 

What moments have been mine ! 
Now half obscured by clouds of tears. 

Now bright in rays divine ; 
Ilowe'er my future doom be cast, 
My soul, enraptured with the past, 

To one idea fondly clings ; 
Friendship ! that thought is all thine own, 
Worth worlds of bliss, tliat thought alone — 

"Friendship is Love without his wings!" 

Where yonder yew-trees lightly wave 

Their branches on the gale. 
Unheeded heaves a simple grave. 

Which tells the common tale ; 
Round this unconscious school-boys stray, 
Till the dull knell of childish play 

From yonder studious mansion rings. 
But here whene'er my footsteps move, 
My silent tears too plainly prove, 

" Friendship is Love without his wings I" 

Oh, Love ! before thy glowing shrine 

My early vows were jiaid ; 
My hopes, my dreams, my heart was thine, 

But these are now decay'd ; 

imitation will be pardoned by the admirers of the original 
as an attempt, however inferior, which evinces an attach- 
ment to their favorite author. 

2 See ante, p. 484, note. We insert this poem here on 
account of the date of its composition. It is not, however, 
included in the publication of 1807. 



488 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



For thine are pinions like the wind^ 
No trace of thee remains behind, 

Except, alas! thy jealous stings. 
Away, away ! delusive power, 
Thou shalt not haunt my coming hour ; 

Unless, indeed, without thy wings. 

Seat of my youth ! ^ thy distant spire 

Recalls each scene of joy ; 
My bosom glows with former fire,— 

In mind again a boy, 
Tiiy grove of elms, thy verdant hill, 
Thy every path delights me still. 

Each flower a double fragrance flings ; 
Again, as once, in converse gay. 
Each dear associate seems to say, 

" Friendship is Love without his wings !" 

My Lycus ! ^ wherefore dost thou weep ? 

Thy falling tears restrain ; 
Affection for a time may sleep. 

But, oh, 'twill wake again .^ 
Think, think, my friend, when next we meet, 
Our long-wish'd interview, how sweet! 

From this my hope of rapture springs ; 
While youthful hearts thus fondly swell, 
Absence, my friend, can only tell, 

'* Friendship is Love without his wings !" 

In one, and one alone deceived. 

Did I my error mourn ? 
No — from oppressive bonds relieved, 

I left the wretch to scorn. 
I turn'd to those my childhood knew, 
With feelings warm, with bosoms true. 

Twined with my heart's according strings ; 
And till those vital chords shall break. 
For none but these my breast shall wake 

Friendship, the power deprived of wings ! 

Ye few ! my soul, my life is yours, 

My memory and my hope ; 
Your worth a lasting love insures, 

Unfetter'd in its scope ; 
From smooth deceit and terror sprung. 
With aspect fair and honey'd tongue, 



1 Harrow. 2 The Earl of Clare. See p. 480. 

3 The young poet had recently received from Lord Clare 
an epistle containing this passage: — "I think by your last 
letter that you are very much piqued with most of your 
friends ; and, if I am not much mistaken, a little so with me. 
In one part you say, ' there is little or no doubt a few years, 
or months, will render us as politely indifferent to each other, 
as if we had never passed a portion of our time together :' 
indeed, Byron, you wrong me ; and I have no doubt — at least 
I hope — you wrong yourself." 

* It is difficult to conjecture for what reason,— but these 
stanzas were not included in the publication of 1807 ; though 
few will hesitate to place them higher than any thing given 
in that volume. " "Written when the author was not nineteen 
years of age, this remarkable poem shows," says Moore, " how 



Let Adulation wait on kings ; 
With joy elate, by snares beset. 
We, we, my friends, can ne'er forget, 

" Friendship is Love without his wings I" 

Fictions and dreams inspire the bard 

Who rolls the epic song ; 
Friendship and Truth be my reward — 

To me no bays belong ; 
If laurell'd Fame but dwells with lies, 
Me the enchantress' ever flies. 

Whose heart and not whose fancy sings ; 
Simple and young, I dare not feign ; 
Mine be the rude yet heartfelt strain, 

*' Friendship is Love without his wings I" 

Dec, 29, 1806. [First published, 1832.] 



THE PRAYER OF NATURE.* 

Father of Light ! great God of Heaven ! 

Hear'st thou the accents of despair ? 
Can guilt like man's be e'er forgiven ? 

Can vice atone for crimes by prayer ? 

Father of Light, on thee I call ! 

Thou seest my soul is dark within ; 
Thou who canst mark the sparrow's fall, 

Avert from me the death of sin. 

No shrine I seek, to sects unknown ; 

Oh, point to me the path of truth ! 
They dread omnipotence I own ; 

Spare, yet amend, the faults of youth. 

Let bigots rear a gloomy fane. 

Let superstition hail the pile. 
Let priests, to spread their sable reign. 

With tales of mystic rites beguile. 

Shall man confine his Maker's sway 
To Gothic domes of mouldering stone ? 

Thy temple is the face of day ; 
Earth, ocean, heaven, thy boundless throne.^ 



early the struggle between natural piety and doubt began in 
his mind." In reading the celebrated critique of the Edin- 
burgh Review on the " Hours of Idleness," the fact that the 
volume did not include this poem ought to be kept in mind. 
6 The poet appears to have had in his mind one of Mr. 
Southey's juvenile pieces, beginning, — 

" Go, thou, unto the house of prayer, 
I to the woodlands will repair," 
See also Childe Harold, canto iii. st. 91 : — 

" Not vainly did the early Persian make 
His altar the high places and the peak 
Of earth-o'ergazing mountains, and thus take 
A fit and unwall'd temple, there to seek 
The Spirit, in whose honor shrines are weak 
Uprear'd of human hands," &c. 






HOUES OF IDLENESS. 



489 



Shall man condemn his race to hell, 
Unless they bend in pompous form ? 

Tell us that all, for one who fell, 
Must perish in the mingling storm ? 

Shall each pretend to reach the skies, 

Yet doom his brother to expire, 
Whose soul a difierent hope supplies, 

Or doctrines less severe inspire ? 

Shall these, by creeds they can't expound, 

Prepare a fancied bliss or woe ? 
Shall reptiles, grovelling on the ground, 

Their great Creator's purpose know ? 

Shall those who live for self alone, 
Whose years float on in daily crime — 

Shall they by Faith for guilt atone. 
And live beyond the bounds of Time ? 

Father ! no prophet's laws I seek, — 
Thy laws in Nature's works appear ; — 

I own myself corrupt and weak. 
Yet will I pray, for thou wilt hear ! 

Thou who canst guide the wandering star 
Through trackless realms of aether's space ; 

Who calm'st the elemental war, 
Whose hand from pole to pole I trace : 

Thou, who in wisdom placed me here, 

Who, when thou wilt, canst take me hence, 

Ah ! whilst I tread this earthly sphere, 
Extend to me thy wide defence. 

To thee, my God, to thee I call ! 

Whatever weal or woe betide, 
By thy command I rise or fall, 

In thy protection I confide. 

If, when this dust to dust's restored, 

My soul shall float on airy wing, 
How shall thy glorious name adored 

Inspire her feeble voice to sing ! 

But, if this fleeting spirit share 
With clay the grave's eternal bed. 

While life yet throbs, I raise my prayer, 
Though doom'd no more to quit the dead. 

To thee I breathe my humble strain, 

Grateful for all thy mercies past, 
And hope, my God, to thee again 

This erring life may fly at last. 

Dec. 29, 1806. [First published, 1830.] 



1 This young gentleman, who was with Lord Byron both 
at Harrow and Cambridge, afterwards entered the Guards, 
and served with distinction in the expedition to Copenhagen. 
He was drowned early in 1809, when on his way to join the 
army in the Peninsula; the transport in which he sailed 
being run foul of in the night by another of the convoy. 



TO EDWARD NOEL LONG, ESQ.i 

Nil ego contulerim jocundo sanus amico. — HoK. 

Dear Long, in this sequester'd scene, 

While all around in slumber lie. 
The joyous days which ours have been 

Come rolling fresh on Fancy's eye ; 
Thus if amidst the gathering storm. 
While clouds the darken'd noon deform, 
Yon heaven assumes a varied glow, 
I hail the sky's celestial bow, 
Which spreads the sign of future peace, 
And bids the war of tempests cease. 
Ah ! though the present brings but pain, 
I think those days may come again ; 
Or if, in melancholy mood. 
Some lurking envious fear intrude. 
To check my bosom's fondest thought, 

And interrupt the golden dream, 
I crush the fiend with malice fraught, 

And still indulge my wonted theme. 
Although we ne'er again can trace. 

In Granta's vale, the pedant's lore ; 
Nor through the groves of Ida chase 

Our raptured visions as before. 
Though Youth has flown on rosy pinion, 
And Manhood claims his stern dominion, 
Age will not every hope destroy. 
But yield some hours of sober joy. 

Yes, I will hope that Time's broad wing 
Will shed around some dews of spring : 
But if his scythe must sweep the flowers 
Which bloom among the fairy bowers. 
Where smiling Youth delights to dwell. 
And hearts with early rapture swell ; 
If frowning Age, with cold control, 
Confines the current of the soul, 
Congeals the tear of Pity's eye, 
Or checks the sympathetic sigh. 
Or hears unmoved misfortune's groan, 
And bids me feel for self alone ; 
Oh ! may my bosom never learn 

To soothe its wonted heedless flow 
Still, still despise the censor stern. 

But ne'er forget another's woe. 
Yes, as you knew me in the days 
O'er which Remembrance yet delays, 
Still may I rove, untutor'd, wild, 
And even in age at heart a child. 

Though now on airy visions borne. 
To you my soul is still the same. 



" Long's father," says Lord Byron, " wrote to me to write his 
son's epitaph. I promised— but I had not the heart to com- 
plete it. He was such a good, amiable being as rarely remains 
long in this world ; with talent and accomplishments, too, to 
make him the more regretted."— 2?y^on Diary, 1821. 



490 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Oft has it been my fate to mourn, 

And all my former joys are tame. 
But, hence ! ye hours of sable hue ! 

Your frowns are gone, my sorrows o'er : 
By every bliss my childhood knew, 

I'll think upon your shade no more. 
Thus, when the whirlwind's rage is past, 

And caves their sullen roar enclose, 
We heed no more the wintry blast. 

When lull'd by zephyr to repose. 

Full often has my infant Muse 

Attuned to love her languid lyre ; 
But now without a theme to choose, 

The strains in stolen sighs expire. 
My youthful nymphs, alas ! are flown ; 

E is a wife, and C a mother, 

And Carolina sighs alone. 

And Mary's given to another ; 
And Cora's eye, which roll'd on me, 

Can now no more my love recall : 
In truth, dear Long, 'twas time to flee ; 

For Cora's eye will shine on all. 
And though the sun, with genial rays, 
His beams alike to all displays, 
And every lady's eye's a sun, 
These last should be confined to one. 
The soul's meridian don't become her, 
Whose sun displays a general summer I 
Thus faint is every former flame. 
And passion's self is now a name. 
As, when the ebbing flames are low, 

The aid which once improved their light, 
And bade them burn with fiercer glow, 
* Now quenches all their sparks in night ; 
Thus has it been with passion's fires. 

As many a boy and girl remembers, , 
While all the force of love expires, 

Extinguish'd with the dying embers. 

But now, dear Long, 'tis midnight's noon, 
And clouds obscure the watery moon, 
Whose beauties I shall not rehearse. 
Described in every stripling's verse ; 
For why should I the path go o'er. 
Which every bard has trod before ? 
Yet ere yon silver lamp of night 

Has thrice perform'd her stated round, 
Has thrice retraced her path of light, 

And chased away the gloom profound, 
I trust that we, my gentle friend. 
Shall see her rolling orbit wend 
Above the dear-loved peaceful seat 
Which once contain'd our youth's retreat ; ^ 



1 The two friends were botli passionately attached to Har- 
row; and sometimes made excursions thither together, to 
revive their school-boy recollections, 

2 Mrs. Musters. See ante, p. 454. 

3 " Our union would have healed feuds in which blood had 



And then with those our childhood knew, 
We'll mingle in the festive crew ; 
While many a tale of former day 
Shall wing the laughing hours away. 
And all the flow of souls shall pour 
The sacred intellectual shower. 
Nor cease till Luna's waning horn 
Scarce glimmers through the mist of morn. 



TO A LADY.2 

Oh ! had my fate been join'd with thine, 
As once this pledge appear'd a token, 

These follies had not then been mine, 
For then my peace had not been broken.* 

To-thee these early faults I owe. 

To thee, the wise and old reproving : 

They know my sins, but do not know 
'Twas thine to break the bonds of loving. 

For once my soul, like thine, was pure, 
And all its rising fires could smother ; 

But now thy vows no more endure. 
Bestow' d by thee upon another. 

Perhaps his peace I could destroy, 
And spoil the blisses that await him ; 

Yet let my rival smile in joy. 
For thy dear sake I cannot hate him. 

Ah ! since thy angel form is gone. 
My heart no more can rest with any ; 

But what it sought in thee alone. 
Attempts, alas ! to find in many. 

Then fare thee well, deceitful maid ! 

'Twere vain and fruitless to regret thee ; 
Nor Hope nor Memory yield their aid. 

But Pride may teach me to forget thee. 

Yet all this giddy waste of years. 
This tiresome round of palling pleasures ; 
hese varied loves, these matron's fears, 
These thoughtless strains to passion's measures — • 

If thou wert mine, had all been hush'd : — 
This cheek, now pale from early riot. 

With passion's hectic ne'er had flush'd. 
But bloom'd in calm domestic quiet. 



been shed by our fathers — it would have joined lands broad 
and rich— it would have joined at least one heart, and two 
persons not ill matched in years (she is two years my elder), 
and — and — and — what has been the result ?"—^2'ro7i Diary, 
1821. 



HOUKS OF IDLENESS. 



491 



Yes, once the rural scene was sweet, 
For Nature seem'd to smile before thee ; ^ 

And once my breast abhorr'd deceit, — 
For then it beat but to adore thee. 

But now I seek for other joys : 

To think would drive my soul to madness ' 
In thoughtless throngs and empty noise, 

I conquer half my bosom's sadness. 

Yet even in these a thought will steal, 
In spite of every vain endeavor, — 

And fiends might pity what I feel, — 
To know that thou art lost for ever. 



I WOULD I WERE A CARELESS CHILD. 

I WOULD I were a careless child, 

Still dwelling in my Highland cave, 
Or roaming through the dusky wild, 

Or bounding o'er the dark-blue wave ; 
The cumbrous pomp of Saxon ^ pride 

Accords not with the freeborn soul. 
Which loves the mountain's craggy side. 

And seeks the rocks where billows roll. 

Fortune 1 take back these cultured lands, 

Take back this name of splendid sound ! 
I hate the touch of servile hands, 

I hate the slaves that cringe around. 
Place me along the rocks I love. 

Which sound to Ocean's wildest roar ; 
I ask but this — again to rove 

Through scenes my youth hath known before. 

Few are my years, and yet I feel 
The world was ne'er design'd for me : 

Ah ! why do dark'ning shades conceal 
The hour when man must cease to be ? 



^ "Our meetings," says Lord Byron, in 1822, "were stolen 
ones, and a gate leading from Mr. Chaworth's grounds to 
those of my mother was the place of our interviews. But 
the ardor was all on my side. I was serious ; she was volatile : 
she liked me as a younger brother, and treated and laughed 
at me as a boy ; she, however, gave me her picture, and that 
waa something to make verses upon. Had I married her, per- 
haps the whole tenor of my life would have been different." 

2 Sassenach, or Saxon, a Gaelic word, signifying either 
Lowland or English. 

' "The 'imagination all compact,' which the greatest poet 
who ever lived has assigned as the distinguishing badge of his 
brethren, is in every case a dangerous gift. It exaggerates, 
indeed, our expectations, and can often bid its possessor hope, 
where hope is lost to reason : but the delusive pleasure arising 
from these visions of imagination resembles that of a child, 
whose notice is attracted by a fragment of glass to which a 
sunbeam has given momentary splendor. He hastens to the 
spot with breathless impatience, and finds the object of his 
curiosity and exfKjctation is equally vulgar and worthless. 
Such is the man of quick and exalted powers of imagination. 



Once I beheld a splendid dream, 

A visionary scene of bliss : 
Truth I — wherefore did thy hated beam 

Awake me to a world like this ? 

I loved — but those I loved are gone ; 

Had friends — my early friends are fled : 

ow cheerless feels the heart alone, 

When all its former hopes are dead I 
Though gay companions o'er the bowl 

Dispel awhile the sense of ill ; 
Though pleasure stirs the maddening soul, 

The heart — the heart — is lonely still.^ 

How dull ! to hear the voice of those 

Whom rank or chance, whom wealth or power, 
Have made, though neither friends nor foes, 

Associates of the festive hour. 
Give me again a faithful few, 

In years and feelings still the same, 
And I will fly the midnight crew, 

Where boist'rous joy is but a name. 

And woman, lovely woman ! thou. 

My hope, my comforter, my all ! 
How cold must be my bosom now. 

When e'en thy smiles begin to pall I 
Without a sigh would I resign 

This busy scene of splendid woe. 
To make that calm contentment mine, 

Which virtue knows, or seems to know. 

Fain would I fly the haunts of men — 

I seek to shun, not hate mankind ; 
My breast requires the sullen glen. 

Whose gloom may suit a darken'd mind. 
Oh ! that to me the wings were given 

Which bear the turtle to her nest ! 
Then would I cleave the vault of heaven, 

To flee away, and be at rest.* 



His fancy overestimates the object of his wishes, and pleas- 
ure, fame, distinction, are alternately pursued, attained, and 
despised when in his power. Like the enchanted fruit in the 
palace of the sorcerer, the objectsrof his admiration lose their 
attraction and value as soon as they are grasped by the adven- 
turer's hand, and all that remains is regret for the time lost 
in the chase, and astonishment at the hallucination under 
which it was undertaken. The disproportion between hope 
and possession, which is felt by all men, is thus doubled to 
those whom nature has endowed with the power of gilding 
a distant prospect by the rays of imagination. These reflec- 
tions, though trite and obvious, are in a manner forced 
from us by the poetry of Lord Byron, — by the sentiments 
of weariness of life and enmity with the world which they 
so frequently express, — and by the singular analogy which 
such sentiments hold with well-known incidents of his life." 
—Sir Waltkr Scott. 

* "And I said. Oh ! that I had wings like a dove; for then 
would I fly away, and be at rest."— Psalm Iv. 6. This verse 
also constitutes a part of the most beautiful anthem in our 
language. 



492 



J 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



WHEN I EOVED A YOUNG HIGHLANDER. 

When I roved a young Highlander o'er the dark 
heath 

And climb'd thy steep summit, oh, Morven of snow ! i 
To gaze on the torrent that thunder'd beneath, 

Or the mist of the tempest that gather'd belo'W,^ 
Untutor'd by science, a stranger to fear, 

And rude as the rocks where my infancy grew, 
No feeling, save one, to my bosom was dear ; 

Need I say, my sweet Mary,^ 'twas centred in you ? 

Yet it could not be love, for I knew not the name, — 

What passion can dwell in the heart of a child ? 
But still I perceive an emotion the same 

As I felt, when a boy, on the crag-cover'd wild : 
One image alone on my bosom impress'd, 

I loved my bleak regions, nor panted for new ; 
And few were my wants, for my wishes were bless'd ; 

And pure were my thoughts, for my soul was with 
you. 

I arose with the dawn ; with my dog as my guide. 

From mountain to mountain I bounded along ; 
I breasted the billows of Dee's* rushing tide. 

And heard at a distance the Highlander's song : 
At eve, on my heath-cover' d couch of repose, 

No dreams, save of Mary, were spread to my view ; 
And warm to the skies my devotions arose, 

For the first of my prayers was a blessing on you. 



1 Morven, a lofty mountain in Aberdeenshire. "Gormal 
of snow," is an expression frequently to be found in Ossian. 

2 This will not appear extraordinary to those who have 
been accustomed to the mountains. It is by no means un- 
comm.on, on attaining the top of Ben Nevis, Ben-y-bourd, &c., 
to perceive, between the summit and the valley, clouds pour- 
ing down rain, and occasionally accompanied by lightning, 
while the spectator literally looks down upon the storm, 
perfectly secure from its effects. 

3 In Lord Byron's Diary for 1813, he says, — " I have been 
thinking lately a good deal of Mary Duff. How very odd 
that I should have been so utterly, devotedly fond of that 
girl, at an age when I could neither feel passion, nor know 
the meaning of the word. And the effect ! My mother used 
always to rally me about this childish amour ; and, at last, 
many years after, when I was sixteen, she told me one day, 
' Oh, Byron, I have had a letter from Edinburgh, from Miss 
Abercromby, and your old sweetheart, Mary Duff, is married 
to a Mr. Cockburn.' [Robert Cockburn, Esq., of Edinburgh.] 
And what was my answer? I really cannot explain or ac- 
count for my feelings at that moment ; but they nearly threw 
me into convulsions — to the horror of my mother, and the 
astonishment of every body. And it is a phenomenon in my 
existence (for I was not eight years old), which has puzzled, 
and will puzzle me to the latest hour of it." — Again, in Jan- 
uary, 1815, a few days after his marriage, in a letter to his 
friend Captain Hay, the poet thus speaks of his childish 
attachment :— " Pray tell me more— or as much as you like, 
of your cousin Mary. I believe I told you our story some 
years ago. I was twenty-seven a few days ago, and I have 
never seen her since we were children, and young children 
too ; but I never forget her, nor ever can. You will oblige 
me with presenting her with my best respects, and all good 



I left my bleak home, and my visions are gone ; 

The mountains are vanish'd, my youth is no more ; 
As the last of my race, I must wither alone. 

And delight but in days I have witness'd before : 
Ah ! splendor has raised but embitter'd my lot ; 

More dear were the scenes which my infancy knew : 
Though my hopes may have fail'd, yet they are not 
forgot; 

Though cold is my heart, still it lingers with you. 

When I see some dark hill point its crest to the sky, 

I think of the rocks that o'ershadow Colbleen;* 
When I see the soft blue of a love-speaking eye, 

I think of those eyes that endear'd the rude 
scene ; 
When, haply, some light-waving locks I behold. 

That faintly resemble my Mary's in hue, 
I think on the long flowing ringlets of gold. 

The locks that were sacred to beauty, and you. 

Yet the day may arrive when the mountains once 
more 
Shall rise to my sight in their mantles of sno-w :* 
But while these soar above me, unchanged as before, 

Will Mary be there to receive me ? — ah, no ! 
Adieu, then, ye hills, where my childhood was bred ! 
■^^Thou sweet flowing Dee, to thy waters adieu ! 
No home in the forest shall shelter my head, — 
Ah ! Mary, what home could be mine but with 
you? 



wishes. It may seem ridiculous — but it is at any rate, I hope, 
not offensive to her nor hers — in me to pretend to recollect 
anything about her, at so early a period of both our lives, 
almost, if not quite, in our nurseries ;— but it was a pleasant 
dream, which she must pardon me for remembering. Is she 
pretty still? I have the most perfect idea of her person, as 
a child ; but Time, I suppose, has played the devil with us 
both." 

* " Breasting the lofty surge." — Shakspeaee. The Dee is 
a beautiful river, which rises near Mar Lodge, and falls into 
the sea at New Aberdeen. 

6 Colbleen is a mountain near the verge of the Highlands, 
not far from the ruins of Dee Castle. 

6 In the spring of 1807, on recovering from a severe illness. 
Lord Byron had projected a visit to Scotland. The plan was 
not put into execution ; but he thus adverts to it, in a letter 
dated in August, and addressed to his fair correspondent 
of Southwell : — " On Sunday I set off for the Highlands. A 
friend of mine accompanies me in my carriage to Edinburgh, 
There we shall leave it, and proceed in a tandem through the 
western parts to Inverary, where we shall purchase shelties, 
to enable us to view places inaccessible to vehicular convey- 
ances. On the coast we shall, hire a vessel, and visit the 
most remarkable of the Hebrides, and, if we have time and 
favorable weather, mean to sail as far as Iceland, only three 
hundred miles from the northern extremity of Caledonia, to 
peep at Hecla. I mean to collect all the Erse traditions, 
poems, &c., &c., and translate, or expand the subject to fill 
a volume, which may appear next spring, under the denomi- 
nation of ' The Highland Harp,^ or some title eqyx&Wj pictur- 
esque. What would you say to some stanzas on Mount Hecla? 
They would be written at least withj^re." 



HOURS OF IDLENESS. 



493 



TO GEORGE, EARL DELAWARR.i 

Oh ! yes, I will own we were dear to each other ; 

The friendships of childhood, though fleeting, are 
true; 
The love wliich you felt was the love of a brother. 

Nor less the alVection I cherish'd for you. 

But Friendship can vary her gentle dominion ; 

The attachment of years in a moment expires : 
Like Love, too, she moves on a swift-waving pinion, 

But glows not, like Love, with unquenchable fires. 

Full oft have we wander'd through Ida together. 
And blest were the scenes of our youth, I allow : 

In the spring of our life, how serene is the weather ! 
But winter's rude tempests are gathering now. 

No more with affection shall memory blending. 
The wonted delights of our childhood retrace : 

When pride steels the bosom, the heart is unbending. 
And what would be justice appears a disgrace. 

However, dear George, for I still must esteem you — 
The few whom I love I can never upbraid — 

The chance which has lost may in future redeem you, 
Repentaiice will cancel the vow you have made. 

I will not complain, and though chilPd is affection. 
With me no corroding resentment shall live : 

My bosom is calm'd by the simple reflection, [give. 
That both may be wrong, and that both should for- 

You knew that my soul, that my heart, my existence, 
If danger demanded, were wholly your own ; 

You knew me unalter'd by years or by distance, 
Devoted to love and to friendship alone. 

You knew, — but away with the vain retrospection ! 

The bond of affection no longer endures ; 
Too late you may droop o'er the fond recollection, 

And sigh for the friend who was formerly yours 

For the present, we part, — I will hope not for ever • 
For time and regret will restore you at last : 

To forget our dissension we both should endeavor, 
I a.sk no atonement, but days like the past. 



TO THE EARL OF CLARE. 

" Tu semper amoris 
Sismemor, et cari coraitis ne abscedat Imago."— Val. Flag. 

Feiend of my youth ! when young we roved 
Like striplings, mutually beloved. 
With friendship's purest glow. 



I See ante, p. 482. 

' These stanzas were written soon after the appearance of 
a severe critique, in a northern review, on a new publication 



The bliss which wing'd those rosy hours 
Was such as pleasure seldom showers 
On mortals here below. 

The recollection seems alone 
Dearer than all the joys I've known, 

When distant far from you : 
Though pain, 'tis still a pleasing pain, 
To trace those days and hours again, 

And sigh again, adieu ! 

My pensive memory lingers o'er 
Those scenes to be enjoy'd no more, 

Those scenes regretted ever ; 
The measure of our youth is full, 
Life's evening dream is dark and dull. 

And we may meet — ah, never ! 

As when one parent spring supplies 

Two streams which from one fountain rise, 

Together join'd in vain ; 
How soon, diverging from their source, 
Each, murmuring, seeks another course, 

Till mingled in the main ! 

Our vital streams of weal or woe. 
Though near, alas ! distinctly flow. 

Nor mingle as before : 
Now swift or slow, now black or clear, 
Till death's unfathom'd gulf appear. 

And both shall quit the shore. 

Our souls, my friend ! which once supplied 
One wish, nor breathed a thought beside, 

Now flow in different channels : 
Disdaining humbler rural sports, 
'Tis yours to mix in polish'd courts. 

And shine in fashion's annals; 

'Tis mine to waste on love my time, 
Or vent my reveries in rhyme. 

Without the aid of reason ; 
For sense and reason (critics know it) 
Have quitted every amorous poet. 

Nor left a thought to seize on. 

Poor Little ! sweet, melodious bard ! 
Of late esteem'd it monstrous hard 

That he, who sang before all, — 
He who the lore of love expanded, — 
By dire reviewers should be branded. 

As void of wit and moral. '^ 

And yet, while Beauty's praise is thine, 
Harmonious favorite of the Nine ! 
Repine not at thy lot. 



of the British Anacreon. — See Edinburgh Review, July, 1807, 
article on "Epistles, Odes, and other Poems, by Thomas 
Little, Esq." 



494 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Thy soothing lays may still be read. 
When Persecution's arm is dead, 
And critics are forgot. 

Still I must yield those worthies merit, 
Who chasten, with unsparing spirit, 

Bad rhymes, and those who write them ; 
And though myself may be the next, 
By critic sarcasm to be vext, 

I really will not fight them.^ 

Perhaps they would do quite as well 
To break the rudely sounding shell 

Of such a young beginner : 
He who offends at pert nineteen, 
Ere thirty may become, I ween, 

A very harden'd sinner. 

Now, Clare, I must return to you ; 
And, sure, apologies are due : 

Accept, then, my concession. 
In truth, dear Clare, in fancy's flight 
I soar along from left to right ; 

My muse admires digression. 

I think I said 'twould be your fate 
To add one star to royal state ; — 

May regal smiles attend you ! 
And should a noble monarch reign, 
You will not seek his smiles in vain, 

If worth can recommend you. 

Yet since in danger courts abound. 
Where specious rivals glitter round, 

From snares may saints preserve you ; 
And grant your love or friendship ne'er 
From any claim a kindred care, 

But those who best deserve you ! 

Not for a moment may you stray 
From truth's secure, unerring way ! 

May no delights decoy ! 
O'er roses may your footsteps move, 
Your smiles be ever smiles of love, 

Your tears be tears of joy ! 

Oh ! if you wish that happiness 
Your coming days and years may bless. 
And virtues crown your brow ; 

1 A bard [Moore] (horresco referens) defied his reviewer 
[Jeffrey] to mortal combat. If this example becomes preva- 
lent, our periodical censors must be dipped in the river 
Styx : for what else can secure them from the numerous 
host of their enraged assailants ? 

2 " Of all I have ever known, Clare has always been the 
least altered in every thing from the excellent qualities and 
kind affections which attached me to him so strongly at 
school. I should hardly have thought it possible for society 
(or the world, as it is called) to leave a being with so little of 
the leaven of bad passions. I do not speak from personal 
experience only, but from all I have ever heard of him 



Be still as you were wont to be. 
Spotless as you've been known to me, — 
Be still as you are now,'^ 

And though some trifling share of praise, 
To cheer my last declining days. 

To me were doubly dear , 
Whilst blessing your beloved name, 
I'd waive at once a poefs fame, 

To prove a prophet here. 



LINES WRITTEN BENEATH AN ELM IN THE 
CHURCHYARD OF HARR0W.3 

Spot of my youth ! whose hoary branches sigh. 
Swept by the breeze that fans thy cloudless sky ; 
Where now alone I muse, who oft have trod, 
With those I loved, thy soft and verdant sod ; 
With those who, scatter'd far, perchance deplore, 
Like me, the happy scenes they knew before : 
Oh ! as I trace again thy winding hill, 
Mine eyes admire, my heart adores thee still, 
Thou drooping Elm ! beneath whose boughs I lay, 
And frequent mused the twilight hours away ; 
Where, as they once were wont, my limbs recline, 
But, ah! without the thoughts which then were 

mine: 
How do thy branches, moaning to the blast, 
Invite the bosom to recall the past. 
And seem to whisper, as they gently swell, 
" Take, while thou canst, a lingering, last farewell !" 

When fate shall chill, at length, this fever'd breast. 
And calm its cares and passions into rest. 
Oft have I thought, 'twould soothe my dying hoiir, — 
If aught may soothe when life resigns her power, — 
To know some humbler grave, some narrow cell, 
Would hide my bosom where it loved to dwell ; 
With this fond dream, methinks, 'twere sweet to 

die — 
And here it linger'd, here my heart might lie ; 
Here might I sleep where all my hopes arose. 
Scene of my youth, and couch of my repose ; 
For ever stretch'd beneath this mantling shade, 
Press'd by the turf where once my childhood play'd ; 

from others, during absence and distance." — Byron Diary, 
1821. 

3 On losing his natural daughter, AUegra, in April, 1822, 
Lord Byron sent her remains to be buried at Harrow, 
"where," he says, in a letter to Mr. Murray, "I once hoped 
to have laid my own." " There is," he adds, " a spot in the 
church-yard, near the footpath, on the brow of the hill looking 
towards Windsor, and a tomb under a large tree (bearing the 
name of Peachie, or Peachey), where I used to sit for hours 
and hours when a boy. This was my favorite spot ; but aa 
I wish to erect a tablet to her memory, the body had better be 
deposited in the church;" — and it was so accordingly. 



IIOUKS OF IDLENESS. 



495 



Wrapt by the soil that veils the spot I loved, 
Mix'd with the earth o'er which my footsteps moved; 
Blest by the tongues that charm'd my youthful ear, 
Mourn'd by the few my soul acknowledged here ; 
Deplored by those in early days allied. 
And unremember'd by the world beside. 

September 2, 1S07. 



[TTie " Lines written beneath an Elm at Harrow" were the last 
in the little volume printed at Kewark in 1807. The reader is 
referred to Mr. Moore's Notices, for varioxis interesting partic- 
ulars respecting the impression produced on Lord Byron's mind 
by the celebrated critique of his juvenile performances put forth 
in the Edinburgh Hevieic, — a journal tchich at thai time possessed 
nearly undivided influence atid authority. Thepoefs diaries and 
letters afford evidence that, in his latter days, he considered this 
piece as the work of Mr. {now Lord) Brougham; biU on what 
grounds he had come to that conclusion he no where mentions. It 
forms, however, from whatever pen it may Tiave proceeded, so 
important a link in Lord Byron^s literary history, that we insert 
it at length.] 

ARTICLE FROM THE EDINBURGH RE^TEW FOR 
JANUARY, 1808. 

Hours qf Idleness; a Series of Poems, original and translated. 
By George Gordon, Lord Byron, a Minor. 8vo. pp. 200. 
Newark, 1807. 

The poesy of this young lord belongs to the class which 
neither gods nor men are said to permit. Indeed, we do not 
recollect to have seen a quantity of verse with so few devia- 
tions in either direction from that exact standard. His effu- 
sions are spread over a dead flat, and can no more get above 
or below the level, than if they were so much stagnant water. 
As an extenuation of this offence, the noble author is pecul- 
iarly forward in pleading minority. We have it in the title- 
page, and on the very back of the volume ; it follows his name 
like a favorite part of his style. Much stress is laid upon it 
in the preface ; and the poems are connected with this gen- 
eral statement of his case, by particular dates, substantiating 
the age at which each was written. Now, the law upon the 
point of minority we hold to be perfectly clear. It is a plea 
available only to the defendant ; no plaintiff can offer it as a 
supplementary ground of action. Thus, if any suit could be 
brought against Lord Byron, for the purpose of compelling 
him to put into court a certain quantity of poetry, and if 
judgment were given against him, it is highly probable that 
an exception would be taken, were he to deliver for poetry 
the contents of this volume. To this he might plead minor- 
ity; but, as he now makes voluntary tender of the article, he 
hath no right to sue, on that ground, for the price in good 
current praise, should the goods be unmarketable. This is 
our view of the law on the point ; and, we dare to say, so will 
it be ruled. Perhaps, however, in reality, all that he tells us 
about his youth is rather with a view to increase our wonder 
than to soften our censures. He possibly means to say, "See 
how a minor can write ! This poem was actually composed 
by a young man of eighteen, and this by one of only six- 
teen I" But, alas ! we all remember the poetry of Cowley at 
ten, and Pope at twelve; and so far from hearing, with any 
degree of surprise, that very poor verses were written by a 
youth from his leaving school to his leaving college, inclu- 
sive, we really bfliove this to be the most common of all 
occurrences; that it happens in the life of nine men in ten 
who are educated in England ; and that the tenth man writes 
better verse than Lord Byron. 

His other plea of privilege our author rather brings for- 
ward in order to waive it. He certainly, however, does alhide 
frequently to his family and ancestors — sometimes in poetry, 



sometimes in notes ; and, while giving up his claim on the 
score of rank, he takes care to remember us of Dr. Johnson's 
saying, that when a nobleman appears as an author, his 
merit should be handsomely acknowledged. In truth, it ig 
this consideration only that induces us to give Lord Byron's 
poems a place in our review, beside our desire to counsel him 
that he do forthwith abandon poetry, and turn his talents, 
which are considerable, and his opportunities, which are 
great, to better account. 

With this view, we must beg leave seriously to assure him 
that the mere rhyming of the final syllable, even when ac- 
companied by the presence of a certain number of feet, — nay, 
although (which does not always happen) those feet should 
scan regularly, and have been all counted accurately upon 
the fingers, — is not the whole art of poetry. We would en- 
treat him to believe that a certain portion of liveliness, some- 
what of fancy, is necessary to constitute a poem, and that a 
poem in the present day, to be read, must contain at least 
one thought, either in a little degree different from the ideas 
of former writers, or differently expressed. We put it to his 
candor, whether there is any thing so deserving the name of 
poetry in verses like the following, written in 1806; and 
whether, if a youth of eighteen could say any thing so unin- 
teresting to his ancestors, a youth of nineteen should pub- 
lish it : — 

" Shades of heroes, farewell ! your descendant, departing 
From the seat of his ancestors, bids you adieu ! 

Abroad or at home, your remembrance imparting 
New courage, he'll think upon glory and you. 

" Though a tear dim his eye at this sad separation, 
'Tis nature, not fear, that excites his regret : 

Far distant he goes, with the same emulation ; 
The fame of his fathers he ne'er can forget. 

" That fame, and that memory, still will he cherish ; 

He vows that he ne'er will disgrace your renown ; 
Like you will he live, or like you will he perish ; 

When decay'd, may he mingle his dust with your own." 

Now, we positively do assert that there is nothing better 
than these stanzas in the whole compass of the noble minor's 
volume. 

Lord Byron should also have a care of attempting what the 
greatest poets have done before him, for comparisons (as he 
must have had occasion to see at his writing-master's) are 
odious. Gray's "Ode on Eton College" should really have 
kept out the ten hobbling stanzas " On a distant View of the 
Village and School of Harrow." 

" Where fancy yet joys to retrace the resemblance 
Of comrades, in friendship and mischief allied. 

How welcome to me your ne'er-fading remembrance. 
Which rests in the bosom, though hope is denied." 

In like manner the exquisite lines of Mr. Rogers, " On a 
Tear," might have warned the noble author off those prem- 
ises, and spared us a whole dozen such stanzas as the fol- 
lowing : — 

"Mild Charity's glow, to us mortals below, 

Shows the soul from barbarity clear ; 
Compassion will melt where this virtue is felt, 

And its dew is diffused in a Tear. 

" The man doom'd to sail with the blast of the gale, 

Through billows Atlantic to steer. 
As he bends o'er the wave which may soon be his grave, 

The green sparkles bright with a Tear." 

And so of instances in which former poets have failed. 



496 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Thus we do not think Lord Byron was made for translating, 
during his nonage, "Adrian's Address to his Soul," when 
Pope succeeded so indifferently in the attempt. If our read- 
ers, however, are of another opinion, they may look at it : — 

" Ah ! gentle, fleeting, wavering sprite, 
Friend and associate of this clay, 

To what unknown region borne 
Wilt thou now wing thy distant flight? 
No more with wonted humor gay. 

But pallid, cheerless, and forlorn." 

However, be this as it may, we fear his translations and 
imitations are great favorites with Lord Byron. We have 
them of all kinds, from Anacreon to Ossian; and, viewing 
them as school exercises, they may pass. Only, why print 
them after they have had their day and served their turn ? 
And why call the thing in p. 79 (see p. 449) a translation, 
where two words (9eA.w Ae-yetv) of the original are expanded 
into four lines, and the other thing in p. 81 (see ibid.), where 
li.e<T0WKTLai<; iroO' tbpais is rendered by means of six hobbling 
verses? As to his Ossianic poesy, we are not very good 
judges, being, in truth, so moderately skilled in that species 
of composition that we should, in all probability, be criticis- 
ing some bit of the genuine Macpherson itself, were we to 
express our opinion of Lord Byron's rhapsodies. If, then, 
the following beginning of a " Song of Bards " is by his lord- 
ship, we venture to object to it, as far as we can comprehend 
it: — "What form rises on the roar of clouds? whose dark 
ghost gleams on the red stream of tempests ? His voice rolls 
on the thunder ; 'tis Orla, the brown chief of Oithona. He 
was," &c. After detaining this "brown chief" some time, 
the bards conclude by giving him their advice to " raise his 
fair locks ;" then to " spread them on the arch of the rain- 
bow," and to "smile through the tears of the storm." Of 
this kind of thing there are no less than nine pages ; and we 
can so far venture an opinion in their favor, that they look 
very like Macpherson; and we are positive that they are 
pretty nearly as stupid and tiresome. 

It is a sort of privilege of poets to be egotists; but they 
should " use it as not abusing it ;" and particularly one who 
piques himself (though indeed at the ripe age of nineteen) 
on being " an infant bard " (" The artless Helicon I boast is 
youth ") should either not know, or should seem not to know, 
so much about his own ancestry. Besides a poem above 
cited, on the family seat of the Byrons, we have another of 
eleven pages, on the self-same subject, introduced with an 
apology, " he certainly had no intention of inserting it," but 
really " the particular request of some friends," &c. &c. It 
concludes with five stanzas on himself, " the last and young- 
est of a noble line." There is a good deal also about his ma- 
ternal ancestors, in a poem on Lachin y Gair, a mountain 
where he spent part of his youth, and might have learnt that 
pibroch is not a bagpipe, any more than duet means a fiddle. 

As the author has dedicated so large a part of his volume 
to immortalize his employments at school and college, we 



* The Monthly Reviewers, In those days the next in circulation to the 
Edinburgh, gave a much more favorable notice of the " Hours of Idleness." 
" These compositions," said they, " are generally of a plaintive or an ama- 
tory cast, with an occasional mixture of satire ; and they display both ease 
and strength— both pathos and fire. It will be expected that marks of 
juvenility and of haste should be discovered in these productions; and we 
seriously advise our young bard to fulfill with submissive perseverance the 
duties of revision and correction. We discern in Lord Byron a degree of 
mental power, and a turn of mental disposition, which render us solicitous 



cannot possibly dismiss it without presenting the reader with 
a specimen of these ingenious effusions. In an ode with a 
Greek motto, called Granta, we have the following magnif- 
icent stanzas : — 

" There, in apartments small and damp, 

The candidate for college prizes 
Sits poring by the midnight lamp, 

Goes late to bed, yet early rises. 

" Who reads false quantities in Scale, 

Or puzzles o'er the deep triangle^ 
Deprived of many a wholesome meal. 

In barbarous Latin doom'd to wrangle : 

" Renouncing every pleasing page, 

From authors of historic use, 
Preferring to the letter'd sage 

The square of the hypothenuse. 

" Still harmless are these occupations, 
That hurt none but the hapless student, 

Compared with other recreations, 
Which bring together the imprudent." 

We are sorry to hear so bad an account of the college psalm- 
ody as is contained in the following Attic stanzas : — 

" Our choir would scarcely be excused, 

Even as a band of raw beginners; 
All mercy now must be refused 

To such a set of croaking sinners. 

" If David, when his toils were ended, 
Had heard these blockheads sing before him, 

To us his psalms had ne'er descended : 
In furious mood he would have tore 'em !" 

But, whatever judgment may be passed on the poems of 
this noble minor, it seems we must take them as we find 
them, and be content; for they are the last we shall ever 
have from him. He is at best, he says, but an intruder into 
the groves of Parnassus: he never lived in a garret, like 
thorough-bred poets ; and " though he once roved a careless 
mountaineer in the Highlands of Scotland," he has not of 
late enjoyed this advantage. Moreover, he expects no profit 
from his publication ; and, whether it succeeds or not, " it is 
highly improbable, from his situation and pursuits here- 
after," that he should again condescend to become an author. 
Therefore, let us take what we can get, and be thankful. 
What right have we poor devils to be nice? We are well off 
to have got so much from a man of this lord's station, who 
does not live, in a garret, but " has the sway " of Newstead 
Abbey. Again we say, let us be thankful ; and, with honest 
Sancho, bid God bless the giver, nor look the gift horse in 
the mouth.* 



that both should be well cultivated and wisely directed, in his career of life. 
He has received talents, and is accountable for the use of them. "We trust 
that he will render them beneficial to man, and a source of real gratification 
to himself in decliriing age. Then may he properly exclaim with the 
Roman orator, ' non lubet mihi deplorare vitam, quod multi, et ii docti, 
saepe fecerunt; neque me vixisse poenitet: quoniam ita vixi, ut non frustra 
me natum existimem.' " Lord Byron repaid the Edinburgh critique with a 
satire— and became himself a Monthly Reviewer. 



Snglisf) iSartrs antr ^cotcf) Kebtetoers 



A SATIRE. 



" I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew ! 

Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers." — Shakspeare. 

" Such shameless bards we have ; and yet 'tis true, 
There are as mad, abandon'd critics too." — Pope. 



PREFACE.' 

All my friends, learned and unlearned, have urged 
me not to publish this satire with my name. If I 
were to be " turned from the career of my humor by 
quibbles quick, and pajier bullets of the brain," I 
should have complied with their counsel. But I am 
not to be terrified by abuse, or bullied by reviewers, 
with or without arms. I can safely say that I have 
attacked none personally, who did not commence on 
the offensive. An author's works are public property : 
he who purchases may judge, and publish his opinion 
if he pleases ; and the authors I have endeavored to 
commemorate may do by me as I have done by them. 
I dare say they will succeed better in condemning my 
scribblings, than in mending their own. But my 
object is not to prove that I can write well, but, if 
possible, to make others write better. 

As the poem has met with far more success than I 
expected, I have endeavored in this edition to make 
some additions and alterations, to render it more 
worthy of public perusal. 

In the first edition of this satire, published anon- 
ymously, fourteen lines on the subject of Bowles's 
Pope were written by, and inserted at the request of, 
an ingenious friend of mine,^ who has now in the 
press a volume of poetry. In the present edition 
they are erased, and some of my own substituted in 
their stead ; my only reason for this being that which 



> The first edition of this satire, which then began with 
what is now the ninoty-seventh line (" Time was, ere yet," 
Ac.), appeared in March, 1809. A second, to which the author 
prefixed his name, followed in October of that year ; and a 
third and fourth were called for during his first pilgrimarje, 
in 1810 and 1811. On his return to England a fifth edition 
was prepared for the press by himself, with considerable care, 
but suppressetl, and, except one copy, destroyed, when on the 
eve of publication. The text is now printed from the copy 
that escaped ; on casually meeting with which, in 1816, he 
reperused the whole, and wrote on the margin some annota- 
tions, which also we shall preserve,— distinguishing them, by 
the insertion of their dates, from those aflRxed to the prior 
32 



I conceive would operate with any other person in 
the same manner, — a determination not to publish 
with my name any production which was not entirely 
and exclusively my own composition. 

With* regard to the real talents of many of the 
poetical persons whose performances are mentioned 
or alluded to in the following pages, it is presumed 
by the author that there can be little difiierence of 
opinion in the public at large; though, like other 
sectaries, each has his separate tabernacle of prose- 
lytes, by whom his abilities are overrated, his faults 
overlooked, and his metrical canons received with- 
out scruple and without consideration. But the 
unquestionable possession of considerable genius by 
several of the writers here censured renders their 
mental prostitution more to be regretted. Imbecility 
may be pitied, or, at worst, laughed at and forgotten : 
perverted powers demand the most decided reprehen- 
sion. No one can wish more than the author that 
some known and able writer had undertaken tlieir 
exposure; but Mr. GiiFord has devoted himself to 
Massinger, and, in the absence of the regular phy- 
sician, a country practitioner may, in cases of abso- 
lute necessity, be allowed to prescribe his nostrum to 
prevent the extension of so deplorable an epidemic, 
provided there be no quackery in his treatment of 
the malady. A caustic is here offered ; as it is to 
be feared nothing short of actual cautery can re- 
cover the numerous patients afflicted with the present 



editions. The first of these MS. notes of 1816 appears on the 
fly-leaf, and runs thus :— " The binding of this volume is con- 
siderably too valuable for the contents ; and nothing but the 
consideration of its being the property of another prevents 
me from consigning this miserable record of misplaced anger 
and indiscriminate acrimony to the flames." 

2 "This preface was written for the second edition, and 
printed with it. The noble author had left this country 
previous to the publication of that edition, and is not yet 
returned."— iVb/e to the fourth edition, 1811.—" He is, and gone 
again."— Zvord B., 1816. 

3 Mr. Hobhouse. See post, p. 504, note. 

♦ Here the preface to the first edition commenced. 

( 497 ) 



498 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



prevalent and distressing rabies for rhyming. — As to 
the Edinburgh Reviewers/ it would indeed require an 
Hercules to crush the Hydra ; but if the author suc- 
ceeds in merely "bruising one of the heads of the 
serpent," though his own hand should suffer in the 
encounter, he will be amply satisfied.^ 



iSnflli!5i) iSartJjs, ^c» 



Still must I hear?^ — shall hoarse Fitzgerald* bawl 
His creaking couplets in a tavern hall,^ 
And I not sing, lest, haply, Scotch reviews 
Should dub me scribbler, and denounce my muse ? 
Prepare for rhyme — I'll publish, right or wrong : 
Fools are my theme, let satire be my song. 

Oh ! nature's noblest gift — my gray goose-quill ! 
Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will, 
Torn from thy parent bird to form a pen, 
That mighty instrument of little men ! 



1 "I well recollect," said Lord Byron, in 1821, "the effect 
which the critique of the Edinburgh Reviewers on my first 
poem, had upon me — it was rage and resistance, and redress ; 
but not despondency nor despair. A savage review is 
hemlock to a sucking author, and the one on me (which pro- 
duced the English Bards, &c.) knocked me down — ^but I got 
up again. That critique was a masterpiece of low wit, a 
tissue of scurrilous abuse. I remember there was a great 
deal of vulgar trash, about people being ' thankful for what 
they could get,' — ' not looking a gift horse in the mouth,' and 
such stable expressions. But so far from their bullying me, 
or deterring me from writing, I was bent on falsifying their 
raven predictions, and determined to show them, croak as 
they would, that it was not the last time they should hear 
from me." 

2 " The severity of the criticism," as Sir Egerton Brydges 
has well observed, " touched Lord Byron in the point where 
his original strength lay : it wounded his pride, and roused 
his bitter indignation. He published 'English Bards and 
Scotch Reviewers,' and bowed down those who had hitherto 
held a despotic victory over the public mind. There was, 
after all, more in the boldness of the enterprise, in the fear- 
lessness of the attack, than in its intrinsic force. But the 
moral effect of the gallantry of the assault, and of the justice 
of the cause, made it victorious and triumphant. This was 
one of those lucky developments which cannot often occur ; 
and which fixed Lord Byron's fame. From that day he 
engaged the public notice as a writer of undoubted talent 
and energy both of intellect and temper." 

3 Imit.— 

"Semper ego auditor tantura? nunquamne reponam, 
Vexatus toties rauci Theseide Codri ?" — Juv. Sat. I. 

* "Hoarse Fitzgerald." — "Bight enough; but why notice 
such a mountebank ?" — Byron, 1816. 

6 Mr. Fitzgerald, facetiously termed by Cobbett the " Small 
Beer Poet," inflicts his annual tribute of verse on the Lit- 
erary Fund : not content with writing, he spouts in person, 
after the company have imbibed a reasonable quantity of 
bad port, to enable them to sustain the operation. — For the 
long period of thirty-two years, this harmless poetaster was 



The pen ! foredoom'd to aid the mental throes 
Of brains that labor, big with verse or prose. 
Though nymphs forsake, and critics may deride, 
The lover's solace, and the author's pride. 
What wits, what poets dost thou daily raise ! 
How frequent is thy use, how small thy praise ! 
Condemn'd at length to be forgotten quite. 
With all the pages which 'twas thine to write. 
But thou, at least, mine own especial pen ! 
Once laid aside, but now assumed again. 
Our task complete, lilce Hamet's^ shall be free; 
Though spurn'd by others, yet beloved by me : 
Then let us soar to-day ; no common theme. 
No eastern vision, no distemper'd dream '^ 
Inspires — our path, though full of thorns, is plain; 
Smooth be the verse, and easy be the strain. 

When Vice triumphant holds her sov'reign sway, 
Obey'd by all who nought beside obey ; 
When Folly, frequent harbinger of crime. 
Bedecks her cap with bells of every clime ; 
When knaves and fools combined o'er all prevail, 
And weigh their justice in a golden scale ; 
E'en then the boldest start from public sneers. 
Afraid of shame, unknown to other fears. 



an attendant at the anniversary dinners of the Literary 
Fund, and constantly honored the occasion with an ode, 
which he himself recited with most comical dignity of em- 
phasis. He was fortunate in having for his patron Viscount 
Dudley and Ward, on whose death, without a will, his 
benevolent intentions towards the bard were fulfilled by his 
son, the late Earl Dudley, who generously sent him a draft 
for 5000Z. Fitzgerald died in 1829. Of his numerous loyal 
effusions only a single line has survived its author ; but the 
characteristics of his style have been so happily hit off in 
the "Rejected Addresses" (a work which Lord Byron 
has pronounced to be "by far the best thing of the kind 
since the Rolliad") that we cannot resist the temptation 
of an extract : — 

" Who burnt (confound his soul !) the houses twain, 

Of Covent Garden and of Drury Lane ? 

A\Tio, while the British squadron lay off Cork 

(God bless the Regent and the Duke of York !), 

With a foul earthquake ravaged the Caraccas, 

And raised the price of dry goods and tobaccos? 

Who makes the quartern loaf and Luddites rise? 

Who fills the butchers' shops with large blue flies ? 

Who thought in flames St. James's court to pinch ? 

Who burnt the wardrobe of poor Lady Finch ? — 

Why he, who forging for this isle a yoke, 

Reminds me of a line I lately spoke — 

' The tree of freedom is the British Oak.' 

Bless every man posscss'd of aught to give ! 

Long may Long Tilney Wellesley Long Pole live ! 

God bless the army, bless their coats of scarlet ! 

God bless the navy, bless the Princess Charlotte ! , 

God bless the Guards, though worsted Gallia scoff! 

God bless their pig-tails, thouch they're now cut off! 

And oh ! in Downing Street should Old Nick revel, 

England's prime minister, then bless the Devil !" 
Cid Hamet Benengeli promises repose to his pen, in the 
last chapter of Don Quixote. Oh! that our voluminous 
gentry would follow the example of Cid Hamet Benengeli. 

7 " This must have been written in the spirit of prophecy." 
— B. 1816. 



ENGLISH BAKDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWEKS. 



499 



More darkly sin, by satire kept in awe, 

And shrink from ridicule, though not from law. 

Such is the force of wit ! but not belong 
To me the arrows of satiric song ; 
The royal vices of our age demand 
A keener weapon, and a mightier hand. 
Still there are follies, e'en for me to chase, 
And yield at least amusement in the race : 
Laugh when I laugh, I seek no other fame ; 
The cry is up, and scribblers are my game. 
Speed, Pegasus! — ye strains of great and small, 
Ode, epic, elegy, have at you all ! 
I too can scrawl, and once upon a time 
I pour'd along the town a flood of rhyme, 
A school-boy freak, unworthy praise or blame ; 
I printed — older children do the same. 
'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print; 
A book's a book, although there's nothing in't. 
Not that a title's sounding charm can save 
Or scrawl or scribbler from an equal grave : 
This Lambe must own, since his patrician name 
Fail'd to preserve the spurious farce from shame.^ 
No matter, George continues still to write,^ 
Though now the name is veil'd from public sight. 
Moved by the great example, I pursue 
The self-same road, but make my own review ; 
Not seek great Jeffrey's, yet, like him, will be 
Self-constituted judge of poesy. 

A man must serve his time to ev'ry trade 
Save censure — critics all are ready made. 
Take hackney 'd jokes from Miller, got by rote, 
With just enough of learning to misquote ; 
A mind well skill'd to find or forge a fault ; 
A turn for punning, call it Attic salt; 
To Jeffrey go, be silent and discreet. 
His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet : 



* This ingenuous youth is mentioned more particularly, 
with his production, in another place. 

2 In the E/linburgh Review.— " He's a very good fellow; 
and, except his mother and sister, the best of the set, to my 
mind."— B. 1816. 

' Messrs. Jeffrey and Lambe are the alpha and omega, the 
first and the last of the Edinburgh Review ; the others are 
mentioned hereafter.— " This was not just. Neither the 
heart nor the head of these gentlemen are at all what they 
are here represented. At the time this was written, I was 
personally unacquainted with either." — B. 1816. 

* Imit. "Stulta est Ocmentia, cum tot ubique 

occurras periturae parcere cbartte." — 

Juv. Sat. I. 
5 Imit. "Cur tamen hoc libeat potius decurrere campo 

Per quem magnus equos Auruncee flexit alumnus: 
Si vacat, ct placidi rationem adraittitis, edam." — 

Juv. Sat. I. 

* The first fdition of the satire opened with this line; 
and Lord Bj-ron's original intention was to prefix the 
following— 

" Argument. 
"The poet considereth times past, and their poesy— makes 
a sudden transition to times present — is incensed against 



Fear not to lie, 'twill seem a sharper hit ; 
Shrink not from blasphemy, 'twill pass for wit; 
Care not for feeling — pass your proper jest. 
And stand a critic, hated yet caress'd. 

And shall we own such judgment? no— as soon 
Seek roses in December — ice in June ; 
Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff; 
Believe a woman or an epitaph, 
Or any other thing that's false, before 
You trust in critics, who themselves are sore ; 
Or yield one single thought to be misled 
By Jeffrey's heart, or Lambe's Boeotian head.^ 
To these young tyrants,* by themselves misplaced. 
Combined usurpers on the throne of taste ; 
To these, when authors bend in humble awe, 
And hail their voice as truth, their word as law — 
While these are censors, 'twould be sin to spare ; 
While such are critics, why should I forbear ? 
But yet, so near all modern worthies run, 
'Tis doubtful whom to seek, or whom to shun ; 
Nor know we when to spare, or where to strike. 
Our bards and censors are so much alike. 

Then should you ask me,^ why I venture o'er 
The path which Pope and Gifford trod before; 
If not yet sicken'd, you can still proceed : 
Go on ; my rhyme will tell you as you read. 
" But hold !" exclaims a friend, — " here's some 

neglect : 
This — that — and t'other line seem incorrect." 
What then ? the self-same blunder Pope has got. 
And careless Dryden — " Ay, but Pye has not :" — 
Indeed ! — 'tis granted, faith ! — but what care I ? 
Better to err with Pope, than shine with Pye. 

Time was, ere yet in these degenerate days^ 
Ignoble themes obtain'd mistaken praise, 



book-makers — revileth Walter Scott for cupidity and ballad- 
mongering, with notable remarks on Master Southey — com- 
plaineth that Master Southey hath inflicted three poems, epic 
and otherwise, on the public— inveigheth against William 
Wordsworth, but laudeth Mister Coleridge and his elegy on 
a young ass— is disposed to vituperate Mr. Lewis— and greatly 
rebuketh Thomas Little (the late) and the Lord Strangford— 
recommendeth Mr. Hayley to turn his attention to prose — 
and exhorteth the Moravians to glorify Mr. Grahame — 
sympathizeth with the Row William Bowles— and deploreth 
the melancholy fate of James Montgomery— breaketh out in- 
to invective against the Edinburgh Reviewers— calleth them 
hard names, harpies and the like — apostrophizeth Jeffrey, 
and prophesieth.— Episode of Jeffrey and Moore, their jeop- 
ardy and deliverance ; portents on the morn of the combat ; 
the Tweed, Tolbooth, Frith of Forth, severally shocked; 
descent of a goddess to save Jeffrey ; incorporation of the 
bullets with his sinciput and occiput.— Edinburgh Reviews 
en masse.— 1jOT(1 Aberdeen, Herbert, Scott, Ilallam, Pillans, 
Lambe, Sydney Smith, Brougham, &c.— The Lord Holland 
applauded for dinners and translations.— The Drama; Skeff- 
ington, Hook, Reynolds, Kenney, Cherry, Ac- Sheridan, 
Colman, and Cumberland called upon to write.- Return to 
poesy — scribblers of all sorts — lords sometimes rhyme; much 



500 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



"When sense and wit with poesy allied, 
No fabled graces, flourish'd side by side ; 
From the same fount their inspiration drew, 
And, rear'd by taste, bloom'd fairer as they grew. 
Then, in this happy isle, a Pope's ^ pure strain 
Sought the rapt soul to charm, nor sought in vain ; 
A polish'd nation's praise aspired to claim, 
And raised the people's, as the poet's fame. 
Like him great Dryden pour'd the tide of song, 
In stream less smooth, indeed, yet doubly strong. 
Then Congreve's scenes could cheer, or Otway's melt — 
For nature then an English audience felt. 
But why these names, or greater still, retrace, 
When all to feebler bards resign their place ? 
Yet to such times our lingering looks are cast. 
When taste and reason with those times are past. 
Now look around, and turn each trifling page. 
Survey the precious works that please the age ; 
This truth at least let satire's self allow. 
No dearth of bards can be complain'd of now.^ 
The loaded press beneath her labor groans. 
And printers' devils shake their weary bones ; 
While Southey's epics cram the creaking shelves, 
And Little's lyrics shine in hot-press'd twelves. 
Thus saith the preacher : " Nought beneath the sun 
Is new ;" yet still from change to change we run : 
What varied wonders tempt us as they pass ! 
The cow-pox, tractors, galvanism, and gas. 



better not — Hafiz, Kosa Matilda, and X. Y. Z. — Rogers, 
Campbell, GifFord, &e., true poets— Translators of the Greek 
Antbology — Crabbe — Darwin's style — Cambridge — Seatonian 
Prize — Smy the — Hodgson — Oxford — Richards — Poeta loqui- 
tur — Conclusion," 

1 When Lord Byron, in the autumn of 1808, was occupied 
upon this satire, he devoted a considerable portion of his 
time to a deep study of the writings of Pope ; and from that 
period may be dated his enthusiastic admiration of this great 
poet. 

2 " One of my notions is, that the present is not a high age 
of English poetry. There are more poets (soi-disant) than 
ever there were, and proportionably less poetry. This thesis 
I have maintained for some years; but, strange to say, it 
meeteth not with favor from my brethren of the shell." — 
B. Diary, 1821. 

3 " With regard to poetry in general, I am convinced that 
we are all upon a wrong revolutionary poetical system, not 
worth a damn in itself, and from which none but Rogers and 
Crabbe are free. I am the more confirmed in this by having 
lately gone over some of our classics, particularly Pope, whom 
I tried in this way: — I took Moore's poems and my own, 
and some others, and went over them side by side with Pope's, 
and I was really astonished and mortified at the ineffable 
distance, in point of sense, learning, effect, and even imagin- 
ation, passion, and invention, between the little Queen Anne's 
man, and us of the Lower Empire. Depend upon it, it is all 
Horace then, and Claudian now, among us ; and if I had to 
begin again, I would mould myself accordingly." — B. Diary, 
1817. 

* Stott, better known in the " Morning Post" by the name 
of Hafiz. This personage is at present the most profound 
explorer of the bathos. I remember, when the reigning 
family left Portugal, a special ode of Master Stott's, beginning 
thus : — {Stott loquitur quoad Hibernia.) — 

" Princely offspring of Braganza, 
Erin greets thee with a stanza," &c. 



In turns appear, to make the vulgar stare, 
Till the swoln bubble bursts— and all is air ! 
Nor less new schools of Poetry arise. 
Where dull pretenders grapple for the prize : 
O'er taste awhile these pseudo-bards prevail ; 
Each country book-club bows the knee to Baal, 
And, hurling lawful genius from the throne, 
Erects a shrine and idol of its own ; ^ 
Some leaden calf— but whom it matters not, 
From soaring Southey down to grovelling Stott.* 



Behold ! in various throngs the scribbling crew, 
For notice eager, pass in long review : 
Each spurs his jaded Pegasus apace, 
And rhyme and blank maintain an equal race ; 
Sonnets on sonnets crowd, and ode on ode ; 
And tales of terror jostle on the road ; 
Immeasurable measures move along ; 
For simpering folly loves a varied song, 
To strange mysterious dullness still the friend, 
Admires the strain she cannot comprehend. 
Thus Lays of Minstrels ^ — may they be the last ! — 
On half-strung harps whine mournful to the blast. 
While mountain spirits prate to river sprites. 
That dames may listen to the sound at nights ; 
And goblin brats, of Gilpin Horner's brood, 
Decoy young border-nobles through the wood. 



Also a Sonnet to Rats, well worthy of the subject, and a most 
thundering ode, commencing as follows : — 

" Oh ! for a Lay, loud as the surge 
That lashes Lapland's sounding shore." 

Lord have mercy on us ! the " Lay of the Last Minstrel " was 
nothing to this. 

6 See the " Lay of the Last Minstrel," passim. Never was 
any plan so incongruous and absurd as the groundwork of 
this production. The entrance of Thunder and Lightning, 
prologuizing to Bayes's tragedy, unfortunately takes away the 
merit of originality from the dialogue between Messieurs the 
Spirits of Flood and Fell in the first canto. Then we have 
the amiable William of Deloraine, "a stark moss-trooper," 
videlicet, a happy compound of poacher, sheep-stealcr, and 
highwayman. The propriety of his magical lady's injunc- 
tion not to read can only be equalled by his candid acknowl- 
edgment of his independence of the trammels of spelling, 
although, to use his own elegant phrase, "'twas his neck- 
verse at Hairibee," i. e. the gallows. — The biography of Gilpin 
Horner, and the marvellous pedestrian page, who travelled 
twice as fast as his master's horse, without the aid of seven- 
leagued boots, are chefs-oPoRuvre in the improvement of taste. 
For incident we have the invisible, but by no means sparing 
box on the ear bestowed on the page, and the entrance of a 
knight and charger into the castle, under the very natural 
disguise of a wain of hay. Marmion, the hero of the latter 
romance, is exactly what William of Deloraine would have 
been, had he been able to read and write. The poem was 
manufactured for Messrs. Constable, Murray, and Miller, 
worshipful booksellers, in consideration of the receipt of a 
sum of money ; and truly, considering the inspiration, it is a 
very creditable production. If Mr. Scott will write for hire, 
let him do his best for his paymasters, but not disgrace his 
genius, which is undoubtedly great, by a repetition of black- 
letter ballad imitations. 



ENGLISH BAEDS AND SCOTCH KEVIEWEKS. 



501 



And skip at every step, Lord knows how high, 
And frighten foolish babes, the Lord knows why ; 
While high-born ladies in their magic cell, 
Forbidding knights to read who cannot spell, 
Despatch a courier to a wizard's grave, 
And fight with honest men to shield a knave. 

Next view in state, proud prancing on his roan, 
The golden-crested haughty Marmion, 
Now forging scrolls, now foremost in the fight, 
Not quite a felon, yet but half a knight, 
The gibbet or the field prepared to grace; 
A mighty mixture of the great and base. 
And think'st thou, Scott I^ by vain conceit per- 
chance. 
On public taste to foist thy stale romance. 
Though Murray with his Miller may combine 
To yield thy muse just half-a-crown per line? 
No ! when the sons of song descend to trade, 
Their bays are sere, their former laurels fade. 
Let such forego the poet's sacred name. 
Who rack their brains for lucre,''* not for fame : 
Still for stern Mammon may they toil in vain ! 
And sadly gaze on gold they cannot gain ! 
Such be their meed, such still the just reward 
Of prostituted muse and hireling bard ! 



1 "When Lord Byron wrote his famous satire, I had my 
share of flagellation among my betters. My crime was having 
written a poem for a thousand pounds ; which was no other- 
wise true, than that I sold the copyright for that sum. Now, 
not to mention that an author can hardly be censured for 
accepting such a sura as the booksellers are willing to give 
him, especially as the gentlemen of the trade made no com- 
plaints of their bargain, I thought the interference with my 
private affairs was rather beyond the limits of literary satire. 
I was, however, so far from having any thing to do with the 
oflFensive criticism in the Edinburgh, that I remonstrated 
against it with the editor, because I thought the ' Hours of 
Idleness' treated with undue severity. They were written 
like all juvenile poetry, rather from the recollection of what 
had pleased the author in others, than what had been sug- 
gested by his own imagination ; but nevertheless, I thought 
they contained passages of noble promise." — SiK Walter 
Scott. 

' Lord Byron, as is well known, set out with the determin- 
ation never to receive money for his writings. For the liberty 
to republish this satire, he refused four hundred guineas ; and 
the money paid for the copyright of the first and second 
cantos of Childe Harold, and of the Corsair, he presented to 
Mr. Dallas. In 181(5, to a letter enclosing a draft of 1000 
gnin'^"-^. offered by Mr. Murray for the Siege of Corinth and 
Parisina, the noble poet sent this answer:— "Your oflFer is 
liberal in the extreme, and much more than the two poems 
can possibly be worth— but I cannot accept it, nor will not. 
You are most welcome to them, a.s additions to the collected 
volumes, without any demand or expectation on my part 
whatever. I have enclosfd your draft torn, for fear of acci- 
dents by the way. I wish you would not throw temptation 
in mine ; It is not from a disdain of the universal idol — nor 
from a present superfluity of his treasures — I can assure you, 
that I refuse to worship him ; but what is right, is right, and 
must not yield to circumstances." The poet was afterwards 
induced, at Mr. Murray's earnest persuasion, to accept the 
thousand guineas. The subjoined statement of the sums 



For this we spurn Apollo's venal son, 
And bid a long "good night to Marmion." ' 

These are the themes that claim our plaudits now ; 
These are the bards to whom the muse must bow ; 
While Milton, Dry den, Pope, alike forgot, 
Resign their hallow'd bays to Walter Scott. 

The time has been, when yet the muse was young, 
When Homer swept the lyre, and Maro sung. 
An epic scarce ten centuries could claim, 
While awe-struck nations hail'd the magic name : 
The work of each immortal bard appears 
The single wonder of a thousand years.* 
Empires have moulder'd from the face of earth, 
Tongues have expired with those who gave them birth, 
Without the glory such a strain can give, 
As even in ruin bids the language live. 
Not so with us, though minor bards, content, 
On one great work a life of labor spent : 
With eagle pinion soaring to the skies. 
Behold the ballad-monger Southey rise ! 
To him let Camoens, Milton, Tasso yield, 
W^hose annual strains, like armies, take the field. 
First in the ranks see Joan of Arc advance, 
Tlie scourge of England and the boast of France ! 



paid by him at various times to Lord Byron for copyright 

may be considered a bibliopolic curiosity : — 

Childe Harold, I. II. £ 600 

Childe Harold, III. 1,575 

Childe Harold, IV. 2,100 

Giaour -------- 525 

Bride of Abydos 525 

Corsair -------- 525 

Lara 700 

Siege of Corinth ------ 525 

Parisina -------- 525 

Lament of Tasso ------ 315 

Manfred "- 315 

Beppo 525 

Don Juan, LIL 1,525 

Don Juan, III. IV. V. 1,525 

Doge of Venice ------ 1,050 

Sardanapalus, Cain, and Foscari - - - 1,100 

Mazeppa -------- 525 

Prisoner of Chillon - - - - - 525 

Sundries -------- 450 

Hours of Idleness, English Bards and Scotch ^ 

Keviewers, Hints from Horace.Wemer, De- >■ 3,885 
formed Transformed, Heaven and Earth, &c. J 

Life by Thomas Moore 4,200 

£23,540 



8 "Good night to Marmion"— the pathetic and also pro- 
phetic exclamation of Henry Blount, Esquire, on the death 
of honest Marmion. 

* As the Odyssey is so closely connected with the story of 
the Iliad, they may be almost classed as one grand historical 
poem. In alluding to Milton and Tasso, we consider the 
" Paradise Lost," and " Gerusalemrae Libcrata," as their 
standard efforts ; since neither the " Jerusalem Conquered " 
of the Italian, nor the "Paradise Regained" of the English 
bard, obtained a proportionate celebrity to their former 
poems. Query : Which of Mr. Southey's will survive ? 



502 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Though burnt by wicked Bedford for a witch, 
Behold her statue placed in glory's niche ; 
Her fetters burst, and just released from prison, 
A virgin phoenix from her ashes risen. 
Next see tremendous Thalaba come on,^ 
Arabia's monstrous, wild, and wondrous son ;^ 
Domdaniel's dread destroyer, who o'erthrew 
More mad magicians than the world e'er knew. 
Immortal hero ! all thy foes o'ercome. 
For ever reign — the rival of Tom Thumb ! 
Since startled metre fled before thy face, 
Well wert thou doom'd the last of all thy race ! 
Well might triumphant genii bear thee hence. 
Illustrious conqueror of common sense ! 
Now, last and greatest, Madoc spreads his sails, 
Cacique in Mexico, and prince in Wales ; 
Tells us strange tales, as other travellers do. 
More old than Mandeville's, and not so true. 
Oh, Southey ! Southey ! ^ cease thy varied song ! 
A bard may chant too often and too long : 
As thou art strong in verse, in mercy, spare ! 
A fourth, alas ! were more than we could bear. 
But if, in spite of all the world can say. 
Thou still wilt verseward plod thy weary way ; 
If still in Berkley ballads most uncivil. 
Thou wilt devote old women to the devil,* 
The babe unborn thy dread intent may rue : 
*' God help thee," Southey ,5 and thy readers too.< 

Next comes the dull disciple of thy school, 
That mild apostate from poetic rule, 



1 "Thalaba," Mr. Southey's second poem, is written in 
open defiance of precedent and poetry. Mr. S. wished to pro- 
duce something novel, and succeeded to a miracle. " Joan of 
Arc" was marvellous enough, but "Thalaba" was one of 
those poems " which," in the words of Porson, " will be read 
when Homer and Virgil are forgotten, but — not till then." 

2 " Of Thalaba, the wild and wondrous song." — Madoc. 

8 We beg Mr. Southey's pardon : " Madoc disdains the de- 
grading title of epic." See his preface. Why is epic degraded ? 
and by whom ? Certainly the late romaunts of Masters Cottle, 
Laureate Pye, Ogilvy, Hole, and gentle Mistress Cowley, have 
not exalted the epic muse ; but as Mr. Southey's poem " dis- 
dains the appellation," allow us to ask — has he substituted 
any thing better in its stead ? or must he be content to rival 
Sir Eichard Blackmore in the quantity as well as quality of 
his verse ? 

* See "The Old Woman of Berkley," a ballad, by Mr. 
Southey, wherein an aged gentlewoman is carried away by 
Beelzebub, on a " high-trotting horse." 

5 The last line, " God help thee," is an evident plagiarism 
from the Antijacobin to Mr. Southey, on his Dactylics. — 
Lord Byron here alludes to Mr. Giflford's parody on Mr. 
Southey's Dactylics, which ends thus : — 

" Ne'er talk of ears again ! look at thy spelling-book ; 
Dllworth and Dyche are both mad at thy quantities — 
Dactylics, call'st thou 'em?—' God help thee, silly one.' " 

6 Lord Byron, on being introduced to Mr. Southey in 1813, 
at Holland House, describes him " as the best-looking bard 
he had seen for a long time." — "To have that poet's head 
and shoulders, I would," he says, " almost have written his 
Sapphics. He is certainly a prepossessing person to look on, 
and a man of talent, and all that, and there is his eulogy." 
In his Journal of the same year, he says — " Southey I have 



The simple Wordsworth, framer of a lay 

As soft as evening in his favorite May,'^ 

Who warns his friend "to shake off toil and 

trouble. 
And quit his books, for fear of growing double ;"* 
Who, both by precept and example, shows 
That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose ; 
Convincing all, by demonstration plain, 
Poetic souls delight in prose insane ; 
And Christmas stories tortured into rhyme 
Contain the essence of the true sublime. 
Thus, when he tells the tale of Betty Foy, 
The idiot mother of " an idiot boy ;" 
A moon-struck, silly lad, who lost his way. 
And, like his bard, confounded night with day;* 
So close on each pathetic part he dwells, 
And each adventure so sublimely tells. 
That all who view the " idiot in his glory," 
Conceive the bard the hero of the story. 



Shall gentle Coleridge pass unnoticed here, 
To turgid ode and tumid stanza dear ? 
Though themes of innocence amuse him best. 
Yet still obscurity's a welcome guest. 
If Inspiration should her aid refuse 
To him who takes a pixy for a muse,!® 
Yet none in lofty numbers can surpass 
The bard who soars to elegize an ass. 
So well the subject suits his noble mind, 
He braySjii the laureate of the long-ear' d kind.^^ 



not seen much of. His appearance is epic, and he is the only 
existing entire man of letters. All the others have some 
pursuit annexed to their authorship. His manners are mild, 
but not those of a man of the world, and his talents of the 
first order. His prose is perfect. Of his poetry there are 
various opinions: there is, perhaps, too much of it for the 
present generation— posterity will probably select. He has 
passages equal to any thing. At present, he has a, party, but 
no public — except for his prose writings. His Life of Nelson 
is beautiful." Elsewhere, and later. Lord Byron pronounces 
Southey's Don Eoderick " the first poem of our time." 

7 " Unjust."— B. 1816. 

8 Lyrical Ballads, p. 4.—" The Tables Turned." Stanza 1. 

" Up, up, my friend, and clear your looks ; 

Why all this toil and trouble ? 
Up, up, my friend, and quit your books. 

Or surely you'll grow double." 

9 Mr. W. in his preface labors hard to prove, that prose 
and verse are much the same ; and certainly his precepts and 
practice are strictly conformable : — 

" And thus to Betty's questions he 

Made answer, like a traveller bold. 
The cock did crow, to-whoo, to-whoo, 

And the sun did shine so cold," &c. &e., p. 129. 

10 Coleridge's Poems, p. 11, Songs of the Pixies, i. e. Devon- 
shire fairies ; p. 42 we have, " Lines to a young Lady ;" and, 
p. 52, " Lines to a young Ass." 

" Thus altered by Lord Byron, in his last revision of the 
satire. In all former editions the line stood, 

" A fellow-feeling makes us wond'rous kind." 

12 " Unjust."— R. 1816. In a letter to Mr. Coleridge, written 
in 1815, Lord Byron says,—" You mention my ' Satire,' lam- 
poon, or whatever you or others please to call it. I can only 



ENGLISH BAEDS AND SCOTCH KEVIEWERS. 



503 



Oh, wonder-working Lewis ! ^ monk, or bard. 
Who fain wouldst make Parnassus a church-yard ! 
Lo ! wreaths of yew, not laurel, bind thy brow. 
Thy muse a sprite, Apollo's sexton thou ! 
Whether on ancient tombs thou tak'st thy stand. 
By gibb'ring spectres hail'd, thy kindred band ; 
Or tracest chaste descriptions on thy page, 
To please the females of our modest age ; 
All hail, M. P. I^ from whose infernal brain 
Thin sheeted phantoms glide, a grisly train, 
At whose command "grim women" throng in crowds, 
And kings of fire, of water, and of clouds, 
With " small gray men," " wild yagers," and what not, 
To crown with honor thee and Walter Scott ; 
Again all hail ! if tales like thine may please, 
Saint Luke alone can vanquish the disease : 
Even Satan's self with thee might dread to dwell, 
And in thy skull discern a deeper hell. 

Who in soft guise, surrounded by a choir 
Of virgins melting, not to Vesta's fire, 
\V'ith sparkling eyes, and cheek by passion flush'd. 
Strikes his wild lyre, whilst listening dames are 
'Tis Little ! young Catullus of his day, [hush'd? 

As sweet, but as immoral, in his lay ! 
Grieved to condemn, ^ the muse must still be just, 
Nor spare melodious advocates of lust. 
Pure is the flame which o'er her altar burns ; 
From grosser incense with disgust she turns : 

say, that it was written when I was very young and very angry, 
and has been a thorn in my side ever since : more particularly 
as almost all the persons animadverted upon became subse- 
quently my acquaintances, and some of them my friends ; 
which is ' heaping fire upon an enemy's head,' and forgiving 
me too readily to permit me to forgive myself. The part ap- 
plied to you is pert, and petulant, and shallow enough ; but, 
although I have long done every thing in my power to sup- 
press the circulation of the whole thing, I shall always regret 
the wantonness or generality of many of its attempted attacks." 
1 Matthew Gregory Lewis, M. P. for ITindon, never dis- 
tinguished himself in Parliament, but, mainly in consequence 
of the clever use he made of his knowledge of the German 
language, then a rare accomplishment, attracted much notice 
in the literary world, at a very early period of his life. His 
Tales of Terror ; the drama of the Castle Spectre ; and the 
romance called the Bravo of Venice (which is, however, little 
more than a version from the Swiss Zschocke) ; but above all, 
the libidinous and impious novel of The Monk, invested the 
name of Lewis with an extraordinary degree of celebrity, 
during the poor period which intervened between the obscur- 
ation of Cowper, and the full display of Sir "Walter Scott's 
talents in the " Lay of the Last Minstrel,"— a period which 
is sufficiently characterized by the fact, that Hayley then 
passed for a poet. Next to that solemn coxcomb, Lewis was 
for several years the fashionable versifier of his time; but 
his plagiarisms, perhaps more audacious than had ever before 
been resorted to by a man of real talents, were by degrees 
unvcilwl, and writers of great original genius, as well as of 
purer taste and morals, successively emerging, Monk Lewis, 
dying young, had already outlived his reputation. In society 
he was to the last a favorite ; and Lord Byron, who had be- 
come well acquainted with him during his experience of 
London life, thus notices his death, which occurred at sea in 
1818:— "Lewis was a good man, a olcver man, but a bore. 
My only revenge or consolation used to be setting him by the 



Yet kind to youth, this expiation o'er, 

She bids thee " mend thy line, and sin no more." * 

For thee, translator of the tinsel song, 
To whom such glittering ornaments belong, 
Hibernian Strangford ! with thine eyes of blue,5 
And boasted locks of red or auburn hue. 
Whose plaintive strain each love-sick miss admires, 
And o'er harmonious fustian half expires. 
Learn, if thou canst, to yield thine author's sense. 
Nor vend thy sonnets on a false pretence. 
Think'st thou to gain thy verse a higher place. 
By dressing Camoens ^ in a suit of lace ? 
Mend, Strangford! mend thy morals and thy 

taste ; 
Be warm, but pure ; be amorous, but be chaste : 
Cease to deceive ; thy pilfer'd harp restore. 
Nor teach the Lusian bard to copy Moore. 

Behold I — ye tarts ! one moment spare the text — 
Hayley's last work, and worst — until his next ; 
Whether he si^in poor couplets into plays. 
Or damn the dead with purgatorial praise. 
His style in youth or age is still the same, 
For ever feeble and for ever tame. 
Triumphant first see " Temper's Triumphs " shine ! 
At least I'm sure they triumph'd over mine. 
Of " Music's Triumphs," all who read may swear, 
That luckless music never triumph'd there.'' 

ears with some vivacious person who hated bores especially, 
—Madame de Stael or Hobhouse, for example. But I liked 
Lewis ; he was the jewel of a man, had he been better set; — 
I don't mean personally, but less tiresome, for he was tedious, 
as well as contradictory to every thing and every body. Poor 
fellow ! he died a martyr to his new riches — of a second visit 
to Jamaica : — 

' I'd give the lands of Deloraine, 

Dark Musgrave were alive again !' 
That is,— 

I would give many a sugar cane, 

Mat Lewis were alive again !" 
2 " For every one knows little Matt's an M. P." — See a poem 
to Mr. Lewis, in " The Statesman," supposed to be written by 
Mr. Jekyll. 

8 In very early life, " Little's Poems " were Lord Byron's 
favorite study. "Heigho!" he exclaims, in 1820, in a letter 
to Moore, " I believe all the mischief I have ever done, or 
sung, has been owing to that confounded book of yours." 

* Originally, "mend thy life, and sin no more." 

6 The reader, who may wish for an explanation of this, may 
refer to " Strangford's Camoens," p. 127, note to p. 56, or to the 
last page of the Edinburgh Review of Strangford's Camoens. 

* It is also to be remarked, that the things given to the 
public as poems of Camoens are no more to be found in the 
original Portuguese, than in the Song of Solomon. 

7 Hayley's two most notorious verse productions are " Tri- 
umphs of Temper " and " The Triumph of Music." He has 
also written much comedy in rhyme, epistles, &c. &c. As 
he is rather an elegant writer of notes and biography, let us 
recommend Pope's advice to Wycherley to Mr. H.'s consider- 
ation, viz., "to convert his poetry into prose," which may be 
easily done by taking away the final syllable of each couplet. — 
The only performance for which Hayley is now remembered 
is his Life of Cowper. His personal history has been sketched 
by Mr. Southey in the Quarterly Review, vol. xxxi. p. 263. 



504 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Moravians, rise ! bestow some meet reward 
On dull devotion — Lo ! the Sabbath bard, 
Sepulchral Grahame,^ pours his notes sublime 
In mangled prose, nor e'en aspires to rhyme ; 
Breaks into blank the Gospel of St. Luke, 
And boldly pilfers from the Pentateuch ; 
And, undisturb'd by conscientious qualms, 
Perverts the Prophets, and purloins the Psalms. 

Hail, Sympathy ! thy soft idea brings ^ 
A thousand visions of a thousand things. 
And shows, still whimpering through threescore of 

years. 
The maudlin prince of mournful sonneteers. 
And art th@u not their prince, harmonious Bowles ! 
Thou first, great oracle of tender souls ? 
Whether thou sing'st with equal ease, and grief, 
The fall of empires, or a yellow leaf; 
Whether thy muse most lamentably tells 
What merry sounds proceed from Oxford bells,^ 
Or, still in bells delighting, finds a friend 
In every chime that jingled from Ostend ; 
Ah ! how much juster were thy muse's hap, 
If to thy bells thou wouldst but add a cap ! 
Delightful Bowles ! still blessing and still blest, 
All love thy strain, but children like it best. 



1 Mr. Grahame has poured forth two volumes of cant, under 
the name of "Sabbath "Walks" and "Biblical Pictures."— 
This very amiable man, and pleasing poet, published subse- 
quently " The Birds of Scotland," and other pieces ; but his 
reputation rests on his " Sabbath." He began life as an ad- 
vocate at the Edinburgh bar ; but he had little success there, 
and being of a melancholy and very devout temperament, 
entered into holy orders, and retired to a curacy near Durham, 
where he died in 1811. 

2 Immediately before this line, we find in the original 
manuscript the following, which Lord Byron good-naturedly 
consented to omit, at the request of Mr. Dallas, who was, no 
doubt, a friend of the scribbler they refer to : — 

" In verse most stale, unprofitable, flat — 
Come, let us change the scene, and ' glean ' with Pratt ; 
In him an author's luckless lot behold, 
Condemn'd to make the books which once he sold : 
Degraded man ! again resume thy trade — 
The votaries of the Muse are ill repaid. 
Though daily puffs once more invite to buy 
A new edition of thy ' Sympathy.' " 
To which this note was appended : — " Mr. Pratt, once a Bath 
bookseller, now a London author, has written as much, to as 
little purpose, as any of his scribbling contemporaries. Mr. 
P.'s ' Sympathy ' is in rhyme ; but his prose productions are 
the most voluminous." The more popular of these last were 
entitled " Gleanings." 

3 See Bowles's " Sonnet to Oxford," and " Stanzas on hear- 
ing the Bells of Ostend." 

* "Awake a louder," &c., is the first line in Bowles's 
" Spirit of Discovery ;" a very spirited and pretty dwarf-epic. 
Among other exquisite lines we have the following :— 
" A kiss 

Stole on the list'ning silence, never yet 

Here heard ; they trembled even as if the power," &c. &c. 
That is, the woods of Madeira trembled to a kiss ; very much 
astonished, as well they might be, at such a phenomenon. — 
" Misquoted and misunderstood by me ; but not intentionally. 



'Tis thine, with gentle Little's moral song. 

To soothe the mania of the amorous throng ! 

With thee our nursery damsels shed their tears, 

Ere miss as yet completes her infant years : 

But in her teens thy whining powers are vain ; 

She quits poor Bowles for Little's purer strain.* 

Now to soft themes thou scornest to confine 

The lofty numbers of a harp like thine ; 

" Awake a louder and a loftier strain," 

Such as none heard before, or will again ! 

Where all Discoveries jumbled from the flood, 

Since first the leaky ark reposed in mud. 

By more or less, are sung in every book, 

From Captain Noah down to Captain Cook. 

Nor this alone ; but, pausing on the road. 

The bard sighs forth a gentle episode ; ^ 

And gravely tells — attend, each beauteous miss ! — 

When first Madeira trembled to a kiss. 

Bowles ! in thy memory let this precept dwell. 

Stick to thy sonnets, man ! — at least they sell.^ 

But if some new-born whim, or larger bribe. 

Prompt thy crude brain, and claim thee for a scribe ; 

If chance some bard, though once by dunces fear'd. 

Now, prone in dust, can only be revered ; 

If Pope, whose fame and genius, from the first. 

Have foil'd the best of critics, needs the worst, 



It was not the ' woods,' but the people in them who trembled 
— why, Heaven only knows— unless they were overheard 
making the prodigious smack."— B. 1816. 

6 The episode above alluded to is the story of " Robert S. 
Machin " and " Anna d' Arfet," a pair of constant lovers, who 
performed the kiss above mentioned, that startled the woods 
of Madeira. 

« " Although," says Lord Byron, in 1821, " I regret having 
published 'English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,' the part 
which I regret the least is that which regards Mr. Bowles, 
with reference to Pope. Whilst I was writing that public- 
ation, in 1807 and 1808, Mr. Hobhouse was desirous that I 
should express our mutual opinion of Pope, and of Mr. 
Bowles's edition of his works. As I had completed my out- 
line, and felt lazy, I requested that he would do so. He did 
it. His fourteen lines on Bowles's Pope are in the first 
edition of ' English Bards,' and are quite as severe, and much 
more poetical, than my own in the second. On reprinting 
the work, as I put my name to it, I omitted Mr. Hobhouse's 
lines, by which the work gained less than Mr. Bowles's." — 
The following are the lines written by Mr. Hobhouse : — 

" Stick to thy sonnets, man !— at least they sell. 

Or take the only path that open lies 

For modern worthies who would hope to rise : 

Fix on some well-known name, and, bit by bit, 

Pare off the merits of his worth and wit ; 

On each alike employ the critic's knife. 

And when a comment fails, prefix a life ; 

Hint certain failings, faults before unknown, 

Review forgotten lies, and add your own ; 

Let no disease, let no misfortune 'scape. 

And print, if luckily deform'd, his shape : 

Thus shall the world, quite undeceived at last, 

Cleave to their present wits, and quit their past ; 

Bards once revered no more with favor view, 

But give their modern sonneteers their due ; 

Thus with the dead may living merit cope. 

Thus Bowles may triumph o'er the shade of Pope." 



ENGLISH BAKDS AND SCOTCH EEVIEWEES. 



605 



Do thou essay : each fault, each failing scan ; 

The first of poets was, alas ! but man. 

Rake from each ancient dunghill ev'ry pearl, 

Consult Lord Fanny, and confide in Curll ; ^ 

Let all the scandals of a former age 

Perch on thy pen, and flutter o'er thy page ; 

Aflfect a candor which thou canst not feel, 

Clothe envy in the garb of honest zeal ; 

Write, as if Saint John's soul could still inspire, 

And do from hate what Mallet* did for hire. 

Oh ! hadst thou lived in that congenial time, 

To rave with Dennis, and with Ralph to rhyme ; ^ 

Throng'd with the rest around his living head. 

Not raised thy hoof against the lion dead ; ^ 

A meet reward had crowu'd thy glorious gains, 

And link'd thee to the Dunciad for thy pains.^ 

Another epic ! Who inflicts again 
More books of blank upon the sons of men ? 
Boeotian Cottle, rich Bristowa's boast, 
Imports old stories from the Cambrian coast. 
And sends his goods to market — all alive ! 
Lines forty thousand, cantos twenty -five ! 
Fresh fish from Helicon ! ^ who'll buy ? who'll buy ? 
The precious bargain's cheap — in faith, not I. 
Your turtle-feeder's verse must needs be flat. 
Though Bristol bloat him with the verdant fat ; 
If commerce fills the purse, she clogs the brain, 
And Amos Cottle strikes the lyre in vain. 
In him an author's luckless lot behold, 
Condemn'd to make the books which once he sold. 
Oh, Amos Cottle ! — Phoebus! what a name. 
To 611 the speaking trump of future fame ! — 

^ Curll is one of the heroes of the Dunciad, and was a book- 
seller. Lord Fanny is the poetical name of Lord Hervey, 
author of " Lines to the Imitator of Horace." 

2 Lord Bolingbroke hired Mallet to traduce Pope after his 
decease, because the poet had retained some copies of a work 
by Lord Bolingbroke,— " The Patriot King,"— which that 
splendid but malignant genius had ordered to be destroyed.- 
" Bolingbrokc's thirst of vengeance," says Dr. Johnson, 
" incited him to blast the memory of the man over whom he 
had wept in his last struggles; and he employed Mallet, 
another friend of Pope, to tell the tale to the public, with all 
its aggravations." 

3 Dennis the critic, and Ralph the rhymester. — 

" Silence, ye wolves ! while Ralph to Cynthia howls, 
Making night hideous : answer him, ye owls !"— 

Dunciad. 

* See Bowles's late edition of Pope's Works, for which he 
received three hundred pounds. Thus Mr. B. has experienced 
how much easier it is to profit by the reputation of another 
than to elevate his own. 

6 Lord Byron's M.S. note of 1816 on this passage is,— "Too 
savage all this on Bowles :" and well might he say so. Tliat 
venerable person is still living ; and in spite of all the criti- 
cisms to which his injudicious edition of Pope exposed him 
afterwards, there can be no doubt that Lord B., in his calmer 
moments, did justice to that exquisite poetical genius which, 
by their own confession, originally inspired both Wordsworth 
and Coleridge. 

« " Fresh fish from Helicon !"— " Helicon " is a mountain, 
and not a fish-pond. It should have been " Hippocrene." — 
B. 1816. 



Oh, Amos Cottle ! for a moment think 

What meagre profits spring from pen and ink ! 

W^hen thus devoted to poetic dreams, 

Wlio will peruse thy prostituted reams? 

Oh, pen perverted ! paper misapplied ! 

Had Cottle^ still adorn'd the counter's side, 

Bent o'er the desk, or, born to useful toils. 

Been taught to make the paper which he soils, 

Plough'd, delved, or plied the oar with lusty limb. 

He had not sung of Wales, nor I of him.^ 

As Sisyphus against the infernal steep 
Rolls the huge rock whose motions ne'er may sleep, 
So up thy hill, ambrosial Richmond, heaves 
Dull Maurice^ all his granite weight of leaves : 
Smooth, solid monuments of mental pain ! 
The petrifactions of a plodding brain. 
That, ere they reach the top, fall lumbering back 



With broken lyre, and cheek serenely pale, 
Lo ! sad Alcseus wanders down the vale ; 
Though fair they rose, and might have bloom'd at last. 
His hopes have perish'd by the northern blast : 
Nipp'd in the bud by Caledonian gales. 
His blossoms wither as the blast prevails ! 
O'er his lost works let classic Shefiield weep ; 
May no rude hand disturb their early sleep ! ^^ 

Yet say ! why should the bard at once resign 
His claim to favor from the sacred Nine ? 
For ever startled by the mingled howl 
Of northern wolves, that still in darkness prowl ; 

7 Mr. Cottle, Amos, Joseph, I don't know which, but one or 
both, once sellers of books they did not write, and now writers 
of books they do not sell, have published a pair of epics. 
" Alfred,"— (poor Alfred! Pye has been at him too!) — 
" Alfred," and the " Fall of Cambria." 

8 Here Lord B. notes in 1816: — "All right. I saw some 
letters of this fellow (Joseph Cottle) to an unfortunate poetess, 
whose productions, which the poor woman by no means 
thought vainly of, he attacked so roughly and bitterly, that 
I could hardly resist assailing him, even were it unjust, which 
it is not— for venly he is an ass." — B. 1816. — The same person 
has had the honor to be recorded in the Antijacobin, probablj 
by Canning: — 

" And Cottle, not he who that Alfred made famous, 
But Joseph, of Bristol, the brother of Amos." 

» Mr. Maurice hath manufactured the component parts of 
a ponderous quarto, upon the beauties of " Richmond Hill," 
and the like :— it also takes in a charming view of Turnham 
Green, Hammersmith, Brentford, Old and New, and the parts 
adjacent.— The Rev. Thomas Maurice also wrote "West- 
minster Abboy," and other poems, the " History of Ancient 
and Modern Ilindostan," &c., and his own "Memoirs; com- 
prehending Anecdotes of Literary Characters, during a period 
of thirty years ;"— a very amusing piece of autobiography. 
He died in 1824, at his apartments in the British Museum; 
where he had been for some years assistant keeper of MSS. 

10 Poor Montgomery, though praised by every English Re- 
view, has been bitterly reviled by the Edinburgh. After all, 
the bard of Shefiield is a man of considerable genius. His 
" Wanderer of Switzerland " is worth a thousand " Lyrical 
Ballads," and at least fifty " degraded epics." 



506 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



A coward brood, which mangle as they prey, 

By hellish instinct, all that cross their way ; 

Aged or young, the living or the dead, 

No mercy find — these harpies i must be fed. 

Why do the injured unresisting yield 

The calm possession of their native field ? 

Why tamely thus before their fangs retreat, 

Nor hunt the blood-hounds back to Arthur's Seat ?2 

Health to immortal Jeffrey ! ^ once, in name, 
England could boast a judge almost the same ; 
In soul so like, so merciful, yet just, 
Some think that Satan has resign'd his trust, 
And given the spirit to the world again. 
To sentence letters, as he sentenced men. 
With hand less mighty, but with heart as black, 
With voice as willing to decree the rack ; 
Bred in the courts betimes, though all that law 
As yet hath taught him is to find a flaw ; 
Since well instructed in the patriot school 
To rail at party, though a party tool, 
Who knows, if chance his patrons should restore 
Back to the sway they forfeited before, 
His scribbling toils some recompense may meet, 
And raise this Daniel to the judgment-seat ? * 
Let Jeffreys' shade indulge the pious hope, 
And greeting thus, present him with a rope : 
" Heir to my virtues ! man of equal mind ! 
Skill'd to condemn as to traduce mankind, 
This cord receive, for thee reserved with care, 
To wield in judgment, and at length to wear." 

Health to great Jeffrey ! Heaven preserve his life 
To flourish on the fertile shores of Fife, 
And guard it sacred in its future wars, 
Since authors sometimes seek the field of Mars ! 



1 In a MS. critique on this satire, by the late Eeverend 
William Crowe, public orator at Oxford, the incongruity of 
these metaphors is thus noticed :—" Within the space of 
three or four couplets he transforms a man into as many dif- 
ferent animals : allow him but the compass of three lines, 
and he will metamorphose him from a wolf into a harpy, and 
in three more he will make him a blood-hound." On seeing 
Mr. Crowe's remarks, Lord Byron desired Mr. Murray to 
substitute, in the copy in his possession, for " hellish instinct," 
" brutal instinct," for " harpies,^' "felons," and for " blood- 
hounds," " hell-hounds." 

2 Arthur's Seat, the hill which overhangs Edinburgh. 

3 Mr. Jeffrey, who, after the first number or two, suc- 
ceeded the Rev. Sydney Smith in the editorship of the Edin- 
burgh. Review, retired from his critical post some little time 
before he was appointed lord advocate for Scotland: he 
is now (1836) a lord of sessions. " I have often, since my 
return to England," says Lord Byron (Diary, 1814), " heard 
Jeffrey most highly commended by those who knew him, for 
things independent of his talents. I admire him for this — 
not because he has praised me, but because he is, perhaps, 
the only man who, under the relations in which he and I 
stand, or stood, with regard to each other, would have had 
the liberality to act thus : none but a great soul dared hazard 
it — a little scribbler would have gone on cavilling to the end 
of the chapter." 



Can none remember that eventful day ,5 

That ever glorious, almost fatal fray. 

When Little's leadless pistol met his eye^ 

And Bow Street myrmidons stood laughing by ?* 

Oh, day disastrous ! on her firm-set rock, 

Dunedin's castle felt a secret shock ; 

Dark roll'd the sympathetic waves of Forth, 

Low groan'd the startled whirlwinds of the north ; 

Tweed ruffled half his waves to form a tear, 

The other half pursued its calm career ; '' 

Arthur's steep summit nodded to its base, 

The surly Tolbooth scarcely kept her place. 

The Tolbooth felt — for marble sometimes can. 

On such occasions, feel as much as man — 

The Tolbooth felt defrauded of his charms. 

If Jeffrey died, except within her arms : ^ 

Nay last, not least, on that portentous morn. 

The sixteenth story, where himself was born, 

His patrimonial garret, fell to ground, 

And pale Edina shudder'd at the sound : 

Strew'd were the streets around with milk-white reamSj 

Flow'd all the Canongate with inky streams ; 

This of his candor seem'd the sable dew, 

That of his valor show'd the bloodless hue ; 

And all with justice deem'd the two combined 

The mingled emblems of his mighty mind. 

But Caledonia's goddess hover'd o'er 

The field, and saved him from the wrath of Moore ; 

From either pistol snatch'd the vengeful lead. 

And straight restored it to her favorite's head; 

That head, with greater than magnetic pow'r, 

Caught it, as Danae caught the golden show'r, 

And, though the thickening dross will scarce refine, 

Augments its ore, and is itself a mine. 

"My son," she cried, "ne'er thirst for gore again, 

Resign the pistol and resume the pen ; 



4 " Too ferocious— this is mere insanity."— B. 1816. 
6 " All this is bad, because personal." — B. 1816. 

6 In 1806, Messrs. Jeffrey and Moore met at Chalk-Farm. 
The duel was prevented by the interference of the magistracy ; 
and, on examination, the balls of the pistols were found to 
have evaporated. This incident gave occasion to much wag- 
gery in the daily prints. — The above note was struck out of 
the fifth edition, and the following, after being submitted to 
Mr. Moore, substituted in its place : — " I am informed that 
Mr. Moore published at the time a disavowal of the state- 
ments in the newspapers, as far as regarded himself; and, in 
justice to him, I mention this circumstance. As I never 
heard of it before, I cannot state the particulars, and was 
only made acquainted with the fact very lately."— November 
4, 1811. 

7 The Tweed here behaved with proper decorum ; it would 
have been highly reprehensible in the English half of tha 
river to have shown the smallest symptom of apprehension. 

8 This display of sympathy on the part of the Tolbooth 
(the principal prison in Edinburgh), which truly seems ta 
have been most affected on this occasion, is much to be com- 
mended. It was to be apprehended, that the many unhappy 
criminals executed in the front might have rendered the 
edifice more callous. She is said to be of the softer sex, be- 
cause her delicacy of feeling on this day was truly femlninei; 
though, like most feminine impulses, perhaps a little selfish. 



ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH EEVIEWERS. 



507 



O'er politics and poesy preside, 
Boast of thy country, and Britannia's guide I 
For long as Albion's heedless sous submit, 
Or Scottish taste decides on English wit, 
So long shall last thine unmolested reign, 
Nor any dare to take thy name in vain. 
Behold, a chosen band shall aid thy plan, 
And own thee chieftain of the critic clan. 
First in the oat-fed phalanx shall be seen 
The travell'd thane, Athenian Aberdeen.^ 
Herbert shall wield Thor's hammer,^ and some- 
times. 
In gratitude, thou'lt praise his rugged rhymes. 
Smug Sydney 3 too thy bitter page shall seek. 
And classic Hallam,* much renown'd for Greek ; 
Scott may perchance his name and influence lend, 
And paltry Pillans^ shall traduce his friend; 
"While gay Thalia's luckless votary, Lambe,^ 
Damn'd like the devil, devil-like will damn. 
Known be thy name, unbounded be thy sway ! 
Thy Holland's banquets shall each toil repay ; 

1 His lordship has been much abroad, is a member of the 
Athenian Society and reviewer of "Gell's Topography of 
Troy." — George Hamilton Gordon, fourth earl of Aberdeen, 
K.T., F.R.S., and P.S.A. In 1822, his lordship published an " In- 
quiry into the Principles of Beauty in Grecian Architecture." 

2 Mr. Herbert is a translator of Icelandic and other poetry. 
One of the principal pieces is a "Song on the Eecovery of 
Thor's Hammer :" the translation is a pleasant chant in the 
vulgar tongue, and endeth thus : — 

" Instead of money and rings, I wot, 
The hammer's bruises were her lot, 
Thus Odin's son his hammer got." 

The Hon. "William Herbert, brother to the Earl of Carnarvon. 

He also published, in 1811, "Helga," a poem in seven cantos. 

3 The Rev. Sydney Smith, the reputed author of Peter 
Plymloy's Letters, and sundry criticisms. — Now (1836) one 
of the canons residentiary of St. Paul's, &c. " Dyson's Ad- 
dress to his Constituents on the Reform Bill," and many 
other pieces published anonymously or pseudonymously, are 
generally ascribed to this eminently witty person, who has 
put forth nothing, it is believed, in his own name, except a 
volume of sermons. 

♦ Mr. Hallam reviewed Payne Knight's " Taste," and was 
exceedingly severe on some Greek verses therein. It was not 
discovered that the lines were Pindar's till the press rendered 
it impossible to cancel the critique, which still stands an ever- 
lasting monument of Hallam's ingenuity. — Note added to 
second edition. The said Hallam is incensed because he is 
falsely accused, seeing that he never dineth at Holland House. 
If this be true, I am sorry — not for having said so, but on 
his account, as I understand his lordship's feasts are prefer- 
able to his compositions. If he did not review Lord Hol- 
land's performance, I am glad, because it must have been 
painful to read, and irksome to praise it. If Mr. Hallam will 
tell mc who did review it, the real name shall find a place in 
the text ; provided, nevertheless, the said name be of two 
orthodox musical syllables, and will come into the verse: till 
then, Hallam must stand for want of a better.— It cannot 
be necessary to vinflcate the great author of the "Middle 
Ages" and the "Constitutional History of England" from 
the insinuations of the juvenile poet. 

* Pillans is a tutor at Eton.— Mr. Pillans became after- 
wards rector of the High School of Edinburgh, and finally 
Professor of Humanity in that university. There was not, 
it is believed, the slightest foundation for the charge in 
the text. 



While grateful Britain yields the praise she owes 
To Holland's hirelings and to learning's foes. 
Yet mark one caution ere thy next Review 
Spread its light wings of saffron and of blue. 
Beware lest blundering Brougham '^ destroy the sale. 
Turn beef to bannocks, cauliflowers to kale." 
Thus having said, the kilted goddess kiss'd 
Her son, and vanish'd in a Scottish mist.^ 

Then prosper, Jeffrey ! pertest of the train 
Whom Scotland pampers with her fiery grain I 
Whatever blessing waits a genuine Scot, 
In double portion swells thy glorious lot; 
For thee Edina culls her evening sweets, 
And showers their odors on thy candid sheets, 
Whose hue and fragrance to thy work adhere— 
This scents its pages, and that gilds its rear,* 
Lo ! blushing Itch, coy nymph, enamor'd grown, 
Forsakes the rest, and cleaves to thee alone 
And, too unjust to other Pictish men, 
Enjoys thy person, and inspires thy pen ! i" 

6 The Hon. George Lambe reviewed " Beresford's Miseries," 
and is moreover author of a farce enacted with much applause 
at the priory, Stanmore ; and damned with great expedition 
at the late theatre, Covent Garden. It was entitled " Whistle 
for it."— Mr. Lambe was, in 1818, the successful candidate 
for the representation of Westminster, in opposition to Mr. 
Hobhouse ; who, however, defeated him in the following year. 
In 1821, Mr. Lambe published a translation of Catullus. In 
1832, he was appointed under secretary of state for the 
Home Department, his chief being his brother, Lord Mel- 
bourne. He died in 1833. 

7 Mr. Brougham, in No. xxv. of the Edinburgh Review, 
throughout the article concerning Don Pedro de Cevallos, has 
displayed more politics than policy; many of the worthy 
burgesses of Edinburgh being so incensed at the infamous 
principles it evinces, as to have withdrawn their subscrip- 
tions. — Here followed in the first edition, — "The name of 
this personage is pronounced Broom in the south, but the 
truly northern and musical pronunciation is Brough-am, in 
two syllables ;" but for this Lord B. substituted in the second 
edition : — " It seems that Mr. Brougham is not a Pict, as 
I supposed, but a Borderer, and his name is pronounced 
Broom, from Trent to Tay : — so be it." 

8 I ought to apologize to the worthy deities for introducing 
a new goddess with short petticoats to their notice : but, alas ! 
what was to be done? I could not say Caledonia's genius, it 
being well known there is no such genius to be found from 
Clackmanan to Caithness ; yet, without supernatural agency, 
how was Jeffrey to be saved? The national "kelpies" are 
too unpoetical, and the "brownies" and "gude neighbors" 
(spirits of a good disposition) refused to extricate him. A 
goddess, therefore, has been called for the purpose ; and great 
ought to be the gratitude of Jeffrey, seeing it is the only 
communication he ever held, or is likely to hold, with any 
thing heavenly. 

9 See the color of the back binding of the Edinburgh Review. 

10 In the tenth canto of Don Juan, Lord Byron pays the 
following pretty compliment to his quondam antagonist: — 

" And all our little feuds— at least all mine-' 
Dear Jeffrey, once ray most redoubted foe 

(As far as rhyme and criticism combine 
To make such puppets of us things below), 

Are over: here's a health to ' Auld Lang Syne;' 
I do not know you, and may never know 

Your face— but you have acted on the whole 

Most nobly, and I own it from my soul." 



508 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Illustrious Holland ! hard would be his lot, 
His hirelings mention'd, and himself forgot I ^ 
Holland, with Henry Petty ^ at his back, 
The whipper-in and huntsman of the pack. 
Blest be the banquets spread at Holland House,^ 
Where Scotchmen feed, and critics may carouse ! 
Long, long beneath that hospitable roof 
Shall Grub Street dine, while duns are kept aloof. 
See honest Hallam lay aside his fork. 
Resume his pen, review his lordship's work, 
And, grateful for the dainties on his plate, 
Declare his landlord can at least translate I * 
Dunedin ! view thy children with delight, 
They write for food — and feed because they write : 
And lest, when heated with the unusual grape. 
Some glowing thoughts should to the press escape, 
And tinge with red the female reader's cheek, 
My lady skims the cream of each critique ; 
Breathes o'er the page her purity of soul. 
Reforms each error, and refines the whole.^ 



Now to the Drama turn — Oh, motley sight ! 
What precious scenes the wondering eyes invite ! 
Puns, and a prince within a barrel pent,^ 
And Dibdin's nonsense yield complete content. 



1 "Bad enough, and on mistaken grounds too." — B. 1816. 

2 Lord Henry Petty ; — now (1836) Marquess of Lansdowne. 

3 In 1813, Lord Byron dedicated the Bride of Abydos to 
Lord Holland; and we find in his Journal (Nov. 17) this 
passage : — " I have had a most kind letter from Lord Holland 
on the Bride of Abydos, which he likes, and so does Lady H. 
This is very good-natured in both, from whom I don't de- 
serve any quarter. Yet I did think at the time, that my 
cause of enmity proceeded from Holland House, and am glad 
I was wrong, and wish I had not been in such a hurry with 
that confounded satire, of which I would suppress even the 
memory; but people, now they can't get it, make a fuss, I 
verily believe out of contradiction." 

* Lord Holland has translated some specimens of Lope de 
Vega, inserted in his life of the author. Both are bepraised 
by his disinterested guests. — We are not aware that Lord 
Holland subsequently published any verses, except an uni- 
versally admired version of the twenty-eighth canto of the 
Orlando Furioso, which is given by way of appendix to one 
of Mr. W. Stewart Rose's volumes. 

6 Certain it is, her ladyship is suspected of having displayed 
her matchless wit in the Edinburgh Review. However that 
may be, we know, from good authority, that the manuscripts 
are submitted to her perusal — no doubt, for correction. 

6 In the melodrama of Tekeli, that heroic prince is clapt 
into a barrel on the stage ; a new asylum for distressed he- 
roes. — In the original MS. the note stands thus: — "In the 
melodrama of Tekeli, that heroic prince is clapt into a barrel 
on the stage, and Count Evrard in the • Fortress ' hides him- 
self in a green-house built expressly for the occasion. 'Tis a 
pity that Theodore Hook, who is really a man of talent, should 
confipe his genius to such paltry productions as the ' Fort- 
ress,' 'Music Mad,' &c. &c." — This extraordinary humorist, 
who was a mere boy at the date of Lord Byron's satire, after- 
wards distinguished himself by works more worthy of his 
abilities— nine volumes of highly popular novels, entitled 
" Sayings and Doings "— " Gilbert Gurney " — a world of polit- 
ical jewa; d^ esprit, Ac. &c. 



Though now, thank Heaven ! the Rosciomania's o'er, 
And full-grown actors are endured once more ; 
Yet what avail their vain attempts to please. 
While British critics suffer scenes like these ; 
While Reynolds vents his " dammes !" " poohs !" and 

"zounds!"'^ 
And commonplace and common sense confounds ? 
While Kenney's ** World "— ah 1 where is Kenney's« 

wit?— 
Tires the sad gallery, lulls the listless pit ; 
And Beaumont's pilfer'd Caratach affords 
A tragedy complete in all but words ? ^ 
Who but must mourn, while these are all the rage. 
The degradation of our vaunted stage ! 
Heavens ! is all sense of shame and talent gone ? 
Have we no living bard of merit ? — none ! 
Awake, George Colman ! '^^ Cumberland,!^ awake ! 
Ring the alarum bell ! let folly quake ! 
Oh, Sheridan ! if aught can move thy pen, 
Let Comedy assume her throne again ; 
Abjure the mummery of the German schools ; 
Leave new Pizarros to translating fools ; 
Give, as thy last memorial to the age. 
One classic drama, and reform the stage. 
Gods ! o'er those boards shall Folly rear her head. 
Where Garrick trod, and Siddons lives to tread ? 12 



7 All these are favorite expressions of Mr. Reynolds, and 
prominent in his comedies, living and defunct. — The reader 
is referred to Mr. Reynolds's Autobiography, published in 
1826, for a full account of his voluminous writings for the 



8 Mr. Kenney has since written many successful dramas. 

9 Mr. Thomas Sheridan, the new manager of Drury Lane 
theatre, stripped the tragedy of Bonduca of the dialogue, and 
exhibited the scenes as the spectacle of Caractacus. Was 
this worthy of his sire? or of himself? — Thomas Sheridan, 
who united much of the convivial wit of his parent to many 
amiable qualities, received, after the termination of his the- 
atrical management, the appointment of colonial paymaster 
at the Cape of Good Hope, where he died in September, 1817, 
leaving a widow, whose novel of "Carwell" has obtained 
much approbation, and several children ; among others, the 
accomplished authoress of " Rosalie " and other poems, now 
the Honorable Mrs. Norton. 

10 Lord Byron entertained a high opinion of George Col- 
man's convivial powers. — "If I had," he says, "to choose, 
and could not have both at a time, I should say, ' Let me 
begin the evening with Sheridan, and finish it with Colman.' 
Sheridan for dinner, and Colman for supper; Sheridan for 
claret or port, but Colman for every thing. Sheridan was a 
grenadier company of life-guards, but Colman a whole regi- 
ment—of light infantry, to be sure, but still a regiment." Mr. 
Colman died in October, 1836. 

" Richard Cumberland, the well-known author of the 
"West Indian," the "Observer," and one of the most inter- 
esting of autobiographies, died in 1811. 

12 In all editions previous to the fifth,*it was, " Kemble lives 
to tread." Lord Byron used to say, that, " of actors, Cooke 
was the most natural, Kemble the most supernatural, Kean 
the medium between the two; but that Mrs. Siddons was 
worth them all put together." Such effect, however, had 
Kean's acting on his mind, that once, on seeing him play Sir 
Giles Overreach, he was seized with a sort of convulsive fit. 
John Kemble died in 1823,— his illustrious sister in 1830. 



ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 



509 



On those shall Farce display Buffoon'ry's mask, 
And Hook conceal his heroes in a cask ? 
Shall sapient managers new scenes produce 
From Cherry, Skeffington, and Mother Goose, 
While Shakspeare, Otway, Massinger, forgot. 
On stalls must moulder, or in closets rot? 
Lo 1 with what pomp the daily prints proclaim 
The rival candidates for Attic fame ! 
In grim array though Lewis' spectres rise, 
Still Skeffington and Goose divide the prize.^ 
And sure great Skeffington must claim our praise. 
For skirtless coats and skeletons of plays 
Renown'd alike ; whose genius ne'er confines 
Her flight to garnish Greenwood's gay designs ; 2 
Nor sleeps with " Sleeping Beauties," but anon 
In five facetious acts comes thundering on,' 
While poor John Bull, bewilder'd with the scene. 
Stares, wondering what the devil it can mean ; 
But as some hands applaud, a venal few ! 
Rather than sleep, why John applauds it toe. 

Such are we now. Ah ! wherefore should we turn 
To what our fathers were, unless to mourn ? 
Degenerate Britons ! are ye dead to shame, 
Or, kind to dullness, do you fear to blame ? 
Well may the nobles of our present race 
Watch each distortion of a Naldi's face ; 
Well may they smile on Italy's buffoons, 
And worship Catalani's pantaloons,* 
Since their own drama yields no fairer trace 
Of wit than puns, of humor than grimace.^ 

Then let Ausonia, skill'd in every art 
To soften manners, but corrupt the heart. 
Pour her exotic follies o'er the town. 
To sanction Vice, and hunt Decorum down : 
Let wedded strumpets languish o'er Deshayes, 
And bless the promise which his form displays ; 

1 Dibdin's pantomime of Mother Goose had a run of nearly 
a hundred nights, and brought more than twenty thousand 
pounds to the treasury of Covent Garden theatre. 

* Mr. Greenwood is, we believe, scene-painter to Drury 
Lane theatre — as such, Mr. Skeffington is much indebted to 
him. 

» Mr. (afterwards Sir Lumley) Skeffington is the illustrious 
author of the " Sleeping Beauty ;" and some comedies, par- 
ticularly "Maids and Bachelors:" Baccalaurii baculo magis 
quam lauro digni. 

♦ Naldi and Catalani require little notice; for the visage 
©f the one and the salary of the other will enable us long 
to recollect these amusing vagabonds. Besides, we are still 
black and blue from the squeeze on the first night of the 
lady's appearance in trousers. 

5 The following twenty lines were struck off one night 
after Lord Byron's return from the opera, and sent the next , 
morning to the printer, with a request to have them placed 
where they now appear. 

6 To prevent any blunder, such as mistaking a street for a 
man, I beg leave to state, that it is the institution, and not the 
duke of that name, which is here alludod to. A gentleman, 
with whom I am slightly acquainted, lost in fhc Argyle Rooms 



While Gayton bounds before th' enraptured looks 

Of hoary marquesses and stripling dukes : 

Let high-born lechers eye the lively Presle 

Twirl her light limbs, that spurn the needless veil ; 

Let Angiolini bare her breast of snow, 

Wave the white arm, and point the pliant toe ; 

CoUini trill her love-inspiring song, 

Strain her fair neck, and charm the listening 

throng ! 
Whet not your scythe, suppressors of our vice ! 
Reforming saints ! too delicately nice ! 
By whose decrees, our sinful souls to save, 
No Sunday tankards foam, no barbers shave ; 
And beer undrawn, and beards unmown, display 
Your holy reverence for the Sabbath-day. 

Or hail at once the patron and the pile 
Of vice and folly, Greville and Argyle ! ^ 
Where yon proud palace. Fashion's hallow'd fane, 
Spreads wide her portals for the motley train, 
Behold the new Petronius "^ of the day, 
Our arbiter of pleasure and of play ! 
There the hired eunuch, the Hesperian choir. 
The melting lute, the soft lascivious lyre. 
The song from Italy, the step from France, 
The midnight orgy, and the mazy dance, 
The smile of beauty, and the flush of wine. 
For fops, fools, gamesters, knaves, and lords combine ; 
Each to his humor — Comus all allows ; 
Champagne, dice, music, or your neighbor's spouse. 
Talk not to us, ye starving sons of trade ! 
Of piteous ruin, which ourselves have made ; 
In Plenty's sunshine Fortune's minions bask. 
Nor think of poverty, except " en masque," 
When for the night some lately titled ass 
Appears the beggar which his grandsire was. 
The curtain dropp'd, the gay burletta o'er. 
The audience take their turn upon the floor ; 



several thousand pounds at backgammon.* It is but justice 
to the manager in this instance to say, that some degree of 
disapprobation was manifested : but why are the implements 
of gaming allowed in a place devoted to the society of both 
sexes? A pleasant thing for the wives and daughters of 
those who are blest or cursed with such connectionB, to hear 
the billiard-tables rattling in one room, and the dice in an- 
other ! That this is the case I myself can testify, as a late 
unworthy member of an institution which materially affects 
the morals of the higher orders, while the lower may not even 
move to the sound of a tabor and fiddle, without a chance of 
indictment for riotous behavior.— Conceiving the foregoing 
note, together with the lines in the text, to convey a reflec- 
tion upon his conduct, as manager of the Argyle institution, 
Colonel Greville demanded an explanation of Lord Byron. 
The matter was referred to Mr. Leckie (the author of a work 
on Sicilian affairs) on the part of Colonel Greville, and to 
Mr. Moore on the part of Lord Byron ; by whom it was 
amicably settled. 

T Petronius, "arbiter elegantiarum " to Nero, "and a very 
pretty fellow in his day," as Mr. Congreve's "Old Bachelor" 
saith of Hannibal. 



» " True. It was Rilly Way who lost the money. I knew him, and wa« 
a Bubaoriber to the Argyle at the time of the event.' — B. 1616. 



510 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Now round the floor the circling dow'gers sweep, 
Now in loose waltz the thin-clad daughters leap ; 
The first in lengthen'd line majestic swim, 
The last display the free unfetter'd limb ! 
Those for Hibernia's lusty sons repair 
With art the charms which nature could not spare ; 
Jhese after husbands wing their eager flight, 
Nor leave much mystery for the nuptial night. 

Oh ! blest retreats of infamy and ease, 
Where, all forgotten but the power to please, 
Each maid may give a loose to genial thought, 
Each swain may teach new systems, or be taught : 
There the blithe youngster, just returned from Spain, 
Cuts the light pack, or calls the rattling main ; 
The jovial caster's set, and seven's the nick, 
Or — done ! — a thousand on the coming trick ! 
If, mad with loss, existence 'gins to tire, 
And all your hope or wish is to expire. 
Here's Powell's pistol ready for your life. 
And, kinder still, two Pagets for your wife ; ^ 
Fit consummation of an earthly race. 
Begun in folly, ended in disgrace ; 
While none but menials, o'er the bed of death, 
Wash thy red wounds, or watch thy wavering breath ; 
Traduced by liars, and forgot by all. 
The mangled victim of a drunken brawl. 
To live like Clodius, and like Falkland fall.^ 

Truth ! rouse some genuine bard, and guide his hand 
To drive this pestilence from out the land. 
E'en I — least thinking of a thoughtless throng. 
Just skill'd to know the right and choose the wrong, 
Freed at that age when reason's shield is lost. 
To fight my course through passion's countless host,' 
Whom every path of pleasure's flow'ry way 
Has lured in turn, and all have led astray — 
E'en I must raise my voice, e'en I must feel 
Such scenes, such men, destroy the public weal : 

1 The original reading was, " a Paget for your wife." 

2 I knew the late Lord Falkland well. On Sunday night 
I beheld him presiding at his own table, in all the honest 
pride of hospitality , on Wednesday morning, at three o'clock, 
I saw stretched before me all that remained of courage, feel- 
ing, and a host of passions. He was a gallant and successful 
officer his faults were the faults of a sailor [those of dissipa- 
tion] — as such, Britons will forgive them. He died like a 
brave man in a better cause : for had he fallen in like manner 
on the deck of the frigate to which he was just appointed, 
his last moments would have been held up by his country- 
men as an example to succeeding heroes. — Lord. Falkland 
was killed in a duel by Mr. Powell, in 1809. It was not by 
words only that Lord Byron gave proof of sympathy on the 
melancholy occasion. Though his own difficulties pressed 
on him at the time, he contrived to administer relief to the 
widow and children of his friend. 

3 " Yes : and a precious chase they led me." — B. 1816. 

* *' Fool enough, certainly, then, and no wiser since."— B. 
1816. 

6 'What would be the sentiments of the Persian Anacreon, 
Hafiz, could he rise from his splendid sepulchre at Sheeraz 
(where he reposes with Ferdousi and Sadi, the Oriental 
Homer and Catullus), and behold his name assumed by one 



Although some kind, censorious friend will say, 

" What art thou better, meddling fool,* than they ?" 

And every brother rake will smile to see 

That miracle, a moralist in me. 

No matter — when some bard in virtue strong, 

Gifibrd perchance, shall raise the chastening song^ 

Then sleep my pen for ever ! and my voice 

Be only heard to hail him, and rejoice ; 

Eejoice, and yield my feeble praise, though I 

May feel the lash that Virtue must apply. 

As for the smaller fry, who swarm in shoals. 
From silly Hafiz up to simple Bowles,*'' 
Why should we call them from their dark abode, 
In broad Saint Giles's or in Tottenham road ? 
Or (since some men of fashion nobly dare 
To scrawl in verse) from Bond Street or the Square ? 
If things of ton their harmless lays indite, 
Most wisely doom'd to shun the public sight, 
What harm ? In spite of every critic elf. 
Sir T. may read his stanzas to hflnself ; 
Miles Andrews 6 still his strength in couplets try, 
And live in prologues, though his dramas die. 
Lords too are bards, such things at times befall. 
And 'tis some praise in peers to write at all. 
Yet, did or taste or reason sway the times, 
Ah ! who would take their titles with their rhymes ? ^ 
Eoscommon ! Shefiield ! with your spirits fled, 
No future laurels deck a noble head ; 
No muse will cheer, with renovating smile, 
The paralytic puling of Carlisle.^ 
The puny school -boy and his early lay 
Men pardon, if his follies pass away ; 
But who forgives the senior's ceaseless verse. 
Whose hairs grow hoary as his rhymes grow worse ? 
What heterogeneous honors deck the peer ! 
Lord, rhymester, petit-maitre, and pamphleteer ! ^ 
So dull in youth, so drivelling in his age, 
His scenes alone had damn'd our sinking stage ; 

Stott of Dromore, the most impudent and execrable of liter- 
ary poachers for the daily prints ? 

6 Miles Peter Andrews, many years M.P. for Bewdley, 
colonel of the Prince of Wales's Volunteers, proprietor of a 
gunpowder manufactory at Dartford, author of numerous 
prologues, epilogues, and farces, and one of the heroes of the 
Baviad. He died in 1814. 

7 In the original manuscript we find these lines : — 

In these, our times, with daily wonders big, 
A letter'd peer is like a letter'd pig ; 
Both know their alphabet, but who, from thence. 
Infers that peers or pigs have manly sense ? • 
Still less that such should woo the graceful nine : 
Parnassus was not made for lords and swine." 

8 On being told that it was believed he alluded to Lord 
Carlisle's nervous disorder in this line, Lord Byron exclaimed, 
— " I thank heaven I did not know it ; and would not, could 
^ot, if I had. I must naturally be the last person to be 
pointed on defects or maladies." 

9 The Earl of Carlisle has lately published an eighteen- 
penny pamphlet on the state of the stage, and offers his plan 
for building a new theatre. It is to be hoped his lordship will 
be permitted to bring forward any thing for the stage — except 
hi& own tragedies. 



ENGLISH BAKDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWEES. 



611 



But managers for once cried, "Hold, enough !" 
Nor drugg'd their audience with the tragic stuff. 
Yet at their judgment let his lordship laugh, 
And case his volumes in congenial calf: 
Yes ! doflf that covering, where morocco shines, 
And hang a calf-skin^ on those recreant lines.* 

With you, ye Druids ! rich in native lead. 
Who daily scribble for your daily bread ; 
With you I war not : Giflford's heavy hand 
Has crush'd, without remorse, your numerous band. 
On " all the talents" vent your venal spleen ; 
Want is your plea, let pity be your screen. 
Let monodies on Fox regale your crew. 
And Melville's Mantle ^ prove a blanket too ! 
One common Lethe waits each hapless bard. 
And, peace be with you ! 'tis your best reward. 
Such damning fame as Dunciads only give 
Could bid your lines beyond a morning live ; 
But now at once your fleeting labors close. 
With names of greater note in blest repose. 



1 " Doff that lion's hide, 

And hang a calf-skin on those recreant limhs." 

Shak. : King John. 
Lord Carlisle's works, most resplendently bound, form a 
conspicuous ornament to his book-shelves :— 

" The rest is all but leather and prunella." 
- " "Wrong also— the provocation -was not sufficient to just- 
ify the acerbity."— B. 1816.— Lord Byron greatly regretted 
the sarcasms he had published against his noble relation, 
under the mistaken impression that Lord Carlisle had inten- 
tionally slighted him. In a letter to Mr. Rogers, written 
in 1814, he asks,— "Is there any chance or possibility of 
making it up with Lord Carlisle, as I feel disposed to do any 
thing reasonable or unreasonable to effect it." And in the 
third canto of Childe Harold-, he thus adverts to the fate of 
the Hon. Frederick Howard, Lord Carlisle's youngest son, 
one of those who fell gloriously at Waterloo : — 

"Their praise is hymn'd by loftier harps than mine; 
Yet one I would select from that proud throng, 
Partly because they blend me with his line, 
And partly that I did his sire some wrong, 
And partly that bright names will hallow song; 
And his was of the bravest, and when shower'd 
The death-bolts deadliest the thinn'd files along, 
Even where the thickest of war's tempest lower'd, 
They reach'd no nobler breast than thine, young, gallant 
Howard !" 
In the following extracts from two unpublished letters, 
written when Lord B. was at Harrow, may possibly be 
traced the origin of his conduct towards his guardian : — 
"Nov. 11, 1804. You mistake me if you think I dislike 
Lord Carlisle. I respect liim, and might like him did I 
know him better. For him my mother has an antipathy — why, 
I know not. I am afraid he could be but of little use to mo ; 
but I dare say he would assist me if he could ; so I take the 
will for the deed, and am obliged to him, exactly in the same 
manner as if he succeeded in his efforts."— " Nov. 21, 1804. 
To Lord Carlisle make my warmest acknowledgments. I feel 
more gratitude than I can well express. I am truly obliged 
to him for his endeavors, and am perfectly satisfied with your 
explanation of his reserve, though I was hitherto afraid it 
might procee<l from personal dislike. For the future, I .shall 
consider him as more my friend than I have hitherto been 
taught to ihink." 



Far J)e 't from me unkindly to upbraid 
The lovely Rosa's prose in masquerade. 
Whose strains, the faithful echoes of her mind, 
Leave wondering comprehension far behind.* 
Though Crusca's bards no more our journals fill, 
Some stragglers skirmish round the columns still ; 
Last of the howling host which once was Bell's, 
Matilda snivels yet, and Hafiz yells ; 
And Merry's metaphors appear anew, 
Chain'd to the signature of O. P. Q.^ 

When some brisk youth, the tenant of a stall,* 
Employs a pen less pointed than his awl. 
Leaves his snug shop, forsakes his store of shoes, 
Saint Crispin quits, and cobbles for the muse, 
Heavens ! how the vulgar stare ! how crowds applaud ! 
How ladies read, and literati laud ! "^ 
If chance some wicked wag should pass his jest, 
'Tis sheer ill-nature — don't the world know best ? 
Genius must guide when wits admire the rhyme, 
And Capel Lofit^ declares 'tis quite sublime. 



3 " Melville's Mantle," a parody on " Elijah's Mantle," a poem. 

4 This lovely little Jessica, the daughter of the noted Jew 
King, seems to be a follower of the Delia Crusca school, and 
has published two volumes of very respectable absurdities in 
rhyme, as times go ; besides sundry novels in the style of the 
first edition of the Monk. — " She since married the Morning 
Post — an exceeding good match ; and is now dead— which is 
better."— B. 1816. 

5 These are the signatures of various worthies who figure 
in the poetical departments of the newspapers. 

6 Joseph Blackett, the shoemaker. He died at Seaham, In 
1810. His poems were afterwards collected by Pratt; and, 
oddly enough, his principal patroness was Miss Milbank, 
then a perfect stranger to Lord Byron. In a letter written 
to Dallas, on board the Volage frigate, at sea, in June, 1811, 
he says,— "I see that yours and Pratt's protSgg, Blackett 
the cobbler, is dead, in spite of his rhymes, and is probably 
one of the instances where death has saved a man from 
damnation. You were the ruin of that poor fellow amongst 
you: had it not been for his patrons, he might now have 
been in very good plight, shoe- (not verse-) making; but you 
have made him immortal with a vengeance : who would think 
that any body would be such a blockhead as to sin against an 
express proverb, — ' Ne sutor ultra crepidam !' 

'But spare him, yc Critics, his follies are past, 
For the Cobbler is come, as he ought, to his last.'' 
Which two lines, with a scratch under last, to show where 
the joke lies, I beg that you will prevail on Miss Milbank to 
have inserted on the tomb of her departed Blackett." 
! 7 " This was meant for poor Blackett, who was then patron- 
; ized by A. J. B." (Lady Byron) ; " but that I did not know, 
' or this would not have been written, at least I think not."— 
B. 1816. 

8 Capel Loflft, Esq., the Msecenas of shoemakers, and 
preface-writer-general to distressed verscmcn ; a kind of 
gratis accoucheur to those who wish to be delivered of 
rhyme, but do not know how to bring forth.— The poet 
I Bloomfield owed his first celebrity to the notice of Capel 
! Lofft and Thomas Hill, Esquires, who read his "Farmer's 
Boy," in manuscript, recommended it to a publisher, and by 
their influence in society and literature, soon drew general 
attention to its merits. It is distressing to remember that, 
after all that had been done by the zeal of a iQw friends, the 
public sympathy did not rest permanently on the amiable 
Bloomfield, who died in extreme poverty in 1823. 



512 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Hear, then, ye happy sons of needless trade ! 

Swains ! quit the plough, resign the useless spade ! 

Lo ! Burns i and Bloomfield, nay, a greater far, 

GiflFord was born beneath an adverse star. 

Forsook the labors of a servile state, 

Stemm'd the rude storm, and triumph'd over fate : 

Then why no more ? if Phoebus smiled on you, 

Bloomfield ! why not on brother Nathan too ? 2 

Him too the mania, not the muse, has seized ; 

Not inspiration, but a mind diseased : 

And now no boor can seek his last abode, 

No common be enclosed without an ode. 

Oh ! since increased refinement deigns to smile 

On Britain's sons, and bless our genial isle. 

Let poesy go forth, pervade the whole, 

Alike the rustic, and mechanic soul ! 

Ye tuneful cobblers ! still your notes prolong. 

Compose at once a slipper and a song ; 

So shall the fair your handywork peruse. 

Your sonnets sure shall please — perhaps your 

shoes. 
May Moorland weavers ^ boast Pindaric skill, 
And tailors' lays be longer than their bill ! 
While punctual beaux reward the grateful notes. 
And pay for poems — when they pay for coats. 



1 "Read Burns to-day. What would he have been if a 
patrician? We should have had more polish — less force- 
just as much verse, but no immortality — a divorce and a duel 
or two, the which had he survived, as his potations must have 
been less spirituous, he might have lived as long as Sheridan, 
and outlived as much as poor Brinsley." — Byron Journal, 1813. 

2 See Nathaniel Bloomfield's ode, elegy, or whatever he or 
any one else chooses to call it, on the enclosures of " Honing- 
ton Green." 

3 Vide "Recollections of a Weaver in the Moorlands of 
StaflPordshire." 

* It would be superfluous to recall to the mind of the 
reader the authors of "The Pleasures of Memory" and 
" The Pleasures of Hope," the most beautiful didactic poems 
in our language, if we except Pope's " Essay on Man ;" but 
so many poetasters have started up, that even the names of 
Campbell and Rogers are become strange. — ^Beneath this note 
Lord Byron scribbled, in 1816— 

" Pretty Miss Jacqueline 

Had a nose aquiline, 

And would assert rude 

Things of Miss Gertrude ; 

While Mr. Marmion 

Led a great army on, 

Making Kehama look 

Like a fierce Mameluke/' 
6 "I have been reading," says Lord Byron, in 1813, "Mem- 
ory again, and Hope together, and retain all my preference 
of the former. His elegance is really wonderful — there is 
no such thing as a vulgar line in his book." 

" Rogers has not fulfilled the promise of his first poems, 
but has still very great merit." — B. 1816. 

' Giffbrd, author of the Baviad and Mseviad, the first satires 
of the day, and translator of Juvenal. — The opinion of Mr. 
GifFord had always great weight with Lord Byron. "Any 
suggestion of yours," he says in a letter written in 1813, 
" even were it conveyed in the less tender shape of the text 
of the Baviad, or a Monk Mason note in Massinger, would 
be obeyed." A few weeks before his death, on hearing from 
England of a report that he had written a satire on Mr. Gif- 



To the famed throng now paid the tribute due, 
Neglected genius ! let me turn to you. 
Come forth, oh, Campbell ! * give thy talents scope ; 
Who dares aspire if thou must cease to hope ? 
And thou, melodious Rogers ! ^ rise at last, 
Recall the pleasing memory of the past ; 
Arise ! let blest remembrance still inspire. 
And strike to wonted tones thy hallow'd lyre ; 
Restore Apollo to his vacant throne. 
Assert thy country's honor and thine own.^ 
What! must deserted Poesy still weep 
Where her last hopes with pious Cowper sleep ? 
Unless, perchance, from his cold bier she turns, 
To deck the turf that wraps her minstrel, Burns ! 
No ! though contempt hath mark'd the spurious broodp 
The race who rhyme from Folly, or for food, 
Yet still some genuine sons 'tis hers to boast. 
Who, least afiecting, still afi'ect the most : 
Feel as they write, and write but as they feel — 
Bear witness Giffbrd,'^ Sotheby,^ Macneil.^ 

" Why slumbers Gifibrd ?" once was ask'd in vain ; ^0 
Why slumbers Gifford ? let us ask again. 
Are there no follies for his pen to purge ? 11 
Are there no fools whose backs demand the scourge ? 



ford, he wrote instantly to Mr. Murray :— " Whoever asserts 
that I am the author or abettor of any thing of the kind, lies 
in his throat. It is not true that I ever did, will, would, could, 
or should write a satire against Gifford, or a hair of his head. 
I always considered him as my literary father, and myself as 
his 'prodigal' son ; and if I have allowed his ' fatted calf to 
grow to an ox before he kills it on my return, it is only be- 
cause I prefer beef to veal." 

8 Sotheby, translator of Wieland's Oberon and Virgil's 
Georgics, and author of " Saul," an epic poem.— Mr. Sotheby 
afterwards essentially raised his reputation by various orig- 
inal poems and a translation of the Iliad. He died in 1834. 

9 Macneil, whose poems are deservedlj- popular, partic- 
ularly "Scotland's Scaith" and the " Waes of War," of which 
ten thousand copies were sold in one month.— Hector Mac- 
neil died in 1818. 

10 Lord Byron here alludes to the masterly poem of " New 
Morality" (the joint production of Mr. Canning and Mr. Frere), 
in the Antijacobin, in which Gifford is thus apostrophized : — 

" Bethink thee, Gifford, when some future age 
Shall trace the promise of thy playful page : 
' The hand which brush'd a swarm of fools away, 
Should rouse to grasp a more reluctant prey !' 
Think, then, will pleaded indolence excuse 
The tame secession of thy languid muse ? , 

Ah ! where is now that promise ? why so long 
Sleep the keen shafts of satire and of song? 
Oh ! come, with taste and virtue at thy side. 
With ardent zeal inflamed, and patriot pride ; 
With keen poetic glance direct the blow. 
And empty all thy quiver on the foe- 
No pause— no rest — till weltering on the ground 
The poisonous hydra lies, and pierced with many a 
wound." 

11 Mr. Gifford promised publicly that the Baviad and Mse- 
viad should not be bis last original works ; let him remember, 
"Mox in reluctan+es dracones." — Mr. Gifford became the 
editor of the Quarterly Review — which thenceforth occupied 
most of his time — a few months after the first appearance of 
this satire, in 1809. 



ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 



513 



Are there no sins for satire's bard to greet ? 
Stalks not gigantic Vice in every street? 
Sliall peers or princes tread pollution's path, 
And 'scape alike the law's and muse's wrath ? 
Nor blaze with guilty glare through future time, 
Eternal beacons of consummate crime ? 
Arouse thee, Gifford I be thy promise chiim'd, 
Make bad men better, or at least ashamed. 

Unhappy White ! ^ while life was in its spring, 
And thy young muse just waved her joyous wing, 
The spoiler swept that soaring lyre away, 
Which else had sounded an immortal lay. 
Oh ! what a noble heart was here undone, . 
When Science' self destroy'd her favorite son ! 
Yes, she too much indulged thy fond pursuit, 
She sow'd the seeds, but death has reap'd the fruit. 
'Twas thine own genius gave the final blow, 
And help'd to plant the wound that laid thee low : 
So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain, 
No more through rolling clouds to soar again, 
View'd his own feather on the fatal dart. 
And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart ; 
Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel, 
lie nursed the pinion which impell'd the steel ; 
While the same plumage that had warm'd his nest 
Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast.^ 

There be, who say, in these enlighten'd days, 
That splendid lies are all the poet's praise ; 
That strain'd invention, ever on the wing, 
Alone impels the modern bard to sing : 
'Tis true, that all who rhyme — nay, all who write. 
Shrink from that fatal word to genius — trite ; 



1 Henry Kirke "Wliite died at Cambridge, in October, 1806, 
in consequence of too much exertion in the pursuit of studies 
that would have matured a mind which disease and poverty 
could not impair, and which death itself destroyed rather 
than subdued. His poems abound in such beauties as must 
impress the reader with the liveliest regret that so short a 
period was allotted to talents which would have dignified 
even the sacred functions he was destined to assume. — In a 
letter to Mr. Dallas, in 1811, Lord Byron says, — "I am sorry 
you don't like Harry White : with a great deal of cant, which 
in him was sincere (indeed it killed him, as you killed Joe 
Blackett), certes there is poesy and genius. I don't say this 
on account of my simile and rhymes; but surely he was 
beyond all the Bloomfields and Elacketts, and their collateral 
cobblers, whom Lofft and Pratt have or may kidnap from 
their calling into the service of the trade. Setting aside big- 
otry, he surely ranks next to Chatterton. It is a.stonishing 
how little he was kpown ; and at Cambridge no one thought 
or heard of such a man till his death rendered all notices 
useless. For my part, I should have been most proud of such 
an acquaintanc- : his very prejudices were respectable." 

2 Mr. Southey's delightful Life of Kirke White is in every 
one's hands. 

• "I consider Crabbe and Coleridge as the first of these 
times, in fKjint of power and genius."— B. 1S16. 

♦ This eminent po^t and excellent man died at his rectory 
of Trowbridge, in Fcbruarj', 1832, aged seventy-eight. With 
the exception of the late Lord StowcU, he was the lust eur- 

33 



Yet Truth sometimes will lend her noblest fires, 
And decorate the verse herself inspires : 
This fact in Virtue's name let Crabbe ^ attest; 
Though nature's sternest painter, yet the best.* 

And here let Shee^ and Genius find a place, 
Whose pen and pencil yield an equal grace ; 
To guide whose hand the sister arts combine, 
And trace the poet's or the painter's line ; 
Whose magic touch can bid the canvas glow, 
Or pour the easy rhyme's harmonious flow ; 
While honors, doubly merited, attend 
The poet's rival, but the painter's friend. 

Blest is the man who dares approach the bower 
Where dwelt the muses at their natal hour ; 
Whose steps have press'd, whose eye has mark'd 

afar. 
The clime that nursed the sons of song and war, 
The scenes whicli Glory still must hover o'er. 
Her place of birth, her own Achaian shore. 
But doubly blest is he whose heart expands 
With hallow'd feelings for those classic lands ; 
Who rends the veil of ages long gone by, 
And views their remnants with a poet's eye ! 
Wright ! ^ 'twas thy happy lot at once to view 
Those shores of glory, and to sing them too ; 
And sure no common muse inspired thy pen 
To hail the land of gods and godlike men. 

And you, associate bards ! '' who snatch'd to light 
Those gems too long withheld from modern sight ; 
Whose mingling taste combined to cull the wreath 
Where Attic flowers Aonian odors breathe, 



viving celebrated man mentioned by Boswell in connection 
with Johnson, who revised his poem of the " Village." His 
other works are the " Library," the •' Newspaper," the " Bor- 
ough;" a collection of "Poems," which Charles Fox read in 
manuscript on his death-bed; "Talcs," and also "Tales of 
the Hall." He left various poetical pieces in MS., and a col- 
lective edition of his works was published in 1834, preceded 
by an interesting memoir, written by his son. 

5 Mr. Shee, author of "Rhymes on Art" and "Elements 
of Art."— Now (1836) Sir Martin Shee, and president of the 
Royal Academy. 

6 Walter Rodwell Wright, late consul-general for the Seven 
Islands, is author of a very beautiful poem, just published : 
It is entitled " Horse lonicae," and is descriptive of the isles 
and the adjacent coast of Greece.— To the third edition, which 
came out in 1816, was added an excellent translation of the 
" Oreste " of Alfieri. After his return to England, Mr. Wright ' 
was chosen recorder of Bury St. Edmunds. 

"> The translators of the Anthology, Bland and Merivalc, 
have since published separate poems, which evince genius 
that only requires opportunity to attain eminence. — The late 
Rev. Robert Bland published, in conjunction with Mr. Mer- 
ivalc, "Collections from the Greek Anthology." He also 
wrote "Edwy and IHgiva," the "Four Slaves of Cythera," 
&c. In 1814, Mr. Merlvale published "Orlando in Ronccs- 
valles;" and in the following year, "An Odo on the Delivery 
of Europe." He became a commissioner of the Bankruptcy 
Court. 



514 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



And all their renovated fragrance flung 
To grace the beauties of your native tongue ; 
Now let those minds, that nobly could transfuse 
The glorious spirit of the Grecian muse, 
Though soft the echo, scorn a borrow'd tone : 
Resign Achaia's lyre, and strike your own. 

Let these, or such as these, with just applause, 
Restore the muse's violated laws ; 
But not in flimsy Darwin's pompous chime, 
That mighty master of unmeaning rhyme, 
Whose gilded cymbals, more adorn'd than clear, 
The eye delighted, but fatigued the ear ; 
In show the simple lyre could once surpass, 
But now, worn down, appear in native brass ; 
While all his train of hovering sylphs around 
Evaporate in similes and sound : 
Him let them shun, with him let tinsel die : 
False glare attracts, but more offends the eye.* 

Yet let them not to vulgar Wordsworth stoop, 
The meanest object of the lowly group, 
Whose verse, of all but childish prattle void, 
Seems blessed harmony to Lamb and Lloyd : 2 
Let them — but hold, my muse, nor dare to teach 
A strain far, far beyond thy humble reach : 
The native genius with their being given 
Will point the path, and peal their notes to heaven. 

And thou, too, Scott ! ^ resign to minstrels rude 
The wilder slogan of a border feud : 
Let others spin their meagre lines for hire ; 
Enough for genius, if itself inspire ! 
Let Southey sing, although his teeming muse. 
Prolific every spring, be too prcfuse ; 
Let simple Wordsworth* chime his childish verse, 
And brother Coleridge lull the babe at nurse ; 
Let spectre-mongering Lewis aim, at most, 
To roiise the galleries, or to raise a ghost; 

1 The neglect of the "Botanic Garden" is some proof of 
returning taste. The scenery is its sole recommendation. 

2 Messrs. Lamb and Lloyd, the most ignoble followers of 
Southey and Co.— In 1798, Charles Lamb and Charles Lloyd 
published in conjunction a volume entitled " Poems in Blank 
Verse." Mr. Lamb was also the author of " John Woodville," 
"Tales from Shakspeare," the "Essays of Elia," &c. He 
died in 1835. Mr. Lloyd has since published "Edward Ol- 
iver," a novel, " Nugae Canorse," and a translation of Alfieri's 
tragedies. 

8 By the bye, I hope that in Mr. Scott's next poem his hero 
or heroine will be less addicted to " gramarye," and more to 
grammar, than the Lady of the Lay and her bravo, "William 
of Deloraine. 

* " Unjust."— B. 1816. 

6 It may be asked why I have censured the Earl of Carlisle, 
my guardian and relative, to whom I dedicated a volume of 
puerile poems a few years ago. The guardianship was nom- 
inal, at least as far as I have been able to discover ; the rela- 
tionship I cannot help, and am very sorry for it ; but, as his 
lordship seemed to forget it on a very essential occasion to 
me, I shall not burden my memory with the recollection. I 
do not think that personal differences sanction the unjust 



Let Moore still sigh ; let Strangford steal from Moore, 

And swear that Camoens sang such notes of yore ; 

Let Hayley hobble on, Montgomery rave, 

And godly Grahame chant a stupid stave ; 

Let sonneteering Bowles his strains refine, 

And whine and whimper to the fourteenth line ; 

Let Stott, Carlisle,^ Matilda, and the rest 

Of Grub Street, and of Grosvenor Place the best, 

Scrawl on, till death release us from the strain, 

Or Common Sense assert her rights again. 

But thou, with powers that mock the aid of praise, 

Shouldst leave to humbler bards ignoble lays : 

Thy country's voice, the voice of all the nine, 

Demand a hallow'd harp — that harp is thine. 

Say ! will not Caledonia's annals yield 

The glorious record of some nobler field, 

Than the wild foray of a plundering clan, 

Whose proudest deeds disgrace the name of man ? 

Or Marmion's acts of darkness, fitter food 

For Sherwood's outlaw tales of Robin Hood ? 

Scotland ! still proudly claim thy native bard, 

And be thy praise his first, his best reward ! 

Yet not with thee alone his name should live, 

But own the vast renown a world can give : 

Be known, perchance, when Albion is no more, 

And tell the tale of what she was before ; 

To future times her faded fame recall, 

And save her glory, though his country fall. 

Yet what avails the sanguine poet's hope, 
To conquer ages, and with time to cope ? 
New eras spread their wings, new nations rise, 
And other victors fill the applauding skies ; 
A few brief generations fleet along, 
Whose sons forget the poet and his song : 
E'en now, what once-loved minstrels scarce may claim 
The transient mention of a dubious name ! 
When fame's loud trump hath blown its noblest blast, 
Though long the sound, the echo sleeps at last ; 

condemnation of a brother scribbler; but I see no reason 
why they should act as a preventive, when the author, noble 
or ignoble, has, for a series of years, beguiled a " discerning 
public" (as the advertisements have it) with divers reams of 
most orthodox, imperial nonsense. Besides, I do not step 
aside to vituperate the earl: no — his works come fairly in 
review ■^i'ith those of other patrician literati. If, before I 
escaped from my teens, I said any thing in favor of his lord- 
ship's paper books, it was in the way of dutiful dedication, 
and more from the advice of others than my own judgment, 
and I seize the first opportunity of pronouncing my sincere 
recantation. I have heard that some persons conceive me to 
be under obligations to Lord Carlisle ; if so, I shall be most 
particularly happy to learn what they are, and when con- 
ferred, that they may be duly appreciated and publicly ac- 
knowledged. What I have humbly advanced as an opinion 
on his printed things, I am prepared to support, if necessary, 
by quotations from elegies, eulogies, odes, episodes, and cer- 
tain facetious and dainty tragedies bearing bis name and 
mark : — 

" What can ennoble knaves, or fools, or cowards ? 

Alas ! not all the blood of all the Howards." 
So says Pope. Amen! — "Much too savage, whatever th© 
foundation might be." — B. 1816, 



ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVlEWERvS. 



515 



And glory, like the phoenix ^ 'midst her fires, 
Exhales her odors, blazes, and expires. 

Shall hoary Granta call her sable sons, 
Expert in science, more expert at puns ? 
Shall these approach the muse ? ah, no ! she flies, 
Even from the tempting ore of Seaton's prize ; 
Though printers condescend the press to soil 
With rhyme by noare,^ and epic blank by Iloyle c^ 
Not him whose page, if still upheld by whist, 
Requires no sacred theme to bid us list.* 
Ye ! who in Granta's honors would surpass, 
Must mount her Pegasus, a full-grown ass ; 
A foal well worthy of her ancient dam, 
Whose Helicon is duller than her Cam. 

There Clarke, still striving piteously " to please," 
Forgetting dogg'rel leads not to degrees, 
A would-be satirist, a hired buflfoon, 
A monthly scribbler of some low lampoon,^ 
Condemn'd to drudge, the meanest of the mean. 
And furbish falsehoods for a magazine, 
Devotes to scandal his congenial mind ; 
Himself a living libel on mankind.^ 

Oh ! dark asylum of a Vandal race ! '' 
At once the boast of learning, and disgrace ! 
So lost to Phoebus, that nor Hodgson's ^ verse 
Can make thee better, nor poor Hewson's^ worse. '° 
But where fair Isis rolls her purer wave, 
The partial muse delighted loves to lave ; 
On her green banks a greener wreath she wove. 
To crown the bards that haunt her classic grove ; 
Where Richards wakes a genuine poet's fires, 
And modern Britons glory in their sires.^^ 



1 "The devil take that phoenix! How came it there?"— 
B. 1816. 

« The Rev. Charles James Hoare published, in 1808, the 
" Shipwreck of St. Paul," a Seatonian prize poem. 

' The Rev. Charles Hoyle, author of " Exodus," an epic in 
thirteen books, and several other Seatonian prize poems. 

♦ The "Games of Hoyle," well known to the votaries of 
whist, chess, Ac, are not to be superseded by the vagaries of 
his poetical namesake, whose poems comprised, as expressly 
stated in the advertisement, all the " plagues of Egypt." 

* " Right enough ; this was well deserved, and Well laid 
on."— B. 181G. 

• This person, who has lately betrayed the most rabid 
symptoms of confirmed authorship, is writer of a poem de- 
nominated the "Art of Pleasing," as luctis a non lucendo, con- 
taining little pleasantry and less poetry. He also acts as 
monthly stifK-ndiary and collector of calumnies for the " Sat- 
irist." If this unfortunate young man would exchange the 
magazines for the mathematics, and endeavor to take a de- 
cent degree in his university, it might eventually prove more 
serviceable than his present salary.— Mr. Hewson Clarke was 
also the author of "The Saunterer" and a "History of the 
Campaign in Russia." 

■^ " Into Cambridgeshire the emperor Probus transported a 
considerable body of Vandals." — Gibbon's Decline and Fall, 
vol. ii. p. 83. There is no reason to doubt the truth of this 
assertion : the breed is still in high perfection. 



For me, who, thus unask'd, have dared to tell 
My country what her sons should know too well, 
Zeal for her honor bade me here engage 
The host of idiots that infest her age ; 
No just applause her honor'd name shall lose, 
As first in freedom, dearest to the muse. 
Oh ! would thy bards but emulate thy fame, 
And rise more worthy, Albion, of thy name ! 
What Athens was in science, Rome in power, 
What Tyre appear'd in her meridian hour, 
'Tis thine at once, fair Albion ! to have been — 
Earth's chief dictatress, ocean's lovely queen : 
But Rome decay'd, and Athens strew'd the plain, 
And Tyre's proud piers lie shatter'd in the main ; 
Like these, thy strength may sink, in ruin hurl'd, 
And Britain fall, the bulwark of the world. 
But let me cease, and dread Cassandra's fate, 
With warning ever scoflF'd at, till too late ; 
To themes less lofty still my lay confine, 
And urge thy bards to gain a name like thine. ^' 

Then, hapless Britain ! be thy rulers blest, 
The senate's oracles, the people's jest ! 
Still hear thy motley orators dispense 
The flowers of rhetoric, though not of sense, 
While Canning's colleagues hate him for his wit, 
And old dame Portland ^^ fills the place of Pitt. 

Yet once again, adieu ! ere this the sail 
That wafts me hence is shivering in the gale ; 
And Afric's coast and Calpe's adverse height, 
And Stamboul's minarets must greet my sight : 
Thence shall I stray through beauty's native clime," 
Where Kafi'^^ is clad in rocks, and crown'd with snows 
sublime. 



8 This gentleman's name requires no praise : the man who 
in translation displays unquestionable genius may be well 
expected to excel in original composition, of which it is to 
be hoped we shall soon see a splendid specimen. — Besides a 
translation of Juvenal, Mr. Hodgson published " Lady Jane 
Grey," "Sir Edgar," and "The Friends," a poem in four 
books. He also translated, in conjunction with Dr. Butler, 
Lucien Bonaparte's unreadable epic of " Charlemagne." 

9 Hewson Clarke, esq., as it is written. 

10 Originally— 

" So sunk in dullness, and so lost in shame. 

That Smythe and Hodgson scarce redeem thy name." 

11 The " Aboriginal Britons," an excellent poem by Rich- 
ards. — The Rev. George Richards, D.D., who also sent from 
the press "Songs of the Aboriginal Bards of Britain," "Mod- 
ern France," two volumes of Miscellaneous Poems, *nd 
Bampton lectures " On the Divine Origin of Prophecy." 

12 With this verse the satire originally ended. 

13 A friend of mine being asked why his grace of Portland 
•was likened to an old woman, replied, " he supposed it was 
because he was past bearing." His grace is now gathered to 
his grandmothers, where he sleeps as sound as ever ; but even 
his sleep was better than his colleagues' waking. 1811. 

1* Georgia. 

" Mount Caucasus. 



516 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



But should I bacl< return, no tempting press ^ 

Shall drag my journal from the desk's recess : 

Let coxcombs, printing as they come from far, 

Snatch his own wreath of ridicule from Carr ; 2 

Let Aberdeen and Elgin ^ still pursue 

The shade of fame through regions of virtu ; 

Waste useless thousands on their Phidian freaks, 

Misshapen monuments and maim'd antiques ; 

And make their grand saloons a general mart 

For all the mutilated blocks of art. 

Of Dardan tours let dilettanti tell, 

I leave topography to rapid * Gell ; ^ 

And, quite content, no more shall interpose 

To stun the public ear — at least with prose.* 

Thus far I've held my undisturb'd career, 
Prepared for rancor, steel'd 'gainst selfish fear : 
This thing of rhyme I ne'er disdain'd to own — 
Though not obtrusive, yet not quite unknown : 
My voice was heard again, though not so loud, 
My page, though nameless, never disavow'd ; 
And now at once I tear the veil away : — 
Cheer on the pack ! the quarry stands at bay, 
Unscared by all the din of Melbourne house,'' 
By Lambe's resentment, or by Holland's spouse, 



1 These four lines originally stood, — 

" But should I back return, no letter'd sage 
Shall drag my commonplace book on the stage ; 
Let vain Valentia* rival luckless Carr.f 
And equal him whose work he sought to mar." 

2 In a letter written from Gibraltar to his friend Hodgson, 
Lord Byron says, — "I have seen Sir John Carr at Seville and 
Cadiz, and, like Swift's barber, have been down on my knees 
to beg he would not put me into black and white." 

3 Lord Elgin would fain persuade us that all the figures, 
with and without noses, in his stone-shop, are the work of 
Phidias ! " Credat Judseus !" 

* The original epithet was " classic." Lord Byron altered 
it in the fifth edition, and added this note : — " ' Rapid,' in- 
deed ! He topographized and typographized King Priam's 
dominions in three days! I called him 'classic' before I 
saw the Troad, but since have learned better than to tack to 
his name what don't belong to it." 

6 Mr. Gell's Topography of Troy and Ithaca cannot fail to 
ensure the approbation of every man possessed of classical 
taste, as well for the information Mr. Gell conveys to the 
mind of the reader, as for the ability and research the re- 
epective works display.—" Since seeing the plain of Troy, my 
opinions are somewhat changed as to the above note. Gell's 
survey was hasty and superficial." — B. 1816. 

Shortly after his return from Greece in 1811, Lord Byron 
wrote a review of Sir William Gell's works for the Monthly 
Review. In his Diary of 1821, there is this passage : — " In 
reading, I have just chanced upon an expression of Tom 
Campbell's; — speaking of Collins, he says that 'no reader 
cares any more about the characteristic manners of his ec- 



* Lord Valentia (whose tremendous travels are forthcoming, with due 
decorations, graphical, topographical, typographical) deposed, on Sir John 
Carr's unlucky suit, that Mr. Dubois's satire prevented his purchase of the 
" Stranger in Ireland." Oh, fie, my lord I has your lordship no more feel- 
ing for a fellow tourist? — but "two of a trade," they say, &c. 

t From the many tours he made, Sir John was called "The Jaunting 
Car." A wicked wit having severely lashed him in a publication called 



By Jeffrey's harmless pistol, Ilallam's rage, 

Edina's brawny sons and brimstone page. 

Our men in buckram shall have blows enough, 

And feel they too are "penetrable stuff:" 

And though I hope not hence unscathed to go, 

Who conquers me shall find a stubborn foe. 

The time hath been, when no harsh sound would 

fall 
From lips that now may seem imbued with gall ; » 
Nor fools nor follies tempt me to despise 
The meanest thing that crawl'd beneath my eyes : 
But now, so callous grown, so changed since youth, 
I've learn'd to think, and sternly speak the truth ; 
Learn'd to deride the critic's starch decree, 
And break him on the wheel he meant for me ; 
To spurn the rod a scribbler bids me kiss. 
Nor care if courts and crowds applaud or hiss : 
Nay more, though all my rival rhymesters frown, 
I too can hunt a poetaster down ; 
And, arm'd in proof, the gauntlet cast at once 
To Scotch marauder, and to southern dunce. 
Thus much I've dared ; if my incondite lay 
Hath wrong'd these righteous times, let others say : 
This, let the world, which knows not how to spare, 
Yet rarely blames unjustly, now declare.^ 



logues than about the authenticity of the tale of Troy.' 'Tis 
false — we do care about ' the authenticity of the tale of Troy.' 
I have stood upon that plain, daily, for more than a month, 
in 1810; and if any thing diminished my pleasure, it was 
that the blackguard Bryant had impugned its veracity. It is 
true I read ' Homer Travestied,' because Hobhouse and others 
bored me with their learned localities, and I love quizzing. 
But I still venerated the grand original as the truth of his- 
tory (in the material facts) and of place. Otherwise it would 
have given me no delight. Who will persuade me, when I 
reclined upon a mighty tomb, that it did not contain a 
hero? — its very magnitude proved this. Men do not labor 
over the ignoble and petty dead : — and why should not the 
dead be Homer's dead ?" 

6 Lord Byron set out on his travels with the determination 
to keep no journal. In a letter to his friend Henry Drury, 
when on the point of sailing, he pleasantly says, — " Hobhouse 
has made woundy preparations for a book on his return: — 
one hundred pens, two gallons of japan ink, and several 
volumes of best blank, is no bad provision for a discerning 
public. I have laid down my pen, but have promised to con- 
tribute a chapter on the state of morals, &c. Ac." 

7 "Singular enough, and din enough, God knows." — B. 
1816. 5 

8 In this passage, hastily thrown off as it is, "we find," 
says Moore, "the strongest trace of that wounded feeling, 
which bleeds, as it were, through all his subsequent writings." 

9 "The greater part of this satire T most sincerely wish 
had never been written— not only on account of the injustice 
of much of the critical, and some of the personal part of it — 
but the tone and temper are such as I caunot approve."— 
Bykon. July 14, 1816. Diodati, Geneva. 



" My Pocket Book ; or Hints for a Ryght Merrie and Conceited Tour," he 
brought an action of damages against the publisher; but as the work con- 
tained only what the court deemed legitimate criticism, the knight was non- 
suited. Edward Dubois, Esq., the author of this pleasant satire, has also 
published "The Wreath," consisting of translations from Sappho, Bion, 
and Moschus, " Old Nick," a satirical story, and an edition of the Decam- 
eron of Boccaccio. 



ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 



517 



POSTSCRIPT TO THE SECOND EDITION. 

I HAVE been informed, since the present edition went to the 
press, that my trusty and well-beloved cousins, the Edinburgh 
Reviewers, are preparing a most vehement critique on my 
poor, gentle, unresisting Muse, whom they have already so 
bedevilled with their ungodly ribaldry : 

" Tant^ne animis coelestibus irse !" 

1 suppose I must say of Jeffrey as Sir Andrew Aguecheek 
saith, "An I had known he was so canning of fence, I had 
seen him damned ere I had fought him." What a pity it is 
that I shall be beyond the Bosphorus before the next number 
has passed the Tweed ! But I yet hope to light my pipe with 
it in PersuL 

My northern friends have accused me, with justice, of per- 
sonality towards their great literary anthropophagus, Jeffrey ; 
but what else was to be done with him and his dirty pack, 
who feed by "lying and slandering," and slake their thirst 
by "evil speaking"? I have adduced facts already well 
known, and of Jeffrey's mind I have stated my free opinion, 
nor has he thence sustained any injury; — what scavenger 
was ever soiled by being pelted with mud ? It may be said 
that I quit England because I have censured there " persons 
of honor and wit about town ;" but I am coming back again, 
and their vengeance will keep hot till my return. Those who 
know me can testify that my motives for leaving England are 
very different from fears, literary or personal : those who do 
not, may one day be convinced. Since the publication of this 
thing, my name has not been concealed ; I have been mostly 
in London, ready to answer for my transgressions, and in 



daily expectation of sundry cartels ; but, alas ! " the age of 
chivalry is over," or, in the vulgar tongue, there is no spirit 
nowadays. 

There is a youth yclept Hewson Clarke (subaudi esquire), 
a sizer of Emanuel College, and, I believe, a denizen of Ber- 
wick-upon-Tweed, whom I have introduced in tliese pages to 
much better company than he has been accustomed to meet ; 
he is, notwithstanding, a very sad dog, and for no reason that 
I can discover, except a personal quarrel with a bear, kept 
by me at Cambridge to sit for a fellowship, and whom the 
jealousy of his Trinity contemporaries prevented from suc- 
cess, has been abusing me, and, what is worse, the defenceless 
innocent above mentioned, in the " Satirist," for one year and 
some months. I am utterly unconscious of having given him 
any provocation; indeed, I am guiltless of having heard his 
name till coupled with the " Satirist." He has therefore no 
reason to complain, and I dare say that, like Sir Fretful Pla- 
giary, he is mther pleased than otherwise. I have now men- 
tioned all who havt^ done me the honor to notice me and 
mine, that is, my bear and my book, except the editor of the 
"Satirist," who, it seems, is a gentleman — God wot! I wish 
he could impart a little of his gentility to his subordinate 
scribblers. I hear that Mr. Jerningham is about to tak§ up 
the cudgels for his Maecenas, Lord Carlisle. I hope not : he was 
one of the few, who, in the very short intercourse I had with 
him, treated me with kindness when a boy ; and whatever 
he may say or do, "pour on, I will endure." I have nothing 
further to add, save a general note of thanksgiving to readers, 
purchasers, and publishers ; and, in the words of Scott, I wish 

" To all and each a fair good night, 
And rosy dreams and slumbers light." 



'^ints from ?^orace: 



BETOO AN ALLUSION IN ENGLISH VERSE TO THE EPISTLE " AD PISONES, DE ARTE POETICA," AND INTENDED 
AS A SEQUEL TO "ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS." 1 



" Ergo fungar vice cotis, acutum 

Reddere quae ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secandi." 

HoR. Be Arte Poet. 
' Rhymes are difficult things— they are stubborn things, sir." 

Fielding's Amelia. 



Athens. Capuchin Convent, March 12, 1811. 
Who would not laugh, if Lawrence, hired to grace 
His costly canvas with each flatter'd face, 
Abused his art, till Nature, with a blush. 
Saw cits grow centaurs underneath his brush ? 
Or, should some limner join, for show or sale, 
A maid of honor to a mermaid's tail ? 

Humane capiti cervicem pictor equinam 
Jungere si velit, et varias inducere plumas, 
Undique collatis membris, ut turpiter atrum 



^ Authors are apt, it is said, to estimate their performances 
more according to the trouble they have cost themselves, 
than the pleasure they afford to the public ; and it is only in 
this way that we can pretend to account for the extraordinary 
value which Lord Byron attached, even ruany long years after 
they were written, to these " Hints from Horace." The busi- 
ness of translating Horace has hitherto been a hopeless one ; 
and notwithstanding the brilliant cleverness of some pas- 
sages, in both Pope's and Swift's Imitations of him, there 
had been, on the whole, very little to encourage any one to 
meddle seriously even with that less difficult department. It 
is, comparatively, an easy affair to transfer the effect, or some- 
thing like the effect, of the majestic declamations of Juvenal; 
but the Horatian satire is cast in a mould of such exquisite 
delicacy — uniting perfect ease with perfect elegance through- 
out — as has hitherto defied all the skill of the moderns. 
Lord Byron, however, having composed this piece at Athens, 
in 1811, and brought it home in the same desk with the two 
first cantos of "Childe Harold," appears to have, on his 
arrival in London, contemplated its publication as far more 
likely to increase his reputation than that of his original 
poem. Perhaps Milton's preference of the "Paradise Re- 
gained" over the "Paradise Lost" is not a more decisive 
example of the extent to which a great author may mistake 
the source of his greatness. 

Lord Byron was prevented from publishing these lines, by 
a feeling, which, considering his high notion of their merit, 
does him honor. By accident, or nearly so, the "Harold" 
came out before the "Hints;" — and the reception of the 
former was so flattering to Lord Byron, that it could scarcely 
fail to take off, for the time, the edge of his appetite for liter- 
ary bitterness. In short, he found himself mixing constantly 
in society with persons who had— from good sense, or good- 
nature, or from both — overlooked the petulancies of his 
" English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," and felt, as he said, 
that he should be "heaping coals of fire on his head" if he 
were to persist in bringing forth a continuation of his juve- 
nile lampoon. Nine years had passed ere he is found writing 
(518) 



Or low Dubost — as once the world has seen — 
Degrade God's creatures in his graphic spleen ? 
Not all that forced politeness, which defends 
Fools in their faults, could gag his grinning friends.* 
Believe me, Moschus,^ like that picture seems 
The book which, sillier than a sick man's dreams, 

Desinat in piscem mulier formosa supernfe ; 
Spectatum admissi risum teneatis, amici? 
Credite, Pisones, isti tabulae fore librum 



thus to Mr. Murray: — "Get from Mr. Hobhouse, and send 
me, a proof of my 'Hints from Horace:' it has now the 
nonum prematur in annum complete in its production. I 
have a notion that, with some omissions of names and pas- 
sages, it will do ; and I could put my late observations Jor 
Pope amongst the notes. As far as versification goes, it is 
good; and, in looking back at what I wrote about that 
period, I am astonished to see how little I have trained on. 
I wrote better then than now ; but that comes of my having 
fallen into the atrocious bad taste of the times." On hear- 
ing, however, that, in Mr. Hobhouse's opinion, the iambics 
would require "a good deal of slashing" to suit the times, 
the notion of printing them was once more abandoned. 
They were first published, therefore, in 1831, seven years 
after the poet's death. 

2 In an English newspaper, which finds its way abroad 
wherever there are Englishmen, I read an account of this 

dirty dauber's caricature of Mr, H as a " beast," and the 

consequent action, &c. The circumstance is, probably, too 
well known to require further comment. — The gentleman 
here alluded to was Thomas Hope, Esq., the author of " Ana- 
stasius," and one of the most munificent patrons of art this 
country ever possessed. Having, somehow, offended an un- 
principled French painter, by name Dubost, that adventurer 
revenged himself by a picture called " Beauty and the Beast," 
in which Mr. Hope and his lady were represented according 
to the well-known fairy story. The picture had too much 
malice not to succeed ; and to the disgrace of John Bull, the 
exhibition of it is said to have fetched thirty pounds in a day. 
A brother of Mrs. Hope thrust his sword through the canvas ; 
and M. Dubost had the consolation to get five pounds dam- 
ages. The affair made much noise at the time ; though Mr, 
Hope had not then placed himself on that seat of literary 
eminence, which he afterwards attained. Probably, indeed, 
no man's reputation in the world was ever so suddenly and 
completely altered, as his was by the appearance of his mag- 
nificent romance. He died in 1833. 

3 " Moschus."— In the original MS., " Hobhouse." 



HINTS FROM HORACE. 



519 



Displays a crowd of figures incomplete, 
Poetic nightmares, without head or feet.* 

Poets and painters, as all artists ^ know, 
May shoot a little with a lengthen'd bow ; 
We claim this mutual mercy for our task. 
And grant in turn the pardon which we ask ; 
But make not monsters spring from gentle dams — 
Birds breed not vipers, tigers nurse not lambs. 

A labor'd, long exordium, sometimes tends 
(Like patriot speeches) but to paltry ends; 
And nonsense in a lofty note goes down 
As pertness passes with a legal gown : 
Thus many a bard describes in pompous strain 
The clear brook babbling through the goodly 

plain : 
The groves of Granta, and her Gothic halls, 
King's Coll., Cam's stream, stain'd windows, and old 

walls : 
Or, in advent'rous numbers, neatly aims 
To paint a rainbow, or — the river Thames.^ 

You sketch a tree, and so perhaps may shine — 
But daub a shipwreck like an alehouse sign ; 
You plan a vase — it dwindles to a pot ; 
Then glide down Grub Street — fasting and forgot ; 
Laugh'd into Lethe by some quaint Review, 
Whose wit is never troublesome till — true.* 

In fine, to whatsoever you aspire, 
Let it at least be simple and entire. 

The greater portion of the rhyming tribe 
(Give ear, my friend, for thou hast been a scribe) 

Persimilem, oujus, velut sgri somnia, vanae 
Fingentur species ; ut nee pes, nee caput uni 
Reddatur formse. Pictoribus atque poetis 
Quidlibet audendi semper fuit sequa potestas. 
Scimus, et banc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim : 
Sed non ut placidis coSant immitia ; non ut 
Scrpentes avibus geminentur, tigribus agni, 

Incoeptis gravibus plerumque et magna professis 
Purpureas, lat6 qui splendeat, unus et alter 
Assuitur pannus; cum lucus et ara Dianae, 
Et properantis aquae per amcenos ambitus agros, 
Aut flumcn Rbenura, aut pluvius describitur arcus. 
Sed nunc non erat bis locus: et fortasse cupressum 
Scis simulare : quid hoc, si fractis enatat exspes 
Navibus, terc dato qui pingitur? amphora coepit 
Tnstitui ; currcnte rota cur urceus exit? 
l»enique sit quod vis, simplex duntaxat et unum. 

Maxima pars vatum, pater, et juvencs patro digni, 
Dccipiraur specie recti. Brevis esse laboro, 
Obscurus fio : sectantem levia, nervi 
Deficiunt animique : professus grandia, turget : 



* "The opening of the poem is, with reference to the orig- 
inal, ingenious."— Moore. 

' "all artists." — Originally, "we scribblers." 

3 "Where pure description held the place of sense." — Pope. 

* "This is pointed, and folicitou-sly expressed."— Moore. 

' Mere common mortals were commonly content with one 



Are led astray by some peculiar lure. 

I labor to be brief— become obscure ; 

One falls while following elegance too fast ; 

Another soars, inflated with bombast ; 

Too low a third crawls on, afraid to fly, 

He spins his subject to satiety ; 

Absurdly varying, he at last engraves 

Fish in the woods, and boars beneath the waves.' 

Unless your care's exact, your judgment nice. 
The flight from folly leads but into vice ; 
None are complete, all wanting in some part, 
Like certain tailors, limited in art. 
For gaily gaskins Slowshears is your man ; 
But coats must claim another artisan.^ 
Now this to me, I own, seems much the same 
As Vulcan's feet to bear Apollo's frame ;^ 
Or, with a fair complexion, to expose 
Black eyes, black ringlets, but — a bottle nose ! 

Dear authors ! suit your topics to your strength, 
And ponder well your subject, and its length ; 
Nor lift your load, before you're quite aware 
What weight your shoulders will, or will not, bear. 
But lucid Order, and Wit's siren voice. 
Await the poet, skillful in his choice ; 
With native eloquence he soars along, 
Grace in his thoughts, and music in his song. 

Let judgment teach him wisely to combine 
With future parts the now omitted line : 
This shall the author choose, or that reject, 
Precise in style, and cautious to select ; 
Nor slight applause will candid pens afford 
To him who furnishes a wanting word. 

Serpit humi tutus nimium timidusque procellae : 
Qui variare cupit rem prodigialiter unam, 
Delphinum sylvis appingit, fluctibus aprum. 

In vitium ducit culpse fuga, si caret arte, 
^milium circa ludum faber imus et ungues 
Exprimet, et molles imitabitur sere capillos ; 
Infelix operis summa, quia ponere totum 
Nesciet. Hunc ego me, si quid componere curera, 
Non magis esse velim, quam pravo vivere naso, 
Spectandum nigris oculis nigroque capillo. 

Sumite materiem vestris, qui scribitis, sequam 
Viribus ; et versate diii quid ferre recusent. 
Quid valeant humeri. Cui Iccta potenter erit res. 
Nee facundia deseret hunc, nee lucidus ordo. 

Ordinis haec virtus erit et venus, aut ego fallor, 
Ut jam nunc dicat, jam nunc debentia dici 
Pleraque diflferat, et pnescns in tempus omittat ; 
Hoc amet, hoc spernat promissi carminis auctor. 

In verbis etiam tenuis cautusque serendis : 
Dixeris egregie, notum si callida vcrbum 
Reddiderit junctura novum. Si forte necesse est 



tailor and with one bill, but the more particular gentlemen 
found it impossible to confide their lower garments to the 
makers of their body clothes. I speak of the beginning of 
1809: what reform may have since taken place, I neither 
know, nor desire to know. 
« " As one leg perfect, and the other lame."— MS. 



520 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Then fear not, if 'tis needful, to jjroduce 

Some term unknown, or obsolete in use 

(As Pitt^ lias furnish'd us a word or two, 

Which lexicographers declined to do) ; 

So you indeed, with care — (but be content 

To take this license rarely) — may invent. 

New words find credit in these latter days 

If neatly grafted on a Gallic phrase. 

What Chaucer, Spenser did, we scarce refuse 

To Dryden's or to Pope's maturer muse. 

If you can add a little, say why not, 

As well as William Pitt, and Walter Scott ? 

Since they, by force of rhyme and force of lungs, 

Enrich'd our island's ill-united tongues ; 

'Tis then — and shall be — lawful to present 

ileform in writing, as in parliament. 

As forests shed their foliage by degrees, 
So fade expressions which in season please ; 
And we and ours, alas ! are due to fate. 
And works and words but dwindle to a date. 
Though as a monarch nods, and commerce calls, 
Impetuous rivers stagnate in canals ; 
Though swamps subdued, and marshes drain'd, sustain 
The heavy ploughshare and the yellow grain, 

Indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum, 
Fingere cinctutis nen exaudita Cethegis 
Continget ; dabiturque licentia sumpta pudenter ; 
Et nova fictaque nuper habebunt verba fidem, si 
Graeco fonte cadant, parce detorta. Quid auteui 
Csecilio Plautoque dabit Komanus, ademptum 
Virgilio Varioque ? ego cur, acquirere pauca 
Si possum, invideor, cum lingua Catonis et Enni 
Sermonem patrium ditaverit, et nova rerum 
Nomina protulerit ? Licuit, semperque licebit, 
Signatum prsesente nota producere nonem. 
Ut silvse foliis pronos mutantur in annos ; 
Prima cadunt : ita verborum vetus interit setas, 
Et juvenum ritu florent mode nata, vigentque. 
Debemur morti nos nostraque : sive receptus 
Terra Neptunus classes aquilonibus arcet, 
Regis opus ; sterilisve diu palus, aptaque remis, 
Vicinas urbes alit, et grave sentit aratrum : 
Seu cursum mutavit iniquum frugibus amnis, 

1 Mr. Pitt was liberal in his additions to our parliamentary , 
tongue ; as may be seen in many publications, particularly the 
Edinburgh Review. 

2 Old ballads, old plays, and old women's stories are at pres- 
ent in as much request as old wine or new speeches. In fact, 
this is the millennium of black letter : thanks to our Hebers, 
Webers, and Scotts !— There was considerable malice in thus 
putting Weber, a poor German hack, a mere amanuensis of 
Sir Walter Scott, between the two other names. 

3 " Mac Flecknoe," the " Dunciad," and all Swift's lampoon- 
ing ballads. "Whatever their other works may be, these orig- 
inated in personal feelings, and angry retort on unworthy 
rivals ; and though the ability of these satires elevates the 
poetical, their poignancy detracts from the personal character 
of the writers.— For the particulars of Dryden's feud with his 
successor in the laureateship, Shadwell, whom he has immor- 
talized under the name of Mac Flecknoe, and also as Og, in 
the second part of " Absalom and Achitophel ;" and for the 
literary squabbles in which Swift and Pope were engaged, 
the reader must turn to the lives and works of these three 



And rising ports along the busy shore 

Protect the vessel from old Ocean's roar, 

All, all must perish ; but, surviving last, 

The love of letters half preserves the past. 

True, some decay, yet not a few revive ; ^ 

Though those shall sink, which now appear to thrive, 

As custom arbitrates, whose shifting sway 

Our life and language must alike obey. 

The immortal wars which gods and angels wage, 
Are they not shown in Milton's sacred page ? 
His strain will teach what numbers best belong 
To themes celestial told in epic song. 

The slow, sad stanza will correctly paint 
The lover's anguish, or the friend's complaint. 
But which deserves the laurel — rhyme or blank ? 
Which holds on Helicon the higher rank ? 
Let squabbling critics by themselves dispute 
This point, as puzzling as a Chancery suit. 

Satiric rhyme first sprang from selfish spleen. 
You doubt — see Dryden, Pope, Saint Patrick's dean.' 

Blank verse ^ is now, with one consent, allied 
To Tragedy, and rarely quits her side. 

Doctus iter melius ; mortalia facta peribunt ; 
Nedum sermonum stet honos, et gratia vivax. 
Multa renascentur, quae jam cecidere ; cadentque 
Quae nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus, 
Quem penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi. 

Res gestae regumque ducumque et tristia bella, 
Quo scribi possent numero monstravit Homerus. 

Versibus impariter junctis querimonia primum ; 
Post etiam inclusa est voti sententia compos. 
Quis tamen exiguos elegos emiserit auctor, 
Grammatici certant, et adhuc sub judice lis est. 

Archilochum proprio rabies armavit iambo ; 
Hunc socci cepere pedem, grandesque cothurni, 
Alternis aptum sermonibus, et populares 
Vincentem strepitus, et natum rebus agendis. 

Musa dedit fidibus divo.s, puerosque deorum, 
Et pugilem victorem, et equum certamine primum, 
Et juvenum curas, et libera vina referre. 

Descriptas servare vices operumque colores, 

great writers. See also Mr. Disraeli's painfully interesting 
book on " The Quarrels of Authors." 

* Like Dr. Johnson, Lord Byron maintained the excellence 
of rhyme over blank verse in English poetry, " Blank verse," 
he says in his long-lost letter to the editor of Blackwood's 
Magazine, " unless in the drama, no one except Milton ever 
wrote who could rhyme. I am aware that Johnson has said, 
after some hesitation, that he could not ' prevail upon himself 
to wish that Milton had been a rhymer.' The opinions of 
that truly great man, whom, like Pope, it is the present 
fashion to decry, will ever be received by me with that defer- 
ence which time will restore to him from all ; but, with all 
humility, I am not persuaded that the 'Paradise Lost' would 
not have been more nobly conveyed to posterity, not per- 
haps in heroic couplets,— although even they could sustain 
the subject, if well balanced,— but in the stanza of Spenser, 
or of Tasso, or in the terza rima of Dante, which the powers 
of Milton could easily have grafted on our language. The 
'Seasons' of Thomson would have been better in rhyme, 
although still inferior to his ' Castle of Indolence ;' and Mr. 
Southey's ' Joan of Arc ' no worse." 



HINTS FROM HORACE. 



621 



Though mad Alraanzor rhymed in Dryden's days, 

No sing-song hero rants in modern plays ; 

While modest Comedy her verse foregoes 

For jest and pini^ in very middling prose. 

Not that our Bens or Beaumonts show the worse, 

Or lose one point, because they wrote in verse. 

But so Thalia pleases to appear, 

Poor virgin ! damn'd some twenty times a year ! 

Whate'er the scene, let this advice have weight : 
Adapt your language to your hero's state. 
At times Melpomene forgets to groan. 
And brisk Thalia takes a serious tone ; 
Nor unregarded will the act pass by 
Where angry Townly ^ lifts his voice on high. 
Again, our Shakspeare limits verse to kings, 
When common prose will serve for common 

things ; 
And lively Hal resigns heroic ire, 
To "hollowing Hotspur "^ and the sceptred sire. 

'Tis not enough, ye bards, with all your art. 
To polish poems ; — they must touch the heart : 
Where'er the scene be laid, whate'er the song. 
Still let it bear the hearer's soul along ; 
Command your audience or to smile or weep, 
Whiche'er may please you — anything but sleep. 
The poet claims our tears ; but, by his leave, 
Before I shed them, let me see him grieve. 

If banish'd Romeo feign'd nor sigh nor tear, 
Lull'd by his languor, I should sleep or sneer. 

Cur ego, si nequeo ignoroque, poeta salutor? 
Cur nescire, pudens prave, quam discere male? 

Versibus exponi tragicis res comica non vult ; 
Indignatiir item privatis, ac prope socco 
Dignis carmiuibus narrari coena Thyestse. 
Singula quaeque locum teneant sortita decenter. 
Interdum tamen et vocem comcedia tollit, 
Iratusque Chremes tumido delitigat ore : 
Et tragicus plerumque dolet sermone pedestri. 
Telephus et Peleus, cum pauper et exsul, uterque 
Projicit ampuUas et sesquipedalia verba, 
Si curat cor spectantis tctigisse querela. 

Non satis est pulchra esse poemata ; dulcia sunto, 
Et, quocunque volent. animum auditoris agunto. 
Ut ridentibua arrident, ita flentibus adflent 
Humani vultus : si vis me Acre, dolendum est 
Priraum ipsi tibi ; tunc tiia me infortunia laedent. 
Tclephe, vel Peleu, male si mandata loqueris, 
Aut dormitabo, aut ridebo: tristia moestum 
Vultum verba decent ; iratum, plena minarum ; 



1 With all the vuljjar applause and critical abhorrence of 
puns, they have Aristotle on their side ; who permits them to 
orators, and gives them consequence by a grave disquisi- 
tion. — "Cicero also," says Addison, "has sprinkled several of 
his works with them; and, in his book on Oratory, quotes 
abundance of sayings as pieces of wit, which, upon examina- 
tion, prove arrant puns. But the age in which the pun chiefly 
flourished was in the reign of James the First, who was him- 
self a tolerable punster, and made very few bishops or privy 
councillors that had not some time or other signalized them- 
selves by a clinch or a conundrum. The sermons of Biahop 



Sad words, no doubt, become a serious face, 
And men look angry in the proper place. 
At double meanings folks seem wondrous sly, 
And sentiment prescribes a pensive eye ; 
For nature form'd at first the inward man. 
And actors copy nature — when they can. 
She bids the beating heart with rapture bound, 
Raised to the stars, or levell'd with the ground ; 
And for expression's aid, 'tis said, or sung. 
She gave our mind's interpreter— the tongue. 
Who, worn with use, of late would fain dispense 
(At least in theatres) with common sense ; 
O'erwhelm with sound the boxes, gallery, pit, 
And raise a laugh with anything — but wit. 

To skillful writers it will much import. 
Whence spring their scenes, from common life or 

court ; 
Whether they seek applause by smile or tear, 
To draw a " Lying Valet," or a " Lear," 
A sage, or rakish youngster wild from school, 
A wandering " Peregrine," or plain " John Bull ; " 
All persons please when nature's voice prevails, 
Scottish or Irish, born in Wilts or Wales. 

Or follow common fame, or forge a plot ; 
Who cares if mimic heroes lived or not ? 
One precept serves to regulate the scene : — 
Make it appear as if it might have been. 

If some Drawcansir * you aspire to draw, 
Present him raving, and above all law : 

Ludentem, lasciva; sever um, seria dictu. 
Format enim natura prius nos intus ad omnem 
Fortunarum habitum ; juvat, aut impellit ad iram ; 
Aut ad humum moerore gravi deducit, et angit ; 
Post effert animi motus interprete lingua. 
Si dicentis erunt fortunis absona dicta, 
Eomani tollent equites peditesque cachinnum. 

Intererit multum, Davusne loquatur, an heros ; 
Maturusne senex, an adhuc florente juventa 
Fervidus ; an matrona potens, an sedula nutrix ; 
Mercatorne vagus, cultorne virentis agelli ; 
Colchus, an Assyrius ; Thebis nutritus, an Argis. 

Aut famam sequere, aut sibi convenientia finge, 
Scriptor. Honoratum si forte reponis Acbillem ; 
Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer. 
Jura neget sibi nata, nihil non arroget armis. 
Sit Medea ferox invictaque, flebilis Ino, 
Perfidus Ixion, lo vaga, tristis Orestes, 
Si quid inexpertum scenge committis, et audes 
Personam formare novam ; servetur ad imum 

Andrews, and the tragedies of Shakspeare, are full of them. 
The sinner was punned into repentance by the former; as in 
the latter, nothing is more usual than to see a hero weeping 
and quibbling for a dozen lines together." 

2 In Vanbrugh's comedy of the " Provoked Husband." 

3 " And in his ear I'll hollo Mortimer!"—! Henry IV. 

* "Johnson. Pray, Mr. Bayes, who is that Drawcansir? 
Bayes. Why, sir, a great hero, that frights his mistress, snubs 
up kings, baffles armies, and does what he will, without re- 
gard to numbers, good sense, or justice." — Rehearsal. 



522 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



If female furies in your scheme are plann'd, 
Macbeth's fierce dame is ready to your hand ; 
For tears and treachery, for good and evil, 
Constance, King Richard, Hamlet, and the Devil ! 
But if a new design you dare essay, 
And freely wander from the beaten way, 
True to your characters, till all be past. 
Preserve consistency from first to last. 

'Tis hard to venture where our betters fail, 
Or lend fresh interest to a twice-told tale ; 

Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet. . 
Difficile est proprie communia dicere ; i tuque 
Rectius Iliacum carmen deducis in actus, 
Quam si proferres ignota indictaque primus. 
Publica materies privati juris erit, si 
Nee circa vilem patulumque moraberis orbem ; 
Nee verbum verbo curabis reddere fidus 



^ "Difficile est proprie communia dicere." — Madame Dacier, 
Madame de Sevigne, Boileau, and others, have left their dis- 
pute on the meaning of this passage in a tract considerably 
longer than the poem of Horace. It is printed at the close of 
the eleventh volume of Madame de Sevigne's Letters, edited 
by Grouvelle, Paris, 1806. Presuming that all who can con- 
strue may venture an opinion on such subjects, particularly 
as to many who can not have taken the same liberty, I should 
have held my " farthing candle " as awkwardly as another, 
had not my respect for the wits of Louis the Fourteenth's 
Augustan si6cle induced me to subjoin these illustrious au- 
thorities. 1st, Boileau: " II est difficile detraiterdes sujets qui 
sont £1 la portee de tout le monde d'une manigre qui vous les 
rende propres, ce qui s'appelle s'approprier un sujet par le 
tour qu'on y donne." 2dly, Batteux : " Mais il est bien diffi- 
cile de donner des traits propres et individuels aux etres pure- 
ment possibles." 3dly, Dacier : " II est difficile de traiter 
convenablement ces caractgres que tout le monde pent in- 
venter." Madame de SevignS's opinion and translation, con- 
sisting of some thirty pages, I omit, particularly as M. Grou- 
velle observes, " La chose est bien remarquable, aucune de 
ces diverses interpretations ne parait 6tre la veritable." But by 
way of comfort, it seems, fifty years afterwards, " Le lumineux 
Dumarsais " made his appearance, to set Horace on his legs 
again, " dissiper tous les nuages, et concilier tous les dissen- 
timens ;" and some fifty years hence, somebody, still more lu- 
minous, will doubtless start up and demolish Dumarsais and 
his system on this weighty affair, as if he were no better than 
Ptolemy and Tycho, or his comments of no more consequence 
than astronomical calculations on the present comet. I am 
happy to say, " la longueur de la dissertation " of M. D. pre- 
vents M. G. from saying any more on the matter. A better 
poet than Boileau, and at least as good a scholar as Sevigne, 
has said, 

" A little learning is a dangerous thing." 



* On the original MS. we find, — "This note was written" [at Athens] 
" before the author was apprised of Mr. Cumberland's death." The old lit- 
terateur died in May, 1811, and had the honor to be buried in Westminster 
Abbey, and to be eulogized, while the company stood round the grave, in 
the following manly style by the then dean, Dr. Vincent, his schoolfellow, 
and through life his friend: — " Good people I the person you see now de- 
posited is Richard Cumberland, an author of no small merit: his writings 
were chiefly for the stage, but of strict moral tendency : they were not 
without faults, but they were not gross, abounding with oaths and libidin- 
ous expressions, as, I am shocked to observe, is the case of many of the 
present day. He wrote as much as any one : few wrote better ; and his 
works will be held in the highest estimation, as long as the English lan- 
guage will be understood. He considered the theatre a school for moral 
improvement, and his remains are truly worthy of mingling with the 



And yet, perchance, 'tis wiser to prefer 

A hackney'd plot, than choose a new, and err ; 

Yet copy not too closely, but record. 

More justly, thought for thought than word for word. 

Nor trace your prototype through narrow ways. 

But only follow where he merits praise. ^ 

For you, young bard ! whom luckless fate may lead 
To tremble on the nod of all who read. 
Ere your first score of cantos time unrolls, 
Beware — for God's sake, don't begin like Bowles I'* 

Interpres, nee desilies imitator in arctum, 
Unde pedem proferre pudor vetet, aut operis lex. 
Nee sic incipies, ut scriptor cyclicus olim : 
" Fortunam Priami cantabo, et nobile bellum." 
Quid dignum tanto feret hie promissor hiatu ? 
Parturiunt montes : nascetur ridiculus mus. 
Quanto rectius hie, qui nU molitur inepte ! 



And, by this comparison of comments, it may be perceived 
how a good deal may be rendered as perilous to the proprie- 
tors.— Dr. Johnson gave the interpretation thus—" He means 
that it is difficult to appropriate to particular persons quali- 
ties which are common to all mankind, as Homer has done." 
"It seems to result from the whole discussion," says Mr. 
Croker, " that, in the ordinary meaning of the words, the 
passage is obscure, and that, to make sense, we must either 
alter the words, or assign to them an unusual interpretation. 
All commentators are agreed, by the help of the context, 
what the general meaning must be ; but no one seems able 
' verbum verbo reddere fidus interpres.' " {Boswell, vol. iii. 
p. 438.) But, in our humble opinion, Boileau's translation is 
precisely that of this " fidus interpres." 

2 About two years ago a young man, named Townsend, 
was announced by Mr. Cumberland* (in a review f since de- 
ceased) as being engaged on an epic poem to be entitled 
" Armageddon." The plan and specimen proniise much ; but 
I hope neither to offend Mr. Townsend, nor his friends, by 
recommending to his attention the lines of Horace to which 
these rhymes allude. If Mr. Townsend succeeds in his un- 
dertaking, as there is reason to hope, how much will the world 
be indebted to Mr. Cumberland for bringing him before the 
public ! But, till that eventful day arrives, it may be doubted 
whether the premature display of his plan (sublime as the 
ideas confessedly are) has not, — by raising expectation too 
high, or diminishing curiosity, by developing his argument, 
— rather incurred the hazard of injuring Mr. Townsend'a 
future prospects. Mr. Cumberland (whose talents I shall 
not depreciate by the humble tribute of my praise) and 
Mr. Townsend must not suppose me actuated by unworthy 
motives in this suggestion. I wish the author all the success 
he can wish himself, and shall be truly happy to see epic 
poetry weighed up from the bathos where it lies sunken with 
Southey, Cottle, Cowley (Mrs. or Abraham), Ogilvy, Wilkle, 



illustrious dead which surround us. Read his prose subjects on divinity ! 
there you will find the true Christian spirit of the man who trusted in our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. May God forgive him his sins, and,, at the 
resurrection of the just, receive him into everlasting glory 1" 

t The " London Review," set up in 1809, under Mr. Cumberland's editorial 
care, did not outlive many numbers. He spoke great things in the pros- 
pectus, about the distinguishing feature of the journal ; viz., its having th» 
writer's name affixed to the articles. This plan has succeeded pretty well 
both in France and Germany, but has failed utterly as often as it has been 
tried in this country. It is needless, however, to go into any speculation 
on the principle here; for the "London Review," whether sent into the 
world with or without names, must soon have died of the original disease 
of dullness. 



HINTS FROM HORACE. 



523 



** Awake a louder and a loftier strain," — 
And pray, what follows from his boiling brain ? — 
He sinks to Southey's level in a trice. 
Whose epic mountains never fail in mice ! 
Not so of yore awoke your mighty sire 
The temper'd warblings of his master-lyre; 
Soft as the gentler breathing of the lute, 
" Of man's first disobedience and the fruit" 
He speaks, but, as his subject swells along. 
Earth, heaven, and hades echo with the song.i 
Still to the midst of things he hastens on. 
As if we witness'd all already done ; 
Leaves on his path whatever seems too mean 
To raise the subject, or adorn the scene ; 
Gives, as each page improves upon the sight, 
Not smoke from brightness, but from darkness- 
light; 
And truth and fiction with such art compounds. 
We know not where to fix their several bounds. 
If you would please the public, deign to hear 
What soothes the many-headed monster's ear ; 
If your heart triumph when the hands of all 
Applaud in thunder at the curtain's fall, 

" Die mihi, Musa, virum, captae post tempora Trojae, 
Qui mores hominum multorum vidit et urbes." 
Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lueem 
Cogitat, ut speciosa dehinc miracula promat, 
Antiphaten, Scyllanique, et cum Cyclope Charybdim. 
Nee reditum Diomedis ab interitu Meleagri, 
Nee gemino bellum Trojanum orditur ab ovo. 
Semper ad eventum festinat ; et in medias res 
Non secus ac notas, auditorem rapit, et quae 
Desperat tractata nitescere posse, relinquit: 
Atque ita mentitur, sic veris falsa remiscet, 
Primo ne medium, medio ne discrepet imum. 



Pye, and all the " dull of past and present days." Even if he 
is not a Milton, he may be better than Blackmore; if not a 
Homer, an Aniimachus. I should deem myself presumptuous, 
as a young man, in offering advice were it not addressed to 
one still younger. Mr. Townsend has the greatest difficulties 
to encounter: but in conquering them he will find employ- 
ment; in having conquered them, his reward. I know too 
well " the scribbler's scoff, the critic's contumely ;" and I am 
afraid time will teach Mr. Townsend to know them better. 
Those who succeed, and those who do not, must bear this 
alike, and it is hard to say which have the most of it. I 
trust that Mr. Townsend's share will be from envy ;— he will 
soon know mankind well enough not to attribute this ex- 
pression to malice.— This was penned at Athens. On his 
return to England Lord B. wrote to a friend :—" There is a 
sucking epic poet at Granta, a Mr. Townsend, protggg of the 
late Cumberland. Did you ever hear of him and his ' Arma- 
geddon'? I think his plan (the man I don't know) borders 
on the sublime; though, perhaps, the anticipation of the 
' I>ast Day' is a little too daring: at least, it looks like telling 
the Almighty what he is to do; and might remind an ill- 
natured person of the line — 

' And fools rush in where angels fear to tread.' 
But I don't mf'an to cavil — only other folks will; and he 
may bring all the lambs of Jacob Behmen about his ears. 
However, I hope he will bring it to a conclusion, though 
Milton is in his way."— All Lord Byron's anticipations, with 
regard to this poem, were realized to the very letter. To 
gratify the curiosity which had been excited, Mr, Townsend, 



Deserve those plaudits— study nature's page, 
And sketch the striking traits of every age ; 
While varying man and varying years unfold 
Life's little tale, so oft, so vainly told : 
Observe his simple childhood's dawning days, 
His pranks, lais prate, his playmates, and his plays 
Till time at length the mannish tyro weans, 
And prurient vice outstrips his tardy teens ! 

Behold him Freshman ! forced no more to groan 
O'er Virgil's'-^ devilish verses and his own ; 
Prayers are too tedious, lectures too abstruse, 
He flies from Tavell's frown to " Fordham's Mews ; 
(Unlucky Tavell ! ^ doom'd to daily cares 
By pugilistic pupils, and by bears,)* 
Fines, tutors, tasks, conventions threat in vain, 
Before hounds, hunters, and Newmarket plain. 
Rough with his elders, with his equals rash, 
Civil to sharpers, prodigal of cash ; 
Constant to nought — save hazard and a whore. 
Yet cursing both — for both have made him sore ; 
Unread (unless, since books beguile disease, 
The p — X becomes his passage to degrees) ; 

Tu, quid ego et populus mecum desideret, audi. 
Si plausoris eges aulsea manentis, et usque 
Sessuri, donee cantor, Vos plaudite, dicat; 
iEtatis cuj usque notandi sunt tibi mores, 
Mobilibusque decor natures dandus et annis, 
Reddere qui voces jam scit puer, et pede certo 
Signat humum ; gestit paribus colludere, et iram 
Colligit ac ponit temere, et mutatur in horas. 

Imberbis juvenis, tandem custode remoto, 
Gaudet equis canibusque, et aprici gramine campi ; 
Cereus in vitium flecti, monitoribus asper, 
Utilium tardus provisor, prodigus seris, 



in 1815, was induced to publish eight out of the twelve books 
of which it was to consist. " In the benevolence of his heart 
Mr. Cumberland," he says, " bestowed praise on me, certainly 
too abundantly and prematurely ; but I hope that any defi- 
ciency on my part may be imputed to the true cause — my own 
inability to support a subject, under which the greatest men- 
tal powers must inevitably sink. My talents were neither 
equal to my own ambition, nor his zeal to serve me." 

1 " There is more of poetry in these verses upon Milton than 
in any other passage throughout the paraphrase." — Moore. 

2 Harvey, the circulator of the circulation of the blood, 
used to fling away Virgil in his ecstasy of admiration, and 
say, " the book had a devil." Now, such a character as I am 
copying would probably fling it away also, but rather wish 
that the devil had the book ; not from dislike to the poet, but 
a well-founded horror of hexameters. Indeed, the public 
school penance of "Long and Short" is enough to beget an 
antipathy to poetry for the residue of a man's life, and, per- 
haps, so far may be an advantage. 

8 " Infandum, regina, jubes renovare dolorem." I dare say 
Mr. Tavell (to whom I mean no affront) will understand me ; 
and it is no matter whether any one else does or no. — To 
the above events, " quaeque ipse raiserrima vidi, et quorum 
pars magna fui," " all times and terms bear testimony." 

* The Rev. G. F. Tavell was a fellow and tutor of Trinity 
College, Cambridge, during Lord Byron's residence, and owed 
this notice to the zeal with which he had protested against 
some juvenile vagaries, sufficiently explained in Mr. Moore's 
Notices, vol. i. p. 210. 



624 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Fool'd, pillaged, dunn'd, he wastes his term away, 
And, unexpell'd, perhaps, retires M. A, ; 
Master of arts ! as hells and clubs^ proclaim, 
Where scarce a blackleg bears a brighter name ! 

Launch'd into life, extinct his early fire, 
He apes the selfish prudence of his sire ; 
Marries for money, chooses friends for rank, 
Buys land, and shrewdly trusts not to the Bank ; 
Sits in the Senate ; gets a son and heir ; 
Sends him to Harrow, for himself was there. 
Mute, though he votes, unless when call'd to cheer. 
His son's so sharp— he'll see the dog a peer ! 

Manhood declines — age palsies every limb ; 
He quits the scene — or else the scene quits him ; 
Scrapes wealth, o'er each departing penny grieves, 
And avarice seizes all ambition leaves ; 
Counts cent, per cent., and smiles, or vainly frets. 
O'er hoards diminish'd by young Hopeful's debts ; 
Weighs well and wisely what to sell or buy, 
Complete in all life's lessons — but to die ; 
Peevish and spiteful, doting, hard to please. 
Commending every time, save times like these ; 
Crazed, querulous, forsaken, half forgot. 
Expires unwept — is buried — let him rot ! 

But from the Drama let me not digress. 
Nor spare my precepts, though they please you 

less. 
Though woman weep, and hardest hearts are stirr'd. 
When what is done is rather seen than heard. 
Yet many deeds preserved in history's page 
Are better told than acted on the stage ; 
The ear sustains what shocks the timid eye, 
And horror thus subsides to sympathy. 

Sublimis, cupidusque, et amata relinquere pernix. 

Conversis studiis, setas animusque virilis 
Quserit opes et amicitias, inservit honori ; 
Commisisse caret quod mox mutare laboret. 

Multa senem conveniunt incommoda ; vel quod 
Quserit, et inventis miser abstinet, ac timet uti ; 
Vel quod res omnes timide gelideque ministrat, 
Dilator, spe longus, iners, avidusque futuri ; 
Difficilis, querulus, laudator temporis acti 
Se puero, castigator censorque minorum. 
Multa ferunt anni venientes commoda secum, 
Multa recedentes adimunt. Ne forte seniles 



1 " Hell," a gaming-house so called, where you risk little, 
and are cheated a good deal, " Club," a pleasant purgatory, 
where you lose more, and are not supposed to be cheated at 
all. 

2 " Irene had to speak two lines with the bowstring round 
her neck ; but the audience cried out ' Murder !' and she 
was obliged to go oflf the stage alive." — BoswelVs Johnson. — 
These two lines were afterwards struck out, and Irene was 
carried off, to be put to death behind the scenes. "This 
shows," says Mr. Malone, "how ready modern audiences 
are to condemn, in a new play, what they have frequently en- 
dured very quietly in an old one. Rowe has made Moneses, 
in Tamerlane, die by the bowstring without offence." Davies 
assures us, in his life of Garrick, that the strangling Irene, 



True Briton all beside, I here am French — 

Bloodshed 'tis surely better to retrench ; 

The gladiatorial gore we teach to flow 

In tragic scene disgusts, though but in show : 

We hate the carnage while we see the trick, 

And find small sympathy in being sick. 

Not on the stage the regicide Macbeth 

Appalls an audience with a monarch's death ; 

To gaze when sable Hubert threats to sear 

Young Arthur's eyes, can ours or nature bear? 

A halter'd heroine 2 Johnson sought to slay — 

We saved Irene, but half damn'd the play. 

And (Heaven be praised !) our tolerating times 

Stint metamorphoses to pantomimes ; 

And Lewis' self, with all his sprites, would quake 

To change Earl Osmond's negro to a snake ! 

Because, in scenes exciting joy or grief. 

We loathe the action which exceeds belief: 

And yet, God knows ! what may not authors do. 

Whose postscripts prate of dyeing " heroines blue " ?* 

Above all things, Dan Poet, if you can, 
Eke out your acts, I pray, with mortal man, 
Nor call a ghost, unless some cursed scrape 
Must open ten trap-doors for your escape. 
Of all the monstrous things I'd fain forbid, 
I loathe an opera worse than Dennis did ; * 
Where good and evil persons, right or wrong, 
Eage, love, and aught but moralize, in song. 
Hail, last memorial of our foreign friends. 
Which Gaul allows, and still Hesperia lends ! 
Napoleon's edicts no embargo lay 
On whores, spies, singers, wisely shipp'd away. 
Our giant capital, whose squares are spread 
Where rustics earn'd, and now may beg, their 
bread, 

Mandentur juveni partes, pueroque viriles, 
Semper in adjunctis, sevoque morabimur aptis. 

Aut agitur res in scenis, aut acta refertur. 
Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem 
Quam quse sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, et quae 
Ipse sibi tradit spectator. Non tamen intus 
Digna geri promes in scenam ; multaque tolles 
Ex oculis, quse mox n arret facundia prsesens. 
Ne pueros coram populo Medea trucidet ; 
Aut humana palam coquat exta nefarius Atreus ; 
Aut in avem Progne vertatur, Cadmus in anguem. 
Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi. 



contrary to Horace's rule, coram populo, was suggested by 
Garrick. See Croker's Boswell, vol. i. p. 172. 

8 In the postscript to the " Castle Spectre," Mr. Lewis tells 
us, that though blacks were unknown in England at the 
period of his action, yet he has made the anachronism to set 
off the scene ; and if he could have produced the effect " by 
making his heroine blue,"— I quote him,— "blue he would 
have made her I" 

* In 1706, Dennis, the critic, wrote an " Essay on the Operas 
after the Italian manner, which are about to be established 
on the English Stage ;" in which he endeavored to show, that 
it is a diversion of more pernicious consequence than the 
most licentious play that ever appeared upon the stage. 



HINTS FROM HORACE. 



526 



In all iniquity is grown so nice, 
It scorns amusements which are not of price. 
Hence the pert shopkeeper, whose tlirobbing ear 
Aches with orchestras which he pays to liear, 
Whom shame, not sympathy, forbids to snore, 
His anguish doubling by his own " encore ;" 
Squeezed in " Fop's Alley," jostled by the beaux, 
Teased with his hat, and trembling for his toes ; 
Scarce wrestles through the night, nor tastes of ease, 
Till the dropp'd curtain gives a glad release : 
Why this, and more, he suffers— can ye guess ? — 
Because it costs him dear, and makes him dress ! 

So prosper eunuchs from Etruscan schools ; 
Give us but fiddlers, and they're sure of fools ! 
Ere scenes were play'd by many a reverend clerk ^ 
(What harm, if David danced before the ark ?),2 
In Christmas revels, simple country folks 
Were pleased with morrice-mumm'ry, and coarse jokes. 
Improving years, with things no longer known. 
Produced blithe Punch and merry Madame Joan, 
Who still frisk on with feats so lewdly low, 
'Tis strange Benvolio^ suffers such a show ; * 
Suppressing peer ! to whom each vice gives place. 
Oaths, boxing, begging,— all, save rout and race. 

Farce follow'd Comedy, and reach'd her prime. 
In ever-laughing Foote's fantastic time : 

Neve minor, neu sit quinto productior actu 
Fabula, quae posci vult et spectata reponi. 

^ " The first theatrical representations, entitled ' Mysteries 
and Moralities,' were generally enacted at Christmas, by 
monks (as the only persons who could read), and latterly by 
the clergy and students of the universities. The dramatis 
personse were usually Adam, Pater Coelestis, Faith, Vice," &c. 
Ac. See Warton's History of English Poetry.— These, to 
modern eyes, wild, uncouth, and generally profane perform- 
ances, were thought to contribute so much to the information 
and instruction of the people, that one of the popes granted 
a pardon of one thousand days to every person who resorted 
peaceably to the plays acted in the Whitsunweek at Chester, 
beginnin!:c with the "Creation," and ending with the "Gen- 
eral Judgment." These were performed at the expense of 
the different trading companies of that city. The " Creation" 
was performed by the drapers; the "Deluge" by the dyers; 
"Abraham, Melchisedec, and Lot" by the barbers; the 
"Purification" by the blacksmiths; the "Last Supper" by 
the bakers; the "Resurrection" by the skinners; and the 
" Ascension " by the tailors. In Mr. Payne Collier's work on 
English Dramatic Poetry, the reader will find an abstract of j 
the several collections of these master-plays, which is not | 
only interesting for the light it throws on the early days of 
our drama, but instructive and valuable for the curious in- 
formation it preserves with respect to the strangely debased 
notions of Scripture history that prevailed, almost univer- 
sally, before the translations of the Bible were in common 
use. See also the Quarterly Review, vol. xlvi. p. 477. 

* Here follows in the original MS. — 

" Who did what Vestris,— yet, at least,— cannot, 
And cut his kingly capers sans culotte." 

» Benvolio does not bet; but every man who maintains 
race-horses is a promoter of all the concomitant evils of the 
turl Avoiding to bet is a little pharisaical. Is it an ezcul- 



Mad wag ! who pardon'd none, nor spared the best, 
And turn'd some very serious things to jest. 
Nor church nor state escaped his public sneers, 
Arms nor the gown, priests, lawyers, volunteers : 
" Alas, poor Yorick !" now for ever mute ! 
Whoever loves a laugh must sigh for Foote. 

We smile, perforce, when histrionic scenes 
Ape the swolu dialogue of kings and queens, 
When " Chrononhotonthologos must die," 
And Arthur struts in mimic majesty. 

Moschus ! with whom once more I hope to sit. 
And smile at folly, if we can't at wit ; 
Yes, friend ! for thee I'll quit my cynic cell, 
And bear Swift's motto, " Vive la bagatelle !" 
Which charm'd our days in each Mgean clime, 
As oft at home, with revelry and rhyme.^ 
Then may Euphrosyne, who sped the past. 
Soothe thy life's scenes, nor leave thee in the 

last; 
But find in thine, like pagan Plato's bed,^ 
Some merry manuscript of mimes, when dead. 

Now to the Drama let us bend our eyes. 
Where fetter'd by whig Walpole low she lies ; ' 
Corruption foil'd her, for she fear'd her glance ; 
Decorum left her for an opera dance ! 

Nee Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus 
Inclderit. * * * * 



pation? I think not. I never yet heard a bawd praised for 
chastity, because she herself did not commit fornication ! 

* For Benvolio we have, in the original MS., "Earl Gros- 
venor ;" and for the next couplet — 

" Suppressing peer ! to whom each vice gives place, 
Save gambling— for his lordship loves a race." 
But we cannot trace the exact propriety of the allusions. 
Lord Grosvenor, now Marquess of Westminster, no doubt dis- 
tinguished himself by some attack on the Sunday news- 
papers, or the like, at the same time that he was known to 
keep a stud at Newmarket— but why a long note on a subject 
certainly insignificant, and perhaps mistaken ? 

5 In dedicating the fourth canto of "Childe Harold" to his 
fellow traveller. Lord Byron describes him as " one to whom 
he was indebted for the social advantages of an enlightened 
friendship ; one whom he had long known, and accompanied 
far, whom he had found wakeful over his sickness and kind in 
his sorrow, glad in his prosperity and firm in his adversity, 
true in counsel and trusty in peril :"— while Mr. Hobhouse, 
in describing a short tour to Negroponte, in which his noble 
friend was unable to accompany him, regrets the absence of a 
companion, " who, to quickness of observation and ingenuity 
of remark, united that gay good humor which keeps alive the 
attention under the pressure of fatigue, and softens the aspect 
of every difficuHy and danger." 

6 Under Plato's pillow a volume of the Mimes of Sophron 
was found the day he died.— Fide Barth616mi, De Pauw, or 
Diogenes Laertius, if agreeable. De Pauw calls it a jest-book. 
Cumberland, in his Observer, terms it moral, like the sayings 
of Publius Syrus. 

^ The following is a brief sketch of the origin of the Play- 
house Bill: — In 1735, Sir John Barnard brought in a bill "to 
restrain the number of houses for playing of interludes, and 
for the better regulating of common players." The minister, 



526 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Yet Chesterfield,! whose polish'd pen inveighs 
'Gainst laughter, fought for freedom to our plays ; 
Uncheck'd by megrims of patrician brains. 
And damning dullness of lord chamberlains. 
Repeal that act ! 2 again let Humor roam 
Wild o'er the stage — we've time for tears at home. 
Let " Archer " plant the horns on " Sullen's " brows, 
And " Estifania " gull her " Copper " ^ spouse ; 
The moral's scant — but that may be excused, 
Men go not to be lectured, but amused. 

Sir Robert "Walpole, conceiving this to be a favorable oppor- 
tunity of checking the abuse of theatrical representation, pro- 
posed to insert a clause to ratify and confirm, if not enlarge, 
the povs^er of the lord chamberlain in licensing plays ; and 
at the same time insinuated, that unless this addition vras 
made the king would not pass it. But Sir John Barnard 
strongly objected to this clause ; contending that the power 
of that oflieer was already too great, and had been often wan- 
tonly exercised. He therefore withdrew his bill, rather than 
establish by law a power in a single officer so much under 
the direction of the crown. In the course, however, of the 
session of 1737, an opportunity offered, which Sir Robert did 
not fail to seize. The manager of Goodman's Fields Theatre 
having brought to him a farce called " The Golden Rump," 
which had been proffered for exhibition, the minister paid 
the profits which might have accrued from the performance, 
and detained the copy. He then made extracts of the most 
exceptionable passages, abounding in profaneness, sedition, 
and blasphemy, read them to the house, and obtained leave 
to bring in a bill to limit the number of playhouses ; to sub- 
ject all dramatic writings to the inspection of the lord 
chamberlain; and to compel the proprietors to take out a 
license for every production before it could appear on the 
stage. 

1 His speech on the Licensing Act is one of his most elo- 
quent efforts. — Though the Playhouse Bill is generally said 
to have been warmly opposed in both houses, this speech of 
the Earl of Chesterfield is the only trace of that opposition 
to be found in the periodical publications of the times. The 
following passage, which relates to the powers of the lord 
chamberlain, will show the style of the oration : — " The bill 
is not only an encroachment upon liberty, but it is likewise 
an encroachment on property. Wit, my Lords, is a sort of 
property ; it is the property of those who have it, and too 
often the only property they have to depend on. Thank 
God ! my Lords, we have a dependence of another kind ; we 
have a much less precarious support, and, therefore, cannot 
feel the inconveniences of the bill now before us ; but it is 
our duty to encourage and protect wit, whosoever's property 
it may be. Those gentlemen who have any such property 
are all, I hope, our friends ; do not let us subject them to any 
unnecessary or arbitrary restraint. I must own, I cannot 
easily agree to the laying of any tax upon wit ; but by this 
bill it is to be heavily taxed, it is to be excised ; for, if this 
bill passes, it cannot be retailed in a proper way without a 
permit: and the lord chamberlain is to have the honor of 
being chief gauger, supervisor, commissioner, judge, and jury. 
But, what is still more hard, though the poor author,— the 
proprietor, I should say, — cannot, perhaps, dine till he has 
found out and agreed with a purchaser, yet, before he can 
propose to seek for a purchaser, he must patiently submit to 
have his goods rummaged at this new excise-office; where 
they may be detained for fourteen days, and even then he 
may find them returned as prohibited goods ; by which his 
chief and best market will be for ever shut against him, 
without the least shadow of reason, either from the laws of 
his country or the laws of the stage. These hardships, this 
hazard, which every gentleman will be exposed to who writes 
anything for the stage, must certainly prevent every man of 



He whom our plays dispose to good or ill 
Must wear a head in want of Willis' skill ; * 
Ay, but Macheath's example — psha ! — no more 
It form'd no thieves — the thief was form'd before ; * 
And, spite of puritans and Collier's curse,* 
Plays make mankind no better, and no worse. 
Then spare our stage, ye methodistic men ! 
Nor burn damn'd Drury if it rise again.'^ 
But why to brain-scorch'd bigots thus appeal ? 
Can heavenly mercy dwell with earthly zeal? 

a generous and free spirit from attempting any thing in that 
way ; and as the stage has always been the proper channel 
for wit and humor, therefore, my Lords, when I speak 
against this bill, I must think I plead the cause of wit, I 
plead the cause of humor, I plead the cause of the British 
stage, and of every gentleman of taste in the kingdom. The 
stage and the press, my Lords, are two of our out-sentries : 
if we remove them, if we hoodwink them, if we throw them 
in fetters, the enemy may surprise us. Therefore, I must 
look upon the bill now before us as a step for introducing ar- 
bitrary power into this kingdom." 

2 ^'Repeal that act .'"—After a lapse of nearly a century, the 
state of the laws affecting dramatic literature, and the per- 
formance of the drama, again became the subject of parlia- 
mentary inquiry and report. 

3 Michael Perez, the " Copper Captain," in " Rule a Wife 
and have a Wife." 

4 Of this " skill," Reynolds, in his " Life and Times," re- 
cords a remarkable instance. The doctor had, it seems, an 
"e^/e like Mars, to threaten and command." Threaten, in 
every sense of the word ; for his numerous patients stood as 
much in awe of this formidable weapon as of bars, chains, or 
strait waistcoats. After a few weeks' attendance on the 
king, he allowed his majesty a razor to shave himself, and a 
penknife to cut his nails. For this he was one evening 
charged by the other physicians, before a committee of the 
House of Commons, with rashness and imprudence. Mr. 
Burke was very severe on this point, and authoritatively 
demanded to know, " If the royal patient had become out- 
rageous at the moment, what power the doctor possessed of 
instantaneously terrifying him into obedience ?"— " Place the 
candles between us, Mr. Burke," replied the doctor, in an 
equally authoritative tone, "and I'll give you an answer. 
There, sir! by the eye. I should have looked at him thus^ 
sir, thus!" Mr. Burke instantaneously averted his head; 
and, making no reply, evidently acknowledged this basilisk 
authority. This story was often related by the doctor him- 
self. 

5 Dr. Johnson was of the like opinion. Of the " Beggars* 
Opera" he says, in his Life of Gay :— "The play, like many 
others, was plainly written only to divert, without any moral 
purpose, and is, therefore, not likely to do good ; nor can it 
be conceived, without more speculation than life requires or 
admits, to be productive of much evil. Highwaymen and 
housebreakers seldom frequent the playhouse, or mingle in 
any elegant diversion : nor is it possible for any one to ima- 
gine that he may rob with safety, because he sees Macheath 
reprieved upon the stage." On another occasion, the common 
question with regard to this opera having been introduced, 
he said, — " As to this matter, which has been very much con- 
tested, I myself am of opinion, that more influence has been 
ascribed to it than in reality it ever had ; for I do not believe 
that any man was ever made a rogue by being present at that 
representation." See Croker's Boswell, vol. iii. p. 242. 

8 Jerry Collier's controversy with Congreve, &c., on the 
subject of the drama, is too well known to require further 
comment. 

7 ^'Ifit rise again."— When Lord Byron penned this couplet 
at Athens, he little imagined that he should so soon be called 



HINTS FROM HORACE. 



527 



For times of fire and fagot let them hope ! 

Times dear alike to puritan or pope. 

As pious Calvin saw Servetus blaze, 

So would new sects on newer victims gaze. 

E'en now the songs of Solyma begin ; 

Faith cants, perplex'd apologist of sin I 

While the Lord's servant chastens whom he loves, 

And Simeon i kicks, where Baxter only "shoves." 2 

Whom nature guides, so writes that every dunce, 
Enraptured, thinks to do the same at once ; 
But after inky thumbs and bitten nails. 
And twenty scatter'd quires, the coxcomb fails. 

Let Pastoral be dumb ; for who can hope 
To match the youthful eclogues of our Pope ? 
Yet his and Phillips' faults, of different kind. 
For art too rude, for nature too refined, 
Instruct how hard the medium 'tis to hit 
'Twixt too much polish and too coarse a wit. 

A vulgar scribbler, certes, stands disgraced 
In this nice age, when all aspire to taste ; 
The dirty language, and the noisome jest, 
Which pleased in Swift of yore, we now detest ; 
Proscribed not only in the world polite, 
But even too nasty for a city knight ! 

Peace to Swift's faults! his wit hath made them 
pass, 
Unmatch'd by all, save matchless Hudibras! 
Whose author is perhaps the first we meet. 
Who from our couplet lopp'd two final feet ; 

Ex noto fictum carmen sequar, ut sibi quivis 
Speret idem: sudet mullum frustraque laboret 
Ausus idem : tantum series juncturaque pollct ; 
Tantum de medio sumtis accedit honoris. 

Silvis deducti caveant, me judice, Fauni, 
Ne, velut innati triviis ac pone forenses, 
Aut nimium teneris juvenentur versibus unquam, 
Aut iramunda crepent, ignorainiosaque dicta. 
Offenduntur enim, quibus est equus, et pater, et res : 
Nee, si quid fricti ciceris probat et nucis emtor, 
^quis accipiunt animis, donantve corona. 

Syllaba longa brevi subjecta vocatur iambus, 
Pes citua : unde etiam trimetris accrescere jussit 
Nomen iambeis, cum senos redderet ictus, 
Primus ad extremura similis sibi : non ita pridem, 
Tardior ut paulo graviorque veniret ad aures, 



on to write an address to be spoken on the opening of New 
Drury, and become one of the committee for managing its 
concerns. 

1 Mr. Simeon is the very bully of beliefs, and castigator of 
"good works." lie is ably supported by John Stickles, a 
laborer in the same vineyard: — but I say no more, for, accord- 
ing to Johnny in full congregation, "no hopes for them as 
lattghs."—The Rev. Charles Simeon, fellow of King's College, 
Cambridge, — a zealous Calvinist, who, in consequence of his 
zeal, had been engaged in sundry warm dLsputations with 
other divines of the university. Besides many single ser- 
mons, he also published " Helps to Composition, or five hun- 
dred Skeleton Sermons," in five volumes; and "Horse Homi- 



Nor less in merit than the longer line. 
This measure moves a favorite of the Nine. 
Though at first view eight feet may seem in vain 
Form'd, save in ode, to bear a serious strain. 
Yet Scott has shown our wondering isle of late 
This measure shrinks not from a theme of weight, 
And, varied skillfully, surpasses far 
Heroic rhyme, but most in love and war, 
Whose fluctuations, tender or sublime. 
Are curb'd too much by long-recurring rhyme. 

But many a skillful judge abhors to see. 
What few admire — irregularity. 
This some vouchsafe to pardon ; but 'tis hard * 
When such a word contents a British bard. 

And must the bard his glowing thoughts confine, 
Lest censure hover o'er some faulty line ? 
Remove whate'er a critic may suspect. 
To gain the paltry suffrage of " correct " ? 
Or prune the spirit of each daring phrase, 
To fly from error, not to merit praise ? 

Ye, who seek finish'd models, never cease. 
By day and night, to read the works of Greece. 
But our good fathers never bent their brains 
To heathen Greek, content with native strains. 
The few who read a page, or used a pen. 
Were satisfied with Chaucer and old Ben ; 
The jokes and numbers suited to their taste 
Were quaint and careless, anything but chaste ; 
Yet whether right or wrong the ancient rules, 
It will not do to call our fathers fools ! 

Spondees stabiles in jura paterna recepit 
Commodus et patiens ; non ut de sede secund4 
Cederet aut quarta socialiter. Hie et in Accl 
Nobilibus trimetris apparet rarus, et Enni. 
In seen am missos magno cum pcfndere versus, 
Aut operae celeris nimium curaque carentis, 
Aut ignoratse premit artis crimine turpi. 

Non quivis videt immodulata poemata judex ; 
Et data Romanis venia est indigna poetis. 
Idcircone vager, scribamque licenter, ut omnes 
Visuros peccata putem mea, tutus, et intra 
Spem venise cautus ? vitavi denique culpam, 
Non laudem merui. Vos exemplaria Grseca 
Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna. 
At vestri proavi Plautinos et numeros et 
Laudavere sales ; nimium patienter utrumque, 



leticse, or Discourses (in the form of skeletons) upon the 
whole Scripture," in eleven volumes. 

2 "Baxter's Shove to heavy-a d Christians "—the verit- 
able title of a book once in good repute, and likely enough to 
be so again.— Richard Baxter is described by Granger as " a 
man famous for weakness of body and strength of mind; for 
having the strongest sense of religion himself, and exciting a 
sense of it in the thoughtless and profligate ; for preaching 
more sermons, engaging in more controversies, and writing 
more books, than any other non-conformist of his age." Dr. 
Barrows says, that " his practical writings were never mended, 
his controversial seldom confuted." On Boswcll's asking 
Johnson which of them he should read, the doctor replied, 
" Any of them ; they are all good." 



528 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Though you and I, who eruditely know 
To separate the elegant and low, 
Can also, when a hobbling line appears, 
Detect with fingers, in default of ears. 

In sooth, I do not know, or greatly care 
To learn, who our first English strollers were ; 
Or if, till roofs received the vagrant art. 
Our Muse, like that of Thespis, kept a cart ; 
But this is certain, since our Shakspeare's days, 
There's pomp enough, if little else, in plays ; 
Nor will Melpomene ascend her throne 
Without high heels, white plume, and Bristol stone. 

Old comedies still meet with much applause. 
Though too licentious for dramatic laws : 
At least, we moderns, wisely, 'tis confest. 
Curtail, or silence, the lascivious jest. 

Whate'er their follies, and their faults beside, 
Our enterprising bards pass nought untried ; 
Nor do they merit slight applause who choose 
An English subject for an English muse. 
And leave to minds which never dare invent 
French flippancy and German sentiment. 

Ne dicam stulte, mirati ; si modo ego et vos 
Scimus inurbanum lepido seponere dicto, 
Legitimumque sonum digitis callemus et aure. 

Ignotum tragieae genus invenisse Camcende 
Dicitur, et plaustris vexisse poemata Thespis, 
Quae canerent agerentque peruncti fsecibus ora. 

1 "They support Pope, I see, in the Quarterly," wrote 
Lord Byron in 1820, from Eavenna— " it is a sin and a shame, 
and a damnation, that Pope ! ! should require it : but he does. 
Those miserable mountebanks of the day, the poets, disgrace 
themselves, and deny God, in running down Pope, the most 
faultless of poets." Again, in the same year :— " I have at last 
lost all patience with the atrocious cant and nonsense about 
Pope with which our present * * *s are overflowing, and am 
determined to make such head against it as an individual can 
by prose or verse, and I will at least do it with good will. 
There is no bearing it any longer ; and, if it goes on, it will 
destroy what little good writing or taste remains amongst us. 
I hope there are still a few men of taste to second me ; but if 
not, I'll battle it alone, convinced that it is the best cause of 
English literature." And again, in 1821 :— " Neither time, nor 
distance, nor grief, nor age, can ever diminish my veneration 
for him who is the great moral poet of all times, of all climes, 
of all feelings, and of all stages of existence. The delight of 
my boyhood, the study of my manhood, perhaps (if allowed 
to me to attain it) he may be the consolation of my age. His 
poetry is the book of life. "Without canting, and yet without 
neglecting religion, he has assembled all that a good and great 
man can gather together of moral wisdom clothed in con- 
summate beauty. Sir William Temple observes, ' that of all 
tiie members of mankind that live within the compass of a 
thousand years, for one man that is born capable of making a 
great poet, there may be a thousand born capable of making as 
great generals and ministers of state as any in story.' Here 
is a statesman's opinion of poetry, it is honorable to him 
and to the art. Such a ' poet of a thousand years ' was Pope. 
A thousand years will roll away before such another can be 
hoped for in our literature. But it can want them ; he is him- 
self a literature." 

2 ' That this is the age of the decline of English poetry, will 



Where is that living language which could claim 
Poetic more, as philosophic, fame. 
If all our bards, more patient of delay, 
Would stop, like Pope,i to polish by the way ? 

Lords of the quill, whose critical assaults 
O'erthrow whole quartos with their quires of faults, 
Who soon detect, and mark where'er we fail, 
And prove our marble with too nice a nail ! 
Democritus himself was not so bad ; 
He only thought, but you would make, us mad ! 

But truth to say, most rhymers rarely guard 
Against that ridicule they deem so hard ; 
In person negligent, they wear, from sloth. 
Beards of a week, and nails of annual growth ; 
Eeside in garrets, fly from those they meet, 
And walk in alleys, rather than the street. 

With little rhyme, less reason, if you please, 
The name of poet may be got with ease, 
So that not tuns of helleboric juice 
Shall ever turn your head to any use ; 
Write but like Wordsworth, live beside a Lake,^ 
And keep your bushy locks a year from Blake ; ^ 

Post hunc personae pallaeque repertor honestse 
JEschylus, et modicis instravit pulpita tignis, 
Et docuit magnumque loqui, nitique cothurno. 
Successit vetus his comoedia, non sine multa 
Laude ; sed in vitium libertas excidit, et vim 
Dignam lege regi ; lex est accepta ; chorusque 

be doubted by few who have calmly considered the subject. 
That there are men of genius among the present poets, makes 
little against the fact; because it has been well said, that, 
' next to him who forms the taste of his country, the greatest 
genius is he who corrupts it.' No one has ever denied genius 
to Marini, who corrupted, not merely the taste of Italy, but 
that of all Europe, for nearly a century. The great cause of 
the present deplorable state of English poetry is to be at- 
tributed to that absurd and systematic depreciation of Pope, 
in which, for the last few years, there has been a kind of epi- 
demic concurrence. The Lakers and their school, and every 
body else with their school, and even Moore without a school, 
and dilettanti lecturers at institutions, and elderly gentlemen 
who translate and imitate, and young ladies who listen and 
repeat, and baronets who draw indifferent frontispieces for 
bad poets, and noblemen who let them dine with them in the 
country, the small body of the wits and the great body of the 
blues, have latterly united in a depreciation, of which their 
forefathers would have been as much ashamed as their chil- 
dren will be. In the mean time, what have we got instead ? 
The Lake School, which began with an epic poem ' written in 
six weeks ' (so ' Joan of Arc ' proclaimed herself), and finished 
with a ballad composed in twenty years, as ' Peter Bell's ' cre- 
ator takes care to inform the few who will inquire. What 
have we got instead? A deluge of flimsy and unintelligible 
romances, imitated from Scott and myself, who have both 
made the best of our bad materials and erroneous system. 
What have we got instead ? Madoc, which is neither an epic 
nor any thing else, Tlialaba, Kehama, Gebir, and such gib- 
berish, written in all metres, and in no language." — Byron 
Letters, 1819. See also the two pamphlets against Mr. Bowles, 
written at Ravenna in 1821, in which Lord Byron's enthusi- 
astic reverence for Pope is the principal feature. 
3 As famous a tonsor as Licinus himself, and better paid. 



HINTS FEOM HOEACR 



529 



Then print your book, once more return to town, 
And boys shall hunt your hardship up and down. 

Am I not wise, if such some poets' plight, 
To purge in spring — like Bayes^ — before I write? 
If this precaution soften'd not my bile, 
1 know no scribbler with a madder style : 
But since (perhaps my feelings are too nice) 
I cannot purchase fame at such a price, 
I'll labor gratis as a grinder's wheel. 
And, blunt myself, give edge to others' steel. 
Nor write at all, unless to teach the art 
To those rehearsing for the poet's part ; 
From Horace show the pleasing paths of song. 
And from my own example — what is wrong. 

Though modern practice sometimes differs quite, 
'Tis just as well to think before you write ; 
Let every book that suits your theme be read, 
So shall you trace it to the fountain-head. 

He who has learn'd the duty which he owes 
To friends and country, and to pardon foes ; 
Who models his deportment as may best 
Accord with brother, sire, or stranger guest ; 
Who takes our laws and worship as they are. 
Nor roars reform for senate, church, and bar ; 
In practice, rather than loud precept, wise, 
Bids not his tongue, but heart, philosophize : 

Turpiter obticuit, sublato jure nocendi. 

Nil intentatum nostri liquere poetee ; 
Nee minimum merucre decus, vestigia Graeca 
Ausi deserere, et celebrare domestica facta, 
Vel qui praetextas, vel qui docuere togatas. 
Nee virtute foret elarisve potentius armis, 
Quam lingua, Latium, si non offenderet unum- 
quemque poetarum limse labor et mora. Vos, 6 
Pompilius sanguis, carmen reprehendite, quod non 
Multa dies et multa litura coercuit, atque 
Praesectum decies non castigavit ad unguem. 

Ingenium miseraquia fortunatius arte 
Credit, et excludit sanos Helicone poetaa 
Democritus; bona pars non ungues ponere curat, 
Non barbam ; secreta petit loea, balnea vitat. 
Nanciscetur enim pretium nomenque poetse, 
8i tribus Anticyris caput insanabile nunquam 
Tonsori Licino commiserit. ogo Isevus, 
Qui purgor bilem sub verni temporis horam ! 
Non alius faceret meliora poemata: verura 
Nil tanti est : ergo fungar vice cotis, acutum 
Reddere quae ferrum valet, exsora ipsa secandi : 

and may, like him, be one day a senator, having a better 
qualification than one half of the heads he crops, viz.— inde- 
pendence. 

1 " Bayex. Pray, sir, how do you do when you write ? Smith. 
Faith, sir, for the most partPm in pretty good health. Bnyes. 
I mean, what do you do when you write? Smith. I take pen, 
ink, and paper, and sit down. Bayes. Now I write .standing — 
that's one thing; and then another thing is, with what do 
you prepare yourself? Smith. Prepare myself! what the 
devil does the fool mean? Bnyes. Why, I'll tell you what I 
do. If I am to write familiar things, a.s sonnets to Armida, 
and the like, I make use of stewed prunes only ; but when I 
have a grand design in hand, I ever take physic and let blood : 
34 



Such is the man the poet should rehearse, 
As joint exemplar of his life and verse. 

Sometimes a sprightly wit, and tale well told. 
Without much grace, or weight, or art, will hold 
A longer empire o'er the public mind 
Than sounding trifles, empty, though refined. 

Unhappy Greece ! thy sons of ancient days 
The muse may celebrate with perfect praise, 
Whose generous children narrow'd not their hearts 
With commerce, given alone to arms and arts. 
Our boys (save those whom public schools compel 
To "long and short" before they're taught to spell) 
From frugal fathers soon imbibe by rote, 
"A penny saved, my lad, 's a penny got." 
Babe of a city birth ! from sixpence take 
The third, how much will the remainder make? — 
" A groat." — " Ah, bravo ! Dick hath done the sum \ 
He'll swell, my fifty thousand to a plum.' 

They whose young souls receive this rust betimes, 
'Tis clear, are fit for anything but rhymes ; 
And Locke will tell you, that the father's right 
Who hides all verses from his children's sight ; 
For poets (says this sage,^ and many more) 
Make sad mechanics with their lyric lore ; 
And Delphi now, however rich of old. 
Discovers little silver, and less gold, 

Munus et offieium, nil seribens ipse, docebo ; 
Unde parentur opes ; quid alat formetque poetam ; 
Quid deceat, quid non ; quo virtus, quo ferat error. 

Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons. 
Rem tibi Socraticse poterunt ostendere chartse : 
Verbaque provisam rem non invita sequentur. 
Quid didicit patriae quid debeat, et quid amicis ; 
Quo sit amore parens, quo frater amandus, et hospes ; 
Quod sit conscripti, quod judicis offieium ; quae 
Partes in bellura missi duels ; ille profecto 
Reddere personae scit convenientia cuique. 
Respieere exemplar vitae morumque jubebo 
Doctum imitatorem, et vivas hinc ducere voces. 

Interdum speciosa loeis morataque recte 
Fabula, nullius veneris, sine pondere et arte, 
Valdius oblectat populum, meliusque moratur, 
Quam, versus inopes rerum, nugaeque canorae. 

Graiis ingenium, Graiis dedit ore rotundo 
Musa loqui, praeter laudem nullius avaris. 
Romani pueri longis rationibus assem 
Diseunt in partes centum diducere : dicat 
Filius Albini, Si de quincunce remota est 



for when you would have a pure swiftness of thought, and 
fiery flights of fancy, you must have a care of the pensive 
part. In fine, you must purge."— iJeAear^a/. 

2 I have not the original by me, but the Italian translation 
runs as follows :— " E una eosa a mio eroderc molto stravagante, 
che un padre desideri, o permetta, ehe suo figliuolo coltivi e 
perfpzioni questo talento." A little further on : " Si trovano 
di rado nel Parnaso le miniere d' oro e d' argento."— -ESiMCcr- 
ziow, del Fanciulli del Sir/nw Locke. — " If the child have a 
poetic vein, it is to me the strangest thing in the world, that 
the father should desire or suffer it to be cherished or im- 
proved." "It is very seldom seen that any one discovers 
mines of gold or silver on Parnassus." 



530 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Because Parnassus, though a mount divine, 
Is poor as Irus,^ or an Irish mine.^ 

Two objects always should the poet move, 
Or one or both, — to please or to improve. 
Whate'er you. teach, be brief, if you design 
For our remembrance your didactic line ; 
Redundance places memory on the rack, 
For brains may be o'erloaded, like the back. 

Fiction does best when taught to look like truth, 
And fairy fables bubble none but youth : 
Expect no credit for too wondrous tales. 
Since Jonas only springs alive from whales ! 

Young men with aught but elegance dispense ; 
Maturer years require a little sense. 
To end at once : — that bard for all is fit 
Who mingles well instruction with his wit ; 
For him reviews shall smile, for him o'erflow 
The patronage of Paternoster row ; 
His book, with Longman's liberal aid, shall pass 
(Who ne'er despises books that bring him brass) ; 
Through three long weeks the taste of London lead. 
And cross St. George's Channel and the Tweed. 

But everything has faults, nor is't unknown 
That harps and fiddles often lose their tone, 

Uncia, quid superat? poterat dixisse — Triens. Eu! 
Rem poteris servare tuam. Eedit uncia ; quid fit ? 
Semis. An hsec animos aerugo et cura peculi 
Cum semel imbuerit, speramus earmina fingi 
Posse linenda cedro, et levi servanda cupresso? 

Aut prodesse volunt, aut delectare poetse ; 
Aut simul et jucunda et idonea dicere vitse. 
Quidquid prsecipies, esto brevis : ut cito dicta 
Percipiant animi deciles, teneantque fideles. 
Omne supervacuum pleno de pectore manat. 

Ficta voluptatis causa sint proxima veris : 
Nee, quodcunque volet, poscat sibi fabula credi : 
Neu pransae Lamise vivum puerum extrahat alvo. 

Centurise seniorum agitant expertia frugis : 
Celsi prastereunt austera poemata Rhamnes. 
Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulci, 



1 " Iro pauperior :" this is the same beggar who boxed with 
Ulysses for a pound of kid's fry, which he lost, and half a 
dozen teeth besides. See Odyssey, b. 18. 

2 The Irish gold mine of Wicklow, which yields just ore 
enough to swear by, or gild a bad guinea. 

3 " This couplet is amusingly characteristic of that mixture 
of fun and bitterness with which their author sometimes 
spoke in conversation; so much so, that those who knew 
him might almost fancy they hear him utter the words."— 
Moore. 

* As Mr. Pope took the liberty of damning Homer, to 
whom he was under great obligations— " ^nci Homer {damn 
Mm!) calls"— it maybe presumed that any body or any 
thing may be damned in verse by poetical license; and, in 
case of accident, I beg leave to plead so illustrious a pre- 
cedent. 

5 For the story of Billy Havard's tragedy, see "Davies's 
]Afe of Garrick." I believe it is " Regulus," or " Charles the 
First." The moment it was known to be his the theatre 
thinned, and the bookseller refused to give the customary 



And wayward voices, at their owner's call, 

With all his best endeavors, only squall ; 

Dogs blink their covey, flints withhold the spark,^ 

And double-barrels (damn them !) miss their mark.* 

Where frequent beauties strike the reader's view, 
We must not quarrel for a blot or two ; 
But pardon equally to books or men, 
The slips of human nature, and the pen. 

Yet if an author, spite of foe or friend, 
Despises all advice too much to mend, 
But ever twangs the same discordant string, 
Give him no quarter, howsoe'er he sing. 
Let Havard's^ fate o'ertake him, who, for once, 
Produced a play too dashing for a dunce : 
At first none deem'd it his ; but when his name 
Announced the fact — what then? — it lost its 

fame. 
Though all deplore when Milton deigns to doze, 
In a long work 'tis fair to steal repose. 

As pictures, so shall poems be ; some stand 
The critic eye, and please when near at hand ; 
But others at a distance strike the sight ; 
This seeks the shade, but that demands the light, 
Nor dreads the connoisseur's fastidious view. 
But, ten times scrutinized, is ten times new. 

Lectorem delectando pariterque monendo. 
Hie meret sera liber Sosiis ; hie et mare transit, 
Et longum noto scriptori prorogat aevum. 

Sunt delicta tamen, quibus ignovisse velimus ; [mens, 
Nam neque chorda sonum reddit quern vult manus et 
Poscentique gravem persaepe remittit acutum ; 
Nee semper feriet quodcunque minabitur arcus. 
Verum ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis 
Offcndar maculis, quas aut incuria fudit, 
Aut humana parum cavit natura. Quid ergo est? 
Ut scriptor si peccat idem librarius usque, 
Quamvis est monitus, venia caret ; et citharoedus 
Ridetur, chorda qui semper oberrat eadem : 
Sic mihi, qui multum cessat, fit Chcerilus ille, 
Quern bis terque bonum cum risu miror ; et idem 
Indignor, quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus. 



sura for the copyright. — "Havard," says Davies, "was re- 
duced to great straits, and in order to retrieve his aflfairs, the 
story of Charles the First was proposed to him as a proper 
subject to engage the public attention. Havard's desire of 
ease was known to be superior to his thirst for fame or 
money ; and GifFard, the manager, insisted upon the power 
of locking him up till the work was finished. To this he 
consented; and Giflfard actually turned the key upon him, 
and let him out at his pleasure, till the play was completed. 
It was acted with great emolument to the manager, and some 
degree of reputation, as well as gain, to the author. It drew 
large crowds to the theatre ; curiosity was excited with re- 
spect to the author: that was a secret to be kept from the 
people ; but Havard's love of fame would not suffer it to be 
concealed longer than the tenth or twelfth night of acting 
the play. The moment Havard put on the sword and tie- 
wig, the genteel dress of the times, and professed himself to 
be the writer of 'Charles the First,' the audiences were 
thinned, and the bookseller refused to give the usual sum of 
a hundred pounds for the copyright." 



HINTS FROM HORACE. 



531 



Parnassian pilgrims ! ye whom chance or choice 
Hath led to listen to the Muse's voice, 
Receive this counsel, and be timely wise ; 
Few reach the summit which before you lies. 
Our church and state, our courts and camps, concede 
Reward to very moderate heads indeed ! 
In these plain common sense will travel far ; 
All are not Erskines who mislead the bar : 
But poesy between the best and worst 
No medium knows ; you must be last or first ; 
For middling poets' miserable volumes 
Are damn'd alike by gods, and men, and columns.^ 

Verum operi longo fas est obrepere somnum. 
Ut pictura, poesis : erit quse, si propius stes, 
Te capiet raagis ; et quEedam, si longiiis abstes : 
Haec amat obscurum ; volet hsec sub luce videri, 
Judicis argutuin quae non formidat acumen : 
Haec placuit semel ; hsec decies repetita placebit. 



1 Here, in the original MS., we find the following couplet 
and note: — 

"Though what 'gods, men, and columns' interdict, 
The devil and Jeffrey pardon — in a Pict. 

"The devil and Jeffrey are here placed antithetically to 
gods and men, such being their usual position, and their due 
one — according to the facetious saying, *If God won't take 
you, the dovil must ;' and I am sure no one durst object to 
his taking the poetry which, rejected by Horace, is accepted 
by Jeffrey. That these gentlemen are in Bome cases kinder, 
— the one to countrj'mon, and the other from his odd pro- 
pensity to prefer evil to good,— than the 'gods, men, and j 
columns' of Horace, may be seen by a reference to the review ! 
of Campbell's 'Gertrude of Wyoming;' and in No. 31 of | 
the Edinburgh Review (given to me the other day by the [ 
captain of an English frigate off Salamis), there is a similar 
concession to the mediocrity of Jamie Graham's 'British 
Gcorgics.' It is fortunate for Campbell, that his fame 
neither depends on his last poem, nor the puff of the Edin- 
burgh Review. The catalogues of our English are also less 
fastidious than the pillars of the Roman librarians.— A word 
more with the author of 'Gertrude of Wyoming.' At the 
end of a poem, and even of a couplet, we have generally 
♦that unmeaning thing we call a thought;' so Mr. Camp- 
bell concludes with a thought in such a manner as to fulfill 
the whole of Pope's prescription, and be as 'unmeaning' as 
the best of his brethren : — 

' Because I may not stain with grief 
The death-song of an Indian chief.' 

When I was in the fifth form, I carried to my master the 
translation of a chorus in Prometheus, wherein was a pes- 
tilent expression about ' staining a voice,' which met with no 
quarter. Little did I think that Mr. Campbell would have 
adopted my fifth form 'sublime'— at least in so conspicuous 
a situation. 'Sorrow' has been 'dry' (in proverbs), and 
'wet' (in sonnets), this many a day; and now it 'stains,' 
and stains a sound, of all feasible thinj^s ! To be sure, death- 
songs mi:,'ht have been stained with tluit eame grief to very 
gfxA purpose, if Outalissi had clnppi-d down his stanzas 
on whol some paper for the Edinburgh Evening Post, or any 
other given hyperborean gazette; or if the said Outalissi 
had been troubled with the slightest second sigljt of his own 
notes embodied on th*^ last proof of an overcharged quarto: 
but as he is supposid to have been an improvisatore on this 
occasion, and probably to the last tune he ever chanted in 
this world, it would have done him no discredit to have made 
bis exit with a mouthful of common sense. Talking of ' staiiv- 



Again, my Jeffrey I — as that sound inspires. 
How wakes my bosom to its wonted tires ! 
Fires, such as gentle Caledonians feel 
When Southrons writhe upon their critic wheel. 
Or mild Eclectics,^ when some, worse than Turks, 
Would rob poor Faith to decorate " good works." 
Such are the genial feelings thou canst claim — 
My falcon flies not at ignoble game. 
Mightiest of all Dunedin's beasts of chase ! 
For thee my Pegasus would mend his pace. 
Arise, my Jeffrey ! or my inkless pen 
Shall never blunt its edge on meaner men ; 

O major juvenum, quamvis et voce paterna 
Fingeris ad rectum, et per te sapis, hoc tibi dictum 
ToUe memor : certis medium et tolerabile rebus 
Recte concedi : consultus juris, et actor 
Causarum mediocris, abest virtute diserti 
Messalae, nee scit quantum Cascellius Aulus : 



ing' (as Caleb Quotem says) 'puts me in mind' of a certain 
couplet, which Mr. Campbell will find in a writer for whom 
he, and his school, have no small contempt ; — 

' E'en copious Dryden wanted, or forgot, 
The last and greatest art — the art to Mot .'' " 

2 To the Eclectic or Christian Reviewers I have to return 
thanks for the fervor of that charity which, in 1809, induced 
them to express a hope that a thing then published by me 
might lead to certain consequences, which, although natural 
enough, surely came but rashly from reverend lips. I refer 
them to their own pages, where they congratulated them- 
selves on the prospect of a tilt between Mr. Jeffrey and myself, 
from which some great good was to accrue, provided one or 
both were knocked on the head. Having survived two 
years and a half those "Elegies" which they were kindly 
preparing to review, I have no peculiar gusto to give them 
"so joyful a trouble," except, indeed, "upon compulsion, 
Hal ;" but, if, as David says in the " Rivals," it should come 
to " bloody sword and gun fighting," we " won't run, will 
we, Sir Lucius?" I do not know what I had done to these 
Eclectic gentlemen : my works are their lawful perquisite, to 
be hewn in pieces like Agag, if it seem meet unto them : but 
why they should be in such a hurry to kill off their author, I 
am ignorant. " The race is not always to the swift, nor the 
battle to the strong:" and now, as these Christians have 
"smote me on one cheek," I hold them up the other; and, 
in return for their good wishes, give them an opportunity of 
repeating them. Had any other set of men expressed such 
sentiments, I should have smiled, and left them to the " re- 
cording angel;" but from the pharisees of Christianity, 
decency might be expected. I can assure these brethren, 
that, publican and sinner as I am, I would not have treated 
"mine enemy's dog thus." To show them the superiority 
of my brotherly love, if ever the Reverend Messrs. Simeon 
or Ramsden Bhould be engaged in such a conflict as that in 
which they requested me to fall, I hope they may escape with 
being "winged" only, and that Heaviside may be at hand to 
extract the ball.— The following is the charitable passage 
in the Eclectic Review of which Lord Byron speaks: — "If 
the noble lord and the learned advocate have the courage 
requisite to sustain their mutual insults, we shall probably 
soon hear the explosions of another kind of paper-war, after 
the fashion of the ever memorable duel which the latter is 
said to have fought, or 8eem<,'d to fight, with ' Little Moore.' 
We confess there is suflBciont provocation, if not in the cri- 
tique, at least in the satire, to urge a 'man of honor' to 
defy his assailant to mortal combat. Of this we shall no 
doubt hear more in due time." 



532 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Till thee or thine mine evil eye discerns, 

Alas ! " I cannot strike at wretched kernes." ^ 

Inhuman Saxon ! wilt thou then resign 

A muse and heart by choice so wholly thine? 

Dear, d — d contemner of my school-boy songs, 

Hast thou no vengeance for my manhood's wrongs ? 

If unprovoked thou once could bid me bleed, 

Hast thou no weapon for my daring deed ? 

What ! not a word ! — and am I then so low ? 

Wilt thou forbear, who never spared a foe ? 

Hast thou no wrath, or wish to give it vent ? 

No wit for nobles, dunces by descent ? 

No jest on "minors," quibbles on a name,^ 

Nor one facetious paragraph of blame ? 

Is it for this on Ilion I have stood. 

And thought of Homer less than Holyrood ? 

On shore of Euxine or ^gean sea 

My hate, untravell'd, fondly turn'd to thee. 

Ah ! let me cease ; in vain my bosom burns, 

From Corydon unkind Alexis turns : ^ 

Thy rhymes are vain ; thy Jeffrey then forego, 

Nor woo that anger which he will not show. 

What then ? — Edina starves some lanker son, 

To write an article thou canst not shun ; 

Some less fastidious Scotchman shall be found, 

As bold in Billingsgate, though less renown'd. 

As if at table some discordant dish 
Should shock our optics, such as frogs for fish ; ■ 
Asoil in lieu of butter men decry. 
And poppies please not in a modern pie ; 

Sed tamen in pretio est: mediocribus esse poetis 

Non homines, non Di, non concessere columnse. 

Vt gratas inter mensas symphonia discors, 

Et crassum unguentum, et Sardo cum melle papaver 

Oflfendimt, poterat duci quia coena sine istis ; 

Sic animis natum inventumque poema juvandis, 

Si pauhini a summo decessit, vergit ad imuin. 

Ludere qui nescit, campestribus abstinet armis, 
Indoctusque pilse, discive, trochive, quiescit, 
Ne spissse risum tollant impune coronse : 
Qui nescit, versus tamen audet fingere! — Quidni? 



1 "I cannot strike at wretched kernes." — Macbeth, act v. 
sc. 7. 

2 See the memorable critique of the Edinburgh Review on 
" Hours of Idleness," ante, p. 495. 

3 Invenies alium, si te hie fastidit Alexin, 

* Lord Byron's taste for boxing brought him acquainted, 
at an early period, with this distinguished, and, it is not too 
much to say, respected, professor of the art ; for whom, through- 
out life, he continued to entertain a sincere regard. In a note 
to the eleventh canto of Don Juan, he calls him "his old 
friend, and corporeal pastor and master." 

5 Mr. Southeyhas lately tied another canister to his tail in 
the " Curse of Kehama," maugre the neglect of Madoc, &c., 
and has in one instance had a wonderful effect. A literary 
friend of mine, walking out one lovely evening last summer, 
on the eleventh bridge of the Paddington canal, was alarmed 
by the cry of " one in jeopardy :" he rushed along, collected 
a body of Irish haymakers (supping on buttermilk in an ad- 
jacent paddock), procured three rakes, one eel-spear, and a 
landing-net, and at last (horresco referens) pulled out— his 
own publisher. The unfortunate man was gone for ever, and 



If all such mixtures then be half a crime, 
We must have excellence to relish rhyme. 
Mere roast and boil'd no epicure invites ; 
Thus poetry disgusts, or else delights. 

Who shoot not flying rarely touch a gun : 
Will he who swims not to the river run ? 
And men unpracticed in exchanging knocks 
Must go to Jackson * ere they dare to box. 
Whate'er the weapon, cudgel, fist, or foil, 
None reach expertness without years of toil ; 
But fifty dunces can, with perfect ease. 
Tag twenty thousand couplets, when they please. 
Why not ? — shall I, thus qualified to sit 
For rotten boroughs, never show my wit ? 
Shall I, whose fathers with the quorum sate, 
And lived in freedom on a fair estate ; 
Who left me heir, with stables, kennels, packs, 
To all their income, and to — twice its tax ; 
Whose form and pedigree have scarce a fault, 
Shall I, I say, suppress my Attic salt ? 

Thus think " the mob of gentlemen ;^ but you, 
Besides all this, must have some genius too. 
Be this your sober judgment, and a rule, 
And print not piping hot from Southey's school, 
Who (ere another Thalaba appears), 
I trust, will spare us for at least nine years. 
And hark ye, SoutheyP pray — but don't be 

vex'd — 
Burn all your last three works — and half the next. 

Liber et ingenuus prsesertim census equestrem 

Summam nummorum, vitioque remotus ab omni. 

Tu nihil in vita dices faciesve Minerva : 

Id tibi judicium est, ea mens ; si quid tamen olim 

Scripseris, in Metii descendat judicis aures, 

Et patris, et nostras, nonumque prematur in annum, 

Membranis intus positis. Delere licebit 

Quod non edideris ; nescit vox missa reverti. 

Sylvestres homines sacer interpresque deorum 
Csedibus et victu foedo deterruit Orpheus : 
Dictus ob hoc lenire tigres, rabidosque leones: 



so was a large quarto wherewith he had taken the leap, which 
proved, on inquiry, to have been Mr. Southey's last work. 
Its " alacrity of sinking " was so great, that it has never since 
been heard of; though some maintain that it is at this mo* 
ment concealed at Alderman Birch's pastry premises, Corn- 
hill. Be this as it may, the coroner's inquest brought in a 
verdict of " Felo de bibliopola " against a " quarto unknown ;" 
and circumstantial evidence being since strong against the 
" Curse of Kehama " (of which the above words are an exact 
description), it will be tried by its peers next session, in 
Grub-street. Arthur, Alfred, Davideis, Eichard Cceur de 
Lion, Exodus, Exodia, Epigoniad, Calvary, Fall of Cambria, 
Siege of Acre, Don Roderick, and Tom Thumb the Great, are 
the names of the twelve jurors. The judges are Pye, Bowles, 
and the bellman of Saint Sepulchre's. The same advocates, 
pro and con, will be employed as are now engaged in Sir 
Francis Burdett's celebrated cause in the Scotch courts. The 
public anxiously await the result, and all live publishers will 
be subpoenaed as witnesses. — But Mr. Southey has published 
the "Curse of Kehama,"— an inviting title to quibblers. By 
the bye, it is a good deal beneath Scott and Campbell, and 



HINTS FROM HORACE. 



533 



But why this vain advice ? once published, books 
Can never be recall'd — from pastry-cooks ! 
Though " Madoc," with " PuccUe,"^ instead of punk, 
May travel back to Quito — on a trunk ! ^ 

Orpheus, we learn from Ovid and Lempriere, 
Led all wild beasts but women by the ear ; 
And had he fiddled at the present hour, 
We'd seen the lions waltzing in the Tower; 
And old Amphion, such were minstrels then, 
Had built Saint Paul's without the aid of Wren. 
Verse too was justice, and the bards of Greece 
Did more than constables to keep the peace ; 
Abolish'd cuckoldom with much applause, 
Call'd county meetings, and enforced the laws. 
Cut down crown influence with reforming scythes, 
And served the church — without demanding tithes; 
And hence, throughout all Hellas and the East, 
Each poet was a prophet and a priest, 
Whose old-establish'd board of joint controls 
Included kingdoms in the cure of souls. 

Next rose the martial Homer, Epic's prince. 
And fighting's been in fashion ever since, 
And old Tyrtseus, when the Spartans warr'd 
(A limping leader, but a lofty bard),^ 
Though wall'd Ithome had resisted long, 
Reduced the fortress by the force of song. 

When oracles prevail'd, in times of old, 
In song alone Apollo's will was told : 

Dictus et Amphion, Thebanse conditor arcis, 
Saxa movere sono testudinis, et prece blanda 
Ducere quo yellet : fuit haec sapientia quondam, 
Publica privatis secernere ; sacra profanis ; 
Concubito probibere vago ; dare jura maritis; 
Oppida moliri ; leges incidere ligno. 
Sic honor et nomen divinis vatibus atque 
Carminibus venit. Post hos insignis Homerus 



not much above Southey, to allow the booby Ballantyne to 
entitle them, in the Edinburgh Annual Register (of which, 
by the bye, Southey is editor), " the grand poetical triumvirate 
of the day." But, on second thoughts, it can be no great de- 
gree of praise to be the one-eyed leaders of the blind, though 
they might as well keep to themselves " Scott's thirty thou- 
sand copies sold," which must sadly discomfit poor Southcy's 
unsalables. Poor Southey, it should seem, is the "Lepidus" 
of this poetical triumvirate. I am only surprised to see him 
in such good company, 

" Such things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, 
But wonder how the devil he, came there." 
The trio are well defined in the sixth proposition of Euclid: 
"Because, in the triangles D B C, A C B, D B is equal to A C, 
and B C common to both ; the two sides D B, B C, are equal 
to the two A C, C B, each to each, and the angle D B C is 
«qual to the angle A C B : therefore, the base D C is equal to 
the base A B, and the triangle D B C (Mr. Southey) is equal 
to the triangle A C B, the Ipsh to the greater, which is absurd," 
Ac.— The editor of the Edinburgh Register will find the rest 



Then if your verse is what all verse should be. 
And gods were not ashamed on't, why should we ? 

The Muse, like mortal females, may be woo'd ; 
In turns she'll seem a Paphian, or a prude ; 
Fierce as a bride when first she feels aflright, 
Mild as the same upon the second night; 
Wild as the wife of alderman or peer. 
Now for his grace, and now a grenadier ! 
Her eyes beseem, her heart belies, her zone, 
1 Ice in a crowd, and lava when alone. 

j If verse be studied with some show of art, 
; Kind Nature always will perform her part; 
Though without genius, and a native vein 
Of wit, we loathe an artificial strain — 
j Yet art and nature join'd will win the prize, 
I Unless they act like us and our allies. 

The youth who trains to ride, or run a race, 
Must bear privations with unruffled face. 
Be call'd to labor when he thinks to dine. 
And, harder still, leave wenching and his wine. 
Ladies who sing, at least who sing at sight. 
Have follow'd Music through her farthest flight; 
But rhymers tell you neither more nor less, 
" I've got a pretty poem for the press ;" 
And that's enough ; then write and print so fast;- 
If Satan take the hindmost, who'd be last? 
They storm the types, they publish, one and all. 
They leap the counter, and they leave the stall. 

Tyrtseusque mares animos in Martia bella 
Versibus exacuit ; dictae per carmina sortes, 
Et vitae monstrata via est : et gratia regum 
Pieriis tentata modis : ludusque repertus, 
Et longorum operum finis : ue forte pudori 
Sit tibi Musa lyrse solers, et cantor Apollo. 
Natura fieret laudabile carmen, an arte, 
Qusesitum est : ego nee studium sine divite vena, 



of the theorem hard by his stabling ; he has only to cross 
the river ; 'tis the first turnpike t'other side " Pons Asino- 
rum."* 

1 Voltaire's "Pucelle" is not quite so immaculate as Mr. 
Soutbey's " Joan of Arc," and yet I am afraid the French- 
man has both more truth and poetry too on his side (they 
rarely go together) than our patriotic minstrel, whose first 
essay was in praise of a fanatical French strumpet, whose 
title of witch would be correct with the change of the first 
letter. 

2 Like Sir Bland Burgess's "Richard;" the tenth book of 
which I read at Malta, on a trunk of Eyre's, 19, Cockspur- 
street. If this be doubted, I shall buy a portmanteau to quote 
from. 

• Lord Byron had originally written — 

" As lame as I am, but a better bard." ' 
The reader of Mr. Moore's Notices will appreciate the feeling 
which, no doubt, influenced Lord Byron's alteration of the 
manuscript line. 



• TJjlg Latin ha« sorely pnzzled the TTnlverRlty of Edlnburi^h. Ballan- 
tyne said it meant the " Bridge of Berwick," but Soathcy claimed It as half 
EngUah; Scott swore it waa the " Brig o' Stirling," be had just passed two 



King Jameses and a dozen Douglases over It. At last it was decided >iy 
Jcflrcy, that it meant nothing more nor Ichs than the "counter of Archy 
Constable's shop." 



534 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Provincial maidens, men of high command, 
Yea, baronets have ink'd the bloody hand ! ^ 
Cash cannot quell them; Pollio-^ play'd this 

prank, 
(Then Phoebus first found credit in a bank !) 
Not all the living only, but the dead. 
Fool on, as fluent as an Orpheus' head ; ^ 
Damn'd all their days, they posthumously thrive- 
Dug up from dust, though buried when alive ! 
Reviews record this epidemic crime, 
Those Books of Martyrs to the rage for rhyme. 
Alas ! woe worth the scribbler ! often seen 
In Morning Post, or Monthly Magazine. 
There lurk his earlier lays ; but soon, hot-press'd, 
Behold a quarto ! — Tarts must tell the rest. 
Then leave, ye wise, the lyre's precarious chords 
To muse-mad baronets, or madder lords. 
Or country Crispins, now grown somewhat stale, 
Twin Doric minstrels, drunk with Doric ale ! 
Hark to those notes, narcotically soft. 
The cobbler-laureates* sing to Capel Lofft!^ 

Nee rude quid prosit video ingenium ; alterius sic 
Altera poscit opem res, et conjurat amice. 
Qui studet optatam cursu contingere metam, 
Multa tulit fecitque puer ; sudavit et alsit ; 
Abstinuit Venere et vino : qui Pythia cantat 
Tibicen, didicit prius, extimuitque magistrum. 
Nunc satis est dixisse ; Ego mira poemata pango : 
Occupet extremum scabies ; mihi turpe relinqui est, 
Et quod non didici, sane nescire fateri. 
***** * * 



1 The red hand of Ulster, introduced generally in a canton, 
marks the shield of a baronet of the United Kingdom, 

2 " Follio."— In the original MS. " Eogers." 

3 " Turn quoque marmorea caput a cervice revulsum, 
Gurgite cum medio portans (Eagrius Hebrus, 
Volveret Eurydicen vox ipsa, et frigida lingua ; 
Ah, miseram Eurydicen ! anima fugiente vocabat ; 
Eurydicen toto referebant flumine ripae." 

— Georgic iv. 523. 

* I beg Nathaniel's pardon: he is not a cobbler; it is a 
tailor, but begged Capel Loflft to sink the profession in his 

preface to two pair of panta psha ! — of cantos, which he 

wished the public to try on ; but the sieve of a patron let it 
out, and so far saved the expense of an advertisement to 
his country customers.— Merry's "Moorfields whine" was 
nothing to all this. The "Delia Cruscans" were people of 
some education, and no profession ; but these Arcadians 
("Arcades ambo" — bumpkins both) send out their native 
nonsense without the smallest alloy, and leave all the shoes 
and smallclothes in the parish unrepaired, to patch up Ele- 
gies on Enclosures and Paeans to Gunpowder. Sitting on a 
shopboard, they describe fields of battle, when the only blood 
they ever saw was shed from the finger; and an "Essay on 
War " is produced by the ninth part of a " poet." 

k" And own that nine such poets made a Tate." 
Did Nathan ever read that line of Pope ? and if he did, why 
not take it as his motto? — See ante, p. 511, note, 

& This well-meaning gentleman has spoiled some excellent 
shoemakers, ana been accessory to the poetical undoing of 
many of the industrious poor. Nathaniel Bloomfield and his 
brother Bobby have set all Somersetshire singing; nor has 
the malady confined itself to one county. Pratt too (who 
once was wiser) has caught the contagion of patronage, and 



Till, lo ! that modern Midas, as he hears, 
Adds an ell growth to his egregious ears ! 

There lives one druid, who prepares in time, 
'Gainst future feuds, his poor revenge of rhyme ; 
Eacks his dull memory, and his duller muse, 
To publish faults which friendship should excuse. 
If friendship's nothing, self-regard might teach 
More polish'd usage of his parts of speech. 
But what is shame, or what is aught to him ? 
He vents his spleen, or gratifies his whim. 
Some fancied slight has roused his lurking hate. 
Some folly cross'd, some jest, or some debate ; 
Up to his den Sir Scribbler hies, and soon 
The gather'd gall is voided in lampoon. 
Perhaps at some pert speech you've dared to frown, 
Perhaps your poem may have pleased the town : 
If so, alas ! 'tis nature in the man — 
May Heaven forgive you, for he never can ! 
Then be it so ; and may his withering bays 
Bloom fresh in satire, though they fade in praise ! 

Si carmina condes, 

Nunquam te fallant animi sub vulpe latentes. 
Quintilio si quid recitares, Corrige, sodes, 
Hoc (aiebat) et hoc : melius te posse negares, 
Bis terque expertum frustra, delere jubedat, 
Et male tornatos incudi reddere versus. 
Si defendere delictum quam vertere malles, 
Nullum ultra verbum, aut operam insumebat inanem, 
Quin sine rivali teque et tua solus amares. 
Yir bonus et prudens versus reprehendet inertes : 



decoyed a poor fellow named Blackett into poetry; but he 
died during the operation, leaving one child and two volumes 
of " Remains " utterly destitute. The girl, if she don't take 
a poetical twist, and come forth as a shoemaking Sappho, 
may do well ; but the " tragedies " are as rickety as if they 
had been the offspring of an earl or a Seatonian prize poet. 
The patrons of this poor lad are certainly answerable for his 
end ; and it ought to be an indictable offence. But this is the 
least they have done : for, by a refinement of barbarity, they 
have made the (late) man posthumously ridiculous, by print- 
ing what he would have had sense enough never to print 
himself. Certes these rakers of "Remains" come under the 
statute against "resurrection men." "What docs it signify 
whether a poor dear dead dunce is to be stuck up in Surgeons' 
or in Stationers' Hall ? Is it so bad to unearth his bones as 
his blunders ? Is it not better to gibbet his body on a heath, 
than his soul in an octavo ? " We know what we are, but we 
know not what we may be ;" and it is to be hoped we never 
shall know, if a man who has passed through life with a sort 
of eclat, is to find himself a mountebank on the other side of 
Styx; and made, like poor Joe Blackett, the laughing-stock of 
purgatory. The plea of publication is to provide for the 
child; now, might not some of this "Sutor ultra Crcpidam's" 
friends and seducers have done a decent action without in- 
veigling Pratt into biography? And then his inscription 
split into so many modicums ! — " To the Duchess of Somuch, 
the Right Hon. So-and-So, and Mrs. and Miss Somebody,* 
these volumes are, &c. &c."— why, this is doling out the " soft 
milk of dedication " in gills, — there is but a quart, and he 
divides it among a dozen. Why, Pratt, hadst thou not a puff 
left ? Dost thou think six families of distinction can share 
this in quiet? There is a child, a book, and a dedication: 
send the girl to her grace, the volumes to the grocer, and the 
dedication to the devil. — See ante, p. 511. 



HINTS FROM HORACE. 



535 



While his lost songs no more shall steep and stink, 

The dullest, fattest weeds on Lethe's brink, 

But springing upwards from the sluggish mould, 

Be (what they never were before) — be sold ! 

Should some rich bard (but such a monster now. 

In modern physics, we can scarce allow), 

Should some pretending scribbler of the court, 

Some rhyming peer^ — there's plenty of the sort'^ — 

All but one poor dependent priest withdrawn 

(Ah! too regardless of his chaplain's yawn!), 

Condemn the unlucky curate to recite 

Their last dramatic work by candlelight, 

How would the preacher turn each rueful leaf, 

Dull as his sermons, but not half so brief! 

Yet, since 'tis promised at the rector's death, 

He'll risk no living for a little breath. 

Then spouts and foams, and cries at every line 

(The Lord forgive him !), '' Bravo ! grand ! divine !" 

Hoarse with those praises (which, by flatt'ry fed, 

Dependence barters for her bitter bread), 

He strides and stamps along with creaking boot, 

Till the floor echoes his emphatic foot ; 

Then sits again, then rolls his pious eye, 

As when the dying vicar will not die ! 

Nor feels, forsooth, emotion at his heart ; — 

But all dissemblers overact their part. 

Ye, who aspire to "build the lofty rhyme,"' 
Believe not all who laud your false "sublime;" 

Culpabit duros ; incomptis allinet atrum 
Transverse calanio signum ; ambitiosa recidet 
Ornamenta ; parum Claris lucem dare coget ; 
Arguet ambigue dictitm ; mutanda notabit ; 
Fiet Aristarchus : nee dicet, Cur ego amicum 
OfFendam in nugis ? hse nugse seria ducent 

1 In the original MS. — 

" Some rhyming peer — Carlisle or Carysfort." 
To which is subjoined this note: — " Of 'John Joshua, Earl of 
Carysfort,' I know nothing at present, but from an advertise- 
ment in an old newspaper of certain Poems and Tragedies by 
his lordship, which I saw by accident in the Morea. Being 
a rhymer himself, he will forgive the liberty I take with his 
name, seeing, as he must, how very commodious it is at the 
close of that couplet; and as for what follows and goes before, 
let him place it to the account of the other Thane ; since I 
cannot, under these circumstances, augur pro or con the con- 
tents of his ' foolscap crown octavos.' "—John Joshua Proby, 
first earl of Carysfort, was joint postmaster-general in 1805, 
envoy to Berlin in 1806, and ambassador to Petersburg in 
1807. Besides his poem.s, he published two pamphlets, to 
show the necessity of universal suffrage and short parlia- 
ments. He died in 1828. 

' Here will Mr. Gifford allow me to introduce once more to 
his notice the sole survivor, the " ultiraus Romanorum," the 
last of the Cruscanti !—" Edwin" the "profound," by our 
Lady of Punishment ! here he is, as lively as in the days of 
"well said Baviad the Correct." I thought Fitzgerald had 
been the tail of poesy ; but, alas ! he is only the penultimate. 

A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING 
CHRONICLE. 
"What reams of paper, florxls of ink," 
Do some men sjioil, who never think ! 



But if some friend shall hear your work, and say, 
" Expunge that stanza, lop that line away," 
And, after fruitless efforts, you return 
Without amendment, and he answers, " Burn !" 
That instant throw your paper in the fire. 
Ask not his thoughts, or follow his desire ; 
But if (true bard!) you scorn to condescend, 
And will not alter what you can't defend. 
If you will breed this bastard of your brains,* — 
We'll have no words — I've only lost my pains. 

Y'et, if you only prize your favorite thought. 
As critics kindly do, and authors ought ; 
If your cool friend annoy you now and then, 
And cross whole pages with his plaguy pen ; 
No matter, throw your ornaments aside, — 
Better let him than all the world deride. 
Give light to passages too much in shade, 
Nor let a doubt obscure one verse you've made ; 
Your friend's "a Johnson," not to leave one 

word, 
However trifling, which may seem absurd ; 
Such erring trifles lead to serious ills, 
And furnish food for critics,^ or their quills. 

As the Scotch fiddle, with its touching tune, 
Or the sad influence of the angry moon. 
All men avoid bad writers' ready tongues, 
As yawning waiters fly ^ Fitzscribble's lungs ; "^ 

In mala derisum semel exceptumque sinistre. 

Ut mala quern scabies aut morbus regius urguet, 
Aut fanaticus error et iracunda Diana, 
Vesanum tetigisse timent fugiuntque poetam, 
Qui sapiunt ; agitant pueri, incautique sequuntur. 
Hie dum sublimes versus ructatur, et errat, 



And so perhaps you'll say of me. 
In which your readers may agree. 
Still I write on, and tell you why ; 
Nothing's so bad, you can't deny, 
But may instruct or entertain 
Without the risk of giving pain, &c. &c. 

ON SOME MODERN QUACKS AND REFORMISTS. 

In tracing of the human mind 

Through all its various courses. 
Though strange, 'tis true, we often find 

It knows not its resources : 

And men through life assume a part 
For which no talents they possess, 

Yet wonder that, with all their art, 
They meet no better with success, &c. &c. 
8 See Milton's Lycidas. 

* "Bastard of your brains."— Minerya being the first by 
Jupiter's headpiece, and a variety of equally unaccountable 
parturitions upon earth, such as Madoc, &c. &c. &c. 

6 " A crust for the critics." — Bayes, in (he "Rehearsal." 

* And the "waiters" are the only fortunate people who 
can "fly" from them; ajl the rest, viz., the sad subscribers to 
the "Literary Fund," beii)g compelled, by courtesy, to sit out 
the recitation without a hope of exclaiming, " Sic " (that is, by 
choking Fitz with bad wine, or worse poetry) "me servavit 
Apollo !" 

7 " Fitzscribble," originally " Fitzgerald." See anlt, p. 4'Ja« 



536 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Yet on he mouths — ten minutes — tedious each 

As prelate's homily, or placeman's speech ; 

Long as the last years of a lingering lease, 

When riot pauses until rents increase. 

While such a minstrel, muttering fustian, strays 

O'er hedge and ditch, through unfrequented ways, 

If by some chance he walks into a well, 

And shouts for succor with stentorian yell, 

" A rope ! help, Christians, as ye hope for grace !" 

Nor woman, man, nor child will stir a pace ; 

For there his carcass he might freely fling. 

From frenzy, or the humor of the thing. 

Though this has happen'd to more bards than one ; 

I'll tell you Budgell's story, — and have done. 

Budgell, a rogue and rhymester, for no good 
(Unless his case be much misunderstood). 
When teased with creditors' continual claims, 
" To die like Cato," i leapt into the Thames ! 

Si veluti merulis intentus decidit auceps 
In puteum, foveamve ; licet, Succurrite, longum 
Clamet, lo cives ! non sit qui tollere curet. 
Si quis curet opem ferre, et demittere funem, 
Qui scis an prudens liuc se dejicerit, atque 
Servari nolit ? Dicam : Siculique poetse 
Narrabo interitum. Deus immortalis haberi 
Dum cupit Empedocles, ardentem frigidus -^tnam 
Insiluit ; sit jus, liceatque perire poetis : 
Invitum qui servat, idem facit occidenti. 



1 On his table were found these words: "What Cato did, 
and Addison approved, cannot be wrong." But Addison did 
not " approve ;" and if he had, it would not have mended the 
matter. He had invited his daughter on the same water- 
party ; but Miss Budgell, by some accident, escaped this last 
paternal attention. Thus fell the sycophant of " Atticus," 
and the enemy of Pope! — Eustace Budgell, a friend and rela- 
tive of Addison's, " leapt into the Thames" to escape a prose- 
cution, on account of forging the will of Dr. Tindal ; in which 
Eustace had provided himself with a legacy of two thousand 
pounds. To this Pope alludes — 

" Let Budgell charge low Grub-street on my quill, 
And write whate'er he please — except my will." 

2 " "We talked (says Boswell) of a man's drowning himself. 
—Johnson. ' I should never think it time to make away with 
myself.' I put the case of Eustace Budgell, who was accused 
of forging a will, and sunk himself in the Thames, before 
the trial of its authenticity came on. ' Suppose, sir,' said I, 
' that a man is absolutely sure that, if he lives a few days 
longer, he shall be detected in a fraud, the consequence of 
which will be utter disgrace, and expulsion from society.' 
Johnson. ' Then, sir, let him go abroad to a distant country; 
let him go to some place where he is not known. Pon't let 
him go to the devil, where he is known.' " See Boswell, vol. 
iv. p. 50, ed. 1835. 

' If "dosed with," &c., be censured as low, I beg leave to 



And therefore be it lawful through the town 

For any bard to poison, hang, or drown.^ 

Who saves the intended suicide receives 

Small thanks from him who loathes the life he leaves 

And, sooth to say, mad poets must not lose 

The glory of that death they freely choose. 

Nor is it certain that some sorts of verse 
Prick not the poet's conscience as a curse ; 
Dosed 3 with vile drams on Sunday he was found, 
Or got a child on consecrated ground ! 
And hence is haunted with a rhyming rage — 
Fear'd like a bear just bursting from his cage. 
If free, all fly his versifying fit. 
Fatal at once to simpleton or wit : 
But him, unhappy ! whom he seizes, — him 
He flays with recitation limb by limb ; 
Probes to the quick where'er he makes his breach, 
And gorges like a lawyer — or a leech.* 

Nee semel hoc fecit ; nee, si retractus erit, jam 
Fiet homo, et ponet famosse mortis amorem. 
Nee satis apparet cur versus factitet : utrum 
Minxerit in patrios cineres, an triste bidental 
Moverit incestus : certe furit, ac velut ursus, 
Objectos cavese valuit si frangere clathros, 
Indoctum doctumque fugat recitator acerbus. 
Quern vero arripuit, tenet, occiditque legendo, 
Non missura cutem, nisi plena cruoris, hirudo. 



refer to the original for something still lower; and if any 
reader will translate "Minxerit in patrios cineres," &c., 
' into a decent couplet, I will insert said couplet in lieu of the 
present. 

* " In tracing the fortunes of men, it is not a little curious 
to observe, how often the course of a whole life has depended 
on one single step. Had Lord Byron persisted in his original 
purpose of giving this poem to the press, instead of Childe 
Harold, it is more than probable that he would have been 
lost, as a great poet, to the world. Inferior as this para- 
phrase is, in every respect, to his former satire, and, in some 
places, even descending below the level of undergraduate 
versifiers, its failure, there can be little doubt, would have 
been certain and signal ;— his former assailants would have 
resumed their advantage over him, and either, in the bitter- 
ness of his mortification, he would have flung Childe Harold 
into the fire ; or, had he summoned up suflicient confidence 
to publish that poem, its reception, even if sufficient to re- 
trieve him in the eyes of the public and his own, could never 
have, at all, resembled that explosion of success, — that in- 
stantaneous and universal acclaim of admiration, into which, 
coming, as it were, fresh from the land of song, he surprised 
the world, and in the midst of which he was borne, buoyant 
and self-assured, along, through a succession of new tri- 
umphs, each more splendid than the last. Happily, the better 
judgment of his friends averted such a risk." — ^Moore. 



^f)t ffiursc of if^inetba.' 



" Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas 

Immolat, et pcenam scelerato ex sanguine sumit," 

JEneid, lib. xii. 



Atheks. Capuchin Convent, March 17, 1811. 
Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run,* 
Along Morea's bills the setting sun ; 
Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright, 
But one unclouded blaze of living light ; 
O'er the hush'd deep the yellow beam he throws, 
Gilds the green wave that trembles as it glows ; 
On old ^gina's rock and Hydra's isle 
The god of gladness sheds his parting smile ; 
O'er his own regions lingering loves to shine, 
Though there his altars are no more divine. 
Descending fast, the mountain shadows kiss 
Thy glorious gulf, unconquer'd Salamis ! 
Their azure arches through the long expanse. 
More deeply purpled, meet his mellowing glance, 
And tenderest tints, along their summits driven, 
Mark his gay course, and own the hues of heaven 
Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep, 
Behind his Delphian rock he sinks to sleep. 

On such an eve his palest beam he cast 
When, Athens ! here thy wisest look'd his last. 
How watch'd thy better sons his farewell ray, 
That closed their murder'd sage's ^ latest day ! 
Not yet — not yet — Sol pauses on the hill. 
The precious hour of parting lingers still ; 



1 This fierce philippic on Lord Elgin, \7h0se collection of 
Athenian marbles was ultimately purchased for the nation, in 
1816, at the cost of thirty-five thousand pounds, was written 
at Athens, in March, 1811, and prepared for publication along 
with the "Hints from Horace;" but, like that satire, sup- 
pressed by Lord Byron, from motives which the reader will 
easily understand. It was first given to the world in 1828. 
Few can wonder that Lord Byron's feelings should have been 
powerfully excited by the spectacle of the despoiled Parthe- 
non ; but it is only due to Lord Elgin to keep in mind, that, 
had those precious marbles remained, they must, in all like- 
lihood, have perished for ever amidst the miserable scenes of 
violence which Athens has since witnessed; and that their 
presence in England has already, by universal admission, been 
of the most essential advantage to the fine arts of our own 
country. The political allusions in this poem are not such as 
require much explanation. It contains many lines, which, it 
is hoped, the author, on mature reflection, disapproved of— 
but is too vigorous a specimen of his iambics to be omitted in 
any collective edition of his works. 

2 The .splendid lines with which this satire opens, down to 
"As thus, within the walls of Pallas' fane," first appeared at 
the commencement of the third canto of the Corsair, the 
author having, at that time, abandoned all notion of publish- 
ing the piece of which they originally made part. 



But sad his light to agonizing eyes, 
And dark the mountain's once delightful dyes ; 
Gloom o'er the lovely land he seem'd to pour. 
The land where Phffibus never frown'd before ; 
But ere he sunk below Cithseron's head, 
The cup of woe was quaff 'd — the spirit fled; 
The soul of him that scorn'd to fear or fly, 
Who lived and died as none can live or die. 

But, lo ! from high Hymettus to the plain 
The queen of night asserts her silent reign ; * 
No murky vapor, herald of the storm. 
Hides her fair face, or girds her glowing form. 
With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams 

play, 
There the white column greets her grateful ray, 
And bright around, with quivering beams beset, 
Her emblem sparkles o'er the minaret : 
The groves of olive scatter'd dark and wide. 
Where meek Cephisus sheds his scanty tide, 
The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque, 
The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk,^ 
And sad and sombre 'mid the holy calm. 
Near Theseus' fane, yon solitary palm ; 
All, tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye ; 
And dull were his that pass'd them heedless by.* 



3 Socrates drank the hemlock a short time before sunset 
(the hour of execution), notwithstanding the entreaties of 
his disciples to wait till the sun went down. 

* The twilight in Greece is much shorter than in our own 
country ; the days in winter are longer, but in summer of less 
duration. 

6 The kiosk is a Turkish summer-house ; the palm is with- 
out the present walls of Athens, not far from the temple of 
Theseus, between which and the tree the wall intervenes. 
Cephisus' stream is indeed scanty, and Ilissus has no stream 
at all. 

6 " During our residence of ten weeks at Athens, there was 
not, I believe, a day of which we did not devote a part to the 
contemplation of the noMe monuments of Grecian genius, 
that have outlived the ravages of time, and the outrage of bar- 
barous and antiquarian despoilers. The Temple of Theseus, 
which was within five minutes' walk of our lodgings, is the 
most perfect ancient edifice in the world. In this fabric, the 
most enduring st-iliility, and a simplicity of design peculiarly 
striking, are united with the highest elegance and accuracy of 
workmanship; the characteristic of the Doric style, whose 
chaste beauty is not, in the opinion of the first artists, to be 
equalled by the graces of any of the other orders. A gen- 
tleman of Athens, of great taste and skill, assured us thai, 
after a continued contemplation of this temple, and the 

(537) 



538 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Again tlie iEgean, heard no more afar, 
Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war : 
Again his waves in milder tints unfold 
Their long expanse of sapphire and of gold, 
Mix'd with the shades of many a distant isle. 
That frown, where gentler ocean deigns to smile. 

As thus, within the walls of Pallas' fane, 
I mark'd the beauties of the land and main, 
Alone, and friendless, on the magic shore. 
Whose arts and arms but live in poets' lore ; 
Oft as the matchless dome I turn'd to scan. 
Sacred to gods, but not secure from man, 
The past returu'd, the present seem'd to cease, 
And Glory knew no clime beyond her Greece ! 

Hours roll'd along, and Dian's orb on high 
Had gain'd the centre of her softest sky ; 
And yet unwearied still my footsteps trod 
O'er the vain shrine of many a vanish'd god : 
But chiefly, Pallas ! thine ; when Hecate's glare, 
Check'd by thy columns, fell more sadly fair 
O'er the chill marble, where the startling tread 
Thrills the lone heart like echoes from the dead. 
Long had I mused, and treasured every trace 
The wreck of Greece recorded of her race, 
When, lo ! a giant form before me strode, 
And Pallas hail'd me in her own abode ! 

Yes, 'twas Minerva's self; but, ah ! how changed 
Since o'er the Dardan field in arms she ranged ! 
Not such as erst, by her divine command. 
Her form appear'd from Phidias' plastic hand. 
Gone were the terrors of her awful brow, 
Her idle segis bore no Gorgon now ; 
Her helm was dinted, and the broken lance 
Seem'd weak and shaftless e'en to mortal glance ; 
The olive branch, which still she deign'd to clasp. 
Shrunk from her touch, and wither'd in her grasp ; 
And, ah ! though still the brightest of the sky, 
Celestial tears bedimm'd her large blue eye : 
Round the rent casque her owlet circled slow. 
And mourn'd his mistress with a shriek of woe ! 



remains of the Parthenon, he could never again look with his 
accustomed satisfaction upon the Ionic and Corinthian ruins 
of Athens, much less upon the specimens of the more modern 
species of architecture to be seen in Italy." — Hobhouse. 

1 " On the plaster wall, on the west side of the chapel, these 
words have been very deeply cut :— 

Quod nok fecerunt Goti, 

Hoc fecerunt Scoti. 
The mortar wall, yet fresh when we saw it, supplying the 
place of the statue now in Lord Elgin's collection, serves as a 
comment on this text. This eulogy of the Goths alludes to 
an unfounded story of a Greek historian, who relates that 
Alaric, either terrified by two phantoms, one of Minerva her- 
self, the other of Achilles, terrible as when he strode towards 
the walls of Troy to his friends, or struck with a reverential 
respect, had spared the treasures, ornaments, and people of 
the venerable city." — Hobhouse. 



"Mortal!" — 'twas thus she spake — "that blush of 
Proclaims thee Briton, once a noble name ; [shame 
First of the mighty, foremost of the free. 
Now honor'd less by all, and least by ma : 
Chief of thy foes shall Pallas still be found. 
Seek'st thou the cause of loathing? — look around. 
Lo! here, despite of war and wasting fire, 
I saw successive tyrannies expire. 
'Scaped from the ravage of the Turk and Goth,i 
Thy country sends a spoiler worse than both.2 
Survey this vacant, violated fane ; 
Recount the relics torn that yet remain : 
These Cecrops placed, this Pericles adorn'd/'' 
That Adrian rear'd when drooping Science mourn'd. 
What more I owe let gratitude attest — 
Know, Alaric and Elgin did the rest. 
That all may learn from whence the plunderer came, 
The insulted wall sustains his hated name : * 
For Elgin's fame thus grateful Pallas pleads. 
Below, his name — above, behold his deeds ! ^ 
Be ever hail'd with equal honor here 
The Gothic monarch and the Pictish peer : 
Arms gave the first his right, the last had none, 
But basely stole what less barbarians won. 
So when the lion quits his fell repast. 
Next prowls the wolf, the filthy jackal last : 
Flesh, limbs, and blood the former make their own, 
The last poor brute securely gnaws the bone. 
Yet still the gods are just, and crimes are cross'd : 
See here what Elgin won, and what he lost ! 
Another name with his pollutes my shrine : 
Behold where Dian's beams disdain to shine ! 
Some retribution still might Pallas claim. 
When Venus half avenged Minerva's shame." ^ 

She ceased awhile, and thus I dared reply, 
To soothe the vengeance kindling in her eye : 
" Daughter of Jove ! in Britain's injured name, 
A true-born Briton may the deed disclaim. 
Frown not on England ; England owns him not : 
Athena, no ! thy plunderer was a Scot. 
Ask'st thou the difference ? From fair Phyle's towers 
Survey Boeotia ; — Caledonia's ours. 



2 In the original MS.— 

" Ah, Athens ! scarce escaped from Turk and Goth : 
Hell sends a paltry Scotchman worse than both." 

3 This is spoken of the city in general, and not of the Acro- 
polis in particular. The temple of Jupiter Olympius, by soma 
supposed the Pantheon, was finished by Hadrian ; sixteen 
columns are standing, of the most beautiful marble and ar- 
chitecture. 

* On the original MS. is written — 

" Aspice quos Pallas Scoto concedit honores, 
Infra stat nomen — facta supraque vide." 

6 For Lord Byron's detailed remarks on Lord Elgin's deal- 
ing with the Parthenon, see Appendix, Note A to the second 
canto of Childe Harold. 

6 His lordship's name, and that of one who no longer bears 
it, are carved conspicuously on the Parthenon ; above, in a 
part not far distant, are the torn remnants of the basso re- 
lievos, destroyed in a vain attempt to remove them. 



THE CURSE OF MINERVA. 



539 



And well I know within that bastard land^ 

Hath Wisdom's goddess never held command ; 

A barren soil, where Nature's germs, confined 

To stern sterility, can stint the mind ; 

Whose thistle well betrays the niggard earth, 

Emblem of all to whom the land gives birth ; 

Each genial influence nurtured to resist ; 

A land of meanness, sophistry, and mist. 

Each breeze from foggy mount and marshy plain 

Dilutes Avith drivel every drizzly brain. 

Till, burst at length, each watery head o'erflows, 

Foul as their soil, and frigid as their snows. 

Then thousand schemes of petulance and pride 

Despatch her scheming children far and wide : 

Some east, some west, some everywhere but north, 

In quest of lawless gain, they issue forth. 

And thus — accursed be the day and year ! — 

She sent a Pict to play the felon here. 

Yet Caledonia claims some native worth, 

As dull Bceotia gave a Pindar birth ; 

So may her few, the letter'd and the brave, 

Bound to no clime, and victors of the grave, 

Shake off the sordid dust of such a land. 

And shine like children of a happier strand ; 

As once, of yore, in some obnoxious place. 

Ten names (if found) had saved a wretched race." 

"Mortal!" the blue-eyed maid resumed, "once 
more 
Bear back my mandate to thy native shore. 
Though fallen, alas ! this vengeance yet is mine, 
To turn my counsels far from lands like thine. 
Hear then in silence Pallas' stern behest; 
Hear and believe, for Time will tell the rest. 

" First on the head of him who did this deed 
My curse shall light, — on him and all his seed : 
Without one spark of intellectual fire, 
Be all the sons as senseless as the sire : 
If one with wit the parent brood disgrace, 
Believe him bastard of a brighter race : 
Still with his hireling artists let him prate. 
And Folly's praise repay for Wisdom's hate; 
Long of their patron's gusto let them tell. 
Whose noblest, native gusto is — to sell : 
To sell, and make — may Shame record the day ! — 
The state receiver of his pilfer'd prey ,2 
Meantime, the flattering, feeble dotard. West, 
Europe's worst dauber, and poor Britain's best, 

1 " Irish bastards," according to Sir Callaghan O'Brallaghan. 

2 In 1816, thirty-five thousand pounds were voted by Par- 
liament for the purchase of the Elgin marbles. 

3 Mr. West, on seeing the " Elgin Collection " (I suppose we 
shall hear of the " Abershaw " and " Jack Shephard" collec- 
tion), declares himself " a mere tyro" in art. 

* Poor Cribb was sadly puzzled when the marbles were first 
exhibited at Elgin House : he asked if it was not " a stone- 
shop." — He was right ; it i? a shop, 

s " That the Elgin marbles will contribute to the improve- 
ment of art in England, cannot be doubted. They must cer- 
tainly open the eyes of the British artists, and prove that the 



With palsied hand shall turn each model o'er. 

And own himself an infant of fourscore.' 

Be all the bruisers cull'd from all Saint Giles', 

That art and nature may compare their styles ; 

While brawny brutes in stupid wonder stare. 

And marvel at his lordship's ' stone-shop ' * there. 

Round the throng'd gate shall sauntering coxcombs 

creep. 
To lounge and lucubrate, to prate and peep ; 
Wliile many a languid maid, with longing sigh, 
On giant statues casts the curious eye ; 
The room with transient glance appears to skim, 
Yet marks the mighty back and length of limb ; 
Mourns o'er the difference of now and then ; 
Exclaims, * These Greeks indeed were proper men !' 
Draws sly comparisons of these with those, 
And envies Lais all her Attic beaux. 
When shall a modern maid have swains like these ! 
Alas ! Sir Harry is no Hercules ! 
And last of all, amidst the gaping crew, 
Some calm spectator, as he takes his view, 
In silent indignation mix'd with grief, 
Admires the plunder, but abhors the thief.^ 
Oh, loathed in life, nor pardon'd in the dust, 
May hate pursue his sacrilegious lust ! 
Link'd with the fool that fired the Ephesian dome, 
Shall vengeance follow far beyond the tomb. 
And Eratostratus and Elgin shine 
In many a branding page and burning line ; 
Alike reserved for aye to stand accursed, 
Perchance the second blacker than the first. 

" So let him stand, through ages yet unborn, 
Fix'd statue on the pedestal of Scorn ; 
Though not for him alone revenge shall wait, 
But fits thy country for her coming fate : 
Hers were the deeds that taught her lawless son 
To do what oft Britannia's self had done. 
Look to the Baltic— blazing from afar, 
Your old ally yet mourns perfidious war.^ 
Not to such deeds did Pallas lend her aid. 
Or break the compact which herself had made ; 
Far from such councils, from the faithless field 
She fled — but left behind her Gorgon shield : 
A fatal gift, that turn'd your friends to stone. 
And left lost Albion hated and alone. 

" Look to the East, where Ganges' swarthy race 
Shall shake your tyrant empire to its base ; 

true and only road to simplicity and beauty is the study of 
nature. But, had we a right to diminish the interest of Ath- 
ens for selfish motives, and prevent successive generations of 
other nations from seeing those admirable sculptures? The 
Temple of Minerva was spared as a beacon to the world, to 
direct it to the knowledge of purity of taste. What can we 
say to the disappointed traveller, who is now deprived of the 
rich gratification which would have compensated his travel 
and his toil? It will be little consolation to him to say, he 
may find the sculpture of the Parthenon in England."— H. 
W. Williams. 
j « The affair of Copenhagen. 



540 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Lo ! there Rebellion rears her ghastly head, 
And glares the Nemesis of native dead ; 
Till Indus rolls a deep purpureal flood, 
And claims his long arrear of northern blood. 
So may ye perish ! Pallas, when she gave 
Your free-born rights, forbade ye to enslave. 

" Look on your Spain ! — she clasps the hand she 
hates, 
But boldly clasps, and thrusts you from her gates. 
Bear witness, bright Barossa ! thou canst tell 
Whose were the sons that bravely fought and fell. 
But Lusitania, kind and dear ally. 
Can spare a few to fight, and sometimes fly. 
Oh, glorious field ! by Famine fiercely won, 
The Gaul retires for once, and all is done ! 
But when did Pallas teach, that one retreat 
Retrieved three long olympiads of defeat ? 

" Look last at home — ye love not to look there ; 
On the grim smile of comfortless despair : 
Your city saddens : loud though Revel howls. 
Here Famine faints, and yonder Rapine prowls. 
See all alike of more or less bereft ; 
No misers tremble when there's nothing left. 
* Blest paper credit !' ^ who shall dare to sing? 
It clogs like lead Corruption's weary wing. 
Yet Pallas pluck'd each premier by the ear, 
Who gods and men alike disdain'd to hear ; 
But one, repentant o'er a bankrupt state. 
On Pallas calls, — but calls, alas ! too late : 
Then raves for * * ; to that Mentor bends. 
Though he and Pallas never yet were friends. 
Him senates hear, whom never yet they heard, 
f Contemptuous once, and now no less absurd. 
So, once of yore, each reasonable frog 
Swore faith and fealty to his sovereign ' log.' 
Thus hail'd your rulers their patrician clod, 
As Egypt chose an onion for a god. 

" Now fare ye well ! enjoy your little hour ; 
Go, grasp the shadow of your vanish 'd power ; 
Gloss o'er the failure of each fondest scheme ; 
Your strength a name, your bloated wealth a dream. 
Gone is that gold, the marvel of mankind. 
And pirates barter all that's left behind.^ 
No more the hirelings, purchased near and far, 
Crowd to the ranks of mercenary war. 

1 " Blest paper credit ! last and best supply, 

That lends Corruption lighter wings to fly !"— Pope. 

2 The Deal and Dover traffickers in specie. 

3 " The beautiful but barren Hymettus, the whole coast of 
Attica, her hills and mountains, Pentelicus, Anchesmus, Phi- 
lopappus, &c. &c., are in themselves poetical ; and would be 
so if the name of Athens, of Athenians, and her very ruins, 
were swept from the earth. But, am I to be told that the 
'nature' of Attica would be more poetical without the 
'art' of the Acropolis? of the Temple of Theseus? and of 
the still all Greek and glorious monuments of her exquisitely 
artificial genius ? Ask the traveller what strikes him as most 



The idle merchant on the useless quay 

Droops o'er the bales no bark may bear away ; 

Or, back returning, sees rejected stores 

Rot piecemeal on his own encumber'd shores : 

The starved mechanic breaks his rusting loom, 

And desperate mans him 'gainst the coming doom. 

Then in the senate of your sinking state 

Show me the man whose counsels may have weight. 

Vain is each voice where tones could once command ; 

E'en factions cease to charm a factious land : 

Yet jarring sects convulse a sister isle. 

And light with maddening hands the mutual pile. 

" 'Tis done, 'tis past, since Pallas warns in vain ; 
The Furies seize her abdicated reign : 
Wide o'er the realm they wave their kindling 

brands. 
And wring her vitals with their fiery hands. 
But one convulsive struggle still remains. 
And Gaul shall weep ere Albion wear her chains. 
The banner'd pomp of war, the glittering files, 
O'er whose gay trappings stern Bellona smiles; 
The brazen trump, the spirit-stirring drum, 
That bid the foe defiance ere they come ; 
The hero bounding at his country's call. 
The glorious death that consecrates his fall, 
Swell the young heart with visionary charms, 
And bid it antedate the joys of arms. 
But know, a lesson you may yet be taught, 
With death alone are laurels cheaply bought : 
Not in the conflict Havoc seeks delight. 
His day of mercy is the day of fight. 
But when the field is fought, the battle won. 
Though drench'd with gore, his woes are but begun : 
His deeper deeds as yet ye know by name ; 
The slaughter'd peasant and the ravish'd dame, 
The rifled mansion and the foe-reap'd field, 
111 suit with souls at home, untaught to yield. 
Say, with what eye along the distant down 
Would flying burghers mark the blazing town ? 
How view the column of ascending flames 
Shake his red shadow o'er the startled Thames? 
Nay, frown not, Albion ! for the torch was thine 
That lit such pyres from Tagus to the Rhine : 
Now should they burst on thy devoted coast, 
Go, ask thy bosom who deserves them most. 
The law of heaven and earth is life for life. 
And she who raised, in vain regrets, the strife." ^ 

poetical, the Parthenon, or the rock on which it stands? The 
COLUMNS of Cape Colonna, or the Cape itself? The rocks at 
the foot of it, or the recollection that Falconer's ship was 
bulged upon them ? There are a thousand rocks and capes 
far more picturesque than those of the Acropolis and Cape 
Sunium in themselves. But it is the '^art^ the columns, the 
temples, the wrecked vessel, which give them their antique 
and their modern poetry, and not the spots themselves. I op- 
posed, and will ever oppose, the robbery of ruins from Athens, 
to instruct the English in sculpture ; but why did I do so ? 
The ruins are as poetical in Piccadilly as they were in the 
Parthenon ; but the Parthenon and its rocks are less so with- 
out them. Such is the poetry of avt."— Byron Letters, 1821. 



3rte m.aiu 



AN APOSTROPHIC HYMN.i 



" Qualis in Eurotse ripis, aut per juga Cynthi, 
Exercet Diana chores." VlRGIL. 

" Such on Eurotas' banks, or Cynthia's height, 
Diana seems : and so she charms the sight. 
When in the dance the graceful goddess leads 
The quire of nymphs, and overtops their heads." 

Dryden's Virgil. 



TO THE PUBLISHER. 



Sir, 



I AM a country gentleman of a midland county. 
I might have been a parliament-man for a certain 
borough; having had the offer of as many votes as 
General T. at the general election in 1812.2 But I 
was all for domestic happiness ; as, fifteen years ago, 
on a visit to London, I married a middle-aged maid 
of honor. We lived happily at Hornem Hall till 
last season, when my wife and I were invited by the 
Countess of Waltzaway (a distant relation of my 
spouse) to pass the winter in town. Thinking no 
harm, and our girls being come to a marriageable 
(or, as they call it, marketable) age, and having 
besides a Chancery suit inveterately entailed upon 
the family estate, we came up in our old chariot, — 
of which, by the bye, my wife grew so much ashamed 
in less than a week, that I was obliged to buy a 
second-hand barouche, of which I might mount the 
box, Mrs. n. says, if I could drive, but never see the 
inside — that place being reserved for the Honorable 
Augustus Tiptoe, her partner-general and opera- 
knight. Hearing great praises of Mrs. H.'s dancing 
(she was famous for birthnight minuets in the latter 
end of the last century), I unbooted, and went to a 
ball at the Countess's, expecting to see a country 
dance, or, at most, cotillons, reels, and all the old 
paces to the newest tunes. But, judge of my surprise, 
on arriving, to see poor dear Mrs. Hornem with her 
arms half round the loins of a huge hussar-looking 
gentleman I n«ver set eyes on before ; and his, to say 
truth, rather more than half round her waist, turning 
round, and round, and round, to a d — d see-saw 



^ This trifle was written at Cheltenham in the autumn of 
1812, and published anonymously in the spring of the follow- 
ing year. It was not very well received at the time by the 
public; and the author was by no means anxious that it 
should be considered as his handiwork. "I hear," he says, 
in a letter to a friend, "that a certain malicious publication 
on waltzing is attributed to me. This report, I suppose, you 
will take care to contradict ; as the author, I am sure, will not 
like that I should wear his cap and bells." 

« State of the poll (last day), 5. 



up-and-down sort of tune, that reminded me of the 
" Black joke," only more " affettuoso," till it made 
me quite giddy with wondering they were not so. 
By-and-by they stopped a bit, and I thought they 
would sit or fall down ; — but no ; with Mrs. H.'s hand 
on his shoulder, " quam familiariter " ^ (as Terence 
said, when I was at school), they walked about a 
minute, and then at it again, like two cock-chafers 
spitted on the same bodkin. I asked what all this 
meant, when, with a loud laugh, a child no older 
than our Wilhelmina (a name I never heard but in 
the Vicar of Wakefield, though her mother would 
call her after the Princess of Swappenbach), said, 
" Lord ! Mr. Hornem, can't you see they are valtz- 
ing?" or waltzing (I forget which) ; and then up she 
got, and her mother and sister, and away they went, 
and round-abouted it till supper time. Now, that I 
know what it is, I like it of all things, and so does 
Mrs. H. (though I have broken my shins, and four 
times overturned Mrs. Hornem's maid, in practicing 
the preliminary steps in a morning). Indeed, so 
much do I like it, that having a turn for rhyme, 
tastily displayed in some election ballads, and songs 
in honor of all the victories (but till lately I have 
had little practice in that way), I sat down, and with 
the aid of William Fitzgerald, Esq.,* and a few hints 
from Dr. Busby ^ (whose recitations I attend, and am 
monstrous fond of Master Busby's manner of deliver- 
ing his father's late successful "Drury Lane Ad- 
dress "), I composed the following hymn, wherewithal 
to make my sentiments known to the public ; whom, 
nevertheless, I heartily despise, as well as the critics. 
I am, sir, yours, &c. <fec., 

HORACE HORNEM. 



8 My Latin is all forgotten, if a man can be said to have 
forgotten what he never remembered ; but I bought my title- 
page motto of a Catholic priest for a three-shilling bank 
token, after much haggling for the even sixpence. I grudged 
the money to a papist, being all for the memory of Perceval 
and " No popery," and quite regretting the downfall of the 
pope, because we can't burn him any more. 



* See ante, p. 498. 

s See " Rejected Addresses.' 



(541) 



642 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



Cf)e 5malt^ 



Muse of the many -twinkling feet ! ^ whose charms 

Are now extended up from legs to arms ; 

Terpsichore ! — too long misdeem'd a maid — 

Reproachful term — bestow'd but to upbraid — 

Henceforth in all the bronze of brightness shine, 

The least a vestal of the virgin Nine. 

Far be from thee and thine the name of prude : 

Mock'd, yet triumphant ; sneer'd at, unsubdued ; 

Thy legs must move to conquer as they fly, 

If but thy coats are reasonably high ; 

Thy breast — if bare enough — requires no shield ; 

Dance forth — sans armor thou shalt take the field, 

And own — impregnable to most assaults, 

Thy not too lawfully begotten " Waltz." 

Hail, nimble nymph ! to whom the young hussar, 
The whisker'd votary of waltz and war. 
His night devotes, despite of spur and boots ; 
A sight unmatch'd since Orpheus and his brutes : 
Hail, spirit-stirring Waltz ! — beneath whose banners 
A modern hero fought for modish manners ; 
On Hounslow's heath to rival Wellesley 's 2 fame, 
Cock'd — fired — and miss'd his man — but gain'd his 

aim; 
Hail, moving Muse ! to whom the fair one's breast 
Gives all it can, and bids us take the rest. 
Oh ! for the flow of Busby, or of Fitz, 
The latter's loyalty, the former's wits, 
To "energize the object I pursue," ^ 
And give both Belial and his dance their due ! 

Imperial Waltz ! imported from the Rhine • 

(Famed for the growth of pedigrees and wine). 
Long be thine import from all duty free, 
And hock itself be less esteem'd than thee : 



1 " Glance their many-twinkling feet."— Gray. 

2 To rival Lord Wellesley's, or his nephew's, as the reader 
pleases: — the one gained a pretty woman, whom he deserved 
by fighting for ; and the other has been fighting in the Penin- 
sula many a long day, " by Shrewsbury clock," without gain- 
ing anything in that country but the title of " the Great Lord," 
and " the Lord ;" which savors of profanation, having been 
hitherto applied only to that Being to whom " Te Deums'''' 
for carnage are the rankest blasphemy. — It is to be presumed 
the general will one day return to his Sabine farm ; there 

" To tame the genius of the stubborn plain, 
Almost as quicldy as he conquer'd Spain !" 
The Lord Peterborough conquered continents in a summer ; 
we do more — we contrive both to conquer and lose them in a 
shorter season. If the "Great Lord's" Cincinnatian progress 
in agriculture be no speedier than the proportional average 
of time in Pope's couplet, it will, according to the farmers' 
proverb, be " ploughing with dogs." 

By the bye — one of this illustrious person's new titles is 
forgotten— it is, however, worth remembering—" Salvador del 
mundo .'" credite, posteri ! If this be the appellation annexed 
by the inhabitants of the Peninsula to the name of a man 
w]iG haii not yet saved them — query — are they worth saving. 



In some few qualities alike — for hock 
Improves our cellar — thou our living stock. 
The head to hock belongs — thy subtler art 
Intoxicates alone the heedless heart : 
Through the full veins thy gentler poison swims, 
And wakes to wantonness the willing limbs. 

Oh, Germany ! how much to thee we owe. 
As heaven-born Pitt can testify below. 
Ere cursed confederation made thee France's, 

And only left us thy d d debts and dances ! 

Of subsidies and Hanover bereft, 
We bless thee still— for George the Third is left ! 
Of kings the best — and last, not least in worth, 
For graciously begetting George the Fourth. 
To Germany, and highnesses serene, 
Who owe us millions — don't we owe the queen ? 
To Germany, what owe we not besides ? 
So oft bestowing Brunswickers and brides ; 
Who paid for vulgar, with her royal blood, 
Drawn from the stem of each Teutonic stud : 
Who sent us — so be pardon'd all her faults — 
A dozen dukes, some kings, a queen — and Waltz. 

But peace to her— her emperor and diet, 
Though now transferr'd to Buonaparte's "fiat!" 
Back to my theme — Oh, Muse of motion ! say, 
How first to Albion found thy Waltz her way ? 

Borne on the breath of hyperborean gales, 
From Hamburg's port (while Hamburg yet had mails), 
Ere yet unlucky Fame— compell'd to creep 
To snowy Gottenburg — was chill'd to sleep ; 
Or, starting from her slumbers, deign'd arise, 
Heligoland ! to stock thy mart with lies ; 
While unburnt Moscow* yet had news to send. 
Nor owed her fiery exit to a friend, 
She came — Waltz came — and with her certain sets 
Of true despatches, and as true gazettes : 



even in this world ? for, according to the mildest modifica- 
tions of any Christian creed, those three words make the 
odds much against them in the next. — "Saviour of the 
world," quotha!— it were to be wished that he, or any one 
else, could save a corner of it— his country. Yet this stupid 
misnomer, although it shows the near connection between 
superstition and impiety, so fa^' has its use, that it proves 
there can be little to dread from those Catholics (inquisito- 
rial Catholics too) who can confer such an appellation on a 
Protestant. I suppose next year he will be entitled the 
"Virgin Mary:" if so. Lord George Gordon himself would 
have nothing to object to such liberal bastards of our Lady 
of Babylon. 

3 Among the addresses sent in to the Drury Lane Com- 
mittee was one by Dr. Busby, which began by asking — 
" When energizing objects men pursue, 
What are the prodigies they cannot do?" 

•* The patriotic arson of our amiable allies cannot be sufli- 
ciently commended — nor subscribed for. Amongst other 
details omitted in the various despatches of our eloquent 
ambassador, he did not state (being too much occupied with 

the exploits of Colonel C , in swimming rivers frozen, and 

galloping over roads impassable) that one entire province 



THE WALTZ. 



543 



Then flamed of Austerlitz the blest despatch, 
Which Moniteur nor Morning Post can match ; 
And— almost crush'd beneath the glorious news — 
Ten plays, and forty tales of Kotzebue's ; 
One envoy's letters, six composers' airs, 
And loads from Frankfort and from Leipsic fairs ; 
Meiner's four volumes upon womankind, 
Like Lapland witches to insure a wind ; 
Brunck's heaviest tome for ballast, and, to back it, 
Of Heyn6, such as should not sink the packet. 

Fraught with this cargo— and her fairest freight, 
Delightful Waltz, on tiptoe for a mate. 
The welcome vessel reach'd the genial strand, 
And round her flock'd the daughters of the land. 
Not decent David, when, before the ark, 
His grand pas-seul excited some remark ; 
Not love-lorn Quixote, when his Sancho thought 
The knight's fandango friskier than it ought : 
Not soft Herodias, when, with winning tread, 
Her nimble feet danced off another's head ; 
Not Cleopatra on her galley's deck, 
Display'd so much of leg, or more of neck, 
Than thou, ambrosial Waltz, when first the moon 
Beheld thee twirling to a Saxon tune ! 

To you, ye husbands of ten years ! whose brows 
Ache with the annual tributes of a spouse ; 
To you of nine years less, who only bear 
The budding sprouts of those that you shall wear. 
With added ornaments around them roll'd 
Of native brass, or law-awarded gold ; 
To you, ye matrons, ever on the watch 
To mar a son's, or make a daughter's match ; 
To you, ye children of— whom chance accords — ■ 
Always the ladies, and sometimes their lords; 
To you, ye single gentlemen, w ho seek 
Torments for life, or pleasures for a week; 
As Love or Hymen your endeavors guide. 
To gain your own, or- snatch another's bride; — 
To one and all the lovely stranger came. 
And every ball-room echoes with her name. 



])eri8hed by famine in the most melancholy manner, as fol- I 
Iowa: — In General Rostopchin's consummate conflagration, ' 
the consumption of tallow and train oil was so great, that the 
market was inadequate to the demand : and thus one hundred 
and thirty-three thousand persons were starved to death, by 
being reduced to wholosome diet! The lamplighters of | 
London have since 8uV)scribcd a pint (of oil) apiece, and 
the tallow-chandlers have unanimously voted a quantity of 
best moulds (four to the pound), to the relief of the surviving : 
S^;ythians; — the scarcity will soon by such exertions, and a 
proper attention to the quality rather than the quantity of 
provision, be totally alleviated. It is said, in return, that the 
untouched Ukraine has subscribed sixty thousand beeves for 
a day's meal to our suffering manufacturers. 
1 Dancing girls— who do for hire what Waltz doth gratis. i 
* It cannot be complained now, as in the Lady Baussifire's 
time, of the "Sienrde la Troix," that there be "no whiskers;" , 
but how far these are indications of valor in the field, or \ 
elsewhere, may stUl be questionable. Much may be, and 
hath been, avouched on both sides. In the oldon time \ 



Endearing Waltz ! — to thy more melting tune 
Bow Irish jig, and ancient rigadoon. 
Scotch reels, avaunt ! and country-dance, forego 
Your future claims to each fantastic toe ! 
Waltz — Waltz alone — both legs and arms demands, 
Liberal of feet, and lavish of her hands ; 
Hands which may freely range in public sight 
Where ne'er before — but — pray " put out the light." 
Methinks the glare of yonder chandelier 
Shines much too far — or I am much too near; 
And true, though strange — Waltz whispers this re- 
mark, 
" My slippery steps are safest in the dark !" 
But here the Muse with due decorum halts, 
And lends her longest petticoat to Waltz. 

Observant travellers of every time ! 
Ye quartos publish'd upon every clime ! 
Oh say, shall dull Romaika's heavy round, 
Fandango's wriggle, or Bolero's bound ; 
Can Egypt's Almas i — tantalizing group — 
Columbia's caperers to the warlike whoop — 
Can aught from cold Kamschatka to Cape Horn 
With Waltz compare, or after Waltz be borne ? 
Ah, no ! from Morier's pages down to Gait's, 
Each tourist pens a paragraph for " Waltz." 

Shades of those belles whose reign began of yore, 
With George the Third's — and ended long before ! — 
Though in your daughters' daughters yet you 

thrive, 
Burst from your lead, and be yourselves alive ! 
Back to the ball-room speed your spectred host, 
Fool's Paradise is dull to that you lost. 
No treacherous powder bids conjecture quake ; 
N§ stiff-starch'd stays make meddling fingers ache 
(Transferr'd to those ambiguous things that ape 
Goats in their visage,^ women in their shape) ; 
No damsel faints when rather closely press'd, 
But more caressing seems when most caress'd ; 
Superfluous hartshorn, and reviving salts. 
Both banish'd by the sovereign cordial " Waltz." 



philosophers had whiskers, and soldiers none— Scipio him- 
self was shaven— Hannibal thought his one eye handsome 
enough without a beard; but Adrian, the emperor, wore a 
beard (having warts on his chin, which neither the empress 
Sabina nor even the courtiers could abide) — Turenne had 
whiskers, Marlborough none — B\ionaparte is unwliiskered, 
the regent whiskered: "argal," greatness of mind and 
whiskers may or may not go together: but certainly the dif- 
ferent occurrences, since the growth of the last mentioned, 
go further in behalf of whiskers than the anathema of 
Anselm did against long hair in the reign of Henry I.— For- 
merly, red was a favorite color. See Lodowick Barrey's com- 
edy of Ram Alley, 1661 : act i. scene 1— 

" Taffeta. Now for a wager— What colored beard comes 
next by the window? 

" Adriann. A black man's, I think. 

" Taffeta. I think not so: I think a red, for that is most in 
fashion." 

There is "nothing new under the sun;" but red, then a 
favorite, has now subsided into tifavoritf^s color. 



.544 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Seductive Waltz ! — though on thy native shore 
Even Werter's self proclaim'd thee half a whore ; 
Werter — to decent vice though much inclined, . 
Yet warm, not wanton ; dazzled, but not blind — 
Though gentle Genlis, in her strife with Stael, 
Would even proscribe thee from a Paris ball ; 
The fashion hails, — from countesses to queens. 
And maids and valets waltz behind the scenes ; 
Wide and more wide thy witching circle spreads. 
And turns— if nothing else— at least our heads ; 
With thee even clumsy cits attempt to bounce, 
And cockneys practice what they can't pronounce. 
Gods ! how the glorious theme my strain exalts, 
And rhyme finds partner rhyme in praise of " Waltz !" 

Blest was the time Waltz chose for her debut ; 
The court, the Regent, like herself were new ; ^ 
New face for friends, for foes some new rewards ; 
New ornaments for black and royal guards ; 
New laws to hang the rogues that roar'd for bread ; 
New coins (most new) ^ to follow those that fled ; 
New victories — nor can we prize them less, 
Though Jenky Wonders at his own success ; 
New wars, because the old succeed so well, 
That most survivors envy those who fell ; 
New mistresses — no, old — and yet 'tis true. 
Though they be old, the thing is something new ; 
Each new, quite new — (except some ancient tricks),' 
New white-sticks, gold-sticks, broom-sticks, all new 

sticks ! 
With vests or ribbons — deck'd alike in hue, 
New troopers strut, new turncoats blush in blue : 

So saith the muse : my ,* what say you ? 

Such was the time when Waltz might best maintain 
Her new preferments in this novel reign ; 
Such was the time, nor ever yet was such ; • 

Hoops are no more, and petticoats not much ; 



1 An anachronism— Waltz and the battle of Austerlitz are 
before said to have opened the ball together : the bard means 
(if he means any thing), "Waltz was not so much in vogue till 
the regent attained the acme of his popularity. Waltz, the 
comet, whiskers, and the new government, illuminated heav- 
en and earth, in all their glory, much about the same time : 
of these the comet only has disappeared; the other three 
continue to astonish us still.— Printer-'' s Devil. 

2 Amongst others a new ninepence — a creditable coin now 
forthcoming, worth a pound, in paper, at the fairest calculation. 

3 "Oh that right should thus overcome might!" Who does 
not remember the "delicate investigation" in the "Merry 
Wives of Windsor " ? — 

" Ford. Pray you, come near : if I suspect without cause, 
why then make sport at me : then let me be your jest ; I 
deserve it. How now? whither bear you this?" 

"Mrs. Ibrd. What have you to do whither they bear it?— 
you were best meddle with buck-washing." 

* The gentle, or ferocious, reader may fill up the blank as 
he pleases — there are several dissyllabic names at his service 
(being already in the regent's) : it would not be fair to back 
any peculiar initial against the alphabet, as every month 
will add to the list now entered for the sweepstakes :— a dis- 
tinguished consonant is said- to be the favorite, much against 
the wishes of the knowing ones. 

6 "We have changed all that," says the Mock Doctor- 



Morals and minuets, virtue and her stays, 

And tell-tale powder — all have had their days. 

The ball begins — the honors of the house 

First duly done by daughter or by spouse, 

Some potentate — or royal or serene — 

With Kent's gay grace, or sapient Gloster's mien, 

Leads forth the ready dame, whose rising flush 

Might once have been mistaken for a blush. 

From where the garb just leaves the bosom free. 

That spot where hearts ^ were once supposed to be ; 

Bound all the confines of the yielded waist. 

The strangest hand may wander undisplaced ; 

The lady's in return may grasp as much 

As princely paunches offer to her touch. 

Pleased round the chalky floor how well they trip, 

One hand reposing on the royal hip ; 

The other to the shoulder no less royal 

Ascending with affection truly loyal ! 

Thus front to front the partners move or stand, 

The foot may rest, but none withdraw the hand ; 

And all in turn may follow in their rank, 

The Earl of— Asterisk— and Lady — Blank ; 

Sir — Such-a-one — with those of fashion's host. 

For whose blest surnames — vide " Morning Post " 

(Or if for that impartial print too late. 

Search Doctors' Commons six months from my date)- 

Thus all and each, in movement swift or slow, 

The genial contact gently undergo ; 

Till some might marvel, with the modest Turk, 

If " nothing follows all this palming work ?"® 

True, honest Mirza !— iyou may trust my rhyme — 

Something does follow at a fitter time ; 

The breast thus publicly resign'd to man, 

In private may resist him if it can. 

Oh ye who loved our grandmothers of yore, 
Fitzpatrick, Sheridan,'^ and many more ! 



'tis all gone — Asmodeus knows where. After all, it is of no 
great importance how women's hearts are disposed of; they 
have nature's privilege to distribute them as absurdly as 
possible. But there are also some men with hearts so thor- 
oughly bad, as to remind us of those phenomena often men- 
tioned in natural history ; viz., a mass of solid stone — only to 
be opened by force— and when divided, you discover a toad in 
the centre, lively, and with the reputation of being venomous. 

6 In Turkey a pertinent, here an impertinent and super- 
fluous, question — literally put, as in the text, by a Persian to 
Morier, on seeing a waltz in Pera. Vide Morier'.s Travels. 

7 "I once heard Sheridan repeat, in a ball-room, some 
verses, which he had lately written on waltzing; and of 
which I remember the following— 

' With tranquil step, and timid, downcast glance, 

Behold the well-pair'd couple now advance. 

In such sweet posture our first parents moved, 

While, hand in hand, through Eden's bowers they roved, 

Ere yet the devil, with promise fine and false, 

Turn'd their poor heads, and taught them how to waltz. 

One hand grasps hers, the other holds her hip : 

For so the law's laid down by Baron Trip.' 
This gentleman, whose name suits so aptly as a legal author- 
ity on the subject of waltzing, was, at the time these verses 
were written, well known in the dancing circles."— Moore. 



ODE TO NAPOLEON BUONAPAETE. 



545 



And thou, my prince ! whose sovereign taste and will 
It is to love the lovely beldames still ! 
Thou ghost of Queensberry ! whose judging sprite 
Satan may spare to peep a single night, 
Pronounce — if ever in your days of bliss 
Asmodeus struck so bright a stroke as this ? 
To teach the young ideas how to rise. 
Flush in the cheek, and languish in the eyes ; 
Rush to the heart, and lighten through the frame, 
With half-told wish and ill-dissembled flame : 
For prurient nature still will storm the breast — 
Who, tempted thus, can answer for the rest ? 

Bwt ye — who never felt a single thought 
For what our morals are to be, or ought ; 
Who wisely wish the charms you view to reap, 
Say — would you make those beauties quite so cheap ? 
Hot from the hands promiscuously applied, 
Round the slight waist, or down the glowing side, 
Where were the rapture then to clasp the form 
From this lewd grasp and lawless contact warm ? 



At once love's most endearing thought resign, 
To press the hand so press'd by none but thine ; 
To gaze upon that eye which never met 
Another's ardent look without regret ; 
Approach the lip which all, without restraint. 
Come near enough — if not to touch — to taint ; 
If such thou lovest — love her then no more. 
Or give — like her — caresses to a score ; 
Her mind with these is gone, and with it go 
The little left behind it to bestow. 

Voluptuous Waltz ! and dare I thus blaspheme ? 
Thy bard forgot thy praises were his theme. 
Terpsichore, forgive ! — at every ball 
My wife now waltzes — and my daughters shall; 
My son — (or stop — 'tis needless to inquire — 
These little accidents should ne'er transpire ; 
Some ages hence our genealogic tree 
Will wear as green a bough for him as me) — 
Waltzing shall rear, to make our name amends, 
Grandsons for me — in heirs to all his friends. 



©be to 'Napoleon Buonaparte,' 



" Expende Annibalem : — quot libras in duce summo 
Invenies?" Juvenal, ^oi. x.2 

"The emperor Nepos was acknowledged by the Senate, by the Italians, and by the Provincials of Gaul; his moral 

Tirtues, and military talents, were loudly celebrated ; and those who derived any private benefit from his government 

announced in prophetic strains the restoration of public felicity. 

************* 
************* 

By this shameful abdication, he protracted his life a few years, ih a very ambiguous state, between an emperor and an 

exile, till ."—Gibbon's Decline and Fall, vol. vi. p. 220.' 



'Tis done — but yesterday a King ! 

And arm'd with Kings to strive — 
And now thou art a nameless thing : 

So abject — yet alive ! 



1 The reader has seen that Lord Byron, when publishing 
" The Corsair," in January, 1814, announced an apparently 
quite serious resolution to withdraw, for some years at least, 
from poetry. His letters of the February and March follow- 
ing abound in repetitions of the same determination. On the 
morning of the ninth of April, he writes,—" No more rhyme 
for— or rather froTn^—me. I have taken my leave of that 
stage, and henceforth will mountebank it no longer." Tn the 
evening, a Gazette Extraordinary announced the abdication 
of Fontainebleau, and the poet violated his vows next morn- 
ing, by composing this ode, which he immediat* ly published, 
though without his name. His Diary says, " Ai)ril 10. To- 
day I have boxed one hour — written an ode to Napoleon 
Buonaparte— copied it— eaten six biscuits— drunk four bot- 
tles of soda water, and redde away tlic rest of my time." 

2 "'Produce the urn that Hannibal contains, 
And weigh the mighty dust which yet remains : 
And is this all!' 

35 



Is this the man of thousand thrones. 
Who strew'd our earth with hostile bones, 

And can he thus survive ? * 
Since he, miscall'd the Morning Star, 
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far. 

I know not that this was ever done in the old world ; at least, 
with regard to Hannibal: but in the statistical account of 
Scotland, I find that Sir John Paterson had the curiosity to 
collect, and weigh, the ashes of a person discovered a few 
years since in the parish of Eccles; which he was happily 
enabled to do with great facility, as ' the inside of the coffin 
was smooth, and the whole body visible.' Wonderful to re- 
late, he found the whole did not exceed in weight one ounce 
and a half! And is this all! Alas! the quot libras itself 
is a satirical exaggeration." — Gipford. 

8 "I send you an additional motto from Gibbon, which 
you will find singularly appropriate." — Lord Byron, to Mr. 
Murray, April 12, 1814. 

* " I don't know— but I think /, even I (an insect com- 
parod with this creature), have set my life on casts not a mil- 
lionth part of this man's. But, after all, a crown may not be 
worth dying for. Yet, to outlive Lodi for this!!! Oh that 
Juvenal or Johnson could rise from the dead! 'Expende — 



546 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Ill-minded man ! why scourge tliy kind 

Who bow'd so low the knee ? 
By gazing on thyself grown blind, 

Thou taught'st the rest to see. 
With might unquestion'd, — power to save, 
Thine only gift hath been the grave, 

To those that worshipp'd thee ; 
Nor till thy fall could mortals guess 
Ambition's less than littleness ! 

Thanks for that lesson— it will teach 

To after- warriors more, 
Than high Philosophy can preach, 

And vainly preach'd before. 
That spell upon the minds of men 
Breaks never to unite again, 

That led them to adore 
Those pagod things of sabre sway, 
With fronts of brass, and feet of clay. 

The triumph, and the vanity. 

The rapture of the strife ^ — 
The earthquake voice of Victory, 

To thee the breath of life ; 
The sword, the sceptre, and that sway 
Which man seem'd made but to obey, 

Wherewith renown was rife — 
All quell'd '.—Dark spirit ! what must be 
The madness of thy memory ! 

The Desolator desolate ! 

The Victor overthrown ! 
The Arbiter of others' fate 

A Suppliant for his own ! 
Is it some yet imperial hope. 
That with such change can calmly cope ? 

Or dread of death alone ? 
To die a prince — or live a slave — 
Thy choice is most ignobly brave ! 



quot libras in duce summo invenies?' I knew they were 
light in the balance of mortality ; but I thought their living 
dust weighed more carats. Alas ! this imperial diamond hath 
a flaw in it, and is now hardly fit to stick in a glazier's pencil ; 
the pen of the historian won't rate it worth a ducat. Psha ! 
' something too much of this.' But I won't give him up even 
now ; though all his admirers have, like the Thanes, fallen 
from him."— ^yrora Diary, April 9. 

1 "Certaminis gavdia" — the expression of Attila in his 
harangue to his army, previous to the battle of Chalons, 
given in Cassiodorus. 

2 "Out of town six days. On my return, find my poor 
little pagod. Napoleon, pushed off his pedestal. It is his own 
fault. Like Milo, he would rend the oak; but it closed 
again, wedged his hands, and now the beasts — lion, bear, 
down to the dirtiest jackal — may all tear him. That Musco- 
vite winter wedged his arms : — ever since, he has fought with 
his feet and teeth. The last may still leave their marks ; and 
' I guess now ' (as the Yankees say), that he will yet play them 
a pass."— 5j/ron Diary, April 8. 

3 Sylla.— We find the germ of this stanza in the Diary of 
the evening before it was written : — " Methinks Sylla did 
better; for he revenged, and resigned in the height of his 



He who of old would rend the oak,* 
Dream'd not of the rebound : 

Chain'd by the trunk he vainly broke- 
Alone — how look'd he round ? 

Thou, in the sternness of thy strength, 

An equal deed hast done at length. 
And darker fate hast found : 

He fell, the forest prowlers' prey ; 

But thou must eat thy heart away ! 

The Roman,3 when his burning heart 

Was slaked with blood of Rome, 
Threw down the dagger — dared depart, 

In savage grandeur, home — 
He dared depart in utter scorn 
Of men that such a yoke had borne, 

Yet left him such a doom ! 
His only glory was that hour 
Of self-upheld abandon'd power. 

The Spaniard, when the lust of sway 
Had lost its quickening spell,* 

Cast crowns for rosaries away, 
An empire for a cell ; 

A strict accountant of his beads, 

A subtle disputant on creeds. 
His dotage trifled well : ^ 

Yet better had he neither known 

A bigot's shrine, nor despot's throne.* 

But thou — from thy reluctant hand 

The thunderbolt is wrung — 
Too late thou leav'st the high command 

To which thy weakness clung ; 
All Evil Spirit as thou art. 
It is enough to grieve the heart 

To see thine own unstrung ; 
To think that God's fair world hath been 
The footstool of a thing so mean ; 



sway, red with the slaughter of his foes — the finest instance 
of glorious contempt of the rascals upon record. Diocletian 
did well too — Amurath not amiss, had he become aught ex- 
cept a dervise— Charles the Fifth but so so: but Napoleon 
worst of all." — Byron Diary, April 9. 

* "Alter ^potent spell' to 'quickening spell:' the first (as 
Polonius says) ' is a vile phrase,' and means nothing, besides 
being commonplace and Rosa-Matildaish, After the resolu- 
tion of not publishing, though our ode is a thing of little 
length and less consequence, it will be better altogether that 
it is anonymous." — Lord Byron to Mr. Hurray, April 11. 

5 Charles the Fifth, emperor of Germany and king of 
Spain, resigned, in 1555, his imperial crown to his brother 
Ferdinand, and the kingdom of Spain to his son Philip, and 
retired to a monastery in Estremadura, where he conformed, 
in his manner of living, to all the rigor of monastic austerity. 
Not satisfied with this, he dressed himself in his shroud, was 
laid in his coffin with much solemnity, joined in the prayers 
which were offered up for the rest of his soul, and mingled 
his tears with those which his attendants shed, as if they had 
been celebrating a real funeral. 

6 " I looked into Lord Kaimes's ' Sketches of the History 
of Man,' and mentioned to Dr. Johnson his censure of 



ODE TO NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 



547 



And Earth hath spilt her blood for him, 

Who thus can hoard his own ! 
And Monarchs bow'd the trembling limb, 

And thank'd him for a throne ! 
Fair Freedom ! we may hold thee dear, 
When thus thy mightiest foes their fear 

In humblest guise have shown. 
Oh ! ne'er may tyrant leave behind 
A brighter name to lure mankind I 

Thine evil deeds are writ in gore, 

Nor written thus in vain — 
Thy triumphs tell of fame no more, 

Or deepen every stain : 
If thou hadst died as honor dies. 
Some new Napoleon might arise, 

To shame the world again — 
But who would soar the solar height, 
To set in such a starless night? ^ 

Weigh'd in the balance, hero dust 

Is vile as vulgar clay ; 
Thy scales, Mortality ! are just 

To all that pass away : 
But yet raethought the living great 
Some higher sparks should animate, 

To dazzle and dismay : 
Nor deem'd Contempt could thus make mirth 
Of these, the Conquerors of the earth. 

And she, proud Austria's moumfdl flower, 

Thy still imperial bride ; 
How bears her breast the torturing hour? 

Still clings she to thy side ? 
Must she too bend, must she too share 
Thy late repentance, long despair. 

Thou throneless Homicide ? 
If still she loves thee, hoard that gem ; 
'Tis worth thy vanish'd diadem ! ^ 



Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle, 

And gaze upon the sea ; 
That element may meet thy smile — 

It ne'er was ruled by thee ! 
Or trace with thine all idle hand, 
In loitering mood upon the sand, 

That Earth is now as free ! 
That Corinth's pedagogue ^ hath now 
Transferr'd his byword to thy brow. 

Thou Timour ! in his captive's cage * 
What thoughts will there be thine. 
While brooding in thy prison'd rage? 
But one — " The world was mine !" 
Unless, like he of Babylon, 
All sense is with thy sceptre gone. 

Life will not long confine 
That spirit pour'd so widely forth — 
So long obey'd — so little worth ! 

Or, like the thief of fire from heaven,* 

Wilt thou withstand the shock ? 
And share with him, the unforgiven, 

His vulture and his rock ! 
Foredoom'd by God — by man accurst,^ 
And that last act, though not thy worst, 

The very Fiend's arch mock ; '' 
He in his fall preserved his pride, 
And, if a mortal, had as proudly died ! 

There was a day — there was an hour,^ 

While earth was Gaul's — Gaul thine — 
When that immeasurable power 

Unsated to resign 
Had been an act of purer fame, 
Than gathers round Marengo's name, 

And gilded thy decline. 
Through the long twilight of all time, 
Despite some passing clouds of crime. 



Charles the Fifth for celebrating his funeral obsequies in his 
llfo-time, which, I told him, I had been used to think a 
solemn and aflFecting act. Johnson. ' Why, sir, a man may 
dispose his mind to think so of that act of Charles ; but it is 
so liable to ridicule, that if one man out of ten thousand 
laughs at it, he'll make the other nine thousand nine hundred 
and ninety-nine laugh too.'^—BosweWs Johmon, vol. vii. p. 78, 
ed. 1835. 

1 " But who would rise in brightest day 
To set without one parting ray ?"— MS. 

« It is well known that Count Neipperg, a gentleman in 
the suite of the emperor of Austria, who was first presented 
to Maria Louisa within a few days after Napoleon's abdica- 
tion, became, in the sequel, her chamberlain, and then her 
husband. lie is said to have been a man of remarkably plain 
appearance. The count died in 18.31. 

* Dionysius the Younger, esteemed a greater tyrant than 
his father, on being for the second time banished from Syra- 
cuse, retired to Corinth, where he was obliged to turn school- 
master for a subsistence. 

♦ The cage of Bajazet, by order of Tamerlane. 
' Prometheus. 



« In first draught — 

" He suffer'd for kind acts to men, 
Wlio have not seen his like again, 

At least of kingly stock ; 
Since he was good, and thou but great, 
Thou canst not quarrel with thy fate." 

7 " The very fiend's arch mock — 

To lip a wanton, and suppose her chaste." 

— Shakspeake. 

—We believe there is no doubt of the truth of the anecdote 
here alluded to — of Napoleon's having found leisure for an 
unworthy amour, the very evening of his arrival at Fontaine- 
bleau. 

8 The three last stanzas, which Lord Byron had been so- 
licited by Mr. Murray to write, in order to avoid the stamp 
duty then imposed upon publications not exceeding a sheet, 
were not published with the rest of the poem. " I don't lik«? 
them at all," says Lord Byron, " and thoy had better be left 
out. The fact is, I can't do anything I am asked to do, how- 
ever gladly I would ; and at the end of a week my interest in 
a composition goes off." 



648 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



But thou forsooth must be a king, 

And don the purple vest, 
As if that foolish robe could wring 

Remembrance from thy breast. 
Where is that faded garment ? where 
The gewgaws thou wert fond to wear, 

The star — the string — the crest ? 
Vain froward child of empire ! say. 
Are all thy playthings snatch'd away ? 



1 In one of Lord Byron's MS. Diaries, begun at Kavenna 
in May, 1821, we find the following :— " What shall I write ? 
—another Journal ? I think not. Any thing that comes up- 
permost, and call it 

"My Dictionary, 

"Augustus.— 1 have often been puzzled with his character. 
Was he a great man ? Assuredly. But not one of my great 
men. I have always looked upon Sylla as the greatest char- 
acter in history, for laying down his power at the moment 
when it was — 

' Too great to keep or to resign,' 
and thus despising them all. As to the retention of his power 
by Augustus, the thing was already settled. If he had given 
it up— the commonwealth was gone — the republic was long 
past all resuscitation. Had Brutus and Cassius gained the 
battle of Philippi, it would not have restored the republic. Its 
days ended with the Gracchi ; the rest was a mere struggle of 
parties. You might as well cure a consumption, or restore a 
broken egg, as to revive a state so long a prey to every upper- 
most soldier, as Rome had long been. As for a despotism, if 
Augustus could have been sure that all his successors would 
have been like himself (I mean not as Octavius, but Au- 
gustus)— or Napoleon could have insured the world that none 
of his successors would have been like himself— the ancient 
or modern world might have gone on, like the empire of 
China, in a state of lethargic prosperity. Suppose, for in- 



Where may the wearied eye repose, 
When gazing on the Great ; ^ 

Where neither guilty glory glows, 
Nor despicable state ? 

Yes— one— the first — the last — the best — 

The Cincinnatus of the West, 
Whom envy dared not hate. 

Bequeath the name of Washington, 

To make man blush there was but one ! ^ 



stance, that, instead of Tiberius and Caligula, Augustus had 
been immediately succeeded by Nerva, Trajan, the Antonines, 
or even by Titus and his father — what a difference in our es- 
timate of himself !— So far from gaining by the contrast, I 
think that one half of our dislike arises from his having been 
heired by Tiberius — and one half of Julius Caesar's fame, from 
his having had his empire consolidated by Augustus.— Sup- 
pose that there had been no Octavius, and Tiberius had 
' jumped the life ' between, and at once succeeded Julius ? — 
And yet it is difficult to say whether hereditary right or 
popular choice produce the worser sovereigns. The Roman 
consuls make a goodly show ; but then they only reigned for 
a year, and were under a sort of personal obligation to dis- 
tinguish themselves. It is still more difficult to say which 
form of government is the worst— all are so bad. As for de- 
mocracy, it is the worst of the whole ; for what is, in fact, de- 
mocracy ? — an aristocracy of blackguards." 

2 On being reminded by a friend of his recent promise not 
to write any more for years- "There was," replied Lord 
Byron, " a mental reservation in my pact with the public, in 
behalf of anonymes ; and, even had there not, the provocation 
was such as to make it physically impossible to pass over this 
epoch of triumphant tameness. 'Tis a sad business; and 
after all, I shall think higher of rhyme and reason, and very 
humbly of your heroic people, till — Elba becomes a volcano, 
and sends him out again. I can't think it is all over yet." 



3!^etreto ittelolrieB; 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

The subsequent poems were written at the request 
of my friend, the Hon. Douglas Kinnaird, for a Se- 
lection of Hebrew Melodies,* and have been pub- 
lished with the music, arranged by Mr. Braham and 
Mr. Nathan. 

January, 1815. 



SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY.' 

She walks in beauty, like the night 
Of cloudless climes and starry skies ; 

And all that's best of dark and bright 
Meet in her aspect and her eyes : 

Thus mellow'd to that tender light 
Which heaven to gaudy day denies. 

One shade the more, one ray the less, 
Had half impair'd the nameless grace, 

Which waves in every raven tress, 
Or softly lightens o'er her face ; 

Where thoughts serenely sweet express 
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. 

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow. 

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent. 
The smiles that win, the tints that glow, 

But tell of days in goodness spent, 
A mind at peace with all below, 

A heart whose love is innocent ! 



1 Lord Byron never alludes to his share in these Melodies 
with complacency. Mr. Moore having, on one occasion, ral- 
lied him a little on the manner in which some of them had 
been set to music, — " Sunburn Nathan," he exclaims, " why 
do you always twit me with his Ebrew nasalities? Have I 
not told you it was all Kinnaird's doing, and my own exqui- 
site facility of temper?" 

« "Neither the ancient Jews," says Dr. Burney, "nor the 
modem, have ever had characters peculiar to music ; so that 
the melodies used in their religious ceremonies have, at all 
times, been traditional, and at the mercy of the singers." — 
Kalkbrenner tells us that " les Juifs Espagnols lisent et chan- 
tent leurs pseaumes bien differerament que les Juifs HoUan- 
dais, les Juifs Romains autrement que los Juifs de la Prusse 
et de la Hesse; et tous croient chanter comme on chantait 
dans le Temple de Jerusalem I"— Hist, de la MvMque, torn. i. 
p. 34- 

• These stanzas were written by Lord Byron, on return- 
ing from a ball-room, where he had seen Mrs. (now Lady) 
Wilmot Horton, the wife of his relation, the present gov- 
ernor of Ceylon. On this occasion Mrs. Wilmot Horton had 
appeared in mourning, with numerous spangles on her dress. 



THE HARP THE MONARCH MINSTREL 
SWEPT.* 

The harp the monarch minstrel swept, 
The King of men, the loved of Heaven, 

Whicl> Music haliow'd while she wept 
O'er tones her heart of hearts had given, 
Redoubled be her tears, its chords are riven ! 

It soften 'd men of iron mould. 
It gave them virtues not their own ; 

No ear so dull, no soul so cold. 
That felt not, fired not to the tone, 
Till David's lyre grew mightier than his throne ! 

It told the triumphs of our King, 

It wafted glory to our God ; 
It made our gladden'd valleys ring, 

The cedars bow, the mountains nod ; 

Its sound asjiired to heaven and there abode ! * 
Since then, though heard on earth no more, 

Devotion and her daughter Love 
Still bid the bursting spirit soar 

To sounds that seem as from above. 

In dreams that day's broad light cannot remove.* 



IF THAT HIGH WORLD. 

If that high world, which lies beyond 
Our own, surviving Love endears ; . 

If there the cherish'd heart be fond, 
The eye the same, except in tears — 



* "Ib the reign of King David, music was held in thft 
highest estimation by the Hebrews. The genius of that 
prince for music, and his attachment to the study and prac- 
tice of it, as well as the great number of musicians appointed 
by him for the performance of religious rites and ceremonies, 
could not fail to extend its influence and augment its perfec- 
tions; for it was during this period, that music was first 
honored by being admitted in the ministry of sacrifice, and 
worship of the ark; as well as by being cultivated by a 
king."— BuRNKY. 

6 "When Lord Byron put the manuscript into my hand, it 
terminated with this line. As this, however, did not complete 
the verse, I wished him to help out the melody. He replied, 
' Why, I have sent you to heaven — it would be difficult to go 
further !' My attention for a few minutes was called to some 
other person, and his lordship, whom I had hardly missed, 
exclaimed, ' Here, Nathan, I have brought you down again ;' 
and immediately presented me the beautiful lines which con- 
clude the melody."— Nathan. 

* "The hymns of David excel no less in sublimity and ten- 
derness of expression, than in loftiness and purity of religious 
sentiment. In comparison with them, the sacred poetry of 

(549) 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



How welcome those untrodden spheres ! 

How sweet this very hour to die ! 
To soar from earth, and find all fears 

Lost in thy light — Eternity ! 

It must be so : 'tis not for self 

That we so tremble on the brink ; 
And striving to o'erleap the gulf, 

Yet cling to Being's severing link. 
Oh ! in that future let us think 

To hold each heart the heart that shares ; 
"With them the immortal waters drink, 

And soul in soul grow deathless theirs ! 



THE WILD GAZELLE. 



hills 



The wild gazelle on Judah' 

Exulting yet may bound. 
And drink from all the living rills 

That gush on holy ground : 
Its airy step and glorious eye 
May glance in tameless transport by : — 

A step as fleet, an eye more bright, 

Hath Judah witness'd there ; 
And o'er her scenes of lost delight 

Inhabitants more fair. 
The cedars wave on Lebanon, 
But Judah's statelier maids are gone ! 

More blest each palm that shades those plains 

Than Israel's scatter'd race ; 
For, taking root, it there remains 

In solitary grace : 
It cannot quit its place of birth, 
It will not live in other earth. 

But we must wander witheringly, 

In other lands to die ; 
And where our fathers' ashes be, 

Our own may never lie : 
Our temple hath not left a stone. 
And Mockery sits on Salem's throne. 

all other nations sinks into mediocrity. They have em- 
bodied so exquisitely the universal language of religious 
emotion, that (.a few fierce and vindictive passages excepted, 
natural in the warrior-poet of a sterner age) they have 
entered, with unquestionable propriety, into the Christian 
ritual. The songs which cheered the solitude of the desert 
caves of Engedi, or resounded from the voice of the Hebrew 
people as they wound along the glens or the hillsides of Judea, 
have been repeated for ages in almost every part of the hab- 
itable world, — in the remotest islands of the ocean, amongst 
the forests of America, or the sands of Africa. How many 
human hearts have they softened, purified, exalted !— of how 
many wretched beings have they been the secret consola- 
tion! — on how many communities have they drawn down 
the blessings of Divine Providence, by bringing the affec- 
tions in unison with their deep devotional fervor !"— Milman. 
1 " Jephthah, a bastard son of Gilead, having been wrong- 
fully expelled from his father's house, had taken refuge in a 



OH! WEEP FOR THOSE. 

Oh ! weep for those that wept by Babel's stream, 
Whose shrines are desolate, whose land a dream ; 
Weep for the harp of Judah's broken shell ; [dwell 
Mourn — where their God hath dwelt, the godlesi 

And where shall Israel lave her bleeding feet ? 
And when shall Zion's songs again seem sweet ? 
And Judah's melody once more rejoice 
The hearts that leap'd before its heavenly voice ? 

Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast, 
How shall ye flee away and be at rest ! 
The wild dove hath her nest, the fox his cave, 
Mankind their country — Israel but the grave I 



ON JORDAN'S BANKS. 

On Jordan's banks the Arab's camels stray, 
On Sion's hill the False One's votaries pray, 
The Baal-adorer bows on Sinai's steep- 
Yet there— even there— oh, God — thy thunders sleep ! 

There — where thy finger scorch'd the tablet stone ! 
There— where thy shadow to thy people shone ! 
Thy glory shrouded in its garb of fire : 
Thyself— none living see and not expire ! 

Oh ! in the lightning let thy glance appear ; 
Sweep from his shiver'd hand the oppressor's spear ? 
How long by tyrants shall thy land be trod ? 
How long thy temple worshipless, oh, God ? 



JEPHTHAH'S DAUGHTER.i 

Since our Country, our God — oh, my Sire ! 
Demand that thy Daughter expire ; 
Since thy triumph was bought by thy vow- 
Strike the bosom that's bared for thee now ! 



wild country, and become a noted captain of freebooters. 
His kindred, groaning under foreign oppression, began to 
look to their valiant, though lawless compatriot, whose pro- 
fession, according to their usage, was no more dishonorable 
than that of a pirate in the elder days of Greece. They sent 
for him, and made him head of their city. Before he went 
forth against the Ammonites, he made the memorable vow, 
that, if he returned victorious, he would sacrifice as a burnt 
offering whatever first met him on his entrance into his 
native city. He gained a splendid victory. At the news of 
it, his only daughter came dancing forth, in the gladness of 
her heart, and with jocund instruments of music, to salute 
the deliverer of his people. The miserable father rent his 
clothes in agony; but the noble-spirited maiden would not 
hear of the disregard of the vow: she only demanded a 
short period to bewail upon the mountains, like the Anti- 
gone of Sophocles, her dying without hope of becoming a 
bride or a mother, and then submitted to her fate." — Milman. 



HEBREW MELODIES. 



561 



And the voice of my mourning is o'er, 
And the mountains behold me no more : 
If the hand that I love lay me low, 
There cannot be pain in the blow ! 

And of this, oh, my Father ! be sure — 
That the blood of thy child is as pure 
As the blessing I beg ere it flow, 
And the last thought that soothes me below. 

Though the virgins of Salem lament. 
Be the judge and the hero unbent ! 
I have won the great battle for thee. 
And my Father and Country are free ! 

When this blood of thy giving hath gusli'd. 
When the voice that thou lovest is hush'd. 
Let my memory still be thy pride. 
And forget not I smiled as I died ! 



OH ! SNATCH'D AWAY IN BEAUTY'S BLOOM. 

Oh ! snatch'd away in beauty's bloom. 
On thee shall press no ponderous tomb ; 
But on thy turf shall roses rear 
Their leaves, the earliest of the year ; 
And the wild cypress wave in tender gloom : 

And oft by yon blue gushing stream 
Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head, 

And feed deep thought with many a dream, 
And lingering pause, and lightly tread ; 
Fond wretch ! as if her step disturb'd the dead ! 

Away ! we know that tears are vain. 
That death nor heeds nor hears distress : 

Will this unteach us to complain ? 
Or make one mourner weep the less ? 

And thou — who tell'st me to forget. 

Thy looks are wan, thine eyes are wet. 



MY SOUL IS DARK. 

My soul is dark— oh ! quickly string 

The harp I yet can brook to hear ; 
Aud let thy gentle fingers fling 

Its melting murmurs o'er mine ear. 
If in this heart a hope be dear, 

That sound shall charm it forth again : 
If in these eyes there lurk a tear, 

'Twill flow, and cease to burn my brain. 

' "It was generally conceived that Lord Byron's reported 
singularities approached on some occasions to derangement ; 
and at one period, indeed, it was very currently asserted that 
his intellects were actually impaired. The report only served 
to amuse his lordship. He referred to the circumstance, and 



But bid the strain be wild and deep, 

Nor let thy notes of joy be first : 
I tell thee, minstrel, I must weep. 

Or else this heavy heart will burst ; 
For it hath been by sorrow nursed. 

And ached in sleepless silence long; 
And now 'tis doom'd to know the worst, 

And break at once — or yield to song.* 



I SAW THEE WEEP. 

I SAV7 thee weep — the big bright tear 

Came o'er that eye of blue ; 
And then methought it did appear 

A violet dropping dew : 
I saw thee smile — the sapphire's blaze 

Beside thee ceased to shine ; 
It could not match the living rays 

That fill'd that glance of thine. 

As clouds from yonder sun receive 

A deep and mellow dye. 
Which scarce the shade of coming eve 

Can banish from the sky. 
Those smiles unto the moodiest mind 

Their own pure joy impart ; 
Their sunshine leaves a glow behind 

That lightens o'er the heart. 



THY DAYS ARE DONE. 

Thy days are done, thy fame begun : 

Thy country's strains record 
The triumphs of her chosen Son, 

The slaughters of his sword ! 
The deeds he did, the fields he won, 

The freedom he restored ! 

Though thou art fall'n, while we are free 

Thou shalt not taste of death ! 
The generous blood that flow'd from thee 

Disdain'd to sink beneath : 
Within our veins its currents be. 

Thy spirit on our breath ! 

Thy name, our charging hosts along, 

Shall be the battle-word ! 
Thy fall, the theme of choral song 

From virgin voices pour'd ! 
To weep would do thy glory wrong; 

Thou shalt not be deplored. 

declared that he would try how a madman could write : seiz- 
ing the pen with eagerness, he for a moment fixed his eyes in 
majestic wildness on vacancy; when, like a flash of inspira^ 
tion, without erasing a single word, the above verses were the 
result."— Nathan. 



552 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



SONG OF SAUL BEFORE HIS LAST BATTLE. 

Warriors and chiefs ! should the shaft or the sword 
Pierce me in leading the host of the Lord, 
Heed not the corse, though a king's, in your path : 
Bury your steel in the bosoms of Gath ! 

Thou who art bearing my buckler and bow, 
Should the soldiers of Saul look away from the foe, 
Stretch me that moment in blood at thy feet ! 
Mine be the doom which they dared not to meet. 

Farewell to others, but never we part. 
Heir to my royalty, son of my heart ! 
Bright is the diadem, boundless the sway, 
Or kingly the death, which awaits us to-day ! 



SAUL.i 



Thou whose spell can raise the dead, 
Bid the prophet's form appear. 

" Samuel, raise thy buried head ! 
King, behold the phantom seer !" 
Earth yawn'd ; he stood the centre of a cloud : 
Light changed its hue, retiring from his shroud. 
Death stood all glassy in his fixed eye ; 
His hand was wither'd, and his veins were dry ; 
His foot, in bony whiteness, glitter'd there, 
Shrunken and sinewless, and ghastly bare ; 
From lips that moved not and unbreathing frame, 
Like cavern'd winds, the hollow accents came. 
Saul saw, and fell to earth, as falls the oak, 
At once, and blasted by the thunder-stroke. 

" Why is my sleep disquieted ? 
Who is he that calls the dead ? 
Is it thou, O King ? Behold, 
Bloodless are these limbs, and cold : 
Such are mine ; and such shall be 
Thine to-morrow, when with me : 



1 " Haunted with that insatiable desire of searching into 
the secrets of futurity, inseparable from uncivilized man, Saul 
knew not to what quarter to turn. The priests, outraged by 
his cruelty, had forsaken him : the prophets stood aloof; no 
dreams visited his couch; he had persecuted even the un- 
lawful diviners. He hears at last of a female necromancer, 
a woman with the spirit of Ob ; strangely similar in sound to 
the Obeah women in the West Indies. To the cave-dwelling 
of this woman, in Endor, the monarch proceeds in disguise. 
He commands her to raise the spirit of Samuel. At this 
daring demand, the woman first recognizes, or pretends to 
recognize, her royal visitor. 'Whom seest thou?' says the 
king. 'Mighty ones ascending from the earth.' 'Of what 
form?' 'An old man covered with a mantle.' Saul, in 
terror, bows down his head to the earth ; and, it should seem, 
not daring to look up, receives from the voice of the spectre 
the awful intimation of his defeat and death. On the reality 
of this apparition we pretend not to decide: the figure, if 
figure there were, was not seen by Saul ; and, excepting the 



Ere the coming day is done, 
Such shalt thou be, such thy son. 
Fare thee well, but for a day, 
Then we mix our mouldering clay. 
Thou, thy race, lie pale and low, 
Pierced by shafts of many a bow ; 
And the falchion by thy side 
To thy heart thy hand shall guide : 
Crownless, breathless, headless fall, 
Son and sire, the houg^ of Saul !"2 



ALL IS VANITY, SAITH THE PEEACHER." 

Fame, wisdom, love, and power were mine, 

And health and youth possess'd me ; 
My goblets blush'd from every vine. 

And lovely forms caress'd me ; 
I sunn'd my heart in beauty's eyes, 

And felt my soul grow tender ; 
All earth can give, or mortal prize, 

Was mine of regal splendor. 

I strive to number o'er what days 

Remembrance can discover, 
Which all that life or earth displays 

Would lure me to live over. 
There rose no day, there roU'd no hour 

Of pleasure unembitter'd ; 
And not a trapping deck'd my power 

That gall'd not while it glitter'd. 

The serpent of the field, by art 

And spells, is won from harming ; 
But that which coils around the heart. 

Oh ! who hath power of charming ? 
It will not list to wisdom's lore, 

Nor music's voice can lure it ; 
But there it stings for evermore 

The soul that must endure it. 



event of the approaching battle, the spirit said nothing which 
the living prophet had not said before, repeatedly and puh. 
licly. But the fact is curious, as showing the popular belief 
of the Jews' in departed spirits to have been the same with 
that of most other nations." — Milman. 

2 " Since we have spoken of witches," said Lord Byron, at 
Cephalonia, in 1823, "what think you of the witch of Endor? 
I have always thought this the finest and most finished -w^itch- 
scene that ever was written or conceived ; and you will be of 
my opinion, if you consider all the circumstances and the 
actors in the case, together with the gravity, simplicity, and 
dignity of the language. It beats all the ghost scenes I ever 
read. The finest conception on a similar subject is that of 
Goethe's devil, Mephistopheles ; and though, of course, you 
will give the priority to the former, as being inspired, yet the 
latter, if you know it, will appear to you — at least it does to 
me— one of the finest and most sublime specimens of humau 
conception." 



HEBEEW MELODIES. 



553 



WHEN COLDNESS WRAPS THIS SUFFERING 
CLAY. 

When coldness wraps this suffering clay, 

Ah ! whither strays the immortal mind ? 
It cannot die, it cannot stay, 

But leaves its darken'd dust behind. 
Then, unembodied, doth it trace 

By steps each planet's heavenly way ? 
Or fill at once the realms of space, 

A thing of eyes, that all survey ? 

Eternal, boundless, undecay'd, 

A thought unseen, but seeing all. 
All, all in earth, or skies disf>lay'd, 

Shall it survey, shall it recall : 
Each fainter trace that memory holds 

So darkly of departed years. 
In one broad glance the soul beholds, 

And all, that was, at once appears. 

Before Creation peopled earth. 

Its eye shall roll through chaos back ; 
And where the furthest heaven had birth. 

The spirit trace its rising track. 
And where the future mars or makes, 

Its glance dilate o'er all to be, 
While sun is quench'd or system breaks, 

Fix'd in its own eternity. 

Above or Love, Hope, Hate, or Fear, 

It lives all passionless and pure : 
An age shall fleet like earthly year ; 

Its years as moments shall endure. 
Away, away, without a wing, 

O'er all, through all, its thought shall fly ; 
A nameless and eternal thing, 

Forgetting what it was to die. 



VISION OF BELSHAZZAR. 

The King was on his throne, . 

The Satraps throng'd the hall ; 
A thousand bright lamps shone 

O'er that high festival. 
A thousand cups of gold. 

In Judah deem'd divine — 
Jehovah's vessels hold 

The godless Heathen's wine. 

In that same hour and hall, 

The fingers of a hand 
Came forth against the wall, 

And wrote as if on sand : 
The fingers of a man ; — 

A solitary hand 
Along the letters ran, 

And traced them like a wand. 



The monarch saw, and shook, 

And bade no more rejoice ; 
All bloodless wax'd his look, 

And tremulous his voice. 
" Let the men of lore appear, 

The wisest of the earth. 
And expound the words of fear. 

Which mar our royal mirth." 

Chaldea's seers are good, 

But here they have no skill ; 
And the unknown letters stood 

Untold and awful still. 
And Babel's men of age 

Are wise and deep in lore ; 
But now they were not sage, 

They saw— but knew no more. 

A captive in the land, 

A stranger and a youth, 
He heard the king's command, 

He saw that writing's truth, 
The lamps around were bright, 

The prophecy in view ; 
He read it on that night, — 

The morrow proved it true. 

" Belshazzar's grave is made. 

His kingdom pass'd away. 
He, in the balance weigh'd. 

Is light and worthless clay, 
The shroud his robe of state. 

His canopy the stone : 
The Mede is at his gate ! 

The Persian on his throne !" 



SUN OF THE SLEEPLESS! 

Sun of the sleepless ! melancholy star ! 
Whose tearful beam glows tremulously far. 
That show'st the darkness thou canst not dispel. 
How like art thou to joy remember'd well ! 
So gleams the past, the light of other days, 
Which shines, but warms not with its powerless rays ; 
A night-beam Sorrow watcheth to behold. 
Distinct, but distant — clear — but oh, how cold ! 



WERE MY BOSOM AS FALSE AS THOU 
DEEM'ST IT TO BE. 

Were my bosom as false as thou deem'st it to be, 

I need not have wander'd from far Galilee ; 

It was but abjuring my creed to efface 

The curse which, thou sayst, is the crime of my race. 



554 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



If the bad never triumph, then God is with thee ! 
If the slave only sin, thou art spotless and free ! 
If the Exile on earth is an Outcast on high, 
Live on in thy faith, but in mine I will die. 

I have lost for that faith more than thou canst bestow, 
As the God who permits thee to prosper doth know ; 
In his hand is my heart and my hope— and in thine 
The land and the life which for him I resign. 



HEROD'S LAMENT FOR MARIAMNE.i 

Oh, Mariamne ! now for thee 

The heart for which thou bled'st is bleeding ; 
Revenge is lost in agony. 

And wild remorse to rage succeeding. 
Oh, Mariamne ! where art thou ? 

Thou canst not hear my bitter pleading : 
Ah ! couldst thou — thou wouldst pardon now, 

Though Heaven were to my prayer unheeding. 

And is she dead ? — and did they dare 

Obey my frenzy's jealous raving ? 
My wrath but doom'd my own despair : 

The sword that smote her's o'er me waving. — 
But thou art cold, my murder'd love ! 

And this dark heart is vainly craving 
For her who soars alone above. 

And leaves my soul unworthy saving. 

She's gone, who shared my diadem ; 

She sunk, with her my joys entombing ; 
I swept that flower from Judah's stem, 

Whose leaves for me alone were blooming ; 
And mine's the guilt, and mine the hell. 

This bosom's desolation dooming ; 
And I have earn'd those tortures well. 

Which unconsumed are still consuming ! 



ON THE DAY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF 
JERUSALEM BY TITUS. 

From the last hill that looks on thy once holy dome 
I beheld thee, oh, Sion ! when render'd to Rome : 
'Twas thy last sun went down, and the flames of thy fall 
Flash'd back on the last glance I gave to thy wall. 

I look'd for thy temple, I look'd for my home. 
And forgot for a moment my bondage to come : 
I beheld but the death-fire that fed on thy fane, [vain. 
And the fast-fetter'd hands that made vengeance in 

1 " Mariamne, the wife of Herod the Great, falling under 
the suspicion of infidelity, was put to death by his order. She 
was a woman of unrivalled beauty, and a haughty spirit : un- 
happy in being the object of passionate attachment, which 
bordered on frenzy, to a man who had more or less concern 



On many an eve, the high spot whence I gazed 
Had reflected the last beam of day as it blazed ; 
While I stood on the height, and beheld the decline 
Of the rays from the mountain that shone on thy 
shrine. 

And now on that mountain I stood on that day. 
But I mark'd not the twilight beam melting away ; 
Oh ! would that the lightning had glared in its stead. 
And the thunderbolt burst on the conqueror's head ! 

But the gods of the Pagan shall never profane 
The shrine where Jehovah disdain'd not to reign ; 
And scatter'd and scorn'd as thy people may be, 
Our worship, oh, Father ! is only for thee. 



BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON WE SAT 
DOWN AND WEPT. 

We sat down and wept by the waters 

Of Babel, and thought of the day 
When our foe, in the hue of his slaughters, 

Made Salem's high places his prey ; 
And ye, oh, her desolate daughters ! 

Were scatter'd all weeping away. 

While sadly we gazed on the river 
Which roU'd on in freedom below, 

They demanded the song ; but, oh never 
That triumph the stranger shall know ! 

May this right hand be wither'd for ever, 
Ere it string our high harp for the foe ! 

On the willow that harp is suspended. 
Oh, Salem ! its sound should be free ; 

And the hour when thy glories were ended 
But left me that token of thee : 

And ne'er shall its soft tones be blended 
With the voice of the spoiler by me ! 



THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB. 

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, 
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold ; 
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, 
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. 

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green, 
That host with their banners at sunset were seen : 
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown, 
That host on the morrow lay wither'd and strown. 

in the murder of her grandfather, father, brother, and uncle, 
and who had twice commanded her death, in case of his own. 
Ever after, Herod was haunted by the image of the murdered 
Mariamne, until disorder of the mind brought on disorder of 
body, which led to temporary derangement." — Milman. 



HEBEEW MELODIES. 



555 



For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, 
And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd ; 
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill, 
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew 
still! 

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, 
But through it there roll'd not the breath of his pride ; 
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, 
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf. 

And there lay the rider distorted and pale, 
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail ; 
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone. 
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown. 

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, 
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal ; 
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword. 
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord ! 



» " The Hebrew Melodies, though obviously inferior to Lord 
Byron's other works, display a skill in versification and a 



A SPIRIT PASS'D BEFORE ME. 



FROM JOB. 



A SPIRIT pass'd before me : I beheld 

The face of immortality unveil'd — 

Deep sleep came down on every eye save mine — 

And there it stood, — all formless — but divine : 

Along my bones the creeping flesh did quake ; 

And as my damp hair stiflfen'd, thus it spake : 



" Is man more just than God ? Is man more pure 
Than he who deems even Seraphs insecure ? 
Creatures of clay — vain dwellers in the dust ! 
The moth survives you, and are ye more just? 
Things of a day ! you wither ere the night, 
Heedless and blind to Wisdom's wasted light !"^ 



mastery in diction, which would have raised an inferior artist 
to the very summit of distinction." — Jeffrey. 



domestic pieces* 

1816. 



FARE THEE WELL.i 

" Alas ! they have been friends in youth ; 
But whispering tongues can poison truth ; 
And constancy lives in realms above ; 
And life is thorny ; and youth is vain : 
And to be wroth with one we love, 
Doth work like madness in the brain ; 
***** 

But never either found another 

To free the hollow heart from paining — 

They stood aloof, *the scars remaining, 

Like cliffs which had been rent asunder ; 

A dreary sea now flows between, 

But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, 

Shall wholly do away, I ween. 

The marks of that which once hath been." 

Coleridge's Christabel. 

Fare thee well ! and if for ever, 

Still for ever, fare thee well : 
Even though unforgiving, never 

'Gainst thee shall my heart rebel. 

Would that breast were bared before thee 

"Where thy head so oft hath lain. 
While that placid sleep came o'er thee 

Which thou ne'er canst know again : 

Would that breast, by thee glanced over, 
Every inmost thought could show ! 

Then thou wouldst at last discover 
'Twas not well to spurn it so. 

Though the world for this commend thee— 

Though it smile upon the blow, 
Even its praises must o£fend thee, 

Founded on another's woe : 



1 " It was about the middle of April that his two celebrated 
copies of verses, ' Fare thee well,' and ' A Sketch,' made their 
appearance in the newspapers; and while the latter poem 
was generally, and, it must be owned, justly condemned, as 
a sort of literary assault on an obscure female, whose situ- 
ation ought to have placed her as much beneath his satire, as 
the undignified mode of his attack certainly raised her above 
it, with regard to the other poem, opinions were a good deal 
more divided. To many it appeared a strain of true conjugal 
tenderness, — a kind of appeal which no woman with a heart 
could resist ; while, by others, on the contrary, it was con- 
sidered to be a mere showy effusion of sentiment, as difl&cult 
for real feeling to have produced as it was easy for fancy and 
art, and altogether unworthy of the deep interests involved in 
the subject. To this latter opinion I confess my own to have, 
at first, strongly inclined ; and suspicious as I could not help 
thinking the sentiment that could, at such a moment, indulge 
(556) 



Though my many faults defaced me, 

Could no other arm be found. 
Than the one which once embraced me. 

To inflict a cureless wound ? 

Yet, oh yet, thyself deceive not ; 

Love may sink by slow decay. 
But by sudden wrench, believe not 

Hearts can thus be torn away : 

Still thine own its life retaineth — 
Still must mine, though bleeding, beat; 

And the undying thought which paineth 
Is — that we no more may meet. 

These are words of deeper sorrow 

Than the wail above the dead ; 
Both shall live, but every morrow 

Wake us from a widow'd bed. 

And when thou would solace gather, 
When our child's first accents flow, 

Wilt thou teach her to say " Father !" 
Though his care she must forego ? 

When her little hands shall press thee, 
When her lip to thine is press'd. 

Think of him whose prayer shall bless thee, 
Think of him thy love had bless'd ! 

Should her lineaments resemble 
Those thou never more mayst see. 

Then thy heart will softly tremble 
With a pulse yet true to me. 



in such verses, the taste that prompted or sanctioned their 
publication appeared to me even still more questionable. On 
reading, however, his own account of all the circumstances in 
the Memoranda, I found that on both points I had, in com- 
mon with a large portion of the public, done him injustice. 
He there described, and in a manner whose sincerity there 
was no doubting, the swell of tender recollections under the 
influence of which, as he sat one night musing in his study, 
these stanzas were produced, — the tears, as he said, falling 
fast over the paper as he wrote them. Neither did it appear, 
from that account, to have been from any wish or intention 
of his own, but through the injudicious zeal of a friend whom 
he had suffered to take a copy, that the verses met the public 
eye."— Moore. The appearance of the MS. confirms this ac- 
count of the circumstances under which it was written. It 
is blotted all over with the marks of tears. 



I 



DOMESTIC PIECES. 



557 



All my faults perchance thou knowest, 
All my madness none can know ; 

All my hopes, where'er thou goest, 
Wither, yet with thee they go. 

Every feeling hath been shaken ; 

Pride, which not a world could bow, 
Bows to thee — by thee forsaken, 

Even my soul forsakes me now : 

But 'tis done — all words are idle — 
Words from me are vainer still ; 

But the thoughts we cannot bridle 
Force their way without the will. 

Fare thee well !— thus disunited, 

Torn from every nearer tie, 
Sear'd in heart, and lone, and blighted, 

More than this I scarce can die. 

March 17, 



1816. 



A SKETCH.i 



" Honest — honest lago I 

If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee." 

Shakspeare. 

Born in the garret, in the kitchen bred, 

Promoted thence to deck her mistress' head ; 

Next — for some gracious service unexpress'd, 

And from its wages only to be guess'd — 

Raised from the toilette to tlie table, — where 

Her wondering betters wait behind her chair. 

With eye unmoved, and forehead unabash'd, 

She dines from off the plate she lately wash'd. 

Quick with the tale, and ready with the lie — 

The genial confidante, and general spy — 

Who could, ye gods ! her next employment guess — 

An only infant's earliest governess ! 

She taught the child to read, and taught so well, 

That she herself, by teaching, learn'd to spell. 

An adept next in penmanship she grows, 

As many a nameless slander deftly shows : 

What she had made the pupil of her art. 

None know— but that high Soul secured the heart. 

And panted for the truth it could not hear, 

With longing breast and undeluded ear. 

Foil'd was perversion by that youthful mind, 

Which Flattery fool'd not — Baseness could not blind, 

Deceit infect not — near Contagion soil — 

Indulgence weaken — nor Example spoil — 

Nor master'd Science tempt her to look down 

On humbler talents with a pitying frown — 

Nor Genius swell — nor Beauty render vain — 

Nor Envy ruffle to retaliate pain— 

1 " I send you my last night's dream, and request to have 
fifty copies struck off, for private distribution. I wish Mr. 



Nor Fortune change — Pride raise — nor Passion bow. 

Nor Virtue teach austerity — till now. 

Serenely purest of her sex that live, 

But wanting one sweet weakness — to forgive, 

Too shock'd at faults her soul can never know, 

She deems that all could be like her below : 

Foe to all vice, yet hardly Virtue's friend, 

For Virtue pardons those she would amend. 

But to the theme : — now laid aside too long, 
The baleful burthen of this honest song — 
Though all her former functions are no more. 
She rules the circle which she served before. 
If mothers — none know why — before her quake ; 
If daughters dread her for the mothers' sake ; 
If early habits — those false links which bind 
At times the loftiest to the meanest mind — 
Have given her power too deeply to instill 
The angry essence of her deadly will ; 
If like a snake she steal within your walls, 
Till the black slime betray her as she crawls ; 
If like a viper to the heart she wind, 
And leave the venom there she did not find ; 
What marvel that this hag of hatred works 
Eternal evil latent as she lurks, 
To make a Pandemonium where she dwells, 
And reign the Hecate of domestic hells ? 
Skill'd by a touch to deepen scandal's tints 
With all the kind mendacity of hints, 
While mingling truth with falsehood — sneers with 

smiles — 
A thread of candor with a web of wiles ; 
A plain blunt show of briefly-spoken seeming, 
To hide her bloodless heart's soul-harden'd scheming ; 
A lip of lies ; a face form'd to conceal. 
And, without feeling, mock at all who feel : 
With a vile mask the Gorgon would disown ; 
A cheek of parchment — and an eye of stone. 
Mark, how the channels of her yellow blood 
Ooze to her skin, and stagnate there to mud, 
Cased like the centipede in saffron mail. 
Or darker greenness of the scorpion's scale — 
(For drawn from reptiles only may we trace 
Congenial colors in that soul or face) — 
Look on her features ! and behold her mind 
As in a mirror of itself defined : 
Look on the picture ! deem it not o'ercharged — 
There is no trait which might not be enlarged : 
Yet true to " Nature's journeymen," who made 
This monster when their mistress left off trade — 
This female dog-star of her little sky. 
Where all beneath her influence droop or die. 

Oh ! wretch without a tear — without a thought, 
Save joy above tbc ruin thou hast wrought— 
The time shall come, nor long remote, when thou 
Shalt feel far more than thou iuflictest now ; 



Giflford to look at them. They are from life,"— iord Byron 
to Mr. Murray, March 30, 1816. 



558 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Feel for thy vile self-loving self in vain, 

And turn thee howling in unpitied pain. 

May the strong curse of crush'd aflfections light 

Back on thy bosom with reflected blight ! 

And make thee in thy leprosy of mind 

As loathsome to thyself as to mankind ! 

Till all thy self-thoughts curdle into hate, 

Black — as thy will for others would create : 

Till thy hard heart be calcined into dust, 

And thy soul welter in its hideous crust. 

Oh, may thy grave be sleepless as the bed. 

The widow'd couch of fire, that thou hast spread ! 

Then, when thou fain wouldst weary Heaven with 

prayer, 
Look on thine earthly victims — and despair ! 
Down to the dust ! — and, as thou rott'st away, 
Even worms shall perish on thy poisonous clay. 
But for the love I bore, and still must bear. 
To her thy malice from all ties would tear — 
Thy name — thy human name — to every eye 
The climax of all scorn should hang on high, 
Exalted o'er thy less abhorr'd compeers — 
And festering i in the infamy of years. 

March 29, 1816. 



STANZAS TO AUGUSTA.' 

When all around grew drear and dark, 
And reason half withheld her ray — 

And hope but shed a dying spark 
Which more misled my lonely way ; 

In that deep midnight of the mind, 
And that internal strife of heart, 

When, dreading to be deem'd too kind, 
The weak despair — the cold depart ; 

When fortune changed — and love fled far. 
And hatred's shafts flew thick and fast, 

Thou wert the solitary star 
Which rose and set not to the last. 

Oh ! blest be thine unbroken light ! 

That watch'd me as a seraph's eye, 
And stood between me and the night, 

For ever shining sweetly nigh. 



1 In first draught — " weltering." — " I doubt about ' welter- 
ing.' We say ' weltering in blood ;' but do not they also use 
' weltering in the wind,' ' weltering on a gibbet ' ? I have no 
dictionary, so look. In the mean time, I have put ' fester- 
ing ;' which, perhaps, in any case is the best word of the two. 
Shakspeare has it often, and I do not think it too strong for 
the figure in this thing. Quick ! quick ! quick ! quick !"— 
Lord Byron to Mr. Murray, April 2. 

* The poet's sister, the Honorable Mrs. Leigh.— These stan- 
zas — the parting tribute to her, whose unshaken tenderness 
had been the author's sole consolation during the crisis of 
domestic misery— were, we believe, the last verses written by 
Lord Byron in England. In a note to Mr, Rogers, dated 
April 16, he says,— "My sister is now with me, and leaves 



And when the cloud upon us came. 
Which strove to blacken o'er thy ray — 

Then purer spread its gentle flame. 
And dash'd the darkness all away. 

Still may thy spirit dwell on mine, 
And teach it what to brave or brook— 

There's more in one soft word of thine 
Than in the world's defied rebuke. 

Thou stood'st, as stands a lovely tree. 
That still unbroke, though gently bent. 

Still waves with fond fidelity 
Its boughs above a monument. 

The winds might rend— the skies might pour, 
But there thou wert — and still wouldst be 

Devoted in the stormiest hour 
To shed thy weeping leaves o'er me. 

But thou and thine shall know no blight, 

Whatever fate on me may fall ; 
For Heaven in sunshine will requite 

The kind — and thee the most of all. 

Then let the ties of baffled love 

Be broken — thine will never break ; 

Thy heart can feel — but will not move ; 
Thy soul, though soft, will never shake. 

And these, when all was lost beside. 
Were found and still are fix'd in thee ; — 

And bearing still a breast so tried. 
Earth is no desert — ev'n to me. 



STANZAS TO AUGUSTA.^ 

Thotjgh the day of my destiny's over. 

And the star of my fate hath declined,* 
Thy soft heart refused to discover 

The faults which so many could find ; 
Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted, 

It shrunk not to share it with me. 
And the love which my spirit hath painted 

It never hath found but in thee. 



town to-morrow : we shall not meet again for some time at 
all events, — if ever ! and, under these circumstances, I trust 
to stand excused to you and Mr. Sheridan, for being unable to 
wait upon him this evening." On the 25th, the poet took a 
last leave of his native country. 

3 These beautiful verses, so expressive of the writer's 
wounded feelings at the moment, were written in July, at the 
Campagne Diodati, near Geneva, and transmitted to England 
for publication, with some other pieces. "Be careful," he 
says, " in printing the stanzas beginning, ' Though the day of 
my destiny's,' &c., which I think well of as a composition." 

* " Though the days of my glory are over, 

And the sun of my fame hath declined." — MS. 



DOMESTIC PIECES. 



559 



Then when nature around me is smiling, 

The last smile which answers to mine, 
I do not believe it beguiling. 

Because it reminds me of thine ; 
And when winds are at war with the ocean, 

As the breasts I believed in with me, 
If their billows excite an emotion. 

It is that they bear me from thee. 

Though the rock of my last hope is shiver'd, 

And its fragments are sunk in the wave. 
Though I feel that my soul is deliver'd 

To pain — it shall not be its slave. 
There is many a pang to pursue me : 

They may crush, but they shall not contemn — 
They may torture, but shall not subdue me — 

'Tis of thee that I think — not of them.^ 

Though human, thou didst not deceive me, 

Though woman, thou didst not forsake, 
Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me, 

Though slander'd, thou never couldst shake ; 
Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me, 

Though parted, it was not to fly. 
Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me, 

Nor, mute, that the world might belie.^ 

Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it, 

Nor the war of the many with one ; 
If my soul was not fitted to prize it, 

'Twas folly not sooner to shun : 
And if dearly that error hath cost me, 

And more than I once could foresee, 
I have found that, whatever it lost me, 

It could not deprive me of thee. 

From the wreck of the past, which hath perish'd, 

Thus much I at least may recall. 
It hath taught me that what I most cherish'd 

Deserved to be dearest of all : 
In the desert a fountain is springing, 

In the wide waste there still is a tree, 
And a bird in the solitude singing. 

Which speaks to my spirit of thee. 

July 24, 1816. 



1 " There is many a pang to pursue me, 
And many a peril to stem ; 
They may torture, but shall not subdue me; 
They may crush, but they shall not contemn." — MS. 

' "Though watchful, 'twas but to reclaim me. 
Nor, silent, to sanction a lie." — MS. 

» These stanzas — "than which," says the Quarterly Re- 
Tiew, for January, 1831, "there is, perhaps, nothing more 
mournfully and desolately beautiful in the whole range of 
Ix)rd Byron's poetry " — were also written at Diodati ; and 
sent home at the time for publication, in case Mrs. Leigh 
should sanction it. " There is," he says, " amongst the man- 
uscripts an Epistle to my sister, on which I should wish her 
opinion to be consulted before publication ; if she objects, of 
•ourae omit it." On the 5th of October he writes,— "My 



EPISTLE TO AUGUSTA.3 

My sister ! my sweet sister ! if a name 
Dearer and purer were, it should be thine ; 
Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim 
No tears, but tenderness to answer mine : 
Go where I will, to me thou art the same — 
A loved regret which I would not resign. 
There yet are two things in my destiny, — 
A world to roam through, and a home with thee. 

The first were nothing — had I still the last, 
It were the haven of my happiness ; 
But other claims and other ties thou hast. 
And mine is not the wish to make them less. 
A strange doom is thy father's son's, and past 
Recalling, as it lies beyond redress ; 
Reversed for him our grandsire's * fate of yore, — 
He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore. 

If my inheritance of storms hath been 
In other elements, and on the rocks 
Of perils, overlook'd or unforeseen, 
I have sustain'd my share of worldly shocks, 
The fault was mine ; nor do I seek to screen 
My errors with defensive paradox ; 
I have been cunning in mine overthrow, 
The careful pilot of my proper woe. 

Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward, 
My whole life was a contest, since the day 
That gave me being, gave me that which marr'd 
The gift, — a fate, or will, that walk'd astray ; 
And I at times have found the struggle hard, 
And thought of shaking ofi" my bonds of clay : 
But now I fain would for a time survive. 
If but to see what next can well arrive. 

Kingdoms and empires in my little day 
I have outlived, and yet I am not old ; 
And when I look on this, the petty spray 
Of my own years of trouble, which have roll'd 
Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away : 
Something — I know not what — does still uphold 
A spirit of slight patience ;— not in vain, 
Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain. 



sister has decided on the omission of the lines. Upon this 
point, her option will be followed. As I have no copy of them, 
I request that you will preserve one for me in MS. ; for I 
never can remember a line of that or any other composition 
of mine. God help me ! if I proceed in this scribbling, I shall 
have frittered away my mind hefore I am thirty ; but poetry 
is at times a real relief to me. To-morrow I am for Italy." 
The Epistle was first given to the world in 1830. 

♦ Admiral Byron was remarkable for never making a 
voyage without a tempest. He was known to the sailors by 
the facetious name of " Foul-weather Jack." 

" But, though it were tempest-toss'd, 
Still his bark could not be lost." 
He returned safely from the wreck of the Wager (in Anson's 
voyage), and circumnavigated the world, many years after, m 
commander of a similar expedition. 



660 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Perhaps the workings of defiance stir 
Within me, — or perhaps a cold despair, 
Brought on when ills habitually recur,— 
Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air 
(For even to this may change of soul refer. 
And with light armor we may learn to bear), 
Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not 
The chief companion of a calmer lot. 

I feel almost at times as I have felt 
In happy childhood ; trees, and flowers, and brooks, 
Which do remember me of where I dwelt 
Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books, 
Come as of yore upon me, and can melt 
My heart with recognition of their looks ; 
And even at moments I could think I see 
Some living thing to love — but hone like thee. 

Here are the Alpine landscapes which create 
A fund for contemplation ; — to admire 
Is a brief feeling of a trivial date ; 
But something worthier do such scenes inspire : 
Here to be lonely is not desolate. 
For much I view which I could most desire, 
And, above all, a lake I can behold 
Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old. 

Oh that thou wert but with me ! — but I grow 
The fool of my own wishes, and forget 
The solitude which I have vaunted so 
Has lost its praise in this but one regret ; 
There may be others which I less may show ; — 
I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet 
I feel an ebb in my philosophy, 
And the tide rising in my alter'd eye. 

I did remind thee of our own dear Lake,i 
By the old Hall which may be mine no more. 
Leman's is fair : but think not I forsake 
The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore : 
Sad havoc Time must with my memory make, 
Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before ; 
Though, like all things which I have loved, they are 
Besign'd for ever, or divided far. 

The world is all before me ; I but ask 
Of Nature that with which she will comply — 
It is but in her summer's sun to bask, 
To mingle with the quiet of her sky. 
To see her gentle face without a mask, 
And never gaze on it with apathy. 
She was my early friend, and now shall be 
My sister — till I look again on thee. 



1 The Lake of Newstead Abbey.— Thus described in Don 
Juan : — 

" Before the mansion lay a lucid lake, 

Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed 
By a river, which its soften'd way did take 
In currents through the calmer water spread 



I can reduce all feelings but this one ; 
And that I would not ; — for at length I see 
Such scenes as those wherein my life begun. 
The earliest — even the only paths for me — 
Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun, 
I had been better than I now can be ; 
The passions which have torn me would have slept ; 
I had not sufier'd, and thou hadst not wept. 

With false Ambition what had I to do ? 
Little with Love, and least of all with Fame ; 
And yet they came unsought, and with me grew, 
And made me all which they can make— a name. 
Yet this was not the end I did pursue ; 
Surely I once beheld a nobler aim. 
But all is over — I am one the more 
To baffled millions which have gone before. 

And for the future, this world's future may 
From me demand but little of my care ; 
I have outlived myself by many a day ; 
Having survived so many things that were; 
My years have been no slumber, but the prey 
Of ceaseless vigils ; for I had the share 
Of life which might have fill'd a century, 
Before its fourth in time had pass'd me by. 

And for the remnant which may be to come 
I am content ; and for the past I feel 
Not thankless, — for within the crowded sum 
Of struggles, happiness at times would steal. 
And for the present, I would not benumb 
My feelings further. — Nor shall I conceal 
That with all this I still can look around, 
And worship Nature with a thought profound. 

For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart 
I know myself secure, as thou in mine ; 
We were and are — I am, even as thou art — 
Beings who ne'er each other can resign ; 
It is the same, together or apart, 
From life's commencement to its slow decline 
We are entwined— let death come slow or fast. 
The tie which bound the first endures the last ! 



LINES 

ON HEAEING THAT LADY BYEON WAS ILL.2 

And thou wert sad — yet I was not with thee ; 
And thou wert sick, and yet I was not near ; 



Around : the wild fowl nestled in the brake 
And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed ; 
The woods sloped downwards to its brink, and stood 
"With their green faces fix'd upon the flood." 
2 These verses were written immediately after the failure 
of the negotiation for a reconciliation before Lord Byron left 



DOMESTIC PIECES. 



561 



lyfethought tliat joy and health alone could be 
Where I was not— and pain and sorrow here ! 

And is it thus? — it is as I foretold, 
And shall be more so ; for the mind recoils 

Upon itself, and the wreck'd heart lies cold. 
While hea\nness collects the shatter'd spoils. 

It is not in the storm nor in the strife 
We feel benumb'd, and wish to be no more, 
But in the after-silence on the shore, 

When all is lost, except a little life. 



I am too well avenged !— but 'twas my right ; 

Whate'er my sins might be, thou wert not sent 
To be the Nemesis who should requite — 

Nor did Heaven choose so near an instrument. 
Mercy is for the merciful ! — if thou 
Hast been of such, 'twill be accorded now. 
Thy nights are banish'd from the realms of sleep ! — 

Yes ! they may flatter thee, but thou shalt feel 

A hollow agony which will not heal, 
For thou art pillow'd on a curse too deep ; 
Thou hast sown in my sorrow, and must reap 

The bitter harvest in a woe as real ! 
I have had many foes, but none like thee ; 

For 'gainst the rest myself I could defend. 

And be avenged, or turn them into friend ; 
But thou in safe implacability 
Hadst nought to dread — in thy own weakness 

shielded. 
And in my love, which hath but too much yielded, 



Switzerland for Italy, but were not intended for the public 
eye: as, however, they have recently found their way into 
circulation, we include them in this collection. 

1 "Lord Byron had at least this much to say for himself, 
that he was not the first to make his domestic differences a 
topic of public discussion. On the contrary, he saw himself, 
ere any fact but the one undisguised and tangible one was 
or could be known, held up everywhere, and by every art 
of malice, as the most infamous of men,— because he had 
parted from his wife. He was exquisitely sensitive : he was 
wounded at once by a thousand arrows ; and all this with the 
most perfect and indignant knowledge, that of all who were 
assailing him not one knew anything of the real merits of 
tlie case. Did he right, then, in publishing those squibs and 
tirades? No, certainly: it would have been nobler, better, 
wiser far, to have utterly scorned the assaults df such ene- 
tnies, and taken no notice, of any kind, of them. But, be- 
cause this young, -hot-blooded, proud, patrician poet did 
not, amidst the exacerbation of feelings which he could not 
control, act in precisely the most dignified and wisest of all 
possible manners' of action,— are we entitled, is the world 
at large entitled, to issue a broad sentence of vituperative 
condemnation? Do we know all that he had suffered? — 
have we imagination enough to comprehend what he suffered, 
under circumstances such as these?— have we been tried in 
similar circumstances, whether we could feel the wound un- 
flinchingly, and keep the weapon quiescent in the hand that 
trembled with all the excitements of insulted privacy, honor, 
and faith ? Let people consider for a moment what it is that 
■ hey demand when they insist upon a poet of Byron's class 
abstaining altogether from expressing in his works anything 



And spared, for thy sake, some I should not spare 
And thus upon the world — trust in thy truth, 
And the wild fame of my ungovern'd youth — 

On things that were not, and on things that are — 
Even upon such a basis hast thou built 
A monument, whose cement hath been guilt ! 

The moral Clytemnestra of thy lord. 

And hew'd down, with an unsuspected sword, 
Fame, peace, and hope — and all the better life 

Which, but for this cold treason of thy heart, 
Might still have risen from out the grave of strife, 

And found a nobler duty than to part. 
But of thy virtues didst thou make a vice, 

Trafficking with them in a purpose cold, 

For present anger, and for future gold — . 
And buying other's grief at any price. 
And thus once enter'd into crooked ways. 
The early truth, which was thy proper praise, 
Did not still walk beside thee — but at times, 
And with a breast unknowing its own crimes, 
Deceit, averments incompatible, 
Equivocations, and the thoughts which dwell 

In Janus-spirits — the significant eye 
Which learns to lie with silence — the pretext 
Of prudence, with advantages annex'd — 
The acquiescence in all things which tend, 
No matter how, to the desired end — 

All found a place in thy philosophy. 
The means were worthy, and the end is won — 
I would not do by thee as thou hast done ! i 

September, 1816. 



of his own feelings in regard to anything that immediately 
concerns his own history. We tell him in every possible form 
and shape, that the great and distinguishing merit of his 
poetry is the intense truth with which that poetry expresses 
his own personal feelings. We encourage him in every pos- 
sible way to dissect his own heart for our entertainment — 
we tempt him by every bribe most likely to act powerfully on 
a young and imaginative man, to plunge into the darkest 
depths of self-knowledge ; to madden his brain with eternal 
self-scrutinies, to find his pride and his pleasure in what 
others shrink from as torture — we tempt him to indulge in 
these dangerous exercises, until they obviously acquire the 
power of leading him to the very brink of frenzy— we tempt 
him to find, and to see in this perilous vocation, the staple 
of his existence, the food of his ambition, the very essence 
of his glory,— and the moment that, by habits of our own 
creating, at least of our own encouraging and confirming, he is 
carried one single step beyond what we happen to approve of, 
we turn round with all the bitterness of spleen, and reproach 
him with the unmanliness of entertaining the public with his 
feelings in regard to his separation from his wife. This was 
truly the conduct of a fair and liberal public ! To our view 
of the matter. Lord Byron, treated as he had been, tempted 
as he had been, and tortured and insulted as he was at th(^ 
moment, did no more forfeit his character by writing what 
he did write upon that unhappy occasion, than another man, 
under circumstances of the same nature, would have done, 
by telling something of his mind about it to an intimate 
friend across the fire. The public had forced him into the 
haVjits of familiarity, and they received his confidence with 
nothing but anger and scorn."— Lockiiart. 



36 



ON THE DEATH OF THE EIGHT HON. R. B. SHERIDAN.^ 



SPOKEN AT DRURY LANE THEATRE.^ 



When the last sunshine of expiring day 

III summer's twilight weeps itself away, 

Who hath not felt the softness of the hour 

Sink on the heart, as dew along the flower ? 

With a pure feeling which absorbs and awes 

While Nature makes that melancholy pause, 

Her Ijreathing moment on the bridge where Time 

Of light and darkness forms an arch sublime ; 

Who hath not shared that calm, so still and deep. 

The voiceless thought which would not speak but weep, 

A holy concord — and a bright regret, 

A glorious sympathy with suns that set ? 

'Tis not harsh sorrow — but a tenderer woe. 

Nameless, but dear to gentle hearts below. 

Felt without bitterness — but full and clear, 

A sweet dejection — a transparent tear, 

Unmix'd with worldly grief or selfish stain. 

Shed without shame — and secret without pain. 

Even as the tenderness that hour instills 
When Summer's day declines along the hills, 
So feels the fullness of our heart and eyes 
When all of Genius which can perish dies. 
A mighty Spirit is eclipsed — a Power 
Hath pass'd from day to darkness — to whose hour 
Of light no likeness is bequeath'd — no name, 
Focus at once of all the rays of Fame ! 
The flash of Wit — the bright Intelligence, 
The beam of Song — the blaze of Eloquence, 
Set with their Sun — but still have left behind 
The enduring produce of immortal Mind ; 
Fruits of a genial morn, and glorious noon, 
A deathless part of him who died too soon. 
But small that portion of the wondrous whole, 
These sparkling segments of that circling soul, 

1 Mr. Sheridan died the 7tli of July, 1816, and this mon- 
ody was written at Diodati on the 17th, at the request of 
Mr. Douglas Kinnaird. " I did as well as I could," says Lord 
Byron, " but where I have not ray choice, I pretend to answer 
for nothing." A proof-sheet of the poem, with the words 
" by request of a friend " in the title page, having reached 
him, — " I request you," he says, " to expunge that same, 
unless you please to add, ' by a person of quality,' or ' of wit 
and humor.' It is sad trash, and must have been done to 
make it ridiculous." • 

2 Sheridan's own monody on Garrick was spoken from the 
same boards, by Mrs. Yates, in March, 177D. "One day," 
says Lord Byron, " I saw him take it up. He lighted upon 
the dedication to the Dowager Lady Spencer. On seeing it, 
he flew into a rage and exclaimed, ' that it inust be a forgery, 
as he had never dedicated any thing of his to such a d — d 
canting,' &c. Ac. — and so he went on for half an hour 
abusing his own dedication, or at least the object of it. If 
all writers were equally sincere, it would be ludicrous." — 
Byron Diary, 1821. 

( 562 ) 



Which all embraced — and lightened over all. 

To cheer — to pierce — to please — or to appall. 

From the charm'd council to the festive board, 

Of human feelings the unbounded lord; 

In whose acclaim the loftiest voices vied, [pride. 

The praised — the proud — Avho made his praise their 

When the loud cry of trampled Hindostan ^ 

Arose to Heaven in her appeal from man, 

His was the thunder — his the avenging rod, 

The wrath — the delegated voice of God ! 

Which shook the nations through his lips — and blazed 

Till vanquish'd senates trembled as they praised.* 

And here, oh ! here, where yet all young and warm, 
The gay creations of his spirit charm, 
The matchless dialogue — the deathless wit, 
Which knew not what it was to intermit ; 
The glowing portraits, fresh from life, that bring 
Home to our heart the truth from which they spring; 
These wondrous beings of his fancy, wrought 
To fullness by the fiat of his thought, 
Here in their first abode you still may meet. 
Bright with the hues of his Promethean heat ; 
A halo of the light of other days, 
Which still the splendor of its orb betrays. 

But should there be to whom the fatal blight 
Of failing Wisdom yields a base delight. 
Men who exult when minds of heavenly tone 
Jar in the music which was born tlieir own. 
Still let them pause — ah ! little do they know 
That what to them seem'd Vice might be but Woe.^ 
Hard is his fate on whom the public gaze 
Is fix'd for ever to detract or praise ; 
Eepose denies her requiem to his name, 
And Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame. 

8 See Fox, Burke, and Pitt's eulogy on Mr. Sheridan's 
speech on the charges exhibited against Mr. Hastings in the 
House of Commons. Mr. Pitt entreated the House to adjourn, 
to give time for a calmer consideration of the question than 
could then occur after the immediate effect of that oration. — 
" Before my departure from England," says Gibbon, " I was 
present at the august spectacle of Mr. Hastings's trial in West- 
minster Hall. It is not my province to absolve or condemn 
the governor of India; but Mr. Sheridan's eloquence de- 
manded my applause; nor could I hear without emotion the 
personal compliment which he paid me in the presence of 
the British nation. This display of genius blazed four suc- 
cessive days," &c. On being asked by a brother Whig, at the 
conclusion of the speech, how he came to compliment Gib- 
bon with the epithet " luminous," Sheridan answered, in a 
half whisper, " I said ' voluminous.' " 

* " I heard Sheridan only once, and that briefly ; but I liked 
his voice, his manner, and his wit. He is the only one of them 
I ever wished to hear at greater length."— 5?/ron Diary, 1821. 

6 " Once I saw Sheridan cry, after a splendid dinner. I 



MONODY ON THE DEATH OF SHERIDAN. 



563 



The secret enemy whose sleepless eye 

Stands sentinel — accuser— judge — and spy, 

The foe — the fool — the jealous— and the vain, 

The envious who but breathe in others' pain, 

Behold the host ! delighting to deprave, 

Who track the steps of Glory to the grave. 

Watch every fault that daring Genius owes 

Half to the ardor which its birth bestows. 

Distort the truth, accumulate the lie. 

And pile the pyramid of Calumny ! 

These are his portion — but if join'd to these 

Gaunt Poverty should league with deep Disease, 

If the high Spirit must forget to soar, 

And stoop to strive with Misery at the door,i 

To soothe Indignity — and face to face 

Meet sordid Rage — and wrestle with Disgrace, 

To find in Hope but the renew'd caress. 

The serpent-fold of further Faithlessness : — 

If such may be the ills which men assail, 

What marvel if at last the mightiest fail ? 

Breasts to whom all the strength of feeling given 

Bear hearts electric — charged with fire from Heaven, 

Black with the rude collision, inly torn. 

By clouds surrounded, and on whirlwinds borne. 

Driven o'er the lowering atmosphere that nurst [burst.^ 

Thoughts which have turn'd to thunder — scorch, and 

had the honor of sitting next him. The occasion of his 
tears was some observation or other upon the subject of the 
sturdiness of the Whigs in resisting office and keeping to 
their principles. Sheridan turned round : — ' Sir, it is easy for 
my Lord G. or Earl G. or Marquess B. or Lord H., with thou- 
sands upon thousands a year, some of it either presently de- 
rived or inherited in sinecure or acquisitions from the public 
money, to boast of their patriotism and keep aloof from 
temptation: but they do not know from what temptation 
those have kept aloof who had equal pride, at least equal 
talents, and not unequal passions, and nevertheless knew not 
in the course of their lives what it was to have a shilling of 
their own.' And in saying this he wept. I have more than 
once heard him say, ' that he never had a shilling of his own.' 
To be sure, he contrived to extract a good many of other 
people's. In 1815, 1 found him at my lawyer's. After mutual 
greetings, he retired. Before recurring to my own business, 
I could not help inquiring that of Sheridan. ' Oh,' replied 
the attorney, ' the usual thing ! to stave off an action.' ' Well,' 
said I, ' and what do you mean to do ?' ' Nothing at all for 
the present,' said he : ' would you have us proceed against old 
Sherry? what would be the use of it?' and here he began 
laughing, and going over Sheridan's good gifts of conversa- 
tion. Such was Sheridan! he could soften an attorney! 
There has been nothing like it since the days of Orpheus."— 
Byrtm Diary, 1821. 

1 This was not fiction. Only a few days before his death, 
Sheridan wrote thus to Mr. Rogers :— " I am absolutely un- 
done and broken-hearted. They are going to put the carpets 
out of window, and break into Mrs. S.'s room and take me : 
150/. will remove all difficulty. For God's sake let me see 
you I" Mr. Moore was the immediate bearer of the required j 
sum. This was written on the 15th of May. On the 14th of j 
July, Sheridan's remains were deposited in Westminster j 
Abbey, — his pall-bearers being the Duke of Bedford, the Earl [ 
of Lauderdale, Earl Mulgrave, the Lord Bishop of London, i 
Lord Holland, and Earl Spencer. 

* " Abandon'd by the skies, whose beams have nurst I 

Their very thunders, lighten— scorch— and burst,"- MS, I 



But far from us and from our mimic scene 
Such things should be — if such have ever been ; 
Ours be the gentler wish, the kinder task, 
To give the tribute Glory need not ask, 
To mourn the vanish'd beam, and add our mite 
Of praise in payment of a long delight. 
Ye Orators ! whom yet our councils yield, 
Mourn for the veteran Hero of your field ! 
The worthy rival of the wondrous Three ! ^ 
Whose words were sparks of Immortality ! 
Ye Bards ! to whom the Drama's Muse is dear. 
He was your Master — emulate him here ! 
Ye men of wit and social eloquence ! * 
He was your brother — bear his ashes hence ! 
While Powers of mind almost of boundless 

rangc,^ 
Complete in kind — as various in their change. 
While Eloquence — Wit — Poesy — and Mirth, 
That humbler Harmonist of care on Earth, 
Survive within our souls — while lives our sense 
Of pride in Merit's proud pre-eminence. 
Long shall we seek his likeness — long in vain. 
And turn to all of him which may remain. 
Sighing that Nature form'd but one such man. 
And broke the die — in moulding Sheridan. 

Diodati, July 17, 1816. 

3 Fox — Pitt — Burke. — "When Fox was asked, which he 
thought the best speech he had ever heard, he replied, ' Sheri- 
dan's on the impeachment of Hastings in the House of Com- 
mons.' When he made it. Fox advised him to speak it over 
again in Westminster Hall on the trial, as nothing bettor 
could be made of the subject: but Sheridan made his new 
speech as different as possible, and, according to the best 
judges, very inferior, notwithstanding the panegyric of Burke, 
who exclaimed during the delivery of some passages of it — 
' There, that is the true style — something between poetry and 
prose, and better than either.'" — Byron Diary {from Lord 
Holland), 1^21. 

* " In society I have met Sheridan frequently. He was su- 
perb ! I have seen him cut up Whitbread, quiz Madame de 
Stael, annihilate Colman, and do little less by some others of 
good fame and ability. I have met him at all places and par- 
ties — at Whitehall with the Melbournes, at the Marquis of 
Tavistock's, at Robin s's the auctioneers, at Sir Humphry 
Davy's, at Sam Rogers's— in short, in most kinds of company, 
and always found him convivial and delightful." — Byron 
Diary, 1821. 

5 " Lord Holland told me a curious piece of sentimentality 
in Sheridan. The other night we were all delivering our re- 
spective and various opinions upon him and other hommes 
marquans, and mine was this : — ' Whatever Sheridan has 
done or chosen to do has been par excellence always the best 
of its kind. He has written the best comedy (School for 
Scandal), the best drama (in my mind, far beyond that Saint. 
Giles's lampoon, the Beggar's Opera), the best farce (thr 
Critic— it is only too good for a farce), and the best address 
(Monologue on Garrick), and, to crown all, delivered the very 
best oration (the famous Begum speech) ever conceived or 
heard in this country.' Somebody told Sheridan this the next 
day, and, on hearing it, he burst into tears ! Poor Brinsley ! 
if they were tears of pleasure, I would rather have said these 
few, but most sincere, words, than have written the Iliad, or 
made his own celebrated philippic. Nay, his own comedy 
never gratified me more than to hear that he had derived a 
moment's gratification from any praise of mine." — Byrov 
Diary, Dec. 17, 1813. 



Ci)e ©ream*' 



Our life is twofold : Sleep hath its own world, 
A boundary between the things misnamed 
Death and existence : Sleep hath its own world, 
And a wide realm of wild reality. 
And dreams in their development have breath, 
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy ; 
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts, 
They take a weight from off our waking toils, 
They do divide our being ; they become 
A portion of ourselves as of our time, 
And look like heralds of eternity ; 
They pass like spirits of the past, — ^they speak 
Like sibyls of the future ; they have power — 
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain ; 
They make us what we were not — what they will, 
And shake us with the vision that's gone by, 
The dread of vanish'd shadows — Are they so ? 
Is not the past all shadow ? What are they ? 
Creations of the mind ? — The mind can make 
Substance, and people planets of its own 
With beings brighter than have been, and give 
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh. 
I would recall a vision which I dream'd 
Perchance in sleep — for in itself a thought, 
A slumbering thought, is capable of years, 
And curdles a long life into one hour. 

II. 

I saw two beings in the hues of youth 
Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill. 
Green and of mild declivity, the last 
As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such, 
Save that there was no sea to lave its base, 
But a most living landscape, and the wave 
Of woods and cornfields, and the abodes of men 
Scatter'd at intervals, and wreathing smoke 
Arising from such rustic roofs ; — the hill 
Was crown'd with a peculiar diadem 
Of trees, in circular array, so fix'd. 
Not by the sport of nature, but of man : 
These two, a maiden and a youth, were there 
Gazing — the one on all that was beneath 
Fair as herself— but the boy gazed on her; 
And both were young, and one was beautiful : 



And both were young — ^yet not alike in youth. 

As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge. 

The maid was on the eve of womanhood ; 

The boy had fewer summers, but his heart 

Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye 

There was but one beloved face on earth. 

And that was shining on him ; he had look'd 

Upon it till it could not pass away ; 

He had no breath, no being, but in hers : 

She was his voice ; he did not speak to her. 

But trembled on her words : she was his sight,^ 

For his eye follow'd hers, and saw with hers. 

Which color'd all his objects : he had ceased 

To live within himself; she was his life. 

The ocean to the river of his thoughts. 

Which terminated all : upon a tone, 

A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow, 

And his cheek change tempestuously — his heart 

Unknowing of its cause of agony. 

But she in these fond feelings had no share : 

Her sighs were not for him ; to her he was 

Even as a brother — but no more ; 'twas much. 

For brotherless she was, save in the name 

Her infant friendship had bestow'd on him ; 

Herself the solitary scion left 

Of a time-honor'd race.^ — It was a name 

Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not — and 

why? 
Time taught him a deep answer — when she loved 
Another ; even now she loved another. 
And on the summit of that hill she stood 
Looking afar if yet her lover's steed 
Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew. 

III. 

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. 

There was an ancient mansion, and before 

Its walls there was a steed caparison'd : 

Within an antique Oratory stood 

The Boy of whom I spake ; — he was alone. 

And pale, and pacing to and fro : anon 

He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced 

Words which I could not guess of; then he lean'd 

His bow'd head on his hands, and shook as 'twere 

With a convulsion — then arose again, 



1 In the first draught of this poem, Lord Byron had en- 
titled it " The Destimj." Mr. Moore says, " it cost him many 
a tear in writing," and justly characterizes it as " the most 
mournful, as well as picturesque ' story of a wandering life ' 
that ever came from the pen and heart of man." It was com- 
posed at Diodati, in July, 1816. 
(564) 



" she was his sight, 



For never did he turn his glance until 
Her own had led by gazing on an object." — MS. 
3 See ante, p. 454.—" Our union," said Lord Byron In 1821, 
" would have healed feuds in which blood had been shed by 
our fathers — it would have joined lands, broad and rich — it 



THE DKEAM. 



565 



Aud with his teeth and quivering hands did tear 

\\'hat he had written, but he slied no tears.^ 

And he did calm himself, aud fix his brow 

Into a kind of quiet : as he paused, 

The Lady of his love re-enter'd there ; 

Slie was serene and smiling then, aud yet 

She knew she was by him beloved, — she knew, 

For quickly comes such knowledge, that his heart 

Was darken'd with her shadow, and she saw 

That he was wretched, but she saw not all.^ 

He rose, and with a cold aud gentle grasp 

He took her hand ; a moment o'er his face 

A tablet of unutterable thoughts 

Was traced, and then it faded, as it came , 

He dropp'd the hand he held, and with slow steps 

Retired, but not as bidding her adieu, 

For they did part with mutual smiles ; he pass'd 

From out the massy gate of that old Hall, 

And mounting on his steed he went his way ; 

And ne'er repass'd that hoary threshold more. 



IV. 

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. 
The Boy Mas sprung to manhood : in the wilds 
Of fiery climes he made himself a home, 
And his soul drank their sunbeams : he was girt 
With strange and dusky aspects ; he was not 
Himself like what he had been ; on the sea 
And on the shore he was a wanderer ; 
There was a mass of many images 
Crowded like waves upon me, but he was 
A part of all ; and in the last he lay 
Reposing from the noontide sultriness, 
Couch'd among fallen columns, in the shade 
Of ruin'd walls that had survived the names 
Of those who rear'd them ; by his sleeping side 
Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds 
Were fasten'd near a fountain ; and a man 
Clad in a flowing garb did watch the while, 
Wliile many of his tribe slumber'd around : 
And they were canopied by the blue sky. 
So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful, 
That God alone was to be seen in Heaven.^ 



would have joined at least one heart and two persons not ill- 
matched in years (she is two years my elder)— and — and — 
aud— what has been the result !" 

1 " The picture which Lord Byron has here drawn of his 
youthful love shows how genius and feeling can elevate the 
realities of this life, and give to the commonest events and 
objects an undying lustre. The old hall at Annesley, under 
the name of the ' antique oratory,' will long call up to fancy 
the * maiden and the youth ' who once stood in it ; while the 
image of the 'lover's steed,' though suggested by the un ro- 
mantic race-ground of Nottingham, will not the less conduce 
to the general charm of the scene, and share a portion of 
that light which only Genius could shed over it."— Mooke. 

» "I had long been in love with M. A. C, and never told 
it, though sh^ had discovered it without. I recollect my sen- 
sations, but cannot describe them, and it is as well."— Byron 
Diary, 1822. 



A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. 

The Lady of his love was wed with One 

Who did not love her better : — in her home, 

A thousand leagues from his, — her native home. 

She dwelt, begirt with growing Infancy, 

Daughters and sons of Beauty, — but behold ! 

Upon her face there was the tint of grief. 

The settled shadow of an inward strife. 

And an unquiet drooping of the eye. 

As if its lid were charged with unshed tears. 

What could her grief be ? — she had all she loved. 

And he who had so loved her was not there 

To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish. 

Or ill-repress'd affliction, her pure thoughts. 

What could her grief be ? — she had loved him not, 

Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved, 

Nor could he be a part of that which prey'd 

Upon her mind — a spectre of the past. 

VI. 

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. 

The Wanderer was return'd. — I saw him stand 

Before an Altar — with a gentle bride ; 

Her face was fair, but was not that which made 

The Starlight of his Boyhood ; — as he stood 

Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came 

The selfsame aspect, and the quivering shock 

That in the antique Oratory shook 

His bosom in its solitude ; and then — 

As in that hour — a moment o'er his face 

The tablet of unutterable thoughts 

Was traced — and then it faded as it came. 

And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke 

The fitting vows, but heard not his own words. 

And all things reel'd around him ; he could see 

Not that which was, nor that which should have been- 

But the old mansion, and the accustom'd hall, 

And the remember'd chambers, and the place. 

The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade. 

All things pertaining to that place and hour, 

And her who was his destiny, came back 

And thrust themselves between him and the light : 

What business had they there at such a time ? * 



3 " This is true keeping— an Eastern picture perfect in its 
foreground, and distance, and sky, and no part of which is so 
dwelt upon or labored as to obscure the principal figure. It 
is often in the slight and almost imperceptible touches that 
the hand of the master is shown, and that a single spark, 
struck from his fancy, lightens with a long train of illumina- 
tion that of the reader."— Sir Walter Scott. 

* This touching picture agrees closely, in many of its cir- 
cumstances, with Lord Byron's own prose account of the 
wedding in his Memoranda; in which he describes himself 
as waking, on the morning of his marriage, with the most 
melancholy reflections, on seeing his wedding-suit spread 
out before him. In the same mood he wandered about the 
grounds alone, till he was summoned for the ceremony, and 
joined, for the first time, on that day, his bride and her 
family. lie knelt down— he repeated the words after thi^ 
clergyman; but a mist was before his eyes— his thoughts 



566 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



VII. 

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. 
The Ludy of his love ; — Oh ! she was changed, 
As by the sickness of the soul ; her mind 
Had wander'd from its dwelling, and her eyes. 
They had not their own lustre, but the look 
Which is not of the earth ; she was become 
The queen of a fantastic realm ; her thoughts 
Were combinations of disjointed things; 
And forms impalpable and unperceived 
Of others' sight familiar were to hers. 
And this the world calls frenzy ; but the wise 
Have a far deeper madness, and the glance 
Of melancholy is a fearful gift ; 
What is it but the telescope of truth ? 
Which strips the distance of its fantasies, 
And brings life near in utter nakedness, 
Making the cold reality too real ! ^ 

VIII. 

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. 

The Wanderer was alone as heretofore. 

The beings which surrounded him were gone. 



were elsewhere ; and he was but awakened by the congratu- 
lations of the bystanders to find that he was— married." — 
Moore. 
J " For it becomes the telescope of truth, 
And shows us all things naked as they are." — MS. 

2 Mithridates of Pontus. 

3 " This poem is written with great beauty and genius— 
but is extremely painfuL We cannot maintain our accus- 



Or were at war with him ; he was a mark 

For blight and desolation, compass'd round 

With Hatred and Contention ; Pain was mix'd 

In all which was served up to him, until, 

Like to the Pontic monarch of old days,'* 

He fed on poisons, and they had no power. 

But were a kind of nutriment ; he lived 

Through that which had been death to many men, 

And made him friends of mountains : with the stars 

And the quick Spirit of the Universe 

He held his dialogues ! and they did teach 

To him the magic of their mysteries ; 

To him the book of Night was open'd wide, 

And voices from the deep abyss reveal'd 

A marvel and a secret — Be it so. 

IX. 

My dream was past ; it had no further change. 

It was of a strange order, that the doom 

Of these two creatures should be thus traced out 

Almost like a reality — the one 

To end in madness — both in misery .^ 

July, 1816. 



tomed tone of levity, or even speak like calm literary judges, 
in the midst of these agonizing traces of a wounded and dis- 
tempered spirit. Even our admiration is swallowed up in a 
most painful feeling of pity and of wonder. It is impossible 
to mistake these for fictitious sorrows, conjured up for the 
purpose of poetical effect. There is a dreadful tone of sin- 
cerity, and an energy that cannot be counterfeited, in the 
expression of wretchedness, and alienation from human- 
kind, which occurs in every line of this poem."— Jeffrey. 



2rf)e iLament of STasso/ 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

At Ferrara, in the Library, are preserved the ori- 
ginal MSS. of Tasso's Gerusalemme and of Guarini's 
Pastor Fido, with letters of Tasso, one from Titian 
to Ariosto, and the inkstand and chair, the tomb 
and the house, of the latter. But, as misfortune lias 
a greater interest for posterity, and little or none for 
the contemporary, the cell where Tasso was confined 



1 " In a moment of dissatisfaction with himself, or during 
some melancholy mOod, when his soul felt the worthlessness 
of fame and glory, Lord Byron told the world that his muse 
should, for a long season, shroud herself in solitude (see 
anie, p. 545) ; and every true lover of genius lamented that 
her lofty music was to cease. But there was a tide in his 
spirit obeying the laws of its nature, and not to be controlled 
by any human will. "When he said that he was to be silent, 
he looked, perhaps, into the inner regions of his soul, and 
saw there a dim, hard, and cheerless waste, like the sand of 
the seashore ; but the ebbed waves of passion in due course 
returned, and the scene was restored to its former beauty 
and magnificence, — its foams, its splendors, and its thunder. 
The mind of a mighty poet cannot submit even to chains of 
its own imposing: when it feels most enslaved, even then, 
perhaps, is it about to become most free; and one sudden 
flash may raise it from the darkness of its despondency up to 
the pure air of untroubled confidence. It required, therefore, 
but small knowledge of human nature, to assure ourselves 
that the obligation under which Lord Byron had laid himself 
could not bind, and that the potent spirit within him would 
laugh to scorn whatever dared to curb the frenzy of its own 
inspirations. 

" It was not long, therefore, till he again came forth in his 
perfect strength, and exercised that dominion over our spirits 
which is truly a power too noble to be possessed without 
being wielded. Though all his heroes are of one family, yet 
are they a noble band of brothers, whose countenances and 
whose souls are strongly distinguished by peculiar charac- 
teristics. Each personage, as he advances before us, reminds 
us of some other being, whose looks, thoughts, words, and 
deeds had troubled us by their wild and perturbed grandeur. 
But though all the same, yet are they all strangely different. 
We hail each successive existence with a profounder sym- 
pathy ; and we are lost in wonder, in fear, and in sorrow, at 
tlie infinitely varied struggles, the endless and agonizing 
modifications of the human passions, as they drive along 
through every gate and avenue of the soul, darkening or 
brijutcning, elevating or laying prostrate. • 

" From such agitating and terrific pictures, it is delightful to 
turn to those compositions in which Lord Byron has allowed 
his soul to sink down into gentler and more ordinary feelings. 
Many b-^autiful and pathetic strains have flowed from his 
heart, of which the tenderness is as touching as the grandeur 
of his nobler works is agitating and sublime. To those, in- 
deed, who looked deeply into his poetry, there never was at 
any time a want of pathos; but it was a pathos so subduing 
and so profound, that even the poet himself seemed afraid of 
being delivered up unto it; nay, he seemed ashamed of being 
overcome by emotions, which the gloomy pride of his intel- 
lect often vainly strove to scorn ; and he dashed the weak- 



in the hospital of St, Anna attracts a more fixed 
attention than the residence or the monument of 
Ariosto — at least it had this effect on me. There are 
two inscriptions, one on the outer gate, the second 
over the cell itself, inviting, unnecessarily, the won- 
der and the indignation of the spectator. Ferrara is 
much decayed and depopulated : the castle still exists 
entire; and I saw the court where Parisina and Hugo 
were beheaded, according to the annal of Gibbon.'-' 



ncss from his heart, and the tear from his eyes, like a man 
suddenly assailed by feelings which he wished to hide, and 
which, though true to his nature, were inconsistent with the 
character which that mysterious nature had been forced, as 
in self-defence, to assume. 

" But there is one poem in which he has almost wholly laid 
aside all remembrance of the darker and stormier passions ; 
in which the tone of his spirit and his voice at once is changed, 
and where he who seemed to care only for agonies, and re- 
morse, and despair, and death, and insanity, in all their most 
appalling forms, shows that he has a heart that can feed on 
the purest sympathies of our nature, and deliver itself up to 
the sorrows, the sadness, and the melancholy of humbler 
souls. The ' Prisoner of ChUlon ' is a poem over which in- 
fancy has shed its first mysterious tears for sorrows so alien 
to its own happy innocence, — over which the gentle, pure, 
and pious soul of Woman has brooded with ineffable, and 
yearning, and bursting tenderness of affection,— and over 
which old Age, almost loosened from this world, has bowed 
his hoary head in delighted approbation of that fraternal 
love, whose beauty and simplicity fling a radiance over the 
earth he is about to leave, and exhibit our fallen nature in 
near approximation to the glories of its ultimate destiny. 
The ' Lament ' possesses much of the tenderness and pathos 
of the ' Prisoner of Chillon.' Lord Byron has not delivered 
himself unto any one wild and fearful vision of the imprisoned 
Tasso,— he has not dared to allow himself to rush forward 
with headlong passion into the horrors of his dungeon, and 
to describe, as he could fearfully have done, the conflict and 
agony of his uttermost despair, — but he shows us the poet 
sitting in his cell, and singing there — a low, melancholy, wail- 
ing Lament, sometimes, indeed, bordering on utter wretched- 
ness, but oftener partaking of a settled grief, occasionally 
subdued into mournful resignation, cheered by delightful 
remembrances, and elevated by the confident hope of an im- 
mortal fame. His is the gathered grief of many years, over 
which his soul has brooded, till she has in some measure lost 
the power of misery ; and this soliloquy is one which we can 
believe he might have uttered to himself any morning, or 
noon, or night of his solitude, as he seemed to be half com- 
muning with his own heart, and half addressing the ear of 
that human nature from which he was shut out, but of whi(;h 
he felt the continual and abiding presence within his imagin- 
ation."— Professor Wilson. 

2 The original MS. of this poem is dated, " The Apennines, 
April 20, 1817." It was written in consequence of Lord Byron 
having visited Ferrara, for a single day, on his way to Flor- 
ence. In a letter from Rome, he says— "The 'Lament of 
Tasso,' which I sent from Florence, has, I trust, arrived. I 
look upon it as a ' These he good rhymes !' as Pope's papa said 
to him when he was a boy." 

(567) 



568 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



Ef^e ilament of Cag^o. 



I. 

Long years ! — It tries the thrilling frame to bear 
And eagle spirit of a child of Song — 
Long years of outrage, calumny, and wrong ; 
imputed madness, prison'd solitude,^ 
And the mind's canker in its savage mood, 
When the impatient thirst of light and air 
Parches the heart ; and the abhorred grate, 
Marring the sunbeams with its hideous shade, 
Works through the throbbing eyeball to the brain, 
With a hot sense of heaviness and pain ; 
And bare, at once, Captivity display'd 
Stands scofiEing through the never-open'd gate, 
Which nothing through its bars admits, save day. 
And tasteless food, which I have eat alone 
Till its unsocial bitterness is gone : 
And I can banquet like a beast of prey. 
Sullen and lonely, couching in the cave 
Which is my lair, and — it may be — my grave.^ 
All this hath somewhat worn me, and may wear. 
But must be borne. I stoopi not to despair ; 
For I have battled with mine agony, 
And made me wings wherewith to overfly 
The narrow circus of my dungeon wall. 
And freed the Holy Sepulchre from thrall ; 



1 Tasso's biographer, the Abate Serassi, has left it without 
doubt, that the first cause of the poet's punishment was his 
desire to be occasionally, or altogether, free from his servi- 
tude at the court of Alfonso. In 1575, Tasso resolved to visit 
Rome, and enjoy the indulgence of the jubilee ; " and this 
error," says the Abate, " increasing the suspicion already en- 
tertained, that he was in search of another service, was the 
origin of his misfortunes. On his return to Ferrara, the duke 
refused to admit him to an audience, and he was repulsed from 
the houses of all the dependants of the court ; and not one of 
the promises which the cardinal Albano had obtained for 
him were carried into eifect. Then it was that Tasso — after 
having suffered these hardships for some time, seeing himself 
constantly discountenanced by the duke and the princesses, 
abandoned by his friends, and derided by his enemies— could 
no longer contain himself within the bounds of moderation, 
but, giving vent to his choler, publicly broke forth into the 
most injurious expressions imaginable, both against the duke 
and all the house of Este, cursing his past service, and re- 
tracting all the praises he had ever given in his verses to 
those princes, or to any individual connected with them, de- 
claring that they were all a gang of poltroons, ingrates, and 
scoundrels (poltroni, ingrati, e ribaldi). For this offence he 
was arrested, conducted to the hospital of Saint Anna, and 
confined in a solitary cell as a madman."— Serassi, Vita del 
Tasso. 

2 " In the hospital of Saint Anna, at Ferrara, they show a 
cell, over the door of which is the following inscription : — 
' Rispettate, O posteri, la celebrity; di questa stanza, dove Tor- 
quato Tasso, infermo piil di tristezza che delirio, ditenuto di- 
moro anni vii. mesi ii., scrisse verse e prose, e fii rimesso in 
liberta ad instanza della citta di Bergamo, nel giorno vi. Lug- 
lio, 1586.' — The dungeon is below the ground floor of the 
hospital, and the light penetrates through its grated win- 
dow from a small yard, which seems to have been common 



And revell'd among men and things divine, 

And pour'd my spirit over Palestine, 

In honor of the sacred war for him. 

The God who was on earth and is in heaven. 

For he has strengthened me in heart and limb. 

That through this sufferance I might be forgiven, 

I have employ'd my penance to record 

How Salem's shrine was won, and how adored. 

II. 

But this is o'er — my pleasant task is done : ^ — 

My long-sustaining friend of many years ! 

If I do blot thy final page with tears, 

Know, that my soitows have wrung from me none 

But thou, my young creation ! my soul's child ! 

Which ever playing round me came and smiled. 

And woo'd me from myself with thy sweet sight, 

Thou too art gone — and so is my delight : 

And therefore do I weep and inly bleed 

With this last bruise upon a broken reed. 

Thou too art ended — what is left me now ? 

For I have anguish yet to bear — and how ? 

I know not that — but in the innate force 

Of my own spirit shall be found resource. 

I have not sunk, for I had no remorse, 

Nor cause for such : they call'd me mad — and why ? 

Oh, Leonora ! wilt not thou reply ? * 

I was indeed delirious in my heart 

To lift my love so lofty as thou art ; 



to other cells. It is nine paces long, between five and six 
wide, and about seven feet high. The bedstead, so they tell, 
has been carried off piecemeal, and the door half cut away, 
by the devotion of those whom ' the verse and prose ' of the 
prisoner have brought to Ferrara. The poet was confined in 
this room from the middle of March, 1579, to December, 1580, 
when he was removed to a contiguous apartment much 
larger, in which, to use his own expressions, he could ' philos- 
ophize and walk about.' The inscription is incorrect as to 
the immediate cause of his enlargement, which was promised 
to the city of Bergamo, but was carried into effect at the in- 
tercession of Don Vincenzo Gonzaga, Prince of Mantua." — 

HOBHOUSE. 

8 " The opening lines bring the poet before us at once, as if 
the door of the dungeon was thrown open. From this bitter 
complaint, how nobly the unconquered bard rises into calm, 
and serene, and dignified exultation over the beauty ' of that 
young creation, his soul's child,' the Gerusalemme Liberata. 
The exultation of conscious genius then dies away, and we 
behold him, 'bound between distraction and disease,' no 
longer in an inspired mood, but sunk into the lowest pros- 
tration of human misery. There is something terrible in 
this transition from divine rapture to degraded agony." — 
"Wilson. 

* In a letter written to his friend Scipio Gonzaga, shortly 
after his confinement, Tasso exclaims — "Ah, wretched me! 
I had designed to write, besides two epic poems of most noble 
argument, four tragedies, of which I had formed the plan. I 
had schemed, too, many works in prose, on subjects the most 
lofty, and most useful to human life ; I had designed to write 
philosophy with eloquence, in such a manner that there might 
remain of me an eternal memory in the world. Alas ! I had 
expected to close my life with glory and renown ; but now, 
oppressed by the burden of so many calamities, I have lost 
every prospect of reputation and of honor. The fear of 



THE LAMENT OF TASSO. 



569 



But still my frenzy was not of the mind : 

I Icnew my fault, and feel my punishment 

Not less because I suffer it unbent. 

That thou wcrt beautiful, and I not blind, 

Ilath been the sin which shuts me from mankind ; 

But let them go, or torture as they will. 

My heart can multiply thine image still ; 

Successful love may sate itself away ; 

The wretched are the faithful ; 'tis their fate 

To have all feeling, save the one, decay, 

And every passion into one dilate, 

As rapid rivers into ocean j^our ; 

But ours is fathomless, and hath no shore. 

III. 

Above me, hark ! the long and maniac cry 

Of minds and bodies in captivity. 

And hark ! the lash and the increasing howl. 

And the half-inarticulate blasphemy ! 

There be some here with worse than frenzy foul, 

Some who do still goad on the o'er-labor'd mind. 

And dim the little light that's left behind 

With needless torture, as their tyrant will 

Is wound up to the lust of doing ill : i 

With these and with their victims am I class'd, 

'Mid sounds and sights like these long years have 

pass'd ; 
'Mid sights and sounds like these my life may close : 
So let it be — for then I shall repose. 

IV. 

I have been patient, let me be so yet ; 

I had forgotten half I would forget. 

But it revives — Oh ! would it were my lot 

To be forgetful as I am forgot ! — 

Feel I not wroth with those who bade me dwell 

In this vast lazar-house of many woes ? 

Where laughter is not mirth, nor thought the mind. 

Nor words a language, nor ev'n men mankind; 

perpetual imprisonment increases my melancholy ; the indig- 
nities which I suffer augment it ; and the squalor of my beard, 
my hair, and habit, the sordidness and filth, exceedingly an- 
noy me. Sure am I, that, if she -who so little has corre- 
sponded to my attachment — if she saw me in such a state, and 
in such aflfliction— she would have some compassion on me." — 
Opere, t. X. p. 3S7. 

^ " For nearly the first year of his confinement, Tasso en- 
dured all the horrors of a solitary cell, and was under the care 
of a gaoler whose chief virtue, although he was a poet and a 
man of letters, was a cruel obedience to the commands of his 
prince. His name was Agostino Mosti. Tasso says of him, 
in a letter to his sister, ' ed usa mcco ogni sorte di rigore ed 
inumaniti.' "— IIOBHOUSE. 

2 " This fearful picture is finely contrasted with that which 
Tasso draws of himself in youth, when nature and meditation 
were forming his wild, romantic, and impassioned genius. 
Indeed, the great excellence of the 'Lament' consists in the 
ebbing and flowing of the noble prisoner's soul ; his feelings 
often come suddenly from afar off, — sometimes gentle airs 
are breathing, and then all at once arise the storms and tem- 
pest, — the gloom, though black as night while it endures, 
gives way to frequent bursts of radiance,— and when the wild 
strain is closed, our jjity and commiseration are blended with 



Where cries reply to curses, shrieks to blows, 

And each is tortured in his separate hell — 

For we are crowded in our solitudes — 

Many, but each divided by the wall, 

Which echoes Madness in her babbling moods ; 

While all can hear, none heed his neighbor's call — 

None I save that One, the veriest wretch of all,^ 

Who was not made to be the mate of these, 

Nor bound between Distraction and Disease. 

Feel I not wroth with those who placed me here ? 

Who have debased me in the minds of men. 

Debarring me the usage of my own, 

Blighting my life in best of its career, 

Branding my thoughts as things to shun and fear ? 

Would I not pay them back these pangs again, 

And teach them inward Sorrow's stifled groan ? 

The struggle to be calm, and cold distress, 

Which undermines our Stoical success ? 

No ! — still too proud to be vindictive — I 

Have pardon'd princes' insults, and would die. 

Yes, Sister of my Sovereign ! for thy sake 

I weed all bitterness from out my breast, 

It hath no business where thou art a guest ; 

Thy brother hates — but I can not detest ; ' 

Thou pitiest not — but I can not forsake. 

V. 

Look on a love which knows not to despair,* 
But all unquench'd is still my better part. 
Dwelling deep in my shut and silent heart, 
As dwells the gather'd lightning in its cloud, 
Encompass'd with its dark and rolling shroud, 
Till struck, — forth flies the all-ethereal dart ! 
And thus at the collision of thy name 
The vivid thought still flashes through my frame, 
And for a moment all things as they were 
Flit by me ; — they are gone — I am the same. 
And yet my love without ambition grew ; 
I knew thy state, my station, and I knew 

a sustaining and elevating sense of the grandeur and majesty 
of his character." — "Wilson. 

3 Not long after his imprisonment, Tasso appealed to the 
mercy of Alfonso, in a canzone of great beauty, couched in 
terms so respectful and pathetic, as must have moved, it 
might be thought, the severest bosom to relent. The heart of 
Alfonso was, however, impregnable to the appeal ; and Tasso, 
in another ode to the princesses, whose pity he invoked in 
the name of their own mother, who had herself known, if not 
the like horrors, the like solitude of imprisonment, and bit- 
terness of soul, made a similar appeal. " Considered merely 
as poems," says Black, " these canzoni aire extremely beauti- 
ful; but, if we contemplate them as the productions of a 
mind diseased, they form important documents in the his- 
tory of man." — Life of Tasso, vol. ii. p. 408. 

* " As to the indifference which the princess is said to have 
exhibited for the misfortunes of Tasso, and the little effort 
she made to obtain his liberty, this is one of the negative 
arguments founded on an hypothesis that may be easily 
destroyed by a thousand others equally plausible. Was not 
the princess anxious to avoid her own ruin ? In taking too 
warm an interest for the poet, did she not risk destroying 
herself, without saving him ?"— FoscoLO. 



570 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



A princess was no love-mate for a bard ; 
I told it not, I breathed it not, it was 
Sufficient to itself, its own reward ; 
And if my eyes reveal'd it, they, alas ! 
Were punish'd by the silentness of thine, 
And yet I did not venture to repine. 
Thou wert to me a crystal-girded shrine, 
Worshipp'd at holy distance, and around 
Hallow'd and meekly kiss'd the saintly ground ; 
Not for thou wert a princess, but that Love 
Had robed thee with a glory, and array'd 
Thy lineaments in beauty that dismay'd— 
Oh ! not dismay'd— but awed, like One above ! 
And in that sweet severity there was 
A something which all softness did surpass — 
I know not how — thy genius mastered mine — 
My star stood still before thee : — if it were 
Presumptuous thus to love without design, 
That sad fatality hath cost me dear ; 
But thou art dearest still, and I should be 
Fit for this cell, which wrongs me — but for thee. 
The very love which lock'd me to my chain 
Hath lighten'd half its weight ; and for the rest, 
Though heavy, lent me vigor to sustain, 
And look to thee with undivided breast, 
And foil the ingenuity of Pain.i 



VI. 

It is no marvel— from my very birth 

My soul was drunk with love, — which did pervade 

And mingle with whate'er I saw on earth : 

Of objects all inanimate I made 

Idols, and out of wild and lonely flowers. 

And rocks, whereby they grew, a paradise. 

Where I did lay me down within the shade 

Of waving trees, and dream'd uncounted hours, 

Though I was chid for wandering ; and the wise 

Shook their white aged heads o'er me, and said 

Of such materials wretched men were made. 

And such a truant boy would end in woe, 

And that the only lesson was a blow ; 

And then they smote me, and I did not weep, 

But cursed them in my heart, and to my haunt 

Return'd and wept alone, and dream'd again 

The visions which arise without a sleep. 

And with my years my soul began to pant 

With feelings of strange tumult and soft pain ; 

And the whole heart exhaled into One Want, 

But undefined and wandering, till the day 



1 " Tasso's profound and unconquerable love for Leonora, 
sustaining itself without hope throughout years of darkness 
and solitude, breathes a moral dignity over all his sentiments, 
and we feel the strength and power of his noble spirit in the 
unupbraiding devotedness of his passion," — Wilson. 

2 " My mind like theirs adapted to its grave."— MS. 

8 "Nor do I lament," wrote Tasso, shortly after his con- 
finement, "that my heart is deluged with almost constant 
misery, that my head is always heavy and often painful, that 



I found the thing I sought— and that was thee ; 
And then I lost my being, all to be 
Absorb'd in thine ; the world was past away ; 
Thou didst annihilate the earth to me ! 

VII. 
I loved all Solitude — but little thought 
To spend I know not what of life, remote 
From all communion with existence, save 
The maniac and his tyrant; — had I been 
Their fellow, many years ere this had seen 
My mind like theirs corrupted to its grave.^ 
But who hath seen me writhe, or heard me 

rave? 
Perchance in such a cell we suffer more 
Than the wreck'd sailor on his desert shore ; 
The world is all before him — mine is here, 
Scarce twice the space they must accord my bier. 
What though he perish, he may lift his eye, 
And with a dying glance upbraid the sky ; 
I will not raise my own in such reproof. 
Although 'tis clouded by my dungeon roof. 

VIII. 
Yet do I feel at times my mind decline,'* 
But with a sense of its decay : I see 
Unwonted lights along my prison shine, 
And a strange demon, who is vexing me 
With pilfering pranks and petty pains, below 
The feeling of the healthful and the free ; 
But much to One, who long hath suffer'd so. 
Sickness of heart, and narrowness of place. 
And all that may be borne, or can debase. 
I thought mine enemies had been but Man, 
But Spirits may be leagued with them — all Earth 
Abandons — Heaven forgets me ; — in the dearth 
Of such defence the Powers of Evil can, 
It may be, tempt me further, — and prevail 
Against the outworn creature they assail. 
Why in this furnace is my spirit proved, 
Like steel in tempering fire ? because I loved ? 
Because I loved what not to love, and see. 
Was more or less than mortal, and than me. 

IX. 

I once was quick in feeling — that is o'er ; 
My scars are callous, or I should have dash'd 
My brain against these bars, as the sun flash'd 
In mockery through them ;— If I bear and bore 
The much I have recounted, and the more 



my sight and hearing are much impaired, and that all my 
frame is become spare and meagre ; but, passing all this with 
a short sigh, what I would bewail is the infirmity of my mind. 
My mind sleeps, not thinks ; my fancy is chill, and forms no 
pictures; my negligent senses will no longer furnish the 
images of things; my hand is sluggish in writing, and my 
pen seems as if it shrunk from the oflBlce, I feel as if I were 
chained in all my operations, and as if I were overcome by 
an unwonted numbness and oppressive stupor."— Opere, t. 
viii. p. 258. 



THE LAMENT OF TASSO. 



571 



Which hath no words, — 'tis that I would not die 

And sanction with self-slaughter the dull lie 

Which snared me here, and with the brand of shame 

Stamp Madness deep into my memory, 

And woo Compassion to a blighted name, 

Sealing the sentence which my foes proclaim. 

No — it shall be immortal ! — and I make 

A future temple of my present cell, 

Which nations yet shall visit for my sake.^ 

While thou, Ferrara ! when no longer dwell 

The ducal chiefs within thee, shalt fall down, 

And crumbling piecemeal view thy hearthless halls, 

A poet's wreath sliall be thine only crown, — 

A poet's dungeon thy most far renown. 

While strangers wonder o'er thy unpeopled walls ! 2 

And thou, Leonora ! — thou — who wert ashamed 

That such as I could love— who blush'd to hear 

To less than monarchs that thou couldst be dear, 

1 " Which j ^f}^^^^ y^* I shall visit for my sake."— MS. 
I after days J '' 

' '• Those who indulge in the dreams of earthly retribution 
will observe, that the cruelty of Alfonso was not left without 
its recompense, even in his own person. He survived the 
affection of his subjects and of his dependants, who deserted 
him at his death ; and suffered his body to be interred with- 
out princely or decent honors. His last wishes were neg- 
lected; his testament cancelled. His kinsman, Don Caesar, 
shrank from the excommunication of the Vatican, and, after 
a short struggle, or rather suspense, Ferrara passed away for 
ever from the dominion of the house of Este." — Hobhouse. 

3 In July, 1586, after a confinement of more than seven 
years, Tasso was released from his dungeon. In the hope of 
receiving his mother's dowry, and of again beholding his 
sister Cornelia, he shortly after visited Naples, where his 
presence was welcomed with every demonstration of esteem 
and admiration. Being on a visit at Mola di Gaeta, he re- 
ceived the following remarkable tribute of respect : Marco di 
Sciarra, the notorious captain of a numerous troop of banditti, 
hearing where the great poet was, sent to compliment him, 
and offered him not only a free passage, but protection by the 
way, and assured him that he and his followers would be 
proud to execute his orders. See Manso, Vila del Tasso, p. 219. 



Go ! tell thy brother, that my heart, untamed 

By grief, years, weariness — and it may be 

A taint of that he would impute to me — 

From long infection of a den like this, 

Where the mind rots congenial with the abyss, — 

Adores thee still ; and add — that when the towers 

And battlements which guard his joyous hours 

Of banquet, dance, and revel, are forgot, 

Or left untended in a dull repose, 

This — this — shall be a consecrated spot ! 

But Thou — when all that Birth and Beauty 

throws 
Of magic round thee is extinct — shalt have 
One half the laurel which o'ershades my grave.^ 
No power in death can tear our names apart, 
As none in life could rend thee from my heart. 
Yes, Leonora ! it shall be our fate 
To be entwined for ever — but too late ! * 



* "The 'pleasures of imagination' have been explained 
and justified by Addison in prose, and by Akenside in verse : 
but there are moments of real life when its miseries and 
its necessities seem to overpower and destroy tbem. The 
history of mankind, however, furnishes proofs that no bodily 
suffering, no adverse circumstances, operating on our ma- 
terial nature, will extinguish the spirit of imagination. Per- 
haps there is no instance of this so very affecting and so very 
sublime as the case of Tasso. They who have seen the dark, 
horror-striking dungeon-hole at Ferarra, in which he was 
confined seven years under the imputation of madness, will 
have had this truth impressed upon their hearts in a manner 
never to be erased. In this vault, of which the sight makes 
the hardest heart shudder, the poet employed himself in 
finishing and correcting his immortal epic poem. Lord 
Byron's ' Lament' on this subject is as sublime and profound 
a lesson in morality, and in the pictures of the recesses of 
the human soul, as it is a production most eloquent, most 
pathetic, most vigorous, and most elevating among the gifts 
of the Muse. The bosom which is not touched with it, — the 
fancy which is not warmed, — the understanding which is 
not enlightened and exalted by it, is not fit for human inter- 
course. If Lord Byron had written nothing but this, to deny 
him the praise of a grand poet would have been flagrant 
injustice or gross stupidity."— Beydges. 



©tre on 'Fen(ce/ 



I. 

Oh, Venice ! Venice ! when thy marble walls 

Are level with the waters, there shall be 
A cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls, 

A loud lament along the sweeping sea ! 
If I, a northern wanderer, weep for thee, 
What should thy sons do ? — anything but weep ; 
And yet they only murmur in their sleep. 
In contrast with their fathers — as the slime, 
The dull green ooze of the receding deep, 
Is with the dashing of the spring-tide foam 
That drives the sailor shipless to his home, 
Are they to those that were ; and thus they creep, 
Crouching and crab-like, through their sapping 

streets. 
Oh ! agony — that centuries should reap 
No mellower harvest ! Thirteen hundred years 
Of wealth and glory turn'd to dust and tears ; 
And every monument the stranger meets. 
Church, palace, pillar, as a mourner greets ; 
And even the Lion all subdued appears, 
And the harsh sound of the barbarian drum. 
With dull and daily dissonance, repeats 
The echo of thy tyrant's voice along 
The soft waves, once all musical to song, 
That heaved beneath the moonlight with the throng 
Of gondolas — and to the busy hum 
Of cheerful creatures, whose most sinful deeds 
Were but the overheating of the heart. 
And flow of too much happiness, which needs 
The aid of age to turn its course apart 
From the luxuriant and voluptuous flood 
Of sweet sensations, battling with the blood. 
But these are better than the gloomy errors, 
The weeds of nations in their last decay, 
When Vice walks forth with her unsoften'd terrors. 
And Mirth is madness, and but smiles to slay ; 
And Hope is nothing but a false delay, 
The sick man's lightning half an hour ere death, 
When Faintness, the last mortal birth of Pain, 
And apathy of limb, the dull beginning 
Of the cold staggering race which Death is winning, 
Steals vein by vein and pulse by pulse away ; 
Yet so relieving the o'er-tortured clay, 
To him appears renewal of his breath, 
And freedom the mere numbness of his chain j 
And then he talks of life, and how again 



1 This ode was transmitted from Venice, in 1819, 
with "Mazeppa." 
(572) 



along 



He feels his spirits soaring — albeit weak, 
And of the fresher air, which he would seek ; 
And as he whispers knows not that he gasps, 
That his thin finger feels not what it clasps, 
And so the film comes o'er him — and the dizzy 
Chamber swims round and round — and shadows busy. 
At which he vainly catches, flit and. gleam, 
Till the last rattle chokes the strangled scream, 
And all is ice and blackness, — and the earth 
That which it was the moment ere our birth. 



II. 

There is no hope for nations I — Search the page 

Of many thousand years — the daily scene, • 
The flow and ebb of each recurring age, 
The everlasting to he which hath been, 
Hath taught us nought or little : still we lean 
On things that rot beneath our weight, and wear 
Our strength away in wrestling with the air ; 
For 'tis our nature strikes us down : the beasts 
Slaughter'd in hourly hecatombs for feasts 
Are of as high an order — ^they must go 
Even where their driver goads them, though to 

slaughter. 
Ye men, who pour your blood for kings as water. 
What have they given your children in return ? 
A heritage of servitude and woes, 
A blindfold bondage, where your hire is blows. 
What ! do not yet the red-hot ploughshares burn, 
O'er which you stumble in a false ordeal. 
And deem this proof of loyalty the real; 
Kissing the hand that guides you to your scars, 
And glorying as you tread the glowing bars ? 
All that your sires have left you, all that Time 
Bequeaths of free, and History of sublime, 
Spring from a difierent theme ! — Ye see and read, 
Admire and sigh, and then succumb and bleed I 
Save the few spirits who, despite of all, 
And worse than all, the sudden crimes engender'd 
By the down-thundering of the prison wall. 
And thirst to swallow the sweet waters tender'd, 
Gushing from Freedom's fountains — when the crowd, 
Madden'd with centuries of drought, are loud, 
And trample on each other to obtain 
The cup which brings oblivion of a chain 
Heavy and sore, — in which long yoked they plough 'd 
The sand, — or if there sprung the yellow grain, 
'Twas not for them, their necks were too much 

bow'd. 
And their dead palates chew'd the cud of pain : — 



. 



ODE ON VENICE. 



573 



Yes ! the few spirits — who, despite of deeds 
Which they abhor, confound not with the cause 
Those momentary starts from Nature's laws. 
Which, like the pestilence and earthquake, smite 
But for a term, then pass, and leave the earth 
With all her seasons to repair the blight 
With a few summers, and again put forth 
Cities and generations — fair, when free — 
For, Tyranny, there blooms no bud for thee ! 



III. 
Glory and Empire ! once upon these towers 

With Freedom — godlike Triad ! how ye sate ! 
The league of mightiest nations, in those hours 

When Venice was an en^^-, might abate, 

But did not quench, her spirit ; in her fate 
All were enwrapp'd : the feasted monarchs knew 

And loved their hostess, nor could learn to hate, 
Although they humbled — with the kingly few 
The many felt, for from all days and climes 
She was the voyager's worship ; — even her crimes 
Were of the softer order — born of Love, 
She drank no blood, nor fatten'd on the dead. 
But gladden'd where her harmless conquests spread ; 
For these restored the Cross, that from above 
Hallow'd her sheltering banners, which incessant 
Flew between earth and the unholy Crescent, 
Which, if it waned and dwindled. Earth may 

thank 
The city it has clothed in chains, which clank 
Now, creaking in the ears of those who owe 
The name of Freedom to her glorious struggles ; 
Yet she but shares with them a common woe. 
And call'd the "kingdom" of a conquering foe, — 
But knows what all — and, most of all, we know — 
With what set gilded terms a tyrant juggles ! 



IV. 

The name of Commonwealth is past and gone 

O'er the three fractions of the groaning globe ; 
Venice is crush'd, and Holland deigns to own 

A sceptre, and endures the purple robe ; 
If the free Switzer yet bestrides alone 
His chainless mountains, 'tis but for a time, 
For tyranny of late is cunning grown, 
And in its own good season tramples down 
The sparkles of our ashes. One great clime, 
Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean 
Are kept apart and nursed in the devotion 
Of Freedom, which their fathers fought for, and 
Bequeath'd — a heritage of heart and hand, 
And proud distinction from each other land. 
Whose sons must bow them at a monarch's motion, 
As if his senseless sceptre were a wand 
Full of the magic of exploded science — 
Still one great clime, in full and free defiance, 
Yet rears her crest, unconquer'd and sublime. 
Above the far Atlantic ! — She has taught 
Her Esau-brethren that the haughty flag. 
The floating fence of Albion's feebler crag, 
May strike to those whose red right hands have bought 
Eights cheaply earn'd with blood. — Still, still, for ever 
Better, though each man's life-blood were a river, 
That it should flow, and overflow, than creep 
Through thousand lazy channels in our veins, 
Damm'd like the dull canal with locks and chains, 
And moving, as a sick man in his sleep. 
Three paces, and then faltering : — better be 
Where the extinguish'd Spartans still are free. 
In their proud charnel of Thermopylae, 
Than stagnate in our marsh, — or o'er the deep 
Fly, and one current to the ocean add, 
One spirit to the souls our fathers had, 
One freeman more, America, to thee 1 



^f)t JKorgante ittaggiore 

OF PULCI.^ 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

The Morgante Maggiore, of the first canto of 
which this translation is ofiered, divides with the 
Orlando Innamorato the honor of having formed and 
suggested the style and story of Ariosto. The great 
defects of Boiardo were his treating too seriously the 
narratives of chivalry, and his harsh style. Ariosto, 



1 The following translation was executed at Eavenna, 
in February, 1820, and first saw the light in the pages of 
the unfortunate journal called " The Liberal." The merit of 
it, as Lord Byron over and over states in his letters, consists 
in the wonderful verbum pro verbo closeness of the version. 
It was, in fact, an exercise of skill in this art, and cannot 
be fairly estimated, without continuous reference to the ori- 
ginal Italian, which the reader will therefore now find placed 
opposite to the text. Those who want full information, and 
clear philosophical views, as to the origin of the romantic 
poetry of the Italians, will do well to read at length an 
article on that subject, from the pen of the late Ugo Foscolo, 
in the forty-second number of the Quarterly Keview. We 
extract from it the passage in which that learned writer 
applies himself more particularly to the Morgante of Pulci. 
After showing that all the poets of this class adopted as the 
groundwork of their fictions, the old wild materials which 
had for ages formed the stock in trade of the professed story- 
tellers,— in those days a class of persons holding the same place 
in Christendom, and more especially in Italy, which their 
brothers still maintain all over the East,— Foscolo thus pro- 
ceeds : — 

"The customary forms of the narrative all find a place in romantic 
poetry ; such are the sententious reflections suggested by the matters which 
he has just related, or arising in anticipation of those which he is about to 
relate, and which the story-teller always opens when he resumes his recita- 
tions; his defence of his own merits against the attacks of rivals in trade; 
and his formal leave-taking when he parts from his audience, and invites 
them to meet him again on the morrow. This method of winding up each 
portion of the poem is a favorite among the romantic poets ; who constantly 
finish their cantos with a distich, of which the words may vary, but the 
sense is uniform. 

' Air altro canto ve fard sentire, 

Se air altro canto mi verrete a udire.'— Ariosto. 

Or at the end of another canto, according to Harrington's translation, — 

' I now cut off abruptly here my rhyme. 
And keep my tale unto another time." 

"The forms and materials of these popular stories were adopted by 
writers of a superior class, who considered the vulgar tales of their prede- 
cessors as blocks of marble finely tinted and variegated by the hand of 
nature, but which might aflbrd a masterpiece, when tastefully worked and 
polished. The romantic poets treated the traditionary fictions just as Dante 
did the legends invented by the monks to maintain their mastery over weak 
minds. He formed them into a poem, which became the admiration of 
every age and nation ; but Dante and Petraroa were poets, who, though 
universally celebrated, were not universally understood. The learned 
found employment in writing comments upon their poems ; but the nation, 
without even excepting the higher ranks, knew them only by name. At 
the beginning of the fifteenth century, a few obscure authors began to write 
romances In prose and in rhyme, taking for their subject the wars of Char- 

(674) 



in his continuation, by a judicious mixture of thd 
gayety of Pulci, has avoided the one ; and Berni, in 
his reformation of Boiardo's poem, has corrected the 
other. Pulci may be considered as the precursor 
and model of Berni altogether, as he has partly been 
to Ariosto, however inferior to both his copyists. He 
is no less the founder of a new style of poetry very 
lately sprung up in England. I allude to that of 



lemagne and Orlando, or sometimes the adventures of Arthur and the 
Knights of the Round Table. These works were so pleasing, that they were 
rapidly multiplied : but the bards of romance cared little about style or ver- 
sification, — they sought for adventures, and enchantments, and miracles. 
We here obtain at least a partial explanation of the rapid decline of Italian 
poetry, and the amazing corruption of the Italian language, which took 
place immediately after the death of Petrarch, and which proceeded from 
bad to worse until the era of Lorenzo de' Medici. 

" It was then that Pulci composed his Morgante for the amusement of 
Madonna Lucrezia, the mother of Lorenzo ; and he used to recite it at table 
to Ficino, and Politian, and Lorenzo, and the other illustrious characters 
who then flourished at Florence : yet Pulci adhered strictly to the original 
plan of the popular story-tellers ; and if his successors have embellished 
them so that they can scarcely be recognized, it is certain that in no other 
poem can they be found so genuine and native as in the Morgante. Pulci 
accommodated himself, though sportively, to the genius of his age ; classi- 
cal taste and sound criticism began to prevail, and great endeavors were 
making by the learned to separate historical truth from the chaos of fable 
and tradition ; so that, though Pulci introduced the most extravagant fables, 
he afl'ected to complain of the errors of his predecessors. ' I grieve,' he said, 
' for my emperor Charlemagne : for I see that his history has been badly 
written and worse understood.' 

' E del mio Carlo imperador m' increbbe ; 
E' stata questa istoria, a quel ch' io veggio, 
Di Carlo, male intesa e scritta peggio.' 

" And whilst he quotes the great historian Leonardo Aretino with respect, 
he professes to believe the authority of the holy Archbishop Turpin, who is 
also one of the heroes of the poem. In another passage, where he imitates 
the apologies of the story-tellers, he makes a neat allusion to the taste of 
his audience. ' I know,' he says, ' that I must proceed straightforward, and 
not tell a single lie in the course of my tale. This is not a story of mere 
invention : and if I go one step out of the right road, one chastises, another 
criticises, a third scolds— they try to drive me mad— but in fact they are out 
of their senses. 

" Pulci's versification is remarkably fluent. Yet he is deficient in melody; 
his language is pure, and his expressions flow naturally ; but his phrases 
are abrupt and unconnected, and he frequently writes ungrammatically. 
His vigor degenerates into harshness ; and his love of brevity prevents the 
development of his poetical imagery. He bears all the marks of rude 
genius ; he was capable of delicate pleasantry, yet his smiles are usually 
bitter and severe. His humor never arises from points, but from unexpected 
situations strongly contrasted. The emperor Charlemagne sentences King 
Marsilius of Spain to be hanged for high treason ; and Archbishop Turpia 
kindly offers his services on the occasion. 

' E' disse : Io vo', Marsilio, che tu muoja 
Dove tu ordinasti il tradimento. 
Disse Turpino : Io voglio fare il boja. 
Carlo rispose : Ed io son ben contento 
Che sia trattato di questi due can! 
L' opera santa con le sante mani.' 

" Here we have an emperor superintending the execution of a king, who 
is hanged in the presence of a vast multitude, all of whom are greatly edi- 
fied at beholding an archbishop oflSciating in the character of a finisher of 
the law. Before this adventure took place, Caradoro had despatched aa 



MORGANTE MAGGIORE. 



575 



the ingenious Whistlecraft. The serious poems on 
Roncesvalles in the same language, and more par- 
ticularly the excellent one of Mr. Merivale, are to 
be traced to the same source. It has never yet been 
decided entirely whether Pulci's intention was or 
was not to deride the religion which is one of his 
favorite topics. It appears to me, that such an in- 
tention would have been no less hazardous to the 
poet than to the priest, particularly in that age and 
country; and the permission to publish the poem, 
and its reception among the classics of Italy, prove 
that it neither was nor is so interpreted. That he 
intended to ridicule the monastic life, and suffered 
his imagination to play with the simple dullness of 
his converted giant, seems evident enough; but 



ambassador to the emperor, complaining of the shameful conduct of a wicked 
Paladin, who had seduced the princess his daughter. The orator does not 
present himself with modern diplomatic courtesy. 

' Macon t' abbatta come traditore, 

O disleale e ingiusto imperadore ! 
A Caradoro 6 stato scritto, O Carlo, 

O Carlo ! Carlo I (e crollava la testa) 

De la tua corte, che non puoi negarlo, 

De la sua figlia cosa disonesta.' 
' " O Charles," he cried, " Charles, Charles 1"— and as he cried 
He shook his head — " a sad complaint I bring 
Of shameful acts which cannot be denied : 
King Caradore has ascertained the thing. 
Which comes moreover proved and verified 
Et letters from your own side of the water 
Respecting the behavior of his daughter." ' 

" Such scenes may appear somewhat strange ; but Caradoro's embassy, 
and the execution of King Marsilius, are told in strict conformity to the 
notions of the common people, and as they must still be described if we 
wished to imitate the popular storv- tellers. If Pulci be occasionally refined 
and delicate, his snatches of amenity resulted from the national character 
of the Florentines, and the revival of letters. But at the same time, we 
most trace to national character, and to the influence of his daily compan- 
ions, the buffoonery which, in the opinion of foreigners, frequently disgraces 
the poem. M. Gingu6n6 has criticised Pulci in the usual style of his coun- 
trymen. He attributes modern manners to ancient times, and takes it for 
granted that the individuals of every other nation think and act like 
modern Frenchmen. On these principles, he concludes that Pulci, both 
with respect to his subject and his mode of treating it, intended only to 
write burlesque poetry ; because, as he says, such buffoonery could not have 
been introduced into a composition recited to Lorenzo de' Medici and his en- 
lightened guests, if the author had intended to be in earnest. In the fine 
portrait of Lorenzo given by Machiavelli at the end of his Florentine his- 
tory, the historian complains that he took more pleasure in the company of 
jesters and buffoons than beseemed such a man. It is a little singular that 
Benedetto Varchi, a contemporary historian, makes the same complaint of 
Machiavelli himself. Indeed, many known anecdotes of Machiavelli, no 
leas than his fugitive pieces, prove that it was only when he was acting the 
statesman that he wished to be grave ; and that he could laugh like other 
men when he laid aside his dignity. We do not think he was in the wrong. 
Bat, whatever opinion may be formed on the subject, we shall yet be forced 
to conclude that great men may be compelled to blame the manners of their 
times, without being able to withstand their influence. In other respects, 
the poem of Pulci is serious, both in subject and in tone. And here we 
shall repeat a general observation, which we advise our readers to apply to 
all the romantic poems of the Italians — That their comic humor arises fro^m 
the contrast hettceen the constant endeavors of the writers to adhere to the 
forms and suhjects of the popular story-tellers, and the efforts made at the 
tame time hy the genius of these writers to render such materials interesting 
mnd sublime. 

" This simple elucidation of the causes of the poetical character of the 
Morgante has been overlooked by the critics ; and they have therefore dis- 
puted with great earnestness during the last two centuries, whether the 
Morgante is written in jest or earnest; and whether Pulci is not an atheist, 
who wrote in verse for the express purpose of scoflRng at all religion. Mr. 
Merivale inclines, in his Orlando In Eoncesvalles, to the opinion of M. Gin- 
gn6n6, that the Morgante Is decidedly to be considered as a burlesque poem, 
mnd a satire against the Christian religion. Yet Mr. Merivale himself ac- 
knowledges that it 13 wound up with a tragical effect, and dignified by religious 
sentiment; and is therefore forced to 'leave the question amongst the un- 



surely it were as unjust to accuse him of irreligion 
on this account, as to denounce Fielding for his 
Parson Adams, Barnabas, Thwackum, Supple, and 
the Ordinary in Jonathan Wild,— or Scott, for the 
exquisite use of his Covenanters in the "Tales of 
my Landlord." 

In the following translation I have used the liberty 
of the original with the proper names ; as Pulci uses 
Gan, Ganellon, or Ganellone ; Carlo, Carlomagno, or 
Carlomano; Rondel, or Rondello, &c., as it suits his 
convenience ; so has the translator. In other respects 
the version is faithful to the best of the translator's 
ability in combining his interpretation of the one 
language with the not very easy task of reducing it 
to the same versification in the other. The reader. 



explained, and perhaps inexplicable, phenomena of the human mind.' If 
a similar question had not been already decided, both in regard to Shak- 
speare and to Ariosto, it might be still a subject of dispute whether the former 
intended to write tragedies, and whether the other did not mean to burlesque 
his heroes. It is a happy thing that, with regard to those two great writers, 
the war has ended by the fortunate intervention of the general body of read- 
ers, who, on such occasions, form their judgment with less erudition and 
with less prejudice than the critics. But Pulci is little read, and his age is 
little known. We are told by Mr. Merivale, that ' the points of abstruse 
theology are discussed in the Morgante with a degree of skeptical freedom 
which we should imagine to be altogether remote from the spirit of the fif- 
teenth century." Mr. Merivale follows M. Gingu^ne, who follows Voltaire. 
And the philosopher of Ferney, who was always beating up in all quarters for 
allies against Christianity, collected all the scriptural passages of Pulci, upon 
which he commented in his own way. But it is only since the Council of 
Trent, that any doubt which might be raised on a religious dogma exposed 
an author to the charge of impiety ; whilst, in the fifteenth century, a Cath- 
olic might be sincerely devout, and yet allow himself a certain degree of 
latitude in theological doubt. At one and the same time the Florentines 
might well believe in the gospel and laugh at a doctor of divinity : for it was 
exactly at this era that they had been spectators of the memorable contro- 
versies between the representatives of the eastern and western churches. 
Greek and Latin bishops from every corner of Christendom had assembled 
at Florence for the purpose of trying whether they could possibly understand 
each other ; and when they separated, they hated each other worse than be- 
fore. At the very time when P\ilci was composing his Morgante, the clergy 
of Florence protested against the excommunications pronounced by Sixtus 
IV., and with expressions by which his holiness was anathcmatizoJ in Ms 
turn. During these proceedings, an archbishop, convicted of being a pap;il 
emissary, was hanged from one of the windows of the government palace at 
Florence : this event may have suggested to Pulci the idea of converting 
another archbishop into a hangman. The romantic poets substituted liter- 
ary and scientific observations for the trivial digressions of the story-tellers. 
This was a great improvement ; and although it was not well managed by 
Pulci, yet he presents us with much curious incidental matter. In quotin? 
his philosophical friend and contemporary Matteo Palmieri, he explains the 
instinct of brutes by a bold hypothesis— he supposes that they are animated 
by evil spirits. This idea gave no offence to the theologians of the fifteenth 
century ; but it excited much orthodox indignation when Father Bougeant, 
a French monk, brought it forward as a new theory of his own. Mr. Meri- 
vale, after observing that Pulci died before the discovery of America by 
Columbus, quotes a passage ' which will become a very interesting document 
for the philosophical historian.' We give it in his prose translation :— ' Tlie 
water is level through its whole extent, although, like the earth, it has the 
form of a globe. Mankind in those ages were much more ignorant than now. 
Hercules would blush at this day for having fixed his columns. Vessels will 
soon pass far beyond them. They may soon reach another hemisphere, be- 
cause every thing tends to its centre ; in like manner as, by a divine mys- 
tery, the earth is suspended in the midi-t of the stars ; here below are cities 
and empires, which were ancient. The iuhabitants of those regions were 
called Antipodes. They have plants and animals as well as you, and wage 
wars as well as you." — Morgante, c. xxv. st. 229, &c. 

" The more we consider the traces of ancient science, which break in 
transient flashes through the darkness of the middle ages, and which grad- 
ually reilluminated the horizon, the more shall we be disposed to adopt the 
hypothesis suggested by Bailly, and supported by him with seductive elo- 
quence. He maintained that all the acquirements of the Greeks and 
Romans had been transmitted to them as the wrecks and fragments of the 
knowledge once possessed by primeval nations, by empires of sages and 
philosophers, who were afterwards swept from the face of the globe by some 
overwhelming catastrophe. His theory may be considered as extravagant ; 



576 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



on comparing it with the original, is requested to 
remember that the antiquated language of Pulci, 
however pure, is not easy to the generality of Italians 
themselves, from its great mixture of Tuscan prov- 
erbs; and he may therefore be more indulgent to 
the present attempt. How far the translator has 
succeeded, and whether or no he shall continue the 
work, are questions which the public will decide. 
He was induced to make the experiment partly by 
his love for, and partial intercourse with, the Italian 
language, of which it is so easy to acquire a slight 
knowledge, and with which it is so nearly impossible 



but if the literary productions of the Romans were not yet extant, it would 
seem incredible, that, after the lapse of a few centuries, the civilization of 
the Augustan age could have been succeeded in Italy by such barbarity. The 
Italians were so ignorant, that they forgot their family names ; and before 
the eleventh century individuals were known only by their Christian names. 
They had an indistinct idea, in the middle ages, of the existence of the an- 
tipodes ; but it was a reminiscence of ancient knowledge. Dante has indi- 
cated the number and positions of the stars composing the polar constella- 
tion of the Austral hemisphere. At the same time he tells us, that when 
Lucifer was hurled from the celestial regions, the arch-devil transfixed the 
globe ; half his body remained on our side of the centre of the earth, and 
half on the other side. The shock given to the earth by his fall drove a 
great portion of the waters of the ocean to the southern hemisphere, and 
only one high mountain remained uncovered, upon which Dante places his 
purgatory. As the fall of Lucifer happened before the creation of Adam, 
it is evident that Dante did not admit that the southern hemisphere had 
ever been inhabited ; but, about thirty years afterwards, Petrarch, who was 
better versed in the ancient writers, ventured to hint that the sun shone 
upon mortals who were unknown to us. 

' Nella stagion che il ciel rapido inchina 
Vers' occidente, e che il di nostro vola 
A gente che di la forse V aspetta.' 

" In the course of half a century after Petrarch, another step was gained. 
The existence of the antipodes was fully demonstrated. Pulci raises a devil 
to announce the fact ; but it had been taught to him by his fellow citizen 
Paolo Toscanelli, an excellent astronomer and mathematician, who wrote in 
his old age to Christopher Columbus, exhorting him to undertake his expe- 
dition. A few stanzas have been translated by Mr. Merivale, with some 
slight variations, which do not wrong the original. They may be considered 
as a specimen of Pulci's poetry, when he writes with imagination and feel- 
ing. Orlando bids farewell to his dying horse. 

' His faithful steed, that long had served him well 
In peace and war, now closed his languid eye, 
KneeVd at his feet, and seem'd to say " Farewell! 
I've brought thee to the destined port, and die." 
Orlando felt anew his sorrows swell 
When he beheld his Brigliadoro lie 
Stretch'd on the field, that crystal fount beside, 
Stiffen'd his limbs, and cold his warlike pride : 

And, " my much-loved steed, my generous friend, 
Companion of my better years !" he said ; 
" And have I lived to see so sad an end 
Of all thy toils, and thy brave spirit fled ? 
O pardon me, if e'er I did offend 
With hasty wrong that mild and faithful head!"— 
Just then, his eyes a momentary light 
Plash'd quick ; — then closed again in endless night.' 

" When Orlando is expiring on the field of battle, an angel 
him, and promises that Alda his wife shall join him in paradise, 

' Bright with eternal youth and fadeless bloom, 
Thine Aldabella thou shalt behold once more. 
Partaker of a bliss beyond the tomb 
With her whom Sinai's holy hills adore, 
Crown'd with fresh flowers, whose color and perfume 
Surpass what Spring's rich bosom ever bore— 
Thy mourning widow here she will remain, 
And be in Heaven thy joyful spouse again.' 



for a foreigner to become accurately conversant. The 
Italian language is like a capricious beauty, who 
accords her smiles to all, her favors to few, and 
sometimes least to those who have courted her 
longest. The translator wished also to present in 
an English dress a part at least of a poem never 
yet rendered into a northern language ; at the same 
time that it has been the original of some of the 
most celebrated productions on this side of the 
Alps, as well as of those recent experiments in 
poetry in England which have been already men- 
tioned. 



" Whilst the soul of Orlando was soaring to heaven, a soft and plaintive 
strain was heard, and angelic voices joined in celestial harmony. They 
sang the psalm, 'When Israel went out of Egypt;' and the singers were 
known to be angels from the trembling of their wings. 

' Poi si senti con un suon dolce e fiooo 
Certa armonia con si soavi accenti 
Che ben parea d' angelici stromenti. 
****** 

V» exitu Israel, cantar, de JBgypto, 
Sentito fu dagli angeli solenne ^ 

Che si conobbe al tremolar le penne.' 

" Dante has inserted passages from the Vulgate in his Divina Commedia ; 
and Petrarch, the most religious of poets, quotes Scripture even when he is 
courting. Yet they were not accused of impiety. Neither did Pulci incur 
the danger of a posthumous excommunication until after the Reformation, 
when Pius V. (a Dominican, who was turned into a saint by a subsequent 
pope) promoted the welfare of holy mother church by burning a few wicked 
books, and hanging a few troublesome authors. The notion that Pulci was 
in the odor of heresy influenced the opinion of Milton, who only speaks of 
the Morgante as a ' sportful romance.' Milton was anxious to prove that 
Catholic writers had ridiculed popish divines, and that the Bible had been 
subjected to private judgment, notwithstanding the popes had prohibited 
the reading of it. His ardor did not allow him to stop and examine whether 
this prohibition might not be posterior to the death of Pulci. Milton had 
studied Pulci to advantage. The knowledge which he ascribes to his devils, 
their despairing repentance, the lofty sentiments which he bestows upon 
some of them, and, above all, the principle that, notwithstanding their 
crime and its punishment, they retain the grandeur and perfection of angelic 
nature, are all to be found in the Morgante as well as in Paradise Lost. 
Ariosto and Tasso have imitated other passages. When great poets borrow 
from their inferiors in genius, they turn their acquisitions to such advan- 
tage that it is difficult to detect their thefts, and still more difacult to blame 
them. 

" The poem is filled with kings, knights, giants, and devils. There are 
many battles and many duels. Wars rise out of wars, and empires are con- 
quered in a day. Pulci treats us with plenty of magic and enchantment. 
His love adventures are not peculiarly interesting ; and, with the exception 
of four or five leading personages, his characters are of no moment. The 
fable turns wholly upon the hatred which Granellon, the felon knight of 
Maganza, bears towards Orlando and the rest of the Christian Paladins. 
Charlemagne is easily practiced upon by Ganellon, his prime confidant and 
man of business. So he treats Orlando and his friends in the most scurvy 
manner imaginable, and sends them out to hard service in the wars against 
France. Ganellon is despatched to Spain to treat with King Marsilius, 
being also instructed to obtain the cession of a kingdom for Orlando ; but 
he concerts a treacherous device with the Spaniards, and Orlando is killed 
at the battle of Roncesvalles. The intrigues of Ganellon, his spite, bis 
patience, his obstinacy, his dissimulation, his affected humility, and his 
inexhaustible powers of intrigue, are admirably depicted ; and his char- 
acter constitutes the chief and finest feature in the poem. Charlemagne 
is a worthy monarch, but easily gulled. Orlando is a real here, chaste and 
disinterested, and who fights in good earnest for the propagation of the 
faith. He baptizes the giant Morgante, who afterwards serves him like a 
faithful squire. There is another giant, whose name is Margutte. Mor- 
gante falls in with Margutte ; and they become sworn brothers. Margutte 
is a very infidel giant, ready to confess his failings, and full of drollery. He 
sets all a-laughing, readers, giants, devils, and heroes ; and he finishes his 
by laughing till he bursts." 



MORGANTE MAGGIORE. 



577 



$1 iHorgante ilHaggicre. 



CANTO PKIMO. 



I. 

In principio era il Verbo appresso a Dip ; 
Ed era Iddio il Yerbo, e '1 Yerbo lui : 
Questo era nel principio, al parer mio ; 
E nulla si puo far sanza costui : 
Pero, giusto Signor benigno e pio, 
Mandami solo un de gli angeli tui, 
Che m' accompagni, e recbimi a memoria 
Una famosa antica e degna storia. 

II. 
E tu Vergine, figlia, e madre, e sposa 
Di quel Signor, che ti dette le cbiave 
Del cielo e dell' abisso, e d' ogni cosa, 
Quel di cbe Gabriel tuo ti disse Ave ! 
Perchg tu se' de tuo' servi pietosa. 
Con dolce rime, e stil grato e soave, 
Ajuta i versi miei benignamente, 
E 'rifino al fine allumina la mente. 

III. 
Era nel tempo, quando Filomena 
Con la sorella si lamenta e plora, 
Che si ricorda di sua antica pena, 
E pe' boschetti le ninfe innamora 
E Febo il carro temperato mena, 
Che '1 suo Fetonte 1' ammaestra ancora ; 
Ed appariva appunto all' orizzonte, 
Tal che Titon si graffiava la fronte. 

lY. 
Quand' io varai la mia barchetta, prima 
Per ubbidir chi sempre ubbidir debbe 
La mente, e faticarsi in prosa e in rima, 
E del mio Carlo Imperador m' increbbe ; 
Che so quanti la penna ha posto in cima, 
Che tutti la sua gloria prevarrebbe : 
E stata quella istoria, a quel ch' i' veggio, 
Di Carlo male intesa, e scritta peggio. 

Y. 
Diceva gi^ Lionardo Aretino, 
Che 8* egli avesse avuto scrittor degno, 
Com' egli ebbe un Ormanno il suo Pipino 
Ch' avesse diligenzia avuto e ingegno ; 
Sarebbe Carlo Magno un uom divino ; 
Per6 ch' egli ebbe gran vittorie e regno, 
E fece per la chiesa e per la fede 
Certo assai piu, che non si dice o crede. 



^ " About the Morgante Maggiore, I won't have a line 

omitted. It may circulate or it may not, but all the criticism 

on earth sha'n't touch a line, unless it be because it is badly 

translated. Now you say, and I say, and others say, that the 

37 



Kf^e i^lorgante JHaggiore,* 



CANTO THE FIRST. 



In the beginning was the Word next God ; 

God was the Word, the Word no less was he : 
This was in the beginning, to my mode 

Of thinking, and without him nought could be : 
Therefore, just Lord ! from out thy high abode, 

Benign and pious, bid an angel flee. 
One only, to be my companion, who 
Shall help my famous, worthy, old song through. 

II. 

And thou, oh, Yirgin ! daughter, mother, bride 
Of the same Lord, who gave to you each key 

Of heaven, and hell, and everything beside. 
The day thy Gabriel said "All hail!" to thee, 

Since to thy servants pity's ne'er denied, 

With flowing rhymes, a pleasant style and free, 

Be to my verses then benignly kind. 

And to the end illuminate my mind. 

III. 

'Twas in the season when sad Philomel 
Weeps with her sister, who remembers and 

Deplores the ancient woes which both befell. 
And makes the nymphs enamor'd, to the hand 

Of Phaeton by Phoebus loved so well 

His car (but temper'd by his sire's command) 

Was given, and on the horizon's verge just now 

Appear'd, so that Tithonus scratch'd his brow: 

lY. 

When I prepared my bark first to obey, 
As it should still obey, the helm, my mind, 

And carry prose or rhyme, and this my lay 
Of Charles the Emperor, whom you will find 

By several pens already praised ; but they 
Who to diffuse his glory were inclined, 

For all that I can see in prose or verse. 

Have understood Charles badly, and wrote worse. 

V. 

Leonardo Aretino said already, 

That if, like Pepin, Charles had had a writer 
Of genius quick, and diligently steady, 

No hero would in history look brighter ; 
He in the cabinet being always ready. 

And in the field a most victorious fighter. 
Who for the church and Christian faith had wrought, 
Certes, far more than yet is said or thought. 



translation is a good one, and so it shall go to press as it is. 
Pulci must answer for his own irreligion : I answer for the trans- 
lation only." — Lord Byron to Mr. Murray, 1820. — "Why don't 
you publish my Pulci,— the best thing I ever wrote."— 76. 1821. 



578 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



VI. 

Guardisi ancora a san Liberatore 
Quella badia la presso a Manoppello, 
Giu ne gli Abbruzzi fatta per suo onore, 
Dove fu la battaglia e '1 gran flaggello 
D' un re pagan, che Carlo imperadore 
Uccise, e tanto del suo popol fello : 
E vedesi tante ossa, e tanto il sanno, 
Che tutte in Giusaff^ poi si vedranno. 

VII. 

Ma il mondo cieco e ignorante non prezza 
Le sue virtil, com' io vorrei vedere : 
E tu, Fiorenza, de la sua grandezza 
Possiedi, e sempre potrai possedere 
Ogni costume ed ogni gentilezza 
Che si potesse aquistare o avere 
Col senno col tesoro o con la lancia 
Dal nobil sangue e venuto di Francia. 

VIII. 

Dodici paladini aveva in corte 
Carlo ; e '1 piu savio a famoso era Orlando 
Gan traditor lo condusse a la morte 
In Roncisvalle un trattato ordinando ; 
L&, dove il corno sono tanto forte 
Dopo la dolorosa rotta, quando 
Ne la sua commedia Dante qui dice, 
E mettelo con Carlo in ciel felice. 

IX. 

Era per Pasqua quella di: natale : 
Carlo la corte avea tutta in Parigi : 
Orlando, com' io dico, il principale 
Evvi, il Danese, Astolfo, e Ansuigi : 
Fannosi feste e cose trionfale, 
E mo] to celebravan San Dionigi ; 
Angiolin di Bajona, ed Ulivieri 
V era venuto, e '1 gentil Berlinghieri. 

X. 

Eravi Avolio ed Avino ed Ottone, 
Di Normandia, Riccardo Paladino, 
E '1 savio Namo, e '1 vecchio Salamone, 
Gualtier da Monlione, e Baldovino 
Ch 'era figliuol del tristo Ganellone. 
Troppo lieto era il figliuol di Pipino ; 
Tanto che spesso d' allegrezza geme 
Veggendo tutti i paladini insieme. 

XI. 

^la la Fortuna attenta sta nascosa, 
Per guastar sempre ciascun nostro effetto : 
Mentre che Carlo cosi si riposa, 
Orlando governava in fatto e in detto 
La corte e Carlo Magno ed ogni cosa : 
Gan per invidia scoppia il maladetto, 
E cominciava un di con Carlo a dire : 
Abbiam noi sempre Orlando ad ubbidire ? 



VI. 

You still may see at Saint Liberatore 
The abbey, no great way from Manopell, 

Erected in the Abruzzi to his glory, 
Because of the great battle in which fell 

A pagan king, according to the story. 

And felon people whom Charles sent to hell : 

And there are bones so many, and so many, 

Near them Giusa£fa's would seem few, if any. 

VII. 

But the world, blind and ignorant, don't prize 
His virtues as I wish to see them : thou, 

Florence, by his great bounty don't arise, 
And hast, and may have, if thou wilt allow, 

All proper customs and true courtesies : 

Whate'er thou hast acquired from them till now, 

"With knightly courage, treasure, or the lance, 

Is sprung from out the noble blood of France. 

VIII. 
Twelve paladins had Charles in court, of whom 

The wisest and most famous was Orlando ; 
Him traitor Gan conducted to the tomb 

In Boncesvalles, as the villain plann'd to, 
While the horn rang so loud, and knell'd the doom 

Of their sad rout, though he did all knight can do : 
And Dante in his comedy has given 
To him a happy seat with Charles in heaven. 

IX. 

'Twas Christmas-day ; in Paris all his court 
Charles held ; the chief, I say, Orlando was, 

The Dane ; Astolfo there too did resort. 
Also Ansuigi, the gay time to pass 

In festival and in triumphal sport. 

The much-renown'd St. Dennis being the cause ; 

Angiolin of Bayonne, and Oliver, 

And gentle Belinghieri too came there. 



Avolio, and Arino, and Othone 

Of Normandy, and Richard Paladin, 

Wise Hamo, and the ancient Salamone, 
Walter of Lion's Mount, and Baldovin, 

Who was the son of the sad Ganellone, 
Were there, exciting too much gladness in 

The son of Pepin : — when his knights came hither, 

He groan'd with joy to see them all together. 

XL 

But watchful Fortune, lurking, takes good heed 
Ever some bar 'gainst our intents to bring : 

While Charles reposed him thus, in word and deed, 
Orlando ruled court, Charles, and everything ; 

Curst Gan, with envy bursting, had such need 
To vent his spite, that thus with Charles the king 

One day he openly began to say, 

" Orlando must we always then obey ? 






MOEGANTE MAGGIOEE. 



579 



XII. 

lo ho creduto mille volte dirti : 
Orlando ha iu se troppa presiinzione : 
Noi siam qui conti, re, duchi a servirti, 
E Namo, Ottone, Uggieri e Salamone, 
Per onorarti ognun, per ubbidirti : 
Che costui abbi ogni reputazione 
Nol sofferrem ; ma siam deliberati 
Da un fanciullo non esser governati. 

XIII. 
Tu cominciasti insino in Aspramonte 
A dargli a intender che fusse gagliardo, 
E facesse gran cose a quella fonte ; 
Ma se non fusse stato il buon Gherardo, 

10 so che la vittoria era d' Almonte : 

Ma egli ebbe sempre 1' occhio a lo stendardo ; 
Che si voleva quel di coronarlo : 
Questo § colui ch' ha meritato, Carlo. 

XIV. 

Se ti ricorda gi^ sendo in Guascogna, 
Quando e' vi venne la gente di Spagna, 

11 popol de' cristiani avea vergogna, 
Se non mostrava la sua forza magna. 

II ver convien pur dir, quando e' bisogna : 
§appi ch' ognuno imperador si lagna : 
Quant' io per me, ripasserd que' monti 
Ch' io passai 'n qua con sessantaduo conti. 

XV. 

La tua grandezza dispensar si vuole, 
E far che ciascun abbi la sua parte : 
La corte tutta quanta se ne duole : 
Tu credi che costui sia forse Marte ? 
Orlando un giorno udi queste parole, 
Che si sedeva soletto iu disparte : 
Dispiacquegli di Gan quel che diceva ; 
Ma molto piu che Carlo gli credeva. 

XVI. 
E voile con la spada uccider Gano ; 
Ma Ulivieri in quel mezzo si mise, 
E Durlindana gli trasse di mano, 
E cosJ il me' che seppe gli divise. 
Orlando si sdegn6 con Carlo Mano, 
E poco men che quivi non 1' uccise ; 
E dipartissi di Parigi solo, 
E scoppia e 'mpazza di sdegno e di duolo. 

XVII. 
Ad Ermellina moglie del Danese 
Tolse Cortana, e poi tolse Rondello ; 
E 'n verso Brara il suo cammin poi prese. 
Alda la bella, come vide quello, 
Per abbracciarlo le braccia distese. 
Orlando, che ismarrito avea il cervello. 
Com' ella disse : ben venga il mio Orlando : 
Gli voile in su la testa dar col brando, 



XII. 

" A thousand times I've been about to say, 

Orlando too presumptuously goes on ; 
Here are we, counts, kings, dukes, to own thy sway, 

Hamo, and Otho, Ogier, Solomon, 
Each have to honor thee and to obey ; 

But he has too much credit near the throne, 
Which we won't suffer, but are quite decided 
By such a boy to be no longer guided. 

XIII. 

" And even at Aspramont thou didst begin 
To let him know he was a gallant knight, 

And by the fount did much the day to win ; 
But I know who that day had won the fight 

If it had not for good Gherardo been ; 

The victory was Almonte's else ; his sight 

He kept upon the standard, and the laurels 

In fact and fairness are his earning, Charles. 

XIV. 

" If thou rememberest being in Gascony, 
When there advanced the nations out of Spain, 

The Christian cause had suffer'd shamefully, 
Had not his valor driven them back again. 

Best speak the truth when there's a reason why : 
Know then, oh. Emperor ! that all complain : 

As for myself, I shall repass the mounts 

O'er which I cross'd with two and sixty counts. 

XV. 

" 'Tis fit thy grandeur should dispense relief, 
So that each here may have his proper part, 

For the whole court is more or less in grief: 
Perhaps thou deem'st this lad a Mars in heart ?" 

Orlando one day heard this speech in brief, 
As by himself it chanced he sate apart : 

Displeased he was with Gan because he said it, [credit. 

But much more still that Charles should give him 

XVI. 

And with the sword he would have murder'd Gan, 
But Oliver thrust in between the pair, 

And from his hand extracted Durlindan, 
And thus at length they separated were. 

Orlando, angry too with Carloman, 
Wanted but little to have slain him there ; 

Then forth alone from Paris went the chief, 

And burst and madden'd with disdain and grief. 

XVII. 
From Ermellina, consort of the Dane, 

He took Cortana, and then took Kondell, 
And on towards Brara prick'd him o'er the plain ; 

And when she saw him coming, Aldabelle 
Stretch'd forth her arms to clasp her lord again : 

Orlando, in whose brain all was not well. 
As " Welcome, my Orlando, home," she said, 
Raised up his sword to smite her on the head, 



580 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



XVIII. 

Come colui che la furia consiglia, 
Egli pareva a Gan dar veramente : 
Alda la bella si fe' maraviglia : 
Orlando si ravvide prestamente : 
E la sua sposa pigliava la briglia, 
. E scese dal caval subitamente : 
Ed ogni cosa narrava a costei, 
E riposossi alcun giorno con lei. 

XIX. 

Poi si parti portato dal furore, 
E termino passare in Pagania ; 
E mentre che cavalca, il traditore 
Di Gan sempre ricorda per la via : 
E cavalcando d' uno in altro errore, 
In un deserto truova una badia 
In luogbi oscuri e paesi lontani, 
Ch' era a' confin' tra cristiani e pagani. 

XX. 

L' abate si chiamava Chiaramonte, 
Era del sangue disceso d'Anglante 
Di sopra a la badia v' era un gran monte, 
Dove abitava alcun fiero gigante, 
De' quali uno avea nome Passamonte, 
JJ altro Alabastro, e '1 terzo era Morgante : 
Con certe frombe gittavan da alto, 
Ed ogni di facevan qualcbe assalto. 

XXI. 

I monachetti non potieno uscire 
Del monistero o per legne o per acque : 
Orlando picchia, e non volieno aprire, 
Fin che a 1' abate a la fine pur piacque ; 
Entrato drento cominciava a dire, 
Come colui, che di Maria giji nacque 
Adora, ed era cristian battezzato, 
E com' egli era a la badia arrivato. 

XXII. 

Disse V abate : il ben venuto sia 
Di quel ch' io ho volentier ti daremo, 
Poi che tu credi al figliuol di Maria ; 
E la cagi9n, cavalier, ti diremo, 
Accio che non 1' imputi a villania, 
Perche a 1' entrar resistenza facemo, 
E non ti voile aprir quel monachetto : 
Cos! intervien chi vive con sospetto. 

XXIII. 

Quando ci venni al principio abitare 
Queste montagne, benche sieno oscure 
Come tu vedi ; pur si potea stare 
Sanza sospetto, ch' ell' eran si cure : 
Sol da le fiere t' avevi a guardare ; 
Fernoci spesso di brutte paure ; 
Or ci bisogna, se vogliamo starci, 
Da le bestie dimestiche guardarci. 



XVIII. 
Like him a fury counsels ; his revenge 

On Gan in that rash act he seem'd to take, 
Which Aldabella thought extremely strange ; 

But soon Orlando found himself awake ; 
And his spouse took his bridle on this change, 

And he dismounted from his horse, and spake 
Of everything which pass'd without demur. 
And then reposed himself some days with her. 

i 

XIX. 

Then full of wrath departed from the place, 
And far as pagan countries roam'd astray, 

And while he rode, yet still at every pace 
The traitor Gan remember'd by the way ; 

And wandering on in error a long space. 
An abbey which in a lone desert lay, 

'Midst glens obscure, and distant lands, he found, 

Which form'd the Christian's and the pagan's bound. 

XX. 

The abbot was call'd Clermont, and by blood 
Descended from Anglante : under cover 

Of a great mountain's brow the abbey stood, 
But certain savage giants look'd him over; 

One Passamont was foremost of the brood. 
And Alabaster and Morgante hover 

Second and third, with certain slings, and throw 

In daily jeopardy the place below. 

XXI. 

The monks could pass the convent gate no more, 
Nor leave their cells for water or for wood ; 

Orlando knock'd, but none would ope, before 
Unto the prior it at length seem'd good ; 

Enter'd, he said that he was taught to adore 
Him who was born of Mary's holiest blood, 

And was baptized a Christian ; and then show'd 

How to the abbey he had found his road. 

XXII. 

Said the abbot, " You are welcome ; what is mine 
We give you freely, since that you believe 

With us in Mary Mother's Son divine ; 
And that you may not, cavalier, conceive 

The cause of our delay to let you in 
To be rusticity, you shall receive 

The reason why our gate was barr'd to you : 

Thus those who in suspicion live must do. 

XXIII. 

" When hither to inhabit first we came 
These mountains, albeit that they are obscure. 

As you perceive, yet without fear or blame 
They seem'd to promise an asylum sure : 

From savage brutes alone, too fierce to tame, 
'Twas fit our quiet dwelling to secure ; 

But now, if here we'd stay, we needs must guard 

Against domestic beasts with watch and ward. 



MOKGANTE MAGGIORE. 



581 



XXIV. 

Queste ci fan piuttosto stare a segno 
Sonci appariti tre fieri giganti, 
Non so di quel paese o di qual regno, 
Ma molto son feroci tutti quanti : 
La forza e '1 malvoler giunt' a lo 'ngegno 
Sai che pno '1 tutto ; e noi non siam bastanti : 
Questi perturban si 1' orazion nostra, 
Che non so piii che far, s' altri nol mostra. 

XXV. 

Gli antichi padri nostri nel deserto, 
Se le lor opre sante erano e giuste, 
Del ben servir da Dio n' avean buon merto ; 
N& creder sol vivessin di locuste : 
Piovea dal ciel la manna, questo e certo ; 
Ma qui convien che spesso assaggi e guste 
Sassi che piovon di sopra quel monte, 
Che gettano Alabastro e Passamonte. 

XXVI. 

E '1 terzo ch' 6 Morgante, assai piu fiero, 
Isveglie e pini e faggi e cerri e gli oppi, 
E gettagli infin qui : questo e pur vero; 
Non posso far che d 'ira non iscoppi. 
Mentre che parlan cost in cimitero, 
Un sasso par che Rondel quasi sgroppi ; 
Che da' giganti giu venne da alto 
Tanto, ch' e' prese sotto il tetto un salto. 

XXVII. 

Tirati drento, cavalier, per Dio, 
Disse 1' abate, che la manna casca. 
Risponde Orlando : caro abate mio, 
Costui non vuol che '1 mio caval piii pasca : 
Veggo che lo guarrebbe del restio : 
Quel sasso par che di buon braccio nasca. 
Rispose il santo padre : io non t' inganno, 
Credo che '1 monte un giorno gitteranno. 

XXVIII. 

Orlando governar fece Rondello, 
E ordinar per se da colazione : 
Poi disse : abate, io voglio andare a quello 
Che dette al mio caval con quel cantone. 
Disse 1' abate : come car fratello 
Consiglierotti sanza passione ? 
Io ti sconforto, baron, di tal gita ; 
Ch' io so che tu vi lascerai la vita. 

XXIX. 

Quel Passamonte porta in man tre dardi : 
Chi frorabe, chi baston, chi muzzafrusti ; 
Sai che giganti piii di noi gagliardi 
Son per ragion, che son anco piii giusti ; 
E pur se vuoi andar fa che ti guardi, 
Che questi son villan molto e robusti. 
Rispose Orlando : io lo vedr5 per certo ; 
Ed awiossi a pi6 su pel deserto. 



XXIV. 

" These make us stand, in fact, upon the watch ; 

For late there have appear'd three giants rough ; 
What nation or what kingdom bore the batch 

I know hot, but they are all of savage stuff; 
When force and malice with some genius match, 

You know, they can do all — we are not enough :- 
And these so much our orisons derange, 
I know not what to do, till matters change. 

XXV. 

" Our ancient fathers living the desert in, 
For just and holy works were duly fed; 

Think not they lived on locusts sole, 'tis certain 
That manna was rain'd down from heaven instead ; 

But here 'tis fit we keep on the alert in [bread, 

Our bounds, or taste the stones shower'd down for 

From off yon mountain daily raining faster, 

And flung by Passamont and Alabaster. 

XXVI. 

" The third, ]\j£organte, 's savagest by far ; he 
Plucks up pines, beeches, poplar-trees, and oaks. 

And flings them, our community to bury ; 
And all that I can do but more provokes." 

While thus they parley in the cemetery, 
A stone from one of their gigantic strokes. 

Which nearly crush'd Rondell, came tumbling over, 

So that he took a long leap under cover. 

XXVII. 

" For God-sake, cavalier, come in with speed ; 

The manna's falling now," the abbot cried. 
" This fellow does not wish my horse should feed, 

Dear abbot," Roland unto him replied. 
" Of restiveness he'd cure him had he need ; 

That stone seems with good will and aim applied." 
The holy father said, " I don't deceive ; 
They'll one day fling the mountain, I believe." 

XXVIII. 

Orlando bade them take care of Rondello, 
And also made a breakfast of his own : 

"Abbot," he said, "I want to find that fellow 
Who flung at my good horse yon corner stone." 

Said the abbot, " Let not my advice seem shallow ; 
As to a brother dear I speak alone ; 

T would dissuade you, baron, from this strife, 

As knowing sure that you will lose your life. 

XXIX. 

" That Passamont has in his hand three darts — [must ; 

Such slings, clubs, ballast-stones, that yield you 
You know that giants have much stouter hearts 

Than us, with reason, in proportion just ; 
If go you will, guard well against their arts, 

For these are very barbarous and robust." 
Orlando answer'd, " This I'll see, be sure, 
And walk the wild on foot to be secure." 



582 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



XXX. 

Disse 1' abate col segnarlo in fronte : 
Va, che da Dio e me sia benedetto. 
Orlando, poi che salito ebbe il monte 
Si dirizzo, come 1' abate detto 
Gli avea, dove sta quel Passamonte ; 
II quale Orlando veggendo soletto, 
Molto lo squadra di drieto e davante ; 
Poi domando, se star volea per fante ? 

XXXI. 

E' prometteva di farlo godere. 
Orlando disse : pazzo Saracino, 

10 vengo a te, com' e di Dio volere, 
Per darti morte, e non per ragazzino ; 
A' monaci suoi fatto hai dispiacere ; 
Non puo piu comportarti can mastino 
Questo gigante armar si corse a furia, 
Quando senti ch' e' gli diceva ingiuria, 

XXXII. 
E ritornato ove aspettava Orlando, 

11 qual non s' era partito da bomba ; 
Subito venne la corda girando, 

E lascia un sasso andar fuor de la fromba, 

Che in su la testa giugnea rotolando 

Al conte Orlando, e 1' elmetto rimbomba ; 

E' cadde per la pena tramortito ; 

Ma piu che morto par, tanto e stordito. 

XXXIII. 

Passamonte penso che fusse morto, 
E disse : io voglio andarmi a disarmare : 
Questo poltron per chi m' aveva scorto ? 
Ma Cristo i suoi non suole abbandonare, 
Massime Orlando, ch' egli arebbe il torto. 
Mentre il gigante 1' arme va a spogliare, 
Orlando in questo tempo si risente, 
E rivocava e la forza e la mente. 

XXXIV. 

E grido forte : gigante, ove vai ? 
Ben ti pensasti d' avermi ammazzato ! 
Volgiti a drieto, che, s' ale non hai, 
Non puoi da me fuggir, can rinnegato : 
A tradimento ingiuriato m' hai. 
Donde il gigante allor maravigliato 
Si volse a drieto, e riteneva il passo; 
Poi si chino per tor di terra un sasso. 

XXXV. 

Orlando avea Cortana ignuda in mano ; 
Trasse a la testa : e Cortana tagliava : 
Per mezzo il teschio parti del pagano, 
E Passamonte morto rovinava : 
E nel cadere il superbo e villano 
Divotamente Macon bestemmiava ; 
Ma mentre che bestemmia il crudo e acerbo, 
Orlando ringraziava il Padre e '1 Verbo. 



XXX. 

The abbot sign'd the great cross on his front, 
" Then go you with God's benison and mine :" 

Orlando, after he had scaled the mount. 
As the abbot had directed, kept the line 

Eight to the usual haunt of Passamont ; 
Who, seeing him alone in this design, 

Survey'd him fore and aft with eyes observant, 

Then ask'd him, " If he wish'd to stay as servant ?" 

XXXI. 

And promised him an office of great ease. 

But, said Orlando, " Saracen insane ! 
I come to kill you, if it shall so please 

God, not to serve as footboy in your train ; 
You with his monks so oft have broke the peace — 

Vile dog! 'tis past his patience to sustain." 
The giant ran to fetch his arms, quite furious, 
When he received an answer so injurious, 

XXXII. 

And being return'd to where Orlando stood. 

Who had not moved him from the spot, and swinging 

The cord, he hurl'd a stone with strength so rude, 
As show'd a sample of his skill in slinging ; 

It roll'd on Count Orlando's helmet good 
And head, and set both head and helmet ringing, 

So that he swoon'd with pain as if he died. 

But more than dead, he seem'd so stupefied. 

XXXIII. 

Then Passamont, who thought him slain outright, 
Said, " I will go, and while he lies along. 

Disarm me : why such craven did I fight ?" 
But Christ his servants ne'er abandons long, 

Especially Orlando, such a knight. 
As to desert would almost be a wrong. 

While the giant goes to put ofi" his defences, 

Orlando has recall'd his force and senses : 

XXXIV. 

And loud he shouted, " Giant, where dost go ? 

Thou thought'st me doubtless for the bier outlaid ; 
To the right about — without wings thou'rt too slow 

To fly my vengeance — currish renegade ! 
'Twas but by treachery thou laid'st me low." 

The giant his astonishment betray'd. 
And turn'd about, and stopp'd his journey on. 
And then he stoop'd to pick up a great stone. 

XXXV. 

Orlando had Cortana bare in hand ; 

To split the head in twain was what he schemed : 
Cortana clave the skull like a true brand. 

And pagan Passamont died unredeem'd. 
Yet harsh and haughty, as he lay he bann'd. 

And most devoutly Macon still blasphemed ; 
But while his crude, rude blasphemies he heard, 
Orlando thauk'd the Father and the Word, — 



MORGANTE MAGGIORE. 



583 



XXXVI. 

Dicendo : quanta grazia oggi m' ha' data ! 
Sempre ti sono, o signer mio, tenuto ; 
Per te conosco la vita salvata ; 
Pero che dal gigante era abbattuto : 
Ogni cosa a ragion fai misurata ; 
Non val nostro poter sanza il tiio ajuto. 
Priegoti, sopra me tenga la mano, 
Tanto che ancor ritorni a Carlo Mano. 

XXXVII. 

Poi ch' ebbe questo detto sen' andoe, 
Tanto che trouva Alabastro piii basso 
Che si sforzava, quando e' lo trovoe, 
Di sveglier d' una ripa fuori un masso. 
Orlando, com' e' giunse a quel, gridoe ; 
Che pensi tu, ghiotton, gittar quel sasso ? 
Quando Alabastro questo grido intende. 
Subitamente la sua fromba prende, 

XXXVIII. 

E' trasse d' una pietra molto grossa, 
Tanto ch' Orlando bisogno schermisse ; 
Che se 1' avesse giunto la percossa, 
Non bisognava il medico venisse. 
Orlando adopero poi la sua possa ; 
Nel pettignon tutta la spada misse : 
E morto cadde questo babalone, 
E non dimentico pero Maeone. 

XXXIX. 

Morgante aveva al suo modo un palagio 
Fatto di frasche e di schegge e di terra : 
Quivi, secondo lui, si posa ad agio ; 
Quivi la notte si rinchiude e serra. 
Orlando picchia, e daragli disagio, 
Perche il gigante dal sonno si sferra ; 
Vennegli aprir come una cosa matta ; 
Ch' un' aspra visione aveva fatta. 

XL. 

E' gli parea ch' un feroce serpente 
L' avea assalito, e chiamar Macometto ; 
Ma Macometto non valea niente : 
Ond' e' chiamava Gesu benedetto ; 
E liberato 1' avea finalmente. 
Venne alia porta, ed ebbe cosi detto ; 
Chi buzza qua ? pur sempre borbottando. 
Tu '1 saprai tosto, gli rispose Orlando. 

XLI. 

Vengo per farti, come a' tuo' fratelli, 
Far de' peccati tuoi la penitenzia, 
Da' monaci mandato, cattivelli, 
Come stato 5 divina providenzia; 
Pel mal ch' avete fatto a torto a quelli, 
E dato in ciel cosi questa sentenzia; 
Sappi, che freddo gia piii ch' un pilastro 
Lasciato ho Passamonte e '1 tuo Alabastro. 



XXXVI. 

Saying, " What grace to me thou'st this day given ! 

And I to thee, oh. Lord ! am ever bound. 
I know my life was saved by thee from heaven, 

Since by the giant I was fairly down'd. 
All things by thee are measured just and even ; 

Our power without thine aid would nought be 
I pray thee take heed of me, till I can [found : 

At least return once more to Carloman." 

XXXVII. 

And having said thus much, he went his way ; 

And Alabaster he found out below, 
Doing the very best that in him lay 

To root from out a bank a rock or two. 
Orlando, when he reach'd him, loud 'gan say, 

" How think'st thou, glutton, such a stone to throw ?" 
When Alabaster heard his deep voice ring, 
He suddenly betook him to his sling, 

XXXVIII. 

And hurl'd a fragment of a size so large. 
That if it had in fact fulfili'd its mission, 

And Roland not avail'd him of his targe, 
There would have been no need of a physician. 

Orlando set himself in turn to charge. 
And in his bulky bosom made incision 

With all his sword. The lout fell ; but o'erthrown, he 

However by no means forgot Maeone. 

XXXIX. 

Morgante had a palace in his mode, 

Composed of branches, logs of wood, and earth, 
And stretch'd himself at ease in this abode, 

And shut himself at night within his berth. 
Orlando knock'd, and knock'd again, to goad 

The giant from his sleep ; and he came forth 
The door to open, like a crazy thing, 
For a rough dream had shook him slumbering. 

XL. 

He thought that a fierce serpent had attack'd him ; 

And Mahomet he call'd ; but Mahomet 
Is nothing worth, and not an instant back'd him ; 

But praying blessed Jesu, he was set 
At liberty from all the fears which rack'd him ; 

And to the gate he came with great regret — 
" Who knocks here ?" grumbling all the while, said he. 
" That," said Orlando, " you will quickly see. 

XLI. 

" I come to preach to you, as to your brothers, 
Sent by the miserable monks — repentance; 

For Providence divine, in you and others, 

Condemns the evil done my new acquaintance. 

'Tis writ on high — your wrong must pay another's; 
From heaven itself is issued out this sentence. 

Know then, that colder now than a pilaster 

I left your Passamont and Alabaster." 



584 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



XLII. 

Disse Morgante : o gentil cavaliere, 
Per lo tuo Dio non mi dir villania : 
Di grazia il nome tuo vorrei sapere ; 
Se se' Cristian, deh dillo in cortesia. 
Rispose Orlando : di cotal mastiere 
Contenterotti per la fede naia : 
Adoro Cristo, ch' e Signor verace ; 
E puoi tu adorarlo, se ti place. 

XLIII. 
Rispose il Saracin con umil voce : 

10 ho fatto una strana visione, 
Che m' assaliva un serpente feroce : 
Non mi valeva per chiamar Macone ; 
Onde al tuo Dio che fu confitto in croce 
Rivolsi presto la mia intenzione : 

E' mi soccorse, e fui libero e sano, 
E son disposto al tutto esser Cristiano. 

XLIV. 

Rispose Orlando : baron giusto e pio, 
Se questo buon voler terra! nel core, 
L' anima tua arS, quel vero Dio 
Che ci puo sol gradir d' eterno onore : 
E s' tu vorrai, sarai compagno mio, 
E amerotti con perfetto amore : 
GF idoli vostri son bugiardi e vani ; 

11 vero Dio e lo Dio de' Cristiani. 

XLV. 

Venne questo Signor sanza peccato 
Ne la sua mad re vergine pulzella : 
Se conoscessi quel Signor beato, 
Sanza '1 qual non resplende sole o stella, 
Aresti gia Macon tuo rinnegato, 
E la sua fede iniqua ingiusta e fella : 
Battezzati al mio Dio di buon talento. 
Morgante gli risposo : io son content©. 

XLVI. 

E corse Orlando subito abbracciare : 
Orlando gran carezze gli facea, 
E disse : a la badia ti vo' menare. 
Morgante, andianci presto, respondea : 
Co' monaci la pace ci vuol fare. 
De la qual cosa Orlando in se godea, 
Dicendo ; fratel mio divoto e buono, 
lo vo che chiegga a 1' abate perdono. 

XLVII. 
Da poi che Dio ralluminato t' ha, 
Ed acettato per la sua umiltade ; 
Vuolsi che tu ancor usi umilt^,. 
Disse Morgante : per la tua bontade, 
Poi che il tuo Dio mio sempre omai sar^, 
Dimmio del nome tuo la veritade, 
Poi di me dispor puoi al tuo comando ; 
Ond' e' gli disse, com' egli era Orlando. 



XLII. 

Morgante said, " Oh, gentle cavalier ! 

Now by thy God say me no villainy ; 
The favor of your name I fain would hear, 

And if a Christian, speak for courtesy." 
Replied Orlando, " So much to your ear 

I by my faith disclose contentedly ; 
Christ I adore, who is the genuine Lord, 
And, if you please, by you may be adored." 

XLIII. 

The Saracen rejoin'd in humble tone, 
" I have had an extraordinary vision ; 

A savage serpent fell on me alone. 
And Macon would not pity my condition ; 

Hence to thy God, who for ye did atone 
Upon the cross, preferr'd I my petition ; 

His timely succor set me safe and free. 

And I a Christian am disposed to be." 

XLIV. 

Orlando answer'd, "Baron just and pious. 
If this good wish your heart can really move 

To the true God, you will not then deny us 
Eternal honor, you will go above, 

And, if you please, as friends we will ally us, 
And I will love you with a perfect love. 

Your idols are vain liars, full of fraud : 

The only true God is the Christian's God. 

XLV. 

" The Lord descended to the virgin breast 

Of Mary Mother, sinless and divine ; 
If you acknowledge the Redeemer blest. 

Without whom neither sun nor star can shine, 
Abjure bad Macon's false and felon test, 

Your renegado god, and worship mine, 
Baptize yourself with zeal, since you repent," 
To which Morgante answer'd, " I'm content." 

XLVI. 

And then Orlando to embrace him flew. 
And made much of his convert, as he cried, 

" To the abbey I will gladly marshal you." 
To whom Morgante, " Let us go," replied ; 

" I to the friars have for peace to sue." 
Which thing Orlando heard with inward pride, 

Saying, " My brother, so devout and good, 

Ask the abbot pardon, as I wish you would : 

XLVII. 

" Since God has granted your illumination. 

Accepting you in mercy for his own. 
Humility should be your first oblation." 

Morgante said, " For goodness' sake, make known- 
Since that your God is to be mine — your station. 

And let your name in verity be shown ; 
Then will I everything at your command do." 
On which the other said, he was Orlando. 



L 



MORGANTE MAGGIORE. 



585 



XLVIII. 

Disse il gigante : Gesu benedetto 
Per mille volte ringraziato sia ; 
Sentito t' ho nomar, baron perfetto, 
Per tutti i tempi de la vita mia : 
E, com' io dissi, sempremai siiggetto 
Esser ti vo' per la tua gagliardia. 
Insieme molte cose ragionaro, 
E 'n verso la badia poi s' inviaro. 

XLIX. 

E per la via da que' giganti morti 
Orlando con Morgaute si ragiona : 
De la lor morte vo' die ti conforti ; 
E poi che piace a Dio, a me perdona ; 
A' monaci avean fatto mille torti ; 
E la nostra scrittura aperto suona. 
II ben remunerato, e '1 mal punito ; 
E mai non ha questo Signor fallito, 



Per6 ch' egli ama la giustizia tanto, 
Che vuol, che sempre il suo giudicio morda 
Ognun ch' abbi peccato tanto o quanto ; 
E cosi il ben ristorar si ricorda : 
E non saria sinza giustizia santo : 
Adunque al suo voler presto t' accorda ; 
Che debbe ognun voler quel che vuol questo, 
Ed accordarsi volentieri e presto. 

LI. 

E sonsi i nostri dottori accordati, 
Pigliando tutti una couclusione, 
Che que che son nel ciel glorificati, 
S' avessin nel pensier compassione 
De' miseri parenti che dannati 
Son ne lo inferno in gran confusione, 
La lor felicity nulla sarebbe ; 
E vedi che qui ingiusto Iddio parrebbe. 

LII. 

Ma egli anno posto in Gesii ferma spene ; 
E tanto pare a lor, quanto a lui pare ; 
Afferman cio ch' e' fa, che facci bene, 
E che non possi in nessun modo errare : 
Se padre o madre e nell' eterne pene, 
Di questo non si posson conturbare : 
Che quel che piace a Dio, sol piace a loro : 
Questo a' osserva ne 1' eterno coro. 

LIIL 
Al savio suol bastar poche parole, 
Disse Morgante ; tu il potrai vedere, 
De' miei fratelli, Orlando, se mi duole, 
E s' io m' accordero di Dio al volere. 
Come tu di' che in ciel servar si suole : 
Morti co' morti ; or pensiara di godere ; 
Io vo tagliar le mani a tutti quanti, 
E porteroUe a que' monaci santi, 



XLVIII. 

" Then," quoth the giant, " blessed be Jesu 
A thousand times with gratitude and praise ! 

Oft, perfect baron ! have I heard of you 

Through all the different periods of my days : 

And, as I said, to be your vassal too 

I wish, for your great gallantry always." 

Thus reasoning, they continued much to say, 

And onwards to the abbey went their way. 

XLIX. 

And by the way about the giants dead 
Orlando with Morgante reason'd : " Be, 

For their decease, I pray you, comforted ; 
And, since it is God's pleasure, pardon me ; 

A thousand wrongs unto the monks they bred, 
And our true Scripture soundeth openly. 

Good is rewarded, and chastised the ill. 

Which the Lord never faileth to fulfill : 

L. 

" Because his love of justice unto all 
Is such, he wills his judgment should devour 

All who have sin, however great or small ; 
But good he well remembers to restore. 

Nor without justice holy could we call 
Him, whom I now require you to adore. 

All men must make his will their wishes sway, 

And quickly and spontaneously obey. 

LI. 

" And here our doctors are of one accord. 
Coming on this point to the same conclusion. 

That in their thoughts who praise in heaven the Lord 
If pity e'er was guilty of intrusion 

For their unfortunate relations stored 

In hell below, and damn'd in great confusion, 

Their happiness would be reduced to nought, 

And thus unjust the Almighty's self be thought. 

LII. 

" But they in Christ have firmest hope, and all 
"Which seems to him, to them too must appear 

"Well done ; nor could it otherwise befall : 
He never can in any purpose err. 

If sire or mother suffer endless thrall. 
They don't disturb themselves for him or her ; 

"What pleases God to them must joy inspire ; — 

Such is the observance of the eternal choir." 

LIIL 

" A word unto the wise," Morgante said, 
" Is wont to be enough, and you shall see 

How much I grieve about my brethren dead; 
And if the will of God seem good to me. 

Just, as you tell me, 'tis in heaven obey'd — 
Ashes to ashes, — merry let us be ! 

I will cut off the hands from both their trunks, 

And carry them unto the holy monks. 



586 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



LIV. 

Accio ch' ognun sia piu sicuro e certo, 
Com' e' son morti, e non abbin paura 
Andar soletti per questo deserto ; 
E perche veggan la mia mente pura 
A quel Signor che m' ha il suo regno aperto. 
E tratto fuor di tenebre si oscura. 
E poi taglio le mani a' due fratelli, 
E lasciagli a le fiere ed agli uccelli. 

LV. 

A la badia insieme se ne vanno, 
Ove 1' abate assai dubbioso aspetta : 
I monaci che '1 fatto ancor non sanno, 
Correvano a 1' abate tutti in fretta, 
Dicendo paurosi e pien' d' affanno : 
Volete voi costui drento si metta ? 
Quando 1' abate vedeva il gigante, 
Si turbo tutto nel primo sembiante, 

LVI. 

Orlando che turbato cosi il vede, 
Gli disse presto : abate, datti pace, 
Questo d Cristiano, e in Cristo nostro crede, 
E rinnegato ha il suo Macon fallace. 
Morgante i moncherin mostro per fede, 
Come i giganti ciascun morto giace ; 
Donde 1' abate ringraziavia Iddio, 
Dicendo ; or m' hai contento, Signor mio. 

LVII. 
E risguardava, e squadrava Morgante, 
La sua grandezza e una volta e due, 
E poi gli disse : O famoso gigante, 
Sappi ch' io non mi maraviglio piiie, 
Che tu svegliessi e gittassi le piante, 
Quand' io riguardo or le fattezze tue : 
Tu sarai or perfetto e vero amico 
A Cristo, quanto tu gli eri nimico. 

LVIII. 

Un nostro apostol, Saul gia chiamato, 
Persegui molto la fede di Cristo : 
Un giorno poi da Io spirto infiammato, 
Perche pur mi persegui ? disse Cristo : 
E' si ravvide allor del suo peccato 
Ando poi predicando sempre Cristo ; 
E fatto d or de la fede una tromba, 
La qual per tutto risuona e rimbomba, 

LIX. 

Cosi farai tu ancor, Morgante mio : 
E chi s' emenda, d scritto nel Vangelo, 
Che maggior festa fa d' un solo Iddio, 
Che di novantanove altri su in cielo : 
Io ti conforto ch' ogni tuo disio 
Eivolga a quel Signor con giusto zelo, 
Che tu sarai felice in sempiterno, 
Ch' eri perduto, e dannato all' inferno. 



LIV. 

" So that all persons may be sure and certain 
That they are dead, and have no further fear 

To wander solitary this desert in. 

And that they may perceive my spirit clear 

By the Lord's grace, who hath withdrawn the curtain 
Of darkness, making his bright realm appear." 

He cut his brethren's hands off at these words, 

And left them to the savage beasts and birds. 

LV. 

Then to the abbey they went on together, 
Where waited them the abbot in great doubt. 

The monks, who knew not yet the fact, ran thither, 
To their superior, all in breathless rout. 

Saying with tremor, "Please to tell us whether 
You wish to have this person in or out?" 

The abbot, looking through upon the giant, 

Too greatly fear'd, at first, to be compliant. 

LVI. 

Orlando, seeing him thus agitated. 

Said quickly, "Abbot, be thou of good cheer; 
He Christ believes, as Christian must be rated. 

And hath renounced his Macon false ;" which here 
Morgante with the hands corroborated, 

A proof of both the giants' fate quite clear : 
Thence, with due thanks, the abbot God adored, 
Saying, " Thou hast contented me, oh, Lord !" 

LVII. 

He gazed ; Morgante's height he calculated, 
And more than once contemplated his size ; 

And then he said, " Oh, giant celebrated ! 
Know, that no more my wonder will arise. 

How you could tear and fling the trees you late did, 
When I behold your form with my own eyes. 

You now a true and perfect friend will show 

Yourself to Christ, as once you were a foe. 

LVIII. 

" And one of our apostles, Saul once named, 
Long persecuted sore the faith of Christ, 

Till, one day, by the Spirit being inflamed, 

* Why dost thou persecute me thus ?' said Christ ; 

And then from his offence he was reclaim'd. 
And went for ever after preaching Christ, 

And of the faith became a trump, whose sounding 

O'er the whole earth is echoing and rebounding. 

LIX. 

" So, my Morgante, you may do likewise : 
He who repents — thus writes the Evangelist — 

Occasions more rejoicing in the skies 
Than ninety-nine of the celestial list. 

You may be sure, should each desire arise 
With just zeal for the Lord, that you'll exist 

Among the happy saints for evermore ; 

But you were lost and damn'd to hell before !" 



MOKGANTE MAGGIORE. 



587 



LX. 

E grande onore a Morgante faceva 
L* abate, e molti di si son posti : 
Un giorno, come ad Orlando piaceva, 
A spasso in qu^ e in la si sono andati : 
L' abate in una camera sua aveva 
Molte armadure e certi archi appiccati : 
Morgante gliene piacque un che ne vede ; 
Onde e' sel cinse bench' oprar nol crede. 

LXI. 

Avea quel luogo d' acqua carestia : 
Orlando disse come buon fratello : 
Morgante, vo' che di piacer ti sia 
Andar per 1' acqua ; ond' e' rispose a quello : 
Comanda cio che vuoi che fatto sia ; 
E posesi in ispalla un gran tinello, 
Ed avviossi la verso una fonte 
Dove solea ber sempre apple del monte. 

LXII. 
Giunto a la fonte, sente un gran fracasso 
Di subito venir per la foresta : 
Una saetta cavo del turcasso, 
Posela a 1' arco, ed alzava la testa ; 
Eceo apparire un gran gregge al passo 
Di porci, e vanno con molta tempesta ; 
E arrivorno alia fontana appunto 
Donde il gigante e da lor sopraggiunto. 

LXIII. 
Morgante a la ventura a un saetta ; 
Appunto ne F orecchio lo 'ncarnava : 
Da r altro lato passo la verretta ; 
Onde il cinghial giu morto gambettava ; 
Un altro, quasi per fame vendetta, 
Addosso al gran gigante irato andava ; 
E perche e' giunse troppo tosto al varco, 
Non fu Morgante a tempo a trar con 1' arco. 

LXIV. 

Vedendosi venuto il porco adosso, 
Gli dette in su la testa un gran punzone ^ 
Per modo che gl' infranse insino a 1' osso, 
E morto allato a quell' altro lo pone : 
Gli altri porci veggendo quel percosso, 
Si misson tutti in fuga pel vallone ; 
Morgante si lev6 il tinello in collo, 
Ch' era pien d' acqua, e non si muove un crollo. 

LXV. 

Da 1' una spalla il tinello avea posto, 
Da 1' altra i porci, e spacciava il terreno ; 
E torna a la badia, ch' 6 pur discosto, 
Ch' una gocciola d' acqua non va in seno. 
Orlando che '1 vedea tornar si tosto 
Co' porci morti, e con quel vaso pieno; 
Maravigliossi che sia tanto forte ; 
Cosi r abate ; e spalancan le porte. 

1 " Gli dette in su la testa un gran punzone." It is strange 
that Pulci should have literally anticipated the technical 
terms of my old friend and master, Jackson, and the art 
which he has carried to its highest pitch. "A punch on 



LX. 

And thus great honor to Morgante paid 
The abbot : many days they did repose. 

One day, as with Orlando they both stray'd, 
And saunter'd here and there, where'er they chose, 

The abbot show'd a chamber, where array'd 
Much armor was, and hung up certain bows ; 

And one of these Morgante for a whim 

Girt on, though useless, he believed, to him. 

LXI. 

There being a want of water in the place, 

Orlando, like a worthy brother, said, 
" Morgante, I could wish you in this case 

To go for water," " You shall be obey'd 
In all commands," was the reply, " straightways." 

Upon his shoulder a great tub he laid. 
And went out on his way unto a fountain, 
Where he was wont tp drink, below the mountain. 

LXII. 

Arrived there, a prodigious noise he hears. 
Which suddenly along the forest spread, 

Whereat from out his quiver he prepares 
An arrow for his bow, and lifts his head ; 

And lo ! a monstrous herd of swine appears. 
And onward rushes with tempestuous tread. 

And to the fountain's brink precisely pours ; 

So that the giant's join'd by all the boars. 

LXIII. 
Morgante at a venture shot an arrow. 

Which pierced a pig precisely in the ear, 
And pass'd unto the other side quite thorough ; 

So that the boar, defunct, lay tripp'd up near. 
Another, to avenge his fellow farrow, 

Against the giant rush'd in fierce career. 
And reach'd the passage with so swift a foot, 
Morgante was not now in time to shoot. 

LXIV. 
Perceiving that the pig was on him close, 

He gave him such a punch upon the head, 
As floor'd him so that he no more arose. 

Smashing the very bone ; and he fell dead 
Next to the other. Having seen such blows, 

The other pigs along the valley fled ; 
Morgante on his neck the bucket took. 
Full from the spring, which neither swerved nor shook. 

LXV. 

The tun was on one shoulder, and there were 
The hogs on t' other, and he brush'd apace 

On to the abbey, though by no means near, 
Nor spilt one drop of water in his race. 

Orlando, seeing him so soon appear 
With the dead boars, and with that brimful vase, 

Marvell'd to see his strength so very great ; 

So did the abbot, and set wide the gate. 

the head," or "a punch in the head," — "un punzone in su 
la testa,"— is the exact and frequent phrase of our best 
pugilists, who little dream that they are talking the purest 
Tuscan. 



688 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



LXVI. 

I mouaci veggendo 1' acqua fresca 
Si rallegrorno, ma piu de' cinghiali ; 
Ch' ogni animal si rallegra de 1' esca ; 
E posano a dormire i breviali : 
Ognun s' affanna, e non par che gV incresca, 
Accio che questa carne non s' insali, 
E che poi secca sapesse di victo : 
E la digiune si restorno a drieto. 

LXVII. 
E ferno a scoppia corpo per un tratto, 
E scuffian, che parien de 1' acqua usciti ; 
Tanto che '1 cane sen doleva e '1 gatto, 
Che gli ossi rimanean troppo puliti. 
L' abate, poi che molto onoro ha fatto 
A tutti, un di dopo questi conviti 
Dette a Morgante un destrier molto hello, 
Che lungo tempo tenuto avea quello. 

LXVIII. 

Morgante in su 'n un prato il caval mena, 
E vuol che corra, e che facci ogni pruova, 
E pensa che di ferro abbi la schiena, 
O forse non credeva schiacciar 1' uova : 
Questo caval s' accoscia per la pena, 
E scoppia, e 'n su la terra si ritruova. 
Dicca Morgante : lieva su, rozzone ; 
E va pur punzecchiando co lo sprone. 

LXIX. 

Ma finalmente convien ch' egli smonte, 
E disse : io son pur leggier come penna, 
Ed e scoppiato ; che ne di' tu, conte ? 
Rispose Orlando : un arbore d' antenna 
Mi par piuttosto, e la gaggia la fronte : 
Lascialo andar, che la fortuna accenna 
Che meco appiede ne venga, Morgante. 
Ed io cosi verra, disse il gigante. 

LXX. 

Quando ser^ mestier, tu mi vedrai 
Com' io mi provero ne la battaglia. 
Orlando disse : io credo tu farai 
Come buon cavalier, se Dio mi vaglia; 
Ed anco me dormir non mirerai : 
Di questo tuo caval non te ne caglia : 
Vorrebbesi portarlo in qualche bosco ; 
Ma il modo ne la via non ci conosco. 

LXXI. 

Disse il gigante : io il portero ben io, 
Da poi che portar me non ha voluto. 
Per render ben per mal, come fa Dio ; 
Ma vo' che a porlo addosso mi dia ajuto. 
Orlando gli dicea : Morgante mio, 
S' al mio consiglio ti sarai attenuto, 
Questo caval tu non ve '1 porteresti, 
Che ti far^ come tu a lui facesti. 



LXVI. 

The monks, who saw the water fresh and good, 
Eejoiced, but much more to perceive the pork ; 

All animals are glad at sight of food : 

They lay their breviaries to sleep, and work 

With greedy pleasure, and in such a mood. 
That the flesh needs no salt beneath their fork. 

Of rankness and of rot there is no fear. 

For all the fasts are now left in arrear. 

LXVII. 

As though they wish'd to burst at once, they ate ; 

And gorged so that, as if the bones had been 
In water, sorely grieved the dog and cat. 

Perceiving that they all were pick'd too clean. 
The abbot, who to all did honor great, 

A few days after this convivial scene. 
Gave to Morgante a fine horse, well train'd. 
Which he long time had for himself maintain'd. 

LXVIII. 

The horse Morgante to a meadow led. 
To gallop, and to put him to the proof, 

Thinking that he a back of iron had, 
Or to skim eggs unbroke was light enough ; 

But the horse, sinking with the pain, fell dead. 
And burst, while cold on earth lay head and hoof. 

Morgante said, " Get up, thou sulky cur !" 

And still continued pricking with the spur. 

LXIX. 

But finally he thought fit to dismount. 
And said, " I am as light as any feather, 

And he has burst; — to this what say you, count?" 
Orlando answer'd, " Like a ship's mast rather 

You seem to me, and with the truck for front : 
Let him go ; Fortune wills that we together 

Should march, but you on foot Morgante still." 

To which the giant answer'd, " So I will. 

LXX. 

" When there shall be occasion, you will see 
How I approve my courage in the fight." 

Orlando said, " I really think you'll be. 

If it should prove God's will, a goodly knight ; 

Nor will you napping there discover me. 

But never mind your horse, though out of sight 

'Twere best to carry him into some wood, 

If but the means or way I understood." 

LXXI. 

The giant said, " Then carry him I will. 
Since that to carry me he was so slack — 

To render, as the gods do, good for ill ; 

But lend a hand to place him on my back." 

Orlando answer'd, " If my counsel still 
May weigh, Morgante, do not undertake 

To lift or carry this dead courser, who. 

As you have done to him, will do to you. 



MORGANTE MAGGIORE. 



589 



LXXII. 
Guarda che non facesse la vendetta, 
Come fece gia Nesso cost morto : 
Non so se la sua istoria hai inteso o letta ; 
E' ti far^ scoppiar ; datti conforto. 
Disse Morgan te : ajuta cli' io me '1 metta 
Addosso, e poi vedrai s' io ve lo porto : 
Io porterei, Orlando mio gentile, 
Con le campane la quel campanile. 

LXXIII. 

Disse 1' abate : il campanil v' § bene ; 
Ma le campane voi 1' avete rotte. 
Dicea Morgante, e' ne porton le pene 
Color che morti son la in quelle grotte ; 
E levossi il cavallo in su le schiene, 
E disse : guarda s' io sento di gotte, 
Orlando, nelle gambe, e s' io lo posso ; 
E fe' duo salti col cavallo addosso. 

LXXIV. 

Era Morgante come una montagna : 
Se facea questo, non e maraviglia ; 
Ma pure Orlando con seco si lagna ; 
Perche pur era omai di sua famiglia ; 
Temenza avea non pigliasse magagna. 
Un' altra volta costui riconsiglia : 
Posalo ancor, nol portare al deserto. 
Disse Morgante : il portero per certo. 

LXXV, 

E portollo, e gittollo in luogo strano, 
E torno a la badia subitamente. 
Diceva Orlando : or che piu dimoriano ? 
Morgante, qui non facciam noi niente ; 
E prese un giorno 1' abate per mano, 
E disse a quel molto discretamente, 
Che vuol partir de la sua reverenzia, 
E domandava e perdono e licenzia. 

LXXVI. 

E de gli onor ricevuti da questi, 
Qualche volta potendo, ara buon merito ; 
E dice : io intendo ristorare e presto 
I persi giorni del tempo preterito : 
E' son pill di che licenzia arei chiesto, 
Benigno padre, se non ch' io mi perito ; 
Non so mostrarvi quel che drento sento ; 
Tanto vi veggo del mio star contento. 

LXXVII. 

Io me ne porto per sempre nel core 
L' abate, la badIa, questo deserto ; 
Tanto v' ho posto in picciol tempo amore : 
Rendavi su nel ciel per me buon merto 
Quel vero Dio, quello etemo Signore, 
Che vi serba il suo regno al fine aperto : 
Noi aspettiam vostra benedizione, 
Raccomandiamci a le vostre orazione. 



LXXII. 
" Take care he don't revenge himself, though dead, 

As Nessus did of old beyond all cure. 
I don't know if the fact you've heard or read ; 

But he will make you burst, you may be sure." 
" But help him on my back," Morgante said, 

" And you shall see what weight I can endure. 
In place, my gentle Roland, of this palfrey. 
With all the bells, I'll carry yonder belfry." 

LXXIII. 

The abbot said, " The steeple may do well. 

But, for the bells, you've broken them, I wot." 

Morgante answer'd, *' Let them pay in hell 
The penalty who lie dead in yon grot ;" 

And hoisting up the horse from where he fell, 
He said, " Now look if I the gout have got, 

Orlando, in the legs — or if I have force;" — 

And then he made two gambols with the horse. 

LXXIV. 

Morgante was like any mountain framed ; 

So if he did this, 'tis no prodigy ; 
But secretly himself Orlando blamed, 

Because he was one of his family ; 
And fearing that he might be hurt or maim'd, 

Once more he bade him lay his burden by : 
" Put down, nor bear him further the desert in." 
Morgante said, " I'll carry him for certain." 

LXXV. 

He did ; and stow'd him in some nook away, 
And to the abbey then return'd with speed. 

Orlando said, " Why longer do we stay ? 
Morgante, here is nought to do indeed." 

The abbot by the hand he took one day. 
And said, with great respect, he had agreed 

To leave his reverence ; but for this decision 

He wish'd to have his pardon and permission. 

LXXVI. 

The honors they continued to receive 

Perhaps exceeded what his merits claim'd : 

He said, " I mean, and quickly, to retrieve 
The lost days of time past, which may be blamed 

Some days ago I should have ask'd your leave, 
Kind father, but I really was ashamed. 

And know not how to show my sentiment, 

So much I see you v/ith our stay content. 

LXXVII. 

" But in my heart I bear through every clime 
The abbot, abbey, and this solitude — 

So much I love you in so short a time ; 

For me, from heaven reward you with all good 

The God so true, the eternal Lord sublime ! 
Whose kingdom at the last hath open stood. 

Meantime we stand expectant of your blessing. 

And recommend us to your prayers with pressing." 



590 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



LXXVIII. 

Quando 1' abate il conte Orlando intese, 
Rinteneri nel cor per la dolcezza, 
Tanto fervor nel petto se gli aceese ; 
E disse : cavalier, se a tua prodezza 
Non sono stato benigno e cortese, 
Come conviensi a la gran gentillezza ; 
Che so cbe cio ch' i' ho fatto d stato poco, 
Incolpa la ignoranzia nostra, e il loco. 

LXXIX. 

Noi ti potremo di messe onorare, 
Di prediche di laude e paternostri, 
Piuttosto che da cena o desinare, 
O d' altri convenevol che da chiostri : 
Tu m' hai di te si fatto innamorare 
Per mille alte eccellenzie che tu mostri ; 
Ch' io me ne vengo ove tu andrai con teco, 
E d' altra parte tu resti qui meco. 

LXXX. 

Tanto ch' a questo par contraddizione ; 
Ma so che tu se' savio, e 'ntendi e gusti, 
E intendi il mio parlar per discrizione ; 
De' beneficj tuoi pietosi e giusti 
Eenda il Signore a te munerazione, 
Da cui mandato in queste selve fusti ; 
Per le virtu del qual liberi siamo, 
E grazie a lui e a te noi ne rendiamo. 

LXXXI. 

Tu ci hai salvato 1' anima e la vita : 
Tanta perturbazion gi^ que' giganti 
Ci detton, che la strada era smarrita 
Da ritrovar Gesii con gli altri santi : 
Pero troppo ci duol la tua partita, 
E sconsolati restiam tutti quanti ; 
Ne ritener possiamti i mesi e gli anni : 
Che tu non se' da vestir questi panni, 

LXXXII. 

Ma da portar la lancia e 1' armadura : 
E puossi meritar con essa, come 
Con questa cappa ; e leggi la scrittiira ; 
Questo gigante al ciel drizzS le some 
Per tua virtii ; va in pace a tua ventura 
Chi tu ti sia, ch' io non ricerco il nome ; 
Ma dir6 sempre, s' io son domandato, 
Ch' un angiol qui da Dio fussi mandato. 

LXXXIII. 

Se c' 6 armadura o cosa che tu voglia, 
Vattene in zambra e pigliane tu stessi, 
E cuopri a questo gigante le scoglia. 
Rispose Orlando : se armadura avessi 
Prima che noi uscissim de la soglia, 
Che questo mio compagno difendessi : 
Questo accetto io, e sarammi piacere. 
Disse 1' abate : venite a vedere. 



LXXVIII. 

Now when the abbot Count Orlando heard, 
His heart grew soft with inner tenderness, 

Such fervor in his bosom bred each word • 
And, " Cavalier," he said, " if I have less 

Courteous and kind to your great worth appear'd, 
Than fits me for such gentle blood to express, 

I know I have done too little in this case ; 

But blame our ignorance, and this poor place. 

LXXIX. 

" We can indeed but honor you with masses, 
And sermons, thanksgivings, and paternosters, 

Hot suppers, dinners (fitting other places 
In verity much rather than the cloisters) 

But such a love for you my heart embraces, 
For thousand virtues which your bosom fosters, 

That wheresoe'er you go I too shall be, 

And, on the other part, you rest with me. 

LXXX. 

" This may involve a seeming contradiction ; 

But you I know are sage, and feel, and taste, 
And understand my speech, with full conviction. 

For your just pious deeds may you be graced 
With the Lord's great reward and benediction. 

By whom you were directed to this waste : 
To his high mercy is our freedom due. 
For which we render thanks to him and you. 

LXXXI. 

" You saved at once our life and soul : such fear 
The giants caused us, that the way was lost 

By which we could pursue a fit career 
In search of Jesus and the saintly host ; 

And your departure breeds such sorrow here. 
That comfortless we all are to our cost ; 

But months and years you would not stay in sloth, 

Nor are you form'd to wear our sober cloth ; 

LXXXIL 

" But to bear arms, and wield the lance : indeed, 
With these as much is done as with this cowl ; 

In proof of which the Scriptures you may read. 
This giant up to heaven may bear his soul 

By your compassion : now in peace proceed. 
Your state and name I seek not to unroll ; 

But, if I'm ask'd, this answer shall be given. 

That here an angel was sent down from heaven. 

LXXXIII. 

" If you want armor or aught else, go in, 
Look o'er the wardrobe, and take wJbat you choose. 

And cover with it o'er this giant's skin." 
Orlando answer'd, ** If there should lie loose 

Some armor, ere our journey we begin, 
Which might be turn'd to my companion's use, 

The gift would be acceptable to me." 

The abbot said to him, " Come in and see." 



MORGANTE MAGGIORE. 



691 



LXXXIV. 

E in certa cameretta entrati sono, 
Che d' armadure vecchie era copiosa ; 
Dice 1' abate : tutte ve le dono, 
Morgan te va rovistando ogni cosa ; 
Ma solo un certo sbergo gli fu buono, 
Ch' avea tutta la maglia rugginosa : 
Maravigliossi che lo cuopra appunto : 
Che niai piu gnun forse glien' era aggiunto. 

LXXXV. 

Questo fu d' un gigante smisurata, 
Ch 'a la badia fu morto per antico 
Dal gran Milon d' Angrant^, eh* arrivato ; 
V era, s' appunto questa istoria dico ; 
Ed era ne le mura istoriato, 
Come e' fu morto questo gran nimico, 
Che fece a la badia gik lunga guerra : 
E Milon v' e com' e' 1' abbatte in terra. 

LXXXVI. 

Veggendo questa istoria il conte Orlando, 
Fra suo cor disse : o Dio, che sai sol tutto, 
Come venne Milon qui capitando, 
Che ha questo gigante qui distrutto ? 
E lesse certe lettre lacrimando, 
Che non pote tenir piu il viso asciutto, 
Com' io diro ne la seguente istoria : 
Di mal vi guardi il Re de 1' alta gloria. 



LXXXIV. 

And in a certain closet, where the wall 
Was cover'd with old armor like a crust, 

The abbot said to them, " I give you all." 
Morgante rummaged piecemeal from the dust 

The whole, which, save one cuirass, was too small. 
And that too had the mail inlaid with rust. 

They wonder'd how it fitted him exactly. 

Which ne'er has suited others so compactly. 

LXXXV. 

'Twas an immeasurable giant's, who 

By the great Milo of Agrante fell 
Before the abbey many years ago. 

The story on the wall was figured well ; 
In the last moment of the abbey's foe, 

Who long had waged a war implacable : 
Precisely as the war occurr'd they drew him, 
And there was Milo as he overthrew him. 

LXXXVI. 

Seeing this history, Count Orlando said 
In his own heart, " Oh, God, who in the sky 

Know'st all things ! how was Milo hither led ? 
Who caused the giant in this place to die ?" 

And certain letters, weeping, then he read, 
So that he could not keep his visage dry, — 

As I will tell in the ensuing story. 

From evil keep you the high King of glory I 



Sr^e ^roptccg ot Hante.' 



" 'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, 
And coming events cast their shadows before." 

CAMPBEIili. 



DEDICATION. 

Lady ! if for the cold and cloudy clime 

Where I was born, but where I would not die, 

Of the great Poet-Sire of Italy 
I dare to build the imitative rhyme, 
Harsh Runic copy of the South's sublime, 

Tuor art the cause ; and howsoever 1 

Fall short of his immortal harmony, 
Thy gentle heart will pardon me the crime. 
Thou, in the pride of Beauty and of Youth, 

Spakest ; and for thee to speak and be obey'd 
Are one ; but only in the sunny South 

Such sounds are utter'd, and such charms display'd, 
So sweet a language from so fair a mouth — 

Ah ! to what effort would it not persuade? 
Ravenna, June 21, 1819. 



PREFACE. 



In the course of a visit to the city of Ravenna in 
the summer of 1819, it was suggested to the author 
that having composed something on the subject of 
Tasso's confinement, he should do the same on 
Dante's exile, — the tomb of the poet forming one of 
the principal objects of interest in that city, both to 
the native and to the stranger. 

"On this hint I spake," and the result has been 
the following four cantos, in terza rima, now offered 
to the reader. If they are understood and approved, 
it is my purpose to continue the poem in various 
other cantos, to its natural conclusion in the present 
age. The reader is requested to suppose that Dante 
addresses him in the interval between the conclusion 
of the Divina Commedia and his death, and shortly 



1 This poem, which Lord Byron, in sending it to Mr. 
Murray, called " the best thing he had ever done, if not un- 
intelligible," was written, in the summer of 1819, at 

" that place 

Of old renown, once in the Adrian sea, 
Ravenna !— where from Dante's sacred tomb 
He had so oft, as many a verse declares, 
Drawn inspiration."— Rogers. 

The Prophecy, however, was first published in May, 1821. 
It is dedicated to the Countess Guiccioli, who thus describes 
the origin of its composition :—" On my departure from 
Venice, Lord Byron had promised to come and see me at 
(592) 



before the latter event, foretelling the fortunes of 
Italy in general in the ensuing centuries. In adopt- 
ing this plan I have had in my mind the Cassandra 
of Lycophron, and the Prophecy of Nereus by 
Horace, as well as the Prophecies of Holy Writ. 
The measure adopted is the terza rima of Dante, 
which I am not aware to have seen hitherto tried in 
our language, except it may be by Mr. Hayley, of 
whose translation I never saw but one extract, quoted 
in the notes to Caliph Vathek ; so that — if I do not 
err — this poem may be considered as a metrical ex- 
periment. The cantos are short, and about the same 
length of those of the poet, whose name I have bor- 
rowed, and most probably taken in vain. 

Amongst the inconveniences of authors in the 
present day, it is difficult for any who have a name, 
good or bad, to escape translation. I have had the 
fortune to see the fourth canto of Childe Harold 
translated into Italian versi sciolti,— that is, a poem 
written in the Spenserian stanza into blank verse, 
without regard to the natural divisions of the stanza 
or of the sense. If the present poem, being on a 
national topic, should chance to undergo the same 
fate, I would request the Italian reader to remember 
that when I have failed in the imitation of his great 
"Padre Alighier," I have failed in imitating that 
which all study and few understand, since to this 
very day it is not yet settled what was the meaning of 
the allegory in the first canto of the Inferno, unless 
Count Marchetti's ingenious and probable conjecture 
may be considered as having decided the question. 

He may also pardon my failure the more, as I am 
not quite sure that he would be pleased with my 
success, since the Italians, with a pardonable nation- 
ality, are particularly jealous of all that is left them 
as a nation — their literature; and, in the present 



Ravenna. Dante's tomb, the classical pine wood,* the relics 
of antiquity which are to be found in that place, afforded a 
sufficient pretext for me to invite him to come, and for him 
to accept my invitation. He came in the month of June, 
1819, arriving at Ravenna on the day of the festival of the 
Corpus Domini. Being deprived at this time of his books, 
his horses, and all that occupied him at Venice, I begged him 
to gratify me by writing something on the subject of Dante ; 
and, with his usual facility and rapidity, he composed his 
Prophecy." 



'Twas in a grove of spreading pines he strayed," &c. 

Dbyden's Theodore and Sonoria. 



Canto I. 



THE PROPHECY OF DANTE. 



593 



bitterness of the classic and romantic war, are but 
ill disposed to permit a foreigner even to approve or 
imitate them, without finding some fault with his 
ultramontane presumption. I can easily enter into 
all this, knowing what would be thought in England 
of an Italian imitator of Milton, or if a translation of 
Monti, or Pindemonte, or Ariel, should be held up 
to the rising generation as a model for their future 
poetical essays. But I perceive that I am deviating 
into an address to the Italian reader, when my busi- 
ness is with the English one ; and be they few or 
many, I must take my leave of both. 



Cf)e ^ropi)ecg of BanU.' 



CANTO THE FIRST. 



Once more in man's frail world ! which I had left 
So long that 'twas forgotten ; and I feel 
The weight of clay again, — too soon bereft 

Of the immortal vision which could heal 
My earthly sorrows, and to God's own skies 
Lift me from that deep gulf without repeal. 

Where late my ears rung with the damned cries 
Of souls in hopeless bale ; and from that place 
Of lesser torment, whence men may arise 

Pure from the fire to join the angelic race ; 
'Midst whom my own bright Beatrice"^ bless'd 
My spirit with her light ; and to the base 

Of the eternal Triad ! first, last, best, 

Mysterious, three, sole, infinite, great God ! 
Soul universal ! led the mortal guest, 

Unblasted by the glory, though he trod 
From star to star to reach the almighty throne. 
Oh, Beatrice ! whose sweet limbs the sod 

So long hath press'd, and the cold marble stone, 



1 Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in May, 1265, of 
an ancient and honorable family. In the early part of his 
life he gained some credit in a military character, and dis- 
tinguished himself by his bravery in an action where the 
Florentines obtained a signal victory over the citizens of 
Arezzo. He became still more eminent by the acquisition 
of court honors ; and at the age of thirty-five he rose to be 
one of the chief magistrates of Florence, when that dignity 
was conferred by the suffrages of the people. From this 
exaltation the poet himself dated his principal misfortunes^ 
Italy was at that time distracted by the contending factions 
of the Ghibelines and Guelphs,— among the latter Dante 
took an active part. In one of the proscriptions he was 
banished, his possessions confiscated, and he died in exile in 
1321. Boccaccio thus describes his person and manners: — 
" He was of the middle stature, of a mild disposition, and, 
from the time he arrived at manhood, grave in his man- 
ner and deportment. His clothes were plain, and his dress 
always conformable to his years: his face was long; his nose 
aquiline; his eyes rather large than otherwise. His com- 
plexion was dark, melancholy, and pensive. In his meals he 
was extremely moderate ; in his manners most courteous and 
38 



Thou sole pure seraph of my earliest love, 
Love so inefikble, and so alone, 

That nought on earth could more my bosom move, 
And meeting thee in heaven was but to meet 
That without which my soul, like the arkless dove, 

Had wander'd still in search of, nor her feet 
Relieved her wing till found : without thy light 
My paradise had still been incomplete.^ 

Since my tenth sun gave summer to my sight, 
Thou wert my life, the essence of my thought, 
Loved ere I knew the name of love,* and bright 

Still in these dim old eyes, now overwrought 

With the world's war, and years, and banishment. 
And tears for thee, by other woes untaught ; 

For mine is not a nature to be bent 

By tyrannous faction, and the brawling crowd, 
And though the long, long conflict hath been 
spent 

In vain, and never more, save when the cloud 
Which overhangs the Apennine my mind's eye 
Pierces to fancy Florence, once so proud 

Of me, can I return, though but to die, 
Unto my native soil, they have not yet 
Quench'd the old exile's spirit, stern and high. 

But the sun, though not overcast, must set. 
And the night cometh ; I am old in days. 
And deeds, and contemplation, and have met 

Destruction face to face in all his ways. 
The world hath left me, what it found me, pure, 
And if I have not gather' d yet its praise, 

I sought it not by any baser lure ; 
Man wrongs, and Time avenges, and my name 
May form a monument not all obscure, 

Though such was not my ambition's end or aim, 
To add to the vainglorious list of those 
Who dabble in the pettiness of fame. 

And make men's fickle breath the wind that blows 
Their sail, and deem it glory to be class'd 
With conquerors, and virtue's other foes, 

In bloody chronicles of ages past. 



civil ; and, both in public and private life, he was admirably 
decorous." 

2 The reader is requested to adopt the Italian pronunciation' 
of Beatrice, sounding all the syllables. 

3 " Che sol per le belle opre 

Che fanno in Cielo 11 sole e 1' altre stelle 

Dentro di lui' si crede il Paradiso, 

Cosi se guardi fiso 

Pensar ben d6i ch' ogni terren' piacere." 
Canzone, in which Dante describes the person of Beatrice, 
strophe third. 

* " According to Boccaccio, Dante was a lover long before 
he was a soldier, and his passion for the Beatrice whom he 
has immortalized commenced while he was in his ninth year, 
and she in her eighth year. It is said that their first meeting 
was at a banquet in the house of Folco Portinaro, her father ; 
and certain it is, that the impression then made on the sus- 
ceptible and constant heart of Dante was not obliterated by 
her death, which happened after an interval of sixteen years." 
— Cary. 



594 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Canto L 



I would have had my Florence great and free ; ^ 
Oh, Florence ! Florence ! unto me thou wast 

Like that Jerusalem which the Almighty He 
Wept ovei-, " but thou wouldst not;" as the bird 
Gathers its young, I would have gather'd thee 

Beneath a parent pinion, hadst thou heard 
My voice ; but as the adder, deaf and fierce, 
Against the breast that cherish'd thee was stirr'd 

Thy venom, and my state thou didst amerce, 
And doom this body forfeit to the fire. 
Alas ! how bitter is his country's curse 

To him who for that country would expire, 
But did not merit to expire hy her. 
And loves her, loves her even in her ire ! 

The day may colne when she will cease to err. 
The day may come she would be proud to have 
The dust she dooms to scatter, and transfer 2 

Of him, whom she denied a home, the grave. 
But this shall not be granted ; let my dust 
Lie where it falls ; nor shall the soil which gave 

Me breath, but in her sudden fury thrust 
Me forth to breathe elsewhere, so reassume 
My indignant bones, because her angry gust 

Forsooth is over, and repeal'd her doom ; 
No, — she denied me what was mine — my roof. 
And shall not have what is not hers — my tomb. 

Too long her armed wrath hath kept aloof 
The breast which would have bled for her, the heart 
That beat, the mind that was temptation proof. 

The man who fought, toil'd, travell'd, and each part 
Of a true citizen fulfill'd, and saw 
For his reward the Guelph's ascendant art 

Pass his destruction even into a law. 

These things are not made for forgetfulness, 
Florence shall be forgotten first ; too raw 

The wound, too deep the wrong, and the distress 
Of such endurance too prolong'd to make 
My pardon greater, her injustice less, 

Though late repented ; yet — yet for her sake 
I feel some fonder yearnings, and for thine, 
My own Beatrice, I would hardly take 

Vengeance upon the land which once was mine, 

1 " L' Esilio che m' 6 dato onor mi tegno. 

Cader tra' bouni 6 pur di lode degno." 

Sonnet of Dante, 

in which he represents Right, Generosity, and Temperance 
as banished from among men, and seeking refuge from Love, 
who inhabits his bosom. 

2 "Ut si quis predictorum ullo tempore in fortiam dicti 
communis pervenerit, talis perveniens igne cotniiuratur, sic 
quod moriatur.^' Second sentence of Florence against Dante, 
and the fourteen accused with him. The Latin is worthy 
of the sentence.— On the 27th of January, 1302, Dante was 
mulcted eight thousand lire, and condemned to two years' 
banishment; and in case the fine was not paid, his goods 
were to be confiscated. On the 11th of March, the same 
year, he was sentenced to a punishment due only to the most 
desperate of malefactors. The decree, that he and his asso- 
ciates in exile should be burned, if they fell into the hands 
of their enemies was first discovered in 1772, by the Conte 



And still is hallow'd by thy dust's return, 
Which would protect the murderess like a shrine, 

And save ten thousand foes by thy sole urn. 

Though, like old Marius^ from Minturnse's marsh 
And Carthage ruins, my lone breast may burn 

At times with evil feelings hot and harsh. 
And sometimes the last pangs of a vile foe 
Writhe in a dream before me, and o'erarch 

My brow with hopes of triumph, — let them go ! 
Such are the last infirmities of those 
Who long have suffer'd more than mortal woe, 

And yet, being mortal still, have no repose 
But on the pillow of Eevenge — Eevenge, 
Who sleejos to dream of blood, and waking glows 

With the oft baffled, slakeless thirst of change. 
When we shall mount again, and they that trod 
Be trampled on, while Death and Ate range 

O'er humbled heads and sever'd necks Great God ! 

Take these thoughts from me — to thy hands I yield 
My many wrongs, and thine almighty rod 

Will fall on those who smote me, — be my shield ! 
As thou hast been in peril, and in pain, 
In turbulent cities, and the tented field — 

In toil, and many troubles borne in vain 
For Florence.*— I appeal from her to Thee ! 
Thee whom I late saw in thy loftiest reign. 

Even in that glorious vision, which to see 
And live was never granted until now, 
And yet thou hast permitted this to me. 

Alas ! with what a weight upon my brow 
The sense of earth and earthly things come back, 
Corrosive passions, feelings dull and low. 

The heart's quick throb upon the mental rack, 
Long day, and dreary night ; the retrospect 
Of half a century bloody and black. 

And the frail few years I may yet expect 
Hoary and hopeless, but less hard to bear, 
For I have been too long and deeply wreck'd 

On the lone rock of desolate Despair, 
To lift my eyes more to the passing sail 
Which shuns that reef so horrible and bare ; 

Nor raise my voice — for who would heed my wail ? 



Ludovico Savioli. See Tiraboschi, where the sentence is 
given at length. 

8 "Under the pretence of opposing the power of Sylla, 
Marius, who had been five times elected to the consulship, 
aimed at the sovereign power. Stapylton says, that the 
Minturnian fens, in which he was discovered by Sylla's 
emissaries, were in Switzerland ! For this accurate piece of 
topography, he was indebted to the old scholiast. The spot, 
however, lies on the right hand of the ferry of Garigliano, as 
you go from Rome to Naples." — Gipford. 

* " In one so highly endowed by nature, and so consummate 
by instruction, we may well sympathize with a resentment 
which exile and poverty rendered perpetually fresh. But the 
heart of Dante was naturally sensible, and even tender: his 
poetry is full of comparisons from rural life; and the sin- 
cerity of his early passion for Beatrice pierces through the 
veil of allegory that surrounds her. But the memory of his 
injuries pursued him into the immensity of eternal light; 
and in the company of saints and angels, his unforgiving 
spirit darkens at the name of Florence."— Hallam. 



Canto II. 



THE PROPHECY OF DANTE. 



595 



I am not of this people, nor this age, 

And yet my harpings will unfold a tale 
AVhich shall preserve these times when not a page 

Of their perturbed annals could attract 

An eye to gaze upon their civil rage. 
Did not my verse embalm full many an act 

Worthless as they who wrouglit it : 'tis the doom 

Of spirits of my order to be rack'd 
In life, to wear their hearts out, and consume 

Their days in endless strife, and die alone ; 

Then future thousands crowd around their tomb, 
And pilgrims come from climes where they have known 

The name of him — who now is but a name. 

And wasting homage o'er the sullen stone, 
Spread his — by him unheard, unheeded — fame ; 

And mine at least hath cost me dear : to die 

Is nothing ; but to wither thus — to tame 
My mind down from its own infinity — 

To live in narrow ways with little men, 

A common sight to every common eye, 
A wanderer, while even wolves can find a den, 

Ripp'd from all kindred, from all home, all things 

That make communion sweet, and soften pain — 
To feel me in the solitude of kings 

Without the power that makes them bear a crown — 

To envy every dove his nest and wings 
Which waft him where the Apennine looks down 

On Arno, till he perches, it may be, 

Within my all-inexorable town. 
Where yet my boys are, and that fatal she,^ 

Their mother, the cold partner who hath brought 

Destruction for a dowiy^ — this to see 
And feel, and know without repair, hath taught 

A bitter lesson ; but it leaves me free : 

I have not vilely found, nor basely sought. 
They made an Exile — not a slave of me. 



Cf)e ^ropf)ecg of Bante, 



CANTO THE SECOND. 



The Spirit of the fervent days of Old, [thought 

When words were things that came to pass, and 

1 This lady, whose name was Gemma, sprung from one of 
the most powerful Guelph families, named Donati. Corso 
Donati was the principal adversary of the Ghibelines. She 
is described as being " Admodum morosa, ut de Xantippe 
Socraiis pkilosophi coiyuge scriptum esse legimris" according 
to Giannozzo Manetti. But Leonardo Aretino is scandalized 
with Boccace, in his life of Dante, for saying that literary 
men should not marry. " Qui il Boccaccio non ha pazienza, 
e dice, le mogli esser contrarie agli studj ; e non si ricorda 
che Socrate il piO nobile filosofo che mai fosse, ebbe moglie e 
figliuoli e uflSci della Rcpubblica nella sua Citti; e Aristotele 
che, &c. &c., ebbe due mogli in varj tempi, ed ebbe figliuoli, e 
ricchezze assai.— E Marco Tullio — e Catone — e Varrone— 
e Seneca — ebbero moglie," Ac. Ac. It is odd that honest 
Leonardo's examples, with the exception of Seneca, and, for 
any thing I know, of Aristotle, are not the most felicitous. 
Tully's Terentia, and Socrates's Xantippe, by no means con- 



Flash'd o'er the future, bidding men behold 
Their children's children's doom already brought 

Forth from the abyss of time which is to be, 

The chaos of events, where lie half-wrought 
Shapes that must undergo mortality ; 

What the great Seers of Israel wore within, 

That spirit was on them, and is on me. 
And if, Cassandra-like, amidst the din 

Of conflict none will hear, or hearing heed 

This voice from out the Wilderness, the sin 
Be theirs, and my own feelings be my meed, 

The only guerdon I have ever known. 

Hast thou not bled ? and hast thou still to bleed, 
Italia ? Ah ! to me such things, foreshown 

With dim sepulchral light, bid me forget 

In thine irreparable wrongs my own ; 
AVe can have but one country, and even yet 

Thou'rt mine — my bones shall be within thy breast, 

My soul within thy language, which once set 
With our old Roman sway in the wide West ; 

But I will make another tongue arise 

As lofty and more sweet, in which express'd 
The hero's ardor, or the lover's sighs. 

Shall find alike such sounds for every theme 

That every word, as brilliant as thy skies. 
Shall realize a poet's proudest dream. 

And make thee Europe's nightingale of song ; 

So that all present speech to thine shall seem 
The note of meaner birds, and every tongue 

Confess its barbarism when compared with thine. 

This shalt thou owe to him thou didst so wrong, 
Thy Tuscan Bard, the banish'd Ghibeline. 

AVoe ! woe ! the veil of coming centuries 

Is rent, — a thousand years which yet supine 
Lie like the ocean waves ere winds arise. 

Heaving in dark and sullen undulation, 

Float from eternity into these eyes ; 
The storms yet sleep, the clouds still keep their sta- 
tion, 

The unborn earthquake yet is in the womb, 

The bloody chaos yet expects creation. 
But all things are disposing for thy doom ; 

The elements await but for the word, 

" Let there be darkness !" and thou grow'st a tomb ! 
Yes ! thou, so beautiful, shalt feel the sword, 

tributed to their husbands' happiness, whatever they might 
as to their philosophy — Cato gave away his wife— of Varro's 
we know nothing — and of Seneca's only that she was dis- 
posed to die with him, but recovered, and lived several years 
afterwards. But, says Leonardo, " L' uomo 6 animale civile, 
secondo piace a tutti i filosofi." And thence concludes that 
the greatest proof of the animaVs civism is " la prima con- 
giunzione, dalla quale multiplicata nasce la Citta." 

2 " The violence of Gemma's temper proved a source of the 
bitterest suffering to Dante; and in that passage of the In- 
ferno, where one of the characters says — 

' La fiera moglie piO ch' altro, mi nuoce, 
' me, my wife, 

Of savage temper, more than aught beside, 

Hath to this evil brought,' 
his own conjugal unhappiness must have recurred forcibly 
and painfully to his mind."— Gary. 



596 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Canto III. 



Thou, Italy ! so fair that Paradise, 

Revived in thee, blooms forth to man restored : 

Ah ! must the sons of Adam lose it twice ? 
Thou, Italy ! whose ever-golden fields, 
Plough'd by the sunbeams solely, would suffice 

For the world's granary ; thou, whose sky heaven gilds 
With brighter stars, and robes with deeper blue ; 
Thou, in whose pleasant places Summer builds 

Her palace, in whose cradle Empire grew, 
And form'd the Eternal City's ornaments 
From spoils of kings Avhom freemen overthrew; 

Birthplace of heroes, sanctuary of saints, 

Where earthly first, then heavenly glory made 
Her home ; thou, all which fondest fancy paints, 

And finds her prior vision but portray'd 

In feeble colors, when the eye — from the Alp 
Of horrid snow, and rock, and shaggy shade 

Of desert-loving pine, whose emerald scalp 
Nods to the storm — dilates and dotes o'er thee, 
And wistfully implores, as 'twere for help, 

To see thy sunny fields, my Italy, 
Nearer and nearer yet, and dearer still 
The more approach'd, and dearest were they free, 

Thou — thou must wither to each tyrant's will : 
The Goth hath been, — the German, Frank, and Hun 
Are yet to come, — and on the imperial hill 

Ruin, already proud of the deeds done 

By the old barbarians, there awaits the new, 
Throned on the Palatine, while lost and won 

Rome at her feet lies bleeding ; and the hue 
Of human sacrifice and Roman slaughter 
Troubles the clotted air, of late so blue, 

And deepens into red the safiron water 

Of Tiber, thick with dead; the helpless priest, 
And still more helpless nor less holy daughter, 

Vow'd to their God, have shrieking fled, and ceased 
Their ministry : the nations take their prey, 
Iberian, Almain, Lombard, and the beast 

And bird, wolf, vulture, more humane than they 
Are ; these but gorge the flesh and lap the gore 
Of the departed, and then go their way ; 

But those, the human savages, explore 
All paths of torture, and insatiate yet, 
With Ugolino hunger prowl for more. 

Nine moons shall rise o'er scenes like this and set ; i 
The chiefless army of the dead, which late 
Beneath the traitor Prince's banner met, 

Hath left its leader's ashes at the gate ; 
Had but the royal Rebel lived, perchance 
Thou hadst been spared, but his involved thy fate. 

Oh, Rome ! the spoiler or the spoil of France, 
From Brennus to the Bourbon, never, never 
Shall foreign standard to thy walls advance. 

But Tiber shall become a mournful river. 



^ See "Sacco di Roma," generally attributed to Guicci- 
ardini. There is another written by a Jacopo Buonaparte. — 
The original MS. of the latter work is preserved in the Eoyal 
Library at Paris. It is entitled " Ragguaglio Storico di tutto 
r occorso, giorno per giorno, nel Sacco di Roma dell anno 



Oh ! when the strangers pass the Alps and Po, 
Crush them, ye rocks ! floods, whelm them, and for 

Why sleep the idle avalanches so, [ever ! 

To topple on the lonely pilgrim's head ? 
Why doth Eridanus but overflow 

The peasant's harvest from his turbid bed ? 
Were not each barbarous horde a nobler prey ? 
Over Cambyses' host the desert spread 

Her sandy ocean, and the sea waves' sway 
Roll'd over Pharaoh and his thousands, — why, 
Mountains and waters, do ye not as they ? 

And you, ye men ! Romans, who dare not die, 
Sons of the conquerors who overthrew 
Those who o'erthrew proud Xerxes, where yet lie 

The dead whose tomb Oblivion never knew, 
Are the Alps weaker than Thermopylae? 
Their passes more alluring to the view 

Of an invader ? is it they, or ye. 
That to each host the mountain-gate unbar. 
And leave the march in peace, the passage free ? 

Why, Nature's self detains the victor's car. 
And makes your land impregnable, if earth 
Could be so ; but alone she will not war, 

Yet aids the warrior worthy of his birth 

In a soil where the mothers bring forth men : 
Not so with those whose souls are little worth ; 

For them no fortress can avail, — the den 
Of the poor reptile which preserves its sting 
Is more secure than walls of adamant, when 

The hearts of those within are quivering. 
Are ye not brave ? Yes, yet the Ausonian soil 
Hath hearts, and hands, and arms, and hosts to bring 

Against Oppression ; but how vain the toil. 
While still Division sows the seeds of woe 
And weakness, till the stranger reaps the spoil ! 

Oh, my own beauteous land ! so long laid low. 
So long the grave of thy own children's hopes, 
When there is but required a single blow 

To break the chain, yet — yet the Avenger stops, 
And Doubt and Discord step 'twixt thine and thee, 
And join their strength to that which with thee 

What is there wanting then to set thee free, [copes ; 
And show thy beauty in its fullest light? 
To make the Alps impassable ; and we. 

Her sons, may do this with one deed Unite. 



W^t ^ropfiecg of Bante. 



CANTO THE THIED. 



From out the mass of never-dying ill, 
The Plague, the Prince, the Stranger, and the Sword, 
Vials of wrath but emptied to refill 



MDXXVII, scritto da Jacopo Buonaparte, gentiluomo Sam- 
miniatese, che vi si trov6 presente." An edition of it was 
printed at Cologne in 1756, to which is prefixed a genealogy 
of the Buonaparte family. 



Canto III. 



THE PEOPHECY OF DANTE. 



597 



And flow again, I cannot all record 
That crowds on my prophetic eye : the earth 
And ocean written o'er would not afford 

Space for the annal, yet it shall go forth ; 

Yes, all, though not by human pen, is graven, 
There where the farthest suns and stars have birth, 

Spread like a banner at the gate of heaven. 
The bloody scroll of our millennial wrongs 
"Waves, and the echo of our groans is driven 

Athwart the sound of archangelic songs, 
And Italy, the martyr'd nation's gore. 
Will not in vain arise to where belongs 

Omnipotence and mercy evermore : 
Like to a harpstring stricken by the wind, 
The sound of her lament shall, rising o'er 

The seraph voices, touch the Almighty Mind. 
Meantime I, humblest of thy sons, and of 
Earth's dust by immortality refined 

To sense and suffei-ing, though the vain may scoff, 
And tyrants threat, and meeker victims bow 
Before the storm because its breath is rough, 

To thee, my country ! whom before, as now, 
I loved and love, devote the mournful lyre 
And melancholy gift high powers allow 

To read the future ; and if now my fire 
Is not as once it shone o'er thee, forgive 1 
I but foretell thy fortunes — then expire ; 

Think not that I would look on them and live. 
A spirit forces me to see and speak, 
And for my guerdon grants not to survive ; 

My heart shall be pour'd over thee and break : 
Yet for a moment, ere I must resume 
Thy sable web of sorrow, let me take 

Over the gleams that flash athwart thy gloom 

A softer glimpse; some stars shine through thy 

night. 
And many meteors, and above thy tomb 

Leans sculptured Beauty, which Death cannot blight : 
And from thine ashes boundless spirits rise 
To give thee honor, and the earth delight ; 

Thy soil shall still be pregnant with the wise. 
The gay, the learn'd, the generous, and the brave, 
Native to thee as summer to thy skies. 

Conquerors on foreign shores, and the far wave,i 
Discoverers of new worlds, which take their name : ^ 
For thee alone they have no arm to save, 

And all thy recompense is in their fame, 
A noble one to them, but not to thee — 
Shall they be glorious, and thou still the same? 

Oh ! more than these illustrious far shall be 
The being — and even yet he may be born — 
The mortal saviour who shall set thee free. 

And see thy diadem, so changed and worn 
By fresh barbarians, on thy brow replaced ; 
And the sweet sun replenishing thy morn. 



1 Alexander Farnese, Spinola, Pescara, Eugene of Savoy, 
Montecuccoli. 
8 Columbus, Americo Vespucci, Sebastian Cabot. 
' A verse from the Greek tragedians, with which Pompey 



Thy moral morn, too long with clouds defaced. 
And noxious vapors from Avernus risen. 
Such as all they must breathe who are debased 

By servitude, and have the mind in prison. 
Yet through this centuried eclipse of woe 
Some voices shall be heard, and earth shall listen ; 

Poets shall follow in the path I show, 
And make it broader : the same brilliant sky 
Which cheers the birds to song shall bid them glow, 

And raise their notes as natural and high ; 

Tuneful shall be their numbers ; they shall sing 
Many of love, and some of liberty, 

But few shall soar upon that eagle's wing. 
And look in the sun's face with eagle's gaze. 
All free and fearless as the feather'd king, 

But fly more near the earth ; how many a phrase 
Sublime shall lavish'd be on some small prince 
In all the prodigality of praise ! 

And language, eloquently false, evince 

The harlotry of genius, which, like beauty, 
Too oft forgets its own self-reverence. 

And looks on prostitution as a duty. 
He who once enters in a tyrant's hall ' 
As guest is slave, his thoughts become a booty. 

And the first day which sees the chain enthrall 
A captive, sees his half of manhood gone * — 
The soul's emascula,tion saddens all 

His spirit ; thus the Bard too near the throne 
Quails from his inspiration, bound to please, — 
How servile is the task to please alone ! 

To smooth the verse to suit his sovereign's ease 
And royal leisure, nor too much prolong 
Aught save his eulogy, and find, and seize, 

Or force, or forge fit argument of song ! [trebles, 

Thus trammell'd, thus condemn'd to Flattei^'s 
He toils through all, still trembling to be wrong : 

For fear some noble thoughts, like heavenly rebels. 
Should rise up in high treason to his brain. 
He sings, as the Athenian spoke, with pebbles 

In's mouth, lest truth should stammer thro' his strain. 
But out of the long file of sonneteers 
There shall be some who will not sing in vain, 

And he, their prince, shall rank among my peers,^ 
And love shall be his torment ; but his grief 
Shall make an immortality of tears. 

And Italy shall hail him as the Chief 
Of Poet-lovers, and his higher song 
Of Freedom wreathe him with as green a leaf. 

But in a farther age shall rise along 
The banks of Po two greater still than he ; 
The world which smiled on him shall do them wrong 

Till they are ashes, and repose with me. 
The first will make an epoph with his lyre. 
And fill the earth with feats of chivalry : 

His fancy like a rainbow, and his fire. 



took leave of Cornelia on entering the boat in which he was 
elain. 

* The verse and sentiment are taken from Homer. 

6 Petrarch. 



598 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Canto IV. 



Like that of Heaven, immortal, and his thought 
Borne onward with a wing that cannot tire ; 

Pleasure shall, like a butterfly new caught, 
Flutter her lovely pinions o'er his theme, 
And Art itself seem into Nature wrought 

By the transparency of his bright dream. — 
The second, of a tenderer, sadder mood, 
Shall pour his soul out o'er Jerusalem ; 

He, too, shall sing of arms, and Christian blood 
Shed where Christ bled for man ; and his high harp 
Shall, by the willow over Jordan's flood. 

Revive a song of Sion, and the sharp 
Conflict, and final triumph of the brave 
And pious, and the strife of hell to warp 

Their hearts from their great purpose, until wave 
The red-cross banners where the first red Cross 
Was crimson'd from his veins who died to save. 

Shall be his sacred argument ; the loss 
Of years, of favor, freedom, even of fame 
Contested for a time, while the smooth gloss 

Of courts would slide o'er his forgotten name, 
And call captivity a kindness, meant 
To shield him from insanity or shame. 

Such shall be his meet guerdon ! who was sent 
To be Christ's Laureate — they reward him well ! 
Florence dooms me but death or banishment, 

Ferrara him a pittance and a cell. 
Harder to bear and less deserved, for I 
Had stung the factions which I strove to quell ; 

But this meek man, who with a lover's eye 
Will look on earth and heaven, and who will deign 
To embalm with his celestial flattery 

As poor a thing as e'er was spawn'd to reign. 
What will he do to merit such a doom ? 
*Perhaps he'll love, — and is not love in vain 

Torture enough without a living tomb ? 
Yet it will be so — he and his compeer, 
The Bard of Chivalry, will both consume 

In penury and pain too many a year. 
And, dying in despondency, bequeath 
To the kind world, which scarce will yield a tear, 

A heritage enriching all who breathe 
With the wealth of a genuine poet's soul. 
And to their country a redoubled wreath, 

Unmatch'd by time ; not Hellas can unroll 
Through her olympiads two such names, though one 
Of hers be mighty ; — and is this the whole 

Of such men's destiny beneath the sun ? ^ 
Must all the finer thoughts, the thrilling sense, 
The electric blood with which their arteries run. 

Their body's self-tuned soul with the intense 
Feeling of that which is, and fancy of 



1 " Why is it necessary to adopt the invidious and too com- 
mon practice of weighing the transcendent talents of Ariosto 
and Tasso in opposite, and as it were contending, scales? 
Reader ! if you have already had the delight of perusing the 
last production of Lord Byron's muse, how must you have 
admired those exquisitely beautiful and affecting portraitures 
of the two matchless poets which conclude the third canto of 
the 'Prophecy of Dante'! "We there see them contrasted 



That which should be, to such a recompense 

Conduct ? shall their bright plumage on the rough 
Storm be still scatter'd ? Yes, and it must be ; 
For, form'd of far too penetrable stuff". 

These birds of Paradise but long to flee 
Back to their native mansion, soon they find 
Earth's mist with their pure pinions not agree, 

And die or are degraded ; for the mind 
Succumbs to long infection, and despair, 
And vulture passions flying close behind. 

Await the moment to assail and tear ; 
And when at length the winged wanderers stoop, 
Then is the prey-birds' triumph, then they share 

The spoil, o'erpower'd at length by one fell swoop. 
Yet some have been untouch'd who learn'd to bear, 
Some whom no power could ever force to droop, 

Who could resist themselves even, hardest care ! 
And task most hopeless ; but some such have been, 
And if my name amongst the number were. 

That destiny austere, and yet serene. 
Were prouder than more dazzling fame unbless'd ; 
The Alp's snow summit nearer heaven is seen 

Than the volcano's fierce eruptive crest. 
Whose splendor from the black abyss is flung, 
While the scorch'd mountain, from whose burning 
breast 

A temporary torturing flame is wrung, 
Shines for a night of terror, then repels 
Its fire back to the hell from whence it sprung, 

The hell which in its entrails ever dwells. 



C5^ ?3topjecB of Mwxtt. 



CANTO THE POUETH. 



Many are poets who have never penn'd 
Their inspiration, and perchance the best : 
They felt, and loved, and died, but would not lend 

Their thoughts to meaner beings ; they compress'd 
The god within them, and rejoin'd the stars 
Unlaurell'd upon earth, but far more bless'd 

Than those who are degraded by the jars 
Of passion, and their frailties link'd to fame, 
Conquerors of high renown, but full of scars. 

Many are poets, but without the name. 
For what is poesy but to create 
From overfeeling good or ill ; and aim 

At an external life beyond our fate. 
And be the new Prometheus of new men. 
Bestowing fire from heaven, and then, too late. 



without such invidious comparison, or depreciation of the one 
to exalt the other ; and characterized in numbers, style, and 
sentiment, so wonderfully Dantesque, that— mastering our 
uncongenial language, and habitual modes of thought as well 
as expression— they seem to have been inspired by the very 
genius of the inarrivabile Dante himself."— Glenber vie, 
Ricciardetto, p. 106. 



Canto IV. 



THE PROPHECY OF DANTE. 



599 



Fiuding the pleasure given repaid with pain, 
And vultures to the heart of the bestower, 
Who, having lavish'd his high gift in vain, 

Lies chain'd to his lone rock by the sea-shore? 
So be it : we can bear. — But thus all they 
Whose intellect is an o'ermastering power 

Which still recoils from its encumbering clay 
Or lightens it to spirit, whatsoe'er 
The form which their creations may essay, 

Are bards ; the kindled marble's bust may wear 
More poesy upon its speaking brow 
Than aught less than the Homeric page may bear : 

One noble stroke with a whole life may glow, 
Or deify the canvas till it shine 
With beauty so surpassing all below, 

That they who kneel to idols so divine 

Break no commandment, for high heaven is there 
Transfused, transfigurated : and the line 

Of poesy, which peoples but the air 

With thought and beings of our thought reflected. 
Can do no more : then let the artist share 

The palm, he shares the peril, and dejected 
Faints o'er the labor unapproved — Alas ! 
Despair and Genius are too oft connected. 

Within the ages which before me pass 
Art shall resume and equal even the sway 
Which with Apelles and old Phidias 



1 The cupola of Saint Peter's. 

2 " If," says Sir Joshua Reynolds, " the high admiration and 
esteem in which ilichael Angelo has been held by all nations, 
and in all ages, should be put to the account of prejudice, it 
must still be granted that those prejudices could not have 
been entertained without a cause : the ground of our preju- 
dice then becomes the source of our admiration. But from 
whatever it proceeds, or whatever it is called, it will not, I 
hope, be thought presumptuous in me to appear in the train, 
I cannot say of his imitators, but of his admirers. I have 
taken another course, one more suited to my abilities, and to 
the taste of the times in which I live. Yet, however unequal 
I feel myself to that attempt, were I now to begin the world 
again, I would tread in the steps of that great master. To 
kiss the, hem of his garment, to catch the slightest of his 
perfections, would be glory and distinction enough for an 
ambitious man."— Sir Joshua Reynolds's Discourses, vol. 
ii. p. 216. 

3 The 8tatu»of Moses on the monument of Julius II. 

SONETTO 
Di Giovanni Battisla Zappi. 
Chi 6 costui, che in dura pietra scolto, 

Siede gigante ; e le piil Ulustri, e conte 

Opre dell' arte avvanza, e ha vive, e pronte 

Le labbra si, che le parole ascolto? 
Quest' 6 Mos5 ; ben me '1 diceva il folto 

Onor del mento, e '1 doppio raggio in fronte, 

Quest' 6 Mos6, quando scendea del monte, 

E gran parte del Nume avea nel volto 
Tal era allor, che le sonanti, e vaste 

Acque ei sospese a se d' intorno, e tale 

Quando il mar chiuse, e ne ffe tomba altrui. 
E vol sue turbe un rio vitello alzaste? 

Alzatta avcste imago a qucsta eguale ! 

Ch' era men fallo 1' adorar costui. 

"And who is he that, shaped in sculptured stone, 
Sits giant-like ? stem monument of art 



She held in Hellas' unforgotten day. 
Ye shall be taught by Ruin to revive 
The Grecian forms at least from their decay. 

And Roman souls at last again shall live 
In Roman works wrought by Italian hands, 
And temples, loftier than the old temples, give 

New wonders to the world ; and while still stands 
The austere Pantheon, into heaven shall soar 
A dome,^ its image, while the base expands 

Into a fane surpassing all before, 
Such as all flesh shall flock to kneel in : "ne'er 
Such sight hath been unfolded by a door 

As this, to which all nations shall repair 

And lay their sins at this huge gate of heaven. 
And the bold Architect unto whose care 

The daring charge to raise it shall be given. 
Whom all arts shall acknowledge as their lord,^ 
Whether into the marble chaos driven 

His chisel bid the Hebrew,^ at whose word 
Israel left Egypt, stop the waves in stone, 
Or hues of Hell be by his pencil pour'd 

Over the damn'd before the Judgment-throne,* 
Such as I saw them, such as all shall see. 
Or fanes be built of grandeur yet unknown, 

The stream of his great thoughts shall spring from me,» 
The Ghibeline, who traversed the three realms 
Which form the empire of eternity. 



Unparallel'd, while language seems to start 
From his prompt lips, and we his precepts own ? 
— 'Tis Moses ; by his beard's thick honors known, 
And the twin beams that from his temples dart ; 
'Tis Moses ; seated on the mount apart, 
"Whilst yet the Godhead o'er his features shone 
Such once he look'd, when ocean's sounding wave 
Suspended hung, and such amidst the storm. 
When o'er his foes the refluent waters roar'd. 
An idol calf his followers did engrave ; 
But had they raised this awe-commanding form. 
Then had they with less guilt their work adored." 

Rogers. 
* The Last Judgment, in the Sistine Chapel.—" It is obvious, 
throughout Michael Angelo's works, that the poetical mind 
of Dante influenced his feelings. The demons in the Last 
Judgment, with all their mixed and various passions, may 
find a prototype in 'La Divina Commedia.' The figures 
rising from the grave mark his study of 'L' Inferno e il 
Purgatorio ;' and the subject of the Brazen Serpent, in the 
Sistine Chapel, must remind every reader of canto xxv. dell' 
Inferno, where the flying serpents, the writhings and con- 
tortions of the human body from envenomed wounds, are 
described with pathos and horror; and the execution of 
Haman, in the opposite angle of the same ceiling, is doubt- 
less designed from these lines, — 

' Poi piovve dentro all' alta fantasia 
Un crocifisso dispettoso e fiero 
Nella sua vista, e cotal si moria. 
Intorno cd esso era '1 grande Assuero 
Ester sua sposa, c '1 giusto Mardocheo, 
Che fu al dire ed al far cos! 'ntero.' "— Duppa. 
6 I have read somewhere (if I do not err, for I caiinot re- 
collect where) that Dante was so great a favorite of Michael 
Angelo's, that he had designed the whole of the Divina Com- 
media ; but that the volume containing these studies was lost 
by sea. — " Michael Angelo's copy of Dante," says Duppa, " was 
a large folio, with Landino's commentary; and upon the. 



600 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



Canto IV. 



Amidst the clash of swords, and clang of helms, 
The age which I anticipate, no less 
Shall be the Age of Beauty, and while whelms 

Calamity the nations with distress. 
The genius of my country shall arise, 
A Cedar towering o'er the Wilderness, 

Lovely in all its branches to all eyes, 
Fragrant as fair, and recognized afar. 
Wafting its native incense through the skies. 

Sovereigns shall pause amidst their sport of war, 
Wean'd for an hour from blood, to turn and gaze 
On canvas or on stone ; and they who mar 

All beauty upon earth, compell'd to praise. 
Shall feel the power of that which they destroy ; 
And Art's mistaken gratitude shall raise 

To tyrants who but take her for a toy 
Emblems and monuments, and prostitute 
Her charms to pontiffs proud,i who but employ 

The man of genius as the meanest brute 
To bear a burthen, and to serve a need, 
To sell his labors, and his soul to boot. 

Who toils for nations may be poor indeed, 
But free ; who sweats for monarchs is no more 
Than the gilt chamberlain, who, clothed and 
fee'd. 

Stands sleek and slavish, bowing at his door. 
Oh, Power that rulest and inspirest ! how 
Is it that they on earth, whose earthly power 

Is likest thine in heaven in outward show, 
Least like to thee in attributes divine, 
Tread on the universal necks that bow. 

And then assure us that their rights are thine ? 



broad margin of the leaves lie designed, with a pen and ink, all 
the interesting subjects. This book was possessed by Antonio 
Montauti, a sculptor and architect of Florence, who, being 
appointed architect to Saint Peter's, removed to Rome and 
shipped his effects at Leghorn for Civita Vecchia, among 
which was this edition of Dante: in the voyage the vessel 
foundered at sea, and it was unfortunately lost in the wreck." 
I See the treatment of Michael Angelo by Julius II., and 
his neglect by Leo X.—" Julius II. was no sooner seated on 
the papal throne than he was surrounded by men of genius, 
and Michael Angelo was among the first invited to his court. 
The pope had a personal attachment to him, and conversed 
with him upon every subject, as well as sculpture, with 
familiarity and friendship; and, that he might visit him 
frequently, and with perfect convenience, caused a covered 
bridge to be made from the Vatican palace to his study, to 
enable him to pass at all times without being observed. On 
paying his visit one morning, Michael Angelo was rudely 
interrupted by the person in waiting, who said, ' I have an 
order not to let you enter.' Michael felt with indignation 
this unmerited disgrace, and, in the warmth of resentment, 
desired him to tell the pope, ' from that time forward, if his 
holiness should want him, he should have to seek him in 
another place.' On his return home, he ordered his servants 
to sell the furniture in his house to the Jews, and to follow 
him to Florence. Himself, the same evening, took post, and 
arrived at Poggibonzi castle, in Tuscany, before he rested. 
The pope dispatched five couriers, with orders to conduct him 
back: but he was not overtaken until he was in a foreign 
state. A reconciliation was, however, a few months after, ef- 
fected at Bologna, through the mediation of the gonfaloniere. 
As Michael Angelo entered the presence chamber, the pope 



And how is it that they, the sons of fame, 
Whose inspiration seems to them to shine 

From high, they whom the nations oftest name. 
Must pass their days in penury or pain, 
Or step to grandeur through the paths of shame, 

And wear a deeper brand and gaudier chain ? 
Or if their destiny be born aloof 
From lowliness, or tempted thence in vain. 

In their own souls sustain a harder proof, 
The inner war of passions deep and fierce ? 
Florence ! when thy harsh sentence I'azed my roof, 

I loved thee ; but the vengeance of my verse. 
The hate of injuries which every year 
Makes greater, and accumulates my curse, 

Shall live, outliving all thou boldest dear. 
Thy pride, thy wealth, thy freedom, and even that, 
The most infernal of all evils here, 

The sway of petty tyrants in a state ; 
For such sway is not limited to kings. 
And demagogues yield to them but in date, 

As swept off sooner ; in all deadly things, 
Which make men hate themselves, and one another, 
In discord, cowardice, cruelty, all that springs 

From Death the Sin-born's incest with his mother. 
In rank oppression in its rudest shape. 
The faction Chief is but the Sultan's brother. 

And the worst despot's far less human ape : 
Florence ! when this lone spirit, which so long 
Yearn'd, as the captive toiling at escape. 

To fly back to thee in despite of wrong, 
An exile, saddest of all prisoners,^ 
Who has the whole world for a dungeon strong. 



gave him an askance look of displeasure, and after a short 
pause saluted him, ' In the stead of your coming to us, you 
seem to have expected that we should wait upon you.' 
Michael Angelo replied with submission, that his error arose 
from too hastily feeling a disgrace that he was unconscious 
of meriting, and hoped his holiness would pardon what was 
past. The pope thereupon gave him his benediction, and 
restored him to his friendship. The whole reign of Leo X. 
was a blank in the life of Michael Angelo." — Duppa. 

2 In his " Convito," Dante speaks of his banishment, and 
the poverty and distress which attended it, in very affecting 
terms. "Alas!" said he, "had it pleased the Dispenser of 
the universe, that the occasion of this excus|. had never ex- 
isted ; that neither others had committed wrong against me, 
nor I suffered unjustly ; suffered, I say, the punishment of 
exile and poverty ; since it was the pleasure of the citizens 
of that fairest and most renowned daughter of Rome, Flor- 
ence, to cast me forth out of her sweet bosom, in which I 
had my birth and nourishment even to the ripeness of my 
age, and in which, with her good will, I desire, with all my 
heart, to rest this wearied spirit of mine, and to terminate the 
time allotted to me on earth. Wandering over almost every 
part, to which this our language extends, I have gone about 
like a mendicant, showing against my will the wound with 
which fortune has smitten me, and which is often imputed 
to his ill-deserving on whom it is inflicted. I have, indeed, 
been a vessel without sail and without steerage, carried about 
to divers ports, and roads, and shores, by the dry wind that 
springs out of sad poverty, and have appeared before the eyes 
of many who, perhaps, from some report that had reached 
them, had imagined me of a different form ; in whose sight 
not only my person was disparaged, but every action of mine 



Canto IV. 



THE PKOPHECY OF DANTE. 



601 



Seas, mouutains, and the horizon's verge for bars, 
Which shut him from the sole small spot of earth 
Where — whatsoe'er his fate — he still were he s, 

His country's, and might die where he had birth — 
Florence ! when this lone spirit shall return 
To kindred spirits, thou wilt feel my worth, 

And seek to honor with an empty urn 
The ashes thou shalt ne'er obtain ^ — Alas ! 
" What have I done to thee, my people ?"2 Stern 

Are all thy dealings, but in this they pass 
The limits of man's common malice, for 
All that a citizen could be I was ; 



became of less value, as well already performed, as those 
which yet remained for me to attempt." 

1 " About the year 1316, the friends of Dante succeeded in 
obtaining his restoration to his country and his possessions, 
on condition that he should pay a certain sum of money, and, 
entering a church, there avow himself guilty, and ask pardon 
of the republic. The following was his answer, on this occa- 
sion, to one of his kinsmen ; — ' From your letter, which I 
received with due respect and affection, I observe how much 
you have at heart my restoration to my country. I am bound 
to you the more gratefully, that an exile rarely finds a friend. 
But, after mature consideration, I must, by my answer, dis- 
appoint the wishes of some little minds ; and I confide in the 
judgment to which your impartiality and prudence will lead 
you. Your nephew and mine has written to me, what indeed 
had been mentioned by many other friends, that by a decree 
concerning the exiles, I am allowed to return to Florence, 
provided I pay a certain sum of money, and submit to the 
humiliation of asking and receiving absolution: wherein, 
my fiather, I see two propositions that are ridiculous and 
impertinent. I speak of the impertinence of those who men- 
tion such conditions to me: for in your letter, dictated by 
judgment and discretion, there is no such thing. Is such an 
invitation to return to his country glorious for Dante, after 
suffering in exile almost fifteen years? Is it thus, then, they 
would recompense innocence which all the world knows, and 
the labor and fatigue of unremitting study ? Far from the 
man who is familiar with philosophy be the senseless base- 
ness of a heart of earth, that could do like a little sciolist, and 
imitate the infamy of some others, by offering himself up as 
it were in chains. Far from the man who cries aloud for 
justice this compromise, by his money, with his persecutors ! 
No, my father, this is not the way that shall lead me back to 
my country. But I shall return with hasty steps, if you or 
any other can open to me a way that shall not derogate from 
the fame and honor of Dante ; but if by no such way Flor- 
ence can be entered, then Florence I shall never enter. 
What! shall I not everywhere enjoy the sight of the sun 
and stars? and may I not seek and contemplate, in every 
corner of the earth under the canopy of heaven, consoling and 
delightful truth, without first rendering myself inglorious, 
nay infamous, to the people and republic of Florence ? Bread, 
I hope, will not fail me." Yet he continued to experience 

" How salt the savor is of others' bread, 
How hard the passage to descend or climb 
By others' .stairs!" 
His countrymen persecuted even his memory: he was ex- 
communicated after death by the pope. 

2 " E scrisse piO volte non solamente a particolari cittadini 
del reggimeuto, ma ancora al popolo, e intra 1' altre una 
EpLstola a-ssai lunga che comincia:— 'Popr^e mi, quid feci 
tibi f " — Vita di Dante, scriUa da Leonardo Areiino. 

8 Dante died at Ravenna in 1321, in the palace of his 
patron, Guido Novello da Polenta, who testified his sorrow 
and respect by the sumptuousness of his obsequies, and by 
giving orders to erect a monument, which he did not live to 



Raised by thy will, all thine in peace or war. 
And for this thou hast warr'd with me. — 'Tis 

done: 
I may not overleap the eternal bar 

Built up between us, and will die alone, 
Beholding with the dark eye of a seer 
The evil days to gifted souls foreshown, 

Foretelling them to those who will not hear, 
As in the old time, till the hour be come 
When Truth shall strike their eyes through many 
a tear, 

And make them own the Prophet in his tomb.^ 



complete. His countrymen showed, too late, that they knew 
the value of what they had lost. At the beginning of the 
next century, they entreated that the mortal remains of 
their illustrious citizen might be restored to them, and 
deposited among the tombs of their fathers. But the peo- 
ple of Ravenna were unwilling to part with the sad and 
honorable memorial of their own hospitality. No better 
success attended the subsequent negotiations of the Flor- 
entines for the same purpose, though renewed under the 
auspices of Leo X., and conducted through the powerful 
mediation of Michael Angelo. 

Never did any poem rise so suddenly into notice, after the 
death of its author, as the Divina Commedia. About the year 
1350, Giovanni Visconti, archbishop of Milan, selected six of 
the most learned men in Italy, — two divines, two philoso- 
phers, and two Florentines,— and gave them in charge to 
contribute their joint endeavors towards the compilation of 
an ample comment, a copy of which is preserved in the Lau- 
rentian library. At Florence, a public lecture was founded 
for the purpose of explaining a poem, which was at the same 
time the boast and the disgrace of the city. The decree for 
this institution was passed in 1373 ; and in that year Boc- 
caccio was appointed, with a salary of a hundred florins, to 
deliver lectures in one of the churches on the first of their 
poets. The example of Florence was speedily followed by 
Bologna, Pisa, Piacenza, and Venice. It is only within a few 
years that the merits of this great and original poet were 
attended to and made known in this country. And this 
seems to be owing to a translation of the very pathetic story 
of Count Ugolino; to the judicious and spirited summary 
given of this poem in the thirty-first section of the History 
of English Poetry ; and to Mr. Hayley's translations of the 
three cantos of the Inferno. "Dante believed," says Ugo 
Foscolo, " that, by his sufferings on earth, he atoned for the 
errors of humanity — 

' Ma la bonta divina ha si gran braccia, 
Che prende cio che si rivolge a lei.' 

' So wide arms 
Hath Goodness infinite, that it receives 
All who turn to it.' — 
And he seems to address Heaven in the attitude of a wor- 
shipper, rather than a suppliant. Being convinced 'that 
Man is then truly happy when he freely exercises all his 
energies,' he walked through the world with an assured step, 
' keeping his vigils ' — 

' So that nor night nor slumber with close stealth 
Convey'd from him a single step in all 
The goings on of time.' 
He collected the opinions, the follies, the vicissitudes, the 
miseries, and the passions that agitate mankind; and left 
behind him a monument, which, while it humbles us by the 
representation of our own wretchedness, should make us 
glory that we partake of the same nature with such a man^ 
and encourage us to make the best use of our fleeting 
I existence." 



jFtancesca of Eimini/ 



DANTE, L'INFEENO.2 

CANTO V. 

SlEDE la terra dove nata fui 

Su la marina, dove il Po discende, 

Per aver pace coi seguaci sui. 
Amor, che al cor gentil ratto s' apprende, 

Prese costui della bella persona 

Che mi fu tolta ; e il modo ancor m' offende. 



1 This translation, of what is generally considered the 
most exquisitely pathetic episode in the Divina Comnaedia, 
was executed in March, 1820, at Ravenna, where, just five 
centuries before, and in the very house in which the unfor- 
tunate lady was born, Dante's poem had been composed. 

In mitigation of the crime of Francesca, Boccaccio relates, 
that "Guido engaged to give his daughter in marriage to 
Lanciotto, the eldest son of his enemy, the master of Rimini. 
Lanciotto, who was hideously deformed in countenance and 
figure, foresaw that, if he presented himself in person, he 
should be rejected by the lady. He therefore resolved to 
marry her by proxy, and sent as his representative his 
younger brother, Paolo, the handsomest and the most ac- 
complished man in all Italy. Francesca saw Paolo and im- 
agined she beheld her future husband. That mistake was 
the commencement of her passion. The friends of Guido 
addressed him in strong remonstrances, and mournful pre- 
dictions of the dangers to which he exposed a daughter, 
whose high spirit would never brook to be sacrificed with 
impunity. But Guido was no longer in a condition to make 
war ; and the necessities of the politician overcame the feel- 
ings of the father." 

In transmitting his version to Mr. Murray, Lord Byron 
says — "Enclosed you will find, line for line, in third rhyme 
(terza rimaj, of which your British blackguard reader as yet 
understands nothing, Fanny of Rimini. You know that she 
was born here, and married, and slain, from Gary, Boyd, and 
such people. I have done it into cramp English, line for 
line, and rhyme for rhyme, to try the possibility. If it is 
published, publish it with the original." 

In one of the poet's MS. diaries we find the following pas- 
sage: — "January 29, 1821, past midnight — one of the clock. 
I have been reading Frederick Schlegel ('Lectures on the 
History of Literature, Ancient and Modern') till now, and 
I can make out nothing. He evidently shows a great power 
of words, but there is nothing to be taken hold of. He is like 
Hazlitt in English, who lalks pimples; a red and white cor- 
ruption rising up (in little imitations of mountains upon 
maps), but containing nothing, and discharging nothing, 
except their own humors. I like him the worse (that is, 
Schlegel), because he always seems upon the verge of mean- 
ing; and, lo! he goes down like sunset, or melts like a 
rainbow, leaving a rather rich confusion. Of Dante, he 
says, that ' at no time has the greatest and the most national 
of all Italian poets ever been much the favorite of his coun- 
trymen!' 'Tis false. There have been more editors and 
commentators (and imitators ultimately) of Dante than 
of all their poets put together. Not a favorite ! Why, they 
talk Dante — write Dante — and think and dream Dante at 
this moment (1821), to an excess which would be ridiculous, 
but that he deserves it. He says also that Dante's 'chief 
( 602 ) 



FROM THE INFEENO OF DANTE. 

CANTO V. 

" The land where I was born^ sits by the seas, 
Upon that shore to which the Po descends. 
With all his followers, in search of peace. 

Love, which the gentle heart soon apprehends, 
Seized him for the fair person which was ta'en* 
From me, and me even yet the mode offends. 



defect is a want, in a word, of gentle feelings.' Of gentle 
feelings! — and Francesca of Rimini — and the father's feel- 
ings in Ugolino— and Beatrice— and 'La Pia!' Why, there 
is a gentleness in Dante beyond all gentleness, when he is 
tender. It is true that, treating of the Christian Hades, or 
Hell, there is not much scope or site for gentleness : but who 
but Dante could have introduced any 'gentleness' at all into 
Hell? Is there any in Milton's? No — and Dante's Heaven 
is all love, and glory, and majesty." This translation was 
first published in 1830. 

2 "Francesca, daughter of Guido da Polenta, lord of Ra- 
venna and of Cervia, was given by her father in marriage to 
Lanciotto, son of Malatesta, lord of Rimini, a man of extra- 
ordinary courage, but deformed in his person. His brother, 
Paolo, who unhappily possessed those graces which the hus- 
band of Francesca wanted, engaged her affections ; and being 
taken in adultery, they were both put to death by the enraged 
Lanciotto. The interest of this pathetic narrative is much 
increased, when it is recollected that the father of this unfor- 
tunate lady was the beloved friend and generous protector of 
Dante during his latter days. See ante, p. 601, and also 
canto xxvii. of the Inferno, where Dante, speaking of Ra- 
venna, says— 

' L' aquila da Polenta 1^ si cova, 

Si che Cirvia ricopre co' suoi vanni.' 

' There Polenta's eagle broods, 

And in his broad circumference of plume 
O'ershadows Cervia.' " Gary. 

Guido was the son of Ostasio da Polenta, and made him- 
self master of Ravenna in 1265. In 1322, he was deprived of 
his sovereignty, and died at Bologna in the year following. 
He is enumerated, by Tiraboschi, among the poets of his time. 

3 Ravenna. 

* Among Lord Byron's unpublished letters we find the 
following : — 
" Varied readings of the translation from Dante. 
' Seized him for the fair person, which in its 
Bloom was ta'en from me, yet the mode oflends.' 

or, 
' Seized him for the fair form, of which in its 
Bloom I was reft, and yet the mode offends. 
Love, which to none beloved to love remits, 
r with mutual wish to please "J 
Seized me ^ with wish of pleasing him > so strong 

t with the desire to please J 
That, as thou seest, not yet that passion quits,' &c. 
You will find these readings vary from the MS. I sent you. 
They are closer, but rougher : take which is liked best ; or, 
if you like, print them as variations. They are all close to 
the text." — Byron Letters. 



FKANCESCA OF KIMINI. 



603 



Amor, che a nullo amato amar perdona, 
Mi prese del costui piacer si forte, 
Che, come vedi, ancor non ni' abbandona ; 

Amor condusse noi ad una morte : 
Caina^ attende chi in vita ci spense -.^ 
Queste parole da lor ci fur porte. 

Da ch' io iatesi quell' anime offense 
Chinai il viso, e tanto il tenni basso 
Fin che il Poeta mi disse : " Che pense?" 

Quando risposi incomminciai : " Alii lasso ! 
Quanti dolci pensier, quanto desio 
Meno costoro al doloroso passo !" 

Poi mi rivolsi a loro, e parlai io, 

E cominciai : Francesca, i tuoi martiri 
A lagrimar mi fanno tristo e pio. 

Ma dimmi : al tempo de' dolci sospiri 
A che, e come concedette Amore 
Che conosceste i dubbiosi desiri ? 

Ed ella a me : nessun maggior dolore 
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice 
Nella miseria ;3 e cio sa il tuo dottore. 

Ma se a conoscer la prima radice 
Del nostro amor tu hai cotanto affetto 
Faro* come colui che piange e dice. 



1 From Cain, the first fratricide. By CainS we are to 
understand that part of the Inferno to which murderers are 
condemned. 

2 "The whole history of woman's love is as highly and 
completely wrought, we think, in these few lines, as that of 
Juliet in the whole tragedy of Shakspeare. Francesca im- 
putes the passion her brother-in-law conceived for her, not 
to depravity, but nobleness of heart in him, and to her own 
loveliness. With a mingled feeling of keen sorrow and com- 
placent naivete, she says she was fair, and that an ignomin- 
ious death robbed him of her beauty. She confesses that she 
loved, because she was beloved, — that charm had deluded her ; 
and she declares, with transport, that joy had not abandoned 
her even in hell — 

' piacer si forte, 

Che, come vedi, ancor non m' abbandona.' 
It is thus that Dante unites perspicuity with conciseness, and 
the most naked simplicity with the profoundest observation 
of the heart. Her guilty passion survives its punishment by 
Heaven— but without a shade of impiety. How striking is 
the contrast of her extreme happiness in the midst of tor- 
ments that can never cease ; when, resuming her narrative, 
she looks at her lover, and repeats with enthusiasm — 

'Questi, che mai da me non fia diviso' — 
She nevertheless goes on to relieve her brother-in-law from 
all imputation of having seduced her. Alone, and unconscious 
of their danger, they read a love-story together. They gazed 
upon each other, pale with emotion ; but the secret of their 
mutual passion never escaped their lips : — 
' Per pio fiate gli occhi ci sospinse 

Quella lettura, e scolorocci il viso ; 

Ma solo un punto fu qual che ci vinse.' 
The description of two happy lovers in the story was the ruin 
of Francesca. It was the romance of Lancilot and Genevra, 
wife of Arthur, king of England :— 

'Quando leggemmo il disiato riso 
Esser baciato da cotanto amante, 
Questi, che mai da me non fia diviso 

La bocca mi bacio tut to tremante.' 



Love, who to none beloved to love again 
Remits, seized me with wish to please, so strong, 
That, as thou seest, yet it doth remain. 

Love to one death conducted us along. 
But Caina waits for him our life who ended :" 
These were the accents utter'd by her tongue. — 

Since I first listen'd to these souls offended, 
I bow'd my visage, and so kept it till — [bended, 
" What think'st thou?" said the bard ; when I un- 

And recommenced : " Alas ! unto such ill 
How many sweet thoughts, what strong ecstasies, 
Led these their evil fortune to fulfill !" 

And then I turn'd unto their side my eyes, 
And said, " Francesca, thy sad destinies 
Have made me sorrow till the tears arise.- 

But tell me, in the season of sweet sighs, 
By what and how thy love to passion rose, 
So as his dim desires to recognize ?" 

Then she to me : " The greatest of all woes 
Is to remind us of our happy days^ 
In misery, and that thy teacher knows.^ 

But if to learn our passion's first root preys 
Upon thy spirit with such sympathy, 
I will do even as he who weeps and says.'^ — 



After this avowal, she hastens to complete the picture with 
one touch which covers her with confusion — 

' Quel giorno pifl non vi leggemmo avante.' 
She utters not another word !— and yet we fancy her before 
us, with her downcast and glowing looks ; whilst her lover 
stands by her side, listening in silence and in tears. Dante, 
too, who had hitherto questioned her, no longer ventures to 
inquire in what manner her husband had put her to death ; 
but is so overawed by pity, that he sinks into a swoon. Nor 
is this to be considered as merely a poetical exaggeration. 
The poet had probably known her when a girl, blooming in 
innocence and beauty under the paternal roof. This, we 
think, is the true account of the overwhelming sympathy 
with which her form overpowers him. The episode, too, was 
written by him in the very house in which she was born, 
and in which he had himself, during the last ten years of 
his exile, found a constant asylum." — Macaulay. 

" I pass each day where Dante's bones are laid ; 

A little cupola, more neat than solemn, 
Protects his dust,— but reverence here is paid 

To the bard's tomb, and not the warrior's column : 
The time must come when, both alike decay'd, 

The chieftain's trophy, and the poet's volume, 
Will sink where lie the songs and wars of earth, 
Before Pelides' death, or Homer's birth." 

Don Juan, canto iii, 
8 "In omni adversitate fortunae infelicissimum genus in- 
fortunii est fuisse Micem. "—Boetim. Dante himself tells us, 
that Boetius and Cicero de Amicitia were the two first books 
that engaged his attention. 

4 "In some of the editions it is 'diro,' in others 'faro;' — 
an essential difference between ' saying ' and ' doing,' which 
I know not how to decide. Ask Foscolo. The d — d editions 
drive me mad."— Lord Byron io Mr. M. 
( recall to mind 



\ remind us of 
« " In misery, and 



I our happy days." — MS. 



,, _ .„ f relate 
" I will < , 

I do eve 



■| , [ thy teacher knows." — MS. 
[■ as he weeps and says."— MS. 



604 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Noi leggevamo un giorno per diletto 
Di LancillottOji come Amor lo strinse : 
Soli eravamo, e senza alcun sospetto. 

Per piu fiate gli ocehi ci sospinse 
Quella lettura, e scolorocci il viso : 
Ma solo un punto fu quel che ci vinse. 

Quando leggemmo il disiato riso 
Esser baciato da cotanto amante, 
Questi, che mai da me non fia diviso, 

La bocca mi bacio tutto tremante : 
Galeotto fu il libro, e chi lo scrisse — 
Quel giorno piu non vi leggemmo avante. 

Mentre che 1' uno spirto questo disse, 
L' altro piangeva si che di pietade 
lo venni men cost com' io morisse, 

E caddi come corpo morto cade. 



1 One of the kniglits of Arthur's Round Table, and the 
lover of Genevra, celebrated in romance. See Southey's 
"King Arthur," vol. i. p. 52. Whitaker, the historian of 
Manchester, makes out for the knight both a local habita- 
tion and a name. " The name of Lancelot," he says, " is an 
appellation truly British, and significative of royalty : Lance 
being a Celtic name for a spear, and Leod, Lod, or Lot, im- 
porting a people. He was therefore (!) a British sovereign ; 
and since he is denominated Lancelot of the Lake, perhaps 
(!) he resided at Coccium, in the region of Linnis, and was 
the monarch of Lancashire ; as the kings of Creones, living 
at Selma, on the forest of Morven, are generally denom- 
inated sovereigns of Morven; or, more properly, was king 
of Cheshire, and resided at Pool-ton Lancelot, in the 
hundred of AVirrall." See also Ellis's Specimens of Early 
Romances, vol. i. p. 271. 

2 " But one point only us { ^rg^tS-eT } •"~^®- 

3 "To be thus kiss'd by such y ®^^®^ I lover ."—MS. 

* The episode of Francesca of Rimini is thus translated 
by Gary: and it is only justice to Lord Byron to give the pas- 
sage here, in order to show how he succeeded in overcoming 
all the diffic\ilties of rhyme, with which Mr. Cary does not 
grapple:— 

" ' The land that gave me birth 
Is situate on the coast, where Po descends 
To rest in ocean with his sequent streams. 

" ' Love, that in gentle heart is quickly learnt, 
Entangled him by that fair form from me 
Ta'en in such cruel sort, as grieves me still : 
Love, that denial takes from none beloved, 
Caught me with pleasing him so passing well, 
That, as thou seest, he yet deserts me not. 
Love brought us to one death : Caina waits 
The soul, who spilt our life.' Such were their words ; 
At hearing which downward I bent my looks, 
And held them there so long, that the Bard cried: 
' What art thou pondering ?' I in answer thus : 
' Alas ! by what sweet thoughts, what fond desire. 
Must they at length to that ill pass have reach'd !' 
" Then turning, I to them my speech address'd, 
And thus began : ' Francesca I your sad fate 
Even to tears my grief and pity moves. 



We read one day for pastime, seated nigh, 

Of Lancilot, how love enchain'd him too. 

We were alone, quite unsuspiciously. 
But oft our eyes met, and our cheeks in hue 

All o'er discolor'd by that reading were ; 

But one point only wholly us o'erthrew ; '^ 
When we read the long-sigh'd-for smile of her, 

To be thus kiss'd by such devoted lover,^ 

He who from me can be divided ne'er 
Kiss'd my mouth, trembling in the act all over. 

Accursed was the book and he who wrote ! 

That day no further leaf we did uncover." 
While thus one spirit told us of their lot, 

The other wept, so that with pity's thralls 

I swoon'd as if by death I had been smote. 
And fell down even as a dead body falls.* 



But tell me ; in the time of your sweet sighs, 
By what, and how Love granted, that ye knew 
Your yet uncertain wishes?' She replied : 
' No greater grief than to remember days 
Of joy, when misery is at hand. That kens 
Thy learn'd instructor. Yet so eagerly 
If thou art bent to know the primal root 
From whence our love gat being, I will do 
As one, who weeps and tells his tale. One day, 
For our delight, we read of Lancelot, 
How him love thrall'd. Alone we were, and no 
Suspicion near us. Ofttimes by that reading 
Our eyes were drawn together, and the hue 
Fled from our alter'd cheek. But at one point 
Alone we fell. "When of that smile we read, 
The wished smile, so rapturously kiss'd 
By one so deep in love, then he, who ne'er 
From me shall separate, at once my lips 
Ml trembling kiss'd. The book and writer both 
Werelove's purveyors. In its leaves that day 
We read no more.' While thus one spirit spake, 
The other wail'd so sorely, that heart-struck, 
I, through compassion fainting, seem'd not far 
From death, and like a corse fell to the ground." 
The story of Francesca and Paolo is a great favorite with 
the Italians. It is noticed by all the historians of Ravenna. 
Petrarch introduces it, in his Trionfl d' Amore, among his 
examples of calamitous passion ; and Tassoni, in his Secchia 
Rapita, represents Paolo Malatesta as leading the troops of 
Rimini, and describes him, when mounted on his charger, 
as contemplating a golden sword-chain, presented to him by 
Francesca : 

" Rimini vien con la bandiera sesta, 
Guida mille cavalli, e mille fanti — 
Halli donata al dispartir Francesca 
L' aurea catena, 5 cui la spada appende. 
La vi mirando al misero, e rinfresca 
Quel foco ognor, che 1' anima gli accende, 
Quanto cerca fuggir, tanto s' invesca." 
" To him Francesca gave the golden chain 

At parting-time, from which his sword was hung ; 
The wretched lover gazed at it with pain. 

Adding new pangs to those his heart had wrung ; 
The more he sought to fly the luscious bane, 
The firmer he was bound, the deeper stung." 



t!lf)t Blues: 



A LITERARY ECLOGUE.' 



" Nimium ne crede colori." — Virgii.. 
O trust not, ye beautiful creatures, to hue, 
Though your hair were as red as your stockings are blue. 



ECLOGUE FIRST.2 
London— Before the Door of a Lecture Room. 

Enter TRACY, meeting INKEL. 
Ink. You're too late. 
Tra. Is it over? 

Ink. Nor will be this hour. 

But the benches are cramm'd like a garden in flower, 
With the pride of our belles, who have made it the 

fashion ; 
So, instead of "beaux arts," we may say "la helle 

passion " 
For learning, which lately has taken the lead in 
The world, and set all the fine gentlemen reading. 
Tra. I know it too well, and have worn out my 
patience 
"With studying to study your new publications. 
There's Vamp, Scamp, and Mouthy, and Wordswords 

and Co.3 
With their damnable — 

Ink. Hold, my good friend, do you know 

Whom you speak to ? 

Tra. Right well, boy, and so does " the Row :" * 
You're an author — a poet — 

Ink. And think you that I . 

Can stand tamely in silence to hear you decry 
The Muses ? 



1 This trifle, which Lord Byron has himself designated as 
a " mere buffoonery, never meant for publication," was writ- 
ten in 1820, and first appeared in " The Liberal." The per- 
sonal allusions in which it abounds are, for the most part, 
sufliciently intelligible ; and, with a few exceptions, so good- 
humored, that the parties concerned maybe expected to join 
in the laugh. 

* " About the year 1781, it was much the fashion for several 
ladies to have evening assemblies, where the fair sex might 
participate in conversation with literary and ingenious men, 
animated by a desire to please. These societies were denomi- 
nated Blue-stocking Clubs; the origin of which title being 
little known, it may be worth while to relate it. One of the 
most eminent members of those societies, when they first 
commenced, was Mr. Stillingfleet, whose dress was remark- 
ably grave, and in particular it was observed that he wore 
blue stockings. Such was the excellence of his conversation, 
that his absence was felt as so great a loss, that it used to be 
said, ' We can do nothing without the bliie stockings ;' and 



Tra. Excuse me : I meant no oflfence 

To the Nine; though the number who make some 
pretence 

To their favors is such but the subject to drop, 

I am just piping hot from a publisher's shop 
(Next door to the pastry-cook's ; so that when I 
Cannot find the new volume I wanted to buy 
On the bibliopole's shelves, it is only two paces, 
As one finds every author in one of those places) : 
Where I just had been skimming a charming critique, 
So studded with wit, and so^sprinkled with Greek ! 
Where your friend — you know who — has just got such 

a threshing. 
That it is, as the phrase goes, extremely " refreshing.''^ ^ 
What a beautiful word ! 

Ink. Very true ; 'tis so soft 

And so cooling — they use it a little too oft ; 
And the papers have got it at last — but no matter. 
So they've cut up our friend then? 

Tea. Not left him a tatter — 

Not a rag of his present or past reputation, 
Which they call a disgrace to the age and the nation. 

Ink. I'm sorry to hear this ! for friendship, you 

know 

Our poor friend ! — but I thought it would terminate 

so. 
Our friendship is such, I'll read nothing to shock it. 
You don't happen to have the Review in your pocket ? 



thus by degrees the title was established."— J9osi<;e^Z, vol. viil. 
p. 86. Sir William Forbes, in his life of Dr. Beattie, says, 
that "a foreigner of distinction, hearing the expression, 
translated it literally, ' Bas Bleu^ by which these meetings 
came to be distinguished. Miss Hannah More, who was her- 
self a member, has written a poem with the title of 'Bas 
Bleu,' in allusion to this mistake of the foreigner, in which 
she has characterized most of the eminent personages of 
which it was composed." 

3 See the stanzas on Messrs. Wordsworth and Pouthey in 
Don Juan, canto iii. 

* Paternoster row— long and still celebrated as a very bazaar 
of booksellers. Sir Walter Scott " hitches into rhyme " one 
of the most important firms — that 

"Of Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 
Our fathers of the Row." 

6 This cant phrase was first used in the Edinburgh Review 
— probably by Mr. Jeffrey. 

( G05 ) 



606 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Tea. No ; I left a round dozen of authors and others 
(Very sorry, no doubt, since the cause is a brother's) 
All scrambling and jostling, like so many imps, 
And on fire with impatience to get the next glimpse. 

Ink. Let us join them. 

Tra. What, won't you return to the lecture? 

Ink. Why the place is so cramm'd, there's not 
room for a spectre. 
Besides, our friend Scamp is to-day so absurd — 

Tea. How can you know that till you hear him ? 

Ink. I heard 

Quite enough ; and, to tell you the truth, my retreat 
Was from his vile nonsense, no less than the heat. 

Tra. I have had no great loss then ? 

Ink. Loss !— such a palaver! 

I'd inoculate sooner my wife with the slaver 
Of a dog when gone rabid, than listen two hours 
To the torrent of trash which around him he pours, 
Pump'd up with such effort, disgorged with such labor. 

That come — do not make me speak ill of one's 

neighbor. 

Tra. / make you ! 

Ink. Yes, you ! I said nothing until 
You compell'd me, by speaking the truth 

Tra. To speak ill ! 

Is that your deduction ? 

Ink. When speaking of Scamp ill, 

I certainly follow, not set an example. 
The fellow's a fool, an impostor, a zany. 

Tra. And the crowd of to-day shows that one fool 
makes many. 
But we two will be wise. 

Ink. Bi'ay, then, let us retire. 

Tra. I would, but 

Ink. There must be attraction much higher 

Than Scamp, or the Jew's harp he nicknames his lyre, 
To call you to this hotbed. 

Tra. I own it — 'tis true — 

A fair lady 

Ink. A spinster? 

Tra. Miss Lilac ! 

Ink. The Blue ! 

The heiress ! 

Tra. The angel ! 

Ink. The devil ! why, man. 

Pray get out of this hobble as fast as you can. 
You wed with Miss Lilac ! 'twould be your perdition : 
She's a poet, a chemist, a mathematician. 

Tra. I say she's an angel. 

Ink. Say rather an angle. 

If you and she marry, you'll certainly wrangle.^ 
I say she's a Blue, man, as blue as the ether. 

Tra. And is that any cause for not coming together ? 

Ink. Humph ! I can't say I know any happy alli- 
ance [science. 
Which has lately sprung up from a wedlock with 

^ " Her favorite science was the mathematical 

In short she was a walking calculation, 

Miss Edgeworth's novels stepping from their covers, 
Morality's prim personification 



She's so learned in all things, and fond of concerning 
Herself in all matters connected with learning, 
That 

Tra. What? 

Ink. I perhaps may as well hold my tongue ; 

But there's five hundred people can tell you you're 
wrong. 

Tra. You forget Lady Lilac's as rich as a Jew. 

Ink. Is it miss or the cash of mamma you pursue ? 

Tea. Why, Jack, I'll be frank with you — some- 
thing of both. 
The girl's a fine girl. 

Ink. And you feel nothing loth 

To her good lady -mother's reversion ; and yet 
Her life is as good as your own, I will bet. 

Tra. Let her live, and as long as she likes ; I de- 
mand 
Nothing more than the heart of her daughter and hand. 

Ink. Why that heart's in the inkstand — that hand 
on the pen. 

Tra. J. propos — Will you write me a song now and 
then ? 

Ink. To what purpose? 

Tra. You know, my dear friend, that in prose 
My talent is decent, as far as it goes ; 
But in rhyme 

Ink. You're a terrible stick, to be sure. 

Tra. I own it : and yet, in these times, there's no 
lure 
For the heart of the fair like a stanza or two ; 
And so, as I can't, will you furnish a few ? 

Ink. In your name ? 

Tea. In my name. I will copy them out. 

To slip into her hand at the very next rout. 

Ink. Are you so far advanced as to hazard this ? 

Tea. Why, 

Do you think me subdued by a Blue-stocking's eye, 
So far as to tremble to tell her in rhyme 
What I've told her in prose, at the least, as sublime ? 

Ink. As sublime ! If it be so, no need of my Muse. 

Tea. But consider, dear Inkel, she's one of the 
" Blues." 

Ink. As sublime ! — Mr. Tracy — I've nothing to say. 
Stick to prose — As sublime ! ! — but I wish you good 
day. 

Tea. Nay, stay, my dear fellow — consider — I'm 
wrong ; 
I own it ; but, prithee, compose me the song. 

Ink. As sublime ! ! 

Tea. I but used the expression in haste. 

Ink. That may be, Mr. Tracy, but shows damn'd 
bad taste. 

Tea. I own it — I know it — acknowledge it — what 
Can I say to you more ? 

Ink. I see what you'd be at : 

You disparage my parts with insidious abuse, 

But— oh ! ye lords of ladies intellectual. 

Inform us truly, have they not hen-peck'd you all ?" 

Don Juan, canto i. 



THE BLUES. 



607 



Till you think you can turn them best to your own 
use. 

Tra. And is that not a sign I respect them ? 

Ink. Why that 

To be sure makes a diflference. 

Tea. I know what is what : 

And you, who're a man of the gay world, no less 
Than a poet of t'other, may easily guess 
That I never coifld mean, by a word, to offend 
A genius like you, and, moreover, my friend. 

Ink. No doubt; you by this time should know 
what is due 
To a man of but come — let us shake hands. 

Tra. You knew, 

And you know, my dear fellow, how heartily I, 
Whatever you publish, am ready to buy. 

Ink, That's my bookseller's business ; I care not 
for sale ; 
Indeed the best poems at first rather fail. 
There were Renegade's epics, and Botherby's plays,^ 
And my own grand romance 

Tra. Had its full share of praise. 

I myself saw it puff 'd in the " Old Girl's Review." 2 

Ink. What Review? 

Tea. 'Tis the English " Journal de Trevoux :" 3 
A clerical work of our Jesuits at home. 
Have you never yet seen it ? 

Ink. That pleasure's to come. 

Tra. Make haste then. 

Ink. Why so ? 

Tra. I have heard people say 

That it threaten'd to give up the ghost t'other day. 

Ink. Well, that is a sign of some spirit. 

Tra. No doubt. 

Shall you be at the Countess of Fiddlecome's rout? 

Ink. I've a card, and shall go: but at present, as 
soon 
As friend Scamp shall be pleased to step down from 

the moon 
(^Vhere he seems to be soaring in search of his wits). 
And an interval grants from his lecturing fits, 
I'm engaged to the Lady Bluebottle's collation. 
To partake of a luncheon and learn'd conversation : 
'Tis a sort of reunion for Scamp, on the days 
Of his lecture, to treat him with cold tongue and 

praise. 
And I own, for ray own part, that 'tis not unpleasant. 
Will you go? Tliere's Miss Lilac will also be present. 

Tra. That " metal's attractive." 



^ Messrs. Southey and Sotheby. 

2 "My Grandmother's Review, the British." This heavy 
journal has since been gathered to its grandmothers. 

« The " Journal de Trevoux " (in fifty-six volumes) is one 
of the most curious collections of literary gossip in the world, 
—and the poet paid the British Review an extravagant com- 
pliment, when he made this comparison. 

* "Sotheby is a good man — rhymes well ('\i not wisely); 
but is a bore. He seizes you by the button. One night of a 
rout at Mrs. Hope's, he had fastened upon me (something 
about Agamemnon, or Orestes, or some of his ploys) not- 



Ink. No doubt — to the pocket. 

Tra. You should rather encourage my passion than 
shock it. 
But let us proceed ; for I think, by the hum 

Ink. Very true ; let us go, then, before they can 
come. 
Or else we'll be kept here an hour at their levy, 
On the rack of cross questions, by all the blue bevy. 
Hark ! Zounds, they'll be on us ; I know by the drone 
Of old Botherby's spouting ex-cathedr£l tone. 
Ay ! there he is at it. Poor Scamp ! better join 
Your friends, or he'll pay you back in your own coin. 

Tra. All fair ; 'tis but lecture for lecture. 

Ink. That's clear. 

But for God's sake let's go, or the Bore will be here. 
Come, come : nay, I'm off. {Exit Inkel. 

Tra. You are right, and I'll follow ; 

'Tis high time for a " Sic me servavit Apollo." * 
And yet we shall have the whole crew on our kibes, 
Blues, dandies, and dowagers, and second-hand scribes, 
All flocking to moisten their exquisite throttles 
With a glass of Madeira at Lady Bluebottle's. 

[Exit Tracy. 



ECLOGUE SECOND. 

An Apartment in the House of Lady Bluebottle 
— A Table prepared. 



Sir Richard Bluebottle 
Was there ever a man who was married so sorry ? 
Like a fool, I must needs do the thing in a hurry. 
My life is reversed, and my quiet destroy'd; 
My days, which once pass'd in so gentle a void, 
Must now, every hour of the twelve, be employ'd : 
The twelve, do I say ? — of the whole twenty -four, 
Is there one which I dare call my own any more ? 
What with driving and visiting, dancing and dining. 
What with learning, and teaching, and scribbling, 

and shining 
In science and art, I'll be cursed if I know 
Myself from my wife ; for although we are two. 
Yet she somehow contrives that all things shall be done 
In a style which proclaims us eternally one. 
But the thing of all things which distresses me more 
Than the bills of the week (though they trouble me 

sore) 



withstanding my symptoms of manifest distress (for I -was 
in love, and just nicked a minute when neither mothers, nor 
husbands, nor rivals, nor gossips were near my then idol, 
who was beautiful as the statues of the gallery where we 
stood at the time). Sotheby, I say, had seized upon me by the 
button and the heart-strings, and spared neither. William 
Spencer, who likes fun, and don't dislike mischief, saw my 
case, and coming up to us both, took me by the hand, and 
pathetically bade me farewell ; ' for.' said he, * I see it is all 
over with you.' Sotheby then went his way: 'sic me servavit 
Apollo:''— Byron Diary, 1821. 



608 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Is the numerous, humorous, backbiting crew 
Of scribblers, wits, lecturers, white, black, and blue, 
Who are brought to my house as an inn, to my cost — 
For the bill here, it seems, is defray'd by the host- 
No pleasure ! no leisure ! no thought for my pains. 
But to hear a vile jargon which addles my brains : 
A smatter and chatter, glean'd out of reviews, 
By the rag, tag, and bobtail, of those they call 
"Blues;" 

A rabble who know not But soft, here they come ! 

Would to God I were deaf ! as I'm not, I'll be dumb. 

Bnter Lady Bluebottle, Miss Lilac, Lady Blue- 
mount, Mr. Botheeby, Inkel, Tracy, Miss 

Mazarine, and others, with Scamp the Lecturer, 

&c. &c. 

Lady Bluer. Ah! Sir Richard, good morning: 
I've brought you some friends. 

Sir Rich, {bows, and afterwards aside). If friends, 
they're the first. 

Lady Blueb. But the luncheon attends. 

I pray ye be seated, " sans ceremonieJ^ 
Mr. Scamp, you're fatigued; take your chair there, 
next me. \^T hey all sit. 

Sir Rich, {aside). If he does, his fatigue is to 
come. 

Lady Blueb. Mr. Tracy- 

Lady Bluemount — Miss Lilac — be pleased, pray, to 

place ye ; 
And you, Mr. Botherby — 

Both. Oh, my dear lady, 

I obey. 

Lady Blueb. Mr. Inkel, I ought to upbraid ye : 
You were not at the lecture ! 

Ink. Excuse me, I was ; 

But the heat forced me out in the best part — alas I 
And when — 

Lady Blueb. To be sure it was broiling ; but then 
You have lost such a lecture ! 

Both. The best of the ten. 

Tea. How can you know that ? there are two more. 

Both. Because 

I defy him to beat this day's wondrous applause. 
The very walls shook. 

Ink. Oh, if that be the test, 

I allow our friend Scamp has this day done his best. 
Miss Lilac, permit me to help you ; — a wing ? 

Miss Lil. No more, sir, I thank you. Who lectures 
next spring ? 

Both. Dick Dunder. 

Ink. That is, if he lives. 

Miss Lil. And why not? 

Ink. No reason whatever, save that he's a sot. 
Lady Bluemount ! a glass of Madeira ? 

Lady Bluem. With pleasure. 

Ink. How does your friend Wordswords, that 
Windermere treasure ? 



1 Wordsworth was collector of stamps for Cutaberland and 
"Westmoreland. 



Does he stick to his lakes, like the leeches he sings, 
And their gatherers, as Homer sung warriors and 
kings ? 
Lady Bluem. He has just got a place. 
Ink. As a footman ? 

Lady Bluem. For shame ! 

Nor profane with your sneers so poetic a name. 
Ink. Nay, I meant him no evil,^ but pitied his 
master ; 
For the poet of peddlers 'twere, sure, no disaster 
To wear a new livery ; the more, as 'tis not 
The first time he has turn'd both his creed and his 
coat. 
Lady Bluem. For shame ! I repeat. If Sir George 

could but hear 

Lady Blueb. Never mind our friend Inkel; we 
all know, my dear, 
'Tis his way. 

Sir Rich. But this place 

Ink. Is perhaps like friend Scamp's, 

A lecturer's. 
Lady Bluem. Excuse me — 'tis one in "the 
Stamps :" 
He is made a collector.^ 
Tra. Collector! 

Sir Rich. How? 

Miss Lil. What? 

Ink. I shall think of him oft when I buy a new 
hat: 

There his works will appear ■ 

Lady Bluem. Sir, they reach to the Ganges. 

Ink. I sha'n't go so far — I can have them at 

Grange's.2 
Lady Blueb. Oh fie ! 
Miss Lil. And for shame! 

Lady Bluem. You're too bad. 

Both. Very good ! 

Lady Bluem. How good ? 

Lady Blueb. He means nought — 'tis his phrase. 
Lady Bluem. He grows rude. 

Lady Blueb. He means nothing ; nay, ask him. 
Lady Bluem. Pray, sir ! did you mean 

What you say ? 

Ink. Never mind if he did : 'twill be seen 

That whatever he means won't alloy what he says. 
Both. Sir? 

Ink. Pray be content with your portion of praise ; 
'Twas in your defence. 

Both. If you please, with submission, 

I can make out my own. 

Ink. It would be your perdition. 

While you live, my dear Botherby, never defend 
Yourself or your works ; but leave both to a friend. 
A propos — Is your play then accepted at last ? 
Both. At last? 

Ink. Why I thought — that's to say — there had 

pass'd 

2 Grange is or was a famous pastry-cook and fruiterer ii| 
Piccadilly. 



THE ELITES. 



609 



A few green-room whispers, wliicli hinted — you know 
That the taste of the actors at best is so-so.^ 
Both. Sir, the green-room's in rapture, and so's 

the Committee. 
Ink. Ay — yours are the plays for exciting our 
"pity 
And fear," as the Greek says : for " purging the mind," 
I doubt if you'll leave us an equal behind. 
Both. I have written the prologue, and meant to 
have pray'd 
For a spice of your wit in an epilogue's aid. 
Ink. Well, time enough yet, when the play's to be 
play'd. 
Is it cast yet? 

Both. The actors are fighting for parts. 

As is usual in that most litigious of arts. 
Lady Blueb. We'll all make a party, and go the 

first night. 
Tra. And you promised the epilogue, Inkel. 
Ink. Not quite. 

However, to save my friend Botherby trouble, 
I'll do what I can, though my pains must be double. 
Tra. Why so? 

Ink. To do justice to what goes before. 

Both. Sir, I'm happy to say, I have no fears on 
that score. 

Your parts, Mr. Inkel, are 

Ink. Never mind mine ; 

Stick to those of your play, which is quite your own 
line. 
Lady Bluem. You're a fugitive writer, I think, 

sir, of rhymes? 
Ink. Yes, ma'am ; and a fugitive reader sometimes. 
On Wordswords, for instance, I seldom alight. 
Or on Mouthey, his friend, without taking to flight. 
Lady Blijem. Sir, your taste is too common : but 
time and posterity 
Will right these great men, and this age's severity 
Become its reproach. 

Ink. I've no sort of objection. 

So I'm not of the party to take the infection. 
Lady Blueb. Perhaps you have doubts that they 
ever will takef 



1 " When I belonged to the Drury Lane Committee, the 
number of plays upon the shelves were about five hundred. 
Mr. Sotheby obligingly offered us all his tragedies, and I 
pledged myself, and— notwithstanding many squabbles with 
my committee brethren — did get Ivan accepted, read, and 
the parts distributed. But lo ! in the very heart of the mat- 
ter, upon some tepid-ness on the part of Kean, or warmth on 
that of the author, Sotheby withdrew his play." — Byron 
Diary, 1821. 

2 The late Sir George Beaumont— a constant friend of Mr. 
Wordsworth. 

3 It was not the present earl of Lonsdale, but James, the 
first earl, who offered to build, and completely furnish and 
man, a ship of seventy-four guns, towards the close of the 
American war, for the service of his country, at his own ex- 
pense ;— hence the soubriquet in the text. 

* " We learn from Horace, ' Homer sometimes sleeps ;' 

We feel, without him, Wordsworth sometimes wakeg,^ 
39 



Ink. Not at all ; on the contrary, those of the lake 
Have taken already, and still will cpntinue 
To take — what they can, from a groat to a guinea, 
Of pension or place; — but the subject's a bore. 
Lady Bluem. Well, sir, the time's coming. 
Ink. Scamp ! don't you feel sore ? 

What say you to this ? 

Scamp. They have merit, I own ; 

Though their system's absurdity keeps it unknown. 
Ink. Then why not unearth it in one of your 

lectures ? 
Scamp. It is only time past which comes under 

my strictures. 
Lady Blueb. Come, a truce with all tartness; — 
the joy of my heart 
Is to see Nature's triumph o'er all that is art. 
Wild Nature 1 — Grand Shakspeare ! 
Both. And down Aristotle ! 

Lady Bluem. Sir George 2 thinks exactly with 
Lady Bluebottle ; 
And my Lord Seventy-four,^ who protects our dear 

Bard, 
And who gave him his place, has the greatest regard 
For the poet, who, singing of peddlers and asses,* 
Has found out the way to dispense with Parnassus. 
Tra. And you. Scamp ! — 

Scamp. I needs must confess I'm embarrass'd. 

Ink. Don't call upon Scamp, who's already so 
harass'd 
With old schools, and new schools, and no schools, and 
all schools. 
Tra. Well, one thing is certain, that some must be 
fools. 
I should like to know who. 

Ink. And I should not be sorry 

To know who are not : — it would save us some worry. 
Lady Blueb. A truce with remark, and let noth- 
ing control 
This " feast of our reason, and flow of the soul." 
Oh ! my dear Mr. Botherby ! sympathize ! — I 
Now feel such a rapture, I'm ready to fly, 
I feel so elastic — " so buoyant 1 — so buoyant /" ^ 
Ink. Tracy ! open the window. 



To show with what complacency he creeps, 
With his dear ' wagoners,^ around his lakes. 

He wishes for ' a boat ' to sail the deeps — 
Of ocean ?— No, of air ; and then he makes 

Another outcry for ' a little boat,' 
And drivels seas to set it well afloat. 

" ' Peddlers,' and ' boats,* and ' wagons !' Oh ! ye shades 
Of Pope and Dryden, are we come to this? 

That trash of such sort not alone evades 
Contempt, but from the bathos' vast abyss 

Floats scumlike uppermost, and these Jack Cades 
Of sense and song above your graves may hiss — 

The 'little boatman ' and his ' Peter Bell ' 

Can sneer at him who drew ' Achitophel !' " 

Don Juan, canto liL 



» Fact from life, with the words. 



610 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Tra. I wish her much joy on't. 

Both. For Gq^'s sake, my Lady Bluebottle, check 
This gentle emotion, so seldom our lot [not 

Upon earth. Give it way ; 'tis an impulse which lifts 
Our spirits from earth ; the sublimest of gifts ; 
For which poor Prometheus was chain'd to his 

mountain : 
'Tis the source of all sentiment— feeling's true 

fountain ; 
'Tis the Vision of Heaven upon Earth : 'tis the gas 
Of the soul : 'tis the seizing of shades as they pass, 
And making them substance — 'tis something divine : — 
Ink. Shall I help you, my friend, to a ijttle more 

wine? 
Both. I thank you ; not any more, sir, till I dine. 
Ink. a propos — Do you dine with Sir Humphry ^ 

to-day ? 
Tra. I should think with Duke Humphry was 

more in your way. 
Ink. It might be of yore ; but we authors now look 
To the Knight, as a landlord, much more than the 

Duke. 
The truth is, each writer now. quite at his ease is. 
And (except with his publisher) dines where he 

pleases. 
But 'tis now nearly five, and I must to the Park. 



1 The late Sir Humphry Davy, president of the Royal 
Society. 

" The late Miss Lydia White, whose hospitable functions 



Tra. And I'll take a turn with you there till 'tis 
dark. 

And you, Scamp 

Scamp. Excuse me ! I must to my notes 

For my lecture next week. 

Ink. He must mind whom he quotes 

Out of " Elegant Extracts." 

Lady Bluer. Well, now we break up ; 

But remember Miss Diddle 2 invites us to sup. 
Ink. Then at two hours past midnight we all meet 
again, 
For the sciences, sandwiches, hock, and champagne ! 
Tra. And the sweet lobster salad ! 
Both. I honor that meal ; 

For 'tis then that our feelings most genuinely — feel. 
Ink. True; feeling is truest then, far beyond 
question ; 
I wish to the gods 'twas the same with digestion ! 
Lady Bltjeb. Pshaw ! — never mind that ; for one 
moment of feeling 
Is worth — God knows what. 
Ink. 'Tis at least worth concealing 

For itself, or what follows But here comes your 

carriage. 
Sir Rich, (aside). I wish all these people were 
d d with my marriage ! [Exeunt. 



have not yet been supplied to the circle of London artists 
and literati— an accomplished, clever, and truly amiable, but 
very eccentric lady. The name in the text could only have 
been suggested by the jingling resemblance it bears to Lydia, 



5ri)e ViMon of Julrgment 

BY QUEVEDO REDIVIVUS.i 
SUGGESTED BY THE COMPOSITION SO ENTITLED BY THE AUTHOR OF " WAT TYLEE.' 



" A Daniel come to judgment ! yea, a Daniel I 
I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me tha^ord." 



PREFACE. 

It hath been wisely said, that "One fool makes 
many;" and it hath been poetically observed, 

" That fools rush in where angels fear to tread." — Pope. 

If Mr. Southey had not rushed in where he had no 
business, and where he never was before, and never 
will be again, the following poem would not have 



1 In 1S21, Mr. Southey published a piece, in English hex- 
ameters, entitled " A Vision of Judgment ;" and which Lord 
Byron, in criticising it, laughs at as "the Apotheosis of 
George the Third." In the preface to this poem, after some 
observations on the peculiar style of its versification, Mr. 
Southey introduced the following remarks : — 

" I am well aware that the public are peculiarly intolerant of such inno- 
rations ; not less so than the populace are of any foreign fashion, whether 
of foppery or convenience. Would that this literary intolerance were under 
the influence of a saner judgment, and regarded the morals more than the 
manner of a composition ; the spirit rather than the form I Would that it 
were directed against those monstrous combinations of horrors and mock- 
ery, lewdness and impiety, with which English poetry has, in our days, 
first been polluted ! For more than half a century English literature had 
been distinguished by its moral purity, the effect, and, in its turn, the cause, 
of an improvement in national manners. A father might, without appre- 
hension of evil, have put into the hands of his children any book which 
issued from the press, if it did not bear, either in its title-page or frontis- 
piece, manifest signs that it was intended as furniture for the brothel. 
There was no danger in any work which bore the name of a respectable 
publisher, or was to be procured at any respectable bookseller's. This was 
particularly the case with regard to our poetry. It is now no longer so : 
»nd woe to those by whom the offence cometh ! The greater the talents of 
the offender, the greater is his guilt, and the more enduring will be his 
shame. Whether it be that the laws are in themselves unable to abate an 
evil of this magnitude, or whether it be that they are remissly administered, 
and with such injustice that the celebrity of an offender serves as a privilege 
whereby he obtains impunity, individuals are bound to consider that such 
pernicious works would neither be published nor written, if they were dis- 
couraged as they might, and ought to be, by public feeling: every person, 
therefore, who purchases such books, or admits them into his house, pro- 
motes the mischief, and thereby, as far as in him lies, becomes an aider and 
abettor of the crime. 

" The publication of a lascivious book Is one of the worst offences which 
can be committed against the well-being of society. It is a sin, to the con- 



• " Summi poetae in omni poetarum sxculo viri fuernnt probi : in nostris 
Id vidimus et videmus; neque alius est error a veritate longiils qudm 
magna ingenia magnis necessario corrumpi vitiis. Secundo plerique pos- 
thabent primura, hi malignitate, illl Ignorantii; et quum aliquem inve- 
niunt styli morumque vitiis notatum, nee Inflcetum tamen nee in libris 
edendis parcum, eum stipant, praedicant, occupant, amplectuntur. Si 
mores aliquantulum vellet corrigere, si stylum curare paululum, si fervido 
ingenio temperare, si morse tantillom Interponere, tum ingens nescio quid 
et ver* cpicum, quadraginta annos natus, procudcrat. Ignorant verd fcbri- 
ealia non indicari vires, impatientlam ab imbecillitste nom differre ; Igno- 



been written. It is not impossible that it may be aa 
good as his own, seeing that it cannot, by any species 
of stupidity, natural, or acquired, be tvorse. Tho 
gross flattery, the dull impudence, the renegado in- 
tolerance and impious cant, of the poem by the author 
of " Wat Tyler," are something so stupendous as to 
form the sublime of himself— containing the quint- 
essence of his own attributes. 



sequences of which no limits can be assigned, and those consequences no 
after-repentance in the writer can counteract. Whatever remorse of con- 
science he may feel when his hour comes (and come it must !) will be of no 
avail. The poignancy of a death-bed repentance cannot cancel one copy of 
the thousands which are sent abroad ; and as long as it continues to be read, 
so long is he the pander of posterity, and so long is he heaping up guilt 
upon his soul in perpetual accumulation. 

"These remarks are not more severe than the offence deserves, even 
when applied to those immoral writers who have not been conscious of any 
evil intention in their writings, who would acknowledge a littie levity, a 
little warmth of coloring, and so forth, in that sort of language with which 
men gloss over their favorite vices, and deceive themselves. What then 
should be said of those for whom the thoughtlessness and inebriety of wan- 
ton youth can no longer be pleaded, but who have written in sober manhood 
and with deliberate purpose ? — Men of diseased * hearts and depraved im- 
aginations, who, forming a system of opinions to suit their own unhappy 
course of conduct, have rebelled against the holiest ordinances of human 
society, and hating that revealed religion which, with all their efforts and 
bravadoes, they are unable entirely to disbelieve, labor to make others as 
miserable as themselves, by infecting them with a moral virus that eats 
into the soul ! The school which they have set up may properly be called 
the Satanic school; for though their productions breathe the spirit of Belial 
in their lascivious parts, and the spirit of Moloch in those loathsome 
images of atrocities and horrors which they delight to represent, they are 
more especially characterized by a Satanic spirit of pride and audacious 
impiety, which still betrays the wretched feeling of hopelessness wherewith 
it is allied. 

" This evil is political as well as moral, for indeed moral and political evils 
are inseparably connected. Truly has it been affirmed by one of our ablest 
and clearest reasoners, that 'the destruction of governments may be proved 
and deduced from the general corruption of the subjects' manners, as a 
direct and natural cause thereof, by a demonstration as certain as any in the 
mathematics.' There is no maxim more frequently enforced by Machiavelli, 
than that where the manners of a people arc generally corrupted, there the 
government cannot long subsist,— a truth which all history exemplifies; and 
there is no means whereby that corruption can be so surely and rapidly dif- 
fused, as by poisoning the waters of literature. 



rant a levl homine et Inconstante multa fortasae scribl posse plnsquam 
mediocria, nihil compositum, arduum, aiternum." — Savagius Landor, De 
Cultu atque Usu Latini Sermonis. " This essay, which is full of fine crit- 
ical remarks and striking thoughts felicitously expressed, reached me from 
Pisa, while the proof of the present sheet was before me. Of Its author 
(the author of Gebir and Count Julian) I will only say in this place, that, to 
have obtained his approbation as a poet, and possessed his friendship as a 
man, will be remembered among the honors of my life, when the petty en- 
mities of this generation will be forgotten, and its ephemeral reputations 
shall have passed away."— ifr. Southey'* note. 

(611) 



612 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



So much for his poem — a word on his preface. In 
this preface it has pleased the magnanimous laureate 
to draw the picture of a supposed " Satanic school," 
the which he doth recommend to the notice of the 
legislature ; thereby adding to his other laurels the 
ambition of those of an informer. If there exists 



" Let rulers of the state look to this, in time! But, to use the words of 
Southey, if ' our physicians think the best way of curing a disease is to 
pamper it,— the Lord in mercy prepare the kingdom to suffer, what he by 
miracle only can prevent !' 

"No apology is offered for these remarks. The subject led to them; and 
the occasion of introducing them was willingly taken, because it is the duty 
of every one, whose opinion may have any influence, to expose the drift and 
aim of those writers who are laboring to subvert the foundations of human 
virtue and of human happiness." 

Lord Byron rejoined as follows: — 

"Mr. Southey, in his pious preface to a poem whose blasphemy Is as 
harmless as the sedition of "Wat Tyler, because it is equally absurd with 
that sincere production, calls upon the ' legislature to look to it,' as the tole- 
ration of such writings led t» the French Revolution : not such writings as 
Wat Tyler, but as those of the ' Satanic school.' This is not true, and Mr. 
Southey knows it to be not true. Every French writer of any freedom was 
persecuted; Voltaire and Kousseau were exiles, Marmontcl and Diderot 
were sent to the Bastile, and a perpetual war was waged with the whole 
class by the existing despotism. In the next place, the French Revolution 
was not occasioned by any writings whatsoever, but must have occurred 
had no such writers ever existed. It is the fashion to attribute every thing 
to the French Revolution, and the French Revolution to every thing but its 
real cause. That cause is obvious — the government exacted too much, and 
the people could neither give nor hear more. Without this, the Encyclope- 
dists might have written their fingers off without the occurrence of a single 
alteration. And the English revolution— (the first, I mean)— what was it 
occasioned by ? The Puritans were surely as pious and moral as Wesley or 
his biographer ? Acts— acts on the part of government, and not writings 
against them, have caused the past convulsions, and are tending to the 
future. 

"Hook upon such as inevitable, though no revolutionist: I wish to see 
the English constitution restored, and not destroyed. Born an aristocrat, 
and naturally one by temper, with the greater part of my present property 
in the funds, what have / to gain by a revolution? Perhaps I have more 
to lose in every way than Mr. Southey, with all his places and presents for 
panegyrics and abuse into the bargain. But that a revolution is inevitable, 
I repeat. The government may exult over the repression of petty tumults ; 
these are but the receding waves repulsed and broken for a moment on the 
shore, while the great tide is still rolling on and gaining ground with every 
breaker. Mr. Southey accuses us of attacking the religion of the country ; 
and is he abetting it by writing lives of Wesley ? One mode of worship is 
merely destroyed by another. There never was, nor ever will be, a country 
without a religion. We shall be told of France again ; but it was only Paris 
and a frantic party, which for a moment upheld their dogmatic nonsense of 
theo-philanthropy. The church of Englanel, if overthrown, will be swept 
away by the sectarians and not by the skeptics. People are too wise, too 
well informed, too certain of their own immense importance in the realms 
of space, ever to submit to the impiety of doubt. There may be a few such 
diffident speculators, like water in the pale sunbeam of human reason, but 
they are very few ; and their opinions, without enthusiasm, or appeal to the 
passions, can never gain proselytes — unless, indeed, they are persecuted — 
that, to be sure, will increase any thing. 

"Mr. Southey, with a cowardly ferocity, exults over the anticipated 
'death-bed repentatice' of the objects of his dislike; and indulges himself 
in a pleasant ' Vision of Judgment ' in prose as well as verse, full of impious 
impudence. What Mr. Southey's sensations or ours may be in the awful 
moment of leaving this state of existence, neither he nor we can pretend to 
decide. In common, I presume, with most men of any reflection, / have 
not waited for a ' death-bed ' to repent of many of my actions, notwithstand- 
ing the ' diabolical pride ' which this pitiful renegado in his rancor would 
impute to those who scorn Jiim. Whether upon the whole the good or evil 
of my deeds may preponderate is not for me to ascertain ; but as my means 
and opportunities have been greater, I shall limit my present defence to an 
assertion (easily proved, if necessary), that I, 'in my degree,' have done 
more real good in any one given year, since I was tweaty, than Mr. Southey 
in the whole course of his shifting and turncoat existence. There are seve- 
ral actions to which I can look back with an honest pride, not to be damped 



* Baron Geramb, a German Jew, who, for some time, excited much 
public attention in London by the extravagance of his dress. Being very 
troublesome and menacing in demanding remuneration from government, 
for a proposal he had made of engaging a body of Croat troops in the service 
of England, he was, in 1812, sent out of the country under the alien act. 



anywhere, excepting in his imagination, such a 
school, is he not sufficiently armed against it by his 
own intense vanity? The truth is, that there are 
certain writers whom Mr. S. imagines, like Scrub, 
to have "talked of him; for they laughed con- 
sumedly." 



by the calumnies of a hireling. There are others to which 1 recur with 
sorrow and repentance; but the only act of my life of which Mr. Southey 
can have any real knowledge, as it was one which brought me in contact 
with a near connection of his own [Mr. Coleridge], did no dishonor to that 
connection nor to me. 

"I am not ignorant of Mr. Southey's calumnies on a diflerent occasion, 
knowing them to be such, which he scattered abroad on his return from 
Switzerland against me and others ; they have done him no good in this 
world ; and if his creed be the right one, they will do him less in the next. 
What his ' death-bed ' may be, it is not my province to predicate ; let him 
settle it with his Maker, as I must do with mine. There is something at 
once ludicrous and blasphemous in this arrogant scribbler of all work sitting 
down to deal damnation and destruction upon his fellow creatures, with 
Wat Tyler, the Apotheosis of George the Third, and the Elegy on Martin 
the regicide, all shuffled together in his writing-desk. One of his consola- 
tions appears to be a Latin note from a work of a Mr. Landor, the author 
of ' Gebir,' whose friendship for Robert Southey will, it seems, ' be an 
honor to him when the ephemeral disputes and ephemeral reputations of 
the day are forgotten.' I for one neither envy him 'the friendship,' nor 
the glory in reversion which is to accrue from it, like Mr. Thelusson's for- 
tune, in the third and fourth generation. This friendship will probably be 
as memorable as his own epics, which (as I quoted to him ten or twelve 
years ago in ' English Bards ') Person said ' would be remembered when 
Homer and Virgil are forgotten,— and not till then.' For the present I leave 
him." 

Mr. Southey was not disposed to let this pass unanswered. 
He, on the 5th of January^ 1822, addressed to the editor of 
the London Courier a letter, of which we shall quote all that 
is of importance : — 

" I come at once to his lordship's charge against me, blowing away the 
abuse with which it is frothed, and evaporating a strong acid in which it is 
suspended. The residuum then appears to be, that ' Mr. Southey, on his re- 
turn from Switzerland (in 1817), scattered abroad calumnies, knowing them 
to be such, against Lord Byron and others.' To this I reply with a direct 
and positive denial. 

" If I had been told in that country that Lord Byron had turned Turk, or 
Monk of La Trappe, — that he had furnished a harem, or endowed an hos- 
pital, I might have thought the account, whichever it had been, possible, 
and repeated it accordingly ; passing it, as it had been taken, in the small 
change of conversation, for no more than it was worth. In this manner I 
might have spoken of him, as of Baron Geramb,* the Green Man,t the In- 
dian Jugglers, or any other figurante of the time being. There was no 
reason for any particular delicacy on my part in speaking of his lordship : 
and, indeed, I should have thought any thing which might be reported of 
him, would have injured his character as little as the story which so greatly 
annoyed Lord Keeper Guildford, that he had ridden a rhinoceros. He may 
ride a rhinoceros, and though every body would stare, no one would wonder. 
But making no inquiry concerning him when I was abroad, because I felt no 
curiosity, I heard nothing, and had nothing to repeat. When I spoke of 
wonders to my friends and acquaintance on my return, it was of the flying- 
tree at Alpnacht, and the eleven thousand virgins at Cologne— not of Lord 
Byron. I sought for no staler subject than Saint Ursula. 

" Once, and only once, in connection with Switzerland, I have alluded 
to his lordship ; and, as the passage was curtailed in the press, I take this 
opportunity of restoring it. In the ' Quarterly Review,' speaking inci- 
dentally of the Jungfrau, I said, ' it was the scene where Lord Byron's 
Manfred met the devil and bullied him— though the devil must have won 
his cause before any tribunal in this world, or the next, if he had not pleaded 
more feebly for himself tha» his advocate, in a cause of canonization, ever 
pleaded for him.' 

" With regard to the ' others,' whom his lordship accuses me of calumni- 
ating, I suppose he alludes to a party of his friends, whose names I found 
written in the album at Mont-Anvert, with an avowal of Atheism annexed, 
in Greek, and an indignant comment in the same language underneath it.| 
Those names, with that avowal and the comment, I transcribed in my note- 
book, and spoke of the circumstance on my return. If I had published it. 



t The "Green Man" was a popular afterpiece, so called from the hero, 
who wore every thing green, hat, gloves, &c. &c. 

t Mr. P. B. Shelley signed his name, with the addition of a0eos, in this 
album. 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT. 



613 



I think I know enough of most of the writers to 
whom he is supposed to allude, to assert, that they, 
in their individual capacities, have done more good, 
in the charities of life, to their fellow-creatures, in 
any one year, than Mr. Southey has done harm to 
himself by his absurdities in his whole life ; and this 



the gentleman in question would not have thought himself slandered, by 
having that recorded of him which he has so often recorded of himself. ^' 

•' The many opprobrious appellations which Lord Byron has bestowed 
apon me, I leave, as I find them, with the praises which he has bestowed 
upon himself. 

' How easy is a noble spirit discern'd 
From harsh and sulphurous matter that flies out 
In contumelies, makes a noise, and stinks 1' — B. Jonson. 
Bat I am accustomed to such things ; and, so far from irritating me are the 
enemies who use such weapons, that, when I hear of their attacks, it is 
some satisfaction to think they have thus employed the malignity which 
must have been employed somewhere, and could not have been directed 
against any person whom it could possibly molest or injure less. The viper, 
however venomous in purpose, is harmless in effect, while it is biting at the 
file. It is seldom, indeed, that I waste a word, or a thought, upon those 
who are perpetually assailing me. But abhorring, as I do, the personalities 
which disgrace our current literature, and averse from controversy as I am, 
both by principle and inclination, I make no profession of non-resistance. 
When the offence and the offender are such as to call for the whip and the 
branding-iron, it has been both seen and felt that I can inflict them. 

" Lord Byron's present exacerbation is evidently produced by an infliction 
of this kind — not by hearsay reports of my conversation, four years ago, 
transmitted him from England. The cause may be found in certain remarks 
upon the Satanic school of poetry, contained in my preface to the ' Vision 
of Judgment.' Well would it be for Lord Byron if he could look back upon 
any of his writings, with as much satisfaction as I shall always do upon 
what is there said of that flagitious school. Many persons, and parents 
especially, have expressed their gratitude to me for having applied the 
branding-iron where it was so richly deserved. The Edinburgh Reviewer, 
Indeed, with that honorable feeling by which his criticisms are so pecul- 
iarly distinguished, suppressing the remarks themselves, has imputed 
them wholly to envy on my part. I give him, in this instance, full credit 
tor sincerity ; I believe he was equally incapable of comprehending a wor- 
thier motive, or of inventing a worse ; and as I have never condescended to 
expose, in any instance, his pitiful malevolence, I thank him for having, in 
this, stripped it bare himself, and exhibited it in its bald, naked, and undis- 
guised deformity. 

" Lord Byron, like his encomiast, has not ventured to bring the matter of 
those animadversions into view. He conceals the fact, that they are di- 
rected against the authors of blasphemous and lascivious' books ; against 
men who, not content with indulging their own vices, labor to make others 
the slaves of sensuality, like themselves; against public panders, who, 
mingling impiety with lewdness, seek at once to destroy the cement of social 
order, and carry profanation and pollution into private families, and into the 
hearts of individuals. 

" His lordship has thought it not unbecoming in him to call me a scrib- 
bler of all work. Let the word scribbler pass ; it is an appellation which 
will not stick, like that of the Satanic school. But, if a scribbler, how am 
I one of oB work f I will tell Lord Byron what I have not scribbled— what 
kind of work I have not done. I have never published libels upon my 
(Hends and acquaintance, expressed my sorrow for those libels, and called 
them in during a mood of better mind — and then reissued them, when the 
evil spirit, which for a time had been cast out, had returned and taken pos- 
session, with seven others, more wicked than himself. I have never abused 
the power, of which every author U in some degree possessed, to wound the 
character of a man, or the heart of a woman. I have never sent into the 
world a book to which I did not dare to affix my name ; or which I feared to 
claim in a court of justice, if it were pirated by a knavish bookseller. I 
have never manufactured furniture for the brothel. None of these things 
have I done ; none of the foul work by which literature is perverted to the 
injury of mankind. My hands are clean ; there is no ' damned spot' upon 
them— no taint, which ' all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten.' 

" Of the work which I have done, it becomes me not here to speak, save 
only as relates to the Satanic school, and its Coryphaeus, the author of ' Don 
Juan.' I have held up that school to public detestation, as enemies to the 
religion, the institutions, and the domestic morals of the country. I have 
given them a designation to which their founder and leader answers. I have 
sent a stone from my sling which has smitten their Goliath in the forehead. 
I have fastened his name upon the gibbet, for reproach and ignominy, as long 
as it shall endure. — Take It down who can ! 

" One word of advice to Lord Byron before I conclude.— When he attacks 
me again, let it be In rhyme. For one who has bo little command of him- 
self. It will be a great advantage that hla temper should be obliged to 
keep tune. And while he may still indulge In the same rankness and viru- 
lence of insult, the metre will, in some degree, seem to lessen Its vulgarity." 



is saying a great deal. But I have a few questions to 
ask. 

Istly, Is Mr. Southey the author of " Wat Tyler " ? 

2dly, "Was he not refused a remedy at law by the 
highest judge of his beloved England, because it was 
a blasphemous and seditious publication ? ^ 



Lord Byron, without waiting for the closing hint of the 
foregoing letter, had already "attacked" Mr. Southey "in 
rhyme." On October 1, 1821, he says to Mr. Moore, — 

" I have written about sixty stanzas of a poem, in octavo stanzas (in the 
Pulci style, which the fools in England think was invented by Whistlecraft — 
it is as old as the hills, in Italy), called ' The Vision of Judgment,' by Que- 
vedo Eedivivus. In this it is my intention to put the said George's Apothe- 
osis in a Whig point of view, not forgetting the poet laureate, for his pre- 
face and his other demerits." 

Lord Byron had proceeded some length in the performance 
thus announced, before Mr. Southey's letter to the Courier 
fell into his hands. On seeing it, his lordship's feelings 
were so excited, that he could not wait for revenge in ink- 
shed, but on the instant despatched a cartel of mortal defiance 
to the poet laureate, through the medium of Mr. Douglas 
Kinnaird, — to whom he thus writes, February 6, 1822 : 

" I have got Southey's pretended reply : what remains to be done Is to call 
him out. The question is, would he come? for, if he would not, the whole 
thing would appear ridiculous, if I were to take a long and expensive jour- 
ney to no purpose. You must be my second, and, as such, I wish to consult 
you. I apply to you as one well versed in the duello, or monomaohie. Of 
course I shall come to England as privately as possible, and leave it (sup- 
posing that I was the survivor) in the same manner ; having no other object 
which could bring me into that country except to settle quarrels accumulated 
during my absence." 

Mr. Kinnaird, justly appreciating the momentary exacer- 
bation under which Lord Byron had written the challenge 
which this letter enclosed, and fully aware how absurd the 
whole business would seem to his distant friend after the lapse 
of such a period as must intervene before the return of post 
from Keswick to Eavenna, put Lord Byron's warlike missive 
aside ; and it never was heard of by Mr. Southey until after 
the death of its author. Meantime Lord Byron had con- 
tinued his " attack in rhyme " — and his " Vision of Judg- 
ment," after ineffectual negotiations with various publishers 
in London, at length saw the light in 1822, in the pages of 
the unfortunate " Liberal." 

1 In 1821, when Mr. Southey applied to the Court of Chan- 
cery for an injunction to restrain the publication of '' Wat 
Tyler," Lord Chancellor Eldon pronounced the following 
judgment :— " I have looked into all the aflBdavits, and have 
read the book itself. The bill goes the length of stating, that 
the work was composed by Mr. Southey in the year 1794 ; 
that it is his own production, and that it has been published 
by the defendants without his sanction or authority ; and 
therefore seeking an account of the profits which have arisen 
from, and an injunction to restrain, the publication. I have 
examined the cases that I have been able to meet with con- 
taining precedents for injunctions of this nature, and I find 
that they all proceed upon the ground of a title to the prop- 
erty in the plaintiff. On this head a distinction has been 
taken, to which a considerable weight of authority attaches, 
supported, as it is, by the opinion of Lord Chief Justice Eyre ; 
who has expressly laid it down, that a person cannot recover 
in damages for a work which is, in its nature, calculated to do 
injury to the public. Upon the same principle this court re- 
fused an injunction in the case of Walcott" (Peter Pindar) 
" V. Walker, inasmuch as he could not have recovered damages 
in an action. After the fullest consideration, I remain of the 
same opinion as that which I entertained in deciding the case 
referred to. Taking all the circumstances into my consider- 
ation, it appears to me, that I cannot grant this injunction, 
until after Mr. Southey shall have established his right to the 
property by action." — Injunction refused. 



614 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



3dly, Was he not entitled by William Smith, in 
full parliament, " a rancorous renegado " ? ^ 

4thly, Is he not poet laureate, with his own lines 
on Martin the regicide staring him in the face ? ^ 

And, 5thly, Putting the four preceding items to- 
gether, with what conscience dare he call the atten- 
tion of the laws to the publications of others, be they 
what they may ? 

I say nothing of the cowardice of such a proceed- 
ing; its meanness speaks for itself; but I wish to 
touch upon the motive, which is neither more nor less 
than that Mr. S. has been laughed at a little in some 
recent publications, as he was of yore in the " Anti- 
jacobin" by his present patrons.^ Hence all this 
" skimble-scamble stuff" about "Satanic," and so 
forth. However, it is worthy of him — " qualis ah 
inceptoJ" 

If there is any thing obnoxious to the political 
opinions of a portion of the public in the following 
poem, they may thank Mr. Southey. He might have 
written hexameters, as he has written every thing 
else, for aught that the writer cared — had they been 
upon another subject. But to attempt to canonize a 
monarch, who, whatever were his household virtues, 
was neither a successful nor a patriot king, — inas- 
much as several years of his reign passed in war 
with America and Ireland, to say nothing of the 
aggression upon France, — like all other exaggeration, 
necessarily begets opposition. In whatever manner 
he may be spoken of in this new " Vision," Yna, public 
career will not be more favorably transmitted by 
history. Of his private virtues (although a little 
expensive to the nation) there can be no doubt. 

With regard to the supernatural personages treated 
of^ I can only say that I know as much about them, 
and (as an honest man) have a better right to talk of 
them, than Eobert Southey. I have also treated 
them more tolerantly. The way in which that poor 
insane creature, the laureate, deals about his judg- 

1 Mr. William Smith, M. P. for Norwich, made a virulent 
attack on Mr. Southey in the House of Commons on the 14th 
of March, 1817, and the laureate replied by a letter in the 
Courier. 

2 Among the effusions of Mr. Southey'e juvenile muse, we 
find this 

" Inscription for the Apartment in Chepstow Castle, where 
Henry Martin, the Eegicide, was imprisoned thirty years. 
" For thirty years secluded from mankind 
Here Martin linger'd. Often have these walls 
Echo'd his footsteps, as with even tread 
He paced around his prison. Not to him 
Did Nature's fair varieties exist ; 
He never saw the sun's delightful beams ; 
Save when through yon high bars he pour'd a sad 
And broken splendor. Dost thou ask his crime? 
He had rebelVd against the King, and sat 
In judgment on him; for his ardent mind 
Shaped goodliest plans of happiness on earth, 
And peace and liberty. Wild dreams ! but such 
As Plato loved ; such as, with holy zeal, 
Our Milton worshipp'd. Blessed hopes ! awhile 
From man withheld, even to the latter days. 
When Christ shall come, and all things be fulfiU'd." 



ments in the next world, is like his own judgment in 
this. If it was not completely ludicrous, it would be 
something worse. I don't think that there is much 
more to say at present. 

QUEVEDO EEDIVIVUS. 

P.S. — It is possible that some readers may object, 
in these objectionable times, to the freedom with 
which saints, angels, and spiritual persons discourse 
in this "Vision." But, for precedents upon such 
points, I must refer him to Fielding's " Journey from 
this World to the next," and to the Visions of myself, 
the said Quevedo, in Spanish or translated. The 
reader is also requested to observe, that no doctrinal 
tenets are insisted upon or discussed ; that the person 
of the Deity is carefully withheld from sight, which 
is more than can be said for the laureate, who hath 
thought proper to make him talk, not "like a school 
divine," but like the unscholarlike Mr. Southey. The 
whole action passes on the outside of heaven; and 
Chaucer's Wife of Bath, Pulci's Morgante Maggiore, 
Swift's Tale of a Tub, and the other works above re- 
ferred to, are cases in point of the freedom with 
which saints, &c., may be permitted to converse in 
works not intended to be serious. Q. E. 

*V* Mr. Southey being, as he says, a good Chris- 
tian and vindictive, threatens, I understand, a reply to 
this our answer. It is to be hoped that his visionary 
faculties will in the mean time have acquired a little 
more judgment, properly so called : otherwise he 
will get himself into new dilemmas. These apostate 
jacobins furnish rich rejoinders. Let him take a 
specimen. Mr. Southey laudeth grievously " one 
Mr. Landor," who cultivates much private renown 
in the shape of Latin verses ; and not long ago, the 
poet laureate dedicated to him, it appeareth, one of 
his fugitives lyrics, upon the strength of a poem 
called Gebir. Who could suppose, that in this same 

3 The following imitation of the Inscription on the Regi- 
cide's Apartment, written by Mr. Canning, appeared in the 
" AntirjacoMn ;" — 
" Inscription for the Door of the Cell in Newgate, where 
Mrs. Brownrigg, the 'Prentice-cide, was confined, pre- 
vious to her execution. 
" For one long term, or ere her trial came, 
Here Brownrigg linger'd. Often have these cells 
Echo'd her blasphemies, as with shrill voice 
She scream'd for fresh geneva. Not to her 
Did the blithe fields of Tothill, or thy street, 
Saint Giles, its fair varieties expand ; 
Till at the last in slow-drawn cart she went 
To execution. Dost thou ask her crime ? 
She whipp'd two female ^prentices to death, 
And hid them in the coal-hole. For her mind 
Shaped strictest plans of discipline. Sage schemes ! 
Such as Lycurgus taught, when at the shrine 
Of the Orthyan goddess he bade flog 
The little Spartans ; such as erst chastised 
Our Milton, when at college. For this act 
Did Brownrigg swing. Harsh laws ! But time shall 

come. 
When France shall reign, and laws be all repeal'd." 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT. 



615 



Gebir the aforesaid Savage Landor^ (for such is his 
grim cognomen) pntteth into the infernal regions 
no less a person tlian the hero of his friend Mr. 
Southey's heaven,— yea, even George the Tliird ! See 
also how personal Savage becometh, when he hath a 
mind. The following is his portrait of our late gra- 
cious sovereign : — 

(Prince (Jebir having descended into the infernal regions, the 
shades of his royal ancestors are, at his request, called up 
lo his view ; and he exclaims to his ghostly guide — ) 

" Aroar, what wretch that nearest us ? what wretch 
Is that with eyebrows white and slanting brow ? 
Listen ! him yonder, who, bound down supine. 
Shrinks yelling from that sword there, engine-hung. 
He too amongst my ancestors ! I hate 
The despot, but the dastard I despise. 
Was he our countryman ?" 

" Alas, king ! 
Iberia bore him, but the breed accurst 
Inclement winds blew blighting from northeast." 
"He was a warrior then, nor fear'd the gods?" 
" Gebir, he fear'd the demons, not the gods, 
Though them indeed his daily face adored ; 
And was no warrior, yet the thousand lives 
Squander'd, as stones to exercise a sling. 
And the tame cruelty and cold caprice — 
Oh madness of mankind ! address'd, adored !" — 

Gebir, p. 28. 

I omit noticing some edifying Ithyphallics of Sa- 
vagius, wishing to keep the proper veil over them, 
if his grave but somewhat indiscreet worshipper will 
suffer it; but certainly these teachers of "great 
moral lessons" are apt to be found in strange 
company. 



^ije Vmm cf gutigment. 



I. 

Saint Peter sat by the celestial gate: 
His keys were rusty, and the lock was dull, 

So little trouble had been given of late ; 
Not that the place by any means was full, 

P.ut since the Gallic era " eighty-eight" 
The devil? had ta'eu a longer, stronger pull, 

And " a pull altogether," as they say 

At sea — which drew most souls another way. 

II. 

The angels all wore singing out of tune, 
And hoarse with having little else to do, 

Excepting to wind up the sun and moon, 
Or curb a runaway young star or two. 



Or wild colt of a comet, which too soon 

Broke out of bounds o'er the ethereal blue. 
Splitting some planet with its playful tail. 
As boats are sometimes by a wanton whale. 

III. 

The guardian seraphs had retired on high, 
Finding their charges past all care below ; 

Terrestrial business fill'd nought in the sky 
Save the recording angel's black bureau ; 

Who found, indeed, the facts to multiply 
With such rapidity of vice and woe. 

That he had stripp'd off both his wings in quills. 

And yet was in arrear of human ills. 

IV. 

His business so augmented of late years, 

That he was forced, against his will no doubt 

(Just like those cherubs, earthly ministers), 
For some resource to turn himself about, 

And claim the help of his celestial peers, 
To aid him ere he should be quite worn out. 

By the increased demand for his remarks : 

Six angels and twelve saints were named his clerks. 

V. 

This was a handsome board — at least for heaven ; 

And yet they had even then enough to do, 
So many conquerors' cars were daily driven, 

So many kingdoms fitted up anew ; 
Each day too slew its thousands six or seven. 

Till at the crowning carnage, Waterloo, 
They threw their pens down in divine disgust— 
The page was so besmear'd with blood and dust. 

VI. 

This by the way ; 'tis not mine to record 
What angels shrink from : even the very devil 

On this occasion his own work abhorr'd. 
So surfeited with the infernal revel : 

Though he himself had sharpen'd every sword. 
It almost quench-d his innate thirst of evil. 

(Here Satan's sole good work deserves insertion — 

'Tis, that he has both generals in reversion.) 

VII. 

Let's skip a few short years of hollow peace, 
Which peopled earth no better, hell as wont, 

And heaven none — they form the tyrant's lease, 
With nothing but new names subscribed upon't : 

'Twill one day finish : meantime they increase, 
" With seven heads and ten horns," and all in 
front. 

Like Saint John's foretold beast; but ours are 
born 

Less formidable in the head than horn. 



1 Walter Savage Landor, Esq., author of "Count Julian, I and difference of politics had never disturbed their personal 
a tragedy" — "Imaginary Conversations," in three series — ; feelings towards each other. Mr. Landor had long resided 
and various other works, was an early friend of Mr.-Southey, in Italy. 



616 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



VIII. 

In the first year of freedom's second dawni 
Died George the Third ; 2 although no tyrant, one 

Who shielded tyrants, till each sense withdrawn 
Left him nor mental nor external sun : 

A better farmer ne'er brush'd dew from lawn, 
A worse king never left a realm undone ! 

He died — but left his subjects still behind. 

One half as mad— and t'other no less blind. 

IX. 

He died !— his death made no great stir on earth ; 

His burial made some pomp ; there was profusion 
Of velvet, gilding, brass, and no great dearth 

Of aught but tears — save those shed by collusion. 
For these things may be bought at their true worth ; 

Of elegy there was the due infusion — 
Bought also ; and the torches, cloaks, and banners, 
Heralds, and relics of old Gothic manners. 



Form'd a sepulchral melodrame. Of all 
The fools who flock'd to swell or see the show. 

Who cared about the corpse ? The funeral 
Made the attraction, and the black the woe. 

There throbb'd not there a thought which pierced the 
pall; 
And when the gorgeous coffin was laid low, 

It seem'd the mockery of hell to fold 

The rottenness of eighty years in gold.^ 

XI. 

So mix his body with the dust ! It might 
Return to what it must far sooner, were 

The natural compound left alone to fight 
Its way back into earth, and fire, and air ; 

But the unnatural balsams merely blight 
What nature made him at his birth, as bare 

As the mere million's base unmummied clay — 

Yet all his spices but prolong decay. 

' XII. 
He's dead — and upper earth with him has done ; 

He's buried ; save the undertaker's bill. 
Or lapidary scrawl, the world is gone 

For him, unless he left a German will ; 



1 George III. died the 29tli of January, 1820,— a year in which 
the revolutionary spirit broke out all over the south of Europe. 

2 Here, perhaps, the reader will thank us for transcribing 
a few of Mr. Southey's hexameters : — 

" Pensive, though not in thought, I stood at the window, beholding 
Mountain, and lake, and vale ; the valley disrobed of its verdure : 
Thus as I stood, the bell, which awhile from its warning had rested. 
Sent forth its note again, toll! tollI through the silence of evening. 
'Tis a deep dull sound, that is heavy and mournful at all times, 
For it tells of mortality always. But heavier this day 
Fell on the conscious ear its deeper and mournfuUer import, 
Yea, in the heart it sunk ; for this was the day when the herald, 
Breaking his wand, should proclaim, that George our King was departed. 
Thou art released 1 I cried : thy soul is deliver'd from bondage t 
Thou, who hast lain so long in mental and visual darkness, 
Thou art in yonder heaven 1 thy place is in light and in glory. 



But Where's the proctor who will ask his son ? 

In whom his qualities are reigning still, 
Except that household virtue, most uncommon. 
Of constancy to a bad, ugly woman. 

XIII. 

" God save the king !" It is a large economy 
In God to save the like ; but if he will 

Be saving, all the better ; for not one am I 
Of those who think damnation better still : 

I hardly know too if not quite alone am I 
In this small hope of bettering future ill 

By circumscribing, with some slight restriction, 

The eternity of hell's hot jurisdiction. 

XIV. 

I know this is unpopular ; I know 

'Tis blasphemous ; I know one may be damn'd 
For hoping no one else may e'er be so ; 

I know my catechism ; I know we are cramm'd 
With the best doctrines till we quite o'erflow ; 

I know that all save England's church have 
shamm'd, 
And that the other twice two hundred churches 
And synagogues have made a damn'd bad purchase. 

XV. 

God help ns all ! God help me too ! I am, 
God knows, as helpless as the devil can wish, 

And not a whit more difficult to damn, 
Than is to bring to land a late-hook'd fish, 

Or to the butcher to purvey the lamb ; 
Not that I'm fit for such a noble dish, 

As one day will be that immortal fry 

Of almost every body born to die, 

XVI. 

Saint Peter sat by the celestial gate. 

And nodded o'er his keys ; when, lo ! there came 
A wondrous noise he had not heard of late — 

A rushing sound of wind, and stream, and flame ; 
In short, a roar of things extremely great. 

Which would have made aught save a saint ex- 
claim ; 
But ho, with first a start and then a wink, 
Said, "There's another star gone out, I think!" 



Come, and behold 1— methought a startling voice from the twilight 
Answer'd ; and therewithal I felt a stroke as of lightning. 
With a sound like the rushing of winds, or the roaring of waters. 
If from without it came, I knew not, so sudden the seizure ; 
Or if the brain itself in that strong flash had expended 
All its electric stores. Of strength and of thought it bereft me ; 
Hearing, and sight, and sense were gone." 

So0thky's Vision of Judgment. 
3 " So by the unseen comforted, raised I my head In obedience, 
And in a vault I found myself placed, arch'd over on all sides. 
Narrow and low was that house of the dead. Around it were coffins, 
Bach in its niche, and palls, and urns, and funeral hatchments, 
Velvet? of Tyrian dye, retaining their hues unfaded ; 
Blazonry vivid still, as if fresh from the touch of the limner ; 
Nor was the golden fringe, nor the golden broidery, tarnish'd. 
Whence came the light whereby that place of death was discover'd ? 
For there was no lamp," &c.— /ltd. 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT. 



617 



XVII. 

But ere he could return to his repose, 
A cherub flapp'd his right wing o'er his eyes — 

At which Saint Peter yawn'd, and rubb'd his nose : 
" Saint porter," said the angel, " prithee rise !" 

Waving a goodly wing, which glow'd, as glows 
An earthly peacock's tail, with heavenly dyes ; 

To which the saint replied, " Well, what's the matter ? 

Is Lucifer come back with all this clatter?" 

XVIII. 

" No," quoth the cherub ; " George the Third is dead." ^ 
** And who is George the Third ?" replied the apostle : 

''What George? tvhat TUrdV "The king of Eng- 
land," said 
The angel. •' Well ! he won't find kings to jostle 

Him on his way ; but does he wear his head ? 
Because the last we saw here had a tustle. 

And ne'er would have got into heaven's good graces. 

Had he not flung his head in all our faces. 

XIX. 

" He was, if I remember, king of France ; ^ 
That head of his, which could not keep a crown 

On earth, yet ventured in my face to advance 
A claim to those of martyrs — like my own : 

If I had had my sword, as I had once 
When I cut ears off, I had cut him down ; 

But having but my keys, and not my brand, 

I only knock'd his head from out his hand. 

XX. 

" And then he set up such a headless howl. 
That all the saints came out and took him in ; 

And there he sits by Saint Paul, cheek by jowl ; 
That fellow Paul — the parvenu ! The skin 

Of Saint Bartholomew, which makes his cowl 
In heaven, and upon earth redeem'd his sin. 

So as to make a martyr, never sped 

Better than did this weak and wooden head. 

XXI. 

" But had it come up here upon its shoulders, 
There would have been a different tale to tell : 

The fellow-feeling in the saints beholders 
Seems to have acted on them like a spell ; 



1 " O'er the adamantine gates an angel stood on the summit. 
Ho! he exclaim'd, King George of England cometh to judgment! 
Bear, Heaven ! Te Angels, hear ! Souls of the Good and the Wicked 
Whom it concerns, attend ! Thou Hell, bring forth his accusers ! 
As the sonorous summons was utter'd, the Winds, who were waiting, 
Bore it abroad thro' Heaven ; and Hell, In her nethermost comers, 
Heard and obey'd in dismay. 

A multitudinous army 

Came at the awful call. In semicircle inclining, 
Tier over tier they took their place : aloft. In the distance. 
Far as the sight could pierce, that glorious company glisten'd. 
From the skirts of the shining assembly, a slippery vapor 
Rose in the blue serene, and moving onward it deepen'd, 
Taking a denser form."— Southby. 

' Louis XVI., guillotined in January, 1793. 
3 " Then I beheld the King. From a cloud which cover'd the pavement 
His reverend form uprose ; heavenward his face was directed, 



And so this very foolish head heaven solders 

Back on its trunk : it may be very well, 
And seems the custom here to overthrow 
Whatever has been wisely done below." 

XXII. 

The angel answer'd, " Peter ! do not pout: 
The king who comes has head and all entire. 

And never knew much what it was about — 
He did as doth the puppet — by its wire. 

And will be judged like all the rest, no doubt : 
My business and your own is not to inquire 

Into such matters, but to mind our cue — 

Which is to act as we are bid to do." 

XXIII. 

While thus they spake, the angelic caravan, 
Arriving like a rush of mighty wind. 

Cleaving the fields of space, as doth the swan 
Some silver stream (say Ganges, Nile, or Inde, 

Or Thames, or Tweed), and 'midst them an old 
man 
With an old soul, and both extremely blind, 

Halted before the gate, and in his shroud 

Seated their fellow traveller on a cloud.^ 

XXIV. 

But bringing up the rear of this bright host 

A Spirit of a different aspect waved 
His wings, like thunder-clouds above some coast 

Whose barren beach with frequent wrecks is 
paved ; 
His brow was like the deep when tempest-toss'd ; 

Fierce and unfathomable thoughts engraved 
Eternal wrath on his immortal face. 
And where he gazed a gloom pervaded space. 

XXV. 

As he drew near, he gazed upon the gate 
Ne'er to be enter'd more by him or Sin, 

With such a glance of supernatural hate. 
As made Saint Peter wish himself within ; 

He patter'd with his keys at a great rate, 
And sweated through his apostolic skin : 

Of course his perspiration was but ichor, 

Or some such other spiritual liquor. 



Heavenward his eyes were raised, and heavenward his arms were ex- 
tended. 
Presently one approach'd to greet him with joyful obeisance ; 
He of whom, in an hour of woe, the assassin bereaved us 
When his counsels most, and his resolute virtue, were needed. 
Thou! said the Monarch, here? Thou, Perceval, summon'd before 

me?— 
Then, as his waken'd mind to the weal of the country reverted. 
What of his Son, he ask'd, what course by the Prince had been 

follow'd ? 
Right in his Father's steps hath the Regent trod, was the answer: 
Firm hath he proved and wise, at a time when weakness or error 
Would have sunk us in shame, and to ruin have hurled us head- 
long.— 
Peace is obtain'd then at last, with safety and lienor ! the Monarch 
Cried, and he clasp'd his hands,— I thank thee, O merciful Father I— 
Peace hath been won by the sword, the faithful minister answer'd. 
Paris hath, " &c.— Southbv. 



618 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



XXVI. 

The very cherubs huddled all together, 
Like birds when soars the falcon ; and they felt 

A tingling to the tip of every feather, 
And form'd a circle like Orion's belt [whither 

Around their poor old charge ; who scarce knew 
His guards had led him, though they gently dealt 

With royal manes (for by many stories, , 

And true, we learn the angels all are Tories). 

XXVII. 

As things were in this posture, the gate flew 
Asunder, and the flashing of its hinges 

Flung over space an universal hue 
Of many-color'd flame, until its tinges 

Keach'd even our speck of earth, and made a new 
Aurora borealis spread its fringes 

O'er the North Pole ; the same seen, when ice-bound. 

By Captain Parry's crew, in " Melville's Sound." ^ 

XXVIII. 

And from the gate thrown open issued beaming 
A beautiful and mighty Thing of Light,^ 

Radiant with glory, like a banner streaming 
Victorious from some world-o'erthrowing fight : 

My poor comparisons must needs be teeming 
With earthly likenesses, for here the night 

Of clay obscures our best conceptions, saving 

Johanna Southcote,^ or Bob Southey raving. 

XXIX. 
'Twas the archangel Michael : all men know 

The make of angels and archangels, since 
There's scarce a scribbler has not one to show. 

From the fiends' leader to the angels' prince ; 
There also are some altar-pieces, though 

I really can't say that they much evince 
One's inner notions of immortal spirits ; 
But let the connoisseurs explain their merits. 

XXX. 

Michael flew forth in glory and in good ; 

A goodly work of him from whom all glory 
And good arise ; the portal past — he stood ; 

Before him the young cherubs and saints hoary — 



1 See Captain Sir Edward Parry's Voyage, in 1819-20, for 
the Discovery of a Northwest passage.— "I believe it is 
almost impossible for words to give an idea of the beauty and 
variety which this magnificent phenomenon displayed. The 
luminous arch had broken into irregular masses, streaming 
with much rapidity in different directions, varying contin- 
ually in shape and interest, and extending themselves from 
north, by the east, to north. At one time a part of the arch 
near the zenith was bent into convolutions resembling those 
of a snake in motion, and undulating rapidly, an appearance 
which we had not before observed. The end towards the 
north was also bent like a shepherd's crook. The usual pale 
light of the aurora strongly resembled that produced by the 
combustion of phosphorus; a very slight tinge of red was 
noticed on this occasion, when the aurora was most vivid, but 
no other colors were visible." P. 135. 



(I say young, begging to be understood 

By looks, not years ; and should be very sorry 
To state, they were not older than Saint Peter, 
But merely that they seem'd a little sweeter). 

XXXI. 

The cherubs and the saints bow'd down before 

That arch-angelic hierarch, the first 
Of essences angelical, who wore 

The aspect of a god ; but this ne'er nursed 
Pride in his heavenly bosom, in whose core 

No thought, save for his Master's service, durst 
Intrude, however glorified and high ; 
He knew him but the viceroy of the sky. 

XXXII. 

He and the sombre, silent Spirit met — 
They knew each other both for good and ill ; 

Such was their power, that neither could forget 
His former friend and future foe ; but still 

There was a high, immortal, proud regret 
In cither's eye, as if 'twere less their will 

Than destiny to make the eternal years 

Their date of war, and their " champ clos " the 
spheres. 

XXXIII. 

But here they were in neutral space : we know 
From Job, that Satan hath the power to pay 

A heavenly visit thrice a year or so ; 
And that "the sons of God," like those of clay. 

Must keep him company ; and we might show 
From the same book, in how polite a way 

The dialogue is held between the Powers 

Of Good and Evil — but 'twould take up hours. 

XXXIV, 

And this is not a theologic tract. 
To prove with Hebrew and with Arabic, 

If Job be allegory or a fact. 

But a true narrative ; and thus I pick 

From out the whole but such and such an act 
As sets aside the slightest thought of trick. 

'Tis every tittle true, beyond suspicion, 

And accurate as any other vision. 



2 " Thus as he spake, methought the surrounding space dilated ; 
Over head I beheld the infinite ether ; beneath us 
Lay the solid expanse of the firmament spread like a pavement; 
Wheresoever I look'd, there was light and glory around me ; 
Brightest it seem'd in the East, where the New Jerusalem glitter'd. 
Eminent on a hill, there stood the Celestial City ; 
Beaming afar it shone ; its towers and cupolas rising 
High in the air serene, with the brightness of gold in the furnace, 
Where on their breadth the splendor lay intense and quiescent : 
Part with a fierier glow, and a short quick tremulous motion, 
Like the burning pyropus ; and turrets and pinnacles sparkled, 
Playing in jets of light, with a diamond-like glory coruscant. 
Drawing near, I beheld what over the portal was written : 
This is the Gate," &c.— Southey. 
8 Johanna Southcote, the aged lunatic, who fancied herself, 
and was believed by many thousand followers, to be with child 
of a new Messiah, died in 1815. There is a full account of 
her in the Quarterly Review, vol. xxiv. p. 496. 



I 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT. 



619 



XXXV. 

The spirits were in neutral space, before 
The gate of heaven ; like eastern thresholds is 

The place where Death's grand cause is argued o'er, 
And souls despatch'd to that world or to this ; 

And therefore Michael and the other wore 
A civil aspect : though they did not kiss. 

Yet still between his Darkness and his Brightness 

There pass'd a mutual glance of great politeness. 

XXXVI. 

The archangel bow'd, not like a modern beau, 

But with a graceful oriental bend, 
Pressing one radiant arm just where below 

The heart in good men is supposed to tend ; 
He turn'd as to an equal, not too low. 

But kindly ; Satan met his ancient friend 
With more hauteur, as might an old Castilian 
Poor noble meet a mushroom rich civilian. 

XXXVII. 
He merely bent his diabolic brow 

An instant; and then raising it, he stood 
In act to assert his right or wrong, and show 

Cause why King George by no means could or should 
Make out a case to be exempt from woe 

Eternal, more than other kings, endued 
With better sense and hearts, whom histoiy mentions, 
Who long have "paved hell with their good inten- 
tions." 1 

XXXVIII. 
Michael began : " What wouldst thou with this man, 

Now dead, and brought before the Lord ? What ill 
Hath he wrought since his mortal race began. 

That thou canst claim him ? Speak ! and do thy will, 
If it be just : if in this earthly span 

He hath been greatly failing to fulfill 
His duties as a king and mortal, say. 
And he is thine ; if not, let him have way." 

XXXIX. 

" Michael I" replied the Prince of Air, " even here) 
Before the gate of him thou servest, must 

I claim my subject : and will make appear 
That as he was my worshipper in dust, 

So shall he be in spirit, although dear 
To thee and thine, because nor wine nor lust 

Were of his weaknesses ; yet on the throne 

He reign'd o'er millions to serve me alone. 

XL. 

" Look to our earth, or rather mine; it was, 
Once, more thy Master's : but I triumph not 

In this poor planet's conquest ; nor, alas ! 
Need he thou servest envy me my lot : 

^ "No saint in the course of his religious warfare was 
more sensible of the unhappy failure of pious resolves than 
Dr. Johnson : he said one day, talking to an acquaintance on 



With all the myriads of bright worlds which pass 

In worship round him, he may have forgot 
Yon weak creation of such paltry things : 
I think few worth damnation save their kings, — 

XLI. 

" And these but as a kind of quit-rent, to 
Assert my right as lord ; and even had 

I such an inclination, 'twere (as you 
Well know) superfluous ; they are grown so bad, 

That hell has nothing better left to do 
Than leave them to themselves : so much more mad 

And evil by their own internal curse. 

Heaven cannot make them better, nor I worse. 

XLII. 

" Look to the earth, I said, and say again : 
When this old, blind, mad, helpless, weat, poor 
worm 

Began in youth's first bloom and flush to reign. 
The world and he both wore a different form, 

And much of earth and all the watery plain 

Of ocean call'd him king : through many a storm 

His isles had floated on the abyss of time ; 

For the rough virtues chose them for their clime. 

XLIII. 

" He came to his sceptre young ; he leaves it old : 
Look to the state in which he found his realm, 

And left it ; and his annals too behold. 
How to a minion first he gave the helm ; 

Flow grew upon his heart a thirst for gold, 
The beggar's vice, which can but overwhelm 

The meanest hearts ; and for the rest, but glance 

Thine eye along America and France. 

XLIV. 

" 'Tis true, he was a tool from first to last 
(I have the workmen safe) ; but as a tool 

So let him be consumed. From out the past 
Of ages, since mankind have known the rule 

Of monarchs — from the bloody rolls amass'd 
Of sin and slaughter — from the Csesars' school. 

Take the worst pupil ; and produce a reign 

More drench'd with gore, more cumber'd with the 
slain. 

XLV. 

" He ever warr'd with freedom and the free : 
Nations as men, home subjects, foreign foes. 

So that they utter'd the word ' Liberty !' 

Found George the Third their first opponent. Whose 

History was ever stain'd as his will be 
With national and individual woes? 

I grant his household abstinence ; I grant 

His neutral virtues, which most monarchs want; 



this subject, 'Sir, hell is paved with good intentions.'"- 
Boswell, vol. V. p. 305, ed. 1835. 



620 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



XLVI. 

" I know he was a constant consort ; own 
He was a decent sire, and middling lord. 

All this is much, and most upon a throne ; 
As temperance, if at Apicius' board, 

Is more than at an anchorite's supper shown. 
I grant him all the kindest can accord ; 

And this was well for him, but not for those 

Millions who found him what oppression chose. 

XLVII. 

" The New World shook him off; the Old yet groans 
Beneath what he and his prepared, if not 

Completed : he leaves heirs on many thrones 
To all his vices, without what begot 

Compassion for him — his tame virtues ; drones 
Who sleep, or despots who have now forgot 

A lesson which shall be retaught them, wake 

Upon the thrones of earth ; but let them quake ! 

XLVIII. 
" Five millions of the primitive, who hold 

The faith which makes ye great on earth, im- 
plored 
A part of that vast all they held of old, — 

Freedom to worship— not alone your Lord, 
Michael, but you, and you. Saint Peter ! Cold 

Must be your souls, if you have not abhorr'd 
The foe to Catholic participation 
In all the license of a Christian nation. 

XLIX. 
" True ! he allow'd them to pray God : but as 

A consequence of prayer, refused the law 
Which would have placed them upon the same base 

With those who did not hold the saints in awe." 
But here Saint Peter started from his place. 

And cried, " You may the prisoner withdraw : 
Ere heaven shall ope her portals to this Guelph, 
While I am guard, may I be damn'd myself! 

L. 

" Sooner will I with Cerberus exchange 

My office (and Ms is no sinecure) 
Than see this royal Bedlam bigot range 

The azure fields of heaven, of that be sure !" 
"Saint!" replied Satan, "you do well to avenge 

The wrongs he made your satellites endure ; ^ 
And if to this exchange you should be given, 
I'll try to coax our Cerberus up to heaven." 



George III.'s determination against the Catholic claims. 



2 " From the opposite region, 

Heavy and sulphurous clouds roll'd on, and completed the circle. 
There with the Spirits accursed, in congenial darkness enveloped, 
Were the Souls of the Wicked, who, willful in guilt and error. 
Chose the service of sin, and now were abiding its wages. 
Change of place to them brought no reprieval from anguish ; 
They in their evil thoughts and desires of impotent malice. 
Envy, and hate, and blasphemous rage, and remorse unavailing. 
Carried a hell within, to which all outer affliction, 
So it abstra-cted the sense, might be deem'd a remission of torment. 



LI. 
Here Michael interposed : " Good saint ! and devil ! 

Pray, not so fast ; you both outrun discretion. 
Saint Peter ! you were wont to be more civil : 

Satan ! excuse this warmth of his expression, 
And condescension to the vulgar's level : 

Even saints sometimes forget themselves in session. 
Have you got more to say?" — "No." — "If you 

please, 
I'll trouble you tQ call your witnesses." 

LII. 
Then Satan turn'd and waved his swarthy hand, 

Which stirr'd with its electric qualities 
Clouds farther off than we can understand, 

Although we find him sometimes in our skies ; 
Infernal thunder shook both sea and land 

In all the planets, and hell's batteries 
Let off the artillery, which Milton mentions 
As one of Satan's most sublime inventions.^ 

LIII. 
This was a signal unto such damn'd souls 

As have the privilege of their damnation 
Extended far beyond the mere controls 

Of worlds past, present, or to come ; no station . 
Is theirs particularly in the rolls 

Of hell assign'd ; but where their inclination 
Or business carries them in search of game, 
They may range freely — being damn'd the same. 

LIV. 
They are proud of this — as very well they may, 

It being a sort of knighthood, or gilt key 
Stuck in their loins ;3 or like to an " entree" 

Up the back stairs, or such free-masonry. 
I borrow my comparisons from clay, 

Being clay myself. Let not those spirits be 
Offended with such base low likenesses ; 
We know their posts are nobler far than these. 

LV. 

When the great signal ran from heaven to hell- 
About ten million times the distance reckon'd 

From our sun to its earth, as we can tell 
How much time it takes up, even to a second, 

For every ray that travels to dispel 
The fogs of London, through which, dimly beacon'd. 

The weathercocks are gilt some thrice a year, 

If that the summer is not too severe : * — 



At the edge of the cloud, the Princes of Darkness were marshalVd; 
Dimly descried within were wings and truculent faces ; 
And in the thick obscure there struggled a mutinous uproar. 
Bailing, and fury, and strife, that the whole deep body of darkness 
Roll'd like a troubled sea, with a wide and manifold motion." 

SOUTHEY. 

3 A gold or gilt key, peeping from below the skirts of the 
coat, marks a lord chamberlain. 

* An allusion to Horace Walpole's expression in a letter— 
" The summer has set in with its usual severity. ^^ 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT. 



621 



LVI. 

I say that I can tell — 'twas half a minute : 
I know the solar beams take up more time 

Ere, pack'd up for their journey, they begin it; 
But then their telegraph is less sublime. 

And if they ran a race, they would not win it 

'Gainst Satan's couriers bound for their own clime. 

The sun takes up some years for every ray 

To reach its goal— the devil not half a day. 

LVII. 
Upon the verge of space, about the size 

Of half a crown, a little speck appear'd 
(I've seen a something like it in the skies 

In the ^gean, ere a squall) ; it near'd, 
And, growing bigger, took another guise ; 

Like an aerial ship, it tack'd, and steer'd, 
Or was steer'd (I am doubtful of the grammar 
Of the last phrase, which makes the stanza stammer ; — 

LVIII. 
But take your choice) ; and then it grew a cloud ; 

And so it was — a cloud of witnesses.^ 
But such a cloud ! No land e'er saw a crowd 

Of locusts numerous as the heavens saw these ; 
They shadow'd with their myriads space ; their loud 

And varied cries were like those of wild geese 
(If nations may be liken'd to a goose). 
And realized the phrase of " hell broke loose." 

LIX. 
Here crash'd a sturdy oath of stout John Bull, 

Who damn'd away his eyes as heretofore : 
There Paddy brogued " By Jasus !" — " WTiat's your 
wull ?" [swore 

The temperate Scot exclaim 'd: the French ghost 
In certain terms I sha'n't translate in full, 

As the first coachman will ; and 'midst the war, 
The voice of Jonathan was heard to express, 
" Our president is going to war, I guess." 

LX. 

Besides there were the Spaniard, Dutch, and Dane ; 

In short, an universal shoal of shades, 
From Otaheite's isle to Salisbury Plain, 

Of all climes and professions, years and trades, 
Ready to swear against the good king's reign. 

Bitter as clubs in cards are against spades : 
AH 'lummon'd by this grand " subpoina," to 
Try if kings mayn't be damn'd like me or you. 



1 " On the cerulean floor by that dread circle surrounded, 
Stood the Bool of the Kin? alone. In front was the Presence, 
Veil'd with excess of light : and behind was the blaclcness of darkness ; 
When the trumpet was blown, and the Angel made proclamation — 
Lo, where the King appears I Come forward, ye who arraign him 1 
Forth from the lurid cloud a Demon came at the summons. 
It was the Spirit by whom his righteous reign had been troubled ; 
Likest in form uncouth to the hideous Idols whom India 
(Long by guilty neglect to hellish delusions abandon'd). 
Worships with horrible rites of self-destruction and torture. 
Many-headed and monstrous the Fiend ; with numberless faces, 
Numberless bestial ears erect to all rumors, and restlesa, 



LXI. 

When Michael saw this host, he first grew pale, 
As angels can ; next, like Italian twilight, 

He turn'd all colors — as a peacock's tail. 
Or sunset streaming through a Gothic skylight 

In some old abbey, or a trout not stale. 
Or distant lightning on the horizon by night, 

Or a fresh rainbow, or a grand review 

Of thirty regiments in red, green, and blue. 

LXII. 

Then he address'd himself to Satan : " Why — 
My good old friend, for such I deem you, 
though 

Our different parties make us fight so shy, 
I ne'er mistake you for a personal foe ; 

Our difference is political, and I 

Trust that, whatever may occur below, 

You know my great respect for you : and this 

Makes me regret whate'er you do amiss — 

LXIII. 

" Why, my dear Lucifer, would you abuse 
^ly call for witnesses ? I did not mean 

That you should half of earth and hell produce ; 
'Tis even superfluous, since two honest, clean. 

True testimonies are enough : we lose 
Our time, nay, our eternity, between 

The accusation and defence : if we 

Hear both, 'twill stretch our immortality." 

LXIV. 

Satan replied, " To me the matter is 

Indifferent, in a personal point of view : 

I can have fifty better souls than this 
With far less trouble than we have gone through 

Already ; and I merely argued his 

Late majesty of Britain's case with you 

Upon a point of form : you may dispose 

Of him; I've kings enough below, God knows!" 

LXV. 

Thus spoke the Demon 2 (late call'd "multifaced" 
By multo-scribbling Southey). " Then we'll call 

One or two persons of the myriads placed 
Around our congress, and dispense with all 

The rest," quoth Michael : " Who may be so graced 
As to speak first? there's choice enough — who shall 

It be ?" Then Satan answer'd, " There are many ; 

But you may choose Jack Wilkes as well as any." 



And with numberless mouths which were fill'd with lies as with arrows. 
Clamors arose as he came, a confusion of turbulent voices. 
Maledictions, and blatant tongues, and viperous hisses ; 
And in the hubbub of senseless -sounds the watchwords of faction, — 
Freedom, Invaded Rights, Corruption, and War, and Oppression— 
Loudly enounced were heard."— Southey. 

2 " But when he stood in the Presence, 

Then was the Fiend dismay'd, though with impudence clothed as a 

garment; 
And the lying tongues were mute, and the lips, which had scatter'd 
Accusation and slander, were still. No time for evasion 
This, In the Presence he stood ; no place for flight ; for dissembling 



622 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



LXVI. 

A merry, cock-eyed, curious-looking sprite 
Upon the instant started from the throng, 

Dress'd in a fashion now forgotten quite ; ^ 
For all the fashions of the flesh stick long 

By people in the next world ; where unite 
All the costumes since Adam's, right or wrong, 

From Eve's fig-leaf down to the petticoat, 

Almost as scanty, of days less remote. 

LXVII. 

The spirit look'd around upon the crowds 
Assembled, and exclaim'd, " My friends of all 

The spheres, we shall catch cold amongst these 
clouds ; 
So let's to business : why this general call ? 

If those are freeholders I see in shrouds, 
And 'tis for an election that they bawl, 

Behold a candidate with unturn'd coat ! 

Saint Peter, may I count upon your vote ?" 

LXVIII. 

"Sir," replied Michael, "you mistake; these things 

Are of a former life, and what we do 
Above is more august ; to judge of kings 

Is the tribunal met : so now you know." 
" Then I presume those gentlemen with wings," 

Said Wilkes, " are cherubs ; and that soul below 
Looks much like George the Third, but to my mind 
A good deal older — Bless me ! is he blind ?" 



No possibility there. From the souls on the edge of the darkness, 
Thoo he produced, prime movers and agents of mischief, and bade 

them 
Show themselves faithful now to the cause for which they had labor'd. 
Wretched and guilty souls, where now their audacity 7 Where now 
Are the insolent tongues so ready of old at rejoinder? 
Where the lofty pretences of public virtue and freedom ? 
Where the gibe, and the jeer, and the threat, the envenom'd invective. 
Calumny, falsehood, fraud, and the whole ammunition of malice ? 
Wretched and guilty souls, they stood in the face of their Sovereign, 
Conscious and self-condemn'd ; confronted with him they had injured, 
At the Judgment-seat* they stood." — Southey. 

1 " Beholding the foremost, 

Him by the cast of his eye oblique, I knew as the firebrand 
Whom the unthinking populace held for their idol and hero. 
Lord of Misrule in his day. But how was that countenance alter'd 
Where emotion of fear or of shame had never been witness'd ; 
That invincible forehead abash'd ; and those eyes wherein malice 



• In reference to this part of Mr. Southey's poem, the Eclectic Eeviewer, 
we believe the late Rev. Eobert Hall, said— "Mr. Southey's 'Vision of 
Judgment' is unquestionably a profane poem. The assertion will stagger 
those only who do not consider what is the import of the word. Profane- 
ness is the irreverent use of sacred names and things. A burlesque of things 
sacred, whether intentional or not, is profaneness. To apply the language 
of scripture in a ludicrous connection is to profane it. The mummery of 
prayer on the stage, though in a serious play, is a gross profanation of 
sacred things. And all acts which come under the taking of God's name 
in vain are acts of profaneness. According to this definition of the word, 
the laureate's 'Vision of Judgment' is a poem grossly and unpardonably 
profane. Mr. Southey's intention was, we are well persuaded, very far 
from being irreligious ; and, indeed, the profaneness of the poem partly 
arises from the ludicrous effect produced by the bad taste and imbecility of 
the performance, for which his intentions are clearly not answerable. 
Whatever liberties a poet may claim to take, in representations partly alle- 
gorical, with the invisible realities of the world to come, the ignis fatuus 
of political zeal has, in this instance, carried Mr. Southey far beyond any 
assignable bounds of poetical license. It would have been enough to cele- 



LXIX. 

" He is what you behold him, and his doom 
Depends upon his deeds," the Angel said. 

" If you have aught to arraign in him, the tomb 
Gives license to the humblest beggar's head 

To lift itself against the loftiest." — " Some," 
Said Wilkes, " don't wait to see them laid in lead. 

For such a liberty— and I, for one, 

Have told them what I thought beneath the sun." 

LXX. 

"Above the sun repeat, then, what thou hast 
To urge against him," said the Archangel. " Why," 

Replied the spirit, " since old scores are past, 
Must I turn evidence ? In faith, not I. 

Besides, I beat him hollow at the last. 
With all his Lords and Commons : in the sky 

I don't like ripping up old stories, since 

His conduct was but natural in a prince. 

LXXI. 

" Foolish, no doubt, and wicked, to oppress 
A poor unlucky devil without a shilling ; 

But then I blame the man himself much less 
Than Bute and Grafton, and shall be unwilling 

To see him punish'd here for their excess, 
Since they were both damn'd long ago, and still 
in 

Their place below : for me, I have forgiven, 

And vote his * habeas corpus ' into heaven." 



Once had been wont to shine with wit and hilarity temper'd, 

Into how deep a gloom their mournful expression had settled ; 

Little availed it now that not from a purpose malignant, 

Not with evil intent, he had chosen the service of evil, 

But of his own desires the slave, with profligate impulse, 

Solely by selfishness moved, and reckless of aught that might follow 

Could he plead in only excuse a confession of baseness ? 

Could he hide the extent of his guilt ; or hope to atone for 

Paction excited at home, when all old feuds were abated, 

Insurrection abroad, and the train of woes that had follow'd I 

Discontent and disloyalty, like the teeth of the dragon, 

He had sown on the winds ; they had ripen'd beyond the Atlantic ; t 

Thence in natural birth, sedition, revolt, revolution, 

France had received the seeds, and reap'd the harvest of horrors; 

Where — where should the plague be stay'd? Oh, most to be pitied 

They of all souls in bale, who see no term to the evil 

They by their guilt have raised, no end to their inner upbraidings I 

Him I could not choose but know," &c.—Ihid. 



brate the apotheosis of the monarch ; but, when he proceeds to travestio 
the final judgment, and to convert the awful tribunal of heaven into a 
drawing-room levee, where he, the poet laureate, takes upon himself to 
play the part of a lord in waiting, presenting one Georgian worthy after 
another to kiss hands on promotion,— what should be grave is, indeed, 
turned to farce." 

t "Our new world has generally the credit of having first lighted the 
torch which was to illuminate, and soon set in a blaze, the finest part of 
Europe ; yet I think the first flint was struck, and the first spark elicited, by 
the patriot John Wilkes, a few years before. In a time of profound peace, 
the restless spirit of men, deprived of other objects of public curiosity, 
seized with avidity on those questions which were then agitated with so 
much violence in England, touching the rights of the people and of the gov- 
ernment, and the nature of power. The end of the political drama was in 
favor of what was called, and in some respects was, the liberty of the people. 
Encouraged by the success of this great comedian, the curtain was no sooner 
dropped on the scene of Europe, than new actors hastened to raise it again 
in America, and to give the world a new play, infinitely more interesting 
and more brilliant than the first."— M. Simond. 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT. 



LXXII. 
" Wilkes," said the devil, " I understand all this ; 

You turn'd to half a courtier ere you died/ 
And seem to think it would not be amiss 

To grow a whole one on the other side 
Of Charon's ferry ; you forget that his 

Reign is concluded ; whatsoe'er betide, 
He won't be sovereign more : you've lost your 

labor, 
For at the best he will but be your neighbor. 

LXXIII. 
" However, I knew what to think of it, 

When I beheld you, in your jesting way. 
Flitting and whispering round about the spit 

Where Belial, upon duty for the day. 
With Fox's lard was basting William Pitt, 

His pupil ; I knew what to think, I say : 
That fellow even in hell breeds further ills ; 
I'll have him gagged — 'twas one of his own bills. 

LXXIV. 
" Call Junius l"^ From the crowd a shadow stalk'd, 

And at the name there was a general squeeze, 
So that the very ghosts no longer walk'd 

In comfort, at their own aerial ease, 
But were all ramm'd, and jamm'd (but to be balk'd, 

As we shall see), and jostled hands and knees. 
Like wind compress'd and pent within a bladder, 
Or like a human colic, which is sadder. 

LXXV. 

The shadow came — a tall, thin, gray-hair'd figure, 
That look'd as it had been a shade on earth ; 

Quick in its motions, with an air of vigor. 
But nought to mark its breeding or its birth : 

•Now it wax'd little, then again grew bigger. 
With now an air of gloom, or savage mirth ; 

But as you gazed upon its features, they 

Changed every instant — to what, none could say. 



I For the political history of John Wilkes, who died cham- 
berlain of the city of London, Tve must refer to any history 
of the reign of George III. His profligate personal charac- 
tor is abundantly displayed in the collection of his letters, 
published by his daughter I since his death. 

I " Who might the other be, his comrade in guilt and in suffering, 
Brought to the proof like him, and shrinliing lilce him from the trial? 
Kamcless the Libeller lived, and shot his arrows in darkness ; 
Undetected he pass'd to the grave, and, leaving behind him 
Noxious works on earth, and the pest of an evil example, 
Went to the world beyond, where no offences are hidden. 
Mwk'd had he been in his life, and now a visor of iron, 
Biveted round his head, had abolish'd his features for ever. 
Speechless the slanderer stood, and turn'd his face from the Monarch, 
Iron-bound as it was, ... so insupportably dreadful 
Soon or late to conscious guilt is the eye of the injured." — Southky. 

' Among the various persons to whom the letters of 
Junius have been attributed we find the Duke of Por^and, 
I»rd George Sackville, Sir Philip Francis, Mr. Burke, Mr. 
Dunning, the Pvcv. John Home Tooke, Mr. Hugh Boyd, Dr. 
Wilmot, Ac. 

♦ "I don't know what to think. Why should Junius be 
dead? If suddenly apoplexcd, would he rest in his grave 



LXXVI. 

The more intently the ghosts gazed, the less 

Could they distinguish whose the features were ; 

The devil himself seem'd puzzled even to guess ; 
They varied like a dream — now here, now there ; 

And several people swore from out the press. 
They knew him perfectly ; and one could swear 

He was his father ; upon which anotlier 

Was sure he was his mother's cousin's brother : 

LXXVII. 

Another, that he was a duke, or knight, 

An orator, a lawyer, or a priest, 
A nabob, a man-midwife : ^ but the wight 

Mysterious changed his countenance at least 
As oft as they their minds : though in full sight 

He stood, the puzzle only was increased ; 
The man was a phantasmagoria in 
Himself — he was so volatile and thin.* 

LXXVIII. 

The moment that you had pronounced him onCy 
Presto ! his face changed, and he w as another ; 

And when that change was hardly well put on, 
It varied, till I don't think his own mother 

(If that he had a mother) would her son 
Have known, he shifted so from one to t'other ; 

Till guessing from a pleasure grew a task. 

At this epistolary " Iron Mask."^ 

LXXIX. 

For sometimes he like Cerberus would seem — ^ 
" Three gentlemen at once" (as sagely says 
Good Mrs. Malaprop) ; then you might deem 
That he was not even one; now many rays 
Were flashing round him ; and now a thick steam 
^ Hid him from sight — like fogs on London days : 
Now Burke, now Tooke, he grew to people's 

ncies, 
And certes often like Sir Philip Francis.^ 



without sending his eihioKov to shout in the ears of posterity, 
' Junius was X. Y. Z., Esq., buried in the parish of * * * * *.' 
Repair his monument, ye churchwardens! Print a new 
edition of his Letters, ye booksellers I Impossible,— the man 
must he alive, and will never die without the disclosure. I 
like him ; — he was a good hater." — Byron Diary, Nov. 23, 1813. 
Sir Philip Francis died in December, 1818. 

6 The mystery of " I'homme au masque de fer," the ever- 
lasting puzzle of the last century, has at length, in general 
opinion, been cleared up, by a French work published in 1825, 
and which formed the basis of an entertaining one in English 
by Lord Dover. See Quarterly Review, vol. xxxiv. p. 19. 

» " That the work entitled ' The Identity of Junius with a 
distinguished Living Character established' proves Sir Philip 
Francis to be Junius, we will not affirm; but this wc can 
safely assert; that it accumulates such a mass of circumstan- 
tial evidence as renders it extremely difficult to believe he is 
not, and that, if so many coincidences shall be found to have 
misled us in this case, our faith in all conclusions drawn 
from proofs of a similar kind may henceforth be shaken." — 
Mackintosh. 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



LXXX. 

. an hypothesis — 'tis quite my own ; 

I never let it out till now, for fear 
Of doing people harm about the throne, 

And injuring some minister or peer, 
On whom the stigma might perhaps be blown ; 

It is — my gentle public, lend thine ear ! 
'Tis, that what Junius we are wont to call 
Was really, truly, nobody at all. 

LXXXI. 

I don't see wherefore letters should not be 
Written without hands, since we daily view 

Them written without heads ; and books, we see, 
Are fiU'd as well without the latter too : 

And really till we fix on somebody 

For certain sure to claim them as his due, 

Their author, like the Niger's mouth, will bother 

The world to say if there be mouth or author. 

LXXXII. 

"And who and what art thou?" the Archangel 
said, 

" For that you may consult my title-page," 
Replied this mighty shadow of a shade : 

" If I have kept my secret half an age, 
I scarce shall tell it now." — " Canst thou upbraid," 

Continued Michael, " George Rex, or allege 
Aught further ?" Junius answer'd, " You had better 
First ask him for his answer to my letter : 

LXXXIII. 

" My charges upon record will outlast 
The brass of both his epitaph and tomb." 

" Repent'st thou not," said Michael, "of some past 
Exaggeration ? something which may doom 

Thyself if false, as him if true ? Thou wast 
Too bitter — is it not so ? — in thy gloom 

Of passion ?" — " Passion !" cried the phantom dim, 

" I loved my country, and I hated him. 



1 The well-known motto of Junius is, " StcU nominis 
umbra." 

2 " Caitiffs, are ye dumb ? cried the multifaced Demon in anger ; 
Think ye then by shame to shorten the term of your penance 7 
Back to your penal dens !— And with horrible grasp gigantic 
Seizing the guilty pair, he swung them aloft, and in vengeance 
HurVd them all abroad, far into the sulphurous darkness. 
Sons of Faction, be warn'd 1 And ye, ye Slanderers ! learn ye 
Justice, and bear in mind that after death there is judgment. 
Whirling, away they flew I Nor long himself did he tarry, 

Ere from the ground where he stood, caught up by a vehement whirlwind, 

He too was hurried away : and the blast with lightning and thunder 

Volleying aright and aleft amid the accumulate blackness, 

Scatter'd its inmates accurst, and beyond the limits of ether 

Drove the hircine host obscene ; they howling and groaning 

Kill precipitate down to their dolorous place of endurance."— Socthby. 

3 " The roll of the thunder 

Ceased, and all sounds were hush'd, till again ftom the gate adamantine 
Was the voice of the Angel heard through the silence of Heaven. 
Ho ! he exclaim'd, King George of England standeth in judgment ! 
Hell hath been dumb in his presence. Ye who on earth acraign'd him, 
Come ye before him now, and here accuse or absolve him 1 
.... From the Souls of the Blessed, 
Some were there then who advanced ; and more from the skirts of the 
meeting, 



LXXXIV. 

" What I have written, I have written : let 
The t-est be on his head or mine !" So spoke 

Old " Nominis Umbra ;" i and while speaking yet, 
Away he melted in celestial smoke.^ 

Then Satan said to Michael, " Don't forget 
To call George Washington,^ and John Home Tooke, 

And Franklin ;" — but at this time there was heard 

A cry for room, though not a phantom stirr'd. 

LXXXV. 

At length, with jostling, elbowing, and the aid 

Of cherubim appointed to that post. 
The devil Asmodeus to the circle made 

His way, and look'd as if his journey cost 
Some trouble. When his burden down he laid, 

" What's this ?" cried Michael ; " why, 'tis not a 
ghost?" 
" I know it," quoth the incubus ; " but he 
Shall be one, if you leave the afiair to me. 

LXXXVI. 

" Confound the renegado ! I have sprain'd 
My left wing, he's so heavy ; one would think 

Some of his works about his neck were chain'd. 
But to the point;' while hovering o'er the brink 

Of Skiddaw^ (where as usual it still rain'd), 
I saw a taper, far below me, wink. 

And stooping, caught this fellow at a libel — 

No less on history than the Holy Bible. 

LXXXVII. 

" The former is the devil's scripture, and 
The latter yours, good Michael : so the affair 

Belongs to all of us, you understand. 

I snatch'd him up just as you see him there. 

And brought him off for sentence out of hand : 
I've scarcely been ten minutes in the air — 

At least a quarter it can hardly be : 

I dare say that his wife is still at tea." 



Spirits who had not yet accomplish'd their purification. 

Yet being cleansed from pride, from faction and error deliver'd, 

Purged of the film wherewith the eye of the mind is clouded, 

They, in their better state, saw all things clear 

One alone remain'd, when the rest had retired to their station ; 

Silently he had stood, and still unmoved and in silence, 

With a steady mien, regarded the face of the Monarch. 

Thoughtful awhile he gazed : — ^ 

' Here then at the Gate of Heaven we are met !' said the Spirit ; 

' King of England 1 albeit in life opposed to each other, 

Here we meet at last. Not unprepared for the meeting 

Ween I ; for we had both outlived all enmity, rendering 

Each to each that justice which each from each had withholden. 

In the course of events, to thee I seem'd as a Rebel, 

Thou a Tyrant to me ; — so strongly doth circumstance rule men 

During evil days, when right and wrong are confounded I' 

'Washington !' said the Monarch, ' well hast thou spoken, and truly 

Just to thyself and to me. On them is the guilt of the contest 

Who, for wicked ends, with foul arts of faction and falsehood. 

Kindled and fed the flame : but verily they have their guerdon. 

Thou and I are free from offence.' — 

When that Spirit withdrew, the Monarch around the assembly 

Look'd, but none else came forth," &c. — Ibid. 

* Mr. Southey's residence is on the shore of Derwent- 
water, near the mountain Skiddaw. 






THE VISION OF JUDGMENT. 



625 



LXXXVIII. 
Here Satan said, " I know this man of old, 

And have expected him for some time here; 
A sillier fellow you will scarce behold. 

Or more conceited in his petty sphere : 
But surely it was not worth while to fold 

Such trash below your wing, Asmodeus dear : 
We had the poor wretch safe (without being bored 
With carriage) coming of his own accord. 

LXXXIX. 

" But since he's here, let's see what he has done." 
" Done !" cried Asmodeus, "he anticipates 

The very business you are now upon, 
And scribbles as if head clerk to the Fates. 

Who knows to what his ribaldry may run, 
When such an ass as this, like Balaam's, prates ?" 

" Let's hear," quoth Michael, " what he has to say ; 

You know we're bound to that in every way." 

XC. 

Now the bard, glad to get an audience, which 
By no means often was his case below. 

Began to cough, and hawk, and hem, and pitch 
His voice into that awful note of woe 

To all unhappy hearers within reach 
Of poets when the tide of rhyme's in flow, 

But stuck fast with his first hexameter, 

Not one of all whose gouty feet would stir. 

XCI. 

But ere the spavin 'd dactyls could be spurr'd 

Into recitative, in great dismay. 
Both cherubim and seraphim were heard 

To murmur loudly through their long array ; 
And Michael rose ere he could get a word 

Of all his founder'd verses under way, [best — 

And cried, " For God's sake, stop, my friend ! 'twere 
Non Di, non homines — you know the rest." ^ 

XCII. 
A general bustle spread throughout the throng, 

Wliich seem'd to hold all verse in detestation ; 
The angels had of course enough of song 

When upon service ; and the generation 
Of ghosts had heard too much in life, not long 

Before, to profit by a new occasion ; [what ! ^ 

The monarch, mute till then, exclaim'd, "What! 
Pj/e' come again ? No more — no more of that !" 



' " Mediocribus esse poetis 

Non Di, non homines, non concessere columnse." 

Horace. 
2 The king's trick of repeating his words in this way was 
a fertile source of ridicule to Peter Pindar (Dr. Walcot); for 
example — 

" The conquering monarch, stopping to take breath 
Amidst the regiments of death, 

Now tnm'd to Whithread with complacence ronnd ; 
And, merry, thns address'd the man of beer :— 
' Whitbread, Is't true 7 I hear, I hear, , 

Tou're of au ancient family — renown'd — 

40 



XCIII. 

The tumult grew ; an universal cough 
Convulsed the skies, as during a debate, 

When Castlereagh has been up long enough 
(Before he was first minister of state, 

I mean — the slaves hear now) ; some cried " Off, off!" 
As at a farce ; till, grown quite desperate, 

The bard Saint Peter pray'd to interpose 

(Himself an author) only for his prose. 

XCIV. 

The varlet was not an ill-favor'd knave ; 

A good deal like a vulture in the face. 
With a hook nose and a hawk's eye, which gave 

A smart and sharper-looking sort of grace 
To his whole aspect, which, though rather grave, 

Was by no means so ugly as his case ; 
But that, indeed, was hopeless as can be, 
Quite a poetic felony " de sej' 

xcv. 

Then Michael blew his trump, and still'd the noise 
With one still greater, as is yet the mode 

On earth besides ; except some grumbling voice. 
Which now and then will make a slight inroad 

Upon decorous silence, few will twice 

Lift up their lungs when fairly overcrow'd ; 

And now the bard could plead his own bad cause, 

With all the attitudes of self-applause. 

XCVI. 

He said— (I only give the heads) — he said. 

He meant no harm in scribbling ; 'twas his way 
Upon all topics ; 'twas, besides, his bread. 

Of which he butter'd both sides ; 'twould delay 
Too long the assembly (he was pleased to dread). 

And take up rather more time than a day, 
To name his works — he would but cite a few — 
"Wat Tyler" — "Ehymes on Blenheim " — " Wat- 
erloo." 

XCVII. 
He had written praises of a regicide ; 

He had written praises of all kings whatever ; 
He had written for republics far and wide. 

And then against them bitterer than ever ; 
For pantisocracy he once had cried 

Aloud, a scheme less moral than 'twas clever ; 
Then grew a hearty anti-jacobin — 
Had turn'd his coat — and would have turn'd his skin. 



What? What? I'm told that you're a limb 

Of Pym, the famous fellow Pym : 

What, Whithread, is it true what people Bay? 

Son of a roundhead are you? hae? hoe? hse? 

Thirtieth of January don't you feed ? 

Yes, yes, you eat calf's head, you eat calf's head I' " 
8 Henry James Pye, the predecessor of Mr. Southey in the 
poet-laureateship, died in 1813. He was the author of many 
works, hesides his official Odes, among others " Alfred," an epic 
poem— all of which have been long since defunct. Pye was a 
man of good family in Berkshire, sat some time in parliament, 
and was eminently respectable in everything but his poetry, 



626 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



XCVIII. 

He had sung against all battles, and again 
In their high praise and glory ; he had call'd 

Reviewing 1 " the ungentle craft," and then 
Become as base a critic as e'er crawl'd— 

Fed, paid, and pamper'd by the very men 

By whom his Ause and morals had been maul'd : 

He had written much blank verse, and blanker prose, 

And more of both than anybody knows, 

XCIX. 

He had written Wesley's life : — here turning round 
To Satan, " Sir, I'm ready to write yours. 

In two octavo volumes, nicely bound, 

With notes and preface, all that most allures 

The pious purchaser ; and there's no ground 
For fear, for I can choose my own reviewers ; 

So let me have the proper documents, 

That I may add you to my other saints." 

C. 

Satan bow'd, and was silent. " Well, if you, 

With amiable modesty, decline 
My oflfer, what says Michael ? There are few 

Whose memoirs could be render'd more divine. 
Mine is a pen of all work ; not so new 

As it was once, but I would make you shine 
Like your own trumpet. By the way, my own 
Has more of brass in it, and is as well blown. 

CI. 

" But talking about trumpets, here's my Vision ! 

Now you shall judge, all people ; yes, you shall 
Judge with my judgment, and by my decision 

Be guided who shall enter heaven or fall.^ 



1 See " Life of Henry Kirke White." 

2 " Lift up your heads, ye Gates ; and ye everlasting Portals, 
Be ye lift up ! For lo I a glorified Monarch approacheth. 

One who in righteousness reign'd, and religiously govern'd his people. 
Who are these that await him within ? — Nassau, the Deliverer, 

Him i knew Thou, too, O matchless Eliza, 

Excellent Queen, wert there ! and thy brother's beautiful spirit. 
There too was he of the sable mail, the hero of Cressy. 
Lion-hearted Richard was there, redoubtable warrior. 
I saw the spirit of Alfred- 
Alfred, than whom no prince with loftier intellect gifted. 

Bede I beheld, who, humble and holy, 

Shone like a single star, serene in a night of darkness. 

Bacon also was there, the marvBllous Friar; 

Thee, too. Father Chaucer I I saw, and delighted to see thee — 

And Shakspeare, who in our hearts for himself hath erected an empire. 

A train whom nearer duty attracted. 

Through the Gate of Bliss came forth to welcome their Sovereign. 

Many were they, and glorious all. Conspicuous among them 

Wolfe was seen ; and the Seaman who fell on the shores of Owhyhee.* 

And the mighty Musician of Germany, t ours by adoption. 

Who beheld in the king his munificent pupil and patron — 

There, too, Wesley I saw and knew— And Burke I beheld there. 

Here, where wrongs are forgiven, was the injured Hastings beside him ; 

There was our late-lost Queen, the nation's example oi virtue," &c. &c. 

SOUTHEY. 

3 Alfonso, speaking of the Ptolemean system, said, that 
" had he been consulted at the creation of the world, he would 
have spared the Maker some absurdities." 

* See Aubrey's account of the apparition which disap- 
peared "with a curious perfume and a most melodious twang ;" 

* Cook. t Handel. 



I settle all these things by intuition, 

Times present, past, to come, heaven, hell, and all, 
Like King Alfonso,^ When I thus see double, 
I save the Deity some worlds of trouble," 

CII. 
He ceased, and drew forth an MS, ; and no 

Persuasion on the part of devils, or saints. 
Or angels, now could stop the torrent ; so 

He read the first three lines of the contents ; 
But at the fourth, the whole spiritual show 

Had vanish'd, with variety of scents. 
Ambrosial and sulphureous, as they sprang. 
Like lightning, off from his "melodious twang,"* 

CHI, 

Those grand heroics acted as a spell : 

The angels stopp'd their ears and plied their 
pinions ; 
The devils ran howling, deafen'd, down to hell ; 

The ghosts fled, gibbering, for their own dominions — 
(For 'tis not yet decided where they dwell. 

And I leave every man to his opinions) ; 
Michael took refuge in his trump — but, lo ! 
His teeth were set on edge, he could not blow ! 

CIV. 

Saint Peter, who has hitherto been known 
For an impetuous saint, upraised his keys. 

And at the fifth line knock'd the poet down ;* 
Who fell like Phaeton, but more at ease, 

Into his lake, for there he did not drown ; 
A different web being by the Destinies 

Woven for the Laureate's final wreath whene'er 

Reform shall happen either here or there. 

or see the " Antiquary," vol. i. p. 225. — " As the vision shut 
his volume, a strain of delightful music seemed to fill the 
apartment." — " The usual time," says Grose, " at which ghosts 
make their appearance is midnight, and seldom before it is 
dark ; though some audacious spirits have been said to appear 
even by daylight ; but of this there are few instances, and 
those mostly ghosts who have been laid, and whose terms of 
confinement were expired. I cannot learn that ghosts carry 
tapers in their hands, as they are sometimes depicted. Drag- 
ging chains is not the fashion of English ghosts ; chains and 
black vestments being chiefly the accoutrements of foreign 
spectres seen in arbitrary governments ; dead or alive Eng- 
lish spirits are free. During the narration of its business, a 
ghost must by no means be interrupted by questions of any 
kind: its narration being completed, it vanishes away, fre- 
quently in a flash of light ; in which case some ghosts have 
been so considerate as to desire the party to whom they 
appeared to shut their eyes :— sometimes its departure is 
attended with most delightful music." 
5 " When I beheld them meet, the desire of my soul o'ercame me ; 
And when with harp and voice the loud hosannahs of welcome 
Fill'd the rejoicing sky, as the happy company enter'd 
Through the Everlasting Gates, I, too, press'd forward to enter- 
But the weight of the body withheld me.— I stoop'd to the fountain, 
Eager to drink thereof, and to put away all that was earthly. 
Darkness came over me then at the chilling touch of the water, 
And my feet methought sunk, and I fell precipitate. Starting, 
Then I awoke, and beheld the mountains in twilight before me. 
Dark and distinct ; and, instead of the rapturous sound of hosannahs, 
Heard the bell from the tower, toll ! toll 1 through the silence of 
evening."— SouTHEY. 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT. 



627 



cv. 

He first sank to the bottom — like his works, 
But soon rose to the surface — like himself; 

For all corrupted things are buoy'd like corks/ 
By their own rottenness, light as an elf, 

Or wisp that flits o'er a morass : he lurks. 
It may be, still, like dull books on a shelf, 

In his own den, to scrawl some "Life" or " Vision," ^ 

As Welborn says — " the devil turn'd precisian." 

1 A drowned body lies at the bottom till rotten ; it then 
floats, as most people know. 

2 " Southey's ' Vision of Judgment ' appears to us to be an ill- 
judged, and not a well-executed work. It certainly has added 
nothing to the reputation of its author in any respect. The 
nobleness of his motive does not atone for the indiscretion of 
putting it into so reprehensible a form. Milton's example will, 
perhaps, be pleaded in his vindication ; but Milton alone has 
ever founded a fiction on the basis of revelation, without 
degrading his subject. He alone has succeeded in carrying 
his readers into the spiritual world. No other attempt of the 
kind has ever appeared that can be read without a constant 
feeling of something like burlesque, and a wish that the Tar- 
tarus and Elysium of the idolatrous Greeks should still be the 
hell and heaven of poetry. A smile at the puerilities, and 
a laugh at the absurdity of the poet, might then be enjoyed 
by the reader, without an apprehension that he was guilty of 
profanity in giving it. Milton has been blamed by the most 
judicious critics, and his warmest admirers, for expressing 
the counsels of Eternal Wisdom, and the decrees of Almighty 
Power, by words assigned to the Deity. It offends against 
poetical propriety and poetical probability. It is impossible 
to deceive ourselves into a momentary and poetical belief 
that words proceeded from the Holy Spirit, except on the 
warrant of inspiration itself. It is here only that Milton 
fails, and here Milton sometimes shocks. The language and 
conduct ascribed by Milton to his inferior spirits, accord so 
well with our conceptions and belief respecting their nature 
and existence, that in many places we forget that they are, in 
any respect, the creatures of imagination. The blasphemies 
of Milton's devils offend not a pious ear, because they are 
devils who utter them. Nor are we displeased with the 
poet's presumption in feigning language for heavenly spirits, 
because it is a language that lifts the soul to heaven ; and we 
more than believe, we know and feel, that, whatever may 
be the nature of the language of angels, the language of 
the poet truly interprets their sentiments. The words are 
human ; but the truths they express, and the doctrines they 
teach, are divine. Nothing of the same kind can be said of 
any other fable, serious or ludicrous, pious or profane, that has 
yet been written in any age or language." — Blackwood, 1822. 

' The "Vision of Judgment" appeared, as has been already 
said, in "The Liberal" — a journal which, consisting chiefly 
of pieces by the late Mr. Hazlitt and Mr. Leigh Hunt, was 
not saved from ruin by a few contributions, some of the 
highest merit, by Lord Byron. In his work entitled "Lord 
Byron and his Contemporaries," Mr. Hunt assaulted the 
dead poet, with reference to this unhappy journal; and his 
charges were thus taken to pieces at the time in the Quarterly 
Review : — 

" Mr. Hunt describes himself as pressed by Lord Byron 
into the undertaking of that hapless magazine: Lord Byron, 
on the contrary, represents himself as urged to the service by 
the Messrs. Hunt themselves ;" e. g.: 

"'Genoa, Oct, 9, 1822.— I am afraid the journal is a bad 
business, and won't do, but in it I am sacrificing myself for 
others, /can have no advantage in it. I believe the brothers 
HurUa to be honest men ; I am sure that they are poor ones; 
they have not a Nap. They pressed me to engage in this work. 



CVI. 

As for the rest, to come to the conclusion 
Of this true dream, the telescope is gone 

Which kept my optics free from all delusion. 
And show'd me what I in my turn have shown ; 

All I saw further, in the last confusion. 

Was, that King George slipp'd into heaven for one ; 

And when the tumult dwindled to a calm, 

I left him practicing the hundredth psalm.^ 

and in an evil hour I consented; still I shall not repent if lean 
do them the least service. I have done all I can for Leigh 
Hunt since he came here, but it is almost useless : his wife 
is ill ; his six children not very tractable ; and in affairs of 
this world he himself is a perfect child. The death of Shelley 
left them totally aground ; and I could not see them in such 
a state without using the common feelings of humanity, and 
what means were in my power to set them afloat againJ 

" Again— Mr. Hunt represents Lord Byron as dropping his 
connection with ' The Liberal,' partly because his friends at 
home (Messrs. Moore, Hobhouse, Murray, &c.) told him it 
was a discreditable one, and partly because the business did 
not turn out lucrative. 

" ' It is a mistake to suppose, that he was not mainly in- 
fluenced by the expectation of profit. He expected very 
large returns from "The Liberal." Eeaders in these days 
need not be told, that periodical works which have a large 
sale are a mine of wealth : Lord Byron had calculated that 
matter well.' — Lord Byron and his Contemporaries, p. 50. 

" ' The failure of the large profits— the non-appearance of 
the golden visions he had looked for, of the Edinburgh or 
Quarterly returns — of the solid and splendid proofs of this 
new country, which he should conquer in the regions of 
notoriety, to the dazzling of all men's eyes and his own— this 
it was — this was the bitter disappointment which made him 
determine to give way.' — Ibid, pk 51. 

" Now let us hear Lord Byron himself: — 

"'Genoa, Qb^e 18, 1822.— They will, of course, attribute 
motives of all kinds ; but I shall not abandon a man like 
Hunt because he is unfortunate. Wliy, I could have no 
pecuniary motives, and, least of all, in connection with 
Hunt.' 

'"Genoa, lOt"" 25, 1822. — Now do you see what you and 
your friends do by your injudicious rudeness? actually 
cement a sort of connection which you strove to prevent, 
and which, had the Hunts prospered, would not, in all prob- 
ability, have continued. As it is, I will not quit them in 
their adversity, though it should cost me character, fame, 
money, and the usual et cetera. My original motives I 
already explained (in the letter which you thought proper 
to show); they are the true ones, and I abide by them, as I 
tell you, and I told Leigh Hunt, when he questioned me on 
the subject of that letter. He was violently hurt, and never 
will forgive me at the bottom ; but I cannot help that. I 
never meant to make a parade of it ; but if he chose to ques- 
tion me, I could only answer the plain truth ; and I confess, 
I did not see anything in the letter to hurt him, unless I said 
he was " a bore," which I don't remember. Had this journal 
gone on well, and I could have aided to make it better for 
them, I should then have left them after a safe pilotage off a 
lee shore to make a proFsperous voyage by themselves. As it 
is, I can't, and would not if I could, leave them among the 
breakers. As to any community of feeling, thought, or opin- 
ion, between Leigh Hunt and me, there is little or none. We 
meet rarely, hardly ever; but I think him a good-principled 
and able man, and must do as I would be done by.' " 

The Reviewer proceeds to comment on Mr. Hunt's general 
abuse of Lord Byron's manners, habits, and conversation: 

"The witness is, in our opinion, disqualified to give evi- 
dence upon any such subjects: his book proves him to be 



628 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



equally ignorant of what manners are, and incompetent to 
judge what manners ought to be : his elaborate portraiture 
of his own habits is from beginning to end a very caricature 
of absurdity ; and the man who wrote this book, studiously 
cast, as the whole language of it is, in a free-and-easy, con- 
versational tone, has no more right to decide about the 
conversation of such a man as Lord Byron, than has a pert 
apprentice to pronounce e% eaihedrd—trora. his one-shilling 
gallery, to wit— on the dialogue of a polite comedy. "We can 
easily believe, that Lord Byron never talked his best when 
this was his Companion. We can also believe, that Lord 
Byron's serious conversation, even in its lowest tone, was 
often unintelligible to Mr. Leigh Hunt. We are morally 
certain, that in such company Lord Byron talked, very often 
indeed, for the mere purpose of amusing himself at the ex- 
pense of his ignorant, fantastic, lackadaisical guest; that 
he considered the Magnus Apollo of Paradise Kow as a pre- 
cious butt, and acted accordingly. We therefore consider 
Mr. Hunt's evidence as absolutely inadmissible, on strong 
preliminary grounds. But what are we to say to it, when we 
find it, as we do, totally and diametrically at variance both 
with the substance and complexion of Lord Byron's epistol- 
ary correspondence ; and with the oral testimonies of men 
whose talents, originally superior beyond all possibility 
of measurement to Mr. Hunt's, have been matured and 
perfected by study, both of books and men, such as Mr. 
Hunt never even dreamed of; who had the advantage of 
meeting Lord Byron on terms of perfect equality to all 
intents and purposes ; and who, qualified, as they probably 
were, above any of their contemporaries, to appreciate Lord 
Byron, whether as a poet, or as a man of high rank and pre- 
eminent fame, mingling in the world in society such as he 
ought never to have sunk below, all with one voice pro- 
nounce an opinion exactly and in every particular, as well 
as looking to things broadly and to the general effect, the 
reverse of that which this unworthy and ungrateful depend- 
ent has thought himself justified in promulgating on the 
plea of penury which no Lord Byron survives to relieve? 
It is too bad, that he who has, in his own personal conduct, 
as well as in his writings, so much to answer for — who 
abused great opportunities and great talents so lamentably — 
who sinned so deeply, both against the society to which he 
belonged and the literature in which his name will ever hold 
a splendid place — it is really too bad, that Lord Byron, in 
addition to the grave condemnation of men able to appre- 
ciate both his merits and his demerits, and well disposed to 
think more in sorrow than in anger of the worst errors that 
existed along with so much that was excellent and noble— it 



is by much too bad, that this great man's glorious though 
melancholy memory 

' Must also bear the vile attacks 
Of ragged curs and vulgar hacks ' 

whom he fed ;— that his bones must be scraped up from their 
bed of repose to be at once grinned and howled over by creat- 
ures who, even in the least hyena-like of their moods, can 
touch nothing that mankind would wish to respect without 
polluting it." 



Mr. Moore'i 
omitted here :- 



verses on Mr. Hunt's work must not be 



" Next week will be publish'd (as ' Lives ' are the rage) 
The whole Keminiscences, wondrous and strange, 

Of a small puppy-dog that lived once in the cage 
Of the late noble lion of Exeter 'Change. 

" Though the dog is a dog of the kind they call ' sad,' 
'Tis a puppy that much to good breeding pretends : 

And few dogs have such opportunities had 
Of knowing how lions behave — among friends. 

" How that animal eats, how he moves, how he drinks, 
Is all noted down by this Boswell so small ; 

And 'tis plain, from each sentence, the puppy-dog thinks, 
That the lion was no such great things after all. 

" Though he roar'd pretty well — this the puppy allows — 
It was all, he says, borrow'd— all second-hand roar ; 

And he vastly prefers his own little bow-wows 
To the loftiest war-note the lion could pour. 

" 'Tis, indeed, as good fun as a Cynic could ask, 
To see how this cockney-bred setter of rabbits 

Takes gravely the lord of the forest to task, 
And judges of lions by puppy-dog habits. 

" Nay, fed as he was (and this makes it a dark case) 
With sops every day from the lion's own pan, 

He lifts up his leg at the noble beast's carcass. 
And— does all a dog, so diminutive, can. 

" However, the book's a good book, being rich in 
Examples and warnings to lions high-bred, 

How they suffer small mongrelly curs in their kitchen, 
Who'll feed on them living, and foul them when dead" 



2rf)e ^ge of iSron^e: 

OE, CABMEN SECULARE ET ANNUS HAUD MIRABILIS. 



Impar Congrehxis Achilli.' 



I. 

The " good old times " — all times when old are good — 

Are gone ; the present might be if they would ; 

Great things have been, and are, and greater still 

Want little of mere mortals but their will : 

A wider space, a greener field, is given 

To those who play their " tricks before high heaven." 

I know not if the angels weep, but men 

Have wept enough — for what ? — to weep again ! 

II. 

All is exploded — be it good or bad. 
Reader ! remember when thou wert a lad, 
Then Pitt was all ; or, if not all, so much, 
His very rival almost deem'd him such.^ 
We, we have seen the intellectual race 
Of giants stand, like Titans, face to face — 
Athos and Ida, with a dashing sea 
Of eloquence between, which flow'd all free, 
As the deep billows of the iEgean roar 
Betwixt the Hellenic and the Phrygian shore. 
But where are they — the rivals ! a few feet 
Of sullen earth divide each winding sheet,^ 
How peaceful and how powerful is the grave. 
Which hushes all ! a calm, unstormy wave. 
Which oversweeps the world. The theme is old 
Of " dust to dust ;" but half its tale untold : 
Time tempers not its terrors — still the worm 
Winds its cold folds, the tomb preserves its form. 
Varied above, but still alike below ; 
The urn may shine, the ashes will not glow, 

1 This poem was written by Lord Byron at Genoa, in the 
early part of the year 1823; and published in London, by 
Mr. John Hunt. Its authenticity was much disputed at the 
time. 

« Mr, Fox used to say—" / never want a word, but Pitt 
never wants the word." 

» The grave of Mr. Fox, in "Westminster Abbey, is within 
eighteen inches of that of Mr. Pitt,— 

" Where— taming thought to human pride ! — 

The mighty chiefs sleep side by side. 

Drop upon Fox's grave the tear, 

'Twill trickle to hLs rival's bier : 

O'er Pitt's the mournful requiem sound, 

And Fox's shall the notes rebound. 

The solemn echo seems to cry — 

' Here let their discord with them die : 



Though Cleopatra's mummy cross the sea 

O'er which from empire she lured Anthony ; 

Though Alexander's urn a show be grown 

On shores he wept to conquer, though unknown — 

How vain, how worse than vain, at length appear 

The madman's wish, the Macedonian's tear ! 

He wept for worlds to conquer — half the earth 

Knows not his name, or but his death, and birth, 

And desolation ; while his native Greece 

Hath all of desolation, save its peace. 

He "wept for worlds to conquer !" he who ne'er 

Conceived the globe, he panted not to spare ! 

With even the busy Northern Isle unknown. 

Which holds his urn, and never knew his throne.* 

III. 

But where is he, the modern, mightier far, 

Who, born no king, made monarchs draw his car ; 

The new Sesostris, whose unharness'd kings,^ 

Freed from the bit, believe themselves with wings. 

And spurn the dust o'er which they crawl'd of late, 

Chain'd to the chariot of the chieftain's state ? 

Yes 1 where is he, th#champion and the child 

Of all that's great or little, wise or wild ; 

Whose game was empires, and whose stakes were 

thrones ; 
Whose table earth — whose dice were human bones ? 
Behold the grand result in yon lone isle,^ 
And, as thy nature urges, weep or smile. 
Sigh to behold the eagle's lofty rage 
Reduced to nibble at his narrow cage ; 

Speak not for those a separate doom, 
Whom fate made brothers in the tomb ; 
But search the land of living men. 
Where wilt thou find their like again ?' " 

Sir Walter Scott. 
* A sarcophagus, of breccia, supposed to have contained 
the dust of Alexander, which came into the possession of the 
English army, in consequence of the capitulation of Alexan- 
dria, in February, 1802, was presented by George III. to the 
British Museum. 

6 Sesostris is said, by Diodorus, to have had his chariot 
drawn by eight vanquished sovereigns : — 

" High on his car Sesostris struck my view, 
Whom sceptred slaves in golden harness drew ; 
His hands a bow and pointed jav'lin hold, 
His giant limbs are arm'd in scales of gold."— Pope. 
» Saint Helena. 

( 629) 



630 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Smile to survey the queller of the nations 

Now daily squabbling o'er disputed rations ; 

Weep to perceive him mourning, as he dines, 

O'er curtail'd dishes and o'er stinted wines ; 

O'er petty quarrels upon petty things. 

Is this the man who scourged or feasted kings ? 

Behold the scales in which his fortune hangs, 

A surgeon's! statement, and an earl's 2 harangues. 

A bust delay'd,3 a book refused, can shake 

The sleep of him who kept the world awake. 

Is this indeed the tamer of the great, 

Now slave of all could tease or irritate — 

The paltry gaoler* and the prying spy. 

The staring stranger with his note-book nigh ? ^ 

Plunged in a dungeon, he had still been great; 

How low, how little was this middle state, 

Between a prison and a palace, where 

How few could feel for what he had to bear ! 

Vain his complaint, — my lord presents his bill. 

His food and wine were doled out duly still ; 

Vain was his sickness, never was a clime 

So free from homicide — to doubt's a crime ; 

And the stiff surgeon, who maintain'd his cause, 

Hath lost his place, and gain'd the world's ap- 

plause.6 
But smile — though all the pangs of brain and heart 
Disdain, defy, the tardy aid of art ; 
Though, save the few fond friends and imaged face 
Of that fair boy his sire shall ne'er embrace. 
None stand by his low bed — though even the mind 
Be wavering, which long awed and awes man- 
kind; 
Smile — for the fetter'd eagle breaks his chain, 
And higher worlds than this are his again.' 

IV. 

How, if that soaring spirit still retain 
A conscious twilight of his blazing reign, 

1 Mr. Barry O'Meara. 2 Earl Bathurst. 

3 The bust of his son. * Sir Hudson Lowe. 

6 Captain Basil Hall's interesting account of his interview 
with the ex-emperor occurs in his " Voyage to Loo-choo." 

6 The circumstances under which Mr. O'Meara's dismissal 
from his majesty's service took place will suffice to show how 
little " the stiff surgeon " merited the applause of Lord Byron. 
In a letter to the Admiralty Board by Mr. O'Meara, dated 
October 28, 1818, there occurred the following paragraph :— 
"In the third interview which Sir Hudson Lowe had with 
Napoleon Buonaparte, in May, 1816, he proposed to the latter 
to send me away, and to replace me by Mr. Baxter, who had 
been several years surgeon in the Corsican Rangers. Failing 
in this attempt, he adopted the resolution of manifesting great 
confidence in me, by loading me with civilities, inviting me 
constantly to dine with him, conversing for hours together 
with me alone, both in his own house and grounds, and at 
Longwood, either in my own room, or under the trees and 
elsewhere. On some of these occasions he made to me obser- 
vations upon the benefit which would result to Europe from 
the dsath of Napoleon Buonaparte ; of which event he spoke 
in a manner which, considering his situation and mine, was 
peculiarly distressing to me." — The secretary to the Admi- 
ralty was instructed to answer in these terms : — " It is impos- 
sible to doubt the meaning which this passage was intended 
to convey ; and my lords can as little doubt that the insinu- 



How must he smile, on looking down, to see 

The little that he was and sought to be ! 

What though his name a wider empire found 

Than his ambition, though with scarce a bound ; 

Though first in glory, deepest in reverse, 

He tasted empire's blessings and its curse ; 

Though kings, rejoicing in their late escape 

From chains, would gladly be their tyrant's ape ; 

How must he smile, and turn to yon lone grave. 

The proudest sea-mark that o'ertops the wave ! 

What though his gaoler, duteous to the last. 

Scarce deem'd the coffin's lead could keep him fast, 

Refusing one poor line along the lid. 

To date the birth and death of all it hid ; 

That name shall hallow the ignoble shore, 

A talisman to all save him who bore : 

The fleets that sweep before the eastern blast 

Shall hear their sea-boys hail it from the mast ; 

When Victory's Gallic column shall but rise. 

Like Pompey's pillar, in a desert's skies, 

The rocky isle that holds or held his dust, 

Shall crown the Atlantic like the hero's bust, 

And mighty nature o'er his obsequies 

Do more than niggard envy still denies. 

But what are these to him ? Can glory's lust 

Touch the freed spirit or the fetter'd dust ? 

Small care hath he of what his tomb consists ; 

Nought if he sleeps — nor more if he exists : 

Alike the better-seeing shade will smile 

On the rude cavern of the rocky isle. 

As if his ashes found their latest home 

In Rome's Pantheon or Gaul's mimic dome. 

He wants not this ; but France shall feel the want 

Of this last consolation, though so scant : 

Her honor, fame, and faith demand his bones, 

To rear above a pyramid of thrones ; 

Or carried onward in the battle's van, 

To form, like Guesclin's® dust, her talisman. 

ation is a calumnious falsehood : but if it were true, and ii 
so horrible a suggestion were made to you, directly or indi- 
rectly, it was your bounden duty not to have lost a moment 
in communicating it to the admiral on the spot, or to the 
secretary of state, or to their lordships. An overture so 
monstrous in itself, and so deeply involving, not merely the 
personal character of the governor, but the honor of the 
nation, and the important interest committed to his charge, 
should not have been reserved in your own breast for two 
years, to be produced at last, not (as it would appear) from a 
sense of public duty, but in furtherance of your own personal 
hostility against the governor. Either the charge is in the 
last degree false and calumnious, or you can have no possible 
excuse for having hitherto suppressed it. In either case, and 
without adverting to the general tenor of your conduct, as 
stated in your letter, my lords consider you to be an improper 
person to continue in his majesty's service ; and they have 
directed your name to be erased from the list of naval sur- 
geons accordingly." O'Meara died in 1836. 

7 Buonaparte died the 5th of May, 1821. 

8 Guesclin, constable of France, died in the midst of his 
triumphs, before Chateauneuf de Randon, in 1380. The 
English garrison, which had conditioned to surrender at a 
certain time, marched out the day after his death ; and the 
commander respectfully laid the keys of the fortress on the 
bier, so that it might appear to have surrendered to his ashes. 



THE AGE OF BRONZE. 



631 



But be it as it is— the time may come 

His name shall beat the alarm, like Ziska's drum.* 

V. 

Oh, heaven ! of which he was in power a feature ; 

Oh, earth ! of which he was a noble creature ; 

Thou isle ! to be remember'd long and well, 

That saw'st the unfledged eaglet cliip his shell ! 

Ye Alps, which view'd him in his dawning flights 

Hover, the victor of a hundred fights ! 

Thou Rome, who saw'st thy Caesar's deeds outdone ! 

Alas ! why pass'd he too the Rubicon — 

The Rubicon of man's awaken'd rights, 

To herd with vulgar kings and parasites ? 

Egypt ! from whose all dateless tombs arose 

Forgotten Pharaohs from their long repose. 

And shook within their pyramids to hear 

A new Cambyses thundering in their ear ; 

While the dark shades of forty ages stood 

Like startled giants by Nile's famous flood ; 2 

Or from the pyramid's tall pinnacle 

Beheld the desert peopled, as from hell, 

With clashing hosts, who strew'd the barren sand 

To remanure the uncultivated land ! 

Spain ! which, a moment mindless of the Cid, 

Beheld his banner flouting thy ]\Iadrid ! 

Austria ! which saw thy twice-ta'en capital 

Twice spared to be the traitress of his fall ! 

Ye race of Frederic ! — Frederics but in name 

And falsehood — heirs to all except his fame : 

Who, crush'd at Jena, crouch'd at Berlin, fell 

First, and but rose to follow ! Ye who dwell 

Where Kosciusko dwelt, remembering yet 

The unpaid amount of Catherine's bloody debt ! 

Poland ! o'er which the avenging angel pass'd. 

But left thee as he found thee, still a waste. 

Forgetting all thy still-enduring claim. 

Thy lotted people and extinguish'd name, 

Thy sigh for freedom, thy long-flowing tear. 

That sound that crashes in the tyrant's ear — 

Kosciusko ! On — on — on — the thirst of war 

Gasps for the gore of serfs and of their czar. 

The half-barbaric Moscow's minarets 

Gleam in the sun, but 'tis a sun that sets ! 

Moscow ! thou limit of his long career, 

For which rude Charles had wept his frozen tear 

To see in vain — he saw thee — how ? with spire 

And palace fuel to one common fire. 

To this the soldier lent his kindling match. 

To iliis the peasant gave his cottage thatch. 

To this the merchant flung his hoarded store, 

The prince his hall— and iloscow was no more! 

Sublimest of volcanoes ! Etna's flame 

Pales before thine, and quenchless Ilecla's tame , 

^ John Ziska, a distinguished leader of the Hussites. It is 
recorded of him, that, in dying, he ordered his skin to be 
made the covering of a drum. The Bohemians hold his mem- 
ory in superstitious veneration. 

2 At the battle of the pyramids, in July, 1798, Buonaparte 



Vesuvius shows his blaze, an usual sight 
For gaping tourists, from his hackney'd height : 
Thou stand'st alone unrivall'd, till the fire 
To come, in which all empires shall expire ! 

Thou other element ! as strong and stern, 
To teach a lesson conquerors will not learn ! — 

[ Whose icy wing flapp'd o'er the faltering foe, 

i Till fell a hero with each flake of snow ; 
How did thy numbing beak and silent fang 

I Pierce, till hosts perish'd with a single pang ! 

I In vain shall Seine look up along his banks 
For the gay thousands of his dashing ranks ! 
In vain shall France recall beneath her vines 
Her youth — their blood flows faster than her wines ; 
Or stagnant in their human ice remains 
In frozen mummies on the Polar plains. 
In vain will Italy's broad sun awaken 
Her offspring chill'd ; its beams are now forsaken. 
Of all the trophies gather'd from the war, 
What shall return ? — the conqueror's broken car ! 
The conqueror's yet unbroken heart ! Again 
The horn of Roland sounds, and not in vain. 
Lutzen, where fell the Swede of victory ,3 
Beholds him conquer, but, alas ! not die : 
Dresden surveys three despots fly once more 
Before their sovereign, — sovereign as before ; 
But there exhausted Fortune quits the field. 
And Leipsic's treason bids the unvanquish'd yield ; 
The Saxon jackal leaves the lion's side 
To turn the bear's, and wolf's, and fox's guide ; 
And backward to the den of his despair 
The forest monarch shrinks, but finds no lair ! 

Oh, ye! and each, and all! Oh, France! who 

found 
Thy long fair fields, plough'd up as hostile ground, 
Disputed foot by foot, till treason, still 
His only victor, from Montmartre's hill 
Look'd down o'er trampled Paris ! and thou Isle,* 
Which seest Etruria from thy ramparts smile. 
Thou momentary shelter of his pride, 
Till woo'd by danger, his yet weeping bride ! 
Oh, France ! retaken by a single march. 
Whose path was through one long triumphal arch ! 
Oh, bloody and most bootless Waterloo ! 
Which proves how fools may have their fortune 

too, 
Won lialf by blunder, half by treachery : 
Oh, dull Saint Helen ! with thy gaoler nigh — 
Hear! hear Prometheus ^ from his rock appeal 
To earth, air, ocean, all that felt or feel 
His power and glory, all who yet shall hear 
A name eternal as the rolling year; 

said—" Soldiers ! from the summit of yonder pyramids forty 
ages behold you." 

8 Gustavus Adolphus fell at the great battle of Lutzen, in 
November, 1632. 

* The Isle of Elba. 

6 I refer the reader to the first address of Prometheus in 



632 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



He teaches them the lesson taught so long, 
So oft, so vainly — learn to do no wrong ! 
A single step into the right had made 
This man the Washington of worlds betray'd : 
A single step into the wrong has given 
His name a doubt to all the winds of heaven ; 
The reed of Fortune, and of thrones the rod, 
Of Fame the Moloch or the demigod ; 
His country's Csesar, Europe's Hannibal, 
Without their decent dignity of fall. 
Yet Vanity herself had better taught 
A surer path even to the fame he sought, 
By pointing out on history's fruitless page 
Ten thousand conquerors for a single sage. 
While Franklin's quiet memory climbs to heaven, 
Calming the lightning which he thence hath riven. 
Or drawing from the no less kindled earth 
Freedom and peace to that which boasts his birth ; i 
While Washington's a watchword, such as ne'er 
Shall sink while there's an echo left to air :^ 
While even the Spaniard's thirst of gold and war 
Forgets Pizarro to shout Bolivar ! ^ 
Alas ! why must the same Atlantic wave 
Which wafted freedom gird a tyrant's grave — 
The king of kings, and yet of slaves the slave, 
Who bursts the chains of millions to renew 
The very fetters which his arm broke through. 
And crush'd the rights of Europe and his own. 
To flit between a dungeon and a throne ? 

VI. 

But 'twill not be — the spark's awaken'd — lo ! 
The swarthy Spaniard feels his former glow ; 
The same high spirit which beat back the Moor 
Through eight long ages of alternate gore 
Bevives — and where ? in that avenging clime 
Where Spain was once synonymous with crime, 
Where Cortes' and Pizarro's banner flew, 
The infant world redeems her name of *' New." 
'Tis the old aspiration breathed afresh, 
To kindle souls within degraded flesh, 
Such as repulsed the Persian from the shore 
Where Greece was — No ! she still is Greece no more. 
One common cause makes myriads of one breast, 
Slaves of the east, or helots of the west ; 

^schylus, when he is left alone by his attendants, and before 
the arrival of the Chorus of Sea-nymphs.— Thus translated 
by Potter : — 

" Ethereal air, and ye swift-winged winds, 
Ye rivers springing from fresh founits, ye waves, 
That o'er th interminable ocean wreathe 
^ Your crisped smiles, thou all-producing earth, 
And thee, bright sun, I call, whose flaming orb 
Views the wide world beneath, see what, a god, 
I suffer from the gods ; with what fierce pains, 
Behold, what tortures for revolving ages 
I here must struggle ; such unseemly chains 
This new-raised ruler of the gods devised. 
Ah me I That groan bursts from my anguish'd heart, 
My present woes and future to bemoan. — 

For favors shown 
To mortal man I bear this weight of woe I" 



On Andes' and on Athos' peaks unfurl'd. 

The self-same standard streams o'er either world : 

The Athenian wears again Harmodius' sword ; * 

The Chili chief abjures his foreign lord ; 

The Spartan knows himself once more a Greek, 

Young Freedom plumes the crest of each cacique ; 

Debating despots, hemm'd on either shore, 

Shrink vainly from the roused Atlantic's roar ; 

Through Calpe's strait the rolling tides advance, 

Sweep slightly by the half-tamed land of France, 

Dash o'er the old Spaniard's cradle, and would fain 

Unite Ausonia to the mighty main : 

But driven from thence awhile, yet not for aye, 

Break o'er th' ^gean, mindful of the day 

Of Salamis ! — there, there the waves arise, 

Not to be lull'd by tyrant victories. 

Lone, lost, abandon'd in their utmost need 

By Christians, unto whom they gave their creed, 

The desolated lands, the ravaged isle. 

The foster'd feud encouraged to beguile. 

The aid evaded, and the cold delay, 

Prolong'd but in the hope to make a prey ; 5— 

These, these shall tell the tale, and Greece can 

show 
The false friend worse than the infuriate foe. 
But this is well : Greeks only should free Greece, 
Not the barbarian, with his mask of peace. 
How should the autocrat of bondage be 
The king of serfs, and set the nations free ? 
Better still serve the haughty Mussulman, 
Than swell the Cossack's prowling caravan ; 
Better still toil for masters, than await, 
The slave of slaves, before a Eussian gate, — 
Number'd by hordes, a human capital, 
A live estate, existing but for thrall, 
Lotted by thousands, as a meet reward 
For the first courtier in the Czar's regard ; 
While their immediate owner toever tastes 
His sleep, sans dreaming of Siberia's wastes : 
Better succumb even to their own despair, 
And drive the camel than purvey the bear. 

VII. 

But not alone within the hoariest clime 

Where Freedom dates her birth with that of Time, 

1 The well-known motto on a French medal of Franklin 
was — 

" Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis." 

2 " To be the first man (not the Dictator), not the Sylla, but 
the "Washington, or Aristides, the leader in talent and truth, 
is to be next to the Divinity." — Byron Diary. 

3 Simon Bolivar, the liberator of Colombia and Peru, died 
at San Pedro, December, 1830, of an illness brought on by ex- 
cessive fatigue and exertion. 

* The famous hymn, ascribed to Callistratus : — 
" Cover'd with myrtle-wreaths, I'll wear my sword 

Like brave Harmodius, and his patriot friend 
Aristogeiton, who the laws restored, 
. The tyrant slew, and bade oppression end," Ac. &c. 
5 For the first authentic account of the Eussian intrigues 
in Greece, in the years alluded to, see " Gordon's History of 
. the Greek Revolution " (1832), vol. i. 



I 



THE AGE OF BEONZE. 



633 



And not alone where, plunged in night, a crowd 

Of Incas darken to a dubious cloud. 

The dawn revives : renown'd, romantic Spain 

Holds back the invader from her soil again. 

Not now the Roman tribe nor Punic horde 

Demand her fields as lists to prove the sword ; 

Not now the Vandal or the Visigoth 

Pollute the plains, alike abhorring both ; 

Nor old Pelayo on his mountain rears 

The warlike fathers of a thousand years. 

That seed is sown and reap'd, as oft tlie Moor 

Sighs to remember on his dusky shore. 

Long in the peasant's song or poet's page 

Has dwelt the memory of Abencerrage ; 

The Zegri, and the captive victors, flung 

Back to the barbarous realm from whence they 

sprung. 
But these are gone — their faith, their swords, their 

sway, 
Yet left more anti-christian foes than they ; 
The bigot monarch and the butcher priest, 
The Inquisition, with her burning feast. 
The faith's red "auto," fed with human fuel. 
While sate the catholic Moloch, calmly cruel, 
Enjoying, with inexorable eye. 
That fiery festival of agony ! 
The stern or feeble sovereign, one or both 
By turns ; the haughtiness whose pride was sloth ; 
The long degenerate noble ; the debased 
Hidalgo, and the peasant less disgraced, 
But more degraded ; the unpeopled realm ; 
The once proud navy which forgot the helm ; 
The once impervious phalanx disarray'd ; 
The idle forge that form'd Toledo's blade; 
The foreign wealth that flow'd on ev'ry shore, 
Save hers who earn'd it with the natives' gore ; 
The very language which might vie with Rome's, 
And once was known to nations like their homes, 
Neglected or forgotten : — such was Spain ; 
But such she is not, nor shall be again. 
These worst, these home invaders, felt and feel 
The new Numantine soul of old Castile. 
Up ! up again ! undaunted Tauridor ! 
The. bull of Phalaris renews his roar; 
Mount, chivalrous Hidalgo ! not in vain 
Revive the cry — '* lago! and close Spain !"i 
Yqs, close her with your armed bosoms round, 
And form the barrier which Napoleon found, — 
The exterminating war, the desert plain. 
The streets without a tenant, save the slain; 
The wild sierra, with its wilder troop 
Of vulture-plumed guerrillas, on the stoop 



1 "Santiago y serra Espafia!" the old Spanish war-cry. 

• See ante, p. 12. 

' The Arragonians are peculiarly dexterous in the use of 
this weapon, and displayed it particularly in former French 
wars. 

♦ The Congress of the sovereigns of Russia, Austria, Prussia, 
Ac. &c. «ic., which assembled at Verona, in the autumn of 1832. 



For their incessant prey ; the desperate wall 

Of Saragossa, mightiest in her fall ; 

The man nerved to a spirit, and the maid 

Waving her more than Amazonian blade ; "^ 

The knife of Arragon,^ Toledo's steel ; 

The famous lance of chivalrous Castile ; 

The unerring rifle of the Catalan ; 

The Andalusian courser in the van ; 

The torch to make a Moscow of Madrid ; 

And in each heart the spirit of the Cid : — 

Such have been, such shall be, such are. Advance, 

And win — not Spain, but thine own freedom, France ! 

VIII. 

But lo ! a Congress ! * What ! that hallow'd name 

Which freed the Atlantic ? May we hope the same 

For outworn Europe ? With the sound arise. 

Like Samuel's shade to Saul's monarchic eyes, 

The prophets of young Freedom, summon'd far 

From climes of Washington and Bolivar; 

Henry, the forest-born Demosthenes, 

Whose thunder shook the Philip of the seas ; ^ 

And stoic Fi-anklin's energetic shade, 

Robed in the lightnings which his hand allay'd ; 

And Washington, the tyrant-tamer, wake. 

To bid us blush for these old chains, or break. 

But who compose this senate of the few 

That should redeem the many ? Who renew 

This consecrated name, till now assign'd 

To councils held to benefit mankind ? 

Who now assemble at the holy call ? 

The blest Alliance, which says three are all ! 

An earthly trinity ! which wears the shape 

Of heaven's, as man is mimick'd by the ape. 

A pious unity ! in purpose one — 

To melt three fools to a Napoleon. 

Why, Egypt's gods were rational to these ; 

Their dogs and oxen knew their own degrees, 

And, quiet in their kennel or their shed. 

Cared little, so that they were duly fed ; 

But these, more hungry, must have something more, 

The power to bark and bite, to toss and gore. 

Ah ! how much happier were good ^sop's frogs 

Than we ! for ours are animated logs. 

With ponderous malice swaying to and fro, 

And crushing nations with a stupid blow ; 

All duly anxious to leave little work 

Unto the revolutionary stork. 

IX. 

Thrice blest Verona I since the holy three 
With their imperial presence shine on thee ; 



6 Patrick Henry, of Virginia, a leading member of the 
American Congress, died in June, 1797. Lord Byron alludes 
to his famous speech in 17G5, in which, on saying, "Caesar 
had his Brutus — Charles the First had his Cromwell — and 

George the Third " Ilcnry was interrupted with a shotit 

of "Treason! trea.son!!" — but coolly finished the sentence 
with — " George the Third may profit by their example." 



634 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Honor'd by them, thy treacherous site forgets 
The vaunted torab of " all the Capulets;"i 
Thy Scaligers — for what was " Dog the Great," 
" Can Grande "2 (which I venture to translate), 
To these sublimer pugs ? Thy poet too, 
Catullus, whose old laurels yield to new ; ^ 
Thine amphitheatre, where Romans sate ; 
And Dante's exile shelter'd by thy gate ; 
Thy good old man, whose world was all within 
Thy wall, nor knew the country held him in : * 
Would that the royal guests it girds about 
Were so far like, as never to get out ! 
Ay, shout ! inscribe ! rear monuments of shame, 
To tell Oppression that the world is tame ! 
Crowd to the theatre with loyal rage, 
The comedy is not upon the stage ; 
The show is rich in ribbonry and stars, 
Then gaze upon it through thy dungeon bars ; 
Clap thy permitted palms, kind Italy, 
For thus much still thy fetter'd hands are free ! 



Resplendent sight ! Behold the coxcomb Czar,^ 

The autocrat of waltzes and of war ! 

As eager for a plaudit as a realm. 

And just as fit for flirting as the helm ; 

A Calmuck beauty with a Cossack wit, 

And generous spirit, when 'tis not frost-bit ; 

Now half dissolving to a liberal thaw. 

But harden'd back whene'er the morning's raw ; 

With no objection to true liberty, 

Except that it would make the nations free. 

How well the imperial dandy prates of peace ! 

How fain, if Greeks would be his slaves, free Greece ! 

How nobly gave he back the Poles their Diet, 

Then told pugnacious Poland to be quiet ! 



^ " I have been over Verona. The amphitheatre is won- 
derful — beats even Greece. Of the truth of Juliet's story, 
they seem tenacious to a degree, insisting on the fact — giving 
a date (1303), and showing a tomb. It is a plain, open, and 
partly decayed sarcophagus, with withered leaves in it, in a 
wild and desolate conventual garden, once a cemetery, now 
ruined to the very graves. The situation struck me as very 
appropriate to the legend, being blighted as their love. I 
have brought away a few pieces of the granite, to give to my 
daughter and my nieces. The Gothic monuments of the 
Scaliger princes pleased me, but ' a poor virtuoso am I.' " — 
Byron Letters, November, 1816. 

2 Cane I. Delia Scala, surnamed the Great, died in 1329 : he 
was the protector of Dante, who celebrated him as " il Gran 
Lombardo." 

3 " Verona has been distinguished as the cradle of many 
illustrious men. There is one still living : 

Per cui la fama in te chiara risuona 

Egregia, eccelsa, alma Verona, — 
I mean Ippolito Pindemonte, a poet who has caught a portion 
of that sun whose setting beams yet gild the horizon of Italy. 
His rural pieces, for their chaste style of coloring, their re- 
pose, and their keeping, may be said to be in poetry, what th,e 
landscapes of Claude Lorraine are in picture." — Rose, 

* Claudian's famous old man of Verona, " qui suburbium 
nunquam egressus est."— The Latin verses are beautifully 
imitated by Cowley : — 



How kindly would he send the mild Ukraine, 

With all her pleasant pulks, to lecture Spain I 

How royally show off in proud Madi-id 

His goodly person, from the South long hid ! 

A blessing cheaply purchased, the world knows, 

By having Muscovites for friends or foes. 

Proceed, thou namesake of great Philip's son ! 

La Harpe, thine Aristotle, beckons on ; 

And that which Scythia was to him of yore 

Find with thy Scythians on Iberia's shore. 

Yet think upon, thou somewhat aged youth, 

Thy predecessor on the banks of Pruth ; 

Thou hast to aid thee, should his lot be thine, 

Many an old woman, but no Catherine.^ 

Spain, too, hath rocks, and rivers, and defiles — 

The bear may rush into the lion's toils. 

Fatal to Goths are Xeres' sunny fields ; '^ 

Think'st thou to thee Napoleon's victor yields ? 

Better reclaim thy deserts, turn thy swords 

To ploughshares, shave and wash thy Bashkir hordes, 

Redeem thy realms from slavery and the knout, 

Than follow headlong in the fatal route, 

To infest the clime whose skies and laws are pure 

With thy foul legions. Spain wants no manure : 

Her soil is fertile, but she feeds no foe ; 

Her vultures, too, were gorged not long ago ; 

And wouldst thou furnish them with fresher prey ? 

Alas ! thou wilt not conquer, but purvey. 

I am Diogenes, though Russ and Hun 

Stand between mine and many a myriad's sun ; 

But were I not Diogenes, I'd wander 

Rather a worm than such an Alexander ! 

Be slaves who will, the cynic shall be free ; 

His tub hath tougher walls than Sinope : 

Still will he hold his lantern up to scan 

The face of monarchs for an " honest man." 



" Happy the man who his whole life doth bound 
Within th' enclosure of his little ground : 
Happy the man whom the same humble place 
(Th' hereditary cottage of his race) 
. From his first rising infancy has known, 
And, by degrees, sees gently bending down, 
With natural propension, to that earth 
Which both preserved his life and gave him birth. 
Him no false distant lights, by Fortune set, 
Could ever into foolish wanderings get ; 
No change of Consuls marks to him the year : 
The change of seasons is his calendar," &c. &c. 
6 The emperor Alexander ; who died in 1825. 

6 The dexterity of Catherine extricated Peter (called thp 
Great by courtesy), when surrounded by the Mussulmans on 
the banks of the river Pruth. 

7 " Eight thousand men had to Asturias march'd 
Beneath Count Julian's banner ; the remains 
Of that brave army which in Africa 

So well against the Mussulman made head, 

Till sense of injuries insupportable, 

And raging thirst of vengeance, overthrew 

Their leader's noble spirit. To revenge 

His quarrel, twice that number left their bones, 

Slain in unnatural battle on the field 

Of Xeres, where the sceptre from the Goths 

By righteous Heaven was reft." — Southey's Boderick. 



Hi. 



n 



THE AGE OF BRONZE. 



635 



XI. 
And what doth Gaul, the all-prolific land 
Of lie plus ultra ultras and their band 
Of mercenaries ? and her noisy chambers 
And tribime, which each orator first clambers 
Before he finds a voice, and when 'tis found, 
Hears " the lie " echo for his answer round? 
Our British Commons sometimes deign to "hear!" 
A Gallic senate hath more tongue than ear ; 
Even Constant, their sole master of debate, 
Must fight next day his speech to vindicate. 
But this costs little to true Franks, who'd rather 
Combat than listen, were it to their father. 
What IS the simple standing of a shot. 
To listening long, and interrupting not? 
Though this was not the method of old Rome, 
"When Tully fulmined o'er each vocal dome, 
Demosthenes has sanction'd the transaction. 
In saying eloquence meant "Action, action!" 

XII. 
But Where's the monarch ? hath he dined ? or yet 
C roans beneath indigestion's heavy debt? 
Have revolutionary pates risen. 
And turn'd the royal entrails to a prison? 
Have discontented movements stirr'd the troops ? 
Or have no movements follow'd traitorous soups? 
Have Carbonaro ^ cooks not carbonadoed 
Each course enough ? or doctors dire dissuaded 
Repletion? Ah! in thy dejected looks 
I read all France's treason in her cooks ! 
Good classic Louis ! is it, canst thou say, 
Desirable to be the " Desire " ? 

Why wouldst thou leave calm Ilartwell's green abode,^ 
Apician table, and Iloratian ode, 
To rule a people who will not be ruled, 
And love much rather to be scourged than school'd? 
Ah ! thine was not the temper or the taste 
For thrones ; the table sees thee better placed ; 
A mild Epicurean, form'd, at best, 
To be a kind host and as good a guest, 
To talk of letters, and to know by heart 
One half the poet's, all the gourmand's art : 
A scholar always, now and then a wit. 
And gentle when digestion may permit; — 



1 According to Botta, the N^eapolitan republicans who, 
during the reign of King Joachim, fled to the recesses of the 
Ahnizzi, and there formed a secret confederacy, were the first 
that assumed the designation, since familiar all over Italy, of 
" Carhonari " (colliers\ 

' Ilartwc'll, in Buckinghamshire — the residence of Louis 
XVII r., during the latter years of the Emigration. 

3 " Nas« suspondit ad unco."— Horace. 

The Roman applies it to one who merely was imperious to 
his acquaintance. 

♦ " The Pilot that weather'd the storm " is the burthen of 
a song, in honor of Pitt, by Mr, Canning. 

^ " I have never heard any one who fulfilled my ideal of an 
orator. Grattan would have been near it, but for his harle- 
quin delivery. Pitt I never heard— Fox but once: and then 
he struck me as a debater, which to me seems as different 



But not to govern lands enslaved or free ; 
The gout was martyrdom enough for thee. 

XIII. 

Shall noble Albion pass without a phrase 
From a bold Briton in her wonted praise ? 
" Arts — arms — and George — and glory— and the isles- 
And happy Britain — wealth — and Freedom's smiles- 
White cliffs, that held invasion far aloof- 
Contented subjects, all alike tax-proof— 
Proud Wellington, with eagle beak so curl'd. 
That nose, the hook where he suspends the world ! * 

And Waterloo — and trade — and (hush ! not yet 

A syllable of imposts or of debt) 

And ne'er (enough) lamented Castlereagh, 
Whose penknife slit a goose-quill t'other day — 
And ' pilots who have weather'd every storm ' ♦ — 
(But, no, not even for rhyme's sake, name Re- 
form)." 
These are the themes thus sung so oft before, 
Methinks we need not sing them any more ; 
Found in so many volumes far and near, 
There's no occasion you should find them here. 
Yet something may remain perchance to chime 
With reason, and, what's stranger still, with rhyme. 
Even this thy genius, Canning ! may permit, 
Who, bred a statesman, still wast born a wit. 
And never, even in that dull House, couldst tame 
To unleaven'd prose thine own poetic flame : 
Our last, our best, our only orator,^ 
Even I can praise thee — Tories do no more : 
Nay, not so much ; — they hate thee, man, because 
Thy spirit less upholds them than it awes. 
The hounds will gather to their huntsman's hollo. 
And where he leads the duteous pack will follow : 
But not for love mistake their yelling cry ; 
Their yelp for game is not an eulogy ; 
Less faithful far than the four-footed pack, 
A dubious scent would lure the bipeds back. 
Thy saddle-girths are not yet quite secure. 
Nor royal stallion's feet extremely sure ; ^ 
The unwieldy old white horse is apt at last 
To stumble, kick, and now and then stick fast 
With his great self and rider in the mud ; 
But what of that ? the animal shows blood. 



from an orator as an improvisatore or a versifier from a poet. 
Grey is great, but it is not oratory. Canning is sometimoa 
very like one. Whitbread was the Demostlienes of bad taste 
and vulgar vehemence, but strong, and English. Holland is 
impressive from sense and sincerity. Burdett is sweet and 
silvery as Belial himself, and, I think, the greatest favorite in 
Pandemonium."— i?7/ron Diary, 1821. 

8 On the suicide of Lord Londonderry, in August, 1822, Mr. 
Canning, who had prepared to sail for India as governor- 
general, was made Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, — 
not much, it was alleged, to the personal satisfaction of George 
the Fourth, or of the high Tories in the cabinet. He lived 
to verify some of the predictions of the poet — to abandon the 
foreign policy of his predecessor— to break up the Tory party 
by a coalition with the Whigs — and to prepare the way for 
Reform in Parliament. 



636 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



XIV. 

Alas, the country ! how shall tongue or pen 

Bewail her now ■ww-country gentlemen ? 

The last to bid the cry of warfare cease, 

The first to make a malady of peace. 

For what were all these country patriots born ? 

To hunt, and vote, and raise the price of corn ? 

But corn, like every mortal thing, must fall. 

Kings, conquerors, and markets most of all. 

And must ye fall with every ear of grain ? 

Why would you trouble Buonaparte's reign ? 

He was your great Triptolemus ; his vices 

Destroy'd but realms, and still maintain'd your 

prices ; 
He amplified to every lord's content 
The grand agrarian alchemy, high rent. 
Why did the tyrant stumble on the Tartars, 
And lower wheat to such desponding quarters ? 
Why did you chain him on yon isle so lone ? 
The man was worth much more upon his throne. 
True, blood and treasure boundlessly were spilt, 
Bu-t what of that? the Gaul may bear the guilt; 
But bread was high, the farmer paid his way, 
And acres told upon the appointed day. 
But where is now the goodly audit ale ? 
The purse-proud tenant, never known to fail ? 
The farm which never yet was left on hand ? 
The marsh reclaim'd to most improving land ? 
The impatient hope of the expiring lease ? 
The doubling rental ? What an evil's peace ! 
In vain the prize excites the ploughman's skill, 
In vain the Commons pass their patriot bill ; 
The landed interest — (you may understand 
The phrase much better leaving out the land) — 
The land self-interest groans from shore to shore, 
For fear that plenty should attain the poor. 
Up, up again, ye rents I exalt your notes. 
Or else the ministry will lose their votes, 
And patriotism, so delicately nice, 
Her loaves will lower to the market price ; 
For ah ! " the loaves and fishes," once so high, 
Are gone — their oven closed, their ocean dry, 
And nought remains of all the millions spent, 
Excepting to grow moderate and content. 
They who are not so, had their turn — and turn 
About still flows from Fortune's equal urn ; 
Now let their virtue be its own reward. 
And share the blessings which themselves prepared. 
See these inglorious Cincinnati swarm, 
Farmers of war, dictators of the farm ; 
Their ploughshare was the sword in hireling 

hands, 
Their fields manured by gore of other lands ; 
Safe in their barns, these Sabine tillers sent 
Their brethren out to battle — why? for rent ! 
Year after year they voted cent, per cent., 
Blood, sweat, and tear-wrung millions — why? for 

rent! 
They roar'd, they dined, they drank, they swore they 

meant 



To die for England — why then live ? — for rent I 
The peace has made one general malcontent 
Of these high-market patriots ; war was rent ! 
Their love of country, millions all misspent. 
How reconcile ? by reconciling rent ! 
And will they not repay the treasures lent ? 
No : down with everything, and up with rent ! 
Their good, ill, health, wealth, joy, or discontent, 
Being, end, aim, religion, — rent, rent, rent! 
Thou sold'st thy birthright, Esau ! for a mess ; 
Thou shouldst have gotten more, or eaten less; 
Now thou hast swill' d thy pottage, thy demands 
Are idle ; Israel says the bargain stands. 
Such, landlords ! was your appetite for war, 
And, gorged with blood, you grumble at a scar ! 
What ! would they spread their earthquake even o'er 

cash? 
And when land crumbles, bid firm paper crash ? 
So rent may rise, bid bank and nation fall. 
And found on 'Change a Fundling Hospital? 
Lo ! Mother Church, while all religion writhes. 
Like Niobe, weeps o'er her ofispring. Tithes ; 
The prelates go to — where the saints have gone. 
And proud pluralities subside to one ; 
Church, state, and faction, wrestle in the dark, 
Toss'd by the deluge in their common ark. 
Shorn of her bishops, banks, and dividends. 
Another Babel soars — but Britain ends. 
And why ? to pamper the self-seeking wants, 
And prop the hill of these agrarian ants. 
" Go to these ants, thou sluggard, and be wise ;" 
Admire their patience through each sacrifice. 
Till taught to feel the lesson of their pride, 
The price of taxes and of homicide ; 
Admire their justice, which would fain deny 
The debt of nations : — ^pray, who made it high f 



XV. 

Or turn to sail between those shifting rocks, 

The new Symplegades — the crushing Stocks, 

Where Midas might again his wish behold 

In real paper or imagined gold. 

That magic palace of Alcina shows 

More wealth than Britain ever had to lose. 

Were all her atoms of unleaven'd ore, 

And all her pebbles from Pactolus' shore. 

There Fortune plays, while Rumor holds the 

stake. 
And the world trembles to bid brokers break. 
How rich is Britain ! not indeed in mines. 
Or peace or plenty, corn or oil, or wines ; 
No land of Canaan, full of milk and honej;, 
Nor (save in paper shekels) ready money : 
But let us not to own the truth refuse. 
Was ever Christian land so rich in Jews ? 
Those parted with their teeth to good King John, 
And now, ye kings ! they kindly draw your own ; 
All states, all things, all sovereigns they control, 
And waft a loan " from Indus to the pole." 



J 



THE AGE OF BRONZE. 



637 



The banker — broker — baron ^ — brethren, speed 
To aid these bankrupt tyrants in their need. 
Nor these alone ; Columbia feels no less 
Fresh speculations follow each success ; 
And philanthropic Israel deigns to drain 
Her mild percentage from exhausted Spain. 
Not without Abraham's seed can Russia march ; 
'Tis gold, not steel, that rears the conqueror's arch. 
Two Jews, a chosen people, can command 
In every realm tlu'ir scripture-promised land : — 
Two Jews keep down the Romans, and uphold 
The accursed Hun, more brutal than of old: 
Two Jews — but not Samaritans — direct 
The world, with all the spirit of their sect. 
What is the happiness of earth to them ? 
A congress forms their " New Jerusalem," 
Where baronies and orders both invite — 
Oh, holy Abraham ! dost thou see the sight? 
Thy followers mingling with these royal swine. 
Who spit not " on their Jewish gaberdine," 
But honor them as portion of the show — 
(Where now, oh, Pope ! is thy forsaken toe? 
Could it not favor Judah with some kicks ? 
Or has it ceased to " kick against the pricks " ?) 
On Shylock's shore behold them stand afresh. 
To cut from nations' hearts their "pound of flesh." 



XVI. 

Strange sight this congress ! destined to unite 

All that's incongruous, all that's opposite. 

I speak not of the sovereigns — they're alike, 

A common coin as ever mint could strike ; 

But those who sway the puppets, pull the strings, 

Have more of motley than their heavy kings. 

Jews, authors, generals, charlatans, combine. 

While Europe wonders at the vast design : 

There Metternich, power's foremost parasite. 

Cajoles; there Wellington forgets to fight; 

There Chateaubriand forms new books of martyrs ;2 

And subtle Greeks ^ intrigue for stupid Tartars; 

There Montmorenci, the sworn foe to charters,* 

Turns a diplomatist of great eclat, 

To furnish articles for the " Debats ;" 

Of war so certain — yet not quite so sure 

As his dismissal in the " Moniteur." 



Alas ! how could his cabinet thus err ? 
Can peace be worth an ultra-minister ? 
He falls indeed, perhaps to rise again, 
" Almost as quickly as he conquer'd Spain." ^ 



XVII. 

Enough of this — a sight more mournful woos 
The averted eye of the reluctant muse. 
The imperial daughter, the imperial bride, 
The imperial victim — sacrifice to pride ; 
The mother of the hero's hope, the boy. 
The young Astyanax of modern Troy ; ^ 
The still pale shadow of the loftiest queen 
That earth has yet to see, or e'er hath seen ; 
She flits amidst the phantoms of the hour, 
The theme of pity, and the wreck of power. 
Oh, cruel mockery ! Could not Austria spare 
A daughter? What did France's widow there ? 
Her fitter place was by Saint Helen's wave, 
Her only throne is in Napoleon's grave. 
But, no — she still must hold a petty reign, 
Flank'd by her formidable chamberlain ; 
The martial Argus, whose not hundred eyes 
Must watch her through these paltry pageantries.'^ 
What though she share no more, and shared in- 
vain, 
A sway surpassing that of Charlemagne, 
Which swept from Moscow to the southern seas ! 
Yet still she rules the pastoral realm of cheese, 
Where Parma views the traveller resort. 
To note the trappings of her mimic court. 
But she appears ! Verona sees her shorn 
Of all her beams — while nations gaze and mourn — 
Ere yet her husband's ashes have had time 
To chill in their inhospitable clime ; 
(If e'er those awful ashes can grow cold ; — 
But no, — their embers soon will burst the mould ;) 
She comes ! — the Andromache (but not Racine's, 
Nor Homer's,) — Lo ! on Pyrrhus' arm she leans ! 
Yes ! the right arm, yet red from Waterloo, 
Which cut her lord's half-shatter'd scei^tre through, 
Is ofler'd and accepted ! Could a slave 
Do more ? or less ? — and he in his new grave ! 
Her eye, her cheek, betray no inward strife. 
And the ex-empress grows as ex a wife ! 



1 The hoad of the Illustrious house of Montmorenci has 
usually been designated " le premier baron Chrgtien ;" his 
ancestor having, it is supposed, been the first noble convert to 
Christianity in France. Lord Byron perhaps alludes to the 
well-known joke of Talleyrand, who, moeting the Duke of 
Montmorenci at the same party with M. Rothschild, soon 
after the latter had been ennobled by the emperor of Austria, 
is said to have begged leave to present M. le premier baron 
Juif to ^f. lej/remier bfiron ChrUien. 

2 Monsieur Chateaubriand, who has not forgotten the author 
in the minister, received a handsome compjliment at Verona 
from a literary sovereign : " Ah ! Monsieur C, are you related 
to that Chateaubriand who— who — who has written some- 
thingf" ("Ccrit quelque chose.') It is said that the author of 
Atala repented him for a moment of his legitimacy. 



3 Count Capo d'Istrias, afterwards president of Greece. 
The count was murdered in September, 1831, by the brother 
and son of a Mainotc chief whom he had imprisoned. 

* The Duke de Montmorenci-Laval. 

6 From Pope's verses on Lord Peterborough : — 

" And he, whose lightning pierced the Iberian lines, 
Now forms my quincunx, and now ranks my vines, 
Or tames the genius of the stubborn plain. 
Almost as quickly as ho conquer'd S])ain." 
« Napoleon Francois Charles Joseph, Duke of Reichstadt, 

died at the palace of Schonbrunn, July 22, 1832, having just 

attained his twenty-first year. 

7 Count Neipporg, chamberlain and second husband to 
Maria-Louisa, had but one eye. The count died in 183L See 
ante, p. 547. 



638 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



So much for human ties in royal breasts ! 

Why spare men's feelings, when their own are jests? 

XVIII. 

But, tired of foreign follies, I turn home, 

And sketch the group — the picture's yet to come. 

My muse 'gan weep, but, ere a tear was spilt, 

She caught Sir William Curtis in a kilt ! 

While throng' d the chiefs of every Highland clan 

To hail their brother, Vich Ian Alderman ! 



Guildhall grows Gael, and echoes with Erse roar, 
While all the Common Council cry " Claymore !" 
To see proud Albyn's tartans as a belt 
Gird the gross sirloin of a city Celt,^ 
She burst into a laughter so extreme. 
That I awoke— and lo ! it was no dream ! 

Here, reader, will we pause : — if there's no harm 
in 
This first — you'll have, perhaps, a second " Carmen." 



1 George the Fourth is said to have been somewhat an- 
noyed, on entering the levee-room at Holyrood (August, 1822) 
in full Stuart tartan, to see only one figure similarly attired 
(and of similar bulk)— that of Sir William Curtis. The city 
knight had every thing complete — even the hnife stuck in 



the garter. He asked the king, if he did not think him well 
dressed. "Yes," replied his majesty, "only you have no 
spoon in your hose." The devourer of turtle had a fine en- 
graving executed of himself in his Celtic attire. 



©ccastoiial pieces* 

1807—1824. 



THE ADIEU. 

WBITTEN UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT THE 
AUTHOR WOULD SOON DIE. 

Adieu, thou Hill ! i where early joy 

Spread roses o'er ray brow ; 
Where Science seeks each loitering boy 

With knowledge to endow. 
Adieu, my youthful friends or foes, 
Partners of former bliss or woes ; 

No more through Ida's paths we stray ; 
Soon must I share the gloomy cell, 
Whose ever-slumbering inmates dwell 

Unconscious of the day. 

Adieu, ye hoary Regal Fanes, 

Ye spires of Granta's vale, 
Where Learning robed in sable reigns, 

And Melancholy pale. 
Ye comrades of the jovial hou". 
Ye tenants of the classic bower, 

On Cama's verdant margin placed, 
Adieu ! while memory still is mine, 
For, offerings on Oblivion's shrine, 

These scenes must be effaced. 

Adieu, ye mountains of the clime 

Where grew my youthful years ; 
Where Loch na Garr in snows sublime 

His giant summit rears. 
Why did my childhood wander forth 
From you, ye regions of the North, 

With sons of pride to roam ? 
Why did I quit my Highland cave, 
Marr's dusky heath, and Dee's clear wave. 

To seek a Southern home ? 

Hall of my Sires ! a long farewell — 

Yet why to thee adieu ? 
Thy vaults will echo back my knell, 

Thy towers my tomb will view : 
The faltering tongue which sung thy fall, 
And former glories of thy Hall,^ 

Forgets its wonted simple note — 
But yet the Lyre retains the strings. 
And sometimes, on ^olian wings, 

In dying strains may float. 



1 Harrow. 

« The river Grete, at Southwell. 



2 See ante, pp. 447, 475. 



Fields, which surround yon rustic cot, 

While yet I linger here. 
Adieu ! you are not now forgot, 

To retrospection dear. 
Streamlet ! ^ along whose rippling surge 
My youthful limbs were wont to urge 

At noontide heat their pliant course ; 
Plunging with ardor from the shore. 
Thy springs will lave these limbs no more, 

Deprived of active force. 

And shall I here forget the scene. 

Still nearest to my breast ? 
Rocks rise and rivers roll between 

The spot which passion blest ; 
Yet, Mary,* all thy beauties seem 
Fresh as in Love's bewitching dream, 

To me in smiles display'd : 
Till slow disease resigns his prey 
To Death, the parent of decay. 

Thine image cannot fade. 

And thou, my Friend ! ^ whose gentle love 

Yet thrills my bosom's chords, 
How much thy friendship was above 

Description's power of words ! 
Still near my breast thy gift I wear 
Which sparkled once with Feeling's tear, 

Of Love the pure, the sacred gem ; 
Our souls were equal, and our lot 
In that dear moment quite forgot ; 

Let Pride alone condemn ! 

All, all is dark and cheerless now ! 

No smile of Love's deceit 
Can warm my veins with wonted glow, 

Can bid Life's pulses beat : 
Not e'en the hope of future fame 
Can wake my faint, exhausted frame, 

Or crown with fancied wreaths my head. 
Mine is a short inglorious race, — 
To humble in the dust my face. 

And mingle with the dead. 

Oh, Fame ! thou goddess of my heart ; 

On him who gains thy praise. 
Pointless must fall the Spectre's dart. 

Consumed in Glory's blaze ; 

♦ Mary DuflF. See ante, p. 492, note. 
6 Eddlestone, the Cambridge chorister. See ante, p. 470. 

(639) 



640 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



But me she beckons from the earth, 
My name obscure, unmark'd my birth, 

My life a short and vulgar dream : 
Lost in the dull, ignoble crowd, 
My hopes recline within a shroud, 

My fate is Lethe's stream. 

When I repose beneath the sod. 

Unheeded in the clay. 
Where once my playful footsteps trod. 

Where now my head must lay. 
The meed of Pity will be shed 
In dew-drops o'er my narrow bed. 

By nightly skies, and storms alone ; 
No mortal eye will deign to steep 
With tears the dark sepulchral deep 

Which hides a name unknown. 

Forget this world, my restless sprite, 

Turn, turn thy thoughts to Heaven : 
There must thou soon direct thy flight, 

If errors are forgiven. 
To bigots and to sects unknown. 
Bow down beneath the Almighty's Throne ; 

To him address thy trembling prayer : 
He, who is merciful and just, 
Will not reject a child of dust, 

Although his meanest care. 

Father of Light ! to thee I call ; 

My soul is dark within : 
Thou, who canst mark the sparrow's fall, 

Avert the death of sin. 
Thou, who canst guide the wandering star. 
Who calm'st the elemental war, 

Whose mantle is yon boundless sky. 
My thoughts, my words, my crimes forgive ; 
And, since I soon must cease to live, 

Instruct me how to die. 

1807. [First published, 1832.] 



TO A VAIN LADY. 

Ah, heedless girl ! why thus disclose 
What ne'er was meant for other ears ? 

Why thus destroy thine own repose, 
And dig the source of future tears ? 

Oh, thou wilt weep, imprudent maid. 
While lurking envious foes will smile, 

For all the follies thou hast said i 
Of those who spoke but to beguile. 

Vain girl ! thy ling'ring woes are nigh, 
If thou believ'st what striplings say : 

Oh, from the deep temptation fly. 
Nor fall the specious spoiler's prey. 



Dost thou repeat, in childish boast, 
The words man utters to deceive ? 

Thy peace, thy hope, thy all is lost, 
If thou canst venture to believe. 

While now amongst thy female peers 
Thou tell'st again the soothing tale, 

Canst thou not mark the rising sneers 
Duplicity in vain would veil ? 

These tales in secret silence hush. 
Nor make thyself the public gaze : 

What modest maid without a blush 
Recounts a flattering coxcomb's praise.' 

Will not the laughing boy despise 
Her who relates each fond conceit — 

Who, thinking heaven is in her eyes. 
Yet cannot see the slight deceit ? 

For she who takes a soft delight 
These amorous nothings in revealing, 

Must credit all we say or write. 
While vanity prevents concealing. 

Cease, if you prize your beauty's reign ! 

No jealousy bids me reprove : 
One, who is thus from nature vain, 

I pity, but I cannot love. 

January 15, 1807. [First published, 1832.] 



TO ANNE. 



Oh, Anne ! your offences to me have been grievous : 
I thought from my wrath no atonement could save 
you; 

But woman is made to command and deceive us — 
I look'd in your face, and I almost forgave you. 

I vow'd I could ne'er for a moment respect you, 
Yet thought that a day's separation was long ; 

When we met, I determined again to suspect you — 
Your smile soon convinced me suspicion was 
wrong. 

I swore, in a transport of young indignation. 
With fervent contempt evermore to disdain you : 

I saw you — my anger became admiration ; 
And now all my wish, all my hope, 's to regain 
you. 

With beauty like yours, oh, how vain the contention ! 

Thus lowly I sue for forgiveness before you ; 
At once to conclude such a fruitless dissension, 

Be false, my sweet Anne, when I cease to adore 



you 



January 16, 1807. [First published, 1832.] 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



641 



TO THE SAME. 

Oh, say not, sweet Anne, that the Fates have decreed 
The heart which adores you should wish to dissever ; 

Such Fates were to me most unkind ones indeed, — 
To bear me from love and from beauty for ever. 

Your frowns, lovely girl, are the Fates which alone 
Could bid me from fond admiration refrain ; 

By these, every hope, every wish were o'erthrown, 
Till smiles should restore me to rapture again. 

As the ivy and oak, in the forest entwined, 
The rage of the tempest united must weather ; 

My love and my life were by nature design'd 
To flourish alike, or to perish together. 

Then say not, sweet Annie, that the Fates have decreed 
Your lover should bid you a lasting adieu ; 

Till Fate can ordain that his bosom shall bleed. 
His soul, his existence, are centred in you. 

1807. [First published, 1832.] 



TO THE AUTHOR OF A SONNET BEGINNING, 

*"SAD IS MY VERSE,' YOTT SAY, 'AND YET NO 
TEAR.' " 

Thy verse is "sad" enough, no doubt: 
A devilish deal more sad than witty ! 

Why we should weep I can't find out, 
Unless for thee we weep in pity. 

Yet there is one 1 pity more ; 

And much, alas ! I think he needs it; 
For he, I'm sure, will suffer sore, 

Who, to his own misfortune, reads it. 

Thy rhymes, without the aid of magic, 
May once be read— but never after : 

Yet their effect's by no means tragic. 
Although by far too dull for laughter. 

But would you make our bosoms bleed, 
And of no common pang complain — 

If you would make us weep indeed. 
Tell us, you'll read them o'er again. 

March 8, 1807. [First published, 1832.] 



ON FINDING A FAN. 

In one who felt as once he felt. 

This might, perhaps, have fann'd the flame : 
But now his heart no more will melt, 

Because that heart is not the same. 

41 



As when the ebbing flames are low. 

The aid which once improved their light. 

And bade them burn with fiercer glow, 
Now quenches all their blaze in night. 

Thus has it been with passion's fires — 
As many a boy and girl remembers — 

While every hope of love expires, 
Extinguish'd with the dying embers. 

Thej^rs^, though not a spark survive, 
Some careful hand may teach to burn ; 

The last, alas ! can ne'er survive ; 
No touch can bid its warmth return. 

Or, if it chance to wake again. 
Not always doom'd its heat to smother. 

It sheds (so wayward Fates ordain) 
Its former warmth around another. 

1807. [First published, 



FAREWELL TO THE MUSE. 

Thou Power! who hast ruled me through infancy's 
days, 

Young offspring of Fancy, 'tis time we should part; 
Then rise on the gale this the last of my lays, 

The coldest effusion which springs from my heart. 

This bosom, responsive to rapture no more. 

Shall hush thy wild notes, nor implore thee to sing ; 

The feelings of childhood, which taught thee to soar, 
Are wafted far distant on Apathy's wing. 

Though simple the themes of my rude-flowing Lyre, 
Yet even these themes are departed for ever ; 

No more beam the eyes which my dream could inspire, 
My visions are flown, to return, — alas ! never. 

When drain'd is the nectar which gladdens the bowl, 
How vain is the effort delight to prolong ! 

When cold is the beauty which dwelt in my soul, 
What magic of Fancy can lengthen my song ? 

Can the lips sing of Love in the desert alone. 
Of kis.ses and smiles which they now must resign ? 

Or dwell with delight on the hours that are flown? 
Ah, no ! for those hours can no longer be mine. 

Can they speak of the friends that I lived but to love ? 

Ah, surely affection ennobles the strain ! 
But how can my numbers in sympathy move. 

When I scarcely can hope to behold them again ? 

Can I sing of the deeds which my Fathers have done, 
And raise my loud harp to the fame of my Sires ? 

For glories like theirs, oh, how faint is my tone I 
For Heroes' exploits how unequal my fires ! 



642 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Untoucli'd, then, my Lyre sliall reply to the blast — 
'Tis hush'd ; and my feeble endeavors are o'er ; 

And those who have heard- it will pardon the past, 
When they know that its murmurs shall vibrate no 
more. 

And soon shall its wild erring notes be forgot, 
Since early afiection and love are o'ercast : 

Oh ! blest had my fate been, and happy my lot. 
Had the first strain of love been the dearest, the last. 

Farewell, my young Muse! since we now can ne'er 
meet ; 
If our songs have been languid, they surely are few ; 
Let us hope that the present at least will be sweet — 
The present — which seals our eternal Adieu. 

1807. [First published, 1832.] 



TO AN OAK AT NEWSTEAD.i 

Young Oak ! when I planted thee deep in the ground, 
I hoped that thy days would be longer than mine ; 

That thy dark-waving branches would flourish around, 
And ivy thy trunk with its mantle entwine. 

Such, such was my hope, when, in infancy's years. 
On the land of my fathers I rear'd thee with pride : 

They are past, and I water thy stem with my tears, — 
Thy decay not the weeds that surround thee can hide. 

I left thee, my Oak, and, since that fatal hour, 
A stranger has dwelt in the hall of my sire ; 

Till manhood shall crown me, not mine is the power. 
But his, whose neglect may have bade thee expire. 

Oh ! hardy thou wert — even now little care 
Might revive thy young head, and thy wounds 
gently heal : 

But thou wert not fated affection to share — 
For who could suppose that a stranger would feel ? 

Ah, droop not, my Oak ! lift thy head for a while ; 

Ere twice round yon Glory this planet shall run, 
The hand of thy Master will teach thee to smile, 

When Infancy's years of probation are done. 



1 Lord Byron, on his first arrival at Newstead, in 1798, 
planted an oak in the garden, and nourished the fancy, that 
as the tree flourished so should he. On revisiting the abbey, 
during Lord Grey de Euthven's residence there, he found 
the oak choked up by weeds, and almost destroyed ;— hence 
these lines. Shortly after Colonel Wildman, the present 
proprietor, took possession, he one day noticed it, and said 
to the servant who was with him, " Here is a fine young 
oak ; but it must be cut down, as it grows in an improper 
place." — " I hope not, sir," replied the man ; " for it's the 
one that my lord was so fond of, because he set it him- 



Oh, live then, my Oak ! tow'r aloft from the weeds, 
That clog thy young growth, and assist thy decay, 

For still in thy bosom are life's early seeds. 
And still may thy branches their beauty display. 

Oh ! yet, if maturity's years may be thine. 
Though I shall lie low in the cavern of death. 

On thy leaves yet the day-beam of ages may shine, 
Uninjured by time, or the rude winter's breath. 

For centuries still may thy boughs lightly wave 
O'er the corse of thy lord in thy canopy laid ; 

While the branches thus gratefully shelter his grave. 
The chief who survives may recline in thy shade. 

And as he, with his boys, shall revisit this spot. 
He will tell them in whispers more softly to tread. 

Oh ! surely, by these I shall ne'er be forgot : 
Remembrance still hallows the dust of the dead. 

And here, will they say, when in life's glowing prime, 
Perhaps he has pour'd forth his young simple lay, 

And here must he sleep, till the moments of time 
Are lost in the hours of Eternity's day. 

1807. [First published, 1832.] 



ON EEVISITING HAEE0W.2 

Here once engaged the stranger's view 
Young Friendship's record simply traced ; 

Few were her words, — but yet, though few, 
Eesentment's hand the line defaced. 

Deeply she cut — but not erased. 

The characters were still so plain. 
That Friendship once return'd, and gazed, — 

Till Memory hail'd the words again. 

Eepentance placed them as before ; 

Forgiveness join'd her gentle name ; 
So fair the inscription seem'd once more, 

That Friendship thought it still the same. 

Thus might the Eecord now have been ; 

But, ah, in spite of Hope's endeavor. 
Or Friendship's tears. Pride rush'd between, 

And blotted out the line for ever ! 

September, 1807. 



self." The colonel has, of course, taken every possible 
care of it. It is already inquired after, by strangers, as 
" THE Byron oak," and promises to share, in after times, 
the celebrity of Shakspeare's mulberry, and Pope's wil- 
low. 

2 Some years ago, when at Harrow, a friend of the author 
engraved on a particular spot the names of both, with a few 
additional words, as a memorial. Afterwards, on receiving 
some real or imagined injury, the author destroyed the frail 
record before he left Harrow. On revisiting the place in 
1807, he wrote under it these stanzas. 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



643 



EPITAPH ON JOHN ADAMS, OF SOUTHWELL, 

A CARRIER, WHO DIED OF DRUNKENNESS. 

John Adams lies here, of the parish of Southwell, 
A Carrier who carried his can to his mouth well ; 
He carried so much, and he carried so fast, 
He could carry no more — so was carried at last ; 
For, the liquor he drank, being too much for one. 
He could not carry off, so he's now carri-on. 

September, 1807, 



TO MY SON.i 

Those flaxen locks, those eyes of blue, 
Bright as thy mother's in their hue ; 
Those rosy lips, whose dimples play 
And smile to steal the heart away. 
Recall a scene of former joy. 
And touch thy father's heart, my Boy ! 

And thou canst lisp a father's name — 
Ah, AVilliam, were thine own the same, — 
No self-reproach — but, let me cease — 
My care for thee shall purchase peace ; 
Thy mother's shade shall smile in joy, 
And pardon all the past, my Boy ! 

Her lowly grave the turf has prest. 
And thou hast known a stranger's breast. 
Derision sneers upon thy birth. 
And yields thee scarce a name on earth ; 
Yet shall not these one hope destroy, — 
A Father's heart is thine, my Boy ! 

Why, let the world unfeeling frown, 
Must I fond Nature's claim disown ? 
Ah, no — though moralists reprove, 
I hail thee, dearest child of love. 
Fair cherub, pledge of youth and joy — 
A Father guards thy birth, my Boy! 

Oh, 'twill be sweet in thee to trace. 
Ere age has wrinkled o'er my face, 
Ere half my glass of life is run, 
At once a brother and a son ; 
And all my wane of years employ 
In justice done to thee, my Boy ! 

Although so young thy heedless sire, 
Youth will not damp parental fire; 



1 "Whether these verses are, in any degree, founded on 
facts, I have no accurate means of determining. Fond aa 
Lord Byron was of recording every particular of his youth, 
such an event, or rather era, as is here commemorated, would 
have been, of all others, the least likely to pass unmentioned 
by him; and yet neither in conversation nor In any of his 
writings do I remember even an allusion to it. On the other 



And, wert thou still less dear to me, 
While Helen's form revives in thee, 
The breast, which beat to former joy. 
Will ne'er desert its pledge, my Boy ! 

1807. [First published, 1830. ] 



FAREWELL! IF EVER FONDEST PRAYER. 

Farewell ! if ever fondest prayer 

For other's weal avail'd on high, 
Mine will not all be lost in air, 

But waft thy name beyond the sky. 
'Twere vain to speak, to weep, to sigh : 

Oh ! more than tears of blood can tell, 
When wrung from guilt's expiring eye. 

Are in that word — Farewell ! — Farewell ! 

These lips are mute, these eyes are dry ; 

But in my breast and in my brain. 
Awake the pangs that pass not by. 

The thought that ne'er shall sleep again. 
My soul nor deigns nor dares complain. 

Though grief and passion there rebel : 

I only know we loved in vain — 

I only feel — Farewell ! — Farewell ! 

1808. 



BRIGHT BE THE PLACE OF THY SOUL. 

Bright be the place of thy soul ! 

No lovelier spirit than thine 
E'er burst from its mortal control 

In the orbs of the blessed to shine. 

On earth thou wert all but divine, 
As thy soul shall immortally be ; 

And our sorrow may cease to repine. 
When we know that thy God is with thee. 

Light be the turf of thy tomb ! 

May its verdure like emeralds be : 
There should not be the shadow of gloom 

In aught that reminds us of thee. 

Young flowers and an evergreen tree 
May spring from the spot of thy rest : 

But nor cypress nor yew let us see ; 
For why should we mourn for the blest? 

1808. 



hand, so entirely was all that he wrote,— making allowance 
for the embellishments of fancy,— the transcript of his actual 
life and feelings, that it is not easy to suppose a poem, so full 
of natural tenderness, to have been indebted for its origin to 
imagination alone."— MoORE. But see post, Don Juan, canto 
xvi. 8t. 61. 



644 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



WHEN WE TWO PAKTED. 

When we two parted 

In silence and tears, 
Half broken-hearted 

To sever for years, 
Pale grew thy cheek and cold, 

Colder thy kiss ; 
Truly that hour foretold 

Sorrow to this. 

The dew of the morning 

Sank chill on my brow — 
It felt like the warning 

Of what I feel now. 
The vows are all broken, 

And light is thy fame ; 
I hear thy name spoken, 

And share in its shame. 

They name thee before me, 

A knell to mine ear ; 
A shudder comes o'er me — • 

Why wert thou so dear? 
They know not I knew thee, 

Who knew thee too well : — 
Long, long shall I rue thee, 

Too deeply to tell. 

In secret we met — 

In silence I grieve, 
That thy heart could forget, 

Thy spirit deceive. 
If I should meet thee 

After long years, 
How should I greet thee ? — 

With silence and tears. 



TO A YOUTHFUL FRIEND.i 

Few years have pass'd since thou and I 
Were firmest friends, at least in name. 

And childhood's gay sincerity 

Preserved our feelings long the same. 

But now, like me, too well thou know'st 

What trifles oft the heart recall ; 
And those who once have loved the most 

Too soon forget they loved at all. 

And such the change the heart displays. 
So frail is early friendship's reign, 

A month's brief lapse, perhaps a day's. 
Will view thy mind estranged again. 

1 This copy of verses, and that which follows, originally 
appeared in the volume published, in 1809, by Mr. (now the 
Right Honorable Sir John) Hobhouse, under the title of 



If so, it never shall be mine 
To mourn the loss of such a heart ; 

The fault was Nature's fault, not thine, 
Which made thee fickle as thou art. 

As rolls the ocean's changing tide. 

So human feelings ebb and flow ; 
And who would in a breast confide. 

Where stormy passions ever glow ? 

It boots not that, together bred. 
Our childish days were days of joy : 

My spring of life has quickly fled ; 
Thou, too, hast ceased to be a boy. 

And when we bid adieu to youth, 

Slaves to the specious world's control, 

We sigh a long farewell to truth ; 
That world corrupts the noblest soul. 

Ay, joyous season ! when the mind 

Dares all things boldly but to lie ; 
When thought ere spoke is unconfined. 

And sparkles in the placid eye. 

Not so in Man's maturer years. 

When Man himself is but a tool ; 
When interest sways our hopes and fears. 

And all must love and hate by rule. 

With fools in kindred vice the same, 
We learn at length our faults to blend ; 

And those, and those alone, may claim 
The prostituted name of friend. 

Such is the common lot of man : 
Can we then 'scape from folly free ? 

Can we reverse the general plan, 
Nor be what all in turn must be ? 

No ; for myself, so dark my fate 

Through every turn of life hath been ; 

Man and the world so much I hate, 
I care not when I quit the scene. 

But thou, with spirit frail and light, 
Wilt shine awhile, and pass away ; 

As glow-worms sparkle through the night, 
But dare not stand the test of day. 

Alas ! whenever folly calls 
Where parasites and princes meet 

(For cherish'd first in royal halls 
The welcome vices kindly greet), 

Ev'n now thou'rt nightly seen to add 
One insect to the fluttering crowd ; 

And still thy trifling heart is glad 
To join the vain, and court the proud. 

" Imitations and Translations, together with original Poems," 
and bearing the modest epigraph — "Nos hcec novimus esse 
nihil." 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



645 



There dost thou glide from fair to fair, 
Still simpering on with eager haste, 

As flies along the gay parterre, 

That taint the flowers they scarcely taste. 

But say, what nymph will prize the flame 
Which seems, as marshy vapors move, 

To flit along from dame to dame, 
An ignis-fatuus gleam of love ? 

What friend for thee, howe'er inclined, 
Will deign to own a kindred care? 

Who will debase his manly mind, 
For friendship every fool may share ? 

In time forbear ; amidst the throng 
No more so base a thing be seen ; 

No more so idly pass along ; 
Be something, anything, but — mean. 



1808. 



LINES INSCRIBED UPON A CUP FORMED 
FROM A SKULL.i 

Start not — nor deem my spirit fled ; 

In me behold the only skull, 
From which, unlike a living head, 

Whatever flows is never dull. 

I lived, I loved, I quafi''d, like thee: 

I died : let earth my bones resign : 
Fill up — thou canst not injure me; 

The worm hath fouler lips than thine. 

Better to hold the sparkling grape. 
Than nurse the earth-worm's slimy brood; 

And circle in the goblet's shape 
The drink of gods, than reptile's food. 

Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone, 

In aid of others' let me shine ; 
And when, alas ! our brains are gone, 

What nobler substitute than wine ? 

Quaff while thou canst : another race, 
When thou and thine, like me, are sped, 

^iay rescue thee from earth's embrace. 
And rhyme and revel with the dead. 

• T»rfl Byron ^ves the following account of this cup:— 
"The ;.'ardenpr, in digging, discovered a skull that had prob- 
ably belonged to some jolly friar or monk of the abbey, 
about the time it waa demon asteried. Observing it to be of 
giant size, and in a perfect state of preservation, a strange 
fancy seized me of having it set and mounted as a drinking 
cup. I accordingly sent it to town, and it returned with a 
very high polish, and of a mottled color like tortoiseshell." 
It is now in the possession of Colonel Wildman, the proprie- 
tor of Newstead Abbey. In aoveral of our elder draonatiat*, 



Why not ? since through life's little day 
Our heads such sad effects produce ? 

Redeem'd from worms and wasting clay. 
This chance is theirs, to be of use. 

Newstead Abbey, 



WELL! THOU ART HAPPY.2 

Well! thou art happy, and I feel 
That I should thus be happy too ; 

For still my heart regards thy weal 
Warmly, as it was wont to do. 

Thy husband's blest — and 'twill impart 
Some pangs to view his happier lot : 

But let them pass — Oh ! how my heart 
Would hate him, if he loved thee not ! 

When late I saw thy favorite child, 

I thought my jealous heart would break ; 

But when the unconscious infant smiled, 
I kiss'd it for its mother's sake. 

I kiss'd it, — and repress'd my sighs, 

Its father in its face to see ; 
But then it had its mother's eyes, 

And they were all to love and me. 

Mary, adieu ! I must away : 
While thou art blest I'll not repine ; 

But near thee I can never stay ; 
My heart would soon again be thine. 

I deem'd that time, I deem'd that pride 
Had quench'd at length my boyish flame ; 

Nor knew, till seated by thy side. 
My heart in all, — save hope, — the same. 

Yet was I calm : I knew the time 
My breast would thrill before thy look ; 

But now to tremble were a crime — 
We met, — and not a nerve was shook. 

I saw thee gaze upon my face. 
Yet meet with no confusion there : . 

One only feeling couldst thou trace ; 
The sullen calmness of despair. 

mention is made of the custom of quaflBng wine out of simi- 
lar cups. For example, in Dekkcr's " Wonder of a Kingdom," 
Torrenti says, — 

" Would I had ten thousand soldiers' heads, 
Their skulls set all in silver; to drink healths 
To his confusion who first invented war." 
2 These lines were printed originally in Mr. Hobhouse's 
Miscellany. A few days before they were written, the poet 
had been invited to dine at Annesley. On the infant daughter 
of his fair hostess being brought into the room, he started 



646 



BYEON'S WQEKS. 



Away ! away ! my early dream 
Eemembrance never must awake : 

Oh ! where is Lethe's fabled stream ? 
My foolish heart, be still, or break. 



November 2, 1808. 



INSCEIPTION ON THE MONUMENT OF A 
NEWFOUNDLAND DOG.i 

When some proud son of man returns to earth, 
Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth, 
The sculptor's art exhausts the pomp of woe, 
And storied urns record who rest below ; 
f When all is done, upon the tomb is seen, 
'^ Not what he was, but what he should have been : 
But the poor dog', in life the firmest friend. 
The first to welcome, foremost to defend. 
Whose honest heart is still his master's own, ' 
Who labors, fights, lives, breathes for him alone, 
Unhonor'd falls, unnoticed all his worth. 
Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth : 
While man, vain insect 1 hopes to be forgiven. 
And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven. 
Oh, man ! thou feeble tenant of an hour, 
Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power. 
Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust, 
::;^ Degraded mass of animated dust ! 

Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat, 

Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit ! 

By nature vile, ennobled but by name, 

Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame. 

Ye ! who perchance behold this simple urn. 

Pass on — it honors none you wish to mourn : 

To mark a friend's remains these stones arise • 

I never knew but one, — and here he lies. 

Newstead Abbey, November 30, 1808. 

involuntarily, and with the utmost difliculty suppressed his 
emotion. To the sensations of that moment we are indebted 
for these beautiful stanzas. 

1 This monument is still a conspicuous ornament in the 
garden of Newstead. The following is the inscription by 
which the verses are preceded :— 

" Near this spot 

Are deposited the Remains of one 

Who possessed Beauty -without Vanity, 

Strength without Insolence, 

Courage without Ferocity, 

And all the Virtues of Man without his Vices. 

This Praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery 

If inscribed over human ashes, 

Is but a just tribute to the Memory of 

BOATSWAIN, a Dog, 

Who was born at Newfoundland, May, 1803, 

And died at Newstead Abbey, November 18, 1808." 

Lord Byron thus announced the death of his favorite to his 

friend Hodgson : — " Boatswain is dead !— he expired in a state 

of madness on the 18th, after suffering much, yet retaining 

all the gentleness of his nature to the last ; never attempting 

to do the least injury to any one near him. I have now lost 

everything, except old Murray." By the will executed in 



TO A LADY,2 

ON BEING ASKED MY KEASON FOR QUITTING 
ENGLAND IN THE SPEING. 

When Man, expell'd from Eden's bowers, 
A moment linger'd near the gate. 

Each scene recalled the vanish'd hours. 
And bade himi curse his future fate. 

But, wandering on through distant climes, 
He learnt to bear his load of grief; 

Just gave a sigh to other times, 
And found in busier scenes relief. 

Thus, lady ! ^ will it be with me. 
And I must view thy charms no more ; 

For, while I linger near to thee, 
I sigh for all I knew before. 

In flight I shall be surely wise. 
Escaping from temptation's snare ; 

I cannot view my paradise 
Without the wish of dwelling there.* 

December 2, 1808. 



EEMIND ME NOT, EEMIND ME NOT. 

Eemind me not, remind me not. 

Of those beloved, those vanish'd hours, 
When all my soul was given to thee ; 
Hours that may never be forgot. 
Till time unnerves our vital powers, 
And thou and I shall cease to be. 

Can I forget — canst thou forget. 

When playing with thy golden hair. 
How quick thy fluttering heart did move ? 

1811, he directed that his own body should be buried in a 
vault in the garden, near his faithful dog. 

2 In the original MS. " To Mrs. Musters," &c. The reader 
will find a portrait of this lady in Finden's Illustrations of 
Byron, No. III. 

3 In the first copy, " Thus, Mary !" 

* In Mr. Hobhouse's Volume, the line stood, — " Without a 
wish to enter there." The following is an extract from an 
unpublished letter of Lord Byron, written in 1823, only three 
days previous to his leaving Italy for Greece: — "Miss Cha- 
worth was two years older than myself. She married 'a man 
of an ancient and respectable family, but her marriage was 
not a happier one than my own. Her conduct, however, 
was irreproachable ; but there was not sympathy between 
their characters. I had not seen her for many years, when 
an occasion offered. I was upon the point, with her consent, 
of paying her a visit, when my sister, ^who has always had 
more influence over me than any one else, persuaded me not 
to do it. 'For,' said she, 'if you go you will fall in love 
again, and then there will be a scene ; one step will lead to 
another, et celafera un eclaV I was guided by those reasons, 
and shortly after married, — with what success it is useless to 
say." 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



647 



Oh ! by my soul, I see thee yet, 
With eyes so languid, breast so fair, 
And lips, though silent, breathing love. 

When thus reclining on my breast, 
Those eyes threw back a glance so sweet, 
As half reproach'd yet raised desire, 
And still we near and nearer prest, 
And still our glowing lips would meet. 
As if in kisses to expire. 

And then those pensive eyes would close, 
And bid their lids each other seek, 
Veiling the azure orbs below ; 
While their long lashes' darken'd gloss 
Seem'd stealing o'er thy brilliant cheek. 
Like raven's plumage smooth'd on snow. 

I dreamt last night our love returned. 
And, sooth to say, that very dream 
Was sweeter in its fantasy. 
Than if for other hearts I burn'd, 
For eyes that ne'er like thine could beam 
In rapture's wild reality. 

Then tell me not, remind me not. 

Of hours which, though for ever gone, 
Can still a pleasing dream restore, 
Till thou and I shall be forgot. 

And senseless as the mouldering stone 
Which tells that we shall be no more. 



THERE WAS A TIME, I NEED NOT NAME. 

There was a time, I need not name. 

Since it will ne'er forgotten be. 
When all our feelings were the same 

As still my soul hath been to thee. 

And from that hour when first thy tongue 
Confess'd a love which equall'd mine, 

Though many a grief my heart hath wrung, 
Unknown and thus unfelt by thine. 

None, none hath sunk so deep as this — 
To think how all that love hath flown; 

Transient as every faithless kiss, 
But transient in thy breast alone. 

1 The melancholy which .was now gaining fast upon the 
young poet's mind was a source of much uneasiness to his 
friends. It was at this perirxl that the following pleasant 
verses were addressed to him by Mr. Hobhouse :— 

EPISTLE 

TO A YOtTNO NOBLEMAN IK LOVE. 

Hail! generous youth, whom glory's sacred flame 
Inspires and animates to deeds of fame; 
Who feel the noble wish before you die 
To raise the finger of each passer-by : 



And yet my heart some solace knew. 
When late I heard thy lips declare, 

In accents once imagined true. 
Remembrance of the days that were. 

Yes ; my adored, yet most unkind ! 

Though thou wilt never love again, 
To me 'tis doubly sweet to find 

Remembrance of that love remain. 

Yes ! 'tis a glorious thought to me, 
Nor longer shall my soul repine, 

Whate'er thou art or e'er shalt be, 
Thou hast been dearly, solely mine. 



AND WILT THOU WEEP WHEN I AM LOW? 

And wilt thou weep when I am low ? 

Sweet lady ! speak those words again : 
Yet if they grieve thee, say not so — 

I would not give that bosom pain. 

My heart is sad, my hopes are gone. 
My blood runs coldly through my breast ; 

And when I perish, thou alone 
Wilt sigh above my place of rest. 

And yet, methinks, a gleam of peace 

Doth through my cloud of anguish shine : 

And for awhile my sorrows cease. 

To know thy heart hath felt for mine. 

Oh, lady ! blessed be that tear — 

It falls for one who cannot weep ; 
Such precious drops are doubly dear 

To those whose eyes no tear may steep. 

Sweet lady I once my heart was warm 

With every feeling soft as thine ; 
But beauty's self hath ceased to charm 

A wretch created to repine. 

Yet wilt thou weep when I am low ? 

Sweet lady ! speak those words again : 
Yet if they grieve thee, say not so — 

I would not give that bosom pain.* 

Hail ! may a future age admiring view 
A Falkland or a Clarendon in you. 

But as your blood with dangerous passion boils, 
Beware! and fly from Venus' silken toils: 
Ah ! let the head protect the weaker heart, 
And "Wisdom's iEgis turn on Beauty's dart. 



But if 'tis fix'd that every lord must pair, 
And you and Newstead must not want au heir, 



648 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



FILL THE GOBLET AGAIN. 

A SONG. 

Fill the goblet again ! for I never before 

Felt the glow which now gladdens my heart to its core ; 

Let us drink !— who would not ?— since, through life's 

varied round, 
In the goblet alone no deception is found. 

I have tried in its turn all that life can supply ; 

I have bask'd in the beam of a dark rolling eye ; 

I have loved! — who has not?— but what heart can 

declare. 
That pleasure existed while passion was there ? 

In the days of my youth, when the heart's in its 

spring, 
And dreams that affection can never take wing, 
I had friends ! — who has not ? — but what tongue will 

avow, 
That friends, rosy wine ! are so faithful as thou ? 

The heart of a mistress some boy may estrange. 
Friendship shifts with the sunbeam — thou never 

canst change ; 
Thou grow'st old — who does not ? — but on earth what 

appears. 
Whose virtues, like thine, still increase with its years ? 

Yet if blest to the utmost that love can bestow, 
Should a rival bow down to our idol below, [alloy ; 
We are jealous !— who's not? — thou hast no such 
For the more that enjoy thee, the more we enjoy. 

Lose not your pains, and scour the country round, 

To find a treasure that can ne'er be found! 

No ! take the first the town or court affords, 

Trick'd out to stock a market for the lords ; 

By chance perhaps your luckier choice may fall 

On one, though wicked, not the worst of all : 

***** 

One though perhaps as any Maxwell free, 

Yet scarce a copy, Claribel, of thee : 

Not very ugly, and not very old, 

A little pert indeed, but not a scold ; 

One that, in short, may help to lead a life 

Not farther much from comfort than from strife ; 

And when she dies, and disappoints your fears, 

Shall leave some joys for your declining years. 

But, as your early youth some time allows, 
Nor custom yet demands you for a spouse, 
Some hours of freedom may remain as yet 
For one who laughs alike at loVe and debt ; ■ 
Then, why in haste ? put off" the evil day, 
And snatch at youthful comforts whilst you may ! 
Pause ! nor so soon the various bliss forego 
That single souls, and such alone, can know : 
Ah ! why too early careless life resign. 
Your morning slumber, and your evening wine ; , 

Your loved companion, and his easy talk ; 
Your Muse, invoked in every peaceful walk. 
What ! can no more your scenes paternal please, 
Scenes sacred long to wise, unmated ease? 



Then, the season of youth and its vanities past. 
For refuge we fly to the goblet at last ; 
There we find — do we not ? — in the flow of the soul, 
That truth, as of yore, is confined tc the bowl. 

When the box of Pandora was open'd on earth. 
And Misery's triumph commenced over Mirth, 
Hope was left — was she not ? — but the goblet we kiss. 
And care not for Hope, who are certain of bliss. 

Long life to the grape ! for when summer is flown, 
The age of our nectar shall gladden our own : 
We must die — who shall not ? — May our sins be for- 
given, 
And Hebe shall never be idle in heaven. 



STANZAS TO A LADY,i ON LEAVING 
ENGLAND. 

'TiS done — and shivering in the gale 
The bark unfurls her snowy sail ; 
And whistling o'er the bending mast. 
Loud sings on high the fresh'ning blast ; 
And I must from this land be gone. 
Because I cannot love but one. 

But could I be what I have been, 
And could I see what I have seen — 
Could I repose upon the breast 
Which once my warmest wishes blest — 
I should not seek another zone - 
Because I cannot love but one. 



The prospect lengthen'd o'er the distant down, 

Lakes, meadows, rising woods, and all your own ? 

What ! shall your Newstead, shall your cloister'd bowers, 

The high o'erhanging arch and trembling towers ! 

Shall these, profaned with folly or with strife, 

And ever fond, or ever angry wife ! 

Shall these no more confess a manly sway, 

But changeful woman's changing whims obey ? 

Who may, perhaps, as varying humor calls, 

Contract your cloisters and o'erthrow your walls ; 

Let Eepton loose o'er all the ancient ground, 

Change round to square, and square convert to round ; 

Root up the elms' and yews' too solemn gloom, 

And fill with shrubberies gay and green their room ; 

Roll down the terrace to a gay parterre. 

Where gravell'd walks and flowers alternate glare ; 

And quite transform, in ev'ry point complete, 

Your Gothic abbey to a country seat. 

Forget the fair one, and your fate delay ; 
If not avert, at least defer the day, 
When you beneath the female yoke shall bend, 
And lose your wit, your temper, and jonr friend. 

Trin. Coll. Camb. 1808. 

In his mother's copy of Mr. Hobhouse's volume, now before 
us, Lord Byron has here written with a pencil — " I have lost 
them all, and shall wed accordingly. 1811. B." 

1 In the original, " To Mrs. Musters." 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



649 



'Tis long since I beheld that eye 
Which gave me bliss or misery ; 
And I have striven, but in vain, 
Never to think of it again : 
For though I fly from Albion, 
I still can only love but one. 

As some lone bird, without a mate. 
My weary heart is desolate ; 
I look around, and cannot trace 
One friendly smile or welcome face, 
And ev'n in crowds am still alone, 
Because I cannot love but one. 

And I will cross the whitening foam, 
And I will seek a foreign home; 
Till I forget a false fair face, 
I ne'er shall find a resting-place ; 
My own dark thoughts I cannot shun. 
But ever love, and love but one. 

The poorest, veriest wretch on earth 
Still finds some hospitable hearth. 
Where friendship's or love's softer glow 
May smile in joy or soothe in woe ; 
But friend or leman I have none, 
Because I cannot love but one. 

I go — but wheresoe'er I flee. 
There's not an eye will weep for me ; 
There's not a kind congenial heart. 
Where I can claim the meanest part ; 
Nor thou, who hast my hoj^es undone, 
Wilt Bigh, although I love but one. 

To think of every early scene. 

Of what we are, and what we've been. 

Would whelm some softer hearts with woe — 

But mine, alas ! has stood the blow ; 

Yet still beats on as it begun. 

And never truly loves but one. 

And who that dear loved one may be 
Is not for vulgar eyes to see, 
And why that early love was cross'd. 
Thou know'st the best, I feel the most: 
But few that dwell beneath the sun 
Have loved so long, and loved but one. 

I've tried another's fetters too, 
With charms perchance as fair to view ; 
And I would fain have loved as well. 
But some unconquerable spell 
Forbade my bleeding breast to own 
A kindred care for aught but one. 

'Twould soothe to take one lingering view. 
And bless thee in my last adieu; 

' Thus corrected by himself, in his mother's copy of Mr. 
Hobhouse's Miscellany ; the two last lines being originally— 



Yet wish I not those eyes to weep 
For him that wanders o'er the deep ; 
His home, his hope, his youth are gone, 
Yet still he loves, and loves but one.^ 



LINES TO MR. HODGSON. 

WRITTEN ON BOARD THE LISBON PACKET. 

Huzza ! Hodgson, we are going. 

Our embargo's off at last ; 
Favorable breezes blowing 

Bend the canvas o'er the mast. 
From aloft the signal's streaming, 
Hark ! the farewell gun is fired ; 
Women screeching, tars blaspheming, 
Tell us that our time's expired. 
Here's a rascal 
Come to task all, 
Prying from the custom-house ; 
Trunks unpacking. 
Cases cracking, 
Not a corner for a mouse 
'Scapes unsearch'd amid the racket, 
Ere we sail on board the Packet. 

Now our boatmen quit their mooring. 

And all hands must ply the oar ; 
Baggage from the quay is lowering. 
We're impatient, push from shore. 
" Have a care ! that case holds liqu()r — 
Stop the boat — I'm sick — oh. Lord !" 
" Sick, ma'am, damme, you'll be sicker, 
Ere you've been an hour on board.'* 
Thus are screaming 
Men and women, 
Gemmen, ladies, servants. Jacks ; 
Here entangling. 
All are wrangling. 
Stuck together close as wax. — 
Such the general noise and racket. 
Ere we reach the Lisbon Packet. 

Now we've reach'd her, lo ! the captain, 

Gallant Kidd, commands the crew ; 
Passengers their berths are clapt in. 

Some to grumble, some to spew. 
" Heyday ! call you that a cabin ? 

Why 'tis hardly three feet square : 
Not enough to stow Queen Mab in — 
Who the deuce can harbor there?" 
"Who, sir? plenty- 
Nobles twenty 
Did at once my vessel fill." — 
"Did they? Jesus, 
How you squeeze us ! 
Would to God they did so still : 

" Though wheresoe'er my bark may run, 
I love but thee, I love but one." 



650 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Then I'd 'scape the heat and racket 
Of the good ship, Lisbon Packet." 

Fletcher! Murray! Bobl^ where are you? 

Stretch'd along the deck like logs — 
Bear a hand, you jolly tar, you I 

Here's a rope's end for the dogs. 
Hobhouse muttering fearful curses, 

As the hatchway down he rolls. 
Now his breakfast, now his verses. 
Vomits forth— and damns our souls. 
" Here's a stanza 
On Braganza — 
Help !"— " A couplet ?"— " No, a cup 
Of warm water" — 
"What's the matter?" 
" Zounds ! my liver's coming up ; 
I shall not survive the racket 
Of this brutal Lisbon Packet." 

Now at length we're off for Turkey, 

Lord knows when we shall come back ! 
Breezes foul and tempests murky 

May unship us in a crack. 
But, since life at most a jest is, 

As philosophers allow, 
Still to laugh by far the best is, 
Then laugh on — as I do now. 
Laugh at all things. 
Great and small things, 
Sick or well, at sea or shore ; 
While we're quaffing, 
Let's have laughing — • 
Who the devil cares for more ? — ■ 
Some good wine ! and who would lack it, 
Ev'n on board the Lisbon Packet ? ^ 

Falmoutli Roads, June 30, li 
[First published, 1830.] 



LINES WEITTEN IN AN ALBUM, AT MALTA. 

As o'er the cold sepulchral stone 

Some name arrests the passer-by ; 
Thus, when thou view'st this page alone, 

May mine attract thy pensive eye I 

1 Lord Byron's three servants. 

' In the letter in which these lively verses were enclosed, 
Lord Byron says :—" I leave England without regret— I shall 
return to it without pleasure. I am like Adam, the first 
convict sentenced to transportation ; but I have no Eve, and 
have eaten no apple but what was sour as a crab ; and thus 
ends my first chapter." 

8 These lines were written at Malta. The lady to whom 
they were addressed, and whom he afterwards apostrophizes 
in the stanzas on the thunderstorm of Zitza and in Childe 
Harold, is thus mentioned in a letter to his mother : — " This 
letter is committed to the charge of a very extraordinary 
lady, whom you have doubtless heard of, Mrs. Spencer Smith, 
of whose escape the Marquis de Salvo published a narrative 
a few years ago. She has since been shipwrecked ; and her 



And when by thee that name is read, 
Perchance in some succeeding year. 

Reflect OH me as on the dead. 

And think my heart is buried here. 

September 14, 1809. 



TO FL0EENCE.3 

Oh, Lady ! when I left the shore. 
The distant shore which gave me birth, 

I hardly thought to grieve once more 
To quit another spot on earth : 

Yet here, amidst this barren isle, 

Where panting Nature droops the head, 

Where only thou art seen to smile, 
I view my parting hour with dread. 

Though far from Albion's craggy shore, 

Divided by the dark blue main ; 
A few, brief, rolling, seasons o'er, 

Perchance I view her clifls again : 

But wheresoe'er I now may roam, 
Through scorching clime, and varied sea, 

Though Time restore me to my home, 
I ne'er shall bend mine eyes on thee : 

On thee, in whom at once conspire 
All charms which heedless hearts can move, 

Whom but to see is to admire. 

And, oh 1 forgive the word — to love. 

Forgive the word, in one who ne'er 
With such a word can more offend ; 

And since thy heart I cannot share. 
Believe me, what I am, thy friend. 

And who so cold as look on thee. 
Thou lovely wand'rer, and be less ? 

Nor be, what man should ever be, 
The friend of Beauty in distress ? 

Ah ! who would think that form had pass'd 
Through Danger's most destructive path, 

life has been from its commencement so fertile in remarkable 
incidents, that in a romance they would appear improbable. 
She was born at Constantinople, where her father, Baron 
Herbert, was Austrian ambassador; married unhappily, yet 
has never been impeached in point of character ; excited the 
vengeance of Buonaparte, by taking a part in some conspir- 
acy ; several times risked her life ; and is not yet five-and- 
twenty. She is here on her way to England to join her 
husband, being obliged to leave Trieste, where she was pay- 
ing a visit to her mother, by the approach of the French, 
and embarks soon in a ship of war. Since my arrival here 
I have had scarcely any other companion. I have found her 
very pretty, very accomplished, and extremely eccentric. 
Buonaparte is even now so incensed against her, that her 
life would be in danger if she were taken prisoner a second 
time." 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



651 



Had braved the death-wing'd tempest's blast, 
And 'scaped a tyrant's fiercer wrath ? 

Lady ! when I shall view the walls 
Where free Byzantium once arose, 

And Stamboul's Oriental halls 
The Turkish tyrants now enclose; 

Though mightiest in the lists of fame. 

That glorious city still shall be ; 
On me 'twill hold a dearer claim, 

As spot of thy nativity : 

And though I bid thee now farewell, 
When I behold that wondrous scene, 

Since where thou art I may not dwell, 
'Twill soothe to be where thou hast been. 

September, 1809. 



STANZAS 

COMPOSED DURING A THTJNDEKSTORM.l 

Chill and mirk is the nightly blast. 
Where Pindus' mountains rise. 

And angry clouds are pouring fast 
The vengeance of the skies. 

Our guides are gone, our hope is lost. 

And lightnings, as they play. 
But show where rocks our path have crost, 

Or gild the torrent's spray. 

Is yon a cot I saw, though low ? 

When lightning broke the gloom — 
How welcome were its shade ! — ah, no ! 

'Tia but a Turkish tomb. 

Through sounds of foaming waterfalls, 

I hear a voice exclaim — 
^ly way-worn countryman, who calls 

On distant England's name. 

A shot is fired — by foe or friend ? 

Another — 'tis to tell 
The mountain peasants to descend, 

And lead us where they dwell. 



1 This thunderstorm occurred during the night of the 
11th October, 1S09, when Lord Byron's guides had lost the 
road to ZItza, near the range of mountains formerly called 
Pindus, in Albania. Mr. Ilobhouse, who had rode on before 
the rest of the party, and arrived at Zitza just as the evening 
set in, describes the thunder as " roaring veithout intermis- 
sion, the echoes of one peal not ceasing to roll in the mount- 
ains, before another tremendous crash burst over our heafls; 
whilst the plains and the distant hills appeared in a perpetual 
blaze." " The tf-mpest," he says, " was altopfthor terrific, ai'd 
worthy of the Grecian Jove. My friend, with the priest and 



Oh ! who in such a night will dare 

To tempt the wilderness ? 
And who 'mid thunder-peals can hear 

Our signal of distress ? 

And who that heard our shouts would rise 

To try the dubious road ? 
Nor rather deem from nightly cries 

That outlaws were abroad. 

Clouds burst, skies flash, oh, dreadful hour ! 

More fiercely pours the storm I 
Yet here one thought has still the power 

To keep my bosom warm. 

While wand'ring through each broken path, 

O'er brake and craggy brow ; 
While elements exhaust their wrath, 

Sweet Florence, where art thou ? 

Not on the sea, not on the sea. 
Thy bark hath long been gone : 

Oh, may the storm that pours on me, 
Bow down my head alone ! 

Full swiftly blew the swift Siroc, 

When last I press'd thy lip ; 
And long ere now, with foaming shock, 

Impell'd thy gallant ship. 

Now thou art safe ; nay, long ere now 

Ilast trod the shore of Spain ; 
'Twere hard if aught so fair as thou 

Should linger on the main. 

And since I now remember thee 

In darkness and in dread, 
As in those hours of revelry 

Which mirth and music sped ; 

Do thou, amid the fair white walls, 

If Cadiz yet be free, 
At times from out her latticed halls 

Look o'er the dark blue sea ; 

Then think upon Calypso's isles, 

Endear'd by days gone by ; 
To others give a thousand smiles. 

To me a single sigh.^ 



the servants, did not enter our hut till three in the morning. 
I now learnt from him that they had lost their way, and 
that, after wandering up and down in total ignorance of 
their position, tliey had stopped at last near some Turkish 
tombstones and a torrent, which they saw by the flashes of 
lightning. They had been thus exposed fur nine hours. It 
was long before we ceased to talk of the thuuderstorm in 
the plain of Zitza." 



2 "These stanzas," sqys Mr. Moore, "have a music 
which, independently of ail meaning, is enchanting, 



in them, 



652 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



And when the admiring circle mark 

The paleness of thy face, 
A half-form'd tear, a transient spark 

Of melancholy grace, 

Again thou'lt smile, and blushing shun 

Some coxcomb's raillery ; 
Nor own for once thou thought'st on one, 

Who ever thinks on thee. 

Though smile and sigh alike are vain, 

When sever'd hearts repine. 
My spirit flies o'er mount and main, 

And mourns in search of thine. 



STANZAS 

WRITTEN IN ^^SSING THE AMBEACIAN GULF. 

Through cloudless skies, in silvery sheen. 
Full beams the moon on Actium's coast : 

And on these waves, for Egypt's queen, 
The ancient world was won and lost. 

And now upon the scene I look, 
The azure grave of many a Roman ; 

Where stern Ambition once forsook 
His wavering crown to follow woman. 

Florence ! whom I will love as well 

As ever yet was said or sung 
(Since Orpheus sang his spouse from hell), 

Whilst thou art fair and I am young ; 

Sweet Florence ! those were pleasant times, 
When worlds were staked for ladies' eyes : 

Had bards as many realms as rhymes. 
Thy charms might raise new Antonies. 

Though Fate forbids such things to be, 
Yet, by thine eyes and ringlets curl'd ! 

I cannot lose a world for thee. 

But would not lose thee for a world. 

November 14, 1809 



1 On the Sd of May, 1810, while the Salsette (Captain 
Bathurst) was lying in the Dardanelles, Lieutenant Eken- 
head of that frigate and the writer of these rhymes swam 
from the European shore to the Asiatic— by the by, from. 
Abydos to Sestos would have been more correct. The whole 
distance from the place whence we started to our landing on 
the other side, including the length we were carried by the 
current, was computed by those on board the frigate at up- 
wards of four English miles ; though the actual breadth is 
barely one. The rapidity of the current is such that no boat 
can row directly across, and it may, in some measure, be 
estimated from the circumstance of the whole distance being 
accomplished by one of the parties in an hour and five, and 
by the other in an hour and ten, minutes. The water was 
extremely cold, from the melting of the mountain snows. 
About three weeks before, in April, we had made an attempt ; 



THE SPELL IS BROKE, THE CHARM IS 
FLOWN ! 

WRITTEN AT ATHENS, JANUARY 16, 1810. 

The spell is broke, the charm is flown ! 

Thus is it with life's fitful fever: 
We madly smile when we should groan ; 

Delirium is our best deceiver. 

Each lucid interval of thought 
Recalls the woes of Nature's charter. 

And he that acts as wise men ought. 
But lives, as saints have died, a martyr. 



WRITTEN AFTER SWIMMING FROM SESTOS 
TO ABYDOS.i 

If, in the month of dark December, 

Leander, who was nightly wont 
(What maid will not the tale remember?) 

To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont ! 

If, when the wintry tempest roar'd, 

He sped to Hero, nothing loth. 
And thus of old thy current pour'd. 

Fair Venus ! how I pity both ! 

For me, degenerate modern wretch, 
Though in the genial month of May, 

My dripping limbs I faintly stretch. 
And think I've done a'feat to-day. 

But since he cross'd the rapid tide, 

According to the doubtful story. 
To woo, and — Lord knows what beside, 

And swam for Love, as I for Glory ; 

'Twere hard to say who fared the best : 
Sad mortals ! thus the gods still plague you ! 

He lost his labor, I my jest; 
For he was drown'd, and I've the ague.2 

May 9, 1810. 

but having ridden all the way from the Troad the same 
morning, and the water being of an icy chillness, we found 
it necessary to postpone the completion till the frigate an- 
chored below the castles, when we swam the straits, as just 
stated ; entering a considerable way above the European, and 
landing below the Asiatic, fort. Chevalier says that a young 
Jew swam the same distance for his mistress; and Oliver 
mentions its having been done by a Neapolitan ; but our con- 
sul, Tarragona, remembered neither of these circumstances, 
and tried to dissuade us from the attempt. A number of the 
Salsette's crew were known to have accomplished a greater 
distance ; and the only thing that surprised me was, that, as 
doubts had been entertained of the truth of Leander's story, no 
traveller had ever endeavored to ascertain its practicability. 
2 " My companion," says Mr. Hobhouse, " had before made 
a more perilous, but less celebrated passage : for I recollect 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



653 



LINES WRITTEN IN THE TRAVELLERS' BOOK 
AT ORCHOMENUS. 

IN THIS BOOK A. TKAVELLER HAD WKITTEN :— 

" Fair Albion, smiling, sees her son depart 
To trace the birth and nursery of art : 
Noble his object, glorious is his aim ; 
He comes to Athens, and he writes his name." 

BENEATH WHICH LORD BYKON INSERTED THE FOLLOWING :— 

The modest bard, like many a bard unknown. 
Rhymes on our names, but wisely hides his own ; 
But yet, whoe'er he be, to say no worse, 
His name would bring more credit than his verse.i 

1810. 



MAID OF ATHENS, ERE WE PART. 

Zwt; juiov, (ras dyaTU. 

Maid of Athens,"^ ere we part, 
Give, oh, give me back my heart ; 
Or, since that has left my breast. 
Keep it now, and take the rest ! 
Hear my vow before I go, 

ZwTj /lov, aas ayairSt.^ 



that, when we were in Portugal, he swam from Old Lisbon 
to Belem Castle, and having to contend with a tide and coun- 
ter current, the wind blowing freshly, was but little less than 
two hours in crossing." 

1 " At Orchomenus, where stood the temple of the Graces, 
I was tempted to exclaim, 'Whither have the Graces fled?' 
Little did I expect to find them here; yet here comes one 
of them with golden cups and cofiee, and another with a 
book. The book is a register of names, some of which are 
far sounded by the voice of fame. Among them is Lord 
Byron's, connected with some lines which I here send 
you."— H. W. Williams. 

' We copy the following interesting account of the Maid 
of Athens and her family from the late eminent artist, Mr. 
Hugh Williams of Edinburgh's, " Travels in Italy, Greece," 
Ac. :— " Our servant, who had gone before to procure accom- 
modation, met us at the gate, and conducted us to Theodore 
Macri, the consulina's, where we at present live. This lady 
i.s the widow of the consul, and has three lovely daughters; 
the eldest ceiebratcd for her beauty, and said to be the ' Maid 
of Athens' of Lord Tyron. Their apartment is immediately 
opposite to ours, and, if you could sec them as we do now, 
throuijh the pontic waving aromatic plants before our win- 
dow, you would leave your heart in Athens. Theresa, the 
Maid of Athens, Tatinco, and Mariana, are of middle stature- 
On the crown of the hoad of each is a red Albanian skull- 
cap, with a blup ta.ssel .spread out and fnstenod down like a 
star. Near the edge or bottom of the skull-cap is a handker- 
chief of variou.s colors bound round their temples. The 
youngest wears her hair loose, falling on her shoulders,— the 
hair behind descending down the back nearly to the waist, 
and, as u.sual, mixed with silk. The two eldest generally 
have their hair bound, and fastened under the handkerchief. 
Their upper robe is a pelisse edged with fur, hanging loose 
down to the ankles; below is a handkerchief of mu.slin cov- 
ering the bosom, and terminatinp at the waist, which is 
short ; under that, a gown of striped silk or muslin, with a 



By those tresses unconfined, 
Woo'd by each .^gean wind ; 
By those lids whose jetty fringe 
Kiss thy soft cheeks' blooming tinge ; 
By those wild eyes like the roe, 

ZwTj iJ-ov, o"as ay anSi. 

By that lip I long to taste ; 
By that zone-encircled waist ; 
By all the token-flowers * that tell 
What words can never speak so well ; 
By love's alternate joy and woe, 

Zciij fi.ov, aas avaTTw. 

Maid of Athens ! I am gone : 
Think of me, sweet ! when alone. 
Though I fly to Istambol,^ 
Athens holds my heart and soul : 
Can I cease to love thee ? No ! 

Zwij /moO, ads ayaiTtxi. 

Athens, 1810. 



SUBSTITUTE FOR AN EPITAPH. 

Kind Reader ! take your choice to cry or laugh ; 

Here Haeold lies — but where's his Epitaph ? 

If such you seek, try Westminster, and view 

Ten thousand just as fit for him as you, 

Athens. 



gore round the swell of the loins, falling in front in graceful 
negligence; — white stockings and yellow slippers complete 
their attire. The two eldest have black, or dark, hair and 
eyes ; their visage oval, and complexion somewhat pale, with 
teeth of dazzling whiteness. Their cheeks are rounded, and 
noses straight, rather inclined to aquiline. The youngest, 
Mariana, is very fair, her face not so finely rounded, but has 
a gayer expression than her sisters', whose countenances, 
except when the conversation has something of mirth in it, 
may be said to be rather pensive. Their persons are elegant, 
and their manners pleasing and ladylike, such as would be 
fascinating in any country. They possess very considerable 
powers of conversation, and their minds seem to be more 
instructed than those of the Greek women in general. Witli 
such attractions, it would, indeed, be remarkable, if they did 
not meet with great attentions from the travellers who occa- 
sionally are resident in Athens. They sit in the eastern style, 
a little reclined, with their limbs gathered under them on the 
divan, and without shoes. Their employments are the needle, 
tambouring, and reading." There is a beautiful engraving of 
the Maid of Athens in Finden's Illustrations of Byron, No. I. 

3 Romaic expression of tenderness: if I translate it, I 
shall affront the gentlemen, as it may seem that I supposed 
they could not ; and if I do not, I may affront the ladies. For 
fear of any misconstruction on the part of the latter, I shall 
do so, begging pardon of the learned. It means, " Uy life, I 
love you!" which sounds very prettily in all languages, and 
is as much in fashion in Greece at this day as, Juvenal tells 
us, the two first words were amongst the Roman ladies, whose 
erotic expressions were all Hellenized. 

* In the East (where ladies are not taught to write, lest 
they should scribble assignations) flowers, cinders, pebbles, 
&c., convey the .sentiments of the parties by that universal 
deputy of Mercury— an old woman. A cinder says, " I burn 
for thee;" a bunch of flowers tied with hair, "Take me and 
fly ;" but a pebble declares— what nothing else can. 

6 Constantinople. 



654 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



TEANSLATION 

OF THE NUESE'S DOLE IN THE MEDEA OF EUEIPIDES. 

Oh, how I wish that an embargo 
Had kept in port the good ship Argo ! 
Who, still unlaunch'd from Grecian docks, 
Had never pass'd the Azure rocks ; 
But now I fear her trip will be a 
Damn'd business for my Miss Medea, &c. &c.^ 

June, 1810. 



MY EPITAPH. 

Youth, Nature, and relenting Jove, 
To keep my lamp in strongly strove ; 
But Romanelli was so stout, 
He beat all three — and blew it out.^ 

October, 1810. 



LINES WRITTEN BENEATH A PICTURE.' 

Dear object of defeated care ! 

Though now of Love and thee bereft, 
To reconcile me with despair. 

Thine image and my tears are left. 

'Tis said with Sorrow Time can cope ; 

But this I feel can ne'er be true ; 
For by the death-blow of my Hope 

My Memory immortal grew. 

Athens, January, 1811.* 



1 "I am just come from an expedition through the Bos- 
phorus to the Black Sea and the Cyanean Symplegades, up 
which last I scrambled with as great risk as ever the Argo- 
nauts escaped in their hoy. You remember the beginning of 
the nurse's dole in the Medea, of which I beg you to take the 
following translation, done on the summit," — Lord B. to Mr. 
Henry Brury, June 17, 1810. 

2 " I have just escaped ff om a physician and a fever. In 
spite of my teeth and tongue, the English consul, my Tartar, 
Albanian, dragoman, forced a physician upon me, and in 
three days brought me to the last gasp. In this state I made 
my epitaph." — Lord Byron to Mr. Hodgson, Oct. 3, 1810. 

3 These lines are copied from a leaf of the original MS. of 
the second canto of " Childe Harold." 

•* On the departure, in July, 1810, of his friend and fellow- 
traveller, Mr. Hobhouse, for England, Lord Byron fixed his 
head-quarters at Athens, where he had taken lodgings in a 
Franciscan convent ; making occasional excursions through 
Attica and the Morea, and employing himself, in the interval 
of his tours, in collecting materials for those notices on the 
state of modern Greece which are appended to the second 
canto of "Childe Harold." In this retreat also he wrote 
"Hints from Horace," "The Curse of Minerva," and "Ee- 
marks on the Romaic, or Modern Greek Language." He 
thus writes to his mother: — "At present I do not care to 
venture a winter's voyage, even if I were otherwise tired of 
travelling: but I am so convinced of the advantages of look- 
ing at mankind, instead of reading about them, and the bitter 
effects of staying at home with all the narrow prejudices of 
an islander, that I think there should be a law amongst us 
to send our young men abroad, for a term, among the few 
allies our wars have left us. Here I see, and have conversed 



TRANSLATION OF THE FAMOUS GREEK 
WAR SONG, 

"AevTC iraiSes twv 'EA.X^vu»'."8 

Sons of the Greeks, arise ! 

The glorious hour's gone forth, 
And, worthy of such ties, 

Display who gave us birth. 

CHORUS. 
Sons, of Greeks ! let us go 
In arms against the foe, 
Till their hated blood shall flow 
In a river past our feet. 

Then manfully despising 

The Turkish tyrant's yoke, 
Let your country see you rising, 

And all her chains are broke. 
Brave shades of chiefs and sages, 

Behold the coming strife ! 
Hellenes ef past ages, 

Oh, start again to life ! 
At the sound of my trumpet, breaking 

Your sleep, oh, join with me ! 
And, the seven-hill'd ^ city seeking, 

Fight, conquer, till we're free. 

Sons of Greeks, &c. 

Sparta, Sparta, why in slumbers 
Lethargic dost thou lie ? 



with, French, Italians, Germans, Danes, Greeks, Turks, 
Americans, &c. &c. &c.; and, without losing sight of my 
own, I can judge of the countries and manners of others. 
When I see the superiority of England (which, by the by, we 
are a good deal mistaken about in many things), I am pleased ; 
and where I find her inferior, I am at least enlightened. Now, 
I might have stayed, smoked in your towns, or fogged in your 
country, a century, without being sure of this, and without 
acquiring any thing more useful or amusing at home. I keep 
no journal ; nor have I any intention of scribbling my travels. 
I have done with authorship ; and if, in my last production, 
I have convinced the critics or the world I was something 
more than they took me for, I am satisfied ; nor will I hazard 
that reputation by a future effort. It is true I have some 
others in manuscript, but I leave them for those who come 
after me ; and, if deemed worth publishing, they may serve 
to prolong my memory, when I myself shall cease to remem- 
ber. I have a famous Bavarian artist taking some views of 
Athens, &c. &c., for me. This will be better than scribbling— 
a disease I hope myself cured of I hope, on my return, to 
lead a quiet, recluse life ; but God knows, and does best for 
us all." 

6 The song Aeure TraiSe?, &c., was written by Riga, who 
perished in the attempt to revolutionize Greece. This trans- 
lation is as literal as the author could make it in verse. It 
is of the same measure as that of the original.— While at 
the Capuchin convent, Lord Byron devoted some hours 
daily to the study of the Romaic ; and various proofs of his 
diligence will be found in the Appendix. See Remarks on 
the Romaic or Modern Greek Language, with Specimens and 
Translations. 

6 Constantinople. " EtttoiAoc^os." 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



655 



Awake, and join thy numbers 

With Athens, old ally ! 
Leonidas recalling, 

That chief of ancient song, 
Who saved ye once from falling, 

The terrible ! the strong ! 
Who made that bold diversion 

In old Thermopyla?, 
And warring with the Persian 

To keep his country free ; 
With his three hundred waging 

The battle, long he stood. 
And like a lion raging, 

Expired in seas of blood. 

Sons of Greeks, &c.^ 



TRANSLATION OF THE ROMAIC SONG, 

'npatdraTTj XarjS^," &C.2 

T ENTER thy garden of roses,' 

Beloved and fair Haidee, 
Each morning where Flora reposes, 

For surely I see her in thee. 
Oh, Lovely ! thus low I implore thee. 

Receive this fond truth from my tongue, 
Which utters its song to adore thee. 

Yet trembles for what it has sung ; 
As the branch, at the bidding of Nature, 

Adds fragrance and fruit to the tree. 
Through her eyes, through her every feature, 

Shines the soul of the young Haidee. 

But the loveliest garden grows hateful 

When Love has abandon 'd the bowers ; 
Bring me hemlock — since mine is ungrateful. 

That herb is more fragrant than flowers. 
The poison, when pour'd from the chalice, 

Will deeply embitter the bowl ; 
But when drunk to escape from thy malice, 

The draught shall be sweet to my soul. 
Too cruel I in vain I implore thee 

ily heart from these horrors to save : 
Will nought to my bosom restore thee? 

Then open the gates of the grave. 



» Riga was a Thessalian, and passed the first part of his 
youth among his native mountains, in teaching ancient Greek 
to his countrymen. On the first burst of the French revolu- 
tion, he joined himself to some other enthusiasts, and with 
them perambulated Greece, rousing the bold, and encouraging 
the timid, by his minstrelsy. He afterwards went to Vienna 
to solicit aid for a rising, which he and his comrades had for 
years been endeavoring to accomplish ; but he was given up 
by the Austrian government to the Turks, who vainly en- 
deavored by torture to force from him the names of the other 
consj)irators. 

« The song from which this is taken is a great favorite 
with the young girla of Athens of all classes. Their manner 



As the chief who to combat advances 

Secure of his conquest before. 
Thus thou, with those eyes for thy lances. 

Hast pierced through my heart to its core. 
Ah, tell me, my soul ! must I perish 

By pangs which a smile would dispel ? 
Would the hope, which thou once bad'st me cherish, 
, For torture repay me too well ? 
Now sad is the garden of roses, 

Beloved but false Haidee ! 
There Flora all wither'd reposes. 

And mourns o'er thine absence with me. 



ON PARTING. 

The kiss, dear maid ! thy lip has left 

Shall never part from mine. 
Till happier hours restore the gift 

Untainted back to thine. 

Thy parting glance, which fondly beams, 

An equal love may see : 
The tear that from thine eyelid streams 

Can weep no change in me. 

I ask no pledge to make me blest 

In 'gazing when alone; 
Nor one memorial for a breast. 

Whose thoughts are all thine own. 

Nor need I write — to tell the tale 

My pen were doubly weak : 
Oh ! what can idle words avail, 

Unless the heart could speak ? 

By day or night, in weal or woe. 

That heart, no longer free. 
Must bear the love it cannot show. 

And silent ache for thee. 



March, 1811. 



EPITAPH FOR JOSEPH BLACKETT, 

LATE POET AND SHOEMAKER.* 

Stranger ! behold, interr'd together. 
The souls of learning and of leather. 
Poor Joe is gone, but left his all : 
You'll find his relics in a stall. 



of singing it is by verses in rotation, the whole number pres- 
ent joining in the chorus. I have heard it frequently at our 
"xo^t," in the winter of 1810-11. The air is plaintive and 
pretty. 

8 "National songs and popular works of amusement throw 
no .small light on the manners of a people : they arc materials 
which most travellers have within their reach, but which 
they almost always disdain to collect. Lord Byron has shown 
a better taste ; and it is to be hoped that his example will, in 
future, be generally followed."— George Ellis. 

* Some notice of this poetaster has been given, ante, p. 511. 
He died in 1810, and his works have followed him. 



656 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



His works were neat, and often found 
Well stitch'd, and with morocco bound. 
Tread lightly — where the bard is laid 
He cannot mend the shoe he made ; 
Yet is he happy in his hole, 
With verse immortal as his sole. 
But still to business he held fast, 
And stuck to Phoebus to the last. 
Then who shall say so good a fellow 
Was only " leather and prunella " ? 
For character — he did not lack it ; 
And if he did, 'twere shame to " Black-it." 

Malta, May 16, 1811. 



FAEEWELL TO MALTA. 

Adieu, ye joys of La Valette ! 

Adieu, sirocco, sun, and sweat ! 

Adieu, thou palace rarely enter'd ! 

Adieu, ye mansions where — I've ventured ! 

Adieu, ye cursed streets of stairs ! 

(How surely he who mounts you swears !) 

Adieu, ye merchants often failing ! 

Adieu, thou mob for ever railing! 

Adieu, ye packets — without letters . 

Adieu, ye fools — who ape your betters ! 

Adieu, thou damn'dest quarantine, 

That gave me fever, and the spleen ! 

Adieu that stage which makes us yawn. Sirs, 

Adieu his Excellency's dancers ! 

Adieu to Peter — whom no fault's in, 

But could not teach a colonel waltzing ; 

Adieu, ye females fraught with graces ! 

Adieu red coats, and redder faces ! 

Adieu the supercilious air 

Of all that strut "en militaire !" 

I go — but God knows when, or why, 

To smoky towns and cloudy sky, 

To things (the honest truth to say) 

As bad — but in a different way. 

Farewell to these, but not adieu, 
Triumphant sons of truest blue ! 
While either Adriatic shore. 
And fallen chiefs, and fleets no more. 
And nightly smiles, and daily dinners, 
Proclaim you war and women's winners. 
Pardon my Muse, who apt to prate is. 
And take my rhyme— because 'tis " gratis." 

And now I've got to Mrs. Eraser, 
Perhaps you think I mean to praise her — 

1 " On a leaf of one of Lord Byron's paper-books I find an 
epigram, which, though not perhaps particularly good, I 
consider myself bound to insert."— Moore. The farce in 



And were I vain enough to think 
My praise was worth this drop of ink, 
A line — or two — were no hard matter, 
As here, indeed, I need not flatter : 
But she must be content to shine 
In better praises than in mine. 
With lively air, and open heart, 
And fashion's ease, without its art 
Her hours can gayly glide along, 
Nor ask the aid of idle song. 

And now, oh, Malta ! since thou'st got us, 
Thou little military hothouse ! 
I'll not offend with words uncivil, 
And wish thee rudely at the devil, 
But only stare from out my casement. 
And ask, for what is such a place meant? 
Then, in my solitary nook. 
Return to scribbling, or a book. 
Or take my physic while I'm able 
(Two spoonfuls hourly by the label). 
Prefer my nightcap to my beaver, 
And bless the gods — I've got a fever. 

May 26, 1811. [First published, 1832.] 



TO DIVES. 



A FEAGMENT. 



Unhappy Dives ! in an evil hour 
'Gainst Nature's voice seduced to deeds accurst ! 
Once Fortune's minion, now thou feel'st her power ; 
Wrath's vial on thy lofty head hath burst. 
In Wit, in Genius, as in Wealth the first, 
How wondrous bright thy blooming morn arose ! 
But thou wert smitten with th' unhallow'd thirst 
Of Crime unnamed, and thy sad noon must close 
In scorn, and solitude unsought, the worst of woes. 
1811. [First published, 1832.] 



ON MOORE'S LAST OPERATIC FARCE, OR 
FARCICAL OPERA. 

Good plays are scarce. 

So Moore writes farce : 
The poet's fame grows brittle — 

We knew before 

That lAttWs Moore, 
But now 'tis Moore that's little. 

September 14, 1811. [First published, 1830.1J 



question was called " M. P. ; or, the Blue Stocking," and carao 
out at the Lyceum Theatre, on the 9th of September. 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



657 



EPISTLE TO A FRIEND,^ 

IN ANSWER TO SOME LINES EXHORTING THE AUTHOR 
-fO BE CHEERFUL, AND TO " BANISH CARE." 

Oh! banish care" — such ever be 
The motto of thy revelry ! 
Perchance of mijie, when wassail nigh 
Renew those riotous delights, 
Wherewith the children of Despair 
Lull the lone heart, and " banish care." 
But not in morn's reflecting hour, 
When present, past, and future lower, 
When all I loved is changed or gone, 
Mock with such taunts the woes of one, 
Whose every thought— but let them pass — 
Thou know'st I am not what I was. 
But, above all, if thou wouldst hold 
Place in a heart that ne'er was cold, 
By all the powers that men revere, 
By all unto thy bosom dear, 
Thy joys below, thy hopes above, 
Speak — speak of anything but love. 

'Twere long to tell, and vain to hear 
The tale of one who scorns a tear ; 
And there is little in that tale 
Which better bosoms would bewail. 
But mine has suffer'd more than well 
'Twould suit philosophy to tell. 
I've seen my bride another's bride, — 
Have seen her seated by his side, — 
Have seen the infant, which she bore. 
Wear the sweet smile the mother wore. 
When she and I in youth have smiled, 
As fond and faultless as her child ; — 
Have seen her eyes, in cold disdain. 
Ask if I felt no #ecret pain ; 
And I have acted well my part. 
And made my cheek belie my heart, 
Return'd the freezing glance she gave. 
Yet felt the while that woman's slave ; — 
Have kiss'd, as if without design. 
The babe which ought to have been mine, 
And show'd, alas ! in each caress 
Time had not made me love the less.'* 



> Mr. Francis Hodgson (not then the Reverend). See ante, 
p. 649. 

' "These lines will show with what gloomy fidelity, even 
while under the pressure of recent sorrow, Lord Byron re- 
verted to the disappointment of his early affection, as the 
chief source of all his suflFerings and errors, present and to 
come."— MooBE. 

' "The anticipations of his own future career in these con- 
cluding lines are of a nature, it must be owned, to awaken 
more of horror than of interest, were we not prepared, by so 
many instances of his exaggeration in this respect, not to be 
startled at any lengths to which the spirit of self-libelling 
would carry him. It seemed as if, with the power of painting 
42 



But let this pass — I'll whine no more. 
Nor seek again an eastern shore ; 
The world befits a busy brain, — 
I'll hie me to its haunts again. 
But if, in some succeeding year. 
When Britain's " May is in the sere," 
Thou hear'st of one, whose deepening crimes 
Suit with the sablest of the times ; 
Of one, whom love nor pity sways. 
Nor hope of fame, nor good men's praise ; 
One, who in stern ambition's pride, 
Perchance not bipod shall turn aside ; 
One rank'd in some recording page 
With the worst anarchs of the age, 
Him wilt thou know — and knowing pause. 
Nor with the effect forget the cause.^ 

Newstead Abbey, Oct. 11, 1811* 
[First published, 18^30. ] 



TO THYRZA. 

Without a stone to mark the spot. 
And say, what Truth might well have said, 

By all, save one, perchance forgot. 
Ah ! wherefore art thou lowly laid ? 

By many a shore and many a sea 

Divided, yet beloved in vain ; 
The past, the future fled to thee. 

To bid us meet — no — ne'er again . 

Could this have been — a word, a look, 
That softly said, " We part in peace," 

Had taught my bosom how to brook. 
With fainter sighs, thy soul's release. 

And didst thou not, since Death for thee 
Prepared a light and pangless dart, 

Once long for him thou ne'er shalt see. 
Who held, and holds thee in his heart ? 

Oh ! who like him had watch'd thee here 
Or sadly mark'd thy glazing eye. 

In that dread hour ere death appear, 
When silent sorrow fears to sigh. 



fierce and gloomy personages, he had also the ambition to be, 
himself, the dark ' sublime he drew,' and that, in his fondness 
for the delineation of heroic crime, he endeavored to fancy, 
where he could not find in his own character, fit subjects for 
his pencil."— MooRE. 

♦ Two days after, in another letter to Mr. Hodgson, Lord 
Byron says, — " I am growing nen'ous (how you will laugh !) — 
but it is true,- really, wretchedly, ridiculously, fine-ladically 
nervous. Your climate kills mo; I can neither read, write, 
nor amuso myself, or any one else. My days are listless, and 
my nights restless: I have seldom any society, and, when I 
have, I run out of it. I don't know that I sha'n't end with 
insanity; ff)r I find a want of method in arranging my 
thoughts that perplexes >ne strangely." 



658 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Till all was past ! But when no more 
'Twas thine to reck of human woe, 

Affection's heart-drops, gushing o'er. 
Had flow'd as fast--as now they flow. 

Shall they not flow, when many a day 

In these, to me, deserted towers. 
Ere call'd but for a time away, 

Affection's mingling tears were ours ? 

Ours too the glance none saw beside ; 

The smile none else might understand ; 
The whisper'd thought of hearts allied, 

The pressure of the thrilling hand; 

The kiss, so guiltless and refined, 
That Love each warmer wish forbore ; 

Those eyes pi-oclaim'd so pure a mind, 
Even Passioji blush'd to plead for more. 

The tone, that taught me to rejoice, 
When prone, unlike thee, to repine ; 

The song, celestial from thy voice. 
But sweet to me from none but thine ; 

The pledge we wore — I wear it still. 
But where is thine ? — Ah ! where art thou ? 

Oft have I borne the weight of ill. 
But never bent beneath till now ! 

Well hast thou left in life's best bloom 

The cup of woe for me to drain. 
If rest alone be in the tomb, 

I would not wish thee here again ; 

But if in worlds more blest than this 

Thy virtues seek a fitter sphere. 
Impart some portion of thy bliss. 

To wean me from mine anguish here. 

Teach me — too early taught by thee ! 

To bear, forgiving and forgiven : 
On earth thy love was such to me ; 

It fain would form my hope in heaven ! 

October 11, I8II.1 

1 Mr. Moore considers "Thyrza" as if she were a mere 
creature of the poet's brain. " It was," he says, " about the 
time when he was thus bitterly feeling, and expressing, the 
blight which his heart had suflfered from a real object of 
aflfection, that his poems on the death of an imaginary one 
were written ; — nor is it any wonder, when we consider the 
peculiar circumstances under which these beautiful effusions 
flowed from his ^ancy, that, of all his strains of pathos, they 
.should be the most touching and most pure. They were, 
indeed, the essence, the abstract spirit, as it were, of many 
griefs ; — a confluence of sad thoughts from many sources of 
sorrow, refined and warmed in their passage through his 
fancy, and forming thus one deep reservoir of mournful feel- 
ing." It is a pity to disturb a sentiment thus beautifully ex- 
pressed ; but Lord Byron, in a letter to Mr. Dallas, bearing 
the exact date of these lines, viz., October 11, 1811, writes as 
follows :— " I have been again shocked with a death, and have 



AWAY, AWAY, YE NOTES OF WOE. 

Away, away, ye notes of woe ! 

Be silent, thou once soothing strain, 
Or I must flee from hence — for, oh ! 

I dare not trust those sounds again. 
To me they speak of brighter days — 

But lull the chords, for now, alas ! 
I must not think, I may not gaze. 

On what I am — on what I was. 

The voice that made those sounds more sweet 

Is hush'd, and all their charms are fled 
And now their softest notes repeat 

A dirge, an anthem o'er the dead ! 
Yes, Thyrza ! yes, they breathe of thee. 

Beloved dust ! since dust thou art ; 
And all that once was harmony 

Is worse than discord to my heart ! 

'Tis silent all ! — but on my ear 

The well-remember'd echoes thrill ; 
I hear a voice I would not hear, 

A voice that now might well be still ; 
Yet oft my doubting soul 'twill shake ; 

Even slumber owns its gentle tone, 
Till consciousness will vainly wake 

To listen, though the dream be flown. 

Sweet Thyrza ! waking as in sleep. 

Thou art but now a lovely dream ; 
A star that trembled o'er the deep. 

Then turn'd from earth its tender beam. 
But he who through life's dreary way 

Must pass, when heaven is veil'd in wrath. 
Will long lament the vanish'd ray 

That scatter'd gladness o'er his path. 

December 6, 1811. 2 



ONE STRUGGLE MORE, AND I AM FREE. 

One struggle more, and I am free 
From pangs that rend my heart in twain 

One last long sigh to love and thee, 
Then back to busy life again. 

lost one very dear to me in happier times : but ' I have almost 
forgot the taste of grief,' and ' supped full of horrors,' till 1 
have become callous; nor have I a tear left for an event 
which, five years ago, would have bowed my head to the 
earth." In his reply to this, letter, Mr. Dallas says, — "I 
thank you for your confidential communication. How truly 
do I wish that that being had lived, and lived yours ! What 
your obligations to her would have been in that case is incon- 
ceivable." Several years after the series of poems on Thyrza 
were written. Lord Byron, on being asked to whom they re- 
ferred, by a person in whose tenderness he never ceased to 
confide, refused to answer, with marks of painful agitation, 
such as rendered any further recurrence to the subject im- 
possible. The reader must be left to form his own conclusion. 
The five following pieces are all devoted to Thyrza. 

2 " I wrote this a day or two ago, on hearing a song of 
former days." — Lord Byron to Mr. Hodgson, December 8, 1811. 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



659 



It suits me well to mingle now 
With things that never pleased before : 

Though every joy is fled below, 

What future grief can touch me more ? 

Then bring me wine, the banquet bring ; 

Man was not form'd to live alone : 
I'll be that light, unmeaning thing 

That smiles with all, and weeps with none. 
It was not thus in days more dear. 

It never would have been, but thou 
Hast fled, and left me lonely here ; 

Thou'rt nothing— all are nothing now. 

In vain my lyre would lightly breathe ! 

The smile that sorrow fain would wear 
But mocks the woe that lurks beneath, 

Like roses o'er a sepulchre. 
Though gay companions o'er the bowl 

Dispel awhile the sense of ill : 
Though pleasure fires the maddening soul, 

The heart — the heart is lonely still ! 

On many a lone and lovely night 

It soothed to gaze upon the sky ; 
For then I deem'd the heavenly light 

Shone sweetly on thy pensive eye : 
And oft I thought at Cynthia's noon, 

When sailing o'er the ^gean wave, 
" Now Thyrza gazes on that moon " — 

Alas, it gleam'd upon her grave ! 

When stretch'd on fever's sleepless bed, 

And sickness shrunk my throbbing veins, 
" 'Tis comfort still," I faintly said, 

" That Thyrza cannot know my pains :" 
Like freedom to the time-worn slave, 

A boon 'tis idle then to give, 
Relenting Nature vainly gave 

My life, when Thyrza ceased to live ! 

My Thyrza's pledge in better days, 

When love and life alike were new I 
How different now thou meet'st my gaze! 

How tinged by time with sorrow's hue I 
The heart that gave itself with thee 

Is silent — ah, were mine as still ! 
Though cold as e'en the dead can be, 

It feels, it sickens with the chill. 

Thou bitter pledge ! thou mournful token! 

Though painful, welcome to my breast! 
Still, still, preserve that love unbroken. 

Or break the heart to which thou'rt press'd ! 
Time tempers love, but not removes, 

More hallow'd when its hope is fled : 
Oh ! what are thousand living loves 

To that which cannot quit the dead ? 



EUTHANASIA. 

When Time, or soon or late, shall bring 
The dreamless sleep that lulls the dead, 

Oblivion ! may thy languid wing 
Wave gently o'er my dying bed ! 

No band of friends or heirs be there. 
To weep, or wish, the coming blow : 

No maiden, with dishevell'd hair, 
To feel, or feign, decorous woe. 

But silent let me sink to earth, 
With no officious mourners near : 

I would not mar one hour of mirth, 
Nor startle friendship with a tear. 

Yet Love, if Love in such an hour 
Could nobly check its useless sighs, 

Might then exert its latest power 
In her who lives and him who dies. 

'Twere sweet, my Psyche ! to the last 
Thy features still serene to see : 

Forgetful of its struggles past. 
E'en Pain itself should smile on thee. 

But vain the wish — for Beauty still 
Will shrink, as shrinks the ebbing breath ; 

And woman's tears, produced at will, 
Deceive in life, unman in death. 

Then lonely be my latest hour. 
Without regret, without a groan ; 

For thousands Death hath ceased to lower, 
And pain been transient or unknown. 

" Ay, but to die, and go," alas ! 

Where all have gone, and all must go ! 
To be the nothing that I was 

Ere born to life and living woe ! 

Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, 
Count o'er thy days from anguish free, 

And know, whatever thou hast been, 
'Tis something better not to be. 



AND THOU ART DEAD, AS YOUNG AS FAIR. 

" Heu, quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui 
meminisse !" 

And thou art dead, as young and fair 

As aught of mortal birth ; 
And form so soft, and charms so rare, 

Too soon return'd to Earth! 
Though Earth received them in her bed, 
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread 

In carelessness or mirth. 
There is an eye which could not brook 
A moment on that grave to look. 



660 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



I will not ask where thou liest low, 

Nor gaze upon the spot ; 
There flowers or weeds at will may grow, 

So I behold them not : 
It is enough for me to prove 
That what I loved, and long must love, 

Like common earth can rot ; 
To me there needs no stone to tell, 
'Tis Nothing that I loved so well. 

'^et did I love thee to the last 

As fervently as thou, 
Who didst not change through all the past, 

And canst not alter now. 
The love where Death has set his seal, 
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal. 

Nor falsehood disavow : 
And, what were worse, thou canst not see 
Or wrong, or change, or fault in me. 

The better days of life were ours ; 

The worst can be but mine : 
The sun that cheers, the^storm that lowers, 

Shall never more be thine. 
The silence of that dreamless sleep 
I envy now too much to weep ; 

Nor need I to repine 
That all those charms have pass'd away 
I might have watch'd through long decay. 

The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd 

Must fall the earliest prey ; 
Though by no hand untimely snatch'd, 

The leaves must drop away : 
And yet it were a greater grief 
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf. 

Than see it pluck'd to-day ; 
Since earthly eye but ill can bear 
To trace the change to foul from fair. 

I know not if I could have borne 

To see thy beauties fade ; 
The night that follow'd such a morn 

Had worn a deeper shade : ' 
Thy day without a cloud hath pass'd. 
And thou wert lovely to the last ; 

Extinguish'd, not decay'd ; 
As stars that shoot along the sky 
Shine brightest as they fall from high. 

As once I wept, if I could weep, 

My tears might well be shed. 
To think I was not near to keep 

One vigil o'er thy bed ; 
To gaze, how fondly ! on thy face. 
To fold thee in a faint embrace, 

Uphold thy drooping head ; 
And show that love, however vain, 
Nor thou nor I can feel again. 



Yet how much less it were to gain, 

Though thou hast left me free, 
The loveliest things that still remain, 

Than thus remember thee ! 
The all of thine that cannot die 
Through dark and dread Eternity 

Eeturns again to me, 
And more thy buried love endears 
Than aught, except its living years. 

February, 1812. 



IF SOMETIMES IN THE HAUNTS OF MEN. 

If sometimes in the haimts of men 

Thine image from my breast may fade, 
The lonely hour presents again 

The semblance of thy gentle shade 
And now that sad and silent hour 

Thus much of thee can still restore, 
And Sorrow unobserved may pour 

The plaint she dare not speak before. 

Oh, pardon that in crowds awhile 

I waste one thought I owe to thee. 
And, self-condemn'd, appear to smile, 

Unfaithful to thy memory : 
Nor deem that memory less dear 

That then I seem not to repine ; 
I would not fools should overhear 

One sigh that should be wholly thine. 

If not the goblet pass unquafi''d, 

It is not drain'd to banish care ; 
The cup must hold a deadlier draught. 

That brings a Lethe for despair. 
And could Oblivion set my soul 

From all her troubled visions free, 
I'd dash to earth the sweetest bowl 

That drown'd a single thought of thee. ■ 

For wert thou vanish'd from my mind, 

Where could my vacant bosom turn ? 
And who would then remain behind 

To honor thine abandon'd Urn ? 
No, no — it is my sorrow's pride 

That last dear duty to fulfill : 
Though all the world forget beside, 

'Tis meet that I remember still. 

For well I know, that such had been 
Thy gentle care for him, who now 

Unmourn'd shall quit this mortal scene. 
Where none regarded him, but thou : 

And, oh ! I feel in that was given 
A blessing never meant for me ; 

Thou wert too like a dream of Heaven, 

. For earthly Love to merit thee. 

March 14, 1812. 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



661 



ON A CORNELIAN HEART WHICH WAS 
BROKEN.i 

Ill-fated Heart ! and can it be, 
That thou shouldst thus be rent in twain ? 

Have years of care for thine and tliee 
Alike been all employ'd in vain ? 

Yet precious seems each shatter'd part, 
And every fragment dearer grown, 

Since he who wears thee feels thou art 
A fitter emblem of his own. 

March 16, 1812. 



FROM THE FRENCH. 

-^GLE, beauty and poet, has two little crimes ; 
She makes her own face, and does not make her 
rhymes. 



LINES TO A LADY WEEPING.2 

Weep, daughter of a royal line, 
A Sire's disgrace, a realm's decay ; 

Ah ! happy if each tear of thine 
Could wash a father's fault away ! 

Weep — for thy tears are Virtue's tears — 
Auspicious to these suffering isles ; 

And be each drop in future years 
Repaid thee by thy people's smiles ! ^ 

March, 1812. 



THE CHAIN I GAVE. 

FROM THE TURKISH. 

The chain I gave was fair to view, 
The lute I added sweet in sound ; 



' We know not whether the reader should understand the 
rornelian heart of these lines to be the same with that of 
which some notices are given at p. 470. 

* This impromptu owed its birth to an on dit, that the late 
Princess Charlotte of Wales burst into tears on hearing that 
the Whigs had found it impossible to put together a cabinet, 
at the period of Mr. Perceval's death. They were appended 
to the first edition of "The Corsair," and excited a sensation, 
as it is called, marvellously disproportionate to their length, 
— or, we may add, their merit. The ministerial prints raved 
for two months on end, in the most foul-mouthed vituperation 
of the poet, and all that belonged to him— the Morning Post 
even announced a motion in the House of Lord.s — " and all 
this," Lord Byron writes to Mr. Moore, " as Bedrcddin in the 
Arabian Nights remarks, for making a cream tart with pep- 
per: how odd, that eight lines should have given birth, I 
really think, to eight thousand!" 

3 " The 'Lines to a Lady weeping' must go with 'The Cor- 
B»ir.' 1 care nothing for consequences on this point. My 



The heart that oflfer'd both was true. 
And ill deserved the fate it found. 

These gifts were charm'd by secret spell. 
Thy truth in absence to divine ; 

And they have done their duty well, — 
Alas ! they could not teach thee thine. 

That chain was firm in every link, 
But not to bear a stranger's touch ; 

That lute was sweet — till thou couldst think 
In other hands its notes were such. 

Let him who from thy neck unbound 
The chain which shiver'd in his grasp. 

Who saw that lute refuse to sound, 
Restring the chords, renew the clasp. 

When thou wert changed, they alter'd too ; 

The chain is broke, the music mute. 
'Tis past — to them and thee adieu — 

False heart, frail chain, and silent lute. 



LINES WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF OF 
"THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY." 

Absent or present, still to thee, 

My friend, what magic spells belong ! 

As all can tell, who share, like me, 
In turn thy converse* and thy song. 

But when the dreaded hour shall come 
By Friendship ever deem'd too nigh, 

And " Memory" o'er her Druid's tomb^ 
Shall weep that aught of thee can die, 

How fondly will she then repay 
Thy homage offer'd at her shrine. 

And blend, while ages roll away. 
Her name immortally with thine ! 

April 19, 1812. 



politics are to me like a young mistress to an old man : the 
worse they grow, the fonder I become of them." — Lord Byron 
to Mr. Murray, January 22, 1814. "On my return, I find all 
the newspapers in hysterics, and town in an uproar, on the 
avowal and republication of two stanzas on Princess Char- 
lotte's weeping at Regency's speech to Lauderdale in 1812. 
They are daily at it still :— some of the abuse good,— all of it 
hearty. They talk of a motion in our house upon it— be it 
so." — Byron Diary, 1814. 

'■♦ "When Rogers does talk, he talks well; and, on all sub- 
jects of taste, his delicacy of expression is pure as his poetry. 
If you enter his house— his drawing-room— his library— you 
of yourself say, this is not the dwelling of a common mind. 
There is not a gem, a coin, a book thrown aside on his chim- 
ney-piece, his sofa, his table, that does not bespeak an almost 
fastidious elegance in the possessor."— fij/^'O^ Diary, 1813. 

6 The readier will recall Collins's exquisite lines on the tomb 
of Thomson : " In yonder grave a Druid lies," Ac. 



662 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



ADDRESS, 



SPOKEN AT THE OPENING OF DRFEY LANE THE- 
ATRE, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1812.1 

In one dread night our city saw, and sigh'd, 
Bow'd to the dust, the Drama's tower of pride ! 
In one short hour beheld the blazing fane, 
Apollo sink, and Shakspeare cease to reign. 

Ye who beheld (oh ! sight admired and mourn'd. 
Whose radiance mock'd the ruin it adorn'd !) 
Through clouds of fire the massy fragments riven, 
Like Israel's pillar, chase the night from heaven ; 
Saw the long column of revolving flames 
Shake its red shadow o'er the startled Thames,^ 
While thousands, throng'd around the burning dome, 
Shrank back appall'd, and trembled for their home. 
As glared the volumed blaze, and ghastly shone 
The skies, with lightnings awful as their own, 
Till blackening ashes and the lonely wall 
Usurp'd the Muse's realm, and mark'd her fall ; 
Say — shall this new, nor less aspiring pile, 
Eear'd where once rose the mightiest in our isle, 
Know the same favor which the former knew, 
A shrine for Shakspeare — worthy him and youf 

Yes— it shall be — the magic of that name 
Defies the scythe of time, the torch of flame ; 
On the same spot still consecrates the scene, 
And bids the Drama he where she hath been : 
This fabric's birth attests the potent spell — 
Indulge our honest pride, and say, How well ! 

As soars this fane to emulate the last, 
Oh ! might we draw our omens from the past, 
Some hour propitious to our prayers may boast 
Names such as hallow still the dome we lost. 



1 The theatre in Drury Lane, which opened, in 1747, with 
Dr. Johnson's masterly address, beginning, — 

" When Learning's triumph o'er her barbarous foes 
First rear'd the Stage, immortal Shakspeare rose," 
and witnessed the last glories of Garrick, having fallen into 
decay, was rebuilt in 1794. The new building perished by fire 
in 1811 ; and the managers, in their anxiety that the opening 
of the present edifice should be distinguished by some com- 
position of at least equal merit, advertised in the newspapers 
for a general competition. Scores of addresses, not one tole- 
rable, showered on their desk, and they were in sad despair, 
when Lord Holland interfered, and, not without difl&eulty, 
prevailed on Lord Byron to write these verses— "at the 
risk," as he said, " of offending a hundred scribblers and a 
discerning public." The admirable jeu d' esprit of the Messrs. 
Smith will long preserve the memory of the " Rejected Ad- 
dresses." 

2 '' By the bye, the best view of the said fire (which I my- 
self saw from a house-top in Covent Garden) was at West- 
minster Bridge, from the reflection of the Thames."— iord 
Byron to Lord Holland. 

3 Originally, " Ere Garrick died," &c.—" By the bye, one of 
my corrections in the copy sent yesterday has dived into the 
bathos some sixty fathom — 

* When Garrick died, and Brinsley ceased to write.' 



On Drury first your Siddons' thrilling art 
O'erwhelm'd the gentlest, storm'd the sternest heart. 
On Drury, Garrick's latest laurels grew ; 
Here your last tears retiring Eoscius drew, 
Sigh'd his last thanks, and wept his last adieu: 
But still for living wit the wreaths may bloom, 
That only waste their odors o'er the tomb. 
Such Drury claim'd and claims — nor you refuse 
One tribute to revive his slumbering muse ; 
With garlands deck your own Menander's head. 
Nor hoard your honors idly for the dead. 

Dear are the days which made our annals bright, 
Ere Garrick fled, or Brinsley-* ceased to write. 
Heirs to their labors, like all high-born heirs, 
Vain of our ancestry as they of theirs; 
While thus Eemembrance borrows Banquo's glass 
To claim the sceptred shadows as they pass, 
And we the mirror hold, where imaged shine 
Immortal names, emblazon'd on our line, 
Pause — ere their feebler offspring you condemn, 
Eeflect how hard the task to rival them ! 

Friends of the stage ! to whom both Players and 
Plays 
Must sue alike for pardon or for praise. 
Whose judging voice and eye alone direct 
The boundless power to cherish or reject; 
If e'er frivolity has led to fame. 
And made us blush that you forbore to blame ; 
If e'er the sinking stage could condescend 
To soothe the sickly taste it dare not mend, 
All past reproach may present scenes refute, 
And censure, wisely loud, be justly mute ! * 
Oh ! since your fiat stamps the Drama's laws, 
Forbear to mock us with misplaced applause ; 
So pride shall doubly nerve the actor's powers, 
And reason's voice be echo'd back by ours ! 



Ceasing to live is a much more serious concern, and ought not 
to be first. Second thoughts in every thing are best ; but, in 
rhyme, third and fourth don't come amiss. I always crawl 
in this way, and smooth as fast as I can, but never sufficiently ; 
and., latterly, I can weave a nine-line stanza faster than a 
couplet, for which measure I have not the cunning. When 
I began ' Childe Harold,' I had never tried Spenser's measure, 
and now I cannot scribble in any other." — Lord Byron to Lord 
Holland. 

* The following lines were omitted by the Committee : — 
" Nay, lower still, the Drama yet deplores 
That late she deign'd to crawl upon all-fours. 
When Richard roars in Bosworth for a horse, 
If you command, the steed must come in course. 
If you decree, the stage must condescend 
To soothe the sickly taste we dare not mend. 
Blame not our judgment should we acquiesce, 
And gratify you more by showing less. 
The past reproach let present scenes refute, 
Nor shift from man to babe, from babe to brute." 

" Is Whitbread," said Lord Byron, " determined to castrate 
all my cavalry lines? I do implore, for my own gratification, 
one lash on those accursed quadrupeds — ' a long shot, Sis 
Lucius, if you love me.' " 



t 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



663 



This greeting o'er, the ancient rule obey'd, 
The Drama's homage by her herald paid, 
Receive our welcome too, whose every tone 
Springs from our hearts, and fain would win your own. 
The curtain rises — may our stage unfold 
Scenes not unworthy Drury's days of old ! 
Britons our judges, Nature for our guide, 
Still may we please — long, long may you preside ! ^ 



PARENTHETICAL ADDRESS' 

BY DR. PLAGIARY, 

Half st4)len, with acknowledgmenis, to be spoken in an in- 
articulate voice by Master P. at the opening of the next 
new theatre. Stolen parts marked with the inverted com- 
mas of quotation — thus " ." 

** When energizing objects men pursue," 

Then Lord knows what is writ by Lord knows who. 

" A modest monologue you here survey," 

Hiss'd from the theatre the " other day," 

As if Sir Fretful wrote " the slumberous" verse, 

And gave his son " the rubbish" to rehearse. 

" Yet at the thing you'd never be amazed," 

Knew you the rumpus which the author raised ; 

" Nor even here your smiles would be represt," 

Knew you these lines — the badness of the best. 

" Flame ! fire ! and flame ! !" (words borrow'd from 

Lucretius), 
" Dread metaphors which open wounds " like issues ! 
" And sleeping pangs awake — and — but away " 
(Confound me if I know what next to say). 
"Lo Hope reviving re-expands her wings," 
And Master G — recites what Doctor Busby sings ! — 
" If mighty things with small we may compare," 
(Translated from the grammar for the fair !) 
Dramatic " spirit drives a conquering car," 
And burn'd poor Moscow like a tub of "tar." 
" This spirit Wellington has shown in Spain," 
To furnish melodrames for Drury Lane. 
" Another Marlborough points to Blenheim's story," 
And George and I will dramatize it for ye. 

" In arts and sciences our isle hath shone " 
(This deep discovery is mine alone). 
" Oh, British poesy, whose powers inspire" 
My verse — or I'm a fool — and Fame's a liar. 



1 "Soon after the ' Rejected Addresses' scene in 1812, 1 met 
Sheridan. In the course of dinner, he said, ' Lord Byron, did 
you know that amongst the writers of atldresscs was Whit- 
bread himself?' I answered by an inquiry of what sort of 
an address he had made. ' Of that,' replied Sheridan, ' I 
remember little, except that there was a phamix in it.'—' A 
phoenix ! ! Well, how did he describe it ?'— ' Like a pmilterer,' 
answered Sheridan : ' it was green, and yellow, and red, and 
blue : he did not let us off for a single feather.' "—Byrcm Let- 
ters, 1821. 



" Thee we invoke, your sister arts implore" 

With "smiles," and "lyres," and "pencils," and 

much more. 
These, if we win the Graces, too, we gain 
Disgraces, too ! " inseparable train !" 
"Three who have stolen their witching airs from 

Cupid " 
(You all know what I mean, unless you're stupid) : 
" Harmonious throng" that I have kept in petto, 
Now to produce in a " divine sestetto ! .'" 
" While Poesy," with these delightful doxies, 
" Sustains her part" in all the " upper" boxes ! 
" Thus lifted glojiously, you'll soar along. 
Borne in the vast balloon of Busby's song ; 
" Shine in your farce, masque, scenery, and play " 
(For this last line George had a holiday). 
" Old Drury never, never soar'd so high," 
So says the manager, and so say I. 
" But hold, you say, this self-complacent boast;" 
Is this the poem which the public lost? 
" True— true— that lowers at once our mounting ' 

pride ;" 
But lo ! — the papers print what you deride. 
" 'Tis ours to look on you — you hold the prize," 
'Tis twenty guineas, as they advertise ! 
" A double blessing your rewards impart" — 
I wish I had tliem, then, with all my heart. 
" Our twofold feeling owns its twofold cause," 
Why son and I both beg for your applause. 
" When in your fostering beams you bid us live," 
My next subscription list shall say how much you give ! 

October, 1812. 



VERSES FOUND IN A SUMMER HOUSE AT 
HALES-0WEN.3 

When Dryden's fool, " unknowing what he sought," 

His hours in whistling spent, " for want of thought," '' 

This guiltless oaf his vacancy of sense 

Supplied, and amply too, by innocence ; 

Did modern swains, possess'd of Cymon's powers. 

In Cymon's manner waste their leisure hours, 

Th' offended guests would not, with blushing, see 

These fair green walks disgraced by infamy. 

Severe the fate of modern fools, alas ! 

When vice and folly mark them as they pass. 

Like noxious reptiles o'er the whiten'd wall. 

The filth they leave still points out where they crawl. 



2 Among the addresses sent in to the Drury Lane Commit- 
tee was one by Dr. Busby, entitled "A Monologue," of which 
the above is a parody. It began as follows :— 
" When energizing objects men pursue, 
What are the prodigies they cannot do ? 
A magic edifice you here survey. 
Shot from the ruins of the other day," &c. 

' In Warwickshire. 

* See Cymon and Iphigenia. . 



664 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



\ 



REMEMBER THEE! REMEMBER THEE! 

Remember thee ! remember thee ! 

Till Lethe quench life's burning stream, 
Remorse and shame shall cling to thee, 

And haunt thee like a feverish dream ! 

Remember thee ! Ay, doubt it not. 

Thy husband too shall think of thee : 
By neither shalt thou be forgot, 

Thou false to him, thou fiend to me I ^ 



TO TIME. 

Time ! on whose arbitrary wing 
The varying hours must flag or fly, 

Whose tardy winter, fleeting spring, 
But drag or drive us on to die — 

Hail thou ! who «n my birth bestow'd 
Those boons to all that know thee known ; 

Yet better I sustain thy load, 
For now I bear the weight alone. 

I would not one fond heart should share 
The bitter moments thou hast given ; 

And pardon thee, since thou couldst spare 
All that I loved, to peace or heaven. 

To them be joy or rest, on me 

Thy future ills shall press in vain : 

I nothing owe but years to thee, 
A debt already paid in pain. 

Yet even that pain was some relief; 

It felt, but still forgot thy power : 
The active agony of grief 

Retards, but never counts the hour. 

In joy I've sigh'd to think thy flight 
Would soon subside from swift to slow ; 

Thy cloud could overcast the light, 
But could not add a night to woe ; 

For then, however drear and dark. 
My soul was suited to thy sky ; 

One star alone shot forth a spark 
To prove thee— not Eternity. 

That beam hath sunk, and now thou art 
A blank ; a thing to count and curse. 

Through each dull tedious trifling part. 
Which all regret, yet all rehearse. 



One scene even thou canst not deform ; 

The limit of thy sloth or speed 
When future wanderers bear the storm 

Which we shall sleep too sound to heed : 

And I can smile to think how weak 
Thine efforts shortly shall be shown. 

When all the vengeance thou canst wreak 
Must fall upon — a ftameless stone. 



1 " The sequel of a temporary liaison, formed by Lord 
Byron during his gay but brief career in London, occasioned 
the composition of this impromptu. On the cessation of the 
connection, the fair one, actuated by jealousy, called one 
morning at her quondam lover's apartments. His lordship 



TRANSLATION OF A ROMAIC LOVE SONG. 

Ah ! Love was never yet without 
The pang, the agony, the doubt, 
Which rends my heart with ceaseless sigh, 
While day and night roll darkling by. 

Without one friend to hear my woe, 
I faint, I die beneath the blow. 
That Love had arrows, well I knew ; 
Alas !, I find them poison'd too. 

Birds, yet in freedom, shun the net 
Which Love around your haunts hath set ; 
Or, circled by his fatal fire. 
Your hearts shall burn, your hopes expire. 

A bird of free and careless wing 
Was I, through many a smiling spring ; 
But caught within the subtle snare 
I burn, and feebly flutter there. 

Who ne'er have loved, and loved in vain. 
Can neither feel nor pity pain. 
The cold repulse, the look askance, 
The lightning of Love's angry glance. 

In flattering dreams I deem'd thee mine ; 
Now hope, and he who hoped, decline ; 
Like melting wax, or withering flower, 
I feel my passion, and thy power. 

My light of life ! ah, tell me why 
That pouting lip, and alter'd eye ? 
My bird of love ! my beauteous mate ! 
And art thou changed, and canst thou hate ? 

Mine eyes like wintry streams o'erflow : 
What wretch with me would barter woe ? 
My bird ! relent : one note could give 
A charm to bid thy lover live. 



was from home ; but finding ' Vathek ' on the table, the lady 
wrote in the first page of the volume the words ' Remember 
me !' Byron immediately wrote under the ominous warning 
these two stanzas."— Medwin. 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



665 



My curdling blood, my madd'ning brain, 
In silent anguish I sustain ; 
And still thy lieart, without partaking 
One pang, exults — while mine is breaking. 

Pour me the poison ; fear not thou ! 
Thou canst not murder more than now : 
I've lived to curse my natal day, 
And Love, that thus can lingering slay. 

My wounded soul, my bleeding breast, 
Can patience preach thee into rest ? 
Alas! too late, I dearly know 
That joy is harbinger of woe. 



THOU ART NOT FALSE, BUT THOU ART 
FICKLE. 

Thou art not false, but thou art fickle, 

To those thyself so fondly sought ; 
The tears that thou hast forced to trickle 

Are doubly bitter from that thought : 
'Tis this which breaks the heart thou grievest, 
Too well thou lov'st — too soon thou leavest. 

The wholly false the heart despises, 

And spurns deceiver and deceit ; 
But she who not a thought disguises, 

Whose love is as sincere as sweet, — 
When she can change who loved so truly, 
It feels what mine has felt so newly. 

To dream of joy and wake to sorrow 

Is doom'd to all who love or live ; 
And if, when conscious on the morrow, 

We scarce our fancy can forgive, 
That cheated us in slumber only. 
To leave the waking soul more lonely, 

What must they feel whom no false vision. 
But truest, tenderest passion warm'd ? 

Sincere, but swift in sad transition ; 
As if a dream alone had charm'd ? 

Ah ! sure such grief is fancy's scheming. 

And all thy change can be but dreaming ! 



ON BEING ASKED WHAT WAS THE 
OF LOVE." 

The "Origin of Love!" — Ah, why 
That cruel question ask of me. 

When thou mayst read in many an eye 
He starta to life on seeing thee ? 

And shouldst thou seek his end to know 
My heart forebodes, my fears foresee, 

He'll linger long in silent woe ; 
But live — until I cease to be. 



ORIGIN 



REMEMBER HIM WHOM PASSION'S POWER. 

Remember him whom passion's power 

Severely, deeply, vainly proved : 
Remember thou that dangerous hour 

When neither fell, though both were loved. 

That yielding breast, tliat melting eye, 

Too much invited to be bless'd : 
That gentle prayer, that pleading sigh. 

The wilder wish reproved, repress'd. 

Oh ! let me feel that all I lost 
But saved thee all that conscience fears ; 

And blush for every pang it cost 
To spare the vain remorse of years. 

Yet think of this when many a tongue. 
Whose busy accents whisper blame, 

Would do the heart that loved thee wrong, 
And brand a nearly blighted name. 

Think that, whate'er to others, thou 
Hast seen each selfish thought subdued : 

I bless thy purer soul even now, 
Even now, in midnight solitude. 

Oh, God ! that we had met in time. 
Our hearts as fond, thy hand more free ; 

When thou hadst loved without a crime. 
And I been less unworthy thee ! 

Far may thy days, as heretofore. 
From this our gaudy world be past ! 

And that too bitter moment o'er. 
Oh ! may such trial be thy last. 

This heart, alas 1 perverted long, 
Itself destroy'd might there destroy ; 

To meet thee in the glittering throng. 
Would wake Presumption's hope of joy. 

Then to the things whose bliss or woe, 
Like mine, is wild and worthless all. 

That world resign — such scenes forego. 
Where those who feel must surely fall. 

Thy youth, thy charms, thy tenderness. 
Thy soul from long seclusion pure ; 

From what even here hath pass'd, may guess 
What there thy bosom must endure. 

Oh ! pardon that imploring tear, 

Since not by Virtue shed in vain. 
My frenzy drew from eyes so dear ; 

For me they shall not weep again. 

Though long and mournful must it be, 
The thought that we no more may meet ; 

Yet I deserve the stern decree. 
And almost deem the sentence sweet. 



Q6Q 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Still, had I loved thee less, my heart 
Had then less sacrificed to thine ; 

It felt not half so much to part, 
As if its guilt had made thee mine. 



1813. 



ON LORD THUELOW'S POEMS.i 

When Thurlow this damn'd nonsense sent 

(I hope I am not violent). 

Nor men nor gods knew what he meant. 

And since not ev'n our Eogers' praise 

To common sense his thoughts could raise — 

Why would they let him print his lays ? 



To me, divine Apollo, grant — oh ! 
Hermilda's first and second canto, 
I'm fitting up a new portmanteau ; 

And thus to furnish decent lining. 

My own and others' bays I'm twining — 

So, gentle Thurlow, throw me thine in. 



TO LOED THUELOW. 

" I lay my branch of laurel down, 
Then thus to form Apollo's crown 
Let every other bring his own." 

Lord Thurlow' s lines to Mr. Rogers. 

" I lay my branch of laurel down." 
Thou " lay thy branch of laurel down !" 

Why, what thou'st stole is not enow; 
And, were it lawfully thine own. 

Does Eogers want it most, or thou? 
Keep to thyself thy wither'd bough, 

Or send it back to Doctor Donne : 
Were justice done to both, I trow, 

He'd have but little, and thou — none. 

1 " Among the many gay hours we passed together in the 
spring of 1813, 1 remember particularly the wild flow of his 
spirits one evening, when we had accompanied Mr. Eogers 
home from some early assembly. It happened that our host 
had just received a presentation copy of a volume of poems, 
written professedly in imitation of the old English writers, 
and containing, like many of these models, a good deal that 
was striking and beautiful, mixed up with much that was 
trifling, fantastic, and absurd. In vain did Mr. Rogers, in 
justice to the author, endeavor to direct our attention to 
some of the beauties of the work. In this sort of hunt 
through the volume, we at length lighted on the discovery 
that our host, in addition to his sincere approbation of some 
of its contents, had also the motive of gratitude for standing 
by its author, as one of the poems was a warm and, I need 
not add, well-deserved panegyric on himself. The opening 
line of the poem was, as well as I can recollect, 'When 
Rogers o'er this labor bent :' and Lord Byron undertook to 



" Then thus to form Apollo's crovm." 
A crown ! why, twist it how you will, 
Thy chaplet must be foolscap still. 
When next you visit Delphi's town, 

Inquire amongst your fellow lodgers. 
They'll tell you Phoebus gave his crown. 

Some years before your birth, to Eogers. 

" Let every other bring his own." 
When coals to Newcastle are carried. 

And owls sent to Athens, as wonders, 
From his spouse when the Eegent's unmarried, 

Or Liverpool weeps o'er his blunders ; 
When Tories and Whigs cease to quarrel, 

When Castlereagh's wife has an heir. 
Then Eogers shall ask us for laurel, 

And thou shalt have plenty to spare. 



TO THOMAS MOOEE. 

WBITTEN THE EVENING BEFOEE HIS VISIT TO MK. 
LEIGH HUNT IN HORSEMONGEE-LANE GAOL, MAY 

19, 1813. 

Oh, you, who in all names can tickle the town, 
Anacreon, Tom Little, Tom Moore, or Tom Brown, — 
For hang me if I know of which you may most brag, 
Your Quarto two-pounds, or your Two-penny Post Bag ; 
* * * * «- -» * -;!.=■ 

But now to my letter — to yours 'tis an answer- 
To-morrow be with me, as soon as you can, sir, 
All ready and dress'd for proceeding to sponge on 
(According to compact) the wit in the dungeon — 
Pray Phoebus at length our political malice 
May not get us lodgings within the same palace ! 
I suppose that to-night you're engaged with some 

codgers. 
And for Sotheby's Blues have deserted Sam Eogers ; 
And I, though with cold I have nearly my death got, 
Must put on my breeches, and wait on the Heathcote ; 
But to-morrow, at four, we will both play the Scurra, 
And you'll be Catullus, the Eegent Mamurra.2 

[First published, 1830.] 

read it aloud ; — but he found it impossible to get beyond the 
first two words. Our laughter had now increased to such a 
pitch that nothing could restrain it. Ttvo or three times he 
began ; but no sooner had the words ' When Rogers ' passed 
his lips, than our fit burst forth afresh, — till even Mr. Rogers 
himself, with all his feeling of our injustice, found it impos- 
sible not to join us. A day or two after, Lord Byron sent me 
the following: — 'My dear Moore, "When Rogers" must not 
see the enclosed, which I send for your perusal.' "— Mooke. 

2 The reader who wishes to understand the full force of 
this scandalous insinuation is referred to Muretus's notes on 
a celebrated poem of Catullus, entitled In Ccesarem; but 
consisting, in fact, of savagely scornful abuse of the favorite 
Mamurra : — 

" Quis hoc potest videre ? quis potest pati, 

Nisi impudicus et vorax et helluo ? 

Mamurram habere quod comata Gallia 

Habebat unctum, et ultima Britannia ?" Ac. 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



667 



IMPROMPTU, IN REPLY TO A FRIEND. 

When, from the heart where Sorrow sits, 

Her dusky shadow mounts too high, 
And o'er the changing aspect flits, 

And clouds the brow, or fills the eye ; 
Heed not that gloom, which soon shall sink : 

My thoughts their dungeon know too well ; 
Back to my breast the wanderers shrink, 

And droop within their silent cell.^ 

September, 1813. 



SONNET, TO GENEVRA. 

Thine eyes' blue tenderness, thy long fair hair, 
And the wan lustre of thy features— caught 
From contemplation— where serenely wrought. 

Seems Sorrow's softness charm'd from its despair — 

Have thrown such speaking sadness in thine air. 
That — but I know thy blessed bosom fraught 
With mines of unalloy'd and stainless thought — 

I should have deem'd thee doom'd to earthly care. 

With such an aspect, by his colors blent. 
When from his beauty-breathing pencil born 

(Except that thou hast nothing to repent). 
The Magdalen of Guido saw the morn — 

Such seem'st thou — but how much more excellent ! 
With nought Remorse can claim — nor Virtue scorn. 

December 17, 1813.2 



SONNET, TO THE SAME. 

Thy cheek is pale with thought, but not from woe, 
And yet so lovely, that if Mirth could flush 
Its rose of whiteness with the brightest blush, 

My heart would wish away that ruder glow : 

And dazzle not thy deep-blue eyes— but, oh ! 
While gazing on them sterner eyes will gush, 
And into mine my mother's weakness rush. 

Soft as the last drops round heaven's airy bow. 

' "These verses are said to have dropped from the poet's 
pen, to excuse a trarnsient expression of melancholy which 
overclouded the general gayety. It was impossible to observe 
his interesting countenance, expressive of a dejection belong- 
ing neither to his rank, his age, nor his success, without 
feeling an indefinable curiosity to ascertain whether it had a 
deeper cause than habit or constitutional temperament. It 
was obviously of a degree incalculably more serious than that 
alluded to by Prince Arthur— 

'I remember when I was in France 

Toung gentlemen would be as sad as night, 
Only for wantonness.' 

But, howsoever derived, this, joined to Lord Byron's air of 
mingling in amusements and sports as if he contemned them, 
and felt that his sphere was far above the frivolous crowd 
which surrounded him, gave a strong effect of coloring to a 



For, through thy long dark lashes low depending, 

The soul of melancholy Gentleness 
Gleams like a seraph from the sky descending. 

Above all pain, yet pitying all distress ; 
At once such majesty with sweetness blending, 

I worship more, but cannot love thee less. 

December 17. 1813. 



FROM THE PORTUGUESE. 
"tu mi chamas." 

In moments to delight devoted, 

** My life !" with tenderest tone, you cry ; 

Dear words ! on which my heart had doted, 
If youth could neither fade nor die. 

To death even hours like these must roll, 
Ah ! then repeat those accents never ; 

Or change " my life !" into " my soul !" 
Which, like my love, exists for ever. 

ANOTHEK VEKSION. 

You call me still your life. — Oh ! change the word- 
Life is as transient as the inconstant sigh : 

Say rather I'm your soul ; more just that name, 
For, like the soul, my love can never die. 



THE DEVIL'S DRIVE; 

AN UNFINISHED RHAPSODY.' 

The devil return'd to hell by two, 

And he stay'd at home till five ; 
When he dined on some homicides done in ragoUt, 

And a rebel or so in an Irish stew. 
And sausages made of a self-slain Jew — 
And bethought himself what next to do, 

'' And," quoth he, " I'll take a drive. 
I walk'd in the morning, I'll ride to-night; 
In darkness my children take most delight, 

And I'll see how my favorites thrive. 

character whose tints were otherwise romantic. — Sir Wal- 
ter Scott. 

2 "Redde some Italian, and wrote two sonnets. I never 
wrote but one sonnet before, and that was not in earnest, and 
many years ago, as an exercise— and I will never write 
another. They are the most puling, petrifying, stupidly 
platonic compositions." — Byron Diary, 1813. 

8 " I have lately written a wild, rambling, unfinished rhap- 
sody, called ' The Devil's Drive,' the notion of which I took 
from Porson's 'Devil's Walk.'"— %ro7i Diary, 1812. "Of 
this strange, wild poem," says Moore, "the only copy that 
Lord Byron, I believe, ever wrote, he presented to Lord Hol- 
land. Though with a good deal of vigor and imagination, 
it is, for the most part, rather clumsily executed, wanting 
the point and condensation of those clever verses of Mr. 
Coleridge, which Lord Byron, adopting a notion long prev- 
alent, has attributed to Professor Porson," 



Q^S 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



" And what shall I ride in?" quoth Lucifer then— 

" If I foUow'd my taste, indeed, 
I should mount in a wagon of wounded men, 

And smile to see them bleed. 
But these will be furnish'd again and again, 

And at present my purpose is speed ; 
To see my manor as much as I may. 
And watch that no souls shall be poach'd away. 

" I have a state-coach at Carlton House, 

A chariot in Seymour Place ; 
But they're lent to two friends, who make me 
amends. 

By driving my favorite pace : 
And they handle their reins with such a grace, 
I have something for both at the end of their race. 

" So now for the earth to take my chance :" 

Then up to the earth sprung he ; 
And making a jump from Moscow to France, 

He stepp'd across the sea, 
And rested his hoof on a turnpike road, 
No very great way from a bishop's abode. 

But first as he flew, I forgot to say. 
That he hover'd a moment upon his way, 

To look upon Leipsic plain ; 
And so sweet to his eye was its sulphury glare, 
And so soft to his ear was the cry of despair. 

That he perch'd on a mountain of slain ; 
And he gazed with delight from its growing height, 
Nor often on earth had he seen such a sight. 

Nor his work done half as well : 
For the field ran so red with the blood of the dead. 

That it blush'd like the waves of hell ! 
Then loudly, and wildly, and long laugh'd he : 
" Methinks they have here little need of me /" 

* * «- * * * 

But the softest note that soothed his ear 

"Was the sound of a widow sighing ; 
And the sweetest sight was the icy tear. 
Which horror froze in the blue eye clear 

Of a maid by her lover lying — 
As round her fell her long fair hair ; 
And she look'd to heaven with that frenzied air, 
Which seem'd to ask if a God were there ! 
And, stretch'd by the wall of a ruin'd hut. 
With its hollow cheek, and eyes half shut, 

A child of famine dying : 
And the carnage begun, when resistance is done, 

And the fall of the vainly flying I 

* * ■» * * * 

But the devil has reach'd our cliffs so white, 

And what did he there, I pray ? 
If his eyes were good, he but saw by night 

What we see every day : 
But he made a tour, and kept a journal 
Of all the wondrous sights nocturnal, 
And he sold it in shares to the Men of the How, 
Who bid pretty well — but they cheated him, though ! 



The devil first saw, as he thought, the Mailj 

Its coachman and his coat ; 
So instead of a pistol he cock'd his tail, 

And seized him by the throat : 
" Aha !" quoth he, " what have we here ? 
'Tis a new barouche, and an ancient peer !" 

So he sat him on his box again. 

And bade him have no fear, 
But be true to his club, and stanch to his rein, 

His brothel, and his beer ; 
" Next to seeing a lord at the council board, 
I would rather see him here." 
* «- « * * * 

The devil gat next to Westminster, 

And he turn'd to " the room " of the Commons ; 
But he heard, as he purposed to enter in there. 

That " the Lords " had received a summons ; 
And he thought, as a " quondam aristocrat," 
He might peep at the peers, though to hear them were 

flat; 
And he walk'd up the house so like one of our own, 
That they say that he stood pretty near the throne. 

He saw the Lord Liverpool seemingly wise. 

The Lord Westmoreland certainly silly, 
And Johnny of Norfolk — a man of some size — 

And Chatham, so like his friend Billy ; 
And he saw the tears in Lord Eldon's eyes. 
Because the Catholics would not rise, 
In spite of his prayers and his prophecies ; 
And he heard — which set Satan himself a staring — 
A certain Chief Justice say something like swearing. 
And the devil was shock'd — and quoth he, " I must go. 
For I find we have much better manners below : 
If thus he harangues when he passes my border, 
I shall hint to friend Moloch to call him to order." 



WINDSOE POETICS. 

Lines composed on the occasion of his royal highness the 
Prince Regent being seen standing between the coffins of 
Henry VIII. and Charles I., in the royal vault at Windsor. 

Famed for contemptuous breach of sacred ties, 
By headless Charles see heartless Henry lies ; 
Between them stands another sceptred thing — 
It moves, it reigns — in all but name, a king : 

Charles to his people, Henry to his wife, 
— In him the double tyrant starts to life : 
Justice and death have mix'd their dust in vain. 
Each royal vampire wakes to life again. 
Ah, what can tombs avail ! — since these disgorge 
The blood and dust of both — to mould a George.^ 



1 "I cannot conceive hovr the Vault has got about; but 
so it is. It is too farouche ; but truth to say, my sallies are 
not very playful."— ior<Z Byron to Mr. Moore, March 12, 1814. 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



669 



STANZAS FOR MUSIC.i 

I SPEAK not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name, 
There is grief in the sound, there is guilt in the fame : 
But the tear which now burns on my cheek may irajjart 
The deep thoughts that dwell in that silence of heart. 

Too brief for our passion, too long for our peace 
Were those hours — can their joy or their bitterness 



We repent — we abjure — we will break from our 

chain, — 
We will part, — we will fly to — unite it again ! 

Oh ! thine be the gladness, and mine be the guilt ! 
Forgive me, adored one ! — forsake, if thou wilt ; — 
But the heart which is thine shall expire undebased. 
And man shall not break it — whatever thou mayst. 

And stem to the haughty, but humble to thee, 

This soul, in its bitterest blackness, shall be ; 

And our days seem as swift, and our moments more 

sweet. 
With thee by my side, than with worlds at our feet. 

One sigh of thy sorrow, one look of thy love. 
Shall turn me or fix, shall reward or reprove ; 
And the heartless may wonder at all I resign — 
Thy lip shall reply, not to them, but to mine. 

May, 1814. 



i^ 



ADDRESS INTENDED TO BE RECITED AT 
THE CALEDONIAN MEETING. 

Wuo hath not glow'd above the page where fame 
Uath fix'd high Caledon's unconquer'd name ; 
The mountain land which spum'd the Roman chain, 
And baffled back the fiery-crested Dane, 
Whose bright claymore and hardihood of hand 
No foe could tame — no tyrant could command? 
That race is gone — but still their children breathe, 
And glory crowns them with redoubled wreath : 
O'er Gael and Saxon mingling banners shine, 
And, England ! add their stubborn strength to thine. 
The blood which flow'd with Wallace flows as free, 
But now 'tis only shed for fame and thee ! 
Oh! pass not by the northern veteran's claim, 
But give support — the world hath given him fame ! 

The humbler ranks, the lowly brave, who bled 
While cheerly following where the mighty led — 



1 " Thou hast asked me for a song, and I enclose you an 
experiment, -vrhich has cost me something more than trouble, 
and is, therefore, less likely to bo worth your taking any in 
your proposed setting. Now, if it be so, throw it into the 
fire without phrase."— Ixn-d Byron to Mr. Mof/re, May 10, 1814. 



Who sleep beneath the undistinguish'd sod 
Where happier comrades in their triumph trod. 
To us bequeath — 'tis all their fate allows — 
The sireless offspring and the lonely spouse : 
She on high Albyn's dusky hills may raise 
The tearful eye in melancholy gaze, 
Or view, while shadowy auguries disclose 
The Highland seer's anticipated woes. 
The bleeding phantom of each martial form 
Dim in the cloud, or darkling in the storm ; 
While, sad, she chants the solitary song, 
The soft lament for him who tarries long — 
For him, whose distant relics vainly crave 
The Coronach's wild requiem to the brave ! 

'Tis Heaven — not man — must charm away the woe, 
Which bursts when Nature's feelings newly flow ; 
Yet tenderness and time may rob the tear 
Of half its bitterness for one so dear ; 
A nation's gratitude perchance may spread 
A thornless pillow for the widow'd head ; 
May lighten well her heart's maternal care. 
And weau from penury the soldier's heir. 

May, 1814. 



FRAGMENT OF AN EPISTLE TO THOMAS 
MOORE. 

" What say /.?" — not a syllable further in prose ; 
I'm your man " of all measures," dear Tom — so here 

goes! 
Here goes, for a swim on the stream of old Time, 
On those buoyant supporters, the bladders of rhyme 
If our weight breaks them down, and we sink in the 

flood, 
We are smother'd, at least, in respectable mud. 
Where the Divers of Bathos lie drown'd in a heap, 
And Southey's last Paean has pillow'd his sleep ; 
That " Felo de se " who, half drunk with his malmsey, 
Walk'd out of his depth and was lost in a calm sea, 
Singing " Glory to God " in a spick and span stanza, 
Tlie like (since Tom Sternhold was choked) never 

man saw. 

The papers have told you, no doubt, of the fusses, 
The fetes, and the gapings to get at these Russes,"'' — 
Of his Majesty's suite, up from coachman to Het- 

man, — 
And what dignity decks the flat face of the great man. 
I saw him, last week, at two balls and a party, — 
For a prince, his demeanor was rather too hearty. 



emperors, «tc. They have dined and supped, and shown 
their flat faces in all thoroughfares and several saloons. 
Their uniforms are very becoming, but rather .short in the 
skirts; and their conversation is a catechism, for which, and 
the answers, I refer you to those who have hoard \\."—IjOrd 



"The newspapers will tell y.m all that is to be told of ) Byron to Mr. Moore, June 14, 1814 



670 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



You know, we are used to quite different graces, 

!S * * * * iif * 

The Czar's look, I own, was much brighter and 

brisker. 
But then he is sadly deficient in whifeker ; 
And wore but a starless blue coat, and in kersey- 
-mere breeches whisk'd round, in a waltz with the 

Jersey, 
Who, lovely as ever, seem'd just as delighted 
With Majesty's presence as those she invited. 

* « * » * * * 

* ****** 

June, 1814. 



CONDOLATORY ADDRESS 

TO SARAH COUNTESS OF JERSEY, ON THE PRINCE 
regent's returning her picture to MRS. 
MEE.l 

When the vain triumph of the imperial lord, 
Whom servile Rome obey'd, and yet abhorr'd, 
Gave to the vulgar gaze each glorious bust, 
That left a likeness of the brave, or just ; 
What most admired each scrutinizing eye 
Of all that deck'd that passing pageantry ? 
What spread from face to face that wondering air? 
The thought of Brutus — for his was not there ! 
That absence proved his worth, — that absence fix'd 
His memory on the longing mind, unmix'd ; 
And more decreed his glory to endure, 
Than all a gold Colossus could secure. 

If thus, fair Jersey, our desiring gaze 
Search for thy form, in vain and mute amaze. 
Amidst those pictured charms, whose loveliness. 
Bright though they be, thine own had render'd less : 
If he, that vain old man, whom truth admits 
Heir of his father's crown, and of his wits, 
If his corrupted eye, and wither'd heart. 
Could with thy gentle image bear to part ; 
That tasteless shame be his, and ours the grief 
To gaze on Beauty's band without its chief: 
Yet comfort still one selfish thought imparts, 
We lose the portrait, but preserve our hearts. 

What can his vaulted gallery now disclose ? 
A garden with all flowers — except the rose ; — 
A fount that only wants its living stream ; 
A night, with every star, save Dian's beam. 
Lost to our eyes the present forms shall be. 
That turn from tracing them to dream of thee ; 
And more on that recall' d resemblance pause, 
Than all he shall not force on our applause. 

Long may thy yet meridian lustre shine. 
With all that Virtue asks of Homage thine : 

^ " The newspapers have got hold (I know not how) of the 
Condolatory Address to Lady Jersey on the picture-abduction 
by our regent, and have published them — with my name, too, 
smack— without even asking leave, or inquiring whether or 
DO ! D— n their impudence, and d— n every thing. It has put 



The symmetry of youth — the grace of mien — 
The eye that gladdens — and the brow serene ; 
The glossy darkness of that clustering hair. 
Which shades, yet shows that forehead more than fair ! 
Each glance that wins us, and the life that throws 
A spell which will not let our looks repose. 
But turn to gaze again, and find anew 
Some charm that well rewards another view. 
These are not lessen'd, these are still as bright, 
Albeit too dazzling for a dotard's sight ; 
And those must wait till ev'ry charm is gone, 
To please the paltry heart that pleases none ; — 
That dull cold sensualist, whose sickly eye 
In envious dimness pass'd thy portrait by ; 
Who rack'd his little spirit to combine 
Its hate of Freedom'' s loveliness, and thine. 

August, 1814 



TO BELSHAZZAR. 

Belshazzar ! from the banquet turn. 

Nor in thy sensual fullness fall ; 
Behold ! while yet before thee burn 

The graven words, the glowing wall. 
Many a despot men miscall 

Crown 'd and anointed from on high ; 
But thou, the weakest, worst of all — 

Is it not written, thou must die? 

Go ! dash the roses from thy brow — 

Gray hairs but poorly wreathe with them ; 
Youth's garlands misbecome thee now, 

More than thy very diadem, 
Where thou hast tarnish'd every gem : — 

Then throw the worthless bauble by, 
Which, worn by thee, ev'n slaves contemn ; 

And learn like better men to die ! 

Oh ! early in the balance weigh'd, 

And ever light of word and worth, 
Whose soul expired ere youth decay'd. 

And left thee but a mass of earth. 
To see thee moves the scorner's mirth : 

But tears in Hope's averted eye 
Lament that even thou hadst birth — 

Unfit to govern, live, or die. 



ELEGIAC STANZAS ON THE DEATH OF 
SIR PETER PARKER, BART.2 

There is a tear for all that die, 
A mourner o'er the humblest grave ; 

But nations swell the funeral cry. 
And Triumph weeps above the brave. 

me out of patience, and so— I shall say no more about it."— 
Byron Letters. 

2 This gallant officer fell in August, 1814, in his twenty- 
ninth year, whilst commanding, on shore, a party belonging 
to his ship, the MenelauS, and animating them in storming 



m 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



671 



For them is Sorrow's purest sigh 
O'er Ocean's heaving bosom sent: 

In vain their bones unburied lie, 
All earth becomes their monument! 

A tomb is theirs on every page, 

An epitaph on evei y tongue : 
The present hours, the future age, 

For them bewail, to them belong. 

For them the voice of festal mirth 
Grows hush'd, their name the only sound; 

While deep Remembrance pours to Worth 
The goblet's tributary round. 

A theme to crowds that knew them not. 

Lamented by admiring foes, 
Who would not share their glorious lot? 

Who would not die the death they chose ? 

And, gallant Parker ! thus enshrined 
Thy life, thy fall, thy fame shall be ; 

And early valor, glowing, find 
A model in thy memory. 

But there are breasts that bleed with thee 

In woe, that glory cannot quell ; 
And shuddering hear of victory. 

Where one so dear, so dauntless, fell. 

Where shall they turn to mourn thee less ? 

When cease to hear thy cherish'd name ? 
Time cannot teach forgetfulness. 

While Griefs full heart is fed by Fame. 

Alas ! for them, though not for thee. 
They cannot choose but weep the more ; 

Deep for the dead the grief must be, 
Who ne'er gave cause to mourn before. 

October, 1814. 



STANZAS FOR MUSIC.i 

" O Lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros 
Ducentium ortus ex animo : quater 
Felix ! in imo qui scatentem 
Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit." 

Gray's Poemata. 

There's not a joy the world can give like that it 

takes away, 
When the glow of earlyL-thought declines in feeling's 

dull desstif ; ~ 

the American camp near Baltimore. He was Lord Byron's 
first cousin ; but they had never met since boyhood. 

1 These verses were given by Lord Byron to Mr. Power, 
of the Strand, who ha-s published them, with very beautiful 
music by Sir John Stevenson.—"! feel merry enough to send 
you a sad song. An event, the death of poor Dorset (sec 
an/e, p. 4.>4), and the recollection of what I once felt, and 
ought to have felt now, but could not — set me pondering, and 
finally into the train of thought which you have in your 
bands. I wrote them with a view to your .setting them, and 
as a present to Power, if ho would accept the words, and you 
did not think yourself degraded, for once in a w;iy, by mar- 



'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, 

which fades so fast, 
But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth 

itself be past. 

Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of 

happiness 
Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt or ocean of excess : 
The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in 

vain 
The shore to which their shiver'd sail shall never 

stretch again. 

Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death 

itself comes down ; 
It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its 

own ; [tears, 

That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our 
And though the eye may sparkle still, 'tis where the 

ice appears. 

Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth 

distract the breast, 
Through midnight hours that yield no more their 

former hope of rest ; 
'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruin'd turret wreathe, 
All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and 

gray beneath. 

Oh, could I feel as I have felt, — or be what I have 

been. 
Or weep as I could once have wept, o'er many a 

vanish'd scene ; 
As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish 

though they be, 
So 'midst the wither'd waste of life, those tears would 

flow to me.2 

March, 1815. 



STANZAS FOR MUSIC. 

There be none of Beauty's daughters 

With a magic like thee ; 
And like music on the waters 

Is thy sweet voice to me : 
When, as if its sound were causing 
The charmed ocean's pausing. 
The waves lie still and gleaming. 
And the lull'd winds seem dreaming. 

rying them to music. I don't care what Power says to secure 
the property of the song, so that it is not complimentary to 
me, nor any thing about ' condescending ' or ' noble author ' — 
botli 'vile phrases,' as Poloniua says."— Lord Byron to Mr. 
Moore. 

2 " Do you remember the lines I sent you early last year? 
I don't wish (like Mr. Fitzgerald) to claim the character of 
'Vatcs,' in all its translations,— but were they not a little 
prophetic? I mean those beginning, 'There's not a joy the 
world can give,' &c., on which I pique myself as being the 
true-it, though the most melancholy, I ever wrote."— ^^ro» 
LeUers, March, 1816. 



672 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



And the midnight moon is weaving 
Her bright chain o'er the deep ; 

Whose breast is gently heaving, 
As an infant's asleep : 

So the spirit bows before thee, 

To listen and adore thee ; 

With a full but soft emotion, 

Like the swell of Summer's ocean. 



ON NAPOLEON'S ESCAPE FROM ELBA. 

Once fairly set out on his party of pleasure, 
Taking towns at his liking, and crowns at his leisure, 
From Elba to Lyons and Paris he goes, 
Making balls for the ladies, and hows to his foes. 

March 27, 1815. 



ODE FROM THE FRENCH. 



We do not curse thee, Waterloo ! 
Though Freedom's blood thy plain bedew ; 
There 'twas shed, but is not sunk — 
Rising from each gory trunk. 
Like the water-spout from ocean, 
With a strong and growing motion — 
It soars, and mingles in the air. 
With that of lost Labedoyere — 
With that of him whose honor'd grave 
Contains the " bravest of the brave." 
A crimson cloud it spreads and glows. 
But shall return to whence it rose ; 
When 'tis full 'twill burst asunder — 
Never yet was heard such thunder, 
As then shall shake the world with wonder- 
Never yet was seen such lightning 
As o'er heaven shall then be bright'ning ! 
Like the Wormwood Star foretold 
By the sainted Seer of old, 
Show'ring down a fiery flood. 
Turning rivers into blood.'-^ 



1 " I can forgive the rogue for utterly falsifying every line 
of mine ode. — which I take to be the last and uttermost 
stretch of human magnanimity. Do you remember the story 
of a certain abbe, who wrote a treatise on the Swedish con- 
stitution, and proved it indissoluble and eternal? Just as he 
had corrected the last sheet, news came that Gustavus the 
Third had destroyed this immortal government. ' Sir,' quoth 
the abbe, ' the king of Sweden may overthrow the constitvr- 
tion, but not my book .'.'' I think of the abbe, but not with him. 
Making every allowance for talent and most consummate 
daring, there is, after all, a good deal in luck or destiny. He 
might have been stopped by our frigates, or wrecked in the 
Gulf of Lyons, which is particularly tempestuous— or — a 
thousand things. But he is certainly fortune's favorite." — 
Byron Letters, March, 1815. 

2 See Rev. chap. viii. v. 7, &c. "The first angel sounded, 



II. 






The Chief has fallen, but not by you, 

Vanquishers of Waterloo ! 

When the soldier citizen 

Sway'd not o'er his fellow men — 

Save in deeds that led them on 

Where Glory smiled on Freedom's son — 

Who, of all the despots banded. 

With that youthful chief competed ? 

Who could boast o'er France defeated, 
Till lone Tyranny commanded ? 
Till, goaded by ambition's sting, 
The Hero sunk into the King ? 
Then he fell : — so perish all, 
Who would men by man enthrall ! 



III. 

And thou, too, of the snow-white plume ! * 
Whose realm refused thee ev'n a tomb ; * 
Better hadst thou still been leading 
France o'er hosts of hirelings bleeding, 
Than sold thyself to death and shame 
For a meanly royal name ; 
Such as he of Naples wears, 
Who thy blood-bought title bears. 
Little didst thou deem, when dashing 
On thy war-horse through the ranks, 
Like a stream which burst its banks, 
While helmets cleft, and sabres clashing, 
Shone and shiver' d fast around thee — 
Of the fate at last which found thee : 
Was that haughty plume laid low 
By a slave's dishonest blow ? 
Once — as the Moon sways o'er the tide, 
It roll'd in air, the warrior's guide ; 
Through the smoke-created night 
Of the black and sulphurous fight, 
The soldier raised his seeking eye 
To catch that crest's ascendency — 
And as it onward rolling rose. 
So moved his heart upon our foes. 
There, where death's brief pang was quickest, 
And the battle's wreck lay thickest, 
Strew'd beneath the advancing banner 



and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood," Ac. 
v. 8. " And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great 
mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea ; and the 
third part of the sea became blood," &c. v. 10. "And the 
third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, 
burning as it were a lamp ; and it fell upon the third part of 
the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters." v. 11. "And 
the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part 
of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the 
waters, because they were made bitter." 

3 " Poor dear Murat, what an end ! His white plume used 
to be a rallying point in battle, like Henry the Fourth's. He 
refused a confessor and a bandage ; so would neither suffer 
his soul nor body to be bandaged." — Byron Letters. 

4 Murat's remains are said to have been torn from the 
grave and burnt. 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



673 



Of the eagle's burning crest — 
(There with thunder-clouds to fan her, 
Who could then her wing arrest — 

Victory beaming from her breast?) 
While the broken line enlarging 

Fell, or fled along the plain;' 
There be sure was Murat charging! 

There he ne'er shall charge again I 

IV. 
O'er glories gone the invaders march, 
Weeps Triumph o'er each levell'd arch — 
But let Freedom rejoice, 
With her heart in her voice ; 
But, her hand on her sword, 
Doubly shall she be adored ; 
France hath twice too well been taught 
The " moral lesson " dearly bought — 
Her safety sits not on a throne. 
With Capet or Napoleon ! 
But in equal rights and laws, 
Hearts and hands in one great cause- 
Freedom, such as God hath given 
Unto all beneath his heaven, 
With their breath, and from their birth, 
Though Guilt would sweep it from the earth 
With a fierce and lavish hand 
Scattering nations' wealth like sand ; 
Pouring nations' blood like water, 
In imperial seas of slaughter ! 

V. 

But the heart and the mind, 
And the voice of mankind, 
Shall arise in communion — 
And who shall resist that proud union ? 
The time is past when swords subdued — 
Man may die — the soul's renew'd : 
Even in this low world of care 
Freedom ne'er shall want an heir ; 
Millions breathe but to inherit 
Her for ever bounding spirit — 
When once more her hosts assemble, 
Tyrants shall believe and tremble — 
Smile they at this idle threat? 
Crimson tears will follow yet.^ 



FROM THE FRENCH. 

Must thou go, my glorious Chief,' 
Sever'd from thy faithful few ? 

1 "Talking of politics, as Caleb Quotem says, pray look at 
the conclusion of my 'Ode on Waterloo,' written in the year 
1815, and, comparing it with the Duke de Berri's catastrophe 
in 1820, tell me if I have not as gocKl a right to the charac- 
ter of ' Vaies,^ in both senses of the word, as Fitzgerald and 
Coleridge ?— 

' Crimson tears will follow yet;' 
and have they not?"— Byron Letters, 1820. 

• " All wept, but particularly Savary, and a Polish officer 
43 



Who can tell thy warrior's grief. 
Maddening o'er that long adieu ? 

Woman's love, and friendship's zeal, 
Dear as both have been to me — 

What are they to all I feel. 
With a soldier's faith for thee ? 

Idol of the soldier's soul ! 

First in fight, but mightiest now : 
Many could a world control ; 

Thee alone no doom can bow. 
By thy side for years I dared 

Death ; and envied those who fell,. 
When their dying shout was heard. 

Blessing him they served so well.' 

Would that I were cold with those, 

Since this hour I live to see ; 
When the doubts of coward foes 

Scarce dare trust a man with thee. 
Dreading each should set thee free ! 

Oh ! although in dungeons pent, 
All their chains were light to me. 

Gazing on thy soul unbent. 

Would the sycophants of him 

Now so deaf to duty's prayer, 
Were his borrow'd glories dim. 

In his native darkness share ? 
Were that world this hour his own, 

All thou calmly dost resign. 
Could he purchase with that throne 

Hearts like those which still are thine? 

My chief, my king, my friend, adieu I 

Never did I droop before ; 
Never to my sovereign sue. 

As his foes I now implore : 
All I ask is to divide 

Every peril he must brave ; 
Sharing by the hero's side 

His fall, his exile, and his grave. 



ON THE STAR OF " THE LEGION OF HONOR." 

FROM THE FRENCH. 

Star of the brave !— whose beam hath shed 
Such glory o'er the quick and dead — 
Thou radiant and adored deceit ! 
Which millions rush'd in arms to greet, — 

who had been exalted from the ranks by Buonaparte. He 
clung to his master's knees; wrote a letter to Lord Keith, 
entreating permission to accompany him, even in the most 
menial capacity, which could not be admitted." 

8 "At Waterloo, one man was seen, whose left arm was 
shattered by a cannon ball, to wrench it off with the other, 
and throwing it up in the air, exclaimed to his comrades, 
'Vive I'empereur, jusqu'i la mort!' There were many other 
instances of the like : this, however, you may depend on as 
true." — Private Letter from Brussels. 



674 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Wild meteor of immortal birth ! 
Why rise in Heaven to set on Earth ? 

Souls of slain heroes form'd thy rays ; 
Eternity flash'd through thy blaze ; 
The music of thy martial sphere 
Was fame on high and honor here ; 
And thy light broke on human eyes, 
Like a volcano of the skies. 

Like lava roll'd thy stream of blood, 
And swept down empires with its flood; 
Earth rock'd beneath thee to her base, 
As thou didst lighten through all space ; 
And the shorn Sun grew dim in air, 
And set while thou wert dwelling there. 

Before thee rose, and with thee grew, 

A rainbow of the loveliest hue 

Of three bright colors,^ each divine, 

And fit for that celestial sign ; 

For Freedom's hand had blended them, 

Like tints in an immortal gem. 

One tint was of the sunbeam's dyes ; 
One, the blue depth of Seraph's eyes ; 
One, the pure Spirit's veil of white 
Had robed in radiance of its light : 
The three so mingled did beseem 
The texture of a heavenly dream. 

Star of the brave ! thy ray is pale. 
And darkness must again prevail ! 
But oh, thou Eainbow of the free ! 
Our tears and blood must flow for thee. 
When thy bright promise fades away, 
Our life is but a load of clay. 

And Freedom hallows with her tread 
The silent cities of the dead ; 
For beautiful in death are they 
Who proudly fall in her array ; 
And soon, oh. Goddess ! may we be 
For evermore with them or thee ! 



NAPOLEON'S FAREWELL. 

FROM THE FEENOH. 

Farewell to the Land where the gloom of my Glory 
Arose and o'ershadow'd the earth with her name — 
She abandons me now— but the page of her story. 
The brightest or blackest, is fill'd with my fame. 



1 The tricolor. 

2 In the original MS., "A Dream." 

8 " In this poem Lord Byron has abandoned the art, so pe- 
culiarly his own, of showing the reader where his purpose 
tends, and has contented himself with presenting a mass of 
powerful ideas unarranged, and the meaning of which it is 



I have warr'd with a world which vanquish'd me only 
When the meteor of conquest allured me too far ; 
I have coped with the nations which dread me thus 

lonely. 
The last single Captive to millions in war. 

Farewell to thee, France ! when thy diadem crown'd 

me, 
I made thee the gem and the wonder of earth, — 
But thy weakness decrees I should leave as I found thee, 
Decay'd in thy glory, and sunk in thy worth. 
Oh ! for the veteran hearts that were wasted 
In strife with the storm, when their battles were won — 
Then the Eagle, whose gaze in that moment was blasted, 
Had still soar'd with eyes fix'd on victory's sun ! 

Farewell to thee, France ! — but when Liberty rallies 
Once more in thy regions, remember rae then — 
The violet still grows in the depth of thy valleys ; 
Though wither'd, thy tear will unfold it again — 
Yet, yet, I may baffle the hosts that surround us, 
And yet may thy heart leap awake to my voice — 
There are links which must break in the chain that 

has bound us. 
Then turn thee and call on the Chief of thy choice ! 



ENDORSEMENT TO THE D55ED OF SEPARA- 
TION, IN THE APRIL OF 1816. 

A YEAR ago you swore, fond she ! 

'* To love, to honor," and so forth : 
Such was the vow you pledged to me. 

And here's exactly what 'tis worth. 

/ 



DARKNESS.2 



I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream.' 

The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars 

Did wander darkling in the eternal space, 

Rayless and pathless, and the icy earth 

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air ; 

Morn came and went — and came, and brought no day, 

And men forgot their passions in the dread 

Of this their desolation ; and all hearts 

Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light : 

And they did live by watchfires — and the thrones, 

The palaces of crowned kings — the huts. 

The habitations of all things which dwell, 

Were burnt for beacons ; cities were consumed. 

And men were gather'd round their blazing homes 

To look once more into each other's face : 



not easy to attain; A succession of terrible images is placed 
before us, flitting and mixing, and disengaging themselves, as 
in the dream of a feverish man— chimeras dire, to whose ex- 
istence the mind refuses credit, which confound and weary 
the ordinary reader, and bafBle the comprehension, even of 
those more accustomed to the flights of a poetic muse. The 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



675 



Happy were those who dwelt within the eye 

Of the volcanoes, and their mountain torch : 

A fearful hope was all the world contain'd ; 

Forests were set on fire — but hour by hour 

They fell and faded — and the crackling trunks 

Extinguish'd with a crash — and all was black. 

The brows of men by the despairing light 

Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits 

The flashes fell upon them ; some lay down 

And hid their eyes and wept ; and some did rest 

Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled ; 

And others hurried to and fro, and fed 

Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up 

With mad disquietude on the dull sky, 

The pall of a past world ; and then again 

With curses cast them down upon the dust, 

And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd : the wild birds 

shriek'd, 
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground. 
And flap their useless wings ; the wildest brutes 
Came tame and tremulous ; and vipers crawl'd 
And twined themselves among the multitude. 
Hissing, but stingless — they were slain for food : 
And War, which for a moment was no more, 
Did glut himself again : — a meal was bought 
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart 
Gorging himself in gloom : no love was left ; 
All earth was but one thought — and that was death 
Immediate and inglorious ; and the pang 
Of famine fed upon all entrails — men 
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh ; 
The meagre by the meagre were devour'd : 
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one, 
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept 
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay, 
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead 
Lured their lank jaws ; himself sought out no food, 
But with a piteous and perpetual moan. 
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand 
Which answer'd not with a caress — he died. 
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two 
Of an enormous city did survive, 



subject is the progress of utter darkness, until it becomes, in 
Sbakspeare's phrase, the ' burier of the dead ;' and the assem- 
blage of terrific ideas which the poet has placed before us only 
fail in exciting our terror from the extravagance of the plan. 
To speak plainly, the framing of such phantasms is a danger- 
ous employment for the exalted and teeming Imagination of 
such a poet as Lrord Byron, whose Pegasus ever required rather 
a bridle than a spur. The waste of boundless space into which 
they lead the poet, the neglect of precision which such themes 
may render.habitual, make them, in respect to poetry, what 
mysticism is to religion. The meaning of the poet, as he as- 
cends upon cloudy wing, becomes the shadow only of a 
thought, and, having eluded the comprehension of others, 
necessarily ends by escaping from that of the author him- 
self. The strength of poetical conception, and the beauty of 
diction, bestowed upon such prolusions, is as much thrown 
away as the colors of a painter, could he take a cloud of 
mist, or a wreath of smoke, for his canvas." — Sir Walter 
Scott. 
1 "'Darkness' is a grand and gloomy sketch of the sup- 



And they were enemies ; they met beside 

Tlie dying embers of an altar-place 

Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things 

For an unholy usage ; they raked up. 

And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands 

The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath 

Blew for a little life, and made a flame 

Which was a mockery ; then they lifted up 

Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld 

Each other's aspects — saw, and shriek'd, and died — 

Even of their mutual hideousness they died, 

Unknowing who he was upon whose brow 

Famine had written Fiend. The world was void, 

The populous and the powerful was a lump, 

Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless — 

A lump of death — a chaos of hard clay. 

The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still. 

And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths ; 

Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea, 

And their masts fell down piecemeal ; as they dropp'd, 

They slept on the abyss without a surge — 

The waves were dead ; the tides were in their grave, 

The moon, their mistress, had expired before ; 

The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air. 

And the clouds perish'd ! Darkness had no need 

Of aid from them — She was the Universe.^ 

Diodati, July, 1816. 



CHURCHILL'S GRAVE :» 

A FACT LITEKALLY RENDERED. 

I STOOD beside the grave of him who blazed 

The comet of a season, and I saw 
The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed 

With not the less of sorrow and of awe 
On that neglected turf and quiet stone. 
With name no clearer than the names unknown, 
Which lay unread around it ; and I ask'd 

The Gardener of that ground, why it might be 



posed consequences of the final extinction of the sun and the 
heavenly bodies : executed, undoubtedly, with great and fear- 
ful force, but with something of German exaggeration, and a 
fantastical solution of incidents. The very conception is 
terrible above all conception of known calamity, and is too 
oppressive to the imagination to be contemplated with pleas- 
ure, even in the faint reflection of poetry."— Jkffrey. 

2 On the sheet containing the original draught of these 
lines, Lord Byron has written :—" The following poem (as 
most that I have endeavored to write) is founded on a fact; 
and this detail is an attempt at a serious imitatiom of the style 
of a great poet— its beauties and its defects: I say the style; 
for the thoughts I claim as my own. In this, if there be any 
thing ridiculous, let it be attributed to me, at least as much 
as to Mr. "Wordsworth ; of whom there can exist few greater 
admirers than myself. I have blended what I would deem to 
be the beauties as well as defects of his style ; and it ought to 
be remembered, that, in such things, whether there be praise 
or dispraise, there is always what is called a compliment, 
however unintentional." 



676 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



That for this plant strangers his memory task'd 
Through the thick deaths of half a century. 
And thus he answer'd — " Well, I do not know 
Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrims so ; 
He died before my day of Sextonship, 

And I had not the digging of this grave." 
And is this all ? I thought,— and do we rip 

The veil of Immortality, and crave 
I know not what of honor and of light 
Through unborn ages, to endure this blight, 
So soon, and so successless ? As I said. 
The Architect of all on which we tread. 
For Earth is but a tombstone, did essay 
To extricate remembrance from the clay, 
Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's thought, 

Were it not that all life must end in one. 
Of which we are but dreamers ; — as he caught 

As 'twere the twilight of a former Sun, 
Thus spoke he, — " I believe the man of whom 
You wot, who lies in this selected tomb, 
Was a most famous writer in his day. 
And therefore travellers step from out their way 
To pay him honor, — and myself whate'er 

Your honor pleases ;" — then most pleased I shook 

From out my pocket's avaricious nook 
Some certain coins of silver, which as 'twere 
Perforce I gave this man, though I could spare 
So much but inconveniently : — Ye smile, 
I see ye, ye profane ones ! all the while, 
Because my homely phrase the truth would tell. 
You are the fools, not I — for I did dwell 
With a deep thought, and with a soften'd eye, 
On that Old Sexton's natural homily. 
In which there was Obscurity and Fame — 
The Glory and the Nothing of a Name.^ 

Diodati, 1816. 



PROMETHEUS. 

Titan! to whose immortal eyes 

The sufferings of mortality. 

Seen in their sad reality. 
Were not as things that gods despise ; 
What was thy pity's recompense ? 
A silent suffering, and intense ; 
The rock, the vulture, and the chain, 
All that the proud can feel of pain, 

I "The Grave of Churchill might have called from Lord 
Byron a deeper commemoration ; for, though they generally 
differed in character and genius, there was a resemblance be- 
tween their history and character. The satire of Churchill 
flowed with a more profuse, though not a more embittered, 
stream; while, on the other hand, he cannot be compared to 
Lord Byron in point of tenderness or imagination. But 
both these poets held themselves above the opinion of the 
world, and both were followed by the fame and popularity 
which they seemed to despise. The writings of both exhibit 
an inborn, though sometimes ill-regulated, generosity of 
mind, and a spirit of proud independence, frequently pushed 
to extremes. Both carried their hatred of hypocrisy beyond 



The agony they do not show, 
The suffocating sense of woe. 

Which speaks but in its loneliness, 
And then is jealous lest the sky 
Should have a listener, nor will sigh 

Until its voice is 



Titan ! to thee the strife was given 
Between the suffering and the will. 
Which torture where they cannot kill ; 

And the inexorable Heaven, 

And the deaf tyranny of Fate, 

The ruling principle of Hate, 

Which for its pleasure doth create 

The things it may annihilate. 

Refused thee even the boon to die : 

The wretched gift eternity 

Was thine — and thou hast borne it well. 

All that the Thunderer wrung from thee 

Was but the menace which flung back 

On him the torments of thy rack ; 

The fate thou didst so well foresee, 

But would not to appease him tell ; 

And in thy Silence was his Sentence, 

And in his Soul a vain repentance. 

And evil dread so ill dissembled. 

That in his hand the lightnings trembled. 

Thy godlike crime was to be kind, 

To render with thy precepts less 

The sum of human wretchedness. 
And strengthen Man with his own mind ; 
But baflSed as thou wert from high, 
Still in thy patient energy. 
In the endurance, and repulse 

Of thine impenetrable Spirit, 
Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse, 

A mighty lesson we inherit : 
Thou art a symbol and a sign 

To Mortals of their fate and force ; 
Like thee, Man is in part divine, 

A troubled stream from a pure source ; 
And Man in portions can foresee 
His own funereal destiny ; 
His wretchedness, and his resistance, 
And his sad unallied existence : 
To which his Spirit may oppose 
Itself — and equal to all woes, 

the verge of prudence, and indulged their vein of satire to the 
borders of licentiousness. Both died in the flower of their 
age in a foreign land." — Sir Walter Scott.— Churchill died 
at Boulogne, November 4, 1764, in the thirty-third year of his 
age.— "Though his associates obtained Christian burial for 
him, by bringing the body to Dover, where it was interred 
in the old cemetery which once belonged to the collegiate 
church of Saint Martin, they inscribed upon his tombstone, 
instead of any consolatory or monitory text, this Epicurean 
line from one of his own poems— 

' Life to the last enjoy'd, here Churchill lies.' " 

Southey's Ooivper, vol. ii. p. 159. 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



677 



And a firm vrill, and a deep sense, 
Which even in torture can descry 

Its own concentred recompense, 
Triumphant where it dares defy, 
And making Death a Victory. 

Diodati, July, 1816. 



A FRAGMENT. 

Could I remount the river of my years 

To the first fountain of our smiles and tears, 

I would not trace again the stream of hours 

Between their outworn banks of wither'd flowers, 

But bid it flow as now — until it glides 

Into the number of the nameless tides. * * * * 

What is this Death ? — a quiet of the heart? 
The whole of that of which we are a part ? 
For life is but a vision — what I see 
Of all which lives alone is life to me, 
And being so — the absent are the dead, 
Who haunt us from tranquillity, and spread 
A dreary shroud around us, and invest 
With sad remembrances our hours of rest. 

The absent are the dead — for they are cold, 
And ne'er can be what once we did behold ; 
And they are changed, and cheerless, — or if yet 
The unforgotten do not all forget. 
Since thus divided — equal must it be 
If the deep barrier be of earth, or sea ; 
It may be both — but one day end it must 
In the dark union of insensate dust. 

The under-earth inhabitants — are they 
But mingled millions decomposed to clay? 



The ashes of a thousand ages spread 
Wherever man has trodden or shall tread ? 
Or do they in their silent cities dwell 
Each in his incommunicative cell ? 
Or have they their own language ? and a sense 
Of breathless being ? — darken'd and intense 
As midnight in her solitude ? — Oh, Earth ! 
Where are the past ? — and wherefore had they birth ? 
The dead are thy inheritors— and we 
But bubbles on thy surface ; and the key 
Of thy profundity is in the grave. 
The ebon portal of thy peopled cave. 
Where I would walk in spirit, and behold 
Our elements resolved to things untold, 
And fathom hidden wonders, and explore 
The essence of great bosoms now no more. * * * * 

Diodati, July, 1816. 



• SONNET TO LAKE LEMAN. 

Rousseau — Voltaire — our Gibbon— and De Stael — 
Leman ! i these names are worthy of thy shore, 
Thy shore of names like these ! wert thou no more, 

Their memory thy remembrance would recall : 

To them thy banks were lovely as to all. 

But they have made them lovelier, for the lore 
Of mighty minds doth hallow in the core 

Of human hearts the ruin of a wall 
Where dwelt the wise and wondrous ; but by thee 

How much more. Lake of Beauty ! do we feel, 
In sweetly gliding o'er thy crystal sea. 

The wild glow of that not ungentle zeal, . 
Which of the heirs of immortality 

Is proud, and makes the breath of glory real ! 

Diodati, July, 1816. 



ROMANCE MUY DOLOROSO 

DEL SITIO Y TOMA DE ALHAMA.* 

El qucU dezia en Aravigo assi. 

Passeavase el Rey Moro 
Por la ciudad de Granada, 
Desde las puertas de Elvira 
Hasta las de Bivarambla. 

Ay de mi, Alhamal 

Cartas le fueron venidas 
Que Alhama era ganada. 
Las cartas ech6 en el fuego, 
Y al mensagero matava. 

Ay de mi, Alhama ! 

1 Geneva, Ferney, Copet, Lausanne.— See ante, p. 42.— "I 
have traversed all Rousseau's ground with the H61oise before 
me, and am struck to a degree that I cannot express, with the 
force and accuracy of his descriptions, and the beauty of 
their reality."— i?yr(/7i Letters, 1816. 



A VERY MOURNFUL BALLAD 

ON THE SIEGE AND CONQUEST OP ALHAMA, 

Which, in the Arabic language, is to the following purport. 

The Moorish King rides up and down, 
Through Granada's royal town ; 
From Elvira's gates to those 
Of Bivarambla on he goes. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 

Letters to the monarch tell 
How Alhama's city fell : 
In the fire the scroll he threw, 
And the messenger he slew. 

Woe is me, Alhama I 



2 The effect of the original ballad— which existed both in 
Spanish and Arabic— was such that it was forbidden to be 
sung by the Moors, on pain of death, within Granada. 



678 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Descavalga de una mula, 

Y en un cavallo cavalga. 
For el Zacatin arriba 
Subido se avia al Alhambra. 

Ay de mi, Alhama ! 

Como en el Alhambra estuvo, 
Al mismo punto mandava 
Que se toquen las trompetas 
Con anafiles de plata. 

Ay de mi, Alhama ! 

Y que atambores de guerra 
Apriessa toquen alarma ; 
Por que lo oygan sus Moros, 
Los de la Vega y Granada. 

Ay de mi, Alhama ! 

Los Moros que el son oyeron, 
Que al sangriento Marte llama, 
Uno a uno, y dos a dos, 
Un gran esquadron formavan. 

Ay de mi, Alhama ! 

Alii hablo un Moro viejo ; 
Desta manera hablava : — 
Para que nos llamas, Eey ? 
Para que es esta llamada ? 

Ay de mi, Alhama ! 

Aveys de saber, amigos, 
Una nueva desdichada : 
Que Christianos, con braveza, 
Ya nos han tornado Alhama. 

Ay de mi, Alhama I 

Alii hablo un viejo Alfaqui, 
De barba crecida y cana : — 
Bien se te emplea, buen Key, 
Buen Key ; bien se te empleava. 
Ay de mi, Alhama! 

Mataste los Bencerrages, 
Que era la flor de Granada : 
Cogiste los tornadizos 
De Cordova la nombrada. 

Ay de mi, Alhama I 

Por esso mereces. Key, 
Una pena bien doblada ; 
Que te pierdas tu y el reyno, 

Y que se pierda Granada. 

Ay de mi, Alhama ! 

Si no se respetan leyes, 
Es ley que todo se pierda ; 

Y que se pierda Granada, 

Y que te pierdas en alia. 

Ay de mi, Alhama ! 

Fuego por los ojos vierte, 
El Key que esto oyera. 



He quits his mule, and mounts his horse, 
And through the street directs his course ; 
Through the street of Zacatin 
To the Alhambra spurring in. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 

When the Alhambra walls he gain'd. 
On the moment he ordain' d 
That the trumpet straight should sound 
With the silver clarion round. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 

And when the hollow drums of war 
Beat the loud alarm afar. 
That the Moors of town and plain 
Might answer to the martial strain. . 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 

Then the Moors, by this aware 
That bloody Mars recall'd them there, 
One by one, and two by two. 
To a mighty squadron grew, 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 

Out then spake an aged Moor 
In these words the king before, 
" Wherefore call on us, oh, King ? 
What may mean this gathering ?" 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 

" Friends ! ye have, alas ! to know 
Of a most disastrous blow. 
That the Christians, stern and bold, 
Have obtained Alhama's hold." 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 

Out then spake old Alfaqui, 
With his beard so white to see, 
" Good King ! thou art justly served, 
Good King ! this thou hast deserved. 

Woe is me, Alhama I 

" By thee were slain, in evil hour, 
The Abencerrage, Granada's flower ; 
And strangers were received by thee 
Of Cordova the Chivalry. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 

" And for this, oh, King ! is sent 
On thee a double chastisement : 
Thee and thine, thy crown and realm, 
One last wreck shall overwhelm. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 

" He who holds no laws in awe. 
He must perish by the law ; 
And Granada must be won. 
And thyself with her undone." 

Woe is me, Alhama! 

Fire flash'd from out the old Moor's eyes, 
The Monarch's wrath began to rise. 



SBB^ 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



679 



T como el otro de leyes 
De leyes tambieu hablava. 

Ay de mi, Alhama ! 

Sabe un Rev que no ay leyes 
De darle a Reyes disgusto — 
Esso dize el Rey Moro 
Relinchando de colera. 

Ay de mi, Alhama! 

Moro Alfaqui, Moro Alfaqui, 
El de la vellida barba, 
El Rey te manda prender, 
Por la perdida de Alhama. 

Ay de mi, Alhama! 

Y cortarte la cabeza, 

Y ponerla en el Alhambra, 
Por que a ti castigo sea, 

Y otros tiemblen en miralla. 

Ay de mi, Alhama! 

Cavalleros, hombres buenos, 
Dezid de mi parte al Rey, 
Al Rey Moro de Granada, 
Como no le devo nada. 

Ay de mi, Alhama ! 

De averse Alhama perdido 
A mi me pesa en el alma. . 
Que si el Rey perdio su tierra, 
Otro mucho mas perdiera. 

Ay de mi, Alhama ! 

Perdieran hijos padres, 

Y casados las casadas : 
Las cosas que mas amara 
Perdio 1' un y el otro fama. 

Ay de mi, Alhama! 

Perdi una hija donzella 
Que era la flor d' esta tierra, 
Cien doblas dava por ella. 
No me las estimo en nada. 

Ay de mi, Alhama ! 

Diziendo^assi al hacen Alfaqui, 
Le cortaron la cabeza, 

Y la elevan al Alhambra, 
Assi como el Rey lo manda. 

Ay de mi, Alhama ! 

Hombres, ninos y mugeres, 
Lloran tan grande perdida. 
Lloravan todas las damas 
Quantas en Granada avia. 

Ay de mi, Alhama! 

Por las calles y ventanas 
Mucho luto parecia ; 
Llora el Rey como fembra, 
Qu' es mucho lo que perdia. 

Ay de mi, Alhama ! 



Because he answer'd, and because 
He spake exceeding well of laws. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 

" There is no law to say such things 
As may disgust the ear of kings :" — 
Thus, snorting with his choler, said 
The Moorish King, and doom'd him dead. 
Woe is me, Alhama ! 

Moor Alfaqui ! Moor Alfaqui ! 
Though thy beard so hoary be. 
The King hath sent to have thee seized, 
For Alhama's loss displeased. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 

And to fix thy head upon 
High Alhambra's loftiest stone ; 
That this for thee should be the law. 
And others tremble when they saw. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 

" Cavalier, and man of worth ! 
Let these words of mine go forth ; 
Let the Moorish Monarch know. 
That to him I nothing owe. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 

" But on my soul Alhama weighs, 
And on my inmost spirit preys ; 
And if the King his land hath lost, 
Yet others may have lost the most. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 

*' Sires have lost their children, wives 
Their lords, and valiant men their lives ; 
One what best his love might claim 
Hath lost, another wealth, or fame. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 

"I lost a damsel in that hour, 
Of all the land the loveliest flower ; 
Doubloons a hundred I would pay. 
And think her ransom cheap that day." 
Woe is me, Alhama! 

And as these things the old Moor said, 
They sever'd from the trunk his head ; 
And to the Alhambra's wall with speed 
'Twas carried, as the King decreed. 

Woe is me, Alhama 1 

And men and infants therein weep 
Their loss, so heavy and so deep : 
Granada's ladies, all she rears 
Within her walls, burst into tears. 

Woe is me, Alhama I 

And from the windows o'er the walls 
The sable web of mourning falls ; 
The King weeps as a woman o'er 
His loss, for it is much and sore. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 



680 BYEON'S WOKKS. 

SONETTO DI VITTORELLI. TRANSLATION FROM VITTORELLI. 



PER MONACA. 

Sonetto composto in Bome di un genitore, a cui era morta 
poco innanzi una figlia appena maritata ; e diretto al geni- 
tore della sacra sposa. 

Di due vaghe donzelle, oneste, accorte 

Lieti e miseri padri il ciel ne feo, 

II ciel, che degne di piu nobil sorte 

L' una 8 1' altra veggendo, ambo chiedeo. 
La mia fu tolta da veloce morte 

A le fumanti tede d' imeneo ; 

La tua, Francesco, in sugellate porte 

Eterna prigioniera or si rendeo. 
Ma tu almeno potrai de la gelosa 

Irremeabil soglia, ove s' asconde, 

La sua tenera udir voce pietosa. 
Id verso un fiume d' amarissim' onde, 

Corro a quel marmo, in cui la figlia or posa, 

Batto, e ribatto, ma nessun risponde. 



ON A NUN. 

Sonnet composed in the name of a father, whose daughter 
had recently died shortly after her marriage ; and addressed 
to the father of her who had lately taken the veil. 

Of two fair virgins, modest, though admired, 
Heaven made us happy, and now, wretched sires ; 
Heaven for a nobler doom their worth desires, 
And gazing upon either, both required. 

Mine, while the torch of Hymen newly fired 
Becomes extinguish'd, soon — too soon — expires : 
But thine, within^the closing grate retired, 
Eternal captive, to her God aspires. 

But thou at least from out the jealous door. 
Which shuts between your never-meeting eyes, 
Mayst hear her sweet and pious voice once more : 

I to the marble, where my daughter lies, 
Rush, — the swoln flood of bitterness I pour. 
And knock, and knock, and knock — but none replies. 



STANZAS FOR MUSIC. 

Bright be the place of thy soul ! 

No lovelier spirit than thine 
E'er burst from its mortal control, 

In the orbs of the blessed to shine. 
On earth thou wert all but divine, 

As thy soul shall immortally be ; 
And our sorrow may cease to repine 

When we know that thy God is with thee. 

Light be the turf of thy tomb ! 

May its verdure like emeralds be ! 
There should not be the shadow of gloom, 

In aught that reminds us of thee. 
Young flowers and an evergreen tree 

May spring from the spot of thy rest : 
But nor cypress nor yew let us see ; 

For why should we mourn for the blest ? 



STANZAS FOR MUSIC. 

They say that Hope is happiness ; 

But genuine Love must prize the past, 
And Memory wakes the thoughts that bless ; 

They rose the first — they set the last ; 

And all that Memory loves the most 

Was once our only Hope to be, 
And all that Hope adored and lost 

Hath melted into Memory. 



Alas ! it is delusion all : 

The future cheats us from afar, 
Nor can we be what we recall, 

Nor dare we think on what we are. 



TO THOMAS MOORE. 

My boat is on the shore, 

And my bark is on the sea ; 
But, before I go, Tom Moore, 

Here's a double health to thee ! 

Here's a sigh to those who love me, 

And a smile to those who hate ; 
And, whatever sky's above me, 

Here's a heart for every fate. 

Though the ocean roar around me. 

Yet it still shall bear me on ; 
Though a desert should surround me, 

It hath springs that may be won. 

Were't the last drop in the well, 

As I gasp'd upon the brink, 
Ere my fainting spirit fell, 

'Tis to thee that I would drink. 

With that water, as this wine, 

The libation I would pour 
Should be — peace with thine and mine, 

And a health to thee, Tom Moore. 

July, 1817.1 

1 " This should have been written fifteen moons ago : the 
first stanza was. I am just come out from an hour's swim in 
the Adriatic."— iori Byron to Mr. Moore, July 10, 1817. 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



681 



ON THE BUST OF HELEN BY CANOVA.i 

In this beloved marble view, 

Above the works and thoughts of man, 
What nature could, but would not, do, 

And beauty and Canova can ! 
Beyond imagination's power, 

Beyond the Bard's defeated art, 
With immortality her dower, 

Behold the Helen of the heart ! 

November, 1816. 



SONG FOR THE LUDDITES. 

As the Liberty lads o'er the sea 
Bought their freedom, and cheaply, with blood, 
So we, boys, we 
Will die fighting, or live free, 
And down with all kings but King Ludd ! 

When the web that we weave is complete, 
And the shuttle exchanged for the sword, 

We will fling the winding sheet 

O'er the despot at our feet, 
And dye it deep in the gore he has pour'd. 

Though black as his heart its hue. 
Since his veins are corrupted to mud, 

Yet this is the dew 

Which the tree shall renew 
Of Liberty, planted by Ludd ! •^ 

December, 1816. 



TO THOMAS MOORE. 

What are you doing now. 

Oh, Thomas Moore? 
What are you doing now, 

Oh, Thomas Moore ? 
Sighing or suing now, 
Rhyming or wooing now, 
Billing or cooing now, 

Which, Thomas Moore ? 



1 "Tlie Helen of Canova (a bust which is in the house of 
Madame the Countess d'Albrizzi) is," says Lord Byron, " with- 
out exception, to my mind, the most perfectly beautiful of 
human conceptions, and far beyond ray ideas of human exe- 
cution." — Lord Byron to Mr. Murray, November 25, 1816. 

* " Are you not near the Luddites? By the Lord ! if there's 
a row, but I'll be among ye ! How go on the weavers— the 
breakers of frames— the Lutherans of politics — the reform- 
ers? There's an amiable charuton for you! — all 

impromptu. I have written it principally to shock your 
neighbor , who is all clergy and loyalty— mirth and inno- 
cence — milk and water." — Lord Byron to Mr. Moore, Decem- 
ber 24, 1816. 

• " And there are songs and quavers, roaring, humming, 
Guitars, and every other sort of strumming."— i?e/>po. 

See ante^ p. 172, 



But the Carnival's coming, 

Oh, Thomas Moore ! 
The Carnival's coming. 

Oh, Thomas Moore ! 

Masking and humming, 

Fifing and drumming,^ 

Guitarring and strumming. 

Oh, Thomas Moore ! 



SO, WE'LL GO NO MORE A ROVING. 

So, we'll go no more a roving 

So late into the night. 
Though the heart be still as loving, 

And the moon be still as bright. 

For the sword outwears its sheath,* 
And the soul wears out the breast. 

And the heart must pause to breathe, 
And love itself have rest. 

Though the night was made for loving. 

And the day returns too soon. 
Yet we'll go no more a roving 

By the light of the moon. 



1817. 



VERSICLES.* 

I READ the " Christabel ;" 

Very well : 
I read the " Missionary ;" 

Pretty — very : 
I tried at " Uderim ;" 

Ahem! 
I read a sheet of " Marg'ret of Anjou;"* 

Can you f 
I turn'd a page of Scott's " Waterloo ;" 

Pooh ! pooh ! 
I look'd at Wordsworth's milk-white " Rylstone Doe :" 

HiUo ! 

&c. &c. 

March, 1817. 



* " I went to most of the ridottos, &c., and though I did 
not dissipate much upon the whole, yet I found the sword 
wearing out the scabbard, though I have but just turned the 
corner of twenty-nine." — Lord Byron to Mr. Moore, February 
28, 1817. 

6 " I have been ill with a slow fever, which at last took to 
flying, and became as quick as need be. But, at length, after 
a week of half delirium, burning skin, thirst, hot headache, 
horrible pulsation, and no sleep, by the blessing of barley 
water, and refusing to see my physician, I recovered. It is an 
epidemic of the place. Here are some versicles, which I 
made one sleepless night." — Lord Byron to Mr. Moore, March 
25, 1817. 

• The " Missionary " was written by Mr. Bowles ; " H- 
derim" by Mr. Gaily Knight; and "Margaret of Anjou" by 
Miaa Holford. 



682 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



TO MR. MUERAY. 

To liook the reader, you, John Murray, 
Have publish'd " Anjou's Margaret," 
Which won't be sold off in a hurry 
(At least, it has not been as yet) ; 
And then, still further to bewilder 'em, 
Without remorse you set up " Ilderim ;" 

So mind you don't get into debt, 
Because as how, if you should fail, 
These books would be but baddish bail. 

And mind you do not let escape 

These rhymes to Morning Post or Perry, 
Which would be very treacherous — very, 

And get me into such a scrape ! 
For, firstly, I should have to sally, 
All in my little boat, against a Galley , 
And, should I chance to slay the Assyrian wight. 
Have next to combat with the female knight. 

March 25, 1817. 



EPISTLE FROM MR. MURRAY TO DR. 
POLIDORI.i 

Dear Doctor, I have read your play, 
Which is a good one in its way, — 
Purges the eyes and moves the bowels, 
And drenches handkerchiefs like towels 
With tears, that, in a flux of grief. 
Afford hysterical relief 
To shatter'd nerves and quicken'd pulses, 
Which your catastrophe convulses. 

I like your moral and machinery ; 
Your plot, too, has such scope for scenery ; 
Your dialogue is apt and smart ; 
The play's concoction full of art ; 
Your hero raves, your heroine cries, 
All stab, and every body dies. 
In short, your tragedy would be 
The very thing to hear and see : 
And for a piece of publication, 
If I decline on this occasion. 
It is not that I am not sensible 
To merits in themselves ostensible, 
But — and I grieve to speak it — plays 
Are drugs — mere drugs, sir — now-a-days. 
I had a heavy loss by " Manuel," — 
Too lucky if it prove not annual, — 
And Sotheby, with his " Orestes " 
(Which, by the by, the author's best is), 



1 For some particulars relating to Dr. Polidori see Moore's 
" Notices." " I never," says Lord Byron, " was much more 
disgusted with any human production than with the eternal 
nonsense, and tracasseries, and emptiness, and ill-humor, and 
vanity of this young person ; but he has some talent, and is a 



Has lain so very long on hand, 

That I despair of all demand. 

I've advertised, but see my books. 

Or only watch my shopman's looks ; — 

Still Ivan, Ina, and such lumber. 

My back-shop glut, my shelves encumber. 

There's Byron too, who once did better, 
Has sent me, folded in a letter, 
A sort of — it's no more a drama 
Than Darnley, Ivan, or Kehama : 
So alter'd since last year his pen is, 
I think he's lost his wits at Venice. 
In short, sir, what with one and t'other, 
I dare not venture on another. 
I write in haste ; excuse each blunder ; 
The coaches through the street so thunder ! 
My room's so full — we've Gifford here 
Reading MS,, with Hookham Frere, 
Pronouncing on the nouns and particles 
Of some of our forthcoming Articles. 

The Quarterly — Ah, sir, if you 
Had but the genius to review ! — 
A smart critique upon St. Helena, 
Or if you only would but tell in a 

Short compass what but, to resume : 

As I was saying, sir, the room — 
The room's so full of wits and bards, 
Crabbes, Campbells, Crokers, Freres, and 

Wards, 
And others, neither bards nor wits : — 
My humble tenement admits 
All persons in the dress of gent., 
From Mr. Hammond to Dog Dent. » 

A party dines with me to-day. 
All clever men, who make their way : 
•Crabbe, Malcolm, Hamilton, and Chantrey, 
Are all partakers of my pantry. 
They're at this moment in discussion 
On poor De Stael's late dissolution. 
Her book, they say, was in advance — 
Pray Heaven, she tell the truth of France ! 
Thus run our time and tongues away ; — 
But, to return, sir, to your play : 
Sorry, sir, but I cannot deal. 
Unless 'twere acted by O'Neill. 
My hands so full, my head so busy, 
I'm almost dead, and always dizzy ; 
And so, with endless truth and hurry, 
Dear Doctor, I am yours, 

John Murray. 

August, 1817. 



man of honor, and has dispositions of amendment. There- 
fore use your interest for him, for he is improved and improv- 
able. You want a 'civil and delicate declension' for the 
medical tragedy? Take '\V—Lord Byron to Mr. Murray, 
August 21, 1817. 



*' \ 



i 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



683 



EPISTLE TO MR. MURRAY. 

My dear Mr. Murray, 

You're in a damu'd hurry- 
To set up this ultimate Canto ; ^ 

But (if they don't rob us) 

You'll see Mr. Hobhouse 
Will bring it safe in his portmanteau. 

For the Journal you hint of, 
As ready to print off, 

No doubt you do right to commend it; 
But as yet I have writ off 
The devil a bit of 

Our " Beppo :" — wheu copied, I'll send it. 

Then you've * * ■■■ * 's Tour, — 
No great things, to be sure, — 

You could hardly begin with a less work ; 
For the pompous rascallion, 
"Who don't speak Italian 

Nor French, must have scribbled by guesswork. 

You can make any loss up 
With " Spence " and his gossip, 

A work which must surely succeed • 
Then Queen Mary's Epistle-craft, 
With the new "Fytte" of " Whistlecraft," 

Must make people purchase and read. 

Then you've General Gordon, 
Who girded his sword on. 

To serve with a Muscovite master, 
And help him to polish 
A nation so owlish. 

They thought shaving their beards a disaster. 

For the man, "poor and shrewd," 2 

With whom you'd conclude * 

A compact without more delay, 
Perhaps some such pen is 
Still extant in Venice ; 

But please, sir, to mention your pay. 

Venice, January 8, 1818. 

1 The fourth canto of " Childe Harold." 

* Vide your letter. 

3 On the birth of this child, the son of the British vice- 
consul at "Venice, Lord Byron wrote these lines. They are 
in no other respect remarkable, than that they were thought 
worthy of being metrically translated into no less than ten 
different languages; namely, Greek, Latin, Italian (also in 
the Venetian dialect), German, French, Spanish, Illyrian, 
Hebrew, Armenian, and Samaritan. The original lines, 
with the different versions above mentioned, were printed in 
a small neat volume, in the seminary of Padua; from which 
we take the following:— 

GREEK. 
4pT)|/ irvKvy) IlttTpbs Ka\ MTjTe'po? aykaJbv ti.ho<; 

'AprtTOKOv Kocr/Lioi vovv re, 5e'/xa? re /3pe(^ous' 
0<f>pa 6e TTavTL /Si'w jj oA^cos, aikv epairfoxj 

2x017} n-ac? 'Pi'^ou Koii yaj'os, riii /Sirji'. 



TO MR. MURRAY. 

Strahan, Touson, Lintot of the times, 
Patron and publisher of rhymes. 
For thee the bard up Pindus climbs, 
My Murray. 

To thee, with hope and terror dumb, 
The unfledged MS. authors come ; 
Thou printest all — and sellest some — 
My Murray. 

Upon thy table's baize so green 
The last new Quarterly is seen, — 
But where is thy new Magazine, 
My Murray? 

Along thy sprucest bookshelves shine 
The works thou deemest most divine — 
The "Art of Cookery," and mine, 
My Murray. 

Tours, Travels, Essays too, I wist. 
And Sermons, to thy mill bring grist ; 
And then thou hast the " Navy List," 
My Murray. 

And Heaven forbid I should conclude 
Without "the Board of Longitude," 
Although this narrow paper would, 
My Murray ! 

Venice, March 25, 1818. 



ON THE BIRTH OF JOHN WILLIAM RIZZO 
HOPPNER. 

His father's sense, his mother's grace. 
In him, I hope, will always fit so ; 

With — still to keep him in good case — 
The health and appetite of Rizzo.^ 

February, 1818. 

LATIN. 

Magnanimos Patris versct sub pcctore sensua, 

Maternus roseo fulgeat ore decor ; 
Neu quid felici desit, quo robore Rizzua 

Festive poUet, polleat iste puer. 

ITALIAN. 
Del Padre il senno, e il bcl materno aspetto 
Splendano ognora in Te, fanciul diletto: 
Felice appien ! se al tuo corporeo velo 
Dona il lieto vigor di Rizzo il cielo. 

THE VENETIAN DIALECT. 
De graziete ol to modelo 
Sia la Mama) bel Putelo. 
E '1 talento del Papi 
In ti crcssa co 1' eiS, ; 
E per salsa, o contentin 
Roba a Rizzo el so morbin. 



684 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



STANZAS TO THE PO.i 

River, that rollest by the ancient walls,^ 
Where dwells the lady of my love, when she 

Walks by thy brink, and there perchance recalls 
A faint and fleeting memory of me ; 

What if thy deep and ample stream should be 
A mirror of my heart, where she may read 

The thousand thoughts I now betray to thee. 
Wild as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed ! 

What do I say — a mirror of my heart ? 

Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong? 
Such as my feelings were and are, thou art ; 

And such as thou art were my passions long. 

Time may have somewhat tamed them, — not for ever ; 

Thou overflow'st thy banks, and not for aye 
Thy bosom overboils, congenial river ! 

Thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away, 

But left long wrecks behind, and now again, 
Borne in our old unchanged career, we move ; 

Thou tendest wildly onwards to the main, 
And I — to loving one I should not love. 



GERMAN. 

Slug beg ^ittbeg 5lugc j^rflf)let 
(Setneg SSaterg |>ol)er (Bmn, 
Unb ber 5!J?uttcir (Sc^ont)ett tnalct 
©t{| in SBange, 5)?unb, unb ^tnn. 

©liicflit^ ^(etner twtrft bu fep, 
^annft bu fRi^^o 'g froi)en SJiut^eg, 
©etneg feurtgcn 58luteg, 
©einer ©td'rfe bic^ erfrcu 'n. 

FRENCH. 
Sois en tout fortung, semillant Jouvenceau, 
Porte dans les festins la valeur de Rizzo, 
Porte au barreau I'esprit que fait briller ton p6re, 
Et pour vaincre ? — au boudoir sois beau comme ta m6re. 

SPANISH. 
Si 3. la gracia materna el gusto ayuntas 
Y cordura del Padre, o belle Infante, 
Seras feliz, y lo seras bastante ; 
Mas, si felicidad guieres completa, 
Sg, como Rizo, alegre, sg un atleta. 

ILLYRIAN. 
Ako ti sjagnu— Otgieve kriposti 

Budesc zadrusciti— majfinu ghisdavost, 
Prisladki ditichiu— , srichjansi zadosti. 

Ako pak narav — ti budesc sliditi 

Rizza privesela— , gnegovu i nasladost, 
Srichjnia od tebe— nechiesce viditi. 



HEBREW. 

n:nn nn5< u)h\d ^in 04 



The current I behold will sweep beneath 
Her native walls, and murmur at her feet ; 

Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe 
The twilight air, unharm'd by summer's heat. 

She will look on thee, — I have look'd on thee. 

Full of that thought: and, from that moment, 
ne'er 

Thy waters could I dream of, name, or see, 
Without the inseparable sigh for her ! 

Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream, — 
Yes ! they will meet the wave "I gaze on now : 

Mine cannot witness, even in a dream. 
That happy wave repass me in its flow ! 

The wave that bears my tears returns no more : 
Will she return by whom that wave shall sweep ?— 

Both tread thy banks, both wander on thy shore, 
I by thy source, she by the dark-blue deep. 

But that which keepeth us apart is not 
Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth, 

But the distraction of a various lot. 
As various as the climates of our birth. 



1 About the middle of April, 1819, Lord Byron travelled 
from Venice to Ravenna, at wbich last city be expected to 
find the countess Guiccioli. The above stanzas, which have 
been as much admired as any thing of the kind he ever 
wrote, were composed, according to Madame Guiccioli's 
statement, during this journey, and while Lord Byron was 
actually sailing on the Po. In transmitting them to Eng- 
land, in May, 1820, he says, — "They must not be published : 
pray recollect this, as they are mere verses of society, and 
written upon private feelings and passions." They were first 
printed in 1824. 

2 Ravenna — a city to which Lord Byron afterwards de- 
clared himself more attached than to any other place, except 
Greece. He resided in it rather more than two years, " and 
quitted it," says Madame Guiccioli, "with the deepest re- 
gret, and with a presentiment that his departure would be 
the forerunner of a thousand evils ; he was continually per- 
forming generous actions: many families owed to him the 
few prosperous days they ever enjoyed ; his arrival was spoken 
of as a piece of public good fortune, and his departure as a 
public calamity." In the third canto of " Don Juan," Lord 
Byron has pictured the tranquil life which, at this time, he 
was leading : — 

" Sweet hour of twilight ! — in the solitude 

Of the pine forest, and the silent shore 
Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood, 

Rooted where once the Adrian wave flow'd o'er, 
To where the last Csesarean fortress stood, 

Evergreen forest ! which Boccaccio's lore 
And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me, 
How have I loved the twilight hour and thee ! 

" The shrill cicalas, people of the pine. 
Making their summer lives one ceaseless song, 

Were the sole echoes, save my steed's and mine, 
And vesper bell's, that rose the boughs among ; 

The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line. 
His hell-dogs, and their chase, and the fair throng 

Which learn'd from this example not to fly 

From a true lover, shadow'd my mind's eye." 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



686 



A stranger loves the lady of the land, 

Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood 

Is all meridian, as if never fann'd 

By the black wind that chills the polar flood. 

My blood is all meridian ; were it not, 
I had not left my clime, nor should I be, 

In spite of tortures, ne'er to be forgot, 
A slave again of love, — at least of thee. 

'Tis vain to struggle — let me perish young — 
Live as I lived, and love as I have loved ; 

To dust if I return, from dust I sprung, 
And then, at least, ray heart can ne'er be moved. 

April, 1819. 



SONNET TO GEOEGE THE FOURTH, 

ON THE REPEAL OF LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD'S 
FORFEITURE. 

To be the father of the fatherless, 

To stretch the hand from the throne's height, and 
raise 

His offspring, who expired in other days 
To make thy sire's sway by a kingdom less, — 
Thu is to be a monarch, and repress 

Envy into unutterable praise. 

Dismiss thy guard, and trust thee to such traits, 
For who would lift a hand, except to bless ? 

Were it not easy, sir, and is't not sweet 

To make thyself beloved ? and to be 
Omnipotent by mercy's means ? for thus 

Thy sovereignty would grow but more complete ; 

A despot thou, and yet thy people free. 
And by the heart, not hand, enslaving us. 

Bologna, August 12, 1819.1 



EPIGRAM. 



FBOM THE FRENCH OF RXTLHI^RES.' 

If, for silver or for gold. 

You could melt ten thousand pimples 

Into half a dozen dimples, 
Then your face we might behold, / 

Looking, doubtless, much more snugly ; 

Yet even then 'twould be d d ugly. 

August 12, 1819. 



1 " So, the prince has been repealing Lord Fitzgerald's for- 
feiture? Ecco un' sonetto ! There, you dogs ! there's a sonnet 
for you : you won't have such as that iu a hurry from Fitz- 
gerald. You may publish it with my name, an' ye wool. He 
dcaerves all praise, bad and good : it was a very noble piece 
of principality." — Lord Byron to Mr. Murray. 

* " Would you like an epigram— a translation ? It was 
written on some Frenchwoman, by RulhiSres, I believe." — 
Lord Byron to Mr. Murray, August 12, 1819. 



STANZAS.» 

Could Love for ever 
Run like a river. 
And Time's endeavor 

Be tried in vain — 
No other pleasure 
With this could measure ; 
And like a treasure 

We'd hug the chain. 
But since our sighing 
Ends not in dying. 
And, form'd for flying, 

Love plumes his wing ; 
Then for this reason 
Let's love a season ; 
But let that season be only Spring. 



When lovers parted 
•* Feel broken-hearted, 

And, all hopes thwarted, 

Expect to die ; 
A few years older. 
Ah ! how much colder 
They might behold her 

For whom they sigh ! 
When link'd together, 
In every weather, 
They pluck Love's feather 

From out his wing — 
He'll stay for ever, 
But sadly shiver 
Without his plumage, when past the Spring.* 



Like Chiefs of Faction, 
His life is action — 
A formal paction 

That curbs his reign, 
Obscures his glory. 
Despot no more, he 
Such territory 

Quits with disdain. 
Still, still advancing. 
With banners glancing, 
His power enhancing. 

He must move on — 
Repose but cloys him, 
Retreat destroys him. 
Love brooks not a degraded throne. 



3 A friend of Lord Byron's, who was with him at Ravenna 
when he wrote these stanzas, says, — " They were composed, 
like many others, with no view of publication, but merely 
to relieve himself in a moment of suffering. He had been 
painfully excited by some circumstances which appeared to 
make it necessary that he should immediately quit Italy ; and 
in the day and the hour that he wrote the song was laboring 
under an access of fever." 

♦ V. L.— " That sped his Spring." 



686 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Wait not, fond lover ! 
Till years are over, 
And then recover, 

As from a dream. 
While each bewailing 
The other's failing, 
With wrath and railing, 

All hideous seem — 
While first decreasing, 
Yet not quite ceasing, 
Wait not till teasing 

All passion blight : 
If once diminish'd 
Love's reign is finish'd — 
Then part in friendship— and bid good-night.i 

So shall Affection 
To recollection 
The dear connection 

Bring back with joy : 
You had not waited 
Till, tired or hated, 
Your passions sated 

Began to cloy. 
Your last embraces 
Leave no cold traces — 
The same fond faces 

As through the past : 
And eyes, the mirrors 
Of your sweet errors, 
Eeflect but rapture — not least though last. 

True, separations 

Ask more than patience ; 

What desperations 

From such have risen I 
But yet remaining. 
What is't but chaining 
Hearts which, once waning. 

Beat 'gainst their prison ? 
Time can but cloy love. 
And use destroy love : 
The winged boy. Love, 

Is but for boys — 
You'll find it torture 
Thoiigh sharper, shorter. 
To wean, and not wear out your joys, 

1819. 



ON MY WEDDING-DAY. 

Here's a happy new year ! but with reason 

I beg you'll permit me to say — 
Wish me many returns of the season^ 

But as few as you please of the day. 

January 2, 1820. 



1 V. L. 

2 Or, 



-" One last embrace, then, and bid good-night." 
"You come to him on earth again, 
He'll go with you to hell." 
3 " Pray let not these versiculi go forth with my name, ex- 
cept among the initiated, because my friend Hobhouse has 



EPITAPH FOE WILLIAM PITT. 

With death doom'd to grapple, 

Beneath this cold slab, he 
Who lied in the Chapel 

Now lies in the Abbey. 

January, 



EPIGEAM. 



In digging up your bones, Tom Paine, 

Will. Cobbett has done well : 
You visit him on earth again. 

He'll visit you in hell.^ 

January, 1820.' 



STANZAS. 



When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home, 
Let him combat for that of his neighbors ; 

Let him think of the glories of Greece and of Eome, 
And get knock'd on the head for his labors. 

To do good to mankind is the chivalrous plan, 

And is always as nobly requited ; 
Then battle for freedom wherever you can. 

And, if not shot or hang'd, you'll get knighted. 

November, 1820. 



EPIGEAM. 



The world is a bundle of hay. 
Mankind are the asses who pull ; 

Each tugs it a different way. 
And the greatest of all is John Bull. 



THE CHAEITY BALL. 

What matter the pangs of a husband and father, 
If his sorrows in exile be great or be small. 

So the Pharisee*s glories around her she gather. 
And the saint patronizes her " charity ball !" 

What matters — a heart which, though faulty, was 
feeling. 
Be driven to excesses which once could appall — 
That the sinner should suffer is only fair dealing. 
As the saint keeps her charity back for "the 
ball!"* 

foamed into a reformer, and, I greatly fear, will subside into 
Newgate." — Lord Byron to Mr. Moore. 

* These lines were written on reading in the newspapers, 
that Lady Byron had been patroness of a ball in aid of some 
charity at Hinckley, 



i 

lii 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



687 



EPIGRAM ON MY WEDDING-DAY. 

TO PENELOPE. 

This day, of all our days, has done 

The worst for me and you : — 
'Tis just six years since we were one, 

And Jive since we were two. 

January 2, 1821. 



ON MY THIRTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY. 

JANUARY 22, 1821.1 

Through life's dull road, so dim and dirty, 
I have dragg'd to three and thirty. 
"What have these years left to me ? 
Nothing — except thirty-three. 



EPIGRAM, 

ON THE BRAZIERS' COMPANY HAVING RESOLVED TO 
PRESENT AN ADDRESS TO QUEEN CAROLINE.^ 

The Braziers, it seems, are preparing to pass 
An address, and present it themselves all in brass ; — 
A superfluous pageant — for, by the Lord Harry ! 
They'll find where they're going much more than 
they carry .3 



MARTIAL, Lib. I. Epig. 1. 

" Hie est, quern legis, ille, quern requiris, 
Tota notus in orbe Martialis," &c. 

He unto whom thou art so partial. 

Oh, reader ! is the well-known Martial, 

The Epigrammatist : while living. 

Give him the fame thou wouldst be giving; 

So shall he hear, and feel, and know it — 

Post-obits rarely reach a poet. 



1 In Lord Byron's MS. Diary of the preceding day, we find 
the following entry: "January 21, 1821. Dined — visited— 
came home — read. Remarked on an anecdote in Grimm's 
Correspondence, which says that ' Regnard et la plflpartdes 
pontes coniiques fitaient gens bilieux et mglancoliuqes ; et que 
M. de Voltaire, qui est tr6s-gai, n'a jamais fait que des trage- 
dies — et que la comCdie gaie est le soul genre oil il n'ait point 
rCussi. C'est que celui qui rit et celui qui fait rire sont deux 
hommes fort diffiSrens !' At this moment I feel as bilious as 
the best comic writer of them all ''even as Regnard himself, 
the next to Molifere, who has written some of the best come- 
dies in any language, and who is supposed to have committed 
suicide), and am not in spirits to continue my proposed 
tragedy. To-morrow is my birthday — that is to say, at 
twelve o' the clock, midnight ; i. e., in twelve minutes, I shall 
have completed thirty and three years of ape ! ! ! — and I go to 
my bed with a heaviness of heart at having lived so long, and 
to so little purpose. ♦ * * * * It is three 



BOWLES AND CAMPBELL. 

To the tune of " Why, how now, saucy jade?" 

Why, how now, saucy Tom ? 

If you thus must ramble, 
I will publish some 

Remarks on Mister Campbell. 

ANSWER. 

Why, how now, Billy Bowles ? 

Sure the priest is maudlin ! 
( To the public) How can you, d — n your souls ! 

Listen to his twaddling ? 

February 22, 1821.* 



EPIGRAMS. 



Oh, Castlereagh ! thou art a patriot now , 
Cato died for his country, so didst thou : 
He perish'd rather than see Rome enslaved. 
Thou cutt'st thy throat that Britain may be saved 1 



So Castlereagh has cut his throat ! — The worst 
Of this is, — that his own was not the first. 



So He has cut his throat at last ! — He ! Who ? 
The man who cut his country's long ago. 



EPITAPH. 



Posterity will ne'er survey 
A nobler grave than this : 

Here lie the bones of Castlereagh 
Stop, traveller, 



JOHN KEATS.5 

Who kill'd John Keats ? 

" I," says the Quarterly, 
So savage and Tartarly ; 

" 'Twas one of my feats." 



minutes past twejve— ' 'Tis the middle of night by the castle- 
clock,' and I am now thirty-three !— 

'Ehcu, fugaccs, Posthume, Posthume, 
Labuntur anni ;' — 
but I don't regret them so much for what I have done, as for 
what I might have done." 

- The procession of the Braziers to Brandcnburgh House 
was one of the most absurd fooleries of the time of the late 
queen's trial. 
3 " There is an epigram for you, is it not?^worthy 
Of Wordsworth, the grand metaquizzical poet, 
A man of vast merit, though few people know it ; 
The perusal of whom (as I told you at Mestri) 
I owe, in great part, to my passion for pastry." 

Byron Letters, January 22, 1821. 
* " Excuse haste,— I write with my spurs putting on."— 
Lord Byron to Mr. Moore, February 22, 1821. 
6 "Are you aware that Shelley has written an elegy on 



688 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Who shot the arrow ? 

" The poet-priest Milman 
(So ready to kill man), 

Or Southey, or Barrow." 



July, 1821. 



THE CONQUEST. 

This fragment was found amongst Lord Byron's papers 
after his departure from Genoa for Greece. 

March 8-9, 1823. 
The Son of Love and Lord of War I sing ; 

Him who bade England bow to Normandy, 
And left the name of conqueror more than king 

To his unconquerable dynasty. 
Not fann'd alone by Victory's fleeting wing, 

He rear'd his bold and brilliant throne on high : 
The Bastard kept, like lions, his prey fast, 
And Britain's bravest victor was the last. 



TO MR. MURRAY. 

Fob Orford^ and for Waldegrave^ 
You gave much more than me you gave ; 
Which is not fairly to behave. 

My Murray. 

Because if a live dog, 'tis said, 
Be worth a lion fairly sped, 
A live lord must be worth two dead, 
My Murray. 

And if, as the opinion goes. 
Verse hath a better sale than prose, — 
Certes, I should have more than those. 
My Murray. 

But now this sheet is nearly cramm'd, 
So, if you will, I sha'n't be shamm'd. 
And if you wonH, you may be damn'd, 
My Murray.^ 



Keate, and accuses the Quarterly of killing him?" — Lord 
Byron to Mr. Murray, July 30, 1821. 

1 Horace Walpole's Memoirs of the last nine Years of the 
Reign of George III. 

2 Memoirs by James Earl Waldegrave, governor of George 
III. when Prince of Wales. 

8 " Can't accept your courteous offer. These matters must 
be arranged with Mr. Douglas Kinnaird. He is my trustee, 
and a man of honor. To him you can state all your mer- 
cantile reasons, which you might not like to state to me 



THE IRISH AVATAR.* 

" And Ireland, like a bastinadoed elephant, kneeling to re- 
ceive the paltry rider." — Curkan. 

Eee the daughter of Brunswick is cold in her grave, 
And her ashes still float to their home o'er the tide, 

Lo ! George the triumphant speeds over the wave, 
To the long-cherish' d isle which he loved like his — 
bride ! 

True, the great of her bright and brief era are gone. 
The rainbow-like epoch where Freedom could pause 

For the few little years, out of centuries won. 
Which betray'd not, or crush'd not, or wept not her 
cause. 

True, the chains of the Catholic clank o'er his rags, 
The castle still stands, and the senate's no more, 

And the famine which dwelt on her freedomless crags 
Is extending its steps to her desolate shore. 

To her desolate shore — where the emigrant stands 
For a moment to gaze ere he flies from his hearth ; 

Tears fall on his chain, though it drops from his 
hands, 
For the dungeon he quits is the place of his birth. 

But he comes ! the Messiah of royalty comes ! 

Like a goodly Leviathan roll'd from the waves ; 
Then receive him as best such an advent becomes, 

With a legion of cooks, and an army of slaves ! 

He comes in the promise and bloom of threescore. 
To perform in the pageant the sovereign's part — 

But long live the shamrock which shadows him o'er ! 
Could the green in his hat be transferr'd to his 
heart ! 

Could that long-wither'd spot but be verdant again, 

And a new spring of noble affections arise — 
Then might freedom forgive thee this dance in thy 
chain. 
And this shout of thy slavery which saddens the 
skies. 

Is it madness or meanness which clings to thee now ? 

Were he God — as he is but the commonest clay, 
With scarce fewer wrinkles than sins on his brow — 

Such servile devotion might shame him away. 



personally, such as 'heavy season'— 'flat public '—' don't go 
off '—' lordship writes too much' — 'won't take advice' — 'de- 
clining popularity '—' deduction for the trade'— 'make very 
little '— ' generally lose by him ' — ' pirated edition '— ' foreign 
edition ' — ' severe criticisms,' &c., with other hints and howls 
for an oration, which I leave Douglas, who is an orator, to 
answer."— iord Byron to Mr. Murray, August 23, 1821. 
* "The enclosed lines, as you will directly perceive, are 

written by the Rev. W. L. B . Of course it is for him to 

deny them if they are not."— Zord Byron to Mr. Moore, Sep- 
tember 17, 1821. 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



689 



Ay, roar in his train ! let thine orators lash 
Their fanciful spirits to pamper his pride — 

Not thus did thy Grattan indignantly flash 

His soul o'er the freedom implored and denied.^ 

Ever-glorious Grattan ! the best of the good ! 

So simple in heart, so sublime in the rest! 
With all which Demosthenes wanted endued, 

And his rival or victor in all he possess'd. 

Ere Tally arose in the zenith of Rome, 

Though unequall'd, preceded, the task was begun — 
But Grattan sprung up like a god from the tomb 

Of ages, the first, last, the saviour, the one ! 

With the skill of an Orpheus to soften the brute ; 

With the fire of Prometheus to kindle mankind ; 
Even Tyranny listening sate melted or mute. 

And Corruption shrunk scorch'd from the glance 
of his mind. 

But back to our theme ! Back to despots and slaves ! 

Feasts furnish'd by Famine ! rejoicings by Pain ! 
True freedom but welcomes, while slavery still raves, 

When a week's saturnalia hath loosen 'd her chain. 

Let the poor squalid splendor thy wreck can afford 
(As the bankrupt's profusion his ruin would hide) 

Gild over the palace, Lo ! Erin, thy lord ! 
Kiss his foot with thy blessing, his blessings denied ! 

Or if freedom past hope be extorted at last, 
If the idol of brass find his feet are of clay, 

Must what terror or policy wring forth be class'd 
With what monarchs ne'er give, but as wolves yield 
their prey ? 

Each brute hath its nature ; a king's is to reign, — 
To reign ! in that word see, ye ages, comprised 

The cause of the curses all annals contain, 
From Caesar the dreaded to George the despised ! 

Wear, Fingal, thy trapping ! O'Connell, proclaim 
His accomplishments ! Hi^ ! ! ! and thy country 
convince 
Half an age's contempt was an error of fame, 
And that " Hal is the rascaliest, sweetest young 
prince !" 

Will thy yard of blue ribbon, poor Fingal, recall 
The fetters from millions of Catholic limbs? 

Or, has it not bound thee the fastest of all 
The slaves, who now hail their betrayer with 
hymns ? 

1 " After the stanza on Grattan, will it please you to cause 
insert the following addenda, which I dreamed of during 
to-day's siesta."— Z/Ord Byron to Mr. Moore, September 20, 
1821. 

* "The last line — ' A name never sj>oke but with curses or 
jeers' must run, either 'A name only uttered with curses or 
44 



Ay ! " Build him a dwelling !" let each give his mite ! 

Till, like Babel, the new royal dome hath arisen ! 
Let thy beggars and helots their pittance unite — 

And a palace bestow for a poor-house and prison ! 

Spread — spread, for Vitellius, the royal repast, 
Till the gluttonous despot be stuff"'d to the gorge ! 

And the roar of his drunkards proclaim him at last 
The Fourth of the fools and oppressors call'd 
" George !" 

Let the tables be loaded with feasts till they groan ! 

Till they groan like thy people, through ages of woe ! 
Let the wine flow around the old Bacchanal's throne, 

Like their blood which has flow'd, and which yet 
has to flow. 

But let not his name be thine idol alone — 
On his right hand behold a Scjanus appears ! 

Thine own Castlereagh ! let him still be thine own ! 
A wretch never named but with curses and jeers ! ^ 

Till now, when the isle which should blush for his 
birth, 
Deep, deep as the gore which he shed on her soil, 
Seems proud of the reptile which crawl'd from her 
earth. 
And for murder repays him with shouts and a smile. 

Without one single ray of her genius, without 
The fancy, the manhood, the fire of her race — 

The miscreant who well might plunge Erin in doubt 
If she ever gave birth to a being so base. 

If she did — let her long-boasted proverb be hush'd. 
Which proclaims that from Erin no reptile can 
spring — 

See the cold-blooded serpent, with venom full flush'd, 
Still warming its folds in the breast of a king! 

Shout, drink, feast, and flatter! Oh, Erin! how low 
Wert thou sunk by misfortune and tyranny, till 

Thy welcome of tyrants hath plunged thee below 
The depth of thy deep in a deeper gulf still. 

My voice, though but humble, was raised for thy right, 
My vote, as a freeman's, still voted thee free. 

This hand, thoiigh but feeble, would arm in thy fight, 
And this heart, though outworn, had a throb stiU 
for thee ! 

Yes, I loved thee and thine, though thou art not ray 

land, [sons, 

I have known noble hearts and great souls in thy 



jeers,' or, * A wretch never named but with curses or jeers,' 

becase as how ' spoke ' is not grammar, except in the House of 
Commons. So pray put your poetical pen through the MS., 
and take the least bad of the emendations. Also, if there be 
any further breaking of Priscian's head, will you apply a 
plaster ?"—//Orrf Byron to Mr. Moore, September 19. 



690 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



And I wept with the world, o'er the patriot band 
Who are gone, but I weep them no longer as once. 

For happy are they now reposing afar, — 
Thy Grattan, thy Curran, thy Sheridan, all 

Who, for years, were the chiefs in the eloquent war, 
And redeeni'd, if they have not retarded, thy fall. 

Yes, happy are they in their cold English graves ! 

Their shades cannot start to thy shouts of to-day — 
Nor the steps of enslavers and chain-kissing slaves 

Be stamp'd in the turf o'er their fetterless clay. 

Till now I had envied thy sons and their shore, 
Though their virtues were hunted, their liberties 
fled; 

There was something so warm and sublime in the core 
Of an Irishman's heart, that I envy — thy dead. 

Or, if aught in my bosom can quench for an hour 

My contempt for a nation so servile, though sore. 
Which though trod like the worm will not turn upon 
power, 
'Tis the glory of Grattan, and genius of Moore ! 

September, 1821. 



STANZAS 



WRITTEN ON THE ROAD BETWEEN FLORENCE AND 
PISA.1 

Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story ; 
The days of our youth are the days of our glory ; 
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty 
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty. 

What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is 

wrinkled ? 
'Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled. 



1 " I composed these stanzas (except the fourth, added now) 
a few days ago, on the road from Florence to Pisa." — Byron 
Diary, Pisa, 6th November, 1821. 

2 In the same Diary, we find the following painfully in- 
teresting passage: — "As far as Fame goes (that is to say, 
living Fame), I have had my share, perhaps— indeed, certainly 
— more than my deserts. Some odd instances have occurred 
to my own experience of the wild and strange places to which 
a name may penetrate, and where it may impress. Two 
years ago — (almost three, being in August, or July, 1819) — I 
received a letter in English verse from Drontheim in Nor- 
way, written by a Norwegian, and full of the usual compli- 
ments, &c. &c. In the same month I received an invitation 
into Holstein, from a Mr. Jacobson, I think of Hamburgh ; 
also (by the same medium) a translation of Medora's song in 
the * Corsair,' by a Westphalian baroness {not ' Thunderten- 
tronck '), with some original verses of hers (very pretty and 
Klopstockish), and a prose translation annexed to them, on 
the subject of my wife. As they concerned her more than 
me, I sent them to her with Mr. Jacobson's letter. It was 
odd enough to receive an invitation to pass the summer in 



Then away with all such from the head that is 

hoary ! 
What care I for the wreaths that can only give glory ? 

Oh, Fame ! ^ — if I e'er took delight in thy praises, 
'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases. 
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover 
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her. 

There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee ; 
Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee ; 
When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my 

story, 
I knew it was love, and I feel it was glory. 

November, 1821. 



STANZAS 

TO A HINDOO AIR.2 

Oh ! — my lonely — lonely — lonely — Pillow ! 
Where is my lover ? where is my lover ? 
Is it his bark which my dreary dreams discover ? 

Far — far away ! and alone along the billow ? 

Oh ! my lonely — lonely — lonely — Pillow ! 
Why must my head ache where his gentle brow lay ? 
How the long night flags lovelessly and slowly. 

And my head droops over thee like the willow ! 

Oh ! thou, my sad and solitary Pillow ! 
Send me kind dreams to keep my heart from breaking. 
In return for the tears I shed upon thee waking ; 

Let me not die till he comes back o'er the billow. 



Then if thou wilt — no more my lonely Pillow, 
In one embrace let these arms again enfold him. 
And then expire of the joy — but to behold him ! 

Oh ! my lone bosom ! — oh ! my lonely Pillow ! 



Holstein, while in Italy, from people I never knew. The 
letter was addressed to Venice. Mr. Jacobson talked to me 
of the ' wild roses growing in the Holstein summer :' why, 
then, did the Cimbri and the Teutones emigrate ? — "What a 
strange thing is life and man ! Were I to present myself at 
the door of the house where my daughter now is, the door 
would be shut in my face, unless (as is not impossible) I 
knocked down the porter ; and if I had gone in that year 
(and perhaps now) to Drontheim (the furthest town in Nor- 
way), or into Holstein, I should have been received with open 
arms into the mansions of strangers and foreigners — attached 
to me by no tie but that of mind and rumor. As far as 
Fame goes, I have had my share : it has, indeed, been leavened 
by other human contingencies ; and this in a greater degree 
than has occurred to most literary men of a decent rank in 
life; but, on the whole, I take it that such equipoise is the 
condition of humanity." 

8 These verses were written by Lord Byron a little before 
he left Italy for Greece. They were meant to suit the Hin- 
dostanee air—" Alia Malla Punca," which the countess Guic- 
cioli was fond of singing. 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



691 



IMPROMPTU.i 

Beneath Blessington's eyes 

The reclaim'd Paradise 
Should be free as the former from evil ; 

But, if the new Eve 

For an Apple should grieve, 
What mortal would not play the devil ?2 



1823. 



TO THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON. 

You have ask'd for a verse : — the request 
In a rhymer 'twere strange to deny ; 

But my Hippocrene was but my breast, 
And my feelings (its fountain) are dry. 

Were I now as I was, I had sung 
What Lawrence has painted so well ; 

But the strain would expire on my tongue, 
And the theme is too soft for my shell. 

I am ashes where once I was fire, 
And the bard in my bosom is dead : 

What I loved I now merely admire, 
And my heart is as gray as my head. 

My life is not dated by years — 

There are moments which act as a plough ; 
And there is not a furrow appears 

But is deep in my soul as my brow. 

Let the young and the brilliant aspire 

To sing what I gaze on in vain ; 
For sorrow has torn from my lyre 

The string which was worthy the strain. 



ON THIS DAY I COMPLETE MY THIRTY- 
SIXTH YEAR. 

Missolonghi, January 22, 1824.' 
'Tis time this heart should be unmoved, 

Since others it hath ceased to move : 
Yet, though I cannot be beloved, 
Still let me love ! 



^ " With a view of inducing Lord and Lady Blessington to 
prolong their stay at Genoa, Lord Byron suggested their tak- 
ing a pretty villa called ' II Paradiso,' in the neighborhood 
of his own, and accompanied them to look at it. Upon that 
occasion it was that, on the lady expressing some intentions 
of residing there, he produced this impromptu." — Moore. 

» "The Genoese wits had already applied this threadbare 
jest to himself. Taking it into their heads that this villa 
(which was also, I believe, a Casa Saluzzo) had been the one 
fixed on for his own residence, they said, 'D Diavolo 6 an- 
cora entrato in Paradiso.' " — Moore. 

' "This morning Lord Byron came from his bedroom into 
the apartment where Colonel Stanhope and some friends 



My days are in the yellow leaf; 

The flowers and fruits of love are gone ; 
The worm, the canker, and the grief 
Are mine alone ! 

The fire that on my bosom preys 

Is lone as some volcanic isle ; 
No torch is kindled at its blaze — 
A funeral pile. 

The hope, the fear, the jealous care, 

The exalted portion of the pain 
And power of love, I cannot share, 
But wear the chain. 

But 'tis not thus — and 'tis not here — 

Such thoughts should shake my soul, nor now, 
Where glory decks the hero's bier, 
Or binds his brow. 

The sword, the banner, and the field. 
Glory and Greece, around me see ! 
The Spartan, borne upon his shield, 
Was not more free. 

Awake ! (not Greece— she is awake !) 

Awake, my spirit ! Think through whom 
Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake, 
And then strike home ! 

Tread those reviving passions down. 

Unworthy manhood ! — unto thee 
Indiflferent should the smile or frown 
Of beauty be. 

If thou regrett'st thy youth, why live ? 

The land of honorable death 
Is here : — up to the field, and give 
Away thy breath ! 

Seek out- -less often sought than found — 

A soldier's grave, for thee the best ; 
Then look around, and choose thy ground. 
And take thy rest.* 



were assembled, and said with a smile — ' You were complain- 
ing, the other day, that I never write any poetry now. This 
is my birthday, and I have just finished something, which, I 
think, is better than what I usually write.' He then pro- 
duced these noble and affecting verses."— Count Gamba. 

* "Taking into consideration everything connected with 
these verses, — the last tender aspirations of a loving spirit 
which they breathe, the self-devotion to a noble cau.se which 
they so nobly express, and that consciousness of a near grave 
glimmering sadly through the whole, — there is perhaps no 
production within the range of mere human composition, 
round which the circumstances and feelings under which it 
was written cast so touching an interest."- Moore. 



Hon Juan. 



" Difficile est propria communia dicere." — Horace. 
"Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale? — Yes, by Saint Anne, and ginger 
shall be hot i' the mouth, too !" — Shakspeare, Twelfth Night, or What You Will. 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

The reader of the " Notices of the Life of Lord 
Byron " is already in possession of abundant details, 
concerning the circumstances under which the suc- 
cessive cantos of Don Jtjan were produced. We 
think it right, however, to repeat, in this place, some 
of the most striking passages of the Poet's own 
letters, with reference to this performance : — 

September 19, 1818. — "I have finished the first canto (a 
long one, of about 180 octaves) of a poem in the style and 
manner of Beppo, encouraged by the good success of the 
same. It is called Don Juan, and is meant to be a little 
quietly facetious upon every thing. But I doubt whether it 
is not — at least, as far as it has yet gone — too free for these 
very modest days. However, I shall try the experiment 
anonymously, and if it don't take, it will be discontinued. 
It is dedicated to Southey, in good, simple, savage verse, 
upon the laureate's politics, and the way he got them." 

January 25, 1819. — "Print it entire, omitting, of course, 
the lines on Castlereagh, as I am not on the spot to meet him. 
I have acquiesced in the request and representation; and 
having done so, it is idle to detail my arguments in favor of 
my own self-love and 'poeshie;' but 1 protest. If the poem 
has poetry, it would stand ; if not, fall ; the rest is ' leather 
and prunello,' and has never yet affected any human produc- 
tion ' pro or con.' Dullness is the only annihilator in such 
cases. As to the cant of the day, I despise it, as I have ever 
done all its other finical fashions, which become you as paint 
became the ancient Britons. If you admit this prudery, you 
must omit half Ariosto, La Fontaine, Shakspeare, Beaumont, 
Fletcher, Massinger, Ford, all the Charles Second writers ; in 
short, something of most who have written before Pope and 
are worth reading, and much of Pope himself Read him— 
most of you donH — but do — and I will forgive you ; though 
the inevitable consequence would be, that you would burn all 
I have ever written, and all your other wretched Claudians 
of the day (except Scott and Crabbe) into the bargain." 

February 1, 1819.— "I have not yet begun to copy out the 
second canto, which is finished, from natural laziness, and 
tlie discouragement of the milk and water they have thrown 
upon the first. I say all this to them as to you, that is, for 
you to say to them, for I will have nothing underhand. If 
they had told me the poetry was bad, I would have acquiesced ; 
but they say the contrary, and then talk to me about morality 
— the first time I ever heard the word from any body who 
was not a rascal that used it for a purpose. I maintain that 
it is the most moral of poems ; but if people won't discover 
the moral, that is their fault, not mine." 



1 Boswell's Johnson, vol. vii. p. 10, edit. 
(692) 



April 6, 1819. — " You sha'n't make canticles of my cantos. 
The poem will please, if it is lively ; if it is stupid, it will 
fail : but I will have none of your damned cutting and slash- 
ing. If you please, you may publish anonymously; it will 
perhaps be better ; but I will battle my way against them all, 
like a porcupine." 

August 12, 1819. — " You are right, Gifford is right, Crabbe 
is right, Hobhouse is right — you are all right, and I am all 
wrong ; but do, pray, let me have that pleasure. Cut me up 
root and branch ; quarter me in the Quarterly ; send round 
my ' disjecti membra poetse,' like those of the Lavite's concu- 
bine ; make me, if you will, a spectacle to men and angels ; 
but don't ask me to alter, for I won't: — I am obstinate and 
lazy — and there's the truth. — You ask me for the plan of 
Donny Johnny : I have no plan ; I ?iad no plan ; but I had 
or have materials ; though if, like Tony Lumpkin, 'I am to 
be snubbed so when I am in spirits,' the poem will be nought, 
and the poet turn serious again. If it don't take, I will leave 
it off where it is, with all due respect to the public ; but if 
continued, it must be in my own way. You might as well 
make Hamlet (or Diggory) 'act mad' in a strait waistcoat, 
as trammel my buffoonery, if I am to be a buffoon ; their 
gestures and my thoughts would only be pitiably absurd and 
ludicrously constrained. Why, man, the soul of such writing 
is its license ; at least the liberty of that license, if one likes — 
not that one should abuse it. It is like Trial by Jury and 
Peerage, and the Habeas Corpus— a very fine thing, but 
chiefly in the reversion; because no one wishes to be tried 
for the mere pleasure of proving his possession of the privi- 
lege. But a truce with these reflections. You are too ear- 
nest and eager about a work never intended to be serious. 
Do you suppose that I could have any intention but to giggle 
and make giggle ?— a playful satire, with as little poetry as 
could be helped, was what I meant. And as to the indecency, 
do, pray, read in Boswell what Johnson, the sullen moralist, 
says of Prior and Paulo Purgante." ^ 

August 24, 1819.— "Keep the anonymous:, it helps what 
fun there may be. But if the matter grows serious about 
' Don Juan,' and you feel yourself in a scrape, or me either, 
own that. I am the author. I will never shrink ; and if you 
do, I can always answer you in the question of Guatimozin to 
his minister— each being on his own coals.2 I wish that I 
had been in better spirits; but I am out of sorts, out of 
nerves, and, now and then (I begin to fear), out of my senses." 

Such additional particulars, respecting the produc- 
tion of the later cantos, as may seem to deserve pres- 
ervation, shall be given as the poem proceeds. In 
the mean time, we have been much puzzled how to 
put the reader, who does not recollect the incidents 
of 1819, in possession of any thing like an adequate 



2 " Am I now reposing on a bed of flowers ?"— Robertson. 



DON JUAN. 



693 



view of the nature and extent of the animadversion 
called forth by the first publication of Don Juan. 

Cantos i. and ii. appeared in London, in July, 
1819, without the name either of author or bookseller, 
in a thin quarto ; and the periodical press immediately 
teemed with the "juJicia doctorum — nccnon alioruni." 
It has occurred to us, that on this occiision we might 
do worse than adoi:)t the example set us in the Preface 
to the first complete edition of the DUNCIAD. We 
there read as follows : — " Before we present thee. 
Reader, with our exercitations on this most delectable 
Poem (drawn from the many volumes of our Adver- 
saria on modern Authors), we shall here, according to 
the laudable usage of editors, collect the various judg- 
ments of the Learned concerning our Poet: various, 
indeed I — not only of different authors, but of the 
same author at different seasons. Nor shall we gather 
only the Testimonies of such eminent Wits as would of 
course descend to posterity, and consequently be read 
without our collection; but we shall likewise, witli 
incredible labor, seek out for divers others, which, 
but for this our diligence, could never, at the distance 
of a few months, appear to the eye of the most 
curious. Hereby thou mayst not only receive the de- 
lectation of variety, but also arrive at a more certain 
judgment, by a grave and circumspect comparison of 
the witnesses with each other, or of each with him- 
self." In like manner, therefore, let us now gratify 
our readers, by selecting, in reference to Don Juan, a 
few of the chief 

2tistimonu5 of ^ut!)ors, 

beginning with the most courtly, and decorous, and 
high-spirited of newspapers, 

I. THE MORNING POST. 

"Tlie greatest anxiety having been excited with respect to 
the appearance of this poem, we shall lay a few stanzas before 
our roaders, merely observing, that, whatever its character, 
report has been completely erroneous respecting it. If it is 
not — (and truth compels us to admit it is not) — the most 
moral production in the world, but more in the ' Beppo ' style, 
yet is there nothing of the sort which Scandal with her 
hundred tongues whispered abroad, and Malignity joyfully 
believed and repeated, contained in it. 'Tis .simply a tale and 
righte merrie conceit, flighty, wild, extravagant — immoral too, 
it must be confessed ; but no arrows are levtlled at innocent 
bosoms, no sacred family peace invaded ; and they must have, 
indeed, a strange self-consciousness, who can discover their 
own portrait in any part of it. Thus much, though we cannot 
advocate the book, truth and justice ordain us to declare." 

Kven more complimentary, on this occasion, was 
the sober, matter-of-fact Thwaitsism of the 

II. MORNING HERALD. 

"It i.s hardly safe or discreet to speak of Don Juan, that 
truant offspring of Lord Byron's muse. It may be said, how- 
ever, that, with all its sins, the copiousness and flexibility of 
the English language were never before so triumphantly ap- 
proved—that the same compa.'js of talent — 'the grave, the 
gay, the great, the small,' comic force, humor, motapihysics, 
and observation— boundless fancy and ethereal beauty, and 
curious knowledge, curiously applied, have never been blended 
with the same felicity in any other poem." 



Next comes a harsher voice, from— probably Lees 
Giffard, Esq., LL.D.— at all events from that stanch 
organ of high Toryism, the " St. James's Chronicle," 
still flourishing, but now better known to London 
readers by its daili/ title of " The Standard." 

III. ST. JAMES'S CHRONICLE. 
" Of indirect testimony, that the poem comes from the 
pen of Lord Byron, there is enough to enforce conviction. 
The same full command of our language, the same thorough 
knowledge of all that is evil in our nature, the condensed 
energy of sentiment, and the striking boldness of imagery — 
all the characteristics by which Childe Harold, the Giaour, 
and the Corsair are distinguished — shine with kindred splen- 
dor in Don Juan. Would we had not to add another point 
of resemblance, in the utter absence of moral feeling, and the 
hostility to religion, which betray themselves in almost every 
passage of the new poem ! But Don Juan is, alas ! the most 
licentious poem which has for many years issued from the 
English press." 

The fourth on our list is " The New Times," con- 
ducted in those days by the worthy and learned Sir 
John Stoddart, LL.D., now Chief Justice of Malta. 

IV. NEW TIMES. 
"The work is clever and piangent, sometimes reminding 
us of the earlier and more inspired day of the writer, but 
chiefly characterized by his latter style of scattered versifica- 
tion and accidental poetry. It begins with a few easy prefa- 
tory stanzas relative to the choice of a hero ; and then details 
the learned and circumspect education of Don Juan, under 
his lady mother's eye. Lord Byron knows the additional 
vigor to be found in drawing from the life ; and his portrait- 
ure of the literary matron, who is, like Michael Cassio, a 
great arithmetician, some touches on the folly of female 
studies, and a lament over the hen-pecked husbands who are 
linked to 'ladies intellectual,' are obviously the results of 
domestic recollections." 

Lord Burleigh himself never shook his head more 
sagely than 

V. THE STATESMAN. 

"This is a very large book, aflTecting many mysteries, but 
possessing very few ; assuming much originality, though it 
hath it not. The author is wrong to pursue so eccentric a 
flight. It is too artificial: it is too much like the enterprise 
of Icarus; and his declination, or, at any rate, that of his 
book, will be as rapid, if not as disastrous, as the fabled tum- 
ble of the ill-starred youth." 

We pass to "The Literary Gazette," edited then, 
as now, by William Jerdan, Esq., of Grove House, 
Brompton ; who is sure of being remembered here- 
after for his gallant seizure of Bellingham, the 
assassin of Perceval, in the lobby of the House of 
Commons, on the lltli of May, 1812 ; and the estab- 
lishment of the first Weekly Journal of Criticism 
and Belles Lettres in England. 

VI. LITERARY GAZETTE. 
"There is neither author's nor publisher's name to this 
book; and the large quarto tillcpage looks quite pure, with 
only seventeen words scattered over its surface: perhaps we 
cannot say that there is equal purity throughout ; but there 
is not much of an opposite kind, to offend even fastidious 
• criticism, or sour morality. Tliat Lord Byron is the author 
there is internal proof The public mind, so agitated by the 
strange announcement of this stranger, in the newspaper 



694 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



advertisements, may repose in quiet ; since we can assure our 
readers that the avatar so dreaded, neither refers to the re- 
turn of Buonaparte, nor to the coming of any other great 
national calamity, but simply to the publication of an exceed- 
ingly clever and entertaining poem. Even when we blame 
the too great laxity of the poet, we cannot but feel a high ad- 
miration of his talent. Far superior to the libertine he paints, 
fancifulness and gayety gild his worst errors, and no brute 
force is employed to overthrow innocence. Never was Eng- 
lish festooned into more luxuriant stanzas than in Don Juan. 
Like the dolphin sporting in his native waves, at every turn, 
however grotesque, displaying a new hue and a new beauty, 
the noble author has shown an absolute control over his 
means ; and at every cadence, rhyme, or construction, how- 
ever whimsical, delighted us with novel and magical associa- 
tions. The style and nature of this poem appear to us to be 
a singular mixture of burlesque and pathos, of humorous 
observation and the higher elements of poetical composition. 
In ribaldry and drollery, the author is surpassed by many 
writers who have had their day and sunk into oblivion : but 
in highly wrought interest, and overwhelming passion, he is 
himself alone." 

As the editor of tlie journal above quoted thought 
fit to insert, soon after, certain extracts from a work 
then (and probably still) in MS., entitled "Lord 
Byron's Plagiarisms," he (the editor) will not think 
it indecorous in us here to append a specimen of the 
said work — which is known to have proceeded from 
no less a pen than that of 

VII. ALARIC A. WATTS, ESQ. 
" A great deal has been said, at various times, about the 
originality of Lord Byron's conception, as it respects the 
characters of the heroes and heroines of his poetry. We are, 
however, disposed to believe, that his dramatis personce are 
mostly the property of other exhibitors, although he may 
sometimes furnish them with new dresses and decorations, 
— with ' sable hair,' ' unearthly scowls,' ' a vital scorn ' of all 
besides themselves, — and such additional improvements as 
he may consider necessary, in order to enable them to make 
their appearance with satisfaction to himself, and profit, or 
at least amusement, to the public. Sooth to say, there are 
few people better adapted to play the part of a Corsair than 
his lordship ; for he is positively unequalled by any marauder 
we ever met with or heard of, in the extent and variety of 
his literary piracies, and unacknowledged obligations to 
various great men— ay, and women too— living as well as 
deceased." 

The next weekly journalist whom we hold it 
proper to quote is " The Champion " — in other words, 
Thomas Hill, Esq., the generous original patron of 
Kirke White and Eobert Bloomfield, so eloquently 
lauded by Southey in his Life of the former of these 
poets — then proprietor of 

VIII. THE CEAMPIOK 
" Don Juan is undoubtedly from the pen of Lord Byron ; 
and the mystery in the publication seems to be nothing but a 
bookseller's trick to excite curiosity and enhance the sale ; 
for although the book is infinitely more immoral than the 
publications against which the prosecutions of the Society 
for the Suppression of Vice are directed, we find nothing in 
it that could be likely to be regarded as actionable. At the 
bar of moral criticism, indeed, it may and must be arraigned ; 
and against the process and decrees of that court, the sub- 
terfuges appealed to will be no protection. Other writers, in 
their attacks upon whatever mankind may or ought to rev- 
erence, make their advances in partial detail; Lord Byron 



proceeds by general aissault. Some, while they war against 
religion, pay homage to morality; and others, while they 
subvert all morals, cant about religion ; Lord Byron displays 
at once all the force and energy of his faculties, all the powers 
of poetry, and the missiles of wit and ridicule, against what- 
ever is respectable in either. There is, of course, a good deal 
of miscellaneous matter dispersed through the two cantos ; 
and though, in those parts which affect to be critical, the 
wantonness of wit is sometimes more apparent than the 
sedateness of impartial judgment; and though the politics 
occasionally savor more of caustic misanthropy, than of that 
ardent patriotic enthusiasm which constitutes the charm of 
that subject — upon both these topics, on the whole, we find 
much more to commend than to censure." 

Among the Monthly critics, the first place is due 
to the venerable Sylvanus Urban, 

IX. GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. 
" Don Juan is obviously intended as a satire upon some of 
the conspicuous characters of the day. The best friends of 
the poet must, with ourselves, lament to observe abilities of 
so high an order rendered subservient to the spirit of in- 
fidelity and libertinism. The noble bard, by employing his 
genius on a worthy subject, might delight and instruct man- 
kind ; but the present work, though written with ease and 
spirit, and containing many truly poetical passages, cannot be 
read by persons of moral and religious feelings without the 
most decided reprobation." 

We next have the 

X. MONTHLY EEVIEW. 
" Don Juan is a poem, which, if originality and variety be 
the surest test of genius, has certainly the highest title to it ; 
and which, we think, would have puzzled Aristotle, with all 
his strength of poetics, to explain, have animated Longinus 
with some of its passages, have delighted Aristophanes, and 
have choked Anacreon with joy instead of with a grape. We 
might almost imagine that the ambition had seized the author 
to please and to displease the world at the same time ; but we 
can scarcely think that he deserves the fate of the old man 
and his son and^the ass, in the fable, — or that he will please 
nobody, — how strongly soever we may condemn the more 
than poetic license of his muse. He has here exhibited that 
wonderful versatility of style and thought which appears 
almost incompatible within the scope of a single subject ; and 
the familiar and the sentimental, the witty and the sublime, 
the sarcastic and the pathetic, the gloomy and the droll, are 
all touched with so happy an art, and mingled together with 
such a power of union, yet such a discrimination of style, that 
a perusal of the poem appears more like a pleasing and 
ludicrous dream, than the sober feeling of reality. It is cer- 
tainly one of the strangest, though not the best, of dreams ; 
and it is much to be wished that the author, before he lay 
down to sleep, had invoked, like Shakspeare's Lysander, some 
good angel to protect him against the wicked spirit of slum- 
bers. We hope, however, that his readers have learned to 
admire his genius without being in danger from its influence ; 
and we must not be surprised if a poet will not always write 
to instruct as well as to please us." 

To which add a miscellany which, in spite of great 
occasional merit, is now defunct — the 

XL LONDON MAGAZINE. 
" Lord Byron's poem of Don Juan, though a wonderful 
proof of the versatility of his powers, is avowedly licentious. 
It is a satire on decency, on fine feeling, on the rules of con- 
duct necessary to the conservation of society, and on some 
of his own near connections. Vivacious allusions to certain 
practical irregularities are things which it is to be supposed 



DON JUAN. 



695 



innocence is strong enough to resist : but the quick alternation 
of pathos and profaneuess, — of serious and moving sentiment 
and indecent ribaldry,— of afflicting, soul-rending pictures 
of human distress, rendered keen by the most pure and hal- 
lowed sympathies of the human breast, and absolute jeering 
of human nature, and general mockery of creation, destiny, 
and heaven itself— this is a sort of violence, the eflFect of 
which is either to sear or to disgust the mind of the reader, 
^nd which cannot be fairly characterized but as an insult and 
outrage." 

The journal next to be cited is now also defunct ; 
but the title has been revived. 

XII. BRITISH MAGAZINE. 
" Byron, after having achieved a rapid and glorious fame, 
has, by the publication of this poem, not only disgusted every 
well-regulated mind, and afflicted all who respected him for 
his extraordinary talents, but has degraded his personal 
character lower than even his enemies (of whom he has 
many) could have wished to see it reduced. So gratuitous, 
so melancholy, so despicable a prostitution of genius was 
never, perhaps, before witnessed. We wish we were the 
poet's next of kin : it should go hard but that a writ de luna- 
tico inquirendo should issue." 

Another sage, long since dead and forgotten, was 
entitled the 

XIII. EDINBURGH MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
" Don Juan presents to us the melancholy spectacle of the 
greatest poet of the age lending the enchantment of his 
genius to themes upon which we trust that, for the benefit of 
mankind, the charm of its perverted inspiration will for ever 
be expended in vain. This is by far the most olfensive of all 
Lord Byron's performances. "We have here, for the first time 
in the history of our literature, a great work, of which the 
very basis is infidelity and licentiousness, and the most ob- 
trusive ornaments are impure imaginations and blasphemous 
sneers. The work cannot perish ; for it has in it, full and 
overflowing, the elements of intellectual vigor, and bears 
upon it the stamp of surpassing power. The poet is, indeed, 
' damned to everlasting fame.' " 

The Monthly organ of criticism possessing most 
sway among certain strictly religious circles was, in 
1819, as now, the 

XIV. ECLECTIC REVIEW. 

" We have had enough of that with which Lord Byron's 
poetry is replete — himself. The necessary progress of char- 
acter, as developed in his last reputed production, has con- 
ducted him to a point at which it is no longer safe to follow 
him even in thought, for fear we should be beguiled of any 
portion of the detestation due to this bold outrage. Poetry 
which it is impossible not to read without admiration, yet 
which it is equally impossible to admire without losing some 
degree of self-respect, can be safely dealt with only in one 
way, — by passing it over in silence. ' Thdre are cases in which 
It is equally impossible to relax into laughter, or to soften 
into pity, without feeling that an immoral concession is made 
to vice. The author of the following stanza might seem to 
invite our compassionate sympathy : — 

' No more — no more — Oh ! never more, my heart, 
Canst thou be my sole world, my universe! 

Once all in all, but now a thing apart. 
Thou canst not be my blessing or ray curse : 

The illusion's gone for ever, and thou art 
Insensible, I trust, but none the worse. 

And in thy stead I've got a deal of judgment, 

Though heaven knows bow it ever found a lodgment,' Ac. 
These lines are exceedingly touching, and they have that 



character of truth which distinguishes Lord Byron's poetry. 
He writes like a man who has that clear perception of tin; 
truth of things, which is the result of the guilty knowledge oi* 
good and evil ; and who, by the light of that knowledge, has 
deliberately preferred the evil, with a proud malignity of 
purpose which would seem to leave little for the last consum- 
mating change to accomplish. When he calculates that the 
reader is on the verge of pitying him, he takes care to throw 
him back the defiance of laughter, as if to let him know that 
all the poet's pathos is but the sentimentalism of the drunk- 
ard between his cups, or the relenting softness of the court- 
esan, who the next moment resumes the bad boldness of her 
degraded character. With such a man, who would wish to 
laugh or to weep ? And yet, who "that reads him can refrain 
alternately from either?" 

Another now silent oracle was 

XV. THE BRITISH CRITIC. 

" A satire was announced, in terms so happily mysterious, 
as to set the town on the very tiptoe of expectation. A 
thousand low and portentous murmurs preceded its birth. 
At one time it was declared to be so intolerably severe, that 
an alarming increase was to be apprehended in the catalogue 
of our national suicides ; at another, it was stated to be of a 
complexion so blasphemous, as, even in these days of liberality, 
to endanger the personal security of the bookseller. Fearful 
indeed was the prodigy— a book without a bookseller; an 
advertisement without an advertiser — 'a deed without a 
name.' After all this portentous parturition, out creeps Don 
Juan, — and, doubtless, much to the general disappointment 
of the town, as innocent of satire as any other Don in the 
Spanish dominions. If, then, it be not a satire — what is it? 
A more perplexing question could not be put to the critical 
squad. Of the four hundred and odd stanzas which the two 
cantos contain, not a tittle could, even in the utmost latitude 
of interpretation, be dignified by the name of poetry. It has 
not wit enough to be comic ; it has not spirit enough to be 
lyric; nor is it didactic of anything but mischief. The ver- 
sification and morality are about upon a par ; as far, there- 
fore, as we are enabled to give it any character at all, we 
should pronounce it a narrative of degrading debauchery in 
doggerel rhyme. The style which the noble lord has adopted 
is tedious and wearisome to a most insufferable degree. Don 
Juan is no burlesque, nor mock heroic : it consists of the 
common adventures of a common man, ill conceived, tediously 
told, and poorly illustrated. In the present thick and heavy 
quarto, containing upwards of four hundred doggerel stanzas, 
there are not a dozen places that, even in the merriest mood, 
could raise a smile. It is true that we may be very dull 
DOGS, and as little able to comprehend the wit of his lordship, 
as to construe his poetry." 

We now arrive at two authorities to which, on thi.s 
occasion, uncommon attention is due, inasmuch as 
their castigations of Don Juan were considered wor- 
thy of very elaborate comment and reclamation on 
the part of Lord Byron himself. Of these, the first 
is that famous article in the no otherwise famous 
work, since defunct, styled " The British Review," or, 
in the phrase of Don Juan — 

XVI. " MY GRANDMOTHER'S REVIEW, THE 
BRITISH." 
" Of a poem so flagitious, that no book.seller has been will- 
ing to take upon himself the publication, though most of them 
disgrace themselves by selling it, what can the critic say? 
His praise or censure ought to found itself on examples pro- 
duced from the work itself. For praise, a.s far as regards the 
poetry, many passages might be exhibited ; for condemnation, 
as far as regards the morality, all : but none for either pur- 



696 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



pose can be produced, without insult to the ear of decency, 
and vexation to the heart that feels for domestic or national 
happiness. This poem is sold in the shops as the work of 
Lord Byron ; but the name of neither author nor bookseller 
is on the titlepage : we are, therefore, at liberty to suppose 
it not to be Lord Byron's composition ; and this skepticism 
has something to justify it, in the instance which has lately 
occurred of the name of that nobleman having been borrowed 
for a tale of disgusting horror, published under the title of 
' The Vampire.' But the strongest argument against the 
supposition of its being the performance of Lord Byron is 
this:— that it can hardly be possible for an English noble- 
man, even in his mirth, to send forth to the public the direct 
and palpable falsehood contained in the 209th and 210th 
stanzas of the first canto. 

' For fear some prudish readers should grow skittish, 
I've bribed my grandmother's review — the British. 

• I sent it in a letter to the editor, 
Who thank'd me duly by return of post — 

I'm for a handsome article his creditor ; 
Yet, if my gentle Muse he please to roast, 

And break a promise after having made it her, 
Denying the receipt of what it cost, 

And smear his page with gall instead of honey, 

All I can say is — that he had the money.' 
No misdemeanor— not even that of sending into the world 
obscene and blasphemous poetry, the product of studious 
lewdness and labored impiety — appears to us in so detestable 
a light as the acceptance of a present by an editor of a Review, 
as the condition of praising an author ; and yet the miserable 
man (for miserable he is, as having a soul of which he cannot 
get rid), who has given birth to this pestilent poem, has not 
scrupled to lay this to the charge of ' The British Review ;' 
and that, not by insinuation, but has actually stated himself 
to have sent money in a letter to the editor of this journal, 
who acknowledged the receipt of the same by a letter in 
return, with thanks. No peer of the British realm can surely 
be capable of so calum-jious a falsehood, refuted, we trust, by 
the very character and spirit of the journal so defamed. We 
are compelled, therefore, to conclude that this poem cannot 
be Lord Byron's production : and we, of course, expect that 
Lord Byron will, with all gentlemanly haste, disclaim a work 
imputed to him, containing a calumny so wholly the product 
of malignant invention. 

" If somebody personating the editor of the British Review 
has received money from Lord Byron, or from any other 
person, by way of bribe to praise his compositions, the fraud 
might be traced by the production of the letter which the 
author states himself to have received in return. Surely, 
then, if the author of this poem has any such letter, he will 
produce it for this purpose. But lest it should be said that 
we have not in positive terms denied the charge, we do utterly 
deny that there is one word of truth, or the semblance of 
truth, as far as regards this Review or its editor, in the asser- 
tions made in the stanzas above referred to. We really feel 
a sense of degradation, as the idea of this odious imputation 
passes through our minds. 

" We have heard, that the author of the poem under con- 
sideration designed what he has said in the 35th stanza as a 
sketch of his own character : — 

' Yet Jose was an honorable man ; 
That I must say, who knew him very well.' 
If, then, he is this honorable man, we shall not call in vain 
for an act of justice at his hands, in declaring that he did not 
mean his word to be taken, when, for the sake of a jest (our 
readers will judge how far such a mode of jesting is defen- 
sible), he stated, with the particularity which belongs to fact, 
the forgery of a groundless fiction." (No. xviii. 1819.) 

The foregoing vindication of the Editor of the 
British Eeview (Mr. Roberts) called forth from Lord 



Byron that " Letter to the Editor of my Grand- 
mother's Review," which the reader will find in 
the present volume.^ We next solicit attention to 
the following passages from the redoubted organ of 
Northern Toryism, — 

XVII. BLACKWOOD. 

" In the composition of this work there is unquestionably 
a more thorough and intense infusion of genius and vice — 
power and profligacy — than in any poem which had ever 
before been written in the English or, indeed, in any other 
modern language. Had the wickedness been less inextricably 
mingled with the beauty, and the grace, and the strength of 
a most inimitable and incomprehensible muse, our task would 
have been easy. Don Juan is by far the most admirable 
specimen of the mixture of ease, strength, gayety, and serious- 
ness extant in the whole body of English poetry ; the author 
has devoted his powers to the worst of purposes and passions ; 
and it increases his guilt and our sorrow, that he has devoted 
them entire. 

"The moral strain of the whole poem is pitched in the 
lowest key. Love — honor— patriotism— religion, are men- 
tioned only to be scoffed at, as if their sole resting-place 
were, or ought to be, in the bosoms of fools. It appears, in 
short, as if this miserable man, having exhausted every spe- 
cies of sensual gratification— having drained the cup of sin 
even to its bitterest dregs — were resolved to show us that he 
is no longer a human being, even in his frailties ; but a cool 
unconcerned fiend, laughing with a detestable glee over the 
whole of the better and worse elements of which human life 
is composed — ^treating well nigh with equal derision the most 
pure of virtues, and the most odious of vices — dead alike to 
the beauty of the one, and the deformity of the other— a mere 
heartless despiser of that frail but noble humanity, whose type 
was never exhibited in a shape of more deplorable degradation 
than in his own contemptuously distinct delineation of him- 
self. To confess to his Maker, and weep over in secret 
agonies, the wildest and most fantastic transgressions of 
heart and mind, is the part of a conscious sinner, in whom 
sin has not become the sole principle of life and action. But, 
to lay bare to the eye of man — and of woman — all the hidden 
convulsions of a wicked spirit — and to do all this without 
one symptom of contrition, remorse, or hesitation, with a 
calm, careless ferociousness of contented and satisfied de- 
pravity—this was an insult which no man of genius had ever 
before dared to put upon his Creator or his species. Impiously 
railing against his God — madly and meanly disloyal to his 
sovereign and his country, — and brutally outraging all the 
best feelings of female honor, affection, and confidence- 
how small a part of chivalry is that which remains to the 
descendant of the Byrons — a gloomy visor and a deadly 
weapon ! 

"Those who are acquainted (as who is not?) with the main 
incidents in the private life of Lord Byron— and who have 
not seen this production, will scarcely believe that malignity 
should have carried him so far, as to make him commence a 
filthy and impious -poem with an elaborate satire on the 
character and manners of his wife — from w^hom, even by his 
own confession, he has been separated only in consequence 
of his own cruel and heartless misconduct. It is in vain for 
Lord Byron to attempt in any way to justify his own behavior 
in that affair ; and, now that he has so openly and audaciously 
invited inquiry and reproach, we do not see any good reason 
why he should not be plainly told so by the general voice of 
his countrymen. It would not be an easy matter to per- 
suade any Man, who has any knowledge of the nature of 
Woman, that a female such as Lord Byron has himself de- 
scribed his wife to be, would rashly, or hastily, or lightly, 
separate herself from the love with which she had once been 

' See Appendix : Don Juan, Note A. 



DON JUAN. 



697 



inspired for such a man as he is, or was. Had he not heaped 
insult upon insult, and scorn upon scorn — had he not forced 
the iron of his contempt into her very soul — there is no 
woman of delicacy and virtue, as he admitted Lady Byron to 
be, who would not have hoped all things and suffered all 
things from one, her love of whom must have been inwoven 
with so many exalting elements of delicious pride, and more 
delicious humility. To oflfeud the love of such a woman w^as 
wrong— but it might be forgiven; to desert her was un- 
manly — but he might have returned, and wiped for ever from 
her eyes the teai-s of hor desertion ; — but to injure, and to 
desert, and then to turn back and wound her widowed priv- 
acy with unhallowed strains of cold-blooded mockery— was 
brutally, fiendishly, inexpiably mean. For impurities there 
might be some possibility of pardon, were they supposed to 
spring only from the reckless buoyancy of young blood and 
fiery passions ; — for impiety there might at least be pity, were 
it visible that the misery of the impious soul equalled its 
darkness; — but for offences such as this, which cannot pro- 
ceed either from the madness of sudden impulse, or the be- 
wildered agonies of doubt — but which speak the willful and 
determined spite of an unrepenting, unsoftencd, smiling, 
sarcastic, joyous sinner— there can be neither pity nor par- 
don. Our knowledge that it is committed by one of the most 
powerful intellects our island ever has produced, lends inten- 
sity a thousand fold to the bitterness of our indignation. 
Every high thought that was ever kindled in our breasts by 
the muse of Byron — every pure and lofty feeling that ever 
responded from within us to the sweep of his majestic inspir- 
ations — every remembered moment of admiration and en- 
thusiasm, is up in arms against him. We look back with a 
mixture of wrath and scorn to the delight with which we 
suflFered ourselves to be filled by one who, all the while he 
was furnishing us with delight, must, we cannot doubt it, 
have been mocking us with a cruel mockery — less cruel only, 
because less peculiar, than that with which he has now turned 
him from the lurking-place of his selfish and polluted exile, 
to pour the pitiful chalice of his contumely on the surrendered 
devotion of a virgin bosom, and the holy hopes of the mother 
of his child. It is indeed a sad and an humiliating thing to 
know, that in the same year there proceeded from the same 
pen two productions, in all things so diiferent, as the fourth 
canto of Childe Harold and this loathsome Don Juan, 

" We have mentioned one, and, all will admit, the worst 
instance of the private malignity which has been embodied 
in so many passages of Don Juan ; and we are quite sure, the 
lofty-minded and virtuous men whom Lord Byron has de- 
biised himself by insulting, will close the volume which con- 
tains their own injuries, with no feelings save those of pity 
for him that has inflicted them, and for her who partakes so 
largely in the same injuries." (August, 1819.) 

The "Remarks upon an Article in Black- 
wood's ^Iagazine," — which Lord Byron wrote on 
perusing the above-quoted passages, and which were 
printed at the time, but on consideration suppressed, 
— are now, for the first time, published in the present 
volume.! 

As a pleasing relief in the midst of these prose 
critici.sms, we present an extract from "Common 
Sense, a Poem," published in 1819, by a gentleman, 
we are informed, of eminent respectability, the Ilev. 
Mr. Terrot, of Cambridge. 

XVIII. TERROT. 
" Alas, for Byron !— Satire's self must own 
His song has something of a lofty tone : 
But 'lis an empty sound. If vice be low. 
Hateful and mean, then Byron's verse is so. 



1 See Appendix : Don Juan, Note B. 



Not all his genius saves him from the curse 
Of plunging deeper still from bad to worse ; 
With frantic speed, he runs the road to ruin, 
And damns his name for ever by ' Doij Juan.' 
He wants variety ; nor does his plan 
Admit the idea of an honest man : 
One character alone can he afford 
To Harold, Conrad, Lara, or my Lord ; 
Each half a madman, mischievous and sour, 
Supremely wretched each, and each a Giaour. 
Some fumigate my lord with praises sweet, 
Some lick the very dust beneath his feet. 
Jeff'rey, with Christian charity so meek. 
Kisses the hand that smote him on the cheek. 
Giffbrd's retainers, Tory, Pittite, Rat, 
All join to soothe the surly Democrat. 
I, too, admire — but not through thick and thin, 
Nor think him such a bard as ne'er hath been." 

Let us indulge our readers, before we return to 
the realms of prose, with another wreath from the 
myrtles of Parnassus, — i. e., with an extract from an 
" Expostulatory Epistle to Lord Byron " — 

" By Cottle — not he whom the Alfred made famous ; 
But Joseph of Bristol, the brother of Amos." 2 

XIX. COTTLE. 
"Is there a man, how fallen ! still to fall! 
Who bears a dark precedency o'er all. 
Rejected by the land which gave him birth, 
And wandering now an outcast o'er the earth, 
On every virtuous door engraven ' hence !' 
Whose very breath is plague and pestilence ; 
A son, dismember'd, and to aliens thrown. 
Corrupting other climes — but first his own? 
One such there is! whom sires unborn will curse, 
Hasting with giant stride from bad to worse. 
Seeking untired to gain the sensual's smile, 
A pander for the profligate and vile ; 
His head rich fraught (like some bazaar's sly stall) 
With lecherous lays, that come at every call. 
There is a man, usurping lordly sway, 
Aiming alone to hold a world at bay ; 
Who, mean as daring, arrogant as vain, 
Like chaff" regards opinion with disdain, 
As if the privilege with him were found 
The laws to spurn by which mankind are bound, 
As if the arm which drags a despot down 
Must palsied fall before a Byron's frown !" 

The "Testimonies" hitherto quoted refer to the 
earlier — most of them to the first two — cantos of Don 
Juan. We now pass to critical observations on the 
Poem as a whole; some introduced in periodical 
works of the time, others from separate tracts. Let 
us begin with the more measured language of Black- 
wood, in 1825— when Lord Byron was no more. 

XX. BLACKWOOD,— aVerwOT. 
"We shall, like all others who say any thing about Lort 
Byron, begin, sans apologie, with his personal character. This 
is the great object of attack, the constant theme of open 
vituperation to one set, and the established mark for all the 
petty but deadly artillery of sneers, shrugs, groans, to another. 
Two widely different matters, however, are generally, we 
might say universally, mixed up here— the personal character 
of the man, a.s proved by his course of life, and his personal 
character as revealed in, or guessed from, his books. Nothing 

« See ante, p. 505. 



698 



BYRON'S WOEKS. 



ean be more unfair than the style in which this mixture is 
made use of. Is there a noble sentiment, a lofty thought, a 
sublime conception, in the book ? — ' Ah, yes,' is the answer. 
' But what of that ? It is only the rout Byron that speaks !' 
Is a kind, a generous action of the man mentioned? 'Yes, 
yes,' comments the sage, ' but only remember the atrocities 
of Don Juan ; depend on it, this, if it be true, must have 
been a mere freak of caprice, or perhaps a bit of vile hypoc- 
risy.' Salvation is thus shut out at either entrance : the poet 
damns the man, and the man the poet. 

" Nobody will suspect us of being so absurd, as to suppose 
that it is possible for people to draw no inferences as to the 
character of an author from his book, or to shut entirely out 
of view, in judging of a book, that which they may happen to 
know about the man who writes it. The cant of the day 
supposes such things to be practicable, but they are not. 
But what we complain of, and scorn, is the extent to which 
they are carried in the case of this particular individual, as 
compared with others ; the impudence with which things are 
at once assumed to be facts in regard to his private history, 
and the absolute unfairness of never arguing from his writings 
to him — but for evil. 

" Take the man, in the first place, as unconnected, in so far 
as we can thus consider him, with his works ; — and ask, what, 
after all, are the bad things we know of him ? "Was he dis- 
honest or dishonorable ? — had he ever done any thing to forfeit, 
or even endanger, his rank as a gentleman ? Most assuredly 
no such accusations have ever been maintained against Lord 
Byron, the private nobleman — although something of the 
sort may have been insinuated against the author. ' But, he 
was such a profligate in his morals, that his name cannot be 
mentioned with any thing like tolerance.' Was he so, in- 
deed? We should like extremely to have the catechizing of 
the individual man who says so ! That he indulged in sen- 
sual vices to some extent is certain — and to be regretted and 
condemned. But, was he worse, as to such matters, than the 
enormous majority of those who join in the cry of horror 
upon this occasion ? We most assuredly believe exactly the 
reverse ; and we rest our belief upon very plain and intelli- 
gible grounds. First, we hold it impossible that the majority 
of mankind, or that any thing beyond a very small minority, 
are or can be entitled to talk of sensual profligacy as having 
formed a part of the life and character of the man who, 
dying at six-and-thirty, bequeathed a collection of works 
such as Byron's to the world. Secondly, we hold it impossi- 
ble that, laying the extent of his intellectual labors out of 
the question, and looking only to the nature of the intellect 
which generated, and delighted in generating, such beautiful 
and noble conceptions as are to be found in almost all Lord 
Byron's works — we hold it impossible that very many men 
can be at once capable of comprehending these conceptions, 
and entitled to consider sensual profligacy as having formed 
the principal, or even a principal, trait in Lord Byron's 
character. Thirdly, and lastly, we have never been able to 
hear any one fact established, which could prove Lord Byron 
to deserve anything like the degree or even kind of odium 
which has, in regard to matters of this class, been heaped 
upon his name. We have no story of base unmanly seduc- 
tion, or false and villainous intrigue, against him— none 
whatever. It seems to us quite clear, that, if he had been at 
all what is called in society an unprincipled sensualist, there 
must have been many such stories — authentic and authenti- 
cated. But there are none such— absolutely none. His name 
has been coupled with the names of three, four, or more 
women of some rank : but what kind of women ?— every one 
of them, in the first place, about as old as himself in years, 
and therefore a great deal older in character — every one of 
them utterly battered in reputation long before he came into 
contact with them — licentious, unprincipled, characterless 
women. What father has ever reproached him with the ruin 
of his daughter? What husband has denounced him as the 
destroyer of his peace? 



" Let us not be mistaken. We are not defending the oflFences 
of which Lord Byron unquestionably was guilty: neither 
are we finding fault with those who, after looking honestly 
within and around themselves, condemn those offences — no 
matter how severely. But we are speaking of society in gen- 
eral, as it now exists ; and we say that there is vile hypocrisy 
in the tone in which Lord Byron is talked of there. We say 
that, although all offences against purity of life are miserable 
things and condemnable things, the degrees of guilt attached 
to different offences of this class are as widely different as aro 
the degrees of guilt between an assault and a murder ; and 
we confess our belief, that no man of Byron's station and age 
could have run much risk of gaining a very bad name in 
society, had a course of life similar (in so far as we know any 
thing of that) to Lord Byron's been the only thing chargeable 
against him. 

"The last poem he wrote (see ante, p. 691) was produced 
upon his birthday, not many weeks before he died. We con- 
sider it as one of the finest and most touching effusions of his 
noble genius. We think he who reads it, and can ever after 
bring himself to regard even the worst transgressions that 
have been charged against Lord Byron with any feelings but 
those o# humble sorrow and manly pity, is not deserving of 
the name of man. The deep and passionate struggles with 
the inferior elements of his nature (and ours) which it re- 
cords — the lofty thirsting after purity — the heroic devotion 
of a soul half weary of life, because unable to believe in its 
own powers to live up to what it so intensely felt to be, and 
so reverentially honored as, the right — the whole picture 
of this mighty spirit, often darkened, but never sunk, often 
erring, but never ceasing to see and to worship the beauty 
of virtue — the repentance of it, the anguish, the aspiration, 
almost stifled in despair — the whole of this is such a whole, 
that we are sure that no man can read these solemn verses 
too often, and we recommend them for repetition, as the best 
and most conclusive of all possible answers, whenever the 
name of Byron is insulted by those who permit themselves 
to forget nothing, either in his life or his writings, but the 
good." 

The present Lord Advocate of Scotland thus grate- 
fully admonished the yet living author of Don Juan, 
in the LXXII d Number of the Edinburgh Eeview. 

XXL JEFFEEY. 
" Lord Byron complains bitterly of the detraction by which 
he has been assailed — and intimates that his woi'ks have been 
received by the public with far less cordiality and favor than 
he was entitled to expect. We are constrained to say that 
this al)pears to us a very extraordinary mistake. In the 
whole course of our experience, we cannot recollect a single 
author who has had so little reason to complain of his recep- 
tion — to whose genius the public has been so early and so 
constantly just — to whose faults they have been so long and 
so signally indulgent. From the very first he must have been 
aware that he offended the principles and shocked the preju- 
dices of the majority, by his sentiments, as much as he de- 
lighted them by his talents. Yet there never was an author 
so universally and warmly applauded, so gently admonished — 
so kindly entreated to look more hecdfully to his opinions. 
He took the praise, as usual, and rejected the advice. As he 
grew in fame and authority, he aggravated all his offences — 
clung more fondly to all he had been reproached with — 
and only took leave of Childe Harold to ally himself to 
Don Juan ! That he has since been talked of, in public and 
in private, with less unmingled admiration— that his name 
is now mentioned as often for censure as for praise — and 
that the exultation with which his countrymen once hailed 
the greatest of our living poets, is now alloyed by the recol- 
lection of the tendency of his writings— is matter of notoriety 
to all the world ; but matter of surprise, we should imagine, 
to nobody but Lord Byron himself. 



DON JUAN. 



699 



"That the hase and the bigoted— those whom he has 
darkened by his glory, spited by his talent, or mortified by 
his neglect — have taken advantage of the prevailing dis- 
artection, to vent their puny malice in silly nicknames and 
vulgar scurrility, is natural and true. But Lord Eyron may 
depend upon it, that the dis^satisfaction is not confined to them, 
— and, indeed, that they would never have had the courage to 
assail one so immeasurably their superior, if he had not at 
once made himself vulnerable by his errors, and alienated his 
natural defenders by his obstinate adherence to them. We 
are not bigots, nor rival poets. We have not been detractors 
from Lord Byron's fixmc, nor the friends of his detractors; 
and tee tell him— far more in sorrow than in anger— that 
we verily believe the great body of the English nation — the 
religious, the moral, and the candid part of it — consider the 
tendency of his writings to be immoral and pernicious— and 
look upon his perseverance in that strain of composition with 
regret and reprehension. "Wc ourselves arc not easily startled, 
either by levity of temper, or boldness, or even rashness of 
remark; we are, moreover, most sincere admirers of Lord 
Byron's genius, and have always felt a pride and an interest 
in his fame : but we cannot dissent from the censure to which 
wo have alluded; and shall endeavor to explain, in as few 
and as temperate words as possible, the grounds upon which 
we rest our concurrence. 

" He has no priestlike cant or priestlike reviling to appre- 
hend from us. "We do not charge him with being cither a 
disciple or an apostle of Satan ; nor do we describe his poetry 
as a mere compound of blasphemy and obscenity. On the 
contrary, we are inclined to believe that he wishes well to 
the happiness of mankind — and are glad to testify, that his 
poems abound with sentiments of great dignity and tender- 
ness, as well as passages of infinite sublimity and beauty. 
But their general tendency we believe to be in the highest 
degree pernicious; and we even think that it is chiefly by 
means of the fine and lofty sentiments they contain, that 
they acquire their most fatal power of corruption. This 
may sound at first, perhaps, like a parodox ; but we are mis- 
taken if we shall not make it intelligible enough in the end. 

"We think there are indecencies and indelicacies, seduc- 
tive descriptions and profligate representations, which are 
extremely reprehensible; and also audacious speculations, 
and erroneous and uncharitable assertions, equally inde- 
fensible. But if these had stood alone, and if the whole 
body of his works had been made up of gaudy ribaldry and 
flashy skepticism, the mischief, we think, would have been 
much less than it is. He is not more obscene, perhaps, than 
Dryd<-n or Prior, and other classical and pardoned writers; 
nor is there any pa.ssage in the history even of Don Juan so 
degrading as Tom Jones's afiair with Lady Bellaston. It is 
no doubt a wretched apology for the indecencies of a man of 
genius, that equal indecencies have been forgiven to his 
predecessors: but the precedent of lenity might have been 
followed ; and we might have passed both the levity and the 
voluptuousness — the dangerous warmth of his romantic situ- 
ations, and the scandal of his cold-blooded dissipation. It 
might not have been so easy to get over his dogmatic skep- 
ticism — his hard-hearted maxims of misanthropy — his cold- 
bloode<l and eager expositions of the non-existence of virtue 
and honor. Even this, however, might have been compara- 
tively harmless, if it had not been accompanied by that 
which may look, at first sight, a.s a palliation — the frequent 
presentment of the most touching pictures of tenderness, 
generosity, and faith. 

"The charge we bring against Lord Byron in short is, that 
his writings have a tendency to destroy all belief in the 
reality of virtue- and to make all enthusiasm and constancy 
of affection ridiculous; and that this is effected, not merely 
by direct maxims and examples, of an iraposing or seducing 
kind, but by the constant exhibition of the most profligate 
heartlessness in the persons of those who had been tran- 
siently represented as actuated by the purest and most 



exalted emotions — and in the lessons of that very teacher 
who had been, but a moment before, so beautifully pathetic 
in the expression of the loftiest conceptions. 

" This is the charge which we bring against Lord Byron- 
We say that, under some strange misapprehension as to the 
truth, and the duty of proclaiming it, he has exerted all the 
powers of his powerful mind to convince his readers, both 
directly and indirectly, that all ennobling pursuits, and dis- 
interested virtues, are mere deceits or illusions— hollow and 
despicable mockeries for the most part, and, at best, but 
laborious follies. Love, patriotism, valor, devotion, con- 
stancy, ambition— all are to be laughed at, disbelieved in, 
and despised ! — and nothing is really good, so far as we can 
gather, but a succession of dangers to stir the blood, and of 
banquets and intrigues to soothe it again ! If this doctrine 
stood alone, with its examples, it would revolt, we believe, 
more than it would seduce: — but the author of it has the 
unlucky gift of personating all those sweet and lofty illusions, 
and that with such grace and force and truth to nature, that 
it is impossible not to suppose, for the time, that he is among 
the most devoted of their votaries — till he casts off the char- 
acter with a jerk — and the moment after he has moved and 
exalted us to the very height of our conception, resumes his 
mockery at all things serious or sublime — and lets us down 
at once on some coarse joke, hard-hearted sarcasm, or fierce 
and relentless personality, as if on purpose to show—' Who- 
e'er was edified, himself was not ' — or to demonstrate prac- 
tically as it were, and by example, how possible it is to have 
all fine and noble feelings, or their appearance, for a moment, 
and yet retain no particle of respect for them- or of belief 
in their intrinsic worth or permanent reality." 

The next author we must cite, is the late in- 
dustrious Dr. John Watkins, well known for his 
" Biographical Dicuonary," his " Life of the Eight 
Honorable Richard Brinsley Sheridan," &c. — styled 
ignominiously by Lord Byron " Old Grobius." 

XXII. WATKINS. 
"Of this Odyssey of immorality, there cannot be two 
opinions; for, let the religious sentiments of the reader be as 
lax as possible, he must be shocked at the barefaced licen- 
tiousness of the poem. Marriage is of course reprobated, and 
all the laws of social life are set at open defiance as violations 
of natural liberty. Lord Byron is the very Comus of poetry, 
who, by the bewitching airiness of his numbers, aims to turn 
the whole moral world into a herd of monsters. It must, 
however, be allowed that in this tale, he has not acted the 
wily part, of concealing the poison under the appearance of 
virtue; on the contrary, he makes a frank confession of his 
principles, and glories in vice with the unblushing temerity 
of a rampant satyr who acknowledges no rule but appetite. 
The mischief of the work is rendered doubly so by the 
attractive gayety of the language, the luxuriance of the 
imagery, and the humorous digressions with which the story 
is embellished and checkered." 

Another great moralist — practically, we believe, a 
most eminent one — is the next on our catalogue; 
namely, the late Rev. Caleb Colton, the author of 
"Lacon; or, Many Things in Few Words" (or, as 
Lord Byron, somewhere, was wicked enough to mis- 
quote it — "Few Things in Many Words"), in his 
"Remarks on the Tendencies of Don Juan," pub- 
lished in 1822. 

XXIII. COLTON. 

"The impurity of Rochester is too disgusting to do harm ; 

the morality of Pope is too neutralized to do good: but the 

muse of Byron has mixed her poison with the hand of an 

j adept ; it is proffered in a goblet of crystal and of gold ; it 



700 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



will please the palate, remain on the stomach, and circulate 
through the veins. There are persons who think that some 
of the objectionable parts of Don Juan are reclaimed by 
others that are both beautiful and faultless. But, alas ! the 
poison is general, the antidote particular; the ribaldry and 
obscenity will be understood by the many; the profundity 
and the sublimity only by the few. We live in an age when 
orators are trying how much treason they may talk without 
being hanged, poets how much nonsense they may write 
without being neglected, and libertines how much licentious- 
ness they may venture upon without being execrated and 
despised. We consider Don Juan to be a bold experiment, 
made by a daring and determined hand, on the moral patience 
of the public. It is most melancholy to reflect that a man of 
Lord Byron's stupendous powers should lend himself to such 
unworthy purposes as these; led thereto by the grovelling 
gratification of dazzling the fool, or encouraging the knave ; 
of supporting the weakest sophistry by the strongest genius, 
and the darkest wickedness by the brightest wit. He applies, 
alas, the beams of his mighty mind, not to comfort, but to 
censure us, and, like Nero, gives us nothing but a little har- 
mony to console us for the conflagration he has caused. I 
shall sum up my opinion of Don Juan in the words of Sca- 
liger on a poem of Cardinal Bembus : — ' Hoc poema vocare 
possis aut obscoinissimam eleganiiam, aut elegantissimam ob- 
icoenitcUem.' " 

We now introduce the Poet's ever kind and grate- 
ful friend, Mr. Leigh Hunt, in his work entitled 
" Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries/' con- 
cerning which consult Thomas Moore, Esq., apud 
The Times— or ante, p. 627. 

XXIV. HUNT. 
" Speaking of Don Juan, I will here observe that Lord 
Byron had no plan with regard to that poem. His hero in 
tliis work was a picture of the better part of his own nature. 
When the author speaks in his own person, he is endeavor- 
ing to bully himself into a satisfaction with the worse, and 
courting the eulogies of the 'knowing.' His jealousy of 
Wordsworth and others who were not town poets was not 
more creditable to him. He pretended to think worse of 
them than he did. He had the modesty one day to bring me 
a stanza, intended for Don Juan, in which he had sneered at 
them all, adding that nobody but myself thought highly of 
them. He fancied I should put up with this, for the sake of 
being mentioned in the poem ; an absurdity which nothing 
but his own vanity had suggested. I told him I should con- 
sider the introduction of such a stanza an affront, and that 
he had better not put it in. I am sorry I did not let it go ; 
for it would have done me honor with posterity." 

Another historical evidence is that of Mr. — or 
Captain — 

XXV. MEDWIN. 

" ' People are always advising me,' said Byron (at Pisa, in 
October, 1821), ' to write an epic. If you must have an epic, 
there's "Don Juan" for you. I call that. an epic; it is an 
epic as much in the spirit of our day as the Iliad was in that 
of Homer. Love, religion, and politics form the argument, 
and are as much the cause of quarrels now as they were 
then. There is no want of Parises and Menelauses, nor of 
crim. cons, into the bargain. In the very first canto you have 
a Helen. Then, I shall make my hero a perfect Achilles for 
fighting, — a man who can snuff a candle three successive 
times with a pistol-ball ; and, depend upon it, my moral will 
be a good one : not even Dr. Johnson should be able to find 
a flaw in it. I will make him neither a dandy in town, nor 
a fox-hunter in the country. He shall get into all sorts of 
scrapes, and at length end his career in France. Poor Juan 
shall be guillotined in the French Revolution! What do 
you think of my plot? It shall have twenty-four books too, 



the legitimate number. Episodes it has, and will have, out 
of number ; and my spirits, good or bad, must serve for the 
machinery. If that be not an epic— if it be not strictly 
according to Aristotle — I don't know what an epic poem 



Returning to mere criticism, we light upon the 
late ingenious but eccentric author of " Spirits of the 
Age "— 

XXVI. MR. WILLIAM HAZLITT. 

"Don Juan has, indeed, great power; but its power is 
owing to the force of the serious writing, and to the oddity 
of the contrast between that and the flashy passages with 
which it is interlarded. From the sublime to the ridiculous 
there is but one step. You laugh and are surprised that any 
one should turn round and travestie himself; the drollery is 
in the utter discontinuity of ideas and feelings. He makes 
virtue serve as a foil to vice ; dandyism is (for want of any 
other) a variety of genius. A classical intoxication is fol- 
lowed by the splashing of soda water, by frothy effusions of 
ordinary bile. After the lightning and the hurricane, we are 
introduced to the interior of the cabin, and the contents of 
wash-hand basins. The solemn hero of tragedy plays Scrub 
in the farce. This is ' very tolerable and not to be endured.' 
The noble lord is almost the only writer who has prostituted 
his talents in this way. He hallows in order to desecrate ; 
takes a pleasure in defacing the images of beauty his hands 
have wrought ; and raises our hopes and our belief in good- 
ness to heaven, only to dash them to the earth again, and 
break them in pieces the more effectually from the very 
height they have fallen. Our enthusiasm for genius or vir- 
tue is thus turned into a jest, by the very person who has 
kindled it, and who thus fatally quenches the sparks of both. 
It is not that Lord Byron is sometimes serious and sometimes 
trifling, sometimes profligate and sometimes moral — but when 
he is most serious and most moral, he is only preparing to 
mortify the unsuspecting reader by putting a pitiful hoax 
upon him. This is a most unaccountable anomaly. Don 
Juan has been called a Tristram Shandy in rhyme: it is 
rather a poem about itself." 

We find no " Sir Cosmo Gordon " in any baronetage 
of this age, or even in any list of K. B.'s or K. H.'s; 
but it stands on the titlepage of a book published in 
1825, and entitled " The Life and Genius of Lord 
Byron." Take, then, 

XXVII. SIR COSMO GORDON. » 
"At Venice, Lord Byron planned that which, had he lived 
to complete it, must have been considered as the most daring 
and the most wonderful of all his works, Don Juan. This 
work was general in its satire, and warm and glowing in 
its coloring; and though it had an obvious and important 
moral, — the absurdity of giving to a young man a secluded 
and monkish education, in the hope that that would preserve 
him from temptations, — it excited a great deal of clamor, 
especially among those upon whom, in the execution of it, 
the hand of the poet had been heavy. The Don was the 
most singular and the most original poem that had perhaps 
ever appeared. It was made up of the most cutting and 
searching satires, mixed with dissections of the human heart, 
and delineations of human passion and frailty, which were 
drawn both to and with the life, and therefore threw all 
those who dreaded exposure into the most serious alarm. 
There was much more both of politics and personality in 
this poem than in any of his former ones, and upon this 
account, the outcry against it was more loud and general. 
The stuff of immortality was, however, in the poem, and not 
a few of those who were offended at its appearance will 
probably find (if indeed they shall live as long) their only 
memorials in it, after all which, good or bad, they have done 
for themselves shall be forgotten." 



DON JUAN. 



701 



The " West " that follows is not Benjamin, the 
President, but a young American brother of the brush, 
who visited Lord Byron in Italy, anno Domini 1822. 

XXVIII. WEST. 

" He showed me two of the cantos of Don Juan in manu- 
script. Tliey were written on large sheets of paper, put 
together like a schoolboy's copybook. Here and there I 
observed alterations of words, but seldom of whole lines; 
and just so, he told me, it was written down at once. It was 
all gin, he said, meaning thereby that he drank nothing but 
gin when he wrote it. The Guiccioli was present, and said, 
' she wished my lord would leave off writing that ugly Don 
Juan.' 'I cannot give up my Don Juan,' he replied; 'I do 
not know what I should do without my Don Juan.' " 

From " Lord Byron's Works, viewed in connection 
with Christianity and the Obligations of Social Life," 
—a sermon preached in Holland Chapel, Kennington, 
by the Rev. John Styles, D.D., and sold by the Doc- 
tor's pew-openers, — we now submit a brief extract. 
We believe Dr. Styles has been familiarized to every 
reader, by one of the Rev. Sydney Smith's articles in 
the Edinburgh Review. 

XXIX. STYLES. 

" Be assured, my brethren, it is with sorrowful reluctance 
I feel myself called upon to denounce the greatest genius of 
the age as the greatest enemy of his species. The poem is 
one in which the author has put forth all the energy of his 
wonderful faculties ; nor has he written any thing more de- 
cisively and triumphantly expressive of the greatness of his 
genius It is at once the glory and disgrace of our literature ; 
and will remain to all ages the perpetual monument of the 
exalted genius and depraved heart of the writer. It is de- 
voted to the worst of purposes and passions ; and flows on in 
one continued stream of pollution. Its great design seems 
to be, to shame the good out of their virtues, and to inspire 
the wicked with the pride of depravity. If, for a moment, 
the author appears to forget himself, and to sufler his muse 
to breathe of purity and tenderness — if a touch of humanity, 
a faint gleam of goodness, awaken our sympathy, he turns 
upon us with a sneer of contempt, or laughs our sensibility 
to scorn. Indeed, throughout, we discover the heartless 
despiser of human nature ; — a denaturalized being, who, 
having exhausted every species of sensual gratification, and 
drained the cup of sin to its bitterest dregs, is resolved to 
show that he is no longer human, even in his frailties, but 
a cool, unconcerned fiend, treating, well nigh with equal 
derision, the most pure of virtues and the most odious of 
vices, dead alike to the beauty of one and the deformity of 
the other; yet possessing a restless spirit of seduction, — 
debasing the nobler part of man, that he may more surely 
bring into action his baser appetites and pa-ssions. To ac- 
complish this, he has lavished all the wil-js of his wit, all the 
enchantments of hLs genius. In every page the poet is a lib- 
ertine ; and the most unexceptionable passages are mildewed 
with impurity. The cloven foot of the libidinous satyr is 
monstrously associated with the angel wing of genius. — 
' I'd rather be the wretch that scrawls 
His idiot nonsense on the walls ; 
Not quite a man, not quite a brute. 
Than I would basely prostitute 
My powers to serve the cause of vice. 
To build some jewell'd edifice 
So fair, so foul, — framed with such art 
To please the eye and soil the heart. 
That he who has not power to shun, 
Comes, looks, and feels himself undone.' 
O my brethren ! how I wish that the style of this discourse 
•ould be less accusatory and severe!" 



The " Letter of Cato to Lord Byron," next to be 
quoted, attracted considerable notice; and was, we 
know not whether justly or unjustly, ascribed to the 
pen of the Rev. George Croly, D.D., Rector of Rom- 
ford, in Essex — author of " Paris in 1815," a poem — 
"Pride shall have a Fall, a Comedy "—" Catiline, 
a Tragedy" — "Salathiel, a Romance" — "Life of 
George the Fourth" — "Comment on the Apoca- 
lypse," &c. &c. &c. 

XXX. CATO. 

" Whatever your principles, no page of any of your writings 
has contributed to the security or the adornment of virtue. 
Have you not offended against decency? and repudiated 
shame ? Have you not represented almost every woman as 
a harlot? How your fame will stand with posterity, it would 
I: idle to speculate upon. It is not improbable that some- 
thing like the doubt which crossed the mind of the senate, 
whether they should pronounce their deceased emperor a 
tyrant or a god, will perplex the judgment of succeeding 
generations as to the credit and character of your poetry. 
They will hardly know if they shall deify or desecrate a 
genius so majestic, degrading itself by subjects and sen- 
timents so repulsive. With an insane partiality, we are 
undervaluing our standard writers, and placing licentious 
drivellers in their room. The Shakspeares and Miltons of 
better days are superseded by the Byrons and Shelleys, the 
Hunts and Moores of our own : but let us hope that the gar- 
bage which the present generation luxuriates upon, poster- 
ity will nauseate and cast upon the dunghill. With such a 
teacher as you have shown yourself, how is it possible for the 
disciples of your school to be any other than most vicious 
beings ? He who brutalizes every feeling that gives dignity 
to social, every principle that imparts comfort to domestic, 
life — he who represents all chastity as visionary, and all 
virtue as vile, is not entitled to be considered as a man — he 
is a livinff literary monster." 

The ensuing paragraphs are from a writer who 
affixes to his lucubration the initials W. C — ; but 
with whose full name and surname we have, after 
much diligence, failed to make ourselves acquainted. 

XXXI. ANON. 
" It is to Don Juan, the last of Lord Byron's productions, 
that he will owe his immortality. It is his only work which 
excels by its allurement and delight ; by its power of attract- 
ing and detaining attention. It keeps the mind in pleasing ^ 
captivity ; it is perused with eagerness, and, in hopes of new 
pleasure, is jjerused again. The wild and daring sallies of 
sentiment with which it abounds, the irregular and eccentric 
violence of wit which pervades every canto, excite at once 
astonishment and enthusiasm. The original humor, the 
peculiarity of expression, the incidents, the circumstances, 
the surprises, the jests of action and of thought, the shades 
of light and darkness so exquisitely intermingled, impart a 
peculiarity of character to the work, which places it above 
all modern, above all ancient fame. Indeed, if we except the 
sixteen satires of Juvenal, there is nothing in antiquity so 
bitter or so decisive as the sixteen cantos of Don Juan. The 
Roman satirist exhibits a mixture of dignity and aversion, 
of hatred and invective ; the English censor displays a con- 
tempt of the various relations of society, of the hypocrisies, 
the tumults, and the agitations of life. Juvenal disdains to 
wield the feeble weapon of ridicule — Byron delights to mix 
seriousness with merriment, and thoughts purely jocular 
with sentiments of exasperation and revenge. Juvenal is 
never pathetic— Byron, when he arrives at this species of ex- 
cellence, destroys its effect by effusions of ridicule or insensi- 
bility. Both poets however, exhibit the same ebullitions of 



702 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



resentment against the miserable victims which they sacri- 
fice to their fury— the same scorn for mankind — and the 
same vehemence in depicting their crimes, passions, and 
follies. Both attack existing villainy, strike at corruption 
and profligacy, and trample upon the turpitude and baseness 
of high life. Both are grave, intrepid, and implacable. If 
at any time they relax the sternness of their manner, they 
never forget themselves. They sometimes smile, indeed, but 
their smile is more terrible than their frown : it is never 
excited but when their indignation is mingled with con- 
tempt. — Don Juan wUl be read as long as satire, wit, mirth, 
and supreme excellence shall be esteemed among men: it 
will continue to enchain every affection and emotion of the 
mind : and every reader, when he arrives at its conclusion, 
will view it with an eye of sorrow, such as the traveller casts 
on departing day." 

Another (or the same) Mr. Anon., in a work, in 
three volumes 8vo, London, 1825, entitled " The Life, 
Writings, Opinions, and Times of Lord Byron," thus 
observes — 

XXXII. ANON. (Second.) 

" All at once the accumulated torrent of obloquy is poured 
forth upon the devoted head of Lord Byron ! Well — he de- 
spised it, and justly he might do so : it will never tarnish a 
leaf of his laurels. Every man who has once read Don 
Juan, if he ingenuously confesses the truth, will feel inclined 
to peruse it again and again. If Byron's works be pro- 
scribed on the score of decency, it will be necessary to sweep 
off one half of English literature at once as libri expurgati. 
But Byron was a proscribed poet with the puritanical mor- 
alists, or exclusively good men !" 

A third " Anon." meets us in the Author of " Don 
John ; or Don Juan unmasked : being a Key to the 
mystery attending that remarkable publication." 

XXXIII. ANON. (Third.) 

"In Don Juan, his lordship's muse displays all his char- 
acteristic beauties and blemishes — soaring to the vastest 
heights, or creeping to the lowest depths— glancing with an 
eye of fantasy at things past, at things present, and at things 
to come. The poem is constructed, like the image of Nebu- 
chadnezzar's dream — of fine gold, silver, and clay. It abounds 
in sublime thought and low humor, in dignified feeling and 
malignant passion, in elegant wit and obsolete conceit. It 
alternately presents us with the gayety of the ball-room, and 
the gloom of the scaffold — leading us among the airy pleas- 
antries of fashionable assemblages, and suddenly conducting 
us to haunts of depraved and disgusting sensuality. "We 
have scarcely time to be refreshed and soothed by the odors 
of flowers and bursting blossoms, the pensive silence of still 
waters, and the contemplation of beautiful forms, before 
we are terrified and horror-stricken by the ferocious clamors 
of tumultuous crowds, and the agonies of innocent and ex- 
piring victims. This poem turns decorum into jest, and bids 
defiance to the established decencies of life. It wars with 
virtue as resolutely as with vice." 

Our next author is a pseudonymous one— the writer 
of a " Letter to Lord Byron, by John Bull," London, 
8vo, 1821. This production much excited Lord By- 
ron's curiosity. In one of his letters to Mr. Murray 
he asks, " Who the devil can have done this diabol- 
ically well-written letter?" and subsequently he is 
found resting his suspicion (unfoundedly, no doubt) 
on one of his own most intimate personal friends. 
We extract a few paragraphs. 



XXXIV. JOHN BULL. 

" Stick to Don Juan ; it is the only sincere thing you have 
ever written; and it will live many years after all your 
Harolds have ceased to be, in your own words, 

' A school-girl's tale — the wonder of an hour.' 
I consider Don Juan as out of all sight the best of your 
works : it is by far the most spirited, the most straightfor- 
ward, the most interesting, and the most poetical ; and every 
body thinks as I do of it, although they have not the heart 
to say so. Old Gifford's brow relaxed as he gloated over it ; 
Mr. Croker chuckled; Dr. "Whitaker smirked; Mr. Milman 
sighed ; Mr. Coleridge took it to his bed with him. 

" I think the great charm of its style is, that it is not much 
like the style of any other poem in the world. It is utter 
humbug to say, that it is borrowed from the style of the 
Italian weavers of merry ottava rima: their merriment is 
nothing, because they have nothing but their merriment; 
yours is every thing, because it is delightfully intermingled 
with, and contrasted by, all manner of serious things — ^mur- 
der and lust included. It is also mere humbug to accuse you 
of having plagiarized it from Mr. Frere's pretty and graceful 
little Whistlecrafts. The measure, to be sure, is the same ; 
but then the measure is as old as the hills. But the spirit of 
the two poets is as different as can be. Mr. Frere writes 
elegantly, playfully, very like a gentleman, and a scholar, and 
a respectable man ; and his poems never sold, nor ever will 
sell. Your Don Juan, again, is written strongly, lasciviously, 
fiercely, laughingly, — every body sees in a moment that 
nobody could have written it but a man of the first order, 
both in genius and in dissipation — a real master of all his 
tools — a profligate, pernicious, irresistible, charming devil ; — 
and accordingly the Don sells, and will sell, to the end of 
time, whether our good friend, Mr. John Murray, honor it 
with his imprimatur, or doth not so honor it. I will mention 
a book, however, from which I do think you have taken a 
great many hints; nay, a great many pretty full sketches, 
for your Juan. It is one which (with a few more) one never 
sees mentioned in reviews, because it is a book written on 
the anti-humbug principle. It is— you know it exceedingly 
well— it is no other than * Faublas,' a book which contains as 
much good fun as Gil Bias, or Molifire ; as much good luscious 
description as the Heloise ; as much fancy and imagination 
as all the comedies in the English language put together, 
and less humbug than any one given romance that has been 
written since Don Quixote — a book which is to be found on 
the tables of rougs, and in the desks of divines, and under 
the pillows of spinsters— a book, in a word, which is read 
universally— I wish I could add— in the original. 

" But all this has nothing to do with the charming style of 
Don Juan, which is entirely and inimitably your own— the 
sweet, fiery, rapid, easy — beautifully easy,— anti-humbug, 
style of Don Juan. Ten stanzas of it are worth all your 
Manfred — and yet your Manfred is a noble poem, too, in its 
way. I had really no idea what a very clever fellow you 
were till I read Don Juan. In my humble opinion, there is 
very little in the literature of the present day that will stand 
the test of half a century, except the Scotch novels of Sir 
Walter Scott, and Don Juan. They will do so because they 
are written with perfect facility and nature— because their 
materials are all drawn from life." 

Coming once more to men with names, we present 
this extract from a life of Byron, by the well-known 
author of "The Annals of the Parish," "The Pro- 
vost," "The Entail," "Sir Andrew Wylie," "Laurie 
Todd," and " The Member." 

XXXV. GALT. 
" Strong objections have been made to the moral tendency 
of Don Juan ; but, in the opinion of many, it is Lord Byron's 
masterpiece ; and undoubtedly it displays all the varieties of 



DON JUAN. 



703 



his powers, combined with a quaint playfulness not found to ] 
an equal degree in any other of his works. The serious and 
pathetic portions are exquisitely beautiful ; the descriptions 
have all the distinctness of the best pictures in Childe Harold, 
and are, moreover, generally drawn from nature ; while the 
satire is for the most part curiously associated and spark- 
lingly witty. The characters are sketched with amazing 
firmness and freedom ; and though sometimes grotesque, are 
yet not often overcharged. It is professedly an epic poem, 
but it may be more properly described as a poetical novel. 
Nor can it be said to inculcate any particular moral, or to do 
more than unmantle the decorum of society. Bold and 
buoyant throughout, it exhibits a free irreverent knowledge 
of the world, laughing or mocking as the thought serves, in 
the most unexpected antitheses to the proprieties of time, 
place, and circumstance. The object of the poem is to de- 
scribe the progress of a libertine through life; not an un- 
principled prodigal, whose profligacy, growing with his 
growth and strengthening with his strength, passes from 
voluptuous indulgence into the morbid sensuality of sys- 
tematic debauchery; but a young gentleman who, whirled 
by the vigor and vivacity of his animal spirits into a world of 
adventures, in which his stars are chiefly in fault for his 
liaisons, settles at last into an honorable lawgiver, a moral 
speaker on divorce bills, and possibly a subscriber to the 
Society for the Suppression of Vice." 

Next to Mr. Gait we place the amiable and humane 
Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges, Baronet, of Denton 
and Lee Priory, Kent, author of "Mary Clifford," 
the "Censura Literaria," the "Autobiography of 
Clavering," <fcc. &c. &c. 

XXXVI. BEYDGES. 
"Don Juan is, no doubt, very licentious in parts, which 
renders it dangerous to praise it very much ; and makes it 
improper for those who have not a cool and correct judg- 
ment, and cannot separate the objectionable parts from the 
numerous beautiful passages intermixed. But nowhere is 
the poet's mind more elastic, free, and vigorous, and his 
knowledge of human nature more surprising. It has all 
sorts of faults, many of which cannot be defended, and some 
of which are disgusting ; but it has, also, almost every sort of 
poetical merit; there are in it some of the finest passages 
which Lord Byron ever wrote ; there is amazing knowledge 
of human nature in it ; there is exquisite humor; there is free- 
dom, and bound, and vigor of narrative, imagery, sentiment, 
and style, which are admirable; there is a vast fertility of 
deep, extensive, and original thought, and at the same time, 
there is the profusion of a prompt and most richly-stored 
memory. The invention is lively and poetical; the descrip- 
tions are brilliant and glowing, yet not overwrought, but 
fresh from nature, and faithful to her colors ; and the prev- 
alent character of the whole (bating too many darks spots) 
not dispiriting, though gloomy; not misanthropic, though 
bitter; and not repulsive to the visions of poetical enthu- 
siasm, though indignant and resentful. I know not how to 
wish he had never written this poem, in spite of all his faults 
and intermingled mischief! There are parts of it which are 
among the most brilliant proofs of his genius ; and what is 
even better, there are parts which throw a blaze of light upon 
the knowledge of human life." 

After depicting the mode of life pursued by Lord 
Byron at Venice, in 1817-18, his biographer thus 
notices Don Juan : — 

XXXVTI. MOORE. 

" It was at this time, as the features of the progeny itself 
would but too plainly indicate, that Lord Byron conceived 
and wrote part of his poem of Don Juan ;— and never did 



pages more faithfully, and in many respects lamentably, 
reflect every variety of feeling, and whim, and passion that, 
like the rack of autumn, swept across the author's mind in 
writing them. Nothing less, indeed, than that singular com- 
bination of attributes, which existed and were in full activity 
in his mind at this moment, could have suggested, or been 
capable of, the execution of such a work. The cool shrewd- 
ness of age, with the vivacity and glowing temperament of 
youth— the wit of a Voltaire, with the sensibility of a Rous- 
seau, — the minute practical knowledge of the man of society, 
with the abstract and self-contemplative spirit of the poet, — 
a susceptibility of all that is grandest and most affecting in 
human virti^, with a deep, withering experience of all thar 
is most fatal to it, — the two extremes, in short, of man's 
mixed and inconsistent nature, now rankly smelling of earth, 
now breathing of heaven, — such was the strange assemblage 
of contrary elements, all meeting together in the same mind, 
and all brought to bear, in turn, upon the same task, from 
which alone could have sprung this extraordinary poem — the 
most powerful and, in many respects, painful display of the 
versatility of genius that has ever been left for succeeding 
ages to wonder at and deplore." 

Immediately on receiving the news of Lord Byron's 
death, Sir Walter Scott, as is known to all, sent to 
one of the Edinburgh newspapers a touching tribute 
to his memory. Perhaps a more fitting place might 
have been found in this collection for parts of the 
following extract; — but we cannot prevail on our- 
selves to present it here in a mutilated form. 

XXXVIII. SCOTT. 

" Amidst the general calmness of the political atmosphere, 
we have been stunned, from another quarter, by one of those 
death notes, which are pealed at intervals, as from an arch- 
angel's trumpet, to awaken the soul of a whole people at 
once. Lord Byron, who has so long and so amply filled the 
highest place in the public eye, has shared the lot of humanity. 
That mighty genius, which walked amongst men as something 
superior to ordinary mortality, and whose powers were be- 
held with wonder, and something approaching to terror, as if 
we knew not whether they were of good or of evil, is laid as 
soundly to rest as the poor peasant whose ideas went not 
beyond his daily task. The voice of just blame and of malig- 
nant censure are at once silenced ; and we feel almost as if 
the great luminary of heaven had suddenly disappeared from 
the sky, at the moment when every telescope was levelled for 
the examination of the spots which dimmed its brightness. 
It is not now the question, what were Byron's faults, what 
his mistakes; but, how is the blank which he has left in 
British literature to be filled up ? Not, we fear, in one gene- 
ration, which, among many highly gifted persons, has pro- 
duced none which approached Lord Byron in originality, 
the first attribute of genius. Only thirty-six years old— so 
much already done for immortality— so much time remain- 
ing, as it seemed to us short-sighted mortals, to maintain and 
to extend his fame, and to atone for errors in conduct and 
levities in composition,— who will not grieve that such a race 
has been shortened, though not always keeping the straight 
path ; such a light extinguished, though sometimes flaming 
to dazzle and to bewilder? One word on this ungrateful sub- 
ject, ere we quit it for ever. 

"The errors of Lord Byron arose neither from depravity 
of heart,— for Nature had not committed the anomaly of 
uniting to such extraordinary talents an imperfect moral 
sense,— nor from feelings dead to the admiration of virtue. 
No man had ever a kinder heart for sympathy, or a more 
open hand for the relief of distress ; and no mind was ever 
more formed for the enthusiastic admiration of noble actions, 
providing he was convinced that the actors had proceeded on 
disinterested principles. Remonstrances from a friend, of 



704 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



whose intentions and kindness he was secure, had often great 
weight with him ; but there were few who would venture on 
a task so difficult. Reproof he endured with impatience, and 
reproach hardened him in his error ; so that he often resem- 
bled the gallant war-steed, who rushes forward on the steel 
that wounds him. In the most painful crisis of his private 
life, he evinced his irritability and impatience of censure in 
such a degree, as almost to resemble the noble victim of the 
bull-fight, which is more maddened by the squibs, darts, and 
petty annoyances of the unworthy crowds beyond the lists, 
than by the lance of his nobler, and, so to speak, his more 
^legitimate antagonist. In a word, much of that in which he 
*erred was in bravado and scorn of his censors, and was done 
with the motive of Dryden's despot, 'to show nis arbitrary 
power.' 

" As various in composition as Shakspeare himself (this 
will be admitted by all who are acquainted with his ' Don 
Juan'), he has embraced every topic of human life, and 
sounded every string on the divine harp, from its slightest 
to its most powerful and heart-astounding tones. There is 
scarce a passion or a situation which has escaped his pen ; 
and he might be drawn, like Garrick, between the weeping 
and the laughing Muse, although his most powerful efforts 
have certainly been devoted to Melpomene. His genius 
seemed as prolific as various. The most prodigal use did not 
exhaust his powers, nay, seemed rather to increase their 
vigor. Neither Childe Harold, nor any of the most beau- 
tiful of Byron's earlier tales, contain more exquisite morsels 
of poetiy than are to be found scattered through the cantos 
of Don Juan, amidst verses which the author appears to 
have thrown off with an effort as spontaneous as that of a 
tree resigning its leaves to the wind. But that noble tree 
will never more bear fruit or blossom! It has been cut 
down in its strength, and the past is all that remains to us of 
Byron. We can scarce reconcile ourselves to the idea — 
scarce think tliat the voice is silent for ever, which, bursting 
so often on our ear, was often heard with rapturous admira- 
tion, sometimes with regret, but always with the deepest 
i nterest. 

' All that's bright must fade. 

The brightest still the fleetest !' 
"With a strong feeling of awful sorrow, we take leave of the 
subject. Death creeps upon our most serious as well as upon 
our most idle employments ; and it is a reflection solemn and 
gratifying, that he found our Byron in no moment of levity, 
■ but contributing his fortune, and hazarding his life, in be- 
half of a people only endeared to him by their own past 
glories, and as fellow creatures suffering under the yoke of a 
heathen oppressor. To have fallen in a crusade for Freedom 
and Humanity, as in olden times it would have been an 
atonement for the blackest crimes, may in the present be 
allowed to expiate greater follies than even exaggerating cal- 
umny has propagated against Byron." 

In a little journal conducted by the great poet of 
Germany, Goethe, and entitled " Kunst und Alther- 
thum," i. e. "Art and Antiquity" (Part III., 1821), 
there appeared a translation into German of part of 
the first canto of Don Juan, Avith some remarks on 
the poem by the venerable Editor, of which we next 
submit a specimen : — 

XXXIX. GOETHE. 

"Don Juan is a thoroughly genial work— misanthropical 
to the bitterest savageness, tender to the most exquisite del- 
icacy of sweet feelings : and when we once understand and 
appreciate the author, and make up our minds not fretfully 
and vainly to wish him other than he is, it is impossible not 
to enjoy what he chooses to pour out before us with such un- 
bounded audacity— with such utter recklessness. The tech- 
nical execution of the verse is in every respect answerable 



to the strange, wild simplicity of the conception and plan ; 
the poet no more thinks of polishing his phrase, than be 
does of flattering his kind ; and yet, when we examine the 
piece more narrowly, we feel that English poetry is in pos- 
session of what the German has never attained, a classically 

elegant comic style 

" If I am blamed for recommending this work for transla- 
tion — for throwing out hints which may serve to introduce 
so immoral a performance among a quiet and uncorrupted 
nation — I answer, that I really do not perceive any likeli- 
hood of our virtue's sustaining serious damage in this way : 
Poets and Eomancers, bad as they may be, have not yet 
learned to be more pernicious than the daily newspapers 
which lie on every table." 

After Scott and Goethe we should be sorry to quote 
anybody but Lord Byron himself. In Mr. Kennedy's 
account of his "Conversations" with the noble poet 
at Cephalonia, a few weeks before his death, we find 
the following passage, with which let these prolego- 
mena conclude. 

XL. BYRON ipse {a/pud Kennedy). 

" ' I cannot,' said Lord Byron, ' conceive why people will 
always mix up my own character and opinions with those of 
the imaginary beings which, as a poet, I have the right and 
liberty to draw.' 

" ' They certainly,' said I, ' do not spare your lordship in 
that respect, and in Childe Harold, Lara, the Giaour, and 
Don Juan, they are too much disposed to think that you 
paint, in many costumes, yourself, and that these characters 
are only the vehicles for the expression of your own senti- 
ments and feelings.' 

"'They do me great injustice,' he replied, 'and what was 
never before done to any poet. Even in Don Juan I have 
been equally misunderstood. I take a vicious and unprin- 
cipled character, and lead him through those ranks of society, 
whose high external accomplishments cover and cloak in- 
ternal and secret vices, and I paint the natural effects of such 
characters ; and certainly they are not so highly colored as 
we find them in real life.' 

"'This may be true; but the question is, what are your 
motives and object for painting nothing but scenes of vice 
and ^oUy ?' — ' To remove the cloak, which the manners and 
maxims of society,' said his lordship, 'throw over their 
secret sins, and show them to the world as they really are.' " 

f JOJSftjSftrtpt. 
We had intended to stop with the above — but after 
it was too late to derange the order of our earlier tes- 
timonies, our attention was solicited to a sportive efiii- 
sion by the learned Dr. William Maginn, of Trinity 
College, Dublin, which appears to us not unworthy 
of being transferred to this olla-podrida. Every one 
ought to have, but every one has not, by heart Words- 
worth's "Yarrow Unvisited;" therefore we shall 
place the original alongside of the parody. 



YARROW UNVISITED (1809). 
Fkom Stirling Castle we had seen 

The mazy Forth unravell'd ; 
Had trod the banks of Clyde and Tay , 

And with the Tweed had traveU'd ; 
And when we came to Clovenford, 

Then said my " winsome Marrow," 
" Whate'er betide, we'll turn aside, 

And see the Braes of Yarrow." 

"Let Yarrow Folk, frae Selkirk 
Town, 

Who have been buying, selling, 
Go back to Yarrow, 'tis their own ; 

Each Maiden to her Dwelling I 



DON JUAN UNREAD (1819). 
Op Corinth Castle we had read 

The amazing Siege unravell'd, 
And swallow'd Lara and the Giaour, 

And with Childe Harold travell'd ; 
And so we foUow'd Cloven foot, 

And faithfully as any, 
Until he cried, " Come turn aside. 

And read of Don Giovanni." 

"Let Whiggish folk, fi-ae Holland 
House, 

Who have been lying, prating, 
Read Don Giovanni, 'tis their own ; 

A child of their creating I 



DON JUAN. 



705 



On Yarrow's banks let herons feed, 
Uares couch, and rabbits burrow 1 

But we will downwards with the 
Tweed, 
Nor turn aside to Yarrow. 



"There's Gala Water, Leader 
Haughs, 
Both lying right before us ; 
And Dryborough, where with chim- 
ing Tweed 
The Lintwbitcs sing in chorus ; 
There's pleasant Tiviot Dale, a land 
Made blithe with plough and har- 
row ; 
Why throw away a needful day 
To go in search of Yarrow? 



" What's Yarrow but a River bare, 

That glides the dark bills under 7 
There are a thousand such elsewhere 

As worthy of your wonder." 
—Strange words they seem'd of slight 
and scorn ; 

My true-love sigh'd for sorrow ; 
And look'd me in the face, to think 

I thus could speak of Yarrow I 



" Oh ! green," said I, " are Yarrow's 
Holms, 

And sweet is Yarrow flowing ! 
Fair hangs the apple frac the rock, 

But we will leave it growing. 
O'er hilly path, and open Strath, 

We'll wander Scotland thorough ; 
But, though so near, we will not 
turn 

Into the Dale of Yarrow. 



" Let beeves and home-bred kine 
partake 

The sweets of Burn-mill meadow ; 
The swan on still Saint Mary's Lake 

Float double, swan and shadow ! 
We will not see them ; will not go 

To-day, nor yet to-morrow ; 
Enough if in our hearts we know 

There's such a place as Yarrow. 



" Be Yarrow Stream unseen, un- 
known ! 

It mnst, or we shall rue it : 
We have a vision of our own ; 

Ah ! why should we undo it? 
The treasured dreams of times long 
past. 

We'll keep them, winsome Marrow 1 
For when we're there, althongh 'tis 

"Twill be another Yarrow. [fair, 



" If Care with freezing years should 
come. 

And wandering seem but folly, — 
Should we be loth to stir from home. 

And yet be melancholy ; 
Bhonld life be dull, and spirits low ; 

'Twill soothe us in our sorrow, 
That earth has something yet to 
■how. 

The bonny Holms of Yarrow !" 



On jests profane they love to feed, 
And there they are— and many I 

But we, who link not with the 
crew. 
Regard not Don Giovanni. 

" There's Godwin's daughter, Shel- 
ley's wife, 
A writing fearful stories ; 
There's Hazlitt, who, with Hunt and 
Keats, 
Brays forth in Cockney chorus ; 
There's pleasant Thomas Moore, a 
lad 
Who sings of Rose and Fanny : 
Why throw away these wits so gay 
To take up Don Giovanni? 



" What's Juan but a shameless tale 

That bursts all rules asunder? 
There are a thousand such elsewhere 

As worthy of your wonder." 
—Strange words thoy seem'd of 
slight and s^orn ; 

His lordship lookd not canny ; 
And took a pinch of snuff, to think 

I flouted Don Giovanni. 



"Oh I rich," said I, "are Juan's 
rhymes, 

And warm its verse is flowing 1 
Fair crops of blasphemy it bears. 

But we will leave them growing ; 
In Pindar's strain, in prose of Paine, 

And many another Zany ; 
As gross we read, so where's the 
need 

To wade through Don Giovanni ? 



" Let Colburn's town-bred cattle 
snuff 

The sweets of Lady Morgan; 
Let Maturin to amorous themes 

Attune his barrel organ I 
We will not read them, will not hear 

The parson or the granny ; 
And, I dare say, as bad as they, 

Or worse, is Don Giovanni. 



"Be Juan then unseen, un- 
known ! 

It must, or we shall rue it ; 
We may have virtue of our own ; 

Ah 1 why should we undo it? 
The treasured faith of days long 
past. 

We still would prize o'er any; 
And grieve to hear the ribald jeer 

Of scamps like Don Giovanni. 



"When Whigs with freezing rule 
shall come. 

And piety seem folly ; [Brougham, 
When Cam and Isis, curb'd by 

Shall wander melancholy ; 
When Cobbett, Wooler, Watson, 

And all the swinish many, [Hunt, 
Shall rough-shod ride o'er Church 
and State ; 

Then hey 1 for Don Giovanni." 



DEDICATION.! 



" Then hey ! for Don Giovanni !"— What Tory will 
not pronounce Dr. Maginn's last octave a prophetic 
one, when he compares it with the time of the forth- 
coming of this, the first complete and unmutilated 
edition of Don Juan ?" 

January 30, 1833. 
45 



I. 

Bob Southey ! You're a poet— Poet-laureate, 

And representative of all the race, 
Although 'tis true that you turn'd out a Tory at 

Last, — yours has lately been a common case; 
And now, my Epic Renegade ! what are ye at ? 

With all the Lakers, in and out of place ? 
A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye 
Like " four and twenty Blackbirds in a pye ; 

II. 
" Which pye being open'd they began to sing" 

(This old song and new simile holds good), 
" A dainty dish to set before the King," 

Or Regent, who admires such kind of food ; — 
And Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing. 

But like a hawk eneumber'd with his hood, — 
Explaining metaphysics to the nation— 
I wish he would explain his Explanation.* 

III. 

You, Bob ! are rather insolent, you know, 
At being disappointed in your wish 

To supersede all warblers here below, 
And be the only Blackbird in the dish ; 

And then you overstrain yourself, or so, 
And tumble downward like the flying fish 

Gasping on deck, because you soar too high. Bob, 

And fall, for lack of moisture quite a-dry, Bob I 

IV. 
And Wordsworth, in a rather long " Excursion " 

(I think the quarto holds five hundred pages), 
Has given a sample from the vasty version 

Of his new system ^ to perplex the sages ; 
'Tis poetry — at least by his assertion, 

And may appear so when the dog-star rages— 
And he who understands it would be able 
To add a story to the Tower of Babel. 



1 This "Dedication" was suppressed, in 1819, with Lord 
Byron's reluctant consent ; but, shortly after his death, its 
existence became notorious, in consequence of an article in 
the Westminster Review, generally ascribed to Sir John Hob- 
house ; and, for several years, the verses have been selling in 
the streets as a broadside. It could, therefore, serve no pur- 
pose to exclude them on the present occasion. 

2 Coleridge's "Biographia Literaria" appeared in 1817. 

8 " When, some years ago, a gentleman, the chief writer and 
conductor of a celebrated review, distinguished by its hos- 
tility to Mr. Southey, spent a day or two at Keswick, he was 
circumstantially informed by what series of accidents it had 
happened, that Mr. Wordsworth, IMr. Southey, and I had be- 
come neighbors; and how utterly groundless was the sup- 
position, that we considered ourselves as belonging to any 
common school, but that of good sense, confirmed by the 
long-established models of the best times of Greece, Rome, 
Italy, and England; and still more groundless the notioa, 



706 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



You— Gentlemen ! by dint of long seclusion 

From better company, have kept your own 
At Keswick,! and, through still continued fusion 

Of one another's minds, at last have grown 
To deem as a most logical conclusion, 

That Poesy has wreaths for you alone : 
There is a narrowness in such a notion, 
Which makes me wish you'd change your lakes for 
ocean. 

VI. 
I would not imitate the petty thought, 

Nor coin my self-love to so base a vice. 
For all the glory your conversion brought, 

Since gold alone should not have been its price. 
You have your salary ; was't for that you wrought ? 

And Wordsworth has. his place in the Excise.^ 
You're shabby fellows — true — but poets still, 
And duly seated on the immortal hill. 

VII. 

Your bays may hide the baldness of your brows — 
Perhaps some virtuous blushes ; — let them go — 

To you I envy neither fruit nor boughs — 
And for the fame you would engross below, 

The field is universal, and allows 
Scope to all such as feel the inherent glow : 

Scott, Rogers, Campbell, Moore, and Crabbe, will try 

'Gainst you the question with posterity. 

VIII. 

For me, who, wandering with pedestrian Muses, 
Contend not with you on the winged steed, 

I wish your fate may yield ye, when she chooses, 
The fame you envy, and the skill you need ; 

And recollect a poet nothing loses 

In giving to his brethren their full meed 

Of merit, and complaint of present days 

Is not the certain path to future praise. 

that Mr. Southey (for, as to myself, I have published so little, 
and that little of so little importance, as to make it almost 
ludicrous to mention my name at all) could have been con- 
cerned in the formation of a poetic sect with Mr. Wordsworth, 
when so many of his works had been published, not only 
previously to any acquaintance between them, but before 
Mr. Wordsworth himself had written any thing but in a dic- 
tion ornate, and uniformly sustained ; when, too, the slightest 
examination will make it evident, that between those and the 
after-writings of Mr. Southey there exists no other differ- 
ence than that of a progressive degree of excellence, from 
progressive development of power, and progressive facility 
from habit and increase of experience. Yet, among the first 
articles which this man wrote after his return from Keswick, 
we were characterized as ' the School of whining and hypo- 
chondriacal poets that haunt the Lakes.' "—Coleridge. 

1 Mr. Southey is the only poet of the day that ever resided 
at Keswick. Mr. Wordsworth, who lived at one time on 
Grasmere, has for many years past occupied Mount Rydal, 
near Ambleside : Professor Wilson possesses an elegant villa 
on Windermere: Coleridge, Lamb, Lloyd, and others classed 
by the Edinburgh Review in the Lake School, never, we 
believe, had any connection with that part of the country. 

2 Wordsworth's place may be in the Customs— it is, I 



IX. 

He that reserves his laurels for posterity 

(Who does not often claim the bright reversion) 

Has generally no great crop to spare it, he 
Being only injured by his own assertion ; 

And although here and there some glorious rarity 
Arise like Titan from the sea's immersion, 

The major part of such appellants go 

To — God knows where — for no one else can know. 

X. 

If, fallen in evil days on evil tongues, 
Milton appeal'd to the Avenger, Time, 

If Time, the Avenger, execrates his wrongs, 
And makes the word "Miltonic" mean "sublime,'* 

He deign'd not to belie his soul in songs. 
Nor turn his very talent to a crime ; 

He did not loathe the Sire to laud the Son, 

But closed the tyrant-hater he begun. 

XI. 
Think'st thou, could he — the blind Old Man — arise 

Like Samuel from the grave, to freeze once more 
The blood of monarchs with his prophecies. 

Or be alive again — again all hoar 
With time and trials, and those helpless eyes. 

And heartless daughters — worn — and pale^ — and 
Would he adore a sultan ? he obey [poor ; 

The intellectual eunich Castlereagh?* 

" XII. 
Cold-blooded, smooth-faced, placid miscreant ! 

Dabbling its sleek young hands in Erin's gore. 
And thus for wider carnage taught to pant, 

Transferr'd to gorge upon a sister shore. 
The vulgarest tool that Tyranny could want, 

With just enough of talent, and no more, 
To lengthen fetters by another fix'd. 
And ofier poison long already mix'd. 

think, in that or the Excise — ^besides another at Lord Lons- 
dale's table, where this poetical charlatan and political par- 
asite licks up the crumbs with a hardened alacrity; the 
converted Jacobin having long subsided into the clownish 
sycophant of the worst prejudices of the aristocracy. 

3 " Pale, but not cadaverous :"— Milton's two elder daugh- 
ters are said to have robbed him of his books, besides cheat- 
ing and plaguing him in the economy of his house, &c. &c. 
His feelings on such an outrage, both as a parent and a 
scholar, must have been singularly painful. Hayley com- 
pares him to Lear. See part third. Life of Milton, by W. 
Hayley (or Hailey, as spelt in the edition before me). 

4 Or,— 

" Would he subside into a hackney Laureate— 
A scribbling, self-sold, soul-hired, scorn'd Iscariot?" 
I doubt if "Laureate" and "Iscariot" be good rhymes, but 
must say, as Ben Jonson did to Sylvester, who challenged 
him to rhyme with— 

" I, John Sylvester, 
Lay with your sister." 
Jonson answered — "I, Ben Jonson, lay with your wife." 
Sylvester answered,—" That is not rhyme."—" No," said Bea 
Jonson ; " but it is inte." 



DON JUAN. 



707 



XIII. 

An orator of such set trash of phrase, 

Ineflfably — legitimately vile, 
That even its grossest flatterers dare not praise, 

Nor foes — all nations — condescend to smile, — 
Nor even a sprightly blunder's spark can blaze 

From that Ixiou grindstone's ceaseless toil, 
That turns and turns to give the world a notion 
Of endless torments and perpetual motion. 

XIV. 
A bungler even in its disgusting trade, 

And botching, patching, leaving still behind 
Something of which its masters are afraid, 

States to be curb'd, and thoughts to be confined, 
Conspiracy or Congress to be made — 

Cobbling at manacles for all mankind — 
A tinkering slave-maker, who mends old chains. 
With God and man's abhorrence for its gains. 

XV. 

If we may judge of matter by the mind. 

Emasculated to the marrow It 
Hath but two objects, how to serve, and bind, 

Deeming the chain it wears even men may fit. 



1 For the character of Eutropius, the eunuch and minister 
at the court of Arcadius, see Gibbon. — " Eutropius, one of 
the principal eunuchs of the palace of Constantinople, suc- 
ceeded the haughty minister whose ruin he had accomplished, 
and whose vices he soon imitated. He was the first of his 
artificial sex who dared to assume the character of a Roman 
magistrate and general. Sometimes, in the presence of the 
blushing senate, he ascended the tribunal to pronounce 
judgment, or to repeat elaborate harangues ; and sometimes 
appeared on horseback, at the head of his troops, in the 
dress and armor of a hero. The disregard of custom and 
decency always betrays a weak and ill-regulated mind : nor 
does Eutropius seem to have compensated for the folly of 



Eutropius of its many masters,*— blind 

To worth as freedom, wisdom as to wit, 
Fearless — because no feeling dwells in ice, 
Its very courage stagnates to a vice. 

XVI. 

Where shall I turn me not to view its bonds, 

For I will never feel them ; — Italy ! 
Thy late reviving Eoman soul desponds 

Beneath the lie this State-thing breathed o'er thee- 
Thy clanking chain, and Erin's yet green wounds. 

Have voices — tongues to cry aloud for me. 
Europe has slaves— allies— kings— armies still, 
And Southey lives to sing them very ill. 

XVII. 
Meantime— Sir Laureate — I proceed to dedicate, 

In honest simple verse, this song to you. 
And, if in flattering strains I do not predicate, 

'Tis that I still retain my " bufl" and blue ;" 2 
My politics as yet are all to educate : 

Apostasy's so fashionable, too, 
To keep one creed's a task grown quite herculean ; 
Is it not so, my Tory, ultra- Julian ? ^ 

Venice, September 16, 1818. 



the design by any superior merit or ability in the execution. 
His former habits of life had not introduced him to the study 
of the laws, or the exercises of the field ; his awkward and 
unsuccessful attempts provoked the secret contempt of the 
spectators; the Goths expressed a wish that such a general 
might always command the armies of Rome, and the name 
of the minister was branded with ridicule, more pernicious, 
perhaps, than hatred to a public character." — Gibbon. 

2 Mr. Fox and the Whig- Club of his time adopted an 
uniform of blue and buff: hence the coverings of the Edin- 
burgh Review, &c. 

3 I allude not to my friend Landor's hero, the traitor Count 
Julian, but to Gibbon's hero, vulgarly yclept " The Apostate." 



708 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto I. 



Bott SJuan, 



CANTO THK FIEST.* 



I. 



I WANT a hero : an uncommon want, 

When every year and month sends forth a new 
one, 
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant. 

The age discovers he is not the true one ; 

1 Begun at Venice, September 6 ; finished November 1, 1818. 

2 We find the following fragment on the back of the poet's 
MS. of canto i. :— 

" I would to Heaven that I were so much clay, 
As I am blood, bone, marrow, passion, feeling — 

Because at least the past were pass'd away — 
And for the future — (but I write this reeling, 

Having got drunk exceedingly to-day, 
So that I seem to stand upon the ceiling) 

I say — the future is a serious matter — 

And so — for God's sake — hock and soda-water !" 

3 Remodelled under the names of "Don Juan," "The 
Libertine," &c. &c., the old Spanish ^iritual play, entitled 
" Atheista Fulminato," formerly acted in the churches and 
monasteries, has had its day of favor in every country 
throughout Europe. It was first introduced upon the regu- 
lar stage, under the title of " El Burlador de Sevilla y Com- 
bidado de Pierra," by Gabriel Tellez, the contemporary of 
Calderon. It was soon translated into Italian by Cicognini, 
and performed with so much success in this language, not 
only in Italy but even at Paris, that Molifire, shortly before 
his death, produced a comedy in five acts, called " Don Juan ; 
ou, Le Festin de Pierre," This piece was, in 1677, put into 
verse by T. Corneille ; and thus it has been performed on the 
French stage ever since. In 1676, Shadwell, the successor of 
Dryden in the laureateship, introduced the subject into this 
country, in his tragedy of the " Libertine ;" but he made his 
hero so unboundedly wicked, as to exceed the limits of 
probability. In all these works, as well as in Mozart's cele- 
brated opera, the Don is uniformly represented as a travelling 
rake, who practices every where the arts of seduction, and 
who, for his numerous delinquencies, is finally consumed by 
flames coram populo, or, as Lord Byron has it, — " Sent to the 
devil somewhat ere his time." 

4 Admiral Vernon, who served with considerable distinc- 
tion in the navy, particularly in the capture of Porto Bello, 
died in 1757. 

6 Second son of George II., distinguished himself at the 
battles of Dettingen and Fontenoy, and still more so at that 
of Culloden, where he defeated the Chevalier, in 1746. The 
duke, however, obscured his fame by the cruel abuse which 
he made, or suffered his soldiers to make, of the victory. He 
died in 1765. 

* General Wolfe, the brave commander of the expedition 
against Quebec, terminated his career in the moment of vic- 
tory, whilst fighting against the French in 1759. 

1 In 1759, Admiral Lord Hawke totally defeated the 
French fleet equipped at Brest for the invasion of England. 
In 1765 he was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty ; and 
died, full of honors, in 1781. 

8 Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, who gained the victory 
of Minden. In 1762, he drove the French out of Hesse. He 
died in 1792. 



Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,* 

I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan — 
We all have seen him, in the pantomime, . 
Sent to the devil somewhat ere his time. 

II. 

Vernon,* the butcher Cumberland,^ Wolfe,* Hawke,'' 
Prince Ferdinand,^ Granby,^ Burgoyne,^^ Keppel,^^ 
Howe,i2 

Evil and good, have had their tithe of talk. 
And fill'd their sign-posts then, like Wellesley now ; 

Each in their turn like Banquo's monarchs stalk. 
Followers of fame, " nine farrow " of that sow : 

France, too, had Buonaparte ^^ and Dumourier 

Recorded in the Moniteur and Courier. 

' Son of the third duke of Rutland— signalized himself 
in 1745, on the invasion by Prince Charles ; and was consti- 
tuted, in 1759, commander of the British forces in Germany. 
He died in 1770. 

10 An English general officer and dramatist, who distin- 
guished himself in the defence of Portugal, in 1762, against 
the Spaniards, and also in America by the capture of Ticon- 
deroga; but was at last obliged to surrender, with his army, 
to General Gates. Died in 1792. 

11 Second son of the Earl of Albemarle. Placed at the 
head of the Channel fleet, he partially engaged, in 1778, the 
French fleet off Ushant, which contrived to escape : he was, 
in consequence, tried by a court martial, and honorably 
acquitted. He died in 1786. 

12 Lord Howe distinguished himself on many occasions 
during the American war. On the breaking out of the 
French war, he took the command of the English fleet, and, 
bringing the enemy to an action on the 1st of June, 1794, 
obtained a splendid victory. He died in 1799. 

13 We find on Lord Byron's MS. the following note to this 
stanza: — "In the eighth and concluding lecture of Mr. Haz- 
litt's canons of criticism, delivered at the Surrey Institution, 
I am accused of having ' lauded Buonaparte to the skies in 
the hour of his success, and then peevishly wreaking my 
disappointment on the god of my idolatry.' The first lines 
I ever wrote upon Buonaparte were the ' Ode to Napoleon ' 
[see ante, p. 545], after his abdication in 1814. All that I 
have ever written on that subject has been done since his 
decline; — I never 'met him in the hour of his success.' I 
have considered his character at different periods, in its 
strength and in its weakness : by his zealots I am accused of 
injustice — by his enemies as his warmest partisan ; in many 
publications, both English and foreign. 

"For the accuracy of my delineation I have high au- 
thority. A year and some months ago, I had the pleasure of 
seeing at Venice my friend the honorable Douglas Kinnaird. 
In his way through Germany, he told me that he had been 
honored with a presentation to, and some interviews with, 
one of the nearest family connections of Napoleon ('Eu- 
gene Beauharnais '). During one of these, he read and 
translated the lines alluding to Buonaparte, in the third 
canto of Childe Harold {ante, p» 38]. He informed me, that 
he was authorized by the illustrious personage— (still rec- 
ognized as such by the Legitimacy in Europe) — to whom 
they were read, to say, that ' the delineation was complete,' or 
words to this effect. It is no puerile vanity which induces 
me to publish this fact ;— but Mr. Hazlitt accuses my incon- 
sistency, and infers my inaccuracy. Perhaps he will admit 
that, with regard to the latter, one of the most intimate 
family connections of the emperor may be equally capable 
of deciding on the subject. I tell Mr. Hazlitt, that I never 
flattered Napoleon on the throne, nor maligned him since 



Canto I. 



DON JUAN. 



709 



III. 

Barnave/ Brissot,^ Condorcet,' Mirabeau,* 
Petion,5 Clootz,6 Danton,'' Marat,^ La Fayette,' 

Were French, and famous people, as we know ; 
And there were others, scarce forgotten yet, 

Joubert,^" Hoche,^^ Marceau,^^ Lannes,!^ Desaix,i* 
With many of the military set, [Moreau,i5 

Exceedingly remarkable at times. 

But not at all adapted to my rhymes. 

Nelson was once Britannia's god of war. 
And still should be so, but the tide is turn'd ; 

There's no more to be said of Trafalgar, 
'Tis with our hero quietly inurn'd ; 



his fall. I wrote what I think are the incredible antitheses 
of his character. 

"itf r. Hazlitt accuses me further of delineating myself in 
Childe Harold, &c. &c. I have denied this long ago— but, 
even were it true, Locke tells us, that all his knowledge of 
human understanding was derived from studying his own 
mind. From Mr. Ilazlitt's opinion of my poetry I do not 
appeal ; but I request that gentleman not to insult me by im- 
puting the basest of crimes, — viz., ' praising publicly the same 
man whom I wished to depreciate in his adversity ;' — the^rs^ 
lines I ever wrote on Buonaparte were in his dispraise, in 
1814, — the last, though not at all in his favor, were more im- 
partial and discriminative, in 1818. Has he become more 
fortunate since 1814?" — Byron, Venice, 1819. 

1 Barnave, one of the most active promoters of the French 
revolution, was in 1791 appointed president of the Constit- 
uent Assembly. On the flight of the royal f«nily, he was 
sent to conduct them to Paris. He was guillotined, Novem- 
\yiT, 1793. 

* Brissot de "Warville, at the age of twenty, published sev- 
eral tracts, for one of which he was, in 1784, thrown into the 
Bastile. He was one of the principal instigators of the revolt 
of the Champ de Mars, in July, 1789. He was led to the guil- 
lotine, October, 1793. 

3 Condorcet was, in 1792, appointed president of the Legis- 
lative Assembly. Having, in 1793, attacked the new Consti- 
tution, he was denounced. Being thrown into prison, he was 
on the following morning found dead, apparently from poison. 
His works are collected in twenty-one volumes. 

< Mirabeau, so well known as one of the chief promoters 
of, and actors in, the Fr ach revolution, died in 1791. 

^ Petion, mayor of Paris in 1791, took an active part in the 
imprisonment of the king. Becoming, in 1793, an object of 
suspicion to Robespierre, he took refuge in the department 
of the Calvados; where his body was found in a field, half- 
devoured by wolves. 

6 John Baptiste (better known under the appellation of 
Anacharsis) Clootz. In 1790, at the bar of the National Con- 
vention, be described himself as "the orator of the human 
race." Being suspected by PvObespierre, he was, in 1794, con- 
demned to death. On the scaffold he begged to be decapitated 
the last, as he wished to ma:ke some observations essential to 
the establishment of certain principles, while the heads of 
the others were falling ; a request obligingly complied with. 

1 Danton played a very important part during the first 
years of the French revolution. After the fall of the king, 
he was made Minister of Justice. His violent measures led 
to the bloody scenes of September, 1792. Being denounced 
to the Committee of Safety, he ended his career on the guil- 
lotine, in 1794. 

8 This wretch figured among the actors of the 10th of 
August, and in the assassination of September, 1792. In 



Because the army's grown more popular, 

At which the naval people are coucern'd ; 
Besides, the prince is all for the land-service, 
Forgetting Duncan, Nelson, Howe, and Jervis. 



Brave men were living before Agamemnon ^^ 
And since, exceeding valorous and sage, 

A good deal like him too, though quite the same 
none ; 
But then they shone not on the poet's page, 

And so have been forgotten : — I condemn none, 
But can't find any in the present age 

Fit for my poem (that is, for my new one) ; 

So, as I said, I'll take my friend Don Juan." 



May, 1793, he was denounced, and delivered over to the 
revolutionary tribunal, which acquitted him ; but his bloody 
career was arrested by the knife of an assassin, in the person 
of Charlotte Corde. 

9 Of all these " famous people," the general was the last 
survivor. He died in 1834. 

10 Joubert distinguished himself at the engagements of 
Laono, Montenotte, Millesimo, Cava, Montebello, Eivoli, and 
especially in the Tyrol. He was afterwards opposed to Su- 
warrow, and was killed, in 1799, at Novi. 

11 In 1796, Hoche was appointed to the command of the ex- 
pedition against Ireland, and sailed in December from Brest ; 
but, a storm dispersing the fleet, the plan failed. After his 
return, he received the command of the army of the Sambre 
and Mouse; but died suddenly, in September, 1797, it was 
supposed of poison. 

12 General Marceau first distinguished himself in La Ven- 
dge. He was killed by a rifle-ball at Alterkirchen. See ante, 
p. 40. 

13 Lannes, Duke of Montebello, distinguished himself at 
Millesimo, Lodi, Aboukir, Acre, Montebello, Austerlitz, Jena, 
Pultusk, Preuss, Eylau, Friedland, Tudela, Saragossa, Ech- 
muhl, and, lastly, at Esling; where, in May, 1809, he was 
killed by a cannon-shot. 

1* At the taking of Malta, and at the battles of Chebreiss 
and of the Pyramids, Desaix displayed the greatest bravery. 
He was mortally wounded by a cannon-ball at Marengo, just 
as victory declared for the French. 

15 One of the most distinguished of the republican generals. 
In 1813, on hearing of the reverses of Napoleon in Russia, ho 
joined the allied armies. He was struck by a cannon-ball at 
the battle of Dresden, in 1813. 

16 " Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona," &c.— Horaces 

" Before great Agamemnon reign'd, 

Ecign'd kings as great as he, and brave, 
Whose huge ambition's now contain'd 

In the small compass of a grave ; 
In endless night they sleep, unwept, unknown, 
No bard had they to make all time their own." 

Francis, p. 223. 
IT Mr. Coleridge, speaking of the original " Atheista Ful- 
minate," says—" Rank, fortune, wit, talent, acquired knowl- 
edge, and liboral accomplishments, with beauty of person, 
vigorous health, and constitutional hardihood— all these ad- 
vantages, elevated by the habits and sympathies of noble 
birth and national character, are supposed to have combined 
in 'Don Juan,' so as to give him the means of carrying into 
all its practical consequences the doctrine of a godless nature, 
as the sole ground and eflScient cause not only of all things, 
events, and appearances, but likewise of all our thoughts, 
sensations, impubes, and actions. Obedience to nature is the 
only virtue: the gratification of the passions and appetites 



710 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto I. 



VI. 

Most epic poets plunge " in naedias res " 

(Horace makes this the heroic turnpike road),* 

And then your hero tells, whene'er you please, 
What went before— by way of episode, 

While seated after dinner at his ease, 
Beside his mistress in some soft abode. 

Palace, or garden, paradise, or cavern, 

Which serves the happy couple for a tavern. 

VII. 
That is the usual method, but not mine — 

My way is to begin with the beginning ; 
The regularity of my design 

Forbids all wandering as the worst of sinning, 
And therefore I shall open with a line 

(Although it cost me half an hour in spinning) 
Narrating somewhat of Don Juan's father, 
And also of his mother, if you'd rather. 

VIII. 

In Seville was he born, a pleasant city, 
Famous for oranges and women ^ — he 

Who has not seen it will be much to pity, 
So says the proverb^ — and I quite agree; 

Of all the Spanish towns is none more pretty, 
Cadiz perhaps — but that you soon may see ; — 

Don Juan's parents lived beside the river, 

A noble stream, and call'd the Guadalquivir. 

IX. 

His father's name was Jose — Don, of course, 
A true Hidalgo, free from every stain 

Of Moor or Hebrew blood, he traced his source 
Through the most Gothic gentlemen of Spain ; 

A better cavalier ne'er mounted horse. 
Or, being mounted, e'er got down again. 

Than J6se, who begot our hero, who 

Begot — but that's to come Well, to renew : 

X. 

His mother was a learned lady, famed 
For every branch of every science known — 

In every Christian language ever named, 
With virtues equall'd by her wit alone : 



her only dictate: each individual's self-will the sole organ 
through which nature utters her commands, and 

" Self-contradiction is the only wrong ! 

For, by the laws of spirit, in the right 

Is every individual's character 

That acts in strict consistence with itself." 
See Schiller's Wallenstein. 

1 " Semper ad eventum festinat, et in medias res, 
Non secus ac notas, auditorem rapit." 

" But to the grand event he speeds his course, 
And bears his readers, with impetuous force, 
Into the midst of things, while every line 
Opens, by just degrees, his whole design."— Francis. 

2 " The women of Seville are, in general, very handsome, 
with large black eyes, and forms more graceful in motion 
than can be conceived by an Englishman — added to the most 



She made the cleverest people quite ashamed. 
And even the good with inward envy groan. 
Finding themselves so very much exceeded 
In their own way by all the things that she did. 

XI. 

Her memory was a mine : she knew by heart 
All Calderon and greater part of Lop6, 

So that if any actor miss'd his part. 
She could have served him for the prompter's copy 

For her Feinagle's were an useless art,* 
And he himself obliged to shut up shop — he 

Could never make a memory so fine as 

That which adorn'd the brain of Donna Inez.^ 

XII. 

Her favorite science was the mathematical. 
Her noblest virtue was her magnanimity. 

Her wit (she sometimes tried at wit) was Attic all, 
Her serious sayings darken'd to sublimity ;® 

In short, in all things she was fairly what I call 
A prodigy — her morning dress was dimity, 

Her evening silk, or, in the summer, muslin, 

And other stuffs, with which I won't stay puzzling. 

XIII. 

She knew the Latin— that is, " the Lord's prayer," 
And Greek — the alphabet — I'm nearly sure ; 

She read some French romances here and there. 
Although her mode of speaking was not pure ; 

For native Spanish she had no great care. 
At least her conversation was obscure ; 

Her thoughts were theorems, her words a problem. 

As if she deem'd that mystery would ennoble 'em. 



XIV. 

She liked the English and the Hebrew tongue, 
And said there was analogy between 'em ; 

She proved it somehow out of sacred song, 
But I must leave the proofs to those who've seen 'em ; 

But this I heard her say, and can't be wrong. 
And all may think which way their judgments lean 
'em, 

" 'Tis strange — the Hebrew noun which means * I am,' 

The English always use to govern d — n." 



becoming dress, and, at the same time, the most decent in 
the world. Certainly, they are fascinating ; but their minds 
have only one idea, and the business of their lives is in- 
trigue." — Byron Letters, 1809. 

3 " Quien no ha visto Sevilla, no ha visto maravilla." 

* Professor Feinagle, of Baden, who, in 1812, under the 
especial patronage of the ^^ Blues," delivered a course of lec- 
tures at the Eoyal Institution, on Mnemonics. 

6 "Lady Byron had good ideas, but could never express 
them : wrote poetry also, but it was only good by accident. 
Her letters were always enigmatical, often unintelligible. 
She was governed by what she called fixed rules and prin- 
ciples squared mathematically." — Byron, Letters. 

6 " Little she spoke— but what she spoke was Attic all, 
With words and deeds in perfect unanimity." — MS. 



Canto I. 



DON JUAN. 



711 



XV. 

Some women use their tongues — she looked a lecture, 
Each eye a sermon, and her brow a homily, 

An all-in-all sufficient self-director, 

Like the lamented late Sir Samuel Romilly,i 

The Law's expounder, and the State's corrector, 
Whose suicide was almost an anomaly — 

One sad example more, that " All is vanity " — 

(The jury brought their verdict in "Insanity"). 

XVI. 
In short, she was a walking calculation, 

Miss Edgeworth's novels stepping from their 
covers,2 
Or Mrs. Trimmer's books on education,^ 

Or " Ccelebs' Wife " * set out in quest of lovers, 
Morality's prim i)ersonification. 

In which not Envy's self a flaw discovers ; 
To others' share let " female errors fall," 
For she had not even one — the worst of all. 

XVII. 

Oh ! she was perfect past all parallel — 
Of any modern female saint's comparison ; 

So far above the cunning powers of hell, 

Her guardian angel had given up his garrison ; 

Even her minutest motions went as well 
As those of the best time-piece made by Harrison : 

In virtues nothing earthly could surj^ass her, 

Save thine "incomparable oil," Macassar!^ 

XVIII. 
Perfect she was, but as perfection is 

Insipid in this naughty world of ours, 
Where our first parents never learn'd to kiss 

Till they were exiled from their earlier bowers, 
Where all was peace, and innocence, and bliss® 

(I wonder how they got through the twelve 
hours), 
Don Jose, like a lineal son of Eve, 
Went plucking various fruit without her leave. 



1 Sir Samuel Romilly lost his lady on the 29th of October, 
and committed suicide on the 2d of November, 1818. — " But 
there will come a day of reckoning, even if I should not 
live to see it. I have at least seen Romilly shivered, who was 
one of my assassins. "When that man was doing his worst to 
uproot my whole family, tree, branch, and blossoms — when, 
after taking my retainer, he went over to them — when he 
was bringing desolation on my household gods — did he think 
that, in less than three years, a natural event— a severe, 
domestic, but an expected and common calamity— would 
lay his carcass in a cross-road, or stamp his name in a verdict 
of lunacy! Did he (who in his sexagenary * * *) reflect 
or consider what my feelings must have been, when wife, and 
child, and sister, and name, and fame, and country, were to 
be my sacrifice on his legal altar, — and this at a moment 
when my health was declining, my fortune embarrassed, and 
ray mind had been shaken by many kinds of disappointment 
— while I was yet young, and might have reformed what 
might be wrong in my conduct, and retrieved what was per- 
plexing in my affairs I But he is in his grave," «fec. — Byron 
LfiUert, June, 1819. 



XIX. 

He was a mortal of the careless kind. 
With no great love for learning, or the learn'd, 

Who chose to go where'er he had a mind, 
And never dream'd his lady was concern'd ; 

The world, as usual, wickedly inclined 
To see a kingdom or a house o'erturn'd, 

Whisper'd he had a mistress, some said two; 

But for domestic quarrels one will do. 

XX. 

Now Donna Inez had, with all her merit, 
A great opinion of her own good qualities ; 

Neglect, indeed, requires a saint to bear it, 
And such, indeed, she was in her moralities ; ^ 

But then she had a devil of a spirit. 
And sometimes mix'd up fancies with realities. 

And let few opportunities escape 

Of getting her liege lord into a scrape. 

XXI. 

This was an easy matter with a man 

Oft in the, wrong, and never on his guard ; 

And even the wisest, do the best they can, 
Have moments, hours, and* days, so unprepared, 

That you might "brain them with their lady's 
fan;" 8 
And sometimes ladies hit exceeding hard. 

And fans turn into falchions in fair hands. 

And why and wherefore no one understands. 

XXII. 
'Tis pity learned virgins ever wed 

With persons of no sort of education. 
Or gentlemen, who, though well born and bred, 

Grow tired of scientific conversation : 
I don't choose to say much upon this head, 

I'm a plain man, and in a single station. 
But — Oh ! ye lords of ladies intellectual, 
Inform us truly, have they not hen-peck'd you 
all? 



2 Maria Edgeworth'* author of " Treatise on Practical Edu- 
cation," "Castle Rackrent," &c. &c. Ac— "In 1813," says 
Lord Byron, " I recollect to have met Miss Edgeworth in the 
fashionable world of London, She was a nice little unassum- 
ing ' Jeannie Deans-looking body,' as we Scotch say ; and if 
not handsome, certainly not ill-looking. Her conversation 
was as quiet as herself. One would never have guessed she 
could write her name ; whereas her father talked, not as if he 
could write nothing else, but as if nothing else was worth 
writing." — Byron Diary, 1821. 

3 "Comparative View of the New Plan of Education," 
" Teacher's Assistant," &c. &c. 

* Hannah More's "Ccelebs in Search of a Wife," &c.; a 
sermon-like novel, which had great success at the time, and 
is now forgotten. 

6 " Description des vertiis incomparahles de I'Huile de Ma- 
cassar." See the Advertisement. 

« "Where all was innocence and quiet bliss." — MS. 

7 "And so she seem'd, in all outside formalities." — MS. 

8 " By this hand, if I were now by this rascal, I could brain 
him with his lady's fan."— Shakspeaee. 



712 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto I. 



XXIII. 

Don J6ge and his lady quarrell'd — why, 

Not any of the many could divine, 
Though several thousand people chose to try, 

'Twas surely no concern of theirs nor mine ; 
I loathe that low vice — curiosity ; 

But if there's anything in which I shine, 
'Tis in arranging all my friends' affairs, 
Not having, of my own, domestic cares. 

XXIV. 

And so I interfered, and with the best 
Intentions, but their treatment was not kind ; 

I think the foolish people were possess'd. 
For neither of them could I ever find. 

Although their porter afterwards confess'd — 
But that's no matter, and the worst's behind. 

For little Juan o'er me threw, down stairs, 

A pail of housemaid's water unawares. 

XXV. 

A little curly-headed, good-for-nothing. 
And mischief-making monkey from his birth ; 

His parents ne'er agreed except in doting 
Upon the most unquiet imp on earth ; 

Instead of quarrelling, had they been but both in 
Their senses, they'd have sent young master forth 

To school, or had him soundly whipp'd at home, 

To teach him manners for the time to come. 

XXVI. 
I>on Jose and the Donna Inez led 

For some time an unhappy sort of life, 
Wishing each other, not divorced, but dead ; i 

They lived respectably as man and wife. 



1 " Wishing each other damn'd, divorced, or dead." — MS. 

2 " Lady Byron had left London at the latter end of Jan- 
uary, on a visit to her father's house in Leicestershire, and 
Lord Byron was, in a short time after, to follow her. They 
had parted in the utmost kindness, — she wrote him a letter, 
full of playfulness and affection, on the road, and, imme- 
diately on her arrival at Kirkby Mallory, her father wrote to 
acquaint Lord Byron that she would return to him no more. 
At the time when he had to stand this unexpected shock, his 
pecuniary embarrassments, which had been fast gathering 
around him, during the whole of the past year, bad arrived 
at their utmost." — Moore. " The facts are : — I left London 
for Kirkby Mallory, the residence of my father and mother, 
on the 15th of January, 1816. Lord Byron had signified to 
me in writing (January 6) his absolute desire that I should 
leave London on the earliest day that I could conveniently 
fix. It was not safe for me to undertake the fatigue of a 
journey sooner than the 15th. Previously to my. departure, it 
bad been strongly impressed on my mind, that Lord Byron 
was under the influence of insanity. This opinion was derived 
in a great measure from the communications made to me by 
his nearest relatives and personal attendant, who had more 
opportunities than myself of observing him during the latter 
part of my stay in town. It was even represented to me that 
he was in danger of destroying himself. With the concurrence 
of his family, I had consulted Dr. Baillie as a friend (January 
8) respecting this supposed malady. On acquainting him 
with the state of the case, and with Lord Byron's desire that 



Their conduct was exceedingly well-bred. 

And gave no outward signs of inward strife, 
Until at length the smother'd fire broke out. 
And put the business past all kind of doubt.' 

XXVII. 

For Inez call'd some druggists and physicians, 
And tried to prove her loving lord was mad^ 

But as he had some lucid intermissions, 
She next decided he was only had ; 

Yet when they ask'd her for her depositions, 
No sort of explanation could be had. 

Save that her duty both to man and God 

Required this conduct — which seem'd very odd. 

XXVIII. 

She kept a journal, where his faults were noted, 
And open'd certain trunks of books and letters, 

All which might, if occasion served, be quoted ; 
And then she had all Seville for abettors, 

Besides her good old grandmother (who doted) ; 
The hearers of her case became repeaters. 

Then advocates, inquisitors, and judges. 

Some for amusement, others for old grudges. 

XXIX. 

And then this best and meekest woman bore 
With such serenity her husband's woes. 

Just as the Spartan ladies did of yore. 

Who saw their spouses kill'd, and nobly chose 

Never to say a word about them more — 
Calmly she heard each calumny that rose. 

And saw his agonies with such sublimity, 

That all the world exclaim'd, "What magna- 
nimity !" 



I should leave London, Dr. Baillie thought that my absence 
might be advisable as an experiment, assuming the fact of 
mental derangement; for Dr. Baillie, not having had access 
to Lord Byron, could not pronounce a positive opinion on 
that point. He enjoined that in correspondence with Lord 
Byron I should avoid all but light and soothing topics. Under 
these impressions, I left London, determined to follow the 
advice given by Dr. Baillie."— iacZy Byron. 

3 " I was surprised one day by a doctor (Dr. Baillie) and a 
lawyer (Dr. Lushington) almost forcing themselves at the 
same time into my room. I did not know till afterwards the 
real object of their visit. I thought their questions singular, 
frivolous, and somewhat importunate, if not impertinent, 
but what should I have thought, if I had known that they 
were sent to provide proofs of my insanity. I have no doubt 
that my answers to these emissaries were not very rational 
or consistent, for my imagination was heated with other 
things. But Dr. Baillie could not conscientiously make me out 
a certificate for Bedlam ; and perhaps the lawyer gave a more 
favorable report to his employers. I do not, however, tax 
Lady Byron with this transaction; probably she was not 
privy to it. She was the tool of others. Her mother always 
detested me, and had not even the decency to conceal it in 
her house." — Lord Byron. " My mother always treated Lord 
Byron with an affectionate consideration and indulgence, 
which extended to every little peculiarity of his feelings. 
Never did an irritating word escape her lips in her whole 
intercourse with him."— iady Byron. 



Canto I. 



DON JUAN. 



713 



XXX. 

No doubt this patience, when the world is damning us, 

Is philosophic in our former friends ; 
'Tis also pleasant to be deem'd magnanimous, 

The more so in obtaining our own ends ; 
And what the lawyers call a " malics animus" 

Conduct like this by no means comprehends : 
Revenge in person's certainly no virtue, 
But then 'tis not my fault, if others hurt you. 

XXXI. 

And if our quarrels should rip up old stories, 
And help them with a lie or two additional, 

I'm not to blame, as you well know — no more is 
Any one else — they were become traditional ; 

Besides, their resurrection aids our glories 

By contrast, which is what we just were wishing all : 

And science profits by this resurrection — 

Dead scandals form good subjects for dissection. 

XXXII. 

Their friends ^ had tried at reconciliation/'* 
Then their relations,^ who made matters worse. 

( 'Twere hard to tell upon a like occasion 
To whom it may be best to have recourse — 

I can't say much for friend or yet relation) : 
The lawyers did their utmost for divorce,* 

But scarce a fee was paid on either side 

Before, unluckily, Don Jose died, 

XXXIII. 
He died : and most unluckily, because, 
According to all hints I could collect 



1 Mr. Rogers, Mr. Hobhouse, &c. &c. 

* " First their friends tried at reconciliation.''— MS. 

3 The Right Honorable R. Wilmot Horton, &c. The fol- 
lowing is from a fragment of a novel written by Lord Byron 
in 1817 :— " A few hours afterwards we were very good friends ; 
and a few days after she set out for Aragon, with my son, on 
a visit to her father and mother. I did not accompany her 
immediately, having been in Aragon before, but was to join 
the family in their Moorish chateau within a few weeks. 
During her journey, I received a very affectionate letter from 
Donna Josrpha, apprising me of the welfare of herself and 
my son. On her arrival at the chateau, I received another, 
still more affectionate, pressing me, in very fond, and rather 
foolish terms, to join her immediately. As I was preparing 
to act out from Seville, I received a third— this was from her 
father, Don Jos6 di Cardozo, who requested me, in the politest 
manner, to dissolve my marriage. I answered him with 
equal politeness, that I would do no such tiling. A fourth 
letter arrived — it wa.s from Donna Josepha, in which she in- 
formed me that her father's letter was written by her par- 
ticular desire. I requested the reason by return of post: she 
replied, by express, that as reason had nothing to do with 
the matter, it was unnecessary to give any— but that she was 
an injured and excellent woman. I then inquired why she 
had written to me the two preceding affectionate letters, re- 
questing me to come to Aragon. She answered, that was be- 
cause she believed me out of my sensos — that, being unfit to 
take care of myself, I had only to set out on this journey 
alone, and, making my way without difficulty to Don Jos6 
di Cardozo's, I should there have found the tenderest of 
wives and— a strait waistcoat. I had nothing to reply to this 



From counsel learned in those kinds of laws 

(Although their talk's obscure and circumspect), 

His death contrived to spoil a charming cause ; 
A thousand pities also with respect 

To public feeling, which on this occasion 

Was manifested in a great sensation. 

XXXIV. 

But ah ! he died ; and buried with him lay 
The public feeling and the lawyers' fees : 

His house was sold, his servants sent away, 
A Jew took one of his two mistresses, 

A priest the other — at least so they say : 
I ask'd the doctors after his disease — 

He died of the slow fever call'd the tertian, 

And left his widow to her own aversion. 

XXXV. 

Yet Jose was an honorable man, 
That I must say, who knew him very well ; 

Therefore his frailties I'll no further scan. 
Indeed there were not many more to tell : 

And if his passions now and then outran 
Discretion, and were not so peaceable 

As Numa's (who was also named Pompilius),^ 

He had been ill brought up, and was born bilious.* 

XXXVI. 

Whate'er might be his worthlessness or worth, 
Poor fellow ! he had many things to wound him. 

Let's own — since it can do no good on earth "^ — 
It was a trying moment that which found him 

Standing alone beside his desolate hearth, [him : ** 
Where all his household gods lay shiver'd round 



piece of affection, but a reiteration of my request for some 
lights upon the subject. I was answered, that they would 
only be related to the Inquisition. In the mean time, our 
domestic discrepancy had become a public topic of discussion ; 
and the world, which always decides justly, not only in Ara- 
gon but in Andalusia, determined that I was not only to 
blame, but that all Spain could produce nobody so blamable. 
My case was supposed to comprise all the crimes which could, 
and several which could not, be committed; and little less 
than an auto-da-fe was anticipated as the result. But let no 
man say we are abandoned by our friends in adversity— it 
was just the reverse. Mine thronged around me to condemn, 
advise, and console me with their disapprobation. They told 
me all that was, would, or could be said on the subject. They 
shook their heads— they exhorted me— deplored me with tears 
in their eyes, and — went to dinner." 

4 " The lawyers recommended a divorce."- MS. 

6 " primus qui legibus urbem 

Fundabit, Curibus parvis et paupere terra 
Missus in imperium magnum." — Virgil. 

6 "He had been ill brought up, { Ses bcTng } ^"^^"'■" 
Or, 
"The reason was, perhaps, that he was bilious."— MS. 



, . f now but ) ,, 
-since he 18 1 j^.^.^ jeari^h. 



-MS. 



7 "And we may own- 

8 " I could have forgiven the dagger or the bowl, any thing 
but the deliberate desolation piled upon me, when I stood 
alone upon my hearth, with my household gods shivered 
around me. Do you suppose I have forgotten or forgiven 
it? It has, comparatively, swallowed up in me every other 



714 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Canto 1 



No choice was left his feelings or his pride, 
Save death or Doctors' Commons — so he died.i 

XXXVII. 

Dying intestate, Juan was sole heir 

To a chancery suit, and messuages, and lands, 
Which, with a long minority and care, 

Promised to turn out well in proper hands : 
Inez became sole guardian, which was fair. 

And answer'd but to nature's just demands; 
An only son left with an only mother 2 
Is brought up much more wisely than another. 

XXXVIII. 

Sagest of women, even of widows, she 
Resolved that Juan should be quite a paragon, 

And worthy of the noblest pedigree : 

(His sire was of Castile, his dam from Aragon.) 

Then for accomplishments of chivalry, 

In case our lord the king should go to war again. 

He learn'd the arts of riding, fencing, gunnery, 

And how to scale a fortress — or a nunnery. 

XXXIX. 

But that which Donna Inez most desired, 
And* saw into herself each day before all 

The learned tutors whom for him she hired. 

Was, that his breeding should be strictly moral : 

Much into all his studies she inquired. 
And so they were submitted first to her, all, 

Arts, sciences, no branch was made a mystery 

To Juan's eyes, excepting natural history. 

XL. 

The languages, especially the dead. 

The sciences, and most of all the abstruse. 

The arts, at least all such as could be said 
To be the most remote from common use. 



feeling, and I am only a spectator upon earth till a tenfold 
opportunity offers." — Byron Letters, Sept. 10, 1818. 
" I had one only fount of quiet left, 
And that they poison'd ! My pure household gods 
Were shiver'd on my hearth, and o'er their shrine 
Sate grinning ribaldry and sneering scorn." 

Marino Faliero. 

1 " Save death or j .^ ^^f'^^^~ I g^ j^g died."— MS. 

I banishment— J 

2 "I have been thinking of an odd circumstance. — My 
daughter, my wife, my half-sister, my mother, my sister's 
mother, my natural daughter, and myself, are, or were, all 
only children. My sister's mother had only one half-sister 
by that second marriage (herself, too, an only child), and my 
fathei had only me (an only child) by his second marriage 
with my mother. Such a complication of only children, all 
tending to one family, is singular, and looks like fatality 
almost. But the fiercest animals have the rarest number in 
their litters,— as lions, tigers, and even elephants, which are 
mild in comparison." — Byron Diary, 1821. 

' 'Defending still their Iliads and Odysseys." — MS. 

* See Longinus, section 10, "IVa ju.ij ev rt irepX avrrfv naOcK 
4>aivT}Tat, iraOiov Se avvoSo';." — The Ode alluded to is the fa- 
mous <f>aii'f Tat juoi KTfvoi iffos Stoto-i, k. t. K. 



In all these he was much and deeply read ; 
But not a page of anything that's loose, 
Or hints continuation of the species, 
Was ever suflfer'd, lest he should grow vicious. 

XLI. 

His classic studies made a little puzzle, 
Because of filthy loves of gods and goddesses, 

Who in the earlier ages raised a bustle. 
But never put on pantaloons or bodices ; 

His reverend tutors had at times a tussle, 
And for their iEneids, Iliads, and Odysseys,^ 

Were forced to make an odd sort of apology, 

For Donna Inez dreaded the Mythology. 

XLII. 

Ovid's a rake, as half his verses show him, 
Anacreon's morals are a still worse sample, 

Catullus scarcely has a decent poem, 
I don't think Sappho's Ode a good example. 

Although Longinus* tells us there is no hymn 

Where the sublime soars forth on wings more ample : 

But Virgil's songs are pure, except that horrid one 

Beginning with " Formosum Pastor Corydon." 

XLIIL 

Lucretius' irreligion is too strong 

For early stomachs, to prove wholesome food ; 
I can't help thinking Juvenal was wrong, 

Although no doubt his real intent was good, 
For speaking out so plainly in his song. 

So much indeed as to be downright rude ;& 
And then what proper person can be partial 
To all those nauseous epigrams of Martial ? 

XLIV. 
Juan was taught from out the best edition. 
Expurgated by learned men, who place. 



" Blest as th' immortal gods is he, 
The youth that fondly sits by thee, 
And hears and sees th ee all the while 
Softly speak and sweetly smile," &c. 
6 " To hear the clamor raised against Juvenal, it might be 
supposed, by one unacquainted with the times, that he was 
the only indelicate writer of his age and country. Yet 
Horace and Persius wrote with equal grossness; yet the 
rigid stoicism of Seneca did not deter him from the use of 
expressions which Juvenal, perhaps, would have rejected; 
yet the courtly Pliny poured out gratuitous indecencies in his 
frigid hendecasyllables, which he attempts to justify by the 
example of a writer to whose freedom the licentiousness of 
Juvenal is purity! It seems as if there was something of 
pique in the singular severity with which he is censured. 
His pure and sublime morality operates as a tacit reproat'h 
on the generality of mankind, who seek to indemnify tnem- 
selves by questioning the sanctity which they cannot but re- 
spect ; and find a secret pleasure in persuading one another 
that ' this dreaded satirist ' was at heart no inveterate enemy 
to the licentiousness which be so vehemently reprehends. 
When I, find that his views are to render depravity loath- 
some, that every thing which can alarm and disgust is di- 
rected at her in his terrible page, I forget the grossness c' 
the execution in the excellence of the design."— Gifford 



Mi 



Canto I. 



DON JUAN. 



715 



Jiidiciously, from out the schoolboy's vision, 
The grosser parts ; but, fearful to deface 

Too much their modest bard by this omission,^ 
And pitying sore his mutilated case, 

They only add them all in an appendix,^ 

"Which saves, in fact, the trouble of an index ; 

XLV. 

For there we have them all " at one fell swoop," 
Instead of being scatter'd through the pages ; 

They stand forth marshall'd in a handsome troop, 
To meet the ingenuous youth of future ages. 

Till some less rigid editor shall stoop 
To call them back into their separate cages, 

Instead of standing staring all together; 

Like garden gods— and not so decent either. 

XLVI. 
The Missal too (it was the family Missal) 

Was ornamented in a sort of way 
Which ancient mass-books often are, and this all 

Kinds of grotesques illumined ; and how they. 
Who saw those figures on the margin kiss all, 

Could turn their optics to the text and pray. 
Is more than I know — But Don Juan's mother 
Kept this herself, and gave her son another. 

XLVII. 
Sermons he read, and lectures he endured, 

And homilies, and lives of all the saints; 
To Jerome and to Chrysostom inured, 

He did not take such studies for restraints ; 
But how faith is acquired, and then insured. 

So well not one of the aforesaid paints 
As Saint Augustine in his fine Confessions, 
Which make the reader envy his transgressions.' 

XLYIII. 
This, too, was a seal'd book to little Juan — 

I can't but say that his mamma was right, 
If such an education was the true one. 

She scarcely trusted him from out her sight ; 
Her maids were old, and if she took a new one, 

You might be sure she was a perfect fright : 
Slie did this during even her husband's life — 
1 recommend as much to every wife. 

(antique ^ ,. . „ 

modest Uard by the I . . • „ 
, • 1,^ ( omission." 

downright J 

—MS. 

- Fact ! There is, or was, such an edition, with all the ob- 
noxious epigrams of ilartial placed by themselves at the end. 

' See his Confessions, 1. i. c. ix. By the representation 
which Saint Augustine gives of himself in his youth, it is 
easy to .see that he was what we should call a rake. He 
avoided the school as the plague; he loved nothing but 
gaming and public shows; he robbed his father of every- 
thing he could find ; he invented a thousand lies to escape 
the rod, which thoy were obliged to make use of to punish 
bis irregularities. 

♦ " Foreigners often ask, ' by what means an uninterrupted 
succession of men, qualified more or less eminently for the 
performance of united parliamentary and official duties, is 



XLIX. 

Young Juan wax'd in goodliness and grace ; 

At six a charming child, and at eleven 
With all the promise of as fine a face 

As e'er to man's maturer growth was given : 
He studied steadily, and grew apace, 

And seem'd, at least, in the right road to heaven. 
For half his days were pass'd at church, the other 
Between his tutors, confessor, and mother. 

L. 

At six, I said, he was a charming child. 
At twelve he was a fine, but quiet boy ; 

Although in infancy a little wild, 
They tamed him down amongst them : to destroy 

His natural spirit not in vain they toil'd, 
At least it seem'd so ; and his mother's joy 

Was to declare how sage, and still, and steady, 

Her young philosopher was grown already. 

LI. 

I had my doubts, perhaps I have them still, 
But what I say is neither here nor there : 

I knew his father well, and have some skill 
In character — but it would not be fair 

From sire to son to augur good or ill : 
He and his wife were an ill-sorted pair — 

But scandal's my aversion — I protest 

Against all evil-speaking, even in jest. 

LII. 

For my part I say nothing — nothing — but 
This I will say — my reasons are my own — 

That if I had an only son to put 
To school (as God be praised that I have none), 

'Tis not with Donna Inez I would shut 
Him up to learn his catechism alone ; 

No— no— I'd send him out betimes to college, 

For there it was I pick'd up my own knowledge.* 

LIII. 

For there one learns — 'tis not for me to boast. 
Though I acquired — but I pass over that, 

As well as all the Greek I since have lost : 
I say that there's the place — but " Verbum sat," 



secured ?' First, I answer (with the prejudices, perhaps, of 
Eton and Oxford), that we owe it to our system of public 
schools and universities. From these institutions is derived 
(in the language of the prayer of our collegiate churches) ' a 
due supply of men fitted to serve their country both in 
church and state.' It is in her public schools and univer- 
sities that the youth of England are, by a discipline which 
shallow judcjmcnts have sometimes attempted to undervalue, 
prepared for the duties of public life. There are rare and 
splendid exceptions, to be sure ; but in my conscience I be- 
lieve, that England would not be what she is, without her 
system of public education ; and that no other country can 
become what England is, without the advantages of such a 
system." — Canning. — " I shnll always be ready to join in the 
public opinion, tliat our jmblic schools, which have produced 
80 many eminent characters, are the best adapted to the 
genius and constitution of the English people."— Gibbon. 



716 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto I. 



I think I pick'd up too, as well as most, 

Knowledge of matters — but no matter what — 
I never married — but, I think, I know 
That sons should not be educated so. 

LIV. 
Young Juan now was sixteen years of age, 

Tall, handsome, slender, but well knit: he seem'd 
Active, though not so sprightly, as a page ; 

And everybody but his mother deem'd 
Him almost man ; but she flew in a rage 

And bit her lips (for else she might have scream'd) 
If any said so, for to be precocious 
Was in her eyes a thing the most atrocious. 

LY. 
Amongst her numerous acquaintance, all 

Selected for discretion and devotion. 
There was the Donna Julia, whom to call 

Pretty were but to give a feeble notion 
Of many charms in her as natural 

As sweetness to the flower, or salt to ocean, 
Her zone to Yenus, or his bow to Cupid 
(But this last simile is trite and stupid). 

LYI. 

The darkness of her Oriental eye 

Accorded with her Moorish origin ; 
(Her blood was not all Spanish, by the by; 

In Spain, you know, this is a sort of sin.) 
When proud Granada fell, and, forced to fly, 

Boabdil wept,^ of Donna Julia's kin 
Some went to Africa, some stay'd in Spain, 
Her great great grandmamma chose to remain. 

LYII. 

She married (I forget the pedigree) 

With an Hidalgo, who transmitted down 

His blood less noble than such blood should be ; 
At such alliances his sires would frown, 

In that point so precise in each degree 

That they bred in and in, as might be shown. 

Marrying their cousins — nay, their aunts, and nieces, 

Which always spoils the breed, if it increases. 

LYIII. 
This heathenish cross restored the breed again, 

Ruin'd its blood, but much improved its flesh ; 
For from a root the ugliest in Old Spain 

Sprung up a branch as beautiful as fresh ; 



1 " Having surrendered the last symbol of power, the un- 
fortunate Boabdil continued on towards the Alpuxarras, that 
he might not behold the entrance of the Christians into his 
capital. His devoted band of cavaliers followed him in 
gloomy silence. Having ascended an eminence commanding 
the last view of Granada, they paused involuntarily to take 
a farewell gaze at their beloved city, which a few steps more 
would shut from their sight for ever. While they yet looked, 
a light cloud of smoke broke forth from the citadel; and 
presently a peal of artillery, faintly heard, told that the city 



The sons no more were short, the daughters plain : 

But there's a rumor which I fain would hush,'^ 
*Tis said that Donna Julia's grandmamma 
Produced her Don more heirs at love than law. 

LIX. 

However this might be, the race went on 
Improving still through every generation, 

Until it centred in an only son. 
Who left an only daughter ; my narration 

May have suggested that this single one 
Could be but Julia (whom on this occEision 

I shall have much to speak about), and she 

Was married, charming, chaste, and twenty -three. 

LX. 

Her eye (I'm very fond of handsome eyes) 

Was large and dark, suppressing half its fire 
Until she spoke, then through its soft disguise 

Flash'd an expression more of pride than ire, 
And love than either ; and there would arise 

A something in them which was not desire. 
But would have been, perhaps, but for the soul 
Which struggled through and chasten'd down the 
whole. 

LXI. 
Her glossy hair was cluster' d o'er a brow 

Bright with intelligence, and fair, and smooth ; 
Her eyebrow's shape was like the aerial bow. 

Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth, 
Mounting, at times, to a transparent glow. 

As if her veins ran lightning ; she, in sooth, 
Possess'd an air and grace by no means common : 
Her stature tall — I hate a dumpy woman. 

LXII. 

Wedded she was some years, and to a man 
Of fifty, and such husbands are in plenty ; 

And yet, I think, instead of such a ONE 
'Twere better to have TWO of five-and-twenty, 

Especially in countries near the sun : 
And now I think on't, " mi vien in mente," 

Ladies even of the most uneasy virtue 

Prefer a spouse whose age is short of thirty .^ 

LXIII. 

'Tis a sad thing, I cannot choose but say. 
And all the fault of that indecent sun, 

Who cannot leave alone our helpless clay, 
But will keep baking, broiling, burning on. 



was taken possession of, and the throne of the Moslem kings 
was lost for ever. The heart of Boabdil, softened by misfor- 
tunes, and overcharged with grief, could no longer contain 
itself. ' Allah achbar ! God is great !' said he ; but the words 
of resignation died upon his lips, and he burst into a flood of 
tears."— Washington Irving. 
o « TMi X 11 X X r silence ! hush !" 

2 I'll tell you too a secret- 1 ^^^^^ ^^^,^^ hush."-MS. 

3 " Spouses from twenty years of age to thirty 

Are most admired by women of strict virtue." — MS. 



Canto I. 



DON JUAN. 



717 



That howsoever peopje fast and pray, 

The flesh is frail, and so the soul undone : 
What men call gallantry, and gods adultery, 
Is much more common where the climate's sultry. 

LXIV. 
Happy the nations of the moral North ! 

'Where all is virtue, and the winter season 
Sends sin, without a rag on, shivering forth 

('Twas snow that brought Saint Anthony ^ to rea- 
son); 
Where juries cast up what a wife is worth. 

By laying whate'er sum, in mulct, they please on 
The lover, who must pay a handsome price, 
Because it is a marketable vice. 

LXV. 

Alfonso was the name of Julia's lord, 

A man well looking for his years, and who 

Was neither much beloved nor yet abhorr'd : 
They lived together as most people do. 

Suffering each other's foibles by accord, 
And not exactly either one or two ; 

Yet he was jealous, though he did not show it, 

For jealousy dislikes the world to know it. 

LXVI. 

Julia was — yet I never could see why — 
With Donna Inez quite a favorite friend ; 

Between their tastes there was small sympathy, 
For not a line had Julia ever penn'd : 

Some people whisper (but, no doubt, they lie. 
For malice still imputes some private end) 

That Inez had, ere Don Alfonso's marriage, 

Forgot with him her very prudent carriage ; 

LXVII. 
And that still keeping up the old connection, 

Which time had lately render'd much more 
chaste. 
She took his lady also in affection. 

And certainly this course was much the best : 
She flatt^r'd Julia with her sage protection. 

And complimented Don Alfonso's taste ; 
And if she could not (who can?) silence scandal. 
At least she left it a more slender handle. 

LXVIII. 
I can't tell whether Julia saw the affair 

With other people's eyes, or if her own 
Discoveries made, but none could be aware 

Of this, at least no symptom e'er was shown ; 
Perhaps she did not know, or did not care. 

Indifferent from the first, or callous grown : 
I'm really puzzled what to think or say. 
She kept her counsel in so close a way. 



* For the particulars of Saint Anthony's recipe for hot blood 
in cold weather, see Mr. Alban Butler's " Lives of the Saints." 



LXIX. 

Juan she saw, and, as a pretty child, 

Caress'd him often — such a thing might be 

Quite innocently done, and harmless styled. 
When she had twenty years, and thirteen he ; 

But I am not so sure I should have smiled 
When he was sixteen, Julia twenty -three ; 

These few short years make wondrous alterations, 

Particularly amongst sunburnt nations. 

LXX. 

Whate'er the cause might be, they had become 
Changed; for the dame grew distant, the youth 
shy. 

Their looks cast down, their greetings almost dumb, 
And much embarrassment in either eye ; 

There surely will be little doubt with some 
That Donna Julia knew the reason why. 

But as for Juan, he had no more notion 

Than he who never saw the sea of ocean. 

LXXI. 

Yet Julia's very coldness still was kind, 
And tremulously gentle her small hand 

Withdrew itself from his, but left behind 
A little pressure, thrilling, and so bland 

And slight, so very slight, that to the mind 
'Twas but a doubt ; but ne'er magician's wand 

Wrought change with all Armida's fairy art 

Like what this light touch left on Juan's heart. 

LXXII. 

And if she met him, though she smiled no more, 
She looked a sadness sweeter than her smile. 

As if her heart had deeper thoughts in store 
She must not own, but cherish'd more the while 

For that compression in its burning core ; 
Even innocence itself has many a wile, 

And will not dare to trust itself with truth, 

And love is taught hypocrisy from youth. 

LXXIII. 

But passion most dissembles, yet betrays 
Even by its darkness ; as the blackest sky 

Foretells the heaviest tempest, it displays 
Its workings through the vainly guarded eye, 

And in whatever aspect it arrays 
Itself, 'tis still the same hypocrisy ; 

Coldness or anger, even disdain or hate, 

Are masks it often wears, and still too late. 

LXXIV. 

Then there were sighs, the deeper for suppression. 
An J stolen glances, sweeter for the theft. 

And burning blushes, though for no transgression. 
Tremblings when met, and restlessness when left ; 

All these are little preludes to possession. 
Of which young passion cannot be bereft, 

And merely tend to show how greatly love is 

Embarrass'd at first starting with a novice. 



m 



718 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Canto I. 



LXXV. 

Poor Julia's heart was in an awkward state ; 

She felt it going, and resolved to make 
The noblest efforts for herself and mate, 

For honor's, pride's, religion's, virtue's sake. 
Her resolutions were most truly great. 

And almost might have made a Tarquin quake : 
She pray'd the Virgin Mary for her grace, 
As being the best judge of a lady's case. 

LXXVI. 

She vow'd she never would see Juan more, 
And next day paid a visit to his mother, 

And look'd extremely at the opening door. 
Which, by the Virgin's grace, let in another ; 

Grateful she was, and yet a little sore — 
Again it opens, it can be no other, 

'Tis surely Juan now — No ! I'm afraid 

That night the Virgin was no further pray'd.^ 

LXXVII. 

She now determined that a virtuous woman 
Should rather face and overcome temptation, 

That flight was base and dastardly, and no man 
Should ever give her heart the least sensation ; 

That is to say, a thought beyond the common 
Preference, that we must feel upon occasion. 

For people who are pleasanter than others, 

But then they only seem so many brothers. 

LXXVIII. 

And even if by chance — and who can tell ? 

The devil's so very sly — she should discover 
That all within was not so very well. 

And, if still free, that such or such a lover 
Might please perhaps, a virtuous wife can quell 

Such thoughts, and be the better when they're 
ov^; 
And if the man should ask, 'tis but denial : 
I recommend young ladies to make trial. 

LXXIX. 

And then there are such things as love divine, 
Bright and immaculate, unmix'd and pure, 

Such as the angels think so very fine. 
And matrons, who would be no less secure, 

Platonic, perfect, "just such love as mine;" 
Thus Julia said — and thought so, to be sure ; 

And 80 I'd have her think, were I the man 

On whom her reveries celestial ran. 

LXXX. 

Such love is innocent, and may exist 

Between young persons without any danger. 

A hand may first, and then a lip be kiss'd ; 
For my part, to such doings I'm a stranger, 



..." Questo giorno 
Non piu legemmo avanti." — Dante. 



But hear these freedoms form the utmost list 

Of all o'er which such love may be a ranger : 
If people go beyond, 'tis quite a crime. 
But not my fault — I tell them all in time. 

LXXXI. 

Love, then, but love within its proper limits, 

Was Julia's innocent determination 
In young Don Juan's favor, and to him its 

Exertion might be useful on occasion ; 
And, lighted at too pure a shrine to dim its 

Ethereal lustre, with what sweet persuasion 
He might be taught, by love and her together — 
I really don't know what, nor Julia either. 

LXXXII. 

Fraught with this fine intention, and well fenced 

In mail of proof— her purity of soul ,2 
She, for the future of her strength convinced. 

And that her honor was a rock, or mole. 
Exceeding sagely from that hour dispensed 

With any kind of troublesome control ; 
But whether Julia to the task was equal 
Is that which must be mention'd in the sequel. 

LXXXIII. 

Her plan she deem'd both innocent and feasible, 
And, surely, with a stripling of sixteen 

Not scandal's fangs could fix on much that's seizable. 
Or if they did so, satisfied to mean 

Nothing but what was good, her breast was peace- 
able— 
A quiet conscience makes one so serene ! 

Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded 

That all the Apostles would have done as they did. 

LXXXIV. 

And if in the mean time her husband died, 
But Heaven forbid that such a thought should 



Her brain, though in a dream ! (and then she sigh'd) 
Never could she survive that common loss ; 

But just suppose that moment should betide, 
I only say suppose it — inter nos. 

(This should be entre nous, for Julia thought 

In French, but then the rhyme would go for nought.) 

LXXXV. 

I only say, suppose this supposition : 
Juan being then grown up to man's estate 

Would fully suit a widow of condition. 

Even seven years hence it would not be too late ; 

And in the interim (to pursue this vision) 
The mischief, after all, could not be great, 

For he would learn the rudiments of love, 

I mean the seraph way of those above. 



• " Conscienza 1' assicura, 

La buona compagna che 1' uom francheggia 
Sotto r usbergo del esser puro." — Dantb. 



Canto I. 



DON JUAN. 



719 



LXXXVI. 

So much for Julia. Now we'll turn to Juan. 

Poor little fellow ! he had no idea 
Of his own case, and never hit the true one 

In feelings quick as Ovid's Miss Medea/ 
He puzzled over what he found a new one, 

But not as yet imagined it could be a 
Thing quite in course, and not at all alarming, 
Which, with a little patience, might grow charming. 

LXXXVII. 
Silent and pensive, idle, restless, slow, 

His home deserted for the lonely wood. 
Tormented with a wound he could not know, 

His, like all deep grief, plunged in solitude : 
I'm fond myself of solitude or so. 

But then, I beg it may be understood, 
By solitude I mean a sultan's, not 
A hermit's, with a harem for a grot. 

LXXXVIII. 

Oh, Love ! in such a wilderness as this, 

Where transport and security entwine. 
Here is the emiDire of thy perfect bliss. 

And here thou art a god indeed divine." 
The bard I quote from does not sing amiss,^ 

With the exception of the second line. 
For that same twining "transport and security" 
Are twisted to a phrase of some obscurity. 

LXXXIX. 

The poet meant, no doubt, and thus appeals 
To the good sense and senses of mankind. 

The very thing which everybody feels. 
As all have found on trial, or may find. 

That no one likes to be disturb'd at meals 
Or love. — I won't say more about " entwined" 

Or " transport," as we knew all that before, 

But beg " Security" will bolt the door. 

XC. 
Young Juan wander'd by the glassy brooks, 

Thinking unutterable things ; he threw 
Himself at length within the leafy nooks 

Where the wild branch of the cork forest grew ; 
There poets find materials for their books. 

And every now and then we read them through. 
So that their plan and prosody are eligible. 
Unless, like Wordsworth, they prove unintelligible. 

XCI. 
He, Juan (and not Wordsworth), so pursued 

His self-communion with his own high soul. 
Until his mighty heart, in its great mood, 

Had mitigated part, though not the whole 



1 See Ovid, de Art. Amand. 1. ii. 

* Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming— (I think)— the open- 
ing of canto second — but quote from memory. 

' " I say this by the way — so don't look stern, 
But if you're angry, reader, pass it by."— MS. 

♦ Juan Boscan Almogavd, of Barcelona, died about the year 
1543. In concert with his friend Garcilasso, he introduced 



Of its disease ; he did the best he could 

With things not very subject to control. 
And turn'd, without perceiving his condition, 
Like Coleridge, into a metaphysician. 

XCII. 

He thought about himself, and the whole earth, 
Of man the wonderful, and of the stars, 

And how the deuce they ever could have birth ; 
And then he thought of earthquakes, and of wars, 

How many miles the moon might have in girth. 
Of air-balloons, and of the many bars 

To perfect knowledge of the boundless skies ; — 

And then he thought of Donna Julia's eyes. 

XCIII. 

In thoughts like these true wisdom may discern 
Longings sublime, and aspirations high. 

Which some are born with, but the most part learn 
To plague themselves withal, they know not why : 

'Twas strange that one so young should thus concern 
His brain about the action of the sky ; ^ 

If you think 'twas philosophy that this did, 

I can't help thinking puberty assisted. 

XCIV. 

He pored upon the leaves, and on the flowers. 
And heard a voice in all the winds ; and then 

He thought of wood-nymphs and immortal bowers. 
And how the goddesses came down to men ; 

He miss'd the pathway, he forgot the hours. 
And when he look'd upon his watch again, 

He found how much old Time had been a winner — 

He also found that he had lost his dinner. 

XCV. 

Sometimes he turn'd to gaze upon his book, 
Boscan,* or Garcilasso ; ^ — by the wind 

Even as the page is rustled while we look, 
So by the poesy of his own mind 

Over the mystic leaf his soul was shook. 
As if 'twere one whereon magicians bind 

Their spells, and give them to the passing gale, 

According to some good old woman's tale. 

XCVI. 
Thus would he while his lonely hours away 

Dissatisfied, nor knowing what he wanted ; 
Nor glowing reverie, nor poet's lay, 

Could yield his spirit that for which it panted, 
A bosom whereon he his head might lay, 

And hear the heart beat with the love it granted. 

With several other things, which I forget. 

Or which, at least, I need not mention yet. 



the Italian style into Castilian poetry, and commenced his 
labors by writing sonnets in the manner of Petrarch. 

B Garcilasso de la Vega, of a noble family at Toledo, was 
a warrior as well as a poet. After serving with distinction 
in Germany, Africa, and Provence, he was killed, in 1536, by 
a stone thrown from a tower, which fell upon his head as ho 
was leading on his battalion. 



720 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto I. 



XCVII. 

Those lonely walks, and lengthening reveries, 
Could not escape the gentle Julia's eyes ; 

She saw that Juan was not at his ease ; 

But that which chiefly may, and must surprise. 

Is, that the Donna Inez did not tease 
Her only son with question or surmise ; 

Whether it was she did not see, or would not, 

Or, like all very clever people, could not. 

XCVIII. 
This may seem strange, but yet 'tis very common ; 

For instance — gentlemen, whose ladies take 
Leave to o'erstep the written rights of women. 

And break the Which commandment is't they 

break? 
(I have forgot the number, and think no man 

Should rashly quote, for fear of a mistake.) 
I say, when these same gentlemen are jealous, 
They make some blunder, which their ladies tell us. 

XCIX. 
A real husband always is suspicious. 

But still no less suspects in the wrong place,i 
Jealous of some one who had no such wishes, 

Or pandering blindly to his own disgrace, 
By harboring some dear friend extremely vicious ; 

The last indeed's infallibly the case : 
And when the spouse and friend are gone off wholly. 
He wonders at their vice, and not his folly. 

C. 
Thus parents also are at times short-sighted : 

Though watchful as the lynx, they ne'er discover. 
The while the wicked world beholds delighted. 

Young Hopeful's mistress, or Miss Fanny's lover. 
Till some confounded escapade has blighted 

The plan of twenty years, and all is over ; 
And then the mother cries, the father swears, 
And wonders why the devil he got heirs. 

CI. 
But Inez was so anxious, and so clear 

Of sight, that I must think, on this occasion, 
She had some other motive much more near 

For leaving Juan to this new temptation. 
But what that motive was, I sha'n't say here ; 

Perhaps to finish Juan's education, 
Perhaps to open Don Alfonso's eyes. 
In case he thought his wife too great a prize. 

CII. 
It was upon a day, a summer's day ; — 
Summer's indeed a very dangerous season, 

1 " A real wittol always is suspicious, 

But always also hunts in the wrong place." — MS. 

2 'Change horses every hour from night till noon." — MS. 

3 '■ Except the promises of true theology."— MS. 



And so is spring about the end of May ; 

The sun, no doubt, is the prevailing reason ; 
But whatsoe'er the cause is, one may say. 

And stand convicted of more truth than treason. 
That there are months which nature grows more 

merry in, — 
March has its hares, and May must have its heroine. 

cm. 

'Twas on a summer's day — the sixth of June : 

I like to be particular in dates. 
Not only of the age, and year, but moon ; 

They are a sort of post-house, where the Fates 
Change horses, making history change its tune,^ 

Then spur away o'er empires and o'er states. 
Leaving at last not much besides chronology, 
Excepting the post-obits of theology.^ 

CIV. 
'Twas on the sixth of June, about the hour 

Of half-past six — perhaps still nearer seven — 
When Julia sate within as pretty a bower 

As e'er held houri in that heathenish heaven 
Described by Mahomet, and Anacreon Moore,* 

To whom the lyre and laurels have been given, 
With all the trophies of triumphant song — 
He won them well, and may he wear them long ! 

CV. 

She sate, but not alone ; I know not well 
How this same interview had taken place, 

And even if I knew, I should not tell — 

People should hold their tongues in any case ; 

No matter how or why the thing befell. 
But there were she and Juan, face to face — 

When two such faces are so, 'twould be wise, 

But very difficult, to shut their eyes. 

CVI. 

How beautiful she look'd ! her conscious heart 
Glow'd in her cheek, and yet she felt no wrong. 

Oh, Love ! how perfect is thy mystic art. 
Strengthening the weak, and trampling on the 
strong ! 

How self-deceitful is the sagest part 
Of mortals whom thy lure hath led along ! — 

The precipice she stood on was immense, 

So was her creed in her own innocence.^ 

CVII. 
She thought of her own strength, and Juan's youth, 

And of the folly of all prudish fears, 
Victorious virtue, and domestic truth. 

And then of Don Alfonso's fifty years : 

•* " Oh, Susan ! I've said, in the moments of mirth, 
What's devotion to thee or to me ? 
I devoutly believe there's a heaven on earth, 
And believe that that heaven's in thee." — MooRK. 
6 " She stood on guilt's steep brink, in all the sense 
And full security of innocencft," — t*tc 



Canto I. 



DON JUAN. 



721 



I wish these last had not occiirr'd, in sooth, 

Because that number rarely much endears, 
And through all climes, the snowy and the sunny, 
Sounds ill in love, whate'er it may in money. 

CVIII. 
When people say, " I've told jon fifty times," 

They mean to scold, and very often do ; 
When poets say, "I've written fifty rhymes," 

They make you dread that they'll recite them too ; 
In gangs of fifty, thieves commit their crimes ; 

At fifty love for love is rare, 'tis true. 
But then, no doubt, it equally as true is, 
A good deal may be bought for fifty Louis. 

CIX. 
Julia had honor, virtue, truth, and love 

For Don Alfonso ; and she inly swore. 
By all the vows below to powers above. 

She never would disgrace the ring she wore, 
Nor leave a wish which wisdom might reprove ; 

And while she ponder'd this, besides much more, 
One hand on Juan's carelessly was thrown, 
Quite by mistake — she thought it was her own ; 

ex. 

Unconsciously she lean'd upon the other, 

Which play'd within the tangles of her hair ; 

And to contend with thoughts she could not smother 
She seem'd, by the distraction of her air. 

'Twas surely very wrong in Juan's mother 
To leave together this imprudent pair,i 

She who for many years had watch'd her son so — 

I'm very certain mine would not have done so. 

CXI. 
The hand which still held Juan's, by degrees 

Gently, but palpably confirm'd its grasp, 
As if it said, " Detain me, if you please;" 

Yet there's no doubt she only meant to clasp 
His fingers with a pure Platonic squeeze ; 

She would have shrunk as from a toad, or asp. 
Had she imagined such a thing could rouse 
A feeling dangerous to a prudent spouse. 

CXII. 

I cannot know what Juan thought of this. 
But what he did, is much what you would do ; 

His young lip thank'd it with a grateful kiss, 
And then, abash'd at its own joy, withdrew 

In deep despair, lest he had done amiss, — 
Love is so very timid when 'tis new : 

She blush'd, and frown'd not, but she strove to 
speak, 

And held her tongue, her voice was grown so weak. 



* " To leave these two young people then and there." — MS. 

* " I am always most religious upon a sunshiny day ; a-s if 
there was some association between an internal approach to 
greater light and purity, and the kindler of this dark lantern 

46 



CXIII. 

The sun set, and up rose the yellow moon : 
The devil's in the moon for mischief; they 

Who call'd her chaste, methinks, began too soon 
Their nomenclature ; there is not a day. 

The longest, not the twenty-first of June, 
Sees half the business in a wicked way. 

On which three single hours of moonshine smile — 

And then she looks so modest all the while ! 

CXIV. 

There is a dangerous silence in that hour, 
A stillness, which leaves room for the full soul 

To open all itself, without the power 
Of calling wholly back its self-control ; 

The silver light which, hallowing tree and tower, 
Sheds beauty and deep softness o'er the whole. 

Breathes also to the heart, and o'er it throws 

A loving languor, which is not repose.* 

CXV. 

And Julia sate with Juan, half embraced 
And half retiring from the glowing arm. 

Which trembled like the bosom where 'twas placed ; 
Yet still she must have thought there was no harm. 

Or else 'twere easy to withdraw her waist ; 
But then the situation had its charm. 

And then God knows what next — I can't go on ; 

I'm almost sorry that I e'er begun. 

CXVI. 
Oh, Plato ! Plato ! you have paved the way, 

With your confounded fantasies, to more 
Immoral conduct by the fancied sway 

Your system feigns o'er the controlless core 
Of human hearts, than all the long array 

Of poets and romancers : — You're a bore, 
A charlatan, a coxcomb — and have been, 
At best, no better than a go-between. 

CXVII. 

And Julia's voice was lost, except in sighs. 
Until too late for useful conversation ; 

The tears were gushing from her gentle eyes, 
I wish, indeed, they had not had occasion ; 

But who, alas ! can love, and then be wise ? 
Not that remorse did not oppose temptation ; 

A little still she strove, and much repented, 

And whispering "I will ne'er consent" — consented. 

CX^^TII. 
'Tis said that Xerxes offer'd a reward 

To those who could invent him a new pleasure : 
Methinks the requisition's rather hard. 

And must have cost his majesty a treasure : 



of our external existence. The night is also a religious con- 
cern ; and even more so — when I viewed the moon and stars 
through Ilerschel's telescope, and saw that they were worlds." 
—Byr(m Diary, 1821. 



722 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto I. 



For my part, I'm a moderate-minded bard, 

Fond of a little love (which I call leisure) ; 
I care not for new pleasures, as the old 
Are quite enough for me, so they but hold. 

CXIX. 

Oh, Pleasure ! you're indeed a pleasant thing, 
Although one must be damn'd for you, no doubt : 

I make a resolution every spring 
Of reformation, ere the year run out. 

But somehow, this my vestal vow takes wing. 
Yet still, I trust, it may be kept throughout : 

I'm very sorry, very much ashamed. 

And mean, next winter, to be quite reclaim'd. 

cxx. 

Here my chaste Muse a liberty must take — 

Start not! still chaster reader — she'll be nice hence- 
Forward, and there is no great cause to quake ; 

This liberty is a poetic license, 
Which some irregularity may make 

In the design, and as I have a high sense 
Of Aristotle and the Rules, 'tis fit 
To beg his pardon when I err a bit. 

CXXI. 

This license is to hope the reader will 
Suppose from June the sixth (the fatal day, 

Without whose epoch my poetic skill 
For want of facts would all be thrown away). 

But keeping Julia and Don Juan still 
In sight, that several months have pass'd; we'll 
say 

'Twas in November, but I'm not so sure 

About the day — the era's more obscure. 

CXXII. 

We'll talk of that anon. — 'Tis sweet to hear 
At midnight on the blue and moonlit deep 

The song and oar of Adria's gondolier. 

By distance mellow'd, o'er the waters sweep ; 

'Tis sweet to see the evening star appear ; 
'Tis sweet to listen as the night-winds creep 

From leaf to leaf; 'tis sweet to view on high 

Th§ rainbow, based on ocean, span the sky. 

CXXIII. 

'Tis sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark 
Bay deep-mouth'd welcome as we draw near home ; 

'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark 
Our coming, and look brighter when we come ; i 

'Tis sweet to be awaken'd by the lark, 
Or lull'd by falling waters ; sweet the hum 

Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds, 

The lisp of children, and their earliest words. 



1 " Our coining, nor look brightly till we come,"— MS. 

2 " Sweet is a lawsuit to the attorney— sweet," &c. — MS. 

3 " Who've made us wait — God knows how long already, 
For an entail'd estate, or country-seat, 



CXXIV. 

Sweet is the vintage, when the showering grapes 

In Bacchanal profusion reel to earth, 
Purple and gushing : sweet are our escapes 

From civic revelry to rural mirth ; 
Sweet to the miser are his glittering heaps. 

Sweet to the father is his first-born's birth, 
Sweet is revenge — especially to women. 
Pillage to soldiers, prize-money to seamen. 

cxxv. 

Sweet is a legacy, and passing sweet ^ 
The unexpected death of some old lady. 

Or gentleman of seventy years complete, [already, 
Who've made "us youth" wait too — too long 

For an estate, or cash, or country seat. 
Still breaking, but with stamina so steady, 

That all the Israelites are fit to mob its 

Next owner for their double-damn'd post-obits.' 

CXXVI. 

'Tis swe^.t to win, no matter how, one's laurels, 
By blood or ink ; 'tis sweet to put an end 

To strife ; 'tis sometimes sweet to have our quarrels, 
Particularly with a tiresome friend : 

Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels ; 
Dear is the helpless creature we defend 

Against the world ; and dear the schoolboy spot 

AVe ne'er forget, though there we are forgot. 

CXXVII. 

But sweeter still than this, than these, than all, 
Is first and passionate love — it stands alone, 

Like Adam's recollection of his fall ; [known — 

The tree of knowledge has been pluck'd — all's 

And life yields nothing further to recall 
Worthy of this ambrosial sin, so shown. 

No doubt in fable, as the unforgiven 

Fire which Prometheus filch'd for us from heaven. 

CXXVIII. 

Man's a strange animal, and makes strange use 
Of his own nature, and the various arts. 

And likes particularly to produce 
Some new experiment to show his parts , 

This is the age of oddities let loose. 
Where different talents find their different marts ; 

You'd best begin with truth, and when you've lost 

Labor, there's a sure market for imposture. [your 

CXXIX. 

What opposite discoveries we have seen ! 

(Signs of true genius, and of empty pockets.) 
One makes new noses, one a guillotine, [sockets ; 

One breaks your bones, one sets them in their 



Wishing them not exactly damn'd, but dead— he 
Knows nought of grief, who has not so been wor- 
ried— 
Tis strange old people don't like to be buried."— MS. 



Canto I. 



DON JUAN. 



723 



But vaccination certainly has been 

A kind antithesis to Congreve's rockets, 
With which the Doctor paid off an old pox, 
By borrowing a new one from an ox. 

cxxx. 

Bread has been made (indifferent) from potatoes ; 

And galvanism has set some corpses grinning, 
But has not answer'd like the apparatus 

Of the Humane Society's beginning, 
By which men are unsuffocated gratis : [ning ! 

What wondrous new machines have late been spin- 
I said the small-pox has gone out of late ; 
Perhaps it may be follow'd by the great. 

CXXXI. 

*Tis said the great came from America ; 

Perhaps it may set out on its return, — 
The population there so spreads, they say 

'Tis grown high time to thin it in its turn, 
With war, or plague, or famine, any way. 

So that civilization they may learn ; 
And which in ravage the more loathsome evil is — 
Their real lues, or our pseudo-syphilis ? 

CXXXII. 

This is the patent age of new inventions 
For killing bodies, and for saving souls. 

All propagated with the best intentions ; 
Sir Humphry Davy's lantern,^ by which coals 

Are safely mined for in the mode he mentions, 
Tombuctoo travels, voyages to the Poles,^ 

Are ways to benefit mankind, as true. 

Perhaps, as shooting them at Waterloo. 

CXXXIII. 

Man's a phenomenon, one knows not what. 
And wonderful beyond all wond>^ous measure ; 

'Tis pity though, in this sublime world, that 
Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure ; ' 

Few mortals know what end they would be at. 
But whether glory, power, or love, or treasure. 

The path is through perplexing ways, and when 

The goal is gain'd, we die, you know — and then 

1 The "Safety Lamp," after long researches and innu- 
merable experiments, was at length invented by the late Sir 
Humphry Davy, P.R.S., in 1815, and has, no doubt, already 
preserved thousands of miners from the dangers of the fire- 
damp. 

2 Jackson's Account of Tombuctoo, the great Emporium 
of Central Africa. — Narrative of Robert Adams, a sailor. — 
Dr. Leyden's Discoveries in Africa, &c. &c. — Sir Edward 
Parry's three expeditions.— Captain Ross's Voyage of Dis- 
covery, &c. &c. 

8 " Not only pleasure's sin, but sin's a pleasure." — MS. 

* "And lose in shining snow their summits blue." — MS. 

6 " 'Twas midnight — dark and sombre was the night," &c. 
—MS. 

• "And supper, punch, ghost-stories, and such chat." — MS. 
'i " Lady Mary W. Montagu was an extraordinary woman : 

she could translate Epictetus, and yet write a song worthy of 
Anstippus— the lines, 



CXXXIV. 

What then ? — I do not know, no more do you — 
And so good night. — Eeturn we to our story : 

'Twas in November, when fine days are few. 
And the far mountains wax a little hoary. 

And clap a white cape on their mantles blue ; * 
And the sea dashes round the promontory, 

And the loud breaker boils against the rock, 

And sober suns must set at five o'clock. 

cxxxv. 

'Twas, as the watchmen say, a cloudy night ;6 
No moon, no stars, the wind was low or loud 

By gusts, and many a sjDarkling hearth was bright 
With the piled wood, round which the family crowd ; 

There's something cheerful in that sort of light. 
Even as a summer's sky without a cloud : 

I'm fond of fire, and crickets, and all that,^ 

A lobster salad, and champagne, and chat.'' 

CXXXVI. 

'Twas midnight — Donna Julia was in bed. 

Sleeping, most probably, — when at her door 
Arose a clatter might awake the dead. 

If they had never been awoke before. 
And that they have been so we all have read, 

And are to be so, at the least, once more ; — 
The door was fasten'd, but with voice and fist 
First knocks were heard, then "Madam — Madam — 
hist! 

CXXXVII. 
" For God's sake, Madam — Madam — here's my mas- 

With more than half the city at his back — [ter,^ 
Was ever heard of such a curst disaster! 

'Tis not my fault — I kept good watch — Alack ! 
Do pray undo the bolt a little faster — 

They're on the stair just now, and in a crack 
Will all be here ; perhaps he yet may fly — 
Surely the window's not so very high !" 

CXXXVIII. 

By this time Don Alfonso was arrived. 

With torches, friends, and servants in great number ; 
The major part of them had long been wived. 

And therefore paused not to disturb the slumber 

' And when the long hours of the public are past, 
And we meet, with champagne and a chicken, at last, 
May every fond pleasure that moment endear ! 
Be banish'd afar both discretion and fear !' &c. &c. 

There, Mr. Bowles !— what say you to such a supper with such 
a woman ? and her own description too ? It appears to me 
that this stanza contains the purH of the whole philosophy 
of Epicurus."— ior-f^ Byron to Mr. Bowles. 

8 " To-night, as Countess Guiccioli observed me poring over 
Don Juan, she stumbled by mere chance on the 137th stanza 
of the first canto, and asked me what it meant. I told her, 
'Nothing, — but your husband is coming.' As T said this in 
Italian with some emphasis, she started up in a fright, and 
said, ' Oh, my God, is he coming?' thinking it was her own. 
You may suppose we laughed when she found out the mis- 
take. You will be amused, as I was ; — it happened not three 
hours ago."— Byron Letters, Nov. 8, 1819. 



724 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto I. 



Of any wicked woman, who contrived 

By stealth her husband's temples to encumber : 
Examples of this kind are so contagious, 
Were one not punish'd, all would be outrageous. 

CXXXIX. 

I can't tell how, or why, or what suspicion 

Could enter into Don Alfonso's head; 
But for a cavalier of his condition 

It surely was exceedingly ill-bred, 
Without a word of previous admonition, 

To hold a levee round his lady's bed. 
And summon lackeys, arm'd with fire and sword, 
To prove himself the thing he most abhorr'd. 

CXL. 
Poor Donna Julia ! starting as from sleep 

(Mind— that I do not say— she had not slept), 
Began at once to scream, and yawn, and weep ; 

Her maid, Antonia, who was an adept, 
Contrived to fling the bed-clothes in a heap, 

As if she had just now from out them crept: 
I can't tell why phe should take all this trouble 
To prove her mistress had been sleeping double. 

CXLI. 

But Julia mistress, and Antonia maid, 
Appear'd like two poor harmless women, who 

Of goblins, but still more of men afraid. 
Had thought one man might be deterr'd by two. 

And therefore side by side were gently laid. 
Until the hours of absence should run through, 

And truant husband should return, andjsay, 

" My dear, I was the first who came away." 

CXLII. 

Now Julia found at length a voice, and cried, 

" In heaven's name, Don Alfonso, what d'ye mean ? 

Has madness seized you ? would that I had died 
Ere such a monster's victim I had been ! i 

What may this midnight violence betide, 
A sudden fit of drunkenness or spleen ? 

Dare you suspect me, whom the thought would 
kill? 

Search, then, the room!" — Alfonso said, " I will.' 

CXLIII. 
He search'd, iAe^/ search' d, and rummaged everywhere. 

Closet and clothes-press, chest and window-seat. 
And found much linen, lace, and several pair 

Of stockings, slippers, brushes, combs, complete, 
With other articles of ladies fair. 

To keep them beautiful, or leave them neat : 
Arras they prick'd and curtains with their swords, 
And wounded several shutters, and some boards. 



1 " Ere I the wife of such a man had been !" — MS. 

2 " But while this search was making, Julia's tongue." — MS. 
^ The Spanish " Cortejo " is much the same as the Italian 
Cavalier Servente." 



CXLIV. 
Under the bed they search'd, and there they found — 

No matter what — it was not that they sought ; 
They open'd windows, gazing if the ground 

Had signs or footmarks, but the earth said nought ; 
And then they stared each others' faces round : 

'Tis odd, not one of all these seekers thought, 
And seems to me almost a sort of blunder. 
Of looking in the bed as well as under. 

CXLV. 
During this inquisition Julia's tongue ^ [cried, 

Was not asleep — "Yes, search and search," she 
" Insult on insult heap, and wrong on wrong ! 

It was for this that I became a bride ! 
For this in silence I have suffer'd long 

A husband like Alfonso at my side ; 
But now I'll bear no more, nor here remain, 
If there be law or lawyers in all Spain. 

CXLVI. 

" Yes, Don Alfonso ! husband now no more, 
If ever you indeed deserved the name, 

Is't worthy of your years ? — you have threescore — 
Fifty, or sixty, it is all the same — 

Is't wise or fitting, causeless to explore 
For facts against a virtuous woman's fame ? 

Ungrateful, perjured, barbarous Don Alfonso, 

How dare you think your lady would go on so ? 

CXLVII. 

" Is it for this I have disdain'd to hold 

The common privileges of my sex ? 
That I have chosen a confessor so old 

And deaf, that any other it would vex. 
And never once he has had cause to scold, 

But found my very innocence perj)lex 
So much, he always doubted I was married-- 
How sorry you will be when I've miscarried ! 

CXLVIII. 

" Was it for this that no Cortejo ^ e'er 

I yet have chosen from out the youth of Seville ? 
Is it for this I scarce went anywhere. 

Except to bull-fights, mass, play, rout, and revel ? 
Is it for this, whate'er my suitors were, 

I favor'd none — nay, was almost uncivil ? 
Is it for this that General Count O'Eeilly, 
Who took Algiers,* declares I used him vilely ? 

CXLIX. 

" Did not the Italian Musico Cazzani 
Sing at my heart six months at least in vain ? 

Did not his countryman, Count Corniani, 
Call me the only virtuous wife in Spain ? 



* Donna Julia here made a mistake. Count O'Reilly did 
not take Algiers — but Algiers very nearly took him : he and 
his army and fleet retreated with great loss, and not much 
credit, from before that city, in the year 1775. 



Canto I. 



DON JUAN. 



726 



Were there not also Russians, English, many ? 

The Count Strongstroganoff I put in pain, 
And Lord Mount Cofieehouse, the Irish peer, 
Who kill'd himself for love (with wine) last year. 

CL. 

" Have I not had two bishops at my feet? 

The Duke of Ichar, and Don Fernan Nunez ; 
And is it thus a faithful wife you treat? 

I wonder in what quarter now the moon is : 
I praise your vast forbearance not to beat 

Me also, since the time so opportune is — 
Oh, valiant man ! with sword drawn and cock'd trigger, 
Now, tell me, don't you cut a pretty figure ? 

CLI. 

" Was it for this you took your sudden journey, 
Under pretence of business indispensable 

With that sublime of rascals your attorney, 

Whom I see standing there, and looking sensible 

Of having play'd the fool ? though both I spurn, he 
Deserves the worst, his conduct's less defensible, 

Because, no doubt, 'twas for his dirty fee, 

And not from any love to you nor me. 

CLII. 
" If Tie comes here to take a deposition, 

By all means let the gentleman proceed ; 
You've made the apartment in a fit condition : — 

There's pen and ink for you, sir, when you need — 
Let everything be noted with precision, 

I would not you for nothing should be fee'd — 
But, as my maid's undrest, pray turn your spies out." 
" Oh !" sobb'd Antonia, " I could tear their eyes out." 

CLIII. 
" There is the closet, there the toilet, there 

The antechamber — search them under, over ; 
There is the sofa, there the great arm-chair. 

The chimney — which would really hold a lover.i 
I wish to sleep, and beg you will take care 

And make no further noise, till you discover 
The secret cavern of this lurking treasure — 
And when 'tis found, let me, too, have that pleasure. 

CLIV. 

" And now, Hidalgo! now that you have thrown 

Doubt upon me, confusion over all. 
Pray have the courtesy to make it known 

Who is the man you search for ? how d'ye call 
Him? what's his lineage? let him but be shown — 

I hope he's young and handsome — is he tall ? 
Tell me — and be assured, that since you stain 
My honor thus, it shall not be in vain. 

CLV. 

" At least, perhaps, he has not sixty years, 
At that age he would be too old for slaughter, 

1 " The chimney — fit retreat for any lover !"— MS. 



Or for so young a husband's jealous fears — 
(Antonia! let me have a glass of water.) 

I am ashamed of having shed these tears, 
They are unworthy of my father's daughter ; 

My mother dream'd not in my natal hour. 

That I should fall into a monster's power. 

CLVI. 
" Perhaps 'tis of Antonia you are jealous, 

You saw that she was sleeping by my side, 
When you broke in upon us with your fellows : 

Look where you please — we've nothing, sir, to hide, 
Only another time, I trust, you'll tell us, 

Or for the sake of decency abide 
A moment at the door, that we may be 
Drest to receive so much good company. 

CLVII. 

" And now, sir, I have done, and say no more ; 

The little I have said may serve to show 
The guileless heart in silence may grieve o'er 

The wrongs to whose exposure it is slow : — 
I leave you to your conscience as before, 

'Twill one day ask you why you used me so ? 
God grant you feel not then the bitterest grief! — 
Antonia ! where's my pocket-handkerchief?" 

CLVIII. 

She ceased, and turn'd upon her pillow ; pale 

She lay, her dark eyes flashing through their tears, 

Like skies that rain and lighten ; as a veil, 
Waved and o'ershading her wan cheek, appears 

Her streaming hair ; the black curls strive, but fail, 
To hide the glossy shoulder, which uprears 

Its snow through all ; — her soft lips lie apart, 

And louder than her breathing beats her heart. 

CLIX. 

The Senhor Don Alfonso stood confused ; 

Antonia bustled round the ransack'd room, 
And, turning up her nose, with looks abused 

Her master, and his myrmidons, of whom 
Not one, except the attorney, was amused ; 

He, like Achates, faithful to the tomb, 
So there were quarrels, cared not for the cause. 
Knowing they must be settled by the laws. 

CLX. 

With prying snub-nose, and small eyes, he stood. 
Following Antonia's motions here and there. 

With much suspicion in his attitude ; 
For reputations he had little care ; 

So that a suit or action were made good. 
Small pity had he for the young and fair, 

And ne'er believed in negatives, till these 

Were proved by competent false witnesses. 

CLXI. 

But Don Alfonso stood with downcast looks, 
And, truth to say, he made a foolish figure ; 



726 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto I. 



When, after searching in five hundred nooks, 
And treating a young wife with so much rigor, 

He gain'd no point, except some self-rebukes, 
Added to those his lady with such vigor 

Had pour'd upon him for the last half-hour. 

Quick, thick, and heavy — as a thunder-shower. 

CLXII. 

At first he tried to hammer an excuse, 
To which the sole reply was tears, and sobs, 

And indications of hysterics, whose 

Prologue is always certain throes, and throbs, 

Gasps, and whatever else the owners choose : 
Alfonso saw his wife, and thought of Job's ; 

He saw too, in perspective, her relations. 

And then he tried to muster all his patience. 

CLXIII. 

He stood in act to speak, or rather stammer, 
But sage Antonia cut him short before 

The anvil of his speech received the hammer. 
With "Pray, sir, leave the room, and say no 
more. 

Or madam dies." — Alfonso mutter'd, " D n her," 

But nothing else, the time of words was o'er ; 

He cast a rueful look or two, and did. 

He knew not wherefore, that which he was bid. 

CLXIV. 

With him retired his ''posse comitatus," 
The attorney last, who linger'd near the door 

Reluctantly, still tarrying there as late as 
Antonia let him — not a little sore 

At this most strange and unexplain'd "hiatus" 
In Don Alfonso's facts, which just now wore 

An awkward look ; as he revolved the case, 

The door was fasten'd in his legal face. 

CLXV. 

No sooner was it bolted, than — Oh, shame ! 

Oh, sin ! Oh, sorrow ! and Oh, womankind ! 
How can you do such things and keep your fame. 

Unless this world, and t'other too, be blind ? 
Nothing so dear as an unfilch'd good name ! 

But to proceed — for there is more behind : 
With much heartfelt reluctance be it said. 
Young Juan slipp'd, half-smother'd, from the bed. 

CLXVI. 

He had been hid — I don't pretend to say 
How, nor can I indeed describe the where — 

Young, slender, and pack'd easily, he lay. 
No doubt, in little compass, round or square ; 

But pity him I neither must nor may 
His suffocation by that pretty pair ; 

'Twere better, sure, to die so, that be shut 

With maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt.^ 



" than be put 

To drown with Clarence in his Malmsey butt."- 



-MS. 



CLXVII. 

And, secondly, I pity not, because 

He had no business to commit a sin. 
Forbid by heavenly, fined by human laws, 

At least 'twas rather early to begin ; 
But at sixteen the conscience rarely gnaws 

So much as when we call our old debts in 
At sixty years, and draw the accounts of evil, 
And find a deuced balance with the devil.^ 

CLXVIII. 

Of his position I can give no notion : 
'Tis written in the Hebrew Chronicle, 

How the physicians, leaving pill and potion, 
Prescribed, by way of blister, a young belle, 

When old King David's blood grew dull in motion, 
And that the medicine answer'd very well ; 

Perhaps 'twas in a difierent way applied, 

For David lived, but Juan nearly died. 

CLXIX. 

What's to be done ? Alfonso will be back 
The moment he has sent his fools away. 

Antonia's skill was put upon the rack. 

But no device could be brought into play— 

And how to parry the renew'd attack ? 
Besides, it wanted but few hours of day : a 

Antonia puzzled ; Julia did not speak. 

But press'd her bloodless lip to Juan's cheek. 

CLXX. 

He turn'd his lip to hers, and with his hand 
Call'd back the tangles of her wandering hair ; 

Even then their love they could not all command. 
And half forgot their danger and despair : 

Antonia's patience now was at a stand — 

" Come, come, 'tis no time now for fooling there," 

She whisper'd, in great wrath — " I must deposit 

This pretty gentleman within the closet : 

CLXXI. 

" Pray, keep your nonsense for some luckier night — 
Who can have put my master in this mood ? 

What will become on't — I'm in such a fright. 
The devil's in the urchin, and no good — 

Is this a time for giggling ? this a plight ? 
Why, don't you know that it may end in blood ?[ . 

You'll lose your life, and I shall lose my place, 

My mistress all, for that half-girlish face. 

CLXXII. 

" Had it but been for a stout cavalier 

Of twenty-five or thirty— (come, make haste) 
But for a child, what piece of work is here ! 

1 really, madam, wonder at your taste — 
(Come, sir, get in) — my master must be near : 

There, for the present, at the least, he's fast, 
And if we can but till the morning keep 
Our counsel — (Juan, mind, you must not sleep)." 

2 " And reckon up our balance with the devil."— MS. 



Canto I. 



DON JUAN. 



727 



CLXXIII. 

Now, Don Alfonso entering, but alone, 

Closed the oration of the trusty maid : 
She loiter'd, and he told her to be gone, 

An order somewhat sullenly obey'd ; 
However, present remedy was none, 

And no great good seem'd answer'd if she staid : 
Regarding both with slow and sidelong view. 
She snuflF'd the candle, curtsied, and withdrew. 

CLXXIV. 

Alfonso paused a minute— then begun 
Some strange excuses for his late proceeding ; 

He would not justify what he had done, 
To say the best, it was extreme ill-breeding ; 

But there were ample reasons for it, none 
Of which he specified in this his pleading : 

His speech was a fine sample, on the whole, 

Of rhetoric, which the learn'd call " rigmarole." 

CLXXV. 

Julia said nought ; though all the while there rose 
A ready answer, which at once enables 

A matron, who her husband's foible knows, 
By a few timely words to turn the tables. 

Which, if it does not silence, still must pose,— 
Even if it should comprise a pack of fables ; 

'Tis to retort with firmness, and when he 

Suspects with one, do you reproach with three, 

CLXXVI. 
Julia, in fact, had tolerable grounds, — 

Alfonso's loves with Inez were well known ; 
But whether 'twas that one's own guilt confounds — 

But that can't be, as has been often shown, 
A lady with apologies abounds ; — 

It might be that her silence sprang alone 
From delicacy to Don Juan's ear. 
To whom she knew his mother's fame was dear. 

CLXXVII. 
There might be one more motive, which makes two ; 

Alfonso ne'er to Juan had alluded, — 
Mention'd his jealousy, but never who 

Had been the happy lover, he concluded, 
Conceal'd amongst his premises ; 'tis true. 

His mind the more o'er this its mystery brooded ; 
To speak of Inez now were, one may say. 
Like throwing Juan in Alfonso's way. 

CLXXVIII. 
A hint, in tender cases, is enough ; 
Silence is best : besides, there is a tact — 

* " With base suspicion now no longer haunted." — MS. 

' For the incident of the shoes, Lord Byron was probably 
indebted to the Scottish ballad,— 

"Our goodman came harae at e'en, and hame came he. 
He spy'd a pair of jack-boots were nae boots should be, 



(That modern phrase appears to me sad stuff, 
But it will serve to keep my verse compact) — 

Which keeps, when push'd by questions rather 
rough, 
A lady always distant from the fact : 

The charming creatures lie with such a grace, 

There's nothing so becoming to the face. 

CLXXIX. 

They blush, and we believe them ; at least I 
Have always done so ; 'tis of no great use, 

In any case, attempting a reply. 

For then their eloquence grows quite profuse ; 

And when at length they're out of breath, they sigh, 
And cast their languid eyes down, and let loose 

A tear or two, and then we make it up ; 

And then — and then — and then — sit down and sup. 

CLXXX. 

Alfonso closed his speech, and begg'd her pardon, 
Which Julia half withheld, and then half granted, 

And laid conditions he thought very hard on, 
Denying several little things he wanted : 

He stood like Adam lingering near his garden, 
With useless penitence perplex'd and haunted,^ 

Beseeching she no further would refuse, 

When, lo ! he stumbled o'er a pair of shoes. 

CLXXXI. 
A pair of shoes ! 2 — what then ? not much, if they 

Are such as fit with ladies' feet, but these 
(No one can tell how much I grieve to say) 

Were masculine ; to see them, and to seize, 
Was but a moment's act. — Ah ! well-a-day ! 

My teeth begin to chatter, my veins freeze ! 
Alfonso first examined well their fashion, 
And then flew out into another passion. 

CLXXXII. 

He left the room for his relinquish'd sword, 

And Julia instant to the closet flew. 
" Fly, Juan, fly ! for heaven's sake — not a word — 

The door is open — you may yet slip through 
The passage you so often have explored — 

Here is the garden-key — Fly — fly — Adieu ! 
Haste — haste ! I hear Alfonso's hurrying feet — 
Day has not broke — there's no one in the street." 

CLXXXIII. 

None can say that this was not good advice, 
The only mischief was, it came too late ; 

Of all experience 'tis the usual price, 
A sort of income-tax laid on by fate : 

What's this now, good wife? What's this I see? 
How came these boots there, without the leave o' me ! 

Boots ! quo' she : 

Ay, boots, quo' he. 
Shame fa' your cuckold face, and ill mat ye see, 
It's but a pair of water stoups the cooper sent to me," &c. 
See Johnson's Musical Museum, vol. v. p. 466. 



728 



BYRON'S WOEKS. 



Canto I. 



Juan had reach'd the room-door in a trice, 

And might have done so by the garden-gate, 
But met Alfonso in his dressing-gown, 
Who threaten'd death — so Juan knock'd him down. 

CLXXXIV. 

Dire was the scuffle, and out went the light; 

Antonia cried out " Eape !" and Julia " Fire !" 
But not a servant stirr'd to aid the fight. 

Alfonso, pommell'd to his heart's desire, 
Swore lustily he'd be revenged this night ; 
\ And Juan, too, blasphemed an octave higher ; 
His blood was up : though young, he was a Tartar, 
And not at all disposed to prove a martyr. 

CLXXXV. 
Alfonso's sword had dropp'd ere he could draw it. 

And they continued battling hand to hand. 
For Juan very luckily ne'er saw it ; 

His temper not being under great command, 
If at that moment he had chanced to claw it, 

Alfonso's days had not been in the land 
Much longer. — Think of husbands', lovers' lives ! 
And how ye may be doubly widows — wives ! 

CLXXXVI. 

Alfonso grappled to detain the foe, 

And Juan throttled him to get away. 
And blood ('twas from the nose) began to flow , 

At last, as they more faintly wrestling lay, 
Juan contrived to give an awkward blow, 

And then his only garment quite gave way 
He fled, like Joseph, leaving it ; but there, 
I doubt, all likeness ends between the pair. 

CLXXXVII. 

Lights came at length, and men, and maids, who 
found 

An awkward spectacle their eyes before ; 
Antonia in hysterics, Julia swoon'd, 

Alfonso leaning, breathless, by the door ; 
Some half-torn drapery scatter'd on the ground. 

Some blood, and several footsteps, but no more : 
Juan the gate gain'd, turn'd the key about. 
And, liking not the inside, lock'd the out. 

CLXXXVIII. 

Here ends this canto. — Need I sing, or say. 
How Juan, naked, favor' d by the night. 

Who favors what she should not, found his way,* 
And reach'd his home in an unseemly plight? 

The pleasant scandal which arose next day. 
The nine days' wonder which was brought to 
light, 

And how Alfonso sued for a divorce, 

Were in the English newspapers, of course. 



' " Found — heaven knows how — his solitary way," &c. — MS. 
2 William Brodie Gurney, Esq., the eminent short-hand 
writer to the houses of parliament. 



CLXXXIX. 

If you would like to see the whole proceedings, 
The depositions, and the cause at full, 

The names of all the witnesses, the pleadings 
Of counsel to nonsuit, or to annul. 

There's more than one edition, and the readings 
Are various, but they none of them are dull : 

The best is that in short-hand ta'en by Gurney,* 

Who to Madrid on purpose made a journey. 

cxc. 

But Donna Inez, to divert the train 
Of one of the most circulating scandals 

That had for centuries been known in Spain, 
At least since the retirement of the Vandals,'* 

First vow'd (and never had she vow'd in vain) 
To Virgin Mary several pounds of candles ; 

And then, by the advice of some old ladies. 

She sent her son to be shipp'd off from Cadiz. 

CXCI. 

She had resolved that he should travel through 

All European climes, by land or sea. 
To mend his former morals, and get new. 

Especially in France and Italy, 
(At least this is the thing most people do.) 

Julia was sent into a convent : she 
Grieved, but, perhaps, her feelings may be better 
Shown in the following copy of her Letter : — 

CXCII. 

" They tell me 'tis decided you depart : 
'Tis wise — 'tis well, but not the less a pain ; 

I have no further claim on your young heart, 
Mine is the victim, and would be again : 

To love too much has been the only art 
I used ; — I write in haste, and if a stain 

Be on this sheet, 'tis not what it appears ; 

My eyeballs burn and throb, but have no tears. 

CXCIII. 

** I loved, I love you, for this love have lost 
State, station, heaven, mankind's, my own es- 
teem, 

And yet can not regret what it hath cost. 
So dear is still the memory of that dream ; 

Yet, if I name my guilt, 'tis not to boast, 
None can deem harshlier of me than I deem : 

I trace this scrawl because I cannot rest — 

I've nothing to reproach, or to request. 

CXCIV. 

" Man's love is of man's life a thing apart, 
'Tis woman's whole existence ; man may range 

The court, camp, church, the vessel, and the mart ; 
Sword, gown, gain, glory, offer in exchange 




Canto L 



DON JUAN. 



729 



Pride, fame, ambition, to fill up his heart. 

And few there are whom these can not estrange ; 
Men have all these resources, we but one,i 
To love again,2 and be again undone.'. 

cxcv. 

" You will proceed in pleasure, and in pride, 

Beloved and loving many ; all is o'er 
For me on earth, except some years to hide 

My shame and sorrow deep in my heart's core ; 
These I could bear, but cannot cast aside 

The passion which still rages as before, — 
And so farewell— forgive me, love me — No, 
That word is idle now — but let it go> 

CXCVI. 

" My breast has been all weakness, is so yet; 

But still I think I can collect my mind ; ^ 
My blood still rushes where my spirit's set, 

As roll the waves before the settled wind ; 
My heart is feminine, nor can forget — 

To all, except one image, madly blind ; 
So shakes the needle, and so stands the pole, 
As vibrates my fond heart to my fix'd soul.^ 

CXCVII. 
" I have no more to say, but linger still. 

And dare not set my seal upon this sheet, 
And yet I may as well the task fulfill, 

My misery can scarce be more complete ; 
I had not lived till now, could sorrow kill ; 

Death shuns the wretch who fain the blow would 
meet. 
And I must even survive this last adieu. 
And bear with life, to love and pray for you !" 



1 " Que les homines sont heureux d'aller 3 la guerre, d'ex- 
poser leur vie, de se livrer si I'enthousiasme de I'honneur 
et du danger ! Mais 11 n'y a rien au dehors qui soulage les 
femmes." — Corinne. 

2 '"To mourn alone the love which has undone.' 
Or, ' To lift our fatal love to God from man.' 

Take that which, of these three, seems the best prescrip- 
tion."— 5. 

« "We have an indelicate, but very clever scene, of the 
young Juan's concealment in the bed of an amorous matron, 
and of the torrent of rattling and audacious eloquence with 
which she repels the too just suspicions of her jealous lord. 
All this is merely comic, and a little coarse: — but then the 
poet chooses to make this shameless and abandoned woman 
address to her young gallant an epistle breathing the very- 
spirit of warm, devoted, pure, and unalterable love— thus 
profaning the holiest language of the heart, and indirectly 
associating it with the most hateful and degrading sensualism. 
Thus are our notions of right and wrong at once confounded 
—our confidence in virtue shaken to the foundation— and our 
reliance on truth and fidelity at an end for ever. Of this it 
is that we complain."— Jeffrey. 

{fatal now '\ 
lost for me I —but let it go."— MS. 
deadly now J 

• " I struggle, but can not collect my mind." — MS. 

• " As turns the needle trembling to the pole 

It ne'er can reach— so turns to you my soul."— MS. 



CXCVIII. 

This note was written upon gilt-edged paper 
With a neat little crow-quill, slight and new ; ^ 

Her small white hand could hardly reach the taper, 
It trembled as magnetic needles do. 

And yet she did not let one tear escape her ; 

The seal a sun-flower ; " Elle vous suit partout,'' ^ 

The motto cut upon a white cornelian ; 

The wax was superfine, its hue vermilion. 

CXCIX. 
This was Don Juan's earliest scrape ; but whether 

I shall proceed with his adventures is 
Dependent on the public altogether ; 

We'll see, however, what they say to this. 
Their favor in an author's cap's a feather. 

And no great mischief's done by their caprice; 
And if their approbation we experience, 
Perhaps they'll have some more about a year hence. 

CC. 
My poem's epic, and is meant to be 

Divided in twelve books ; each book containing, 
With love, and war, a heavy gale at sea,^. 

A list of ships, and captains, and kings reigning, 
New characters ; the episodes are three : ^^ 

A panoramic view of hell's in training. 
After the style of Virgil and of Homer, 
So that my name of Epic's no misnomer.^*- 

CCI. 
All these things will be specified in time, 

With strict regard to Aristotle's rules. 
The Vade Mecum of the true sublime, 

Which makes so many poets, and some fools : 



7 " With a neat crow-quill, rather hard, but new." — MS. 

8 Lord Byron had himself a seal bearing this motto. 

9 "For your tempest, take Eurus, Zephyr, Auster, and 
Boreas, and cast them together in one verse : add to these, of 
rain, lightning, and thunder (the loudest you can), quantum 
sufficit. Mix your clouds and billows well together till they 
foam, and thicken your description here and there with a 
quicksand. Brew your tempest well in your head, before you 
set it a blowing. For a battle : pick a large quantity of images 
and descriptions from Homer's Iliad, with a spice or two of 
Virgil, and if there remain any overplus, you may lay them 
by for a skirmish. Season it well with similes, and it will 
make an excellent battle."— Swift : Recipe for an Epic. 

10 " And there are other incidents remaining 
Which shall be specified in fitting time, 

With good discretion, and in current rhyme."- MS. 

11 " Lord Byron can scarcely be said to have written an epic 
poem, if the definition of the Dictionnaire de Trgvoux be 
right : — ' Epique, qui appartient & la poesie hgroique, ou pofime 
qui dgcrit quelque action, signal6e d'un hgros. Le po6me 
gpique est un discours invents avec art pour former les mceurs 
par des instructions d6guis6es sous les allggories d'une action 
importante, racontge d'une manigre vraisemblable et mer- 
veilleuse. La difference qu'il y a entre le pofeme epique et la 
traggdie, c'est que dans le pofime gpique les personnes n'y 
sont point introduites aux yeux des spectateurs agissant par 
elles-memes, comme dans la tragfidie ; mais Taction est racon- 
t6e par le pofete.' "— Brydqes. 



730 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto I. 



Prose poets like blank-verse, I'm fond of rhyme, 
Good workmen never quarrel with their tools ; 
I've got new mythological machinery. 
And very handsome supernatural scenery .^ 

ecu. 

There's only one slight difference between 

Me and my epic brethren gone before. 
And here the advantage is my own, I ween ; 

(Not that I have not several merits more, 
But this will more peculiarly be seen) ; 

They so embellish, that 'tis quite a bore 
Their labyrinth of fables to thread through, 
Whereas this story's actually true. 

CCIII. 
If any person doubt it, I appeal 

To history, tradition, and to facts, 
To newspapers, whose truth all know and feel, 

To plays in five, and operas in three acts ; ^ 
All these confirm my statement a good deal. 

But that which more completely faith exacts 
Is, that myself, and several now in Seville, 
Saw Juan's last elopement with the devil. 

CCIV. 
If ever I should condescend to prose, 

I'll write poetical commandments, which 
Shall supersede beyond all doubt all those 

That went before ; in these I shall enrich 
My text with many things that no one knows, 

And carry precept to the highest pitch : 
I'll call the work " Longinus o'er a Bottle,'. 
Or, Every Poet his own Aristotle." 

ccv. 

Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope ; 
Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge, 
Southey ; 

1 " For your machinery, take of deities, male and female, 
as many as you can use ; separate them into two equal parts, 
and keep Jupiter in the middle ; let Juno put him in a fer- 
ment, and Venus mollify him. Remember on all occasions to 
make use of volatile Mercury. If you have need of devils, 
draw them out of Milton's Paradise, and extract your spirits 
from Tasso. The use of these machines is evident ; and, since 
no epic poem can subsist without them, the wisest way is to 
reserve them for your greatest necessities." — Swift. 

2 " To newspapers, to sermons, which the zeal 

Of pious men have publish'd on his acts." — MS. 

3 " I'll call the work ' Reflections o'er a Bottle.' "—MS. 

* " There are the Lakers, my lord ; ay, the whole school of 
Glaramara and Skiddaw and Dunmailraise, who have the 
vanity to be in the habit of undervaluing your poetical tal- 
ents. Mr. Southey thinks you would never have thought of 
going over the sea had it not been for his Thalaba; Mr. 
Wordsworth is humbly of opinion that no man in the world 
ever thought a tree beautiful, or a mountain grand, till he 
announced his own wonderful perceptions. Mr. Charles 
Lamb thinks you would never have written Beppo had he not 
joked, nor Lara had he not sighed. Mr. Lloyd half suspects 
your lordship has read his Nugse Canorse : now all these fan- 



Because the first is crazed beyond all hope, 
The second drunk, the third so quaint and mouthy ; * 

With Crabbe it may be difficult to cope, 
And Campbell's Hippocrene is somewhat drouthy : 

Thou shalt not steal from Samuel Rogers, nor 

Commit — flirtation with the muse of Moore. 



CCVI. 

Thou shalt not covet Mr. Sotheby's Muse, 

His Pegasus, nor anything that's his ; 
Thou shalt not bear false witness like "the Blues"— 

(There's one, at least, is very fond of this) ; 
Thou shalt not write, in short, but what I choose : 

This is true criticism, and you may kiss, — 
Exactly as you please, or not, — the rod ; 
But if you don't, I'll lay it on, by G— d I 



CCVII, 

If any person should presume to assert 
This story is not moral, first, I pray, 

That they will not cry out before they're hurt, 
Then that they'll read it o'er again, and say 

(But, doubtless, nobody will be so pert), 
That this is not a moral tale, though gay : 

Besides, in Canto Twelfth, I mean to show 

The very place where wicked people go. 



CCVIII. 

If, after all, there should be some so blind 
To their own good this warning to despise. 

Led by some tortuosity of mind. 
Not to believe my verse and their own eyes. 

And cry that they " the moral cannot find," 
I tell him, if a clergyman, he lies ; 

Should captains the remark, or critics, make. 

They also lie too— under a mistake. 

cies are alike ridiculous, and you are well entitled to laugh as 
much as you pleiase at them. But there is one Laker who 
praises your lordship, — and why? Because your lordship 
praised him. This is Coleridge, who, on the strength of a 
little compliment in one of your notes [see ante, p. 148], ven- 
tured at last to open to the gaze of the day the long secluded 
loveliness of Christabel,— and with what effect his bookseller 
doth know. Poor Coleridge, however, although his pamphlet 
would not sell, still gloated over the puff; and he gave your 
lordship, in return, a great many reasonable good puffs in 
prose. You may do very well to quiz Wordsworth for his 
vanity, and Southey for his pompousness; but what right 
have you to say anything about Mr. Coleridge's drinking? 
Really, my lord, I have no scruples in saying, that I look 
upon that line of yours — ' Coleridge is drunk,' &c., as quite 
personal— shamefully personal. As Coleridge never saw Don 
Juan, or, if he did, forgot the whole affair next morning, it 
is nothing as regards him ; but what can be expected from 
his friends? Has not any one of them (if he has any) a 
perfect right, after reading that line, to print and publish, if 
he pleases, all that all the world has heard about your lord- 
ship's own life and conversation? And if any one of them 
should do so, what would you, my Lord Byron, think of it?" 
—John Bull. 



Canto I. 



DON JUAN. 



731 



CCIX. 
The public approbation I expect, 

And beg they'll take my word about the moral, 
Which I with their amusement will connect 

(So children cutting teeth receive a coral) ; 
Meantime they'll doubtless please to recollect 

My epical pretensions to the laurel : 
For fear some prudish readers should grow skit- 
tish, 
I've bribed my grandmother's review— the British.^ 

ccx. 

I sent it in a letter to the Editor, 
Who thank'd me duly by return of post — 

I'm for a handsome article his creditor ; 
Yet. if my gentle Muse he please to roast, 

And break a promise after having made it her, 
Denying the receipt of what it cost. 

And smear his page with gall instead of honey, 

All I can say is — that he had the money, 

CCXI. 
I think that with this holy new alliance 

I may ensure the public, and defy 
All other magazines of art or science. 

Daily, or monthly, or three monthly; I 
Have not essay'd to multiply their clients. 

Because they tell me 'twere in vain to try, 
And that the Edinburgh Review and Quarterly 
Treat a dissenting author very martyrly. 

CCXII. 
^^ Non ego hoc ferrem calidus juventd 

Consult Planco,'^ ^ Horace said, and so 
Say I ; by which quotation there is meant a 

Hint that some six or seven good years ago 
(Long ere I dreamt of dating from the Brenta) 

I was most ready to return a blow. 
And would not brook at all this sort of thing 
In my hot youth— when George the Third was 
King. 



1 For the strictures of " The British," on this and the fol- 
lowing stanza, see " Testimonies," No. XVI., ante, p. 695 ; 
and compare Lord Byron's "Letter to the Editor of My 
Grandmother's Review," {post, Appendix.) — " I wrote to you 
by last post," says Lord B., Bologna, Aug. 24, 1819, " enclosing 
a buflfooning letter for publication, addressed to the buflFoon 
Roberts, who has thought proper to tie a canister to his own 
tail. It was written off-hand, and in the midst of circum- 
stances not very favorable to facetiousness, so that there 
may, perhaps, be more bitterness than enough for that sort 
of small acid punch." 

* " Such treatment Horace would not bear, 

When warm with youth— when Tullus fiU'd the chair." 

Feancis. 
' " I thought of dyeing it the other day."— MS. 

♦ " Me nee femina, nee puer 

Jam, nee spes animi credula mutui, 
Nee certare juvat mero ; 
Nee vincire novis terapora floribus."— Hoeace. 
" For me, alas ! these joys are o'er ; 
For me the vernal garland blooms no more ; 



CCXIII. 

But now at thirty years my hair is gray — 
(I wonder what it will be like at forty ? 

I thought of a peruke the other day^ — ) 
My heart is not much greener ; and, in short, I 

Have squander'd my whole summer while 'twaa 
May, 
And feel no more the spirit to retort ; I 

Have spent my life, both interest and principal. 

And deem not, what I deem'd, my soul invincible. 

CCXIV. 

No more — no more — Oh ! never more on me 
The freshness of the heart can fall like dew, 

Which out of all the lovely things we see 
Extracts emotions beautiful and new, 

Hived in our bosoms like the bag o' the bee. 
Think'st thou the honey with those objects grew? 

Alas ! 'twas not in them, but in thy power 

To double even the sweetness of a flower. 

ccxv. 

No more — no more — Oh ! never more, my heart, 
Canst thou be my sole world, my universe ! 

Once all in all, but now a thing apart. 

Thou canst not be my blessing or my curse : 

The illusion's gone for ever, and thou art 
Insensible, I trust, but none the worse, 

And in thy stead I've got a deal of judgment, 

Though heaven knows how it ever found a lodgment. 

CCXVI. 

My days of love are over ; me no more * 
The charms of maid, wife, and still less of 
widow, 

Can make the fool of which they made before, — 
In short, I must not lead the life I did do ; 

The credulous hope of mutual minds is o'er, 
The copious use of claret is forbid too, 

So for a good old-gentlemanly vice, 

I think I must take up with avarice.^ 



No more the feats of wine I prove, 
Nor the delusive hopes of mutual love." 

Francis. 
5 "His constant recurrence to the praise of avarice in Don 
Juan, and the humorous zest with which he delights to 
dwell on it, show how new-fangled, as well as how far from 
serious, was his adoption of the 'good old-gentlemanly vice.' 
That his parsimony, however, was very far from being of 
that kind which Bacon condemns as ' withholding men from 
works of liberality,' is apparent from all that is known of 
his munificence at this very period." — Moore. 

"Charity — purchased a shilling's worth of salvation. If 
that was to be bought, I have given more to my fellow creat- 
ures in this life — sometimes for vice, but, if not more often, 
at least more considerably, for virtue — than I now possess. 
I never in my life gave a mistress so much as I have some- 
times given a poor man in honest distress. But, no matter! 
The scoundrels who have all along persecuted me will tri- 
umph—and when justice is done to me, it will be when this 
hand that writes is as cold as the hearts which have stung 
iV— Byron JHary, 1821. 



732 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto II. 



CCXVII. 

Ambition was my idol, which was broken 
Before the shrines of Sorrow, and of Pleasure ; 

And the two last have left me many a token 
O'er which reflection may be made at leisure : 

Now, like Friar Bacon's brazen head, I've spoken, 
"Time is. Time was, Time's past:"i— a chemic 
treasure 

Is glittering youth, which I have spent betimes — 

My heart in passion, and my head on rhymes. 

CCXVIII. 

What is the end of Fame ? 2 'tis but to fill 

A certain portion of uncertain paper : 
Some liken it to climbing up a hill, 

Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapor ; ' 
For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill. 

And bards burn what they call their "midnight 
taper," 
To have, when the original is dust, 
A name, a wretched picture,* and worse bust.* 

CCXIX. 

What are the hopes of man ? Old Egypt's King 

Cheops erected the first pyramid 
And largest, thinking it was just the thing 

To keep his memory whole, and mummy hid ; 
But somebody or other rummaging 

Burglariously broke his coffin's lid : 
Let not a monument give you or me hopes, 
Since not a pinch of dust remains of Cheops.* 

ccxx. 

But I, being fond of true philosophy, 

Say very often to myself, " Alas ! 
All things that have been born were born to die. 

And flesh (which Death mows down to hay) is grass ; 



1 The old legend of Friar Bacon says, that the brazen head 
which he formed capable of speech, after uttering succes- 
sively, "Time is" — "Time was" — and "Time is past," the 
opportunity of catechising it having been neglected, tumbled 
itself from the stand, and was shattered into a thousand pieces. 

2 "Out of spirits — read the papers — thoaght what Fame 
was, on reading, in a case of murder, that ' Mr. Wych, grocer, 
at Tunbridge, sold some bacon, flour, cheese, and, it is be- 
lieved, some plums, to some gipsy woman accused. He had on 
his counter (I quote faithfully), a book, the Life of Pamela, 
which he was tearing for waste paper, &c. &c. Jn the cheese 
was found, &c., and a leaf of Pamela wrapt around the bacon !' 
What would Richardson, the vainest and luckiest of living 
authors (i. e. while alive) — he who, with Aaron Hill, used to 
prophesy and chuckle over the presumed fall of Fielding (the 
prose Homer of human nature), and of Pope (the most beau- 
tiful of poets)— what would he have said, could he have 
traced his pages from their place on the French princes' 
toilets (see Boswell's Johnson), to the grocer's counter, and 
the gipsy-murderer's bacon ! ! \"— Byron Diary, 1821. 

3 " Ah ! who can tell how hard it is to climb 

.The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar," &c. 

Beattie. 
* "It is impossible not to regret that Lord Byron, being 
the contemporary of Lawrence and Chantrey, never sat to 
either of those unrivalled artists, whose canvas and marble 



You've pass'd your youth not so unpleasantly. 
And if you had it o'er again — 'twould pass — 
So thank your stars that matters are no worse. 
And read your Bible, sir, and mind your purse." 

CCXXI. 

But for the present, gentle reader ! and 
Still gentler purchaser ! the bard— that's I — 

Must, with permission, shake you by the hand,'^ 
And so your humble servant, and good-bye ! 

We meet again, if we should understand 
Each other ; and if not, I shall not try 

Your patience further than by this short sample — 

'Twere well if others foUow'd my example. 

CCXXII. 

" Go, little book, from this my solitude ! 

I cast thee on the waters — go thy ways ! 
And if, as I believe, thy vein be good. 

The world will find thee after many days." ^ 
When Southey's read, and Wordsworth understood, 

I can't help putting in my claim to praise — 
The four first rhymes are Southey's, every line : 
For God's sake, reader ! take them not for mine. 



Bon guan. 



CANTO THE SECOND.* 



I. 



Oh, ye ! who teach the ingenuous youth of nations, 
Holland, France, England, Germany, or Spain, 

I pray ye flog them upon all occasions, 
It mends their morals, never mind the pain : 



have fixed, with such magical felicity, the very air and ges- 
tures of the other illustrious men of this age — our Welling- 
tons, our Cannings, our Scotts, and Southeys." — Quart. Rev. 
vol. xliv. p. 221. 

6 " A book— a damn'd bad picture— and worse bust." — ^MS. 

6 This stanza appears to have been suggested by the fol- 
lowing passage in the Quarterly Review, vol. xix. p. 203: — 
" It was the opinion of the Egyptians, that the soul never de- 
serted the body while the latter continued in a perfect state. 
To secure this opinion, King Cheops is said, by Herodotus, 
to have employed three hundred and sixty thousand of his 
subjects for twenty years in raising over the ' angusta domus ' 
destined to hold his remains, a pile of stone equal in weight 
to six millions of tons, which is just three times that of the 
vast Breakwater thrown across Plymouth Sound; and, to 
render this precious dust still more secure, the narrow cham- 
ber was made accessible only by small intricate passages, 
obstructed by stones of an enbrmous weight, and so carefully 
closed externally as not to be perceptible. Yet, how vain are 
all the precautions of man ! Not a bone was left of Cheops, 
either in the stone coffin, or in the vault, when Shaw entered 
the gloomy chamber." 

1 " Must bid you both farewell in accents bland." — MS. 

8 See Southey's Pilgrimage to Waterloo, sub fine. 

» "Begun at Venice, December 13, 1818,— finished January 
20, 1819."— .Byron. 



Canto II. 



DON JUAN. 



733 



The best of mothers and of educations 

In Juan's case were but employ'd in vain, 
Since, in a way that's rather of the oddest, he 
Became divested of his native modesty.^ 

II. 

Had he but been placed at a public school, 
In the third form, or even in the fourth, 

His daily task had kept his fancy cool. 
At least, had he been nurtured in the north ; 

Spain may prove an exception to the rule. 
But then exceptions always prove its worth — 

A lad of sixteen causing a divorce 

Puzzled his tutors very much, of course. 

III. 
I can't say that it puzzles me at all. 

If all things be considered : first, there was 
His lady-mother, mathematical, 

A never mind ; — his tutor, an old ass ; 

A pretty woman — (that's quite natural. 

Or else the thing had hardly come to pass) 
A husband rather old, not much in unity 
With his young wife — a time, and opportunity. 

IV. 

Well — well ; the world must turn upon its axis, 
And all mankind turn with it, heads or tails, 

And live and die, make love and pay our taxes, 
And as the veering wind shifts, shift our sails ; 

The king commands us, and the doctor quacks us, 
The priest instructs, and so our life exhales, 

A little breath, love, wine, ambition, fame, 

Fighting, devotion, dust,— perhaps a name. 

V. 

I said, that Juan had been sent to Cadiz — 

A pretty town, I recollect it well — 
'Tis there the mart of the colonial trade is 

(Or was, before Peru learn'd to rebel). 
And such sweet girls — I mean, such graceful ladies, 

Their very walk would make your bosom swell ; 
I can't describe it, though so much it strike. 
Nor liken it — I never saw the like :* 

VI. 

An Arab horse, a stately stag, a barb 

New broke, a camelopard, a gazelle, 
No — none of these will do ; — and then their garb, 

Their veil and petticoat — Alas ! to dwell 
Upon such things would very near absorb 

A canto — then their feet and ankles, — well. 



1 " Lost that most precious stone of stones— his modesty." 
—MS. 

* " But d — n me if I ever saw the like."— MS. 

' Fhzzioli—\iteTa\ly, little handkerchiefe — the veils most 
availing of Saint Mark. 

♦ " Their manners mending, and their morals curing, 

She taught them to suppress their vice— and urine."— MS. 



Thank Heaven I've got no metaphor quite ready, 
(And so, my sober Muse — come, let's be steady — 

VII. 
Chaste Muse! — well, if you must, you must) — the veil 

Thrown back a moment with the glancing hand, 
While the o'erpowering eye, that turns you pale. 

Flashes into the heart : — All sunny land 
Of love ! when I forget you, may I fail 

To say my prayers — but never was there plann'd 

A dress through which the eyes give such a volley. 
Excepting the Venetian Fazzioli.^ 

VIII. 

But to our tale : the Donna Inez sent 

Her son to Cadiz only to embark ; 
To stay there had not answer'd her intent, 

But why ? — we leave the reader in the dark — 
'Twas for a voyage the young man was meant, 

As if a Spanish ship were Noah's ark, 
To wean him from the wickedness of earth. 
And send him like a dove of promise forth. 

IX. 

Don Juan bade his valet pack his things 

According to direction, then received 
A lecture and some money : for four springs 

He was to travel ; and though Inez grieved 
(As every kind of parting has its stings), 

She hoped he would improve — perhaps believed : 
A letter, too, she gave (he never read it) 
Of good advice — and two or three of credit. 

X. 

In the mean time, to pass her hours away. 
Brave Inez now set up a Sunday-school 

For naughty children, who would rather play 
(Like truant rogues) the devil, or the fool ; 

Infants of three years old were taught that day, 
Dunces were whipt, or set upon a stool : 

The great success of Juan's education 

Spurr'd her to teach another generation.* 

XI. 

Juan embark'd— the ship got under way, 
The wind was fair, the water passing rough ; 

A devil of a sea rolls in that bay ,5 

As I, who've cross'd it oft, know well enough ; 

And, standing on the deck, the dashing spray 
Flies in one's face, and makes it weather-tough : 

And there he stood to take, and take again. 

His first — perhaps his last — farewell of Spain. 



5 " Hogg writes me that Scott is gone to the Orkneys in a 
gale of wind ; — during which wind he affirms the said Scott 
' he is sure is not at his ease, to say the best of it.' Lord, 
Lord ! if these home-keeping minstrels had tasted a little 
open boating in a white squall — or a gale in ' the Gat '—how 
it would enliven and introduce them to a few of the sensa- 
tions." — Byron Letters, 1814. 



734 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto II. 



XII. 

I can't but say it is an awkward sight 
To see one's native land receding through 

The growing waters ; it unmans one quite, 
Especially when life is rather new : 

I recollect Great Britain's coast looks white, 
But almost every other country's blue, 

When gazing on them, mystified by distance, 

We enter on our nautical existence. 

XIII. 
So Juan stood, bewilder'd, on the deck : 

The wind sung, cordage strain'd, and sailors swore. 
And the ship creak'd, the town became a speck. 

From which away so fair and fast they bore. 
The best of remedies is a beef-steak 

Against sea-sickness : i try it, sir, before 
You sneer, and I assure you this is true. 
For I have found it answer — so may you. 

XIV. 
Don Juan stood, and, gazing from the stem, 

Beheld his native Spain receding far : 
First partings form a lesson hard to learn. 

Even nations feel this when they go to war ; 
There is a sort of unexprest concern, 

A kind of shock that sets one's heart ajar : 
At leaving even the most unpleasant people 
And places, one keeps looking at the steeple. 

XV. 

But Juan had got many things to leave, 
His mother, and a mistress, and no wife, 

So that he had much better cause to grieve 
Than many persons more advanced in life ; 

And if we now and then a sigh must heave 
At quitting even those we quit in strife, 

No doubt we weep for those the heart endears— 

That is, till deeper griefs congeal our tears. 

XVI. 
So Juan wept, as wept the captive Jews 

By Babel's waters, still remembering Sion : 
I'd weep,— but mine is not a weeping Muse, 

And such light griefs are not a thing to die on ; 
Young men should travel, if but to amuse 

Themselves ; and the next time their servants tie on 
Behind their carriages their new portmanteau, 
Perhaps it may be lined with this my canto. 

XVII. 
And Juan wept, and much he sigh'd and thought, 

While his salt tears dropp'd into the salt sea, 
" Sweets to the sweet" (I like so much to quote ; 

You must excuse this extract, — 'tis where she, 

1 " My friend, Dr. Granville, in his Travels to St. Peters- 
>)urg, 1829, says that 'sea-sickness consists of vomiting — 
or something like it,' and that the true way to escape the 
malady, is to take forty-five drops of laudanum at starting, 
and as often afterwards as uneasiness recurs. Dr. Kitch- 



The Queen of Denmark, for Ophelia brought 

Flowers to the grave) ; and, sobbing often, he 
Reflected on his present situation. 
And seriously resolved on reformation. 

XVIII. 

" Farewell, my Spain ! a long farewell !" he cried, 
" Perhaps I may revisit thee no more. 

But die, as many an exiled heart hath died. 
Of its own thirst to see again thy shore : 

Farewell, where Guadalquivir's waters glide ! 
Farewell, my mother ! and, since all is o'er, 

Farewell, too, dearest Julia !— (here he drew 

Her letter out again, and read it through). 

XIX. 

" And oh ! if e'er I should forget, I swear — 
But that's impossible, and cannot be — 

Sooner shall this blue ocean melt to air. 
Sooner shall earth resolve itself to sea. 

Than I resign thine image, -oh, my fair ! 
Or think of anything, excepting thee ; 

A mind diseased no remedy can physic — 

(Here the ship gave a lurch, and he grew sea-sick). 



XX. 

kiss earth- 



-(here he fell 



" Sooner shall heaven 
sicker) 

Oh, Julia ! what is every other woe ? — 
(For God's sake let me have a glass of liquor ; 

Pedro, Battista, help me down below.) 
Julia, my love ! — (you rascal, Pedro, quicker)- 

Oh, Julia ! — (this curst vessel pitches so) — 
Beloved Julia, hear me still beseeching !" 
(Here he grew inarticulate with retching.) 

XXI. 

He felt that chilling heaviness of heart, 
Or rather stomach, which, alas ! attends. 

Beyond the best apothecary's art, 
The loss of love, the treachery of friends. 

Or death of those we dote on, when a part 
Of us dies with them as each fond hope ends : 

No doubt he would have been much more pathetic. 

But the sea acted as a strong emetic. 

XXII. 

Love's a capricious power : I've known it hold 
Out through a fever caused by its own heat, 

But be much puzzled by a cough and cold. 
And find a quinsy very hard to treat • 

Against all noble maladies he's bold. 
But vulgar illnesses don't like to meet, 

Nor that a sneeze should interrupt his sigh. 

Nor inflammations redden his blind eye. 

ener observes, that the beef-steak, recommended by Lord 
Byron, can suit only a very young and vigorous stomach 
on such occasions, and advises his pupil to adhere to salted 
fish and devils, with quant, suff. of hock or brandy in soda 
water."— HiLi,. 



5i 



Canto II. 



DON JUAN. 



735 



XXIII. 

But worst of all is nausea, or a pain 
About the lower region of the bowels ; 

Love, who heroically breathes a vein. 
Shrinks from the application of hot towels, 

And purgatives are dangerous to his reign. 
Sea-sickness death : his love was perfect, how else 

Could Juan's passion, while the billows roar, 

Resist his stomach, ne'er at sea before ? 

XXIV. 

The ship, call'd the most holy " Trinidada,"* 
Was steering duly for the port Leghorn ; 

For there the Spanish family Moncada 
Were settled long ere Juan's sire was born : 

They were relations, and for them he had a 
Letter of introduction, which the morn 

Of his departure had been sent him by 

His Spanish friends for those in Italy. 

XXV. 

His suite consisted of three servants and 

A tutor, the licentiate Pedrillo, 
Who several languages did understand, 

But now lay sick and speechless on his pillow, 



1 " In 1799, while Lord Byron was the pupil of Dr. Glennie, 
at Dulwich, among the books that lay accessible to the boys 
was a pamphlet, entitled ' Narrative of the Shipwreck of the 
Juno on the Coast of Arracan, in the Year 1795.' The 
pamphlet attracted but little public attention; but among 
the young students of Dulwich Grove it was a favorite 
study; and the impression which it left on the retentive 
mind of Byron may have had some share, perhaps, in suggest- 
ing that curious research through all the various accounts of 
shipwrecks upon record, by which he prepared himself to 
depict, with such power, a scene of the same description in 
Don Juan. ... As to the charge of plagiarism brought against 
him by some scribblers of the day, for so doing, — with as 
much justice might the Italian author, who wrote a Discourse 
on the Military Science displayed by Tasso in his battles, 
have reproached that poet with the sources from which he 
drew his knowledge ;— with as much justice might Puysegur 
and Segrais, who have pointed out the same merit in Homer 
and Virgil, have withheld their praise, because the science on 
which this merit was founded, must have been derived by the 
skill and industry of these poets from others. So little was 
Tasso ashamed of those casual imitations of other poets 
which are so often branded as plagiarisms, that, in his Com- 
mentary on his Rime, he takes pains to point out whatever 
coincidences of this kind occur in his own verses." — Moore. 

" With regard to the charges about the Shipwreck, I think 
that I told you and Mr. Hobhouse, years ago, that there was 
not a single circumstance of it not taken from fact; not, 
indeed, from any single shipwreck, but all from actual facts 
of different wrecks."— Zwd Byron to Mr. Murray. 

"Of late, some persons have been nibbling at the reputa^ 
tion of Lord Byron, by charging him with plagiarism. There 
is a curious charge of this kind lately published, which re- 
dounds, in reality, to the noble author's credit. Every one 
who has looked into the sources from which Shakspeare 
took the stories of his plays, must know that in ' Julius 
Csesar' and ' Coriolanus,' he has taken whole dialogues, with 
remarkable exactness, from North's translation of Plutarch. 
Now, it is that very circumstance which impresses those 
plays with the stamp of antique reality, which the general 



And, rocking in his hammock, long'd for land, 

His headache being increased by every billow ; 
And the waves oozing through the port-hole 

made 
His berth a little damp, and him afraid. 

XXVI. 

'Twas not without some reason, for the wind 
Increased at night, until it blew a gale ; 

And though 'twas not much to a naval mind, 
Some landsmen would have look'd a little pale, 

For sailors are, in fact, a different kind : 
At sunset they began to take in sail, 

For the sky show'd it would come on to blow, 

And carry away, perhaps, a mast or so. 

XXVII. 

At one o'clock the wind with sudden shift 

Threw the ship right into the trough of the sea, 

Which struck her aft, and made an awkward rift, 
Started the stern-post, also shatter'd the 

Whole of her stern-frame, and, ere she could lift 
Herself from out her present jeopardy. 

The rudder tore away : 'twas time to sound 

The pumps, and there were four feet water found.^ 



knowledge of the poet could not have enabled him to com- 
municate to them."— Times. 

Plutarch. — " I am Caius Martins, who hath done to thy selfe 
particularly, and to all the Volsces generally, great hurt and mis- 
chiefe, which I cannot denie for my surname of Coriolanus 
that I beare. For I never had other benefit nor recompense 
of the true and painefuU service I have done, and the 
extreme dangers I have bene in, but this onely surrmme ; a 
good memorie and witnesse of the malice and displeasure thou 
shouldest bear me. Indeed, the name only remaineih with me : 
for the rest, the envie and crueltie of the people of Rome have 
taken from me, by the sufferance of the dastardly nobUitie 
and magistrates, who have forsaken me, and let me be banished 
by the people. That extremitie hath now driven me to come 
as a poor suter, to take thy chimnie harth, not of any hope I 
have to save my life thereby. For if I had feared death, I 
would not come hither to put myself in hazard." 
Shakspeare. — 

" My name is Caius Martius, who hath done 

To thee particularly, and to all the Volsces, 

Great hurt and mischief; thereto witness may 

My surname, Coriolanus : The painful service, 

The extreme dangers, and the drops of blood 

Shed for my thankless country, are requited 

But with that surname : a good memory. 

And witness of the malice and displeasure 

Which thou shouldst bear me : only that name remains; 

The cruelty and envy of the peoj)le. 

Permitted by our dastard nobles, who 

Have all forsook me, hath devour'd the rest ; 

And suffer'd me by the voice of slaves to be 

Whoop'd out of Rome. Now, this extremity 

Hath brought me to thy hearth ; Not out of hope, 

Mistake me not, to save my life; for if 

I had feared death, of all men i' the world 

I would have 'voided thee." 

Coriolanus, act iv. scene 6. 
2 "Night came on worse than the day had been; and a 
sudden shift of wind, about midnight, threw the ship into the 
trough of the sea, which struck her aft, tore away the rudder, 



736 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto IL 



XXVIII. 

One gang of people instantly was put 
Upon the pumps, and the remainder set 

To get up part of the cargo, and what not ; 
But they could not come at the leak as yet ; 

At last they did get at it really, but 
Still their salvation was an even bet : 

The water rush'd through in a way quite puzzling. 

While they thrust sheets, shirts, jackets, bales of 
muslin,! 

XXIX. 
Into the opening ; but all such ingredients 

Would have been vain, and they must have gone 
down. 
Despite of all their efforts and expedients, 

But for the pumps : I'm glad to make them known 
To all the brother tars who may have need hence, 

For fifty tons of water were upthrown 
By them per hour, and they had all been undone 
But for the maker, Mr. Mann, of London.^ 

XXX. 

As day advanced the weather seem'd to abate. 
And then the leak they reckon'd to reduce, 

And keep the ship afloat, though three feet yet 
Kept two hand and one chain-pump still in use. 

The wind blew fresh again : as it grew late 
A squall came on, and while some guns broke loose, 

A gust — which all descriptive power transcends — 

Laid with one blast the ship on her beam ends.^ 

XXXI. 
There she lay, motionless, and seem'd upset ; 

The water left the hold, and wash'd the decks,* 
And made a scene men do not soon forget ; 

For they remember battles, fires, and wrecks. 
Or any other thing that brings regret, 

Or breaks their hopes, or hearts, or heads, or necks : 
Thus drownings are much talk'd of by the divers, 
And swimmers, who may chance to be survivors. 



started the stern-post, and shattered the whole of her stern-frame. 
The pumps were immediately sounded, and in the course of a 
few minutes the water had increased to four feet." — Loss of 
the Hercules. 

1 " One gang was instantly put on them, and the remainder of 
the people employed in getting up rice from the run of the ship, 
and heaving it over, to come at the leak, if possible. After 
three or four hundred bags were thrown into the sea, we did 
get at it, and found the water rushing into the ship with 
astonishing rapidity ; therefore we thrust sheets, shirts, jackets, 
bales of muslin, and everything of the like description that 
could be got, into the opening." — Ibid. 

2 "Notwithstanding the pumps discharged fifty ions of water 
am hour, the ship certainly must have gone down, had not our 
expedients been attended with some success. The pumps, to 
the excellent construction of which I owe the preservation 
of my life, were made by Mr. Mann of London." — Ibid. 

3 " As the next day advanced, the weather appeared to moderate, 
the men continued incessantly at the pumps, and every ex- 
ertion was made to keep the ship afloat. Scarce was this done, 
when o gmt, exceeding in violence everything of the kind I had 



XXXII. 

Immediately the masts were cut away. 
Both main and mizzen ; first the mizzen went, 

The main-mast follow'd : but the ship still lay 
Like a mere log, and baffled our intent. 

Foremast and bowsprit were cut down, and ihej 
Eased her at last (although we never meant 

To part with all till every hope was blighted), 

And then with violence the old ship righted.^ 

XXXIII. 

It may be easily supposed, while this 
Was going on, some people were unquiet, 

That passengers would find it much amiss 
To lose their lives, as well as spoil their diet ; 

That even the able seaman, deeming his 
Days nearly o'er, might be disposed to riot, 

As upon such occasions tars will ask 

For grog, and sometimes drink rum from the cask. 

XXXIV. 

There's nought, no doubt, so much the spirit calms 

As rum and true religion : thus it was. 
Some plunder'd, some drank spirits, some sung 



The high wind made the treble, and as bass 
The hoarse harsh waves kept time ; fright cured the 
qualms 

Of all the luckless landsmen's sea-sick maws : 
Strange sounds of wailing, blasphemy, devotion, 
Clamor'd in chorus to the roaring ocean. 

XXXV. 

Perhaps more mischief had been done, but for* 
Our Juan, who, with sense beyond his years, 

Got to the spirit-room, and stood before 
It with a pair of pistols ; and their fears, 

As if Death were more dreadful by his door 
Of fire than water, spite of oaths and tears, 

Kept still aloof the crew, who, ere they sunk. 

Thought it would be becoming to die drunk.' 



ever seen, or could conceive, laid the ship on her beam ends." — 
Loss of the Centaur. 

* "The ship lay motionless, and, to all appearance, irre- 
vocably . overset. The water forsook the hold, and appeared 
between decks."— Ibid. 

6 " Immediate directions were given to cut away the mmn 
and mizzen masts, trusting, when the ship righted, to be able 
to wear her. On cutting one or two lanyards, the mizzerv^mast 
went first over, but without producing the smallest effect on 
the ship, and, on cutting the lanyard of one shroud, the main- 
mast followed. I had the mortification to see the foremast and 
bowsprit also go over. On this, the ship immediately righted wiih 
great violence." — Ibid. 

« " Perhaps the whole would have got drunk, but for."— 
MS. 

T " A midshipman was appointed to guard the spirit-room, 
to repress that unhappy desire of a devoted crew to die in a 
state of intoxication. The sailors, though in other respects 
orderly in conduct, here pressed eagerly upon Ydra."— Loss 
of the Abergavenny. 



Canto II. 



DON JUAN. 



737 



XXXVI. 

" Give us more grog," they cried, " for it will be 
All one an hour hence." Juan answer'd, "No! 

'Tis true that death awaits both you and me, 
But let us die like men, not sink below 

Like brutes :" — and thus his dangerous post kept he,* 
And none liked to anticipate the blow ; 

And even Pedrillo, his most reverend tutor, 

Was for some rum a disappointed suitor. 

XXXVII. 
The good old gentleman was quite aghast, 

And made a loud and pious lamentation ; 
Repented all his sins, and made a last 

Irrevocable vow of reformation ; 
Nothing should tempt him more (this peril past) 

To quit his academic occupation, 
In cloisters of the classic Salamanca, 
To follow Juan's wake, like Sancho Panca. 

XXXVIII. 

But now there came a flash of hope once more ; 

Day broke, and the wind lull'd : the masts were gone. 
The leak increased ; shoals round her, but no shore. 

The vessel swam, yet still she held her own. 
They tried the pumps again, and though before 

Their desperate efibrts seem'd all useless grown, 
A glimpse of sunshine set some hands to bale — 
The stronger pump'd, the weaker thrumm'd a sail.^ 

XXXIX. 

Under the vessel's keel the sail was pass'd, 
And for the moment it had some effect;' 

But with a leak, and not a stick of mast. 
Nor rag of canvas, what could they expect? 

But still 'tis best to struggle to the last, 
'Tis never too late to be wholly wreck'd : 

And though 'tis true that man can only die once, 

'Tis not so pleasant in the Gulf of Lyons.* 

XL. 
There winds and waves had hurl'd them, and from 
thence, 
Without their will, they carried them away ; 

1 " ' Give us some grog^ they exclaimed, ' it will be all one an 
hour hence.' — 'I know we must die,' replied the gallant oflELcer, 
coolly, *hut let us die like men!'— armed with a brace of pistols, 
he kept his post, even while the ship was sinking." — Ia)ss of 
the Abergavenny. 

* " However, by great exertion of the chain-pump, we held 
our own. All who were not seamen by profession, had been 
employed in thrumming a sail." — Ibid. 

' " which was passed under the ship's bottom, and I thoughi 

had some effect." — Ibid. 

* " 'Tis ugly dying in the Gulf of Lyons."— MS. 

* " The ship labored so much, that I could scarce hope she 
VDOuld swim till morning: our sufferings were very great /or 
want of water." — Loss of the Abergavenny. 

* " TM weather again threatened, and by noon it blew a storm. 
The ship labored greatly ; the water appeared in the fore and 
after hold. The leathers were nearly consumed, and the chaim 
of the pumps, by constant exertion, and friction of the coils, 
were rendered almost useless."— Ibid. 

47 



For they were forced with steering to dispense, 

And never had as yet a quiet day 
On which they might repose, or even commence 

A jurymast or rudder, or could say 
The ship would swim an hour, which, by good luck, 
Still Bwam — though not exactly like a duck. 

XLI. 

The wind, in fact, perhaps, was rather less, 
But the ship labor'd so, they scarce could hope 

To weather out much longer ; the distress 
Was also great with which they had to cope 

For want of water, and their solid mess^ 
Was scant enough : in vain the telescope 

Was used — nor sail nor shore appear'd in sight, 

Nought but the heavy sea, and coming night. 

XLII. 

Again the weather threaten'd,— again blew" 

A gale, and in tlie fore and after hold 
Water appear'd ; yet, though the people knew 

All this, the most were patient, and some bold, 
Until the chains and leathers were worn through 

Of all our pumps : — a wreck complete she roll'd, 
At mercy of the waves, whose mercies are 
Like human beings during civil war. 

XLIII. 
Then came the carpenter, at last, with tears 

In his rough eyes, and told the captain, he 
Could do no more : he was a man in years. 

And long had voyaged through many a stormy 
sea, 
And if he wept at length,' they were not fears 

That made his eyelids as a woman's be, 
But he, poor fellow, had a wife and children,— 
Two things for dying people quite bewildering. 

XLIV. 

The ship was evidently settling now^ 

Fast by the head ; and, all distinction gone, 

Some went to prayers again, and made a vow 
Of candles to their saints ^ — but there were none 



7 " At length, the carpenter came up from below, and told the 
crew, who were working at the pumps, he could do no more for 
them. Seeing their efforts useless, many of them burst into 
tears, and wept like children." — Ibid. 

8 " I perceived the ship settling by the head." — Ibid. 

9 The following extract is taken from Lord Byron's own 
copy of Erasmus's Dialogues. The delightful colloquy en- 
titled " Naufragium " must, as it is obvious from his lordship'i* 
pencil-marks, have been much in his hands : — " Aderat 
Anglus quidam, qui promittebat montes aureos Virgini 
Walsamgamicse, si vivus attigisset terram: alii multa pro- 
mittebant ligno crucis, quod esset in tali loco. Unum audivi, 
non sine risu, qui clar^. voce, ne non exaudiretur, polliceretur 
Christophoro, qui est Lutetiae in summo templo, mons verius 
quam statua, cereum tantum quantus esset ipse. Hsec cum 
vociferans quantum poterat identidem inculcaret, qui forte 
proximus assistebat illi notus, cubito ilium tetigit, ac sub- 
monurt; Vide quid polliccaris: etiamsi rerum omnium 



738 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto n. 



To pay them with ; and some look'd o'er the bow ; 

Some hoisted out the boats ; and there was one 
That begg'd Pedrillo for an absolution^ 
Who told him to be damn'd— in his confusion.^ 

XLV. 

Some lash'd them in their hammocks ; some put on 
Their best clothes, as if going to a fair ; 

Some cursed the day on which they saw the sun, 
And gnash'd their teeth, and, howling, tore their 

And others went on as they had begun, [hair ; 

Getting the boats out, being well aware 

That a tight boat will live in a rough sea, 

Unless with breakers close beneath her lee.^ 

XLVI. 

The worst of all was, that in their condition, 
Having been several days In great distress, 

'Twas difl&cult to get out such provision 
As now might render their long suffering less : 

Men, even when dying, dislike inanition ; ^ 
Their stock was damaged by the weather's stress : 

Two casks of biscuit, and a keg of butter, 

Were all that could be thrown into the cutter. 

XLVII. 

But in the long-boat they contrived to stow 
Some pounds of bread, though injured by the wet; 

Water, a twenty-gallon cask or so ; 

Six flasks of wine ; and they contrived to get 

A portion of their beef up from below,* 
And with a piece of pork, moreover, met, 

But scarce enough to serve them for a luncheon — 

Then there was rum, eight gallons in a puncheon. 

tuarum auctionem facias, non fuerls solvendo. Turn ille, voce 
jam pressiore, ne videlicet exaudiret Christophorus : Tace, 
inquit, fiatue .' An credis me ex animo loqui ? Si semel con- 
tigero terram, non daturus sum illi candelam sebaceam!" 
"There was there a certain Englishman, who promised 
golden mountains to Our Lady of Walsingham, if he touched 
land again. Others promised many things to the Wood of 
the Cross, which was in such a place. I heard one, not with- 
out laughter, who, with a clear voice, lest he should not be 
heard, promised Christopher, who is at Paris, on the top of a 
church,— a mountain more truly than a statue, — a wax 
candle as big as he was himself. When, bawling out as hard 
as he could, the man reiterated this offer, an acquaintance 
that by chance stood next, known to him, touched him with 
his elbow, and said — ' Have a care what you promise ; though 
you make an auction of all your goods, you'll not be able to 
pay.' Then he says, with a voice now lower, to wit, lest 
Christopher should hear, — ' Hold your tongue, you fool ; do 
you think I speak from my heart? If once I touch land, I'll 
not give him a tallow candle.' "—Clarke's Translation. 

1 "You cannot imagine," says Cardinal de Retz, (who 
narrowly escaped shipwreck in the Gulf of Lyons)— "the 
horror of a great storm : pou can as little imagine the ridicule 
of ii. Everybody were at their prayers, or were confessing 
themselves. The private captain of the galley caused, in the 
greatest height of the danger, his embroidered coat and his 
red scarf to be brought to him, saying, that a true Spaniard 
ought to die bearing his king's marks of distinction. He 
sat himself down in his great elbow chair, and with his foot 
struck a poor Neapolitan in the chops, who, not being able 



XLVIII. 

The other boats, the yawl and pinnace, had 
Been stove in the beginning of the gale ; ^ 

And the long-boat's condition was but bad, 
As there were but two blankets for a sail,^ 

And one oar for a mast, which a young lad 
Threw in by good luck over the ship's rail ; 

And two boats could not hold, far less be stored. 

To save one half the people then on board. 

XLIX. 

'Twas twilight, and the sunless day went down 

Over the waste of waters ; like a veil, 
Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the 
frown 

Of one whose hate is mask'd but to assail.'^ 
Thus to their hopeless eyes the night was shown, 

And grimly darkled o'er the faces pale. 
And the dim desolate deep : twelve days had Fear 
Been their familiar, and now Death was here. 

L. 

Some trial had been making at a raft, 

With little hope in such a rolling sea, 
A sort of thing at which one would have laugh'd,^ 

If any laughter at such times could be. 
Unless with people who too much have quaff'd, 

And have a kind of wild and horrid glee, 
Half epileptical, and half hysterical : — 
Their preservation would have been a miracle. 

LI. 

At half-past eight o'clock, booms, hencoops, spars, 
And all things, for a chance, had been cast loose, 

to stand, was crawling along, crying out aloud, ' Senhor Don 
Fernando, por I'amor de Dios, confession.' The captain, 
when he struck him, said to him, 'Inimigo de Dios piedea 
confession !' and on my representing to him, that his inter- 
ference was not right, he said that that old man gave offence 
to the whole galley. A Sicilian Observantine monk was 
preaching at the foot of the great mast, that Saint Francis 
had appeared to him, and had assured him that we should 
not perish. I should never have done, were I to describe all 
the ridiculous sights that are seen on these occasions." 

2 " Some appeared perfectly resigned, went to their hammocks, 
and desired their messmates to lash them in; others were for 
securing themselves to gratings and small rafts ; but the most 
predominant idea was that of putting on their best and cleanest 
clothes. The boats were got over the side."— Abergavenny. 

3 " Men will prove hungry, even when next perdition."— 

MS. 

* "Eight bags of rice, six flasks of urine, and a sm<iU quantity 
of salted beef and pork, were put into the long-boat, as pro- 
visions for the whole." — Wreck of the Sydney. 

6 " The yawl was stove alongside and sunk." — Centaur. 

6 " One oar was erected for a mainr-mast, and the other bent 
to the breadth of the blankets for a sail." — Loss of the Welling- 
ton Transport. 

7 " Which being withdrawn, discloses but the frown 

Of one who hates us, so the night was shown," &c. — MS. 

8 " As rafts had been mentioned by the carpenter, I thought 
it right to make the attempt. It was impossible for any man to 
deceive himself with the hopes of being saved on a raft in 
such a sea aa this." — Centaur. 



Canto II. 



DON JUAN. 



739 



That still could keep afloat the struggling tars,* 
For yet they strove, although of no great use : 

There was no light in heaven but a few stars, 
The boats put oiF o'ercrowded with their crews ; 

She gave a heel, and then d lurch to port. 

And, going down head foremost — sunk, in short.* 

LII. 

Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell — 
Then shriek'd the timid, and stood still the 
brave, — 

Then some Icap'd overboard with dreadful yell,' 
As eager to anticipate their grave; 

And the sea yawn'd around her like a hell, 
And down she suck'd with her the whirling 
wave, 

Like one who grapples with his enemy, 

And strives to strangle him before he die. 

LIII. 

And first one universal shriek there rush'd, 
Louder than the loud ocean, like a crash 

Of echoing thunder ; and then all was hush'd, 
Save the wild wind and the remorseless dash 

Of billows ; but at intervals there gush'd, 
Accompanied with a convulsive splash, 

A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry 

Of some strong swimmer in his agony.* 

LIV. 
The boats, as stated, had got off before. 

And in them crowded several of the crew ; 
And yet their present hope was hardly more 

Than what it had been, for so strong it blew 
There was slight chance of reaching any shore ; 

And then they were too many, though so few — 
Nine in the cutter, thirty in the boat. 
Were counted in them when they got afloat. 

LV. 

All the rest perish'd ; near two hundred souls 
Had left their bodies ; and what's worse, alas ! 

When over Catholics the ocean rolls. 
They must wait several weeks before a mass 

Takes off one peck of purgatorial coals. 
Because, till people know what's come to pass, 

They won't lay out their money on the dead — 

It costs three francs for every mass that's said. 

' "Spars, booms, hencoops, and every thing buoyant, were 
therefore cast loose, that the men might have some chance to 
Bave themselves." — Loss of the Pandora. 

2 "We had scarcely quitted the ship, when she gave a 
heavy lurch to port, and then went down, head foremost."— 
Lady Hohart. 

3 " At this instant one of the oflScers told the captain she 
was going down, and bidding him farewell, leapt overboard : 
the crew had just time to leap overboard, which they did, ut- 
tering a most dreadful yell."— Pandora. 

* " How accurately has Byron described the whole progress 



LVI. 

Juan got into the long-boat, and there 

Contrived to help Pedrillo to a place ; 
It seem'd as if they had exchanged their care. 

For Juan wore the magisterial face 
Which courage gives, while poor Pedrillo's pair 

Of eyes were crying for their owner's case : 
Battista, though (a name call'd shortly Tita), 
Was lost by getting at some aqua-vita. 

LVII. 

Pedro, his valet, too, he tried to save. 

But the same cause, conducive to his loss. 

Left him so drunk, he jump'd into the wave, 
As o'er the cutter's edge he tried to cross. 

And so he found a wine-and-watery grave ; 
They could not rescue him although so close, 

Because the sea ran higher every minute. 

And for the boat — the crew kept crowding in it. 

LVIII. 

A small old spaniel, — which had been Don J6se's, 
His father's, whom he loved, as ye may think, 

For on such things the memory reposes 

With tenderness, — stood howling on the brink, 

Knowing (dogs have such intellectual noses!), 
No doubt, the vessel was about to sink ; 

And Juan caught him up, and ere he stepp'd 

Off threw him in, then after him he leap'd.* 

LIX. 

He also stuff 'd his money where he could 

About his person, and Pedrillo's too. 
Who let him do, in fact, whate'er he would, 

Not knowing what himself to say, or do, 
As every rising wave his dread renew'd ; 

But Juan, trusting they might still get through, 
And deeming there were remedies for any ill, 
Thus re-embark'd his tutor and his spaniel. 

LX. 

'Twas a rough night, and blew so stiffly yet. 
That the sail was becalm'd between the seas. 

Though on the wave's high top too much to set. 
They dared not take it in for all the breeze : 

Each sea curl'd o'er the stern, and kept them wet, 
And made them bale without a moment's ease,* 

So that themselves as well as hopes were damp'd. 

And the poor little cutter quickly swamp'd. 

of a shipwreck, to the final catastrophe ! — Sir John Barrow : 
History of the Bounty. 

6 " The boat, being fastened to the rigging, was no sooner 
cleared of the greatest part of the water, than a dog of mine 
came to me running along the gunwale. / took him in." — 
Shipwreck of the Betsey. 

6 "It blew a violent storm, so that between the seas the 
sail was becalmed ; and when on the top of the wave, it was too 
much to be set, but we could not venture to take it in, for wo 
were in very imminent danger and distress ; the sea curling 
over the stem of the boat, which obliged us to bale with all o-nr 
might."— Bl.ioh^s Open Boat Navigation. See Barrow's Event- 
ful History, p. 99. 



740 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Canto IL 



LXI. 

Nine souls more went in her : the long-boat still 
Kept above water, with an oar for mast, 

Two blankets stitch'd together, answering ill 
Instead of sail, were to the oar made fast ; 

Though every wave roll'd menacing to fill, 
And present peril all before surpass'd,i 

They grieved for those who perish 'd with the cutter, 

And also for the biscuit-casks and butter. 

LXII. 

The sun rose red and fiery, a sure sign 
Of the continuance of the gale : to run 

Before the sea until it should grow fine, 
Was all that for the present could be done : 

A few tea-spoonfuls of their rum and wine 
Were served out to the people, who begun 2 

To faint, and damaged bread wet through the bags, 

And most of them had little clothes but rags. 

LXIII. 
They counted thirty, crowded in a space 

Which left scarce room for motion or exertion ; 
They did their best to modify their case, 

One half sate up, though numb'd with the immersion. 
While t'other half were laid down in their place. 

At watch and watch ; thus, shivering like the tertian 
Ague in its cold fit, they fill'd their boat, 
With nothing but the sky for a great coat.* 

LXIV. 
*Tis very certain the desire of life 

Prolongs it : this is obvious to physicians, 
When patients, neither plagued with friends nor wife, 

Survive through very desperate conditions, 
Because they still can hope, nor shines the knife 

Nor shears of Atropos before their visions : 
Despair of all recovery spoils longevity, 
And makes men's miseries of alarming brevity. 

LXV. 

Tis said that persons living on annuities 
Are longer lived than others, — God knows why, 

Unless to plague the grantors, — ^yet so true it is, 
That some, I really think, do never die : 

Of any creditors the worst a Jew it is. 
And thaVs their mode of furnishing supply : 

In my young days they lent me cash that way, 

Which I found very troublesome to pay. 



1 " Before it was dark a blanket was discovered in the boat. 
This was immediately bent to one of the stretchers, and 
under it, as a sail, we scudded all night, in expectation of 
being swallowed by every wave." — Centaur. 

2 " The sun rose red and fiery, a sure indication of a severe 
gale of wind. — We could do nothing more than run before 
the sea. — / served a tea-spoonful of rum to every person. The 
bread we found was damaged and rotten." — Bligh. 

3 "As our lodging was very wretched and confined for 
want of room, I endeavored to remedy this defect, by putting 
ourselves ai watch and watch; so that one half always sat up, 



LXVI. 

'Tis thus with people in an open boat, 
They live upon the love of life, and bear 

More than can be believed, or even thought. 
And stand like rocks the tempest's wear and tear ; 

And hardship still has been the sailor's lot, 
Since Noah's ark went cruising here and there ; 

She had a curious crew as well as cargo. 

Like the first old Greek privateer, the Argo. 

LXVII. 

But man is a carnivorous production. 
And must have meals, at least one meal a day ; 

He cannot live, like woodcocks, upon suction, 
But, like the shark and tiger, must have prey ; 

Although his anatomical construction 
Bears vegetables, in a grumbling way, 

Your laboring people think beyond all question 

Beef, veal, and mutton, better for digestion. 

LXVIII. 

And thus it was with this our hapless crew ; 

For on the third day there came on a calm. 
And though at first their strength it might renew, 

And, lying on their weariness like balm, 
Lull'd them like turtles sleeping on the blue 

Of ocean, when they woke they felt a qualm, 
And fell all ravenously on their provision, 
Instead of hoarding it with due precision. 

LXIX. 

The consequence was easily foreseen — 
They ate up all they had, and drank their wine, 

In spite of all remonstrances, and then 
On what, in fact, next day were they to dine ? 

They hoped the wind would rise, these foolish men ! 
And carry them to shore ; these hopes were fine, 

But as they had but one oar, and that brittle. 

It would have been more wise to save their victual. 

LXX. 

The fourth day came, but not a breath of air,* 
And Ocean slumber'd like an unwean'd child : 

The fifth day, and their boat lay floating there, 
The sea and sky were blue, and clear, and mild— 

With their one oar (I wish they had had a pair) 
What could they do ? and hunger's rage grew wild 

So Juan's spaniel, spite of his entreating. 

Was kill'd, and portion'd out for present eating.^ 



while the other half lay down in the bottom of the boat, with 
nothing to cover tis but the heavens." — Ibid. 

4 " The fourth day came, and not a breath of air," &c.— 
Ibid. 

5 " The fourth day we began to suffer exceedingly from 
hunger and thirst. I then seized my dog, and plunged my 
knife into its throat. We caught his blood in the hat, re- 
ceiving in our hands and drinking what ran over ; we after- 
wards drank in turn out of the hat, and felt ourselves ror- 
freshed."— Shipwreck of the Betsey. 



Canto II. 



DON JUAN. 



741 



LXXI. 

On the sixth day they fed upon his hide, 
And Juan, who had still refused, because 

The creature was his father's dog that died, 
Now feeling all the vulture in his jaws. 

With some remorse received (though first denied) 
As a great favor one of the fore-paws,^ 

Which he divided with Pedrillo, who 

Devour'd it, longing for the other too. 

LXXII. 
The seventh day, and no wind — the burning sun 

Blister'd and scorch'd, and, stagnant on the sea, 
They lay like carcasses ; and hope was none. 

Save in the breeze that came not : savagely 
They glared upon each other — all was done. 

Water, and wine, and food, — and you might see 
The longings of the cannibal arise 
(Although they spoke not) in their wolfish eyes. 

LXXIII. 

At length one whisper'd his companion, who 
Whisper'd another, and thus it went round, 

And then into a hoarser murmur grew, 
An ominous, and wild, and desperate sound ; 

And when his comrade's thought each sufierer 
knew, 
'Twas but his own, suppress'd till now, he 
found : 

And out they spoke of lots for flesh and blood. 

And who should die to be his fellows' food.^ 

LXXIV. 

But ere they came to this, they that day shared 
Some leathern caps, and what remain'd of shoes ; 

And then they look'd around them, and despair'd. 
And none to be the sacrifice would choose ; 

At length the lots were torn up,^ and prepared, 
But of materials that must shock the Muse — 

Having no paper, for the want of better. 

They took by force from Juan Julia's letter. 



1 " Now, however, when Mr. Byron was at home with his 
dog, a party came to tell him their necessities were such, that 
they must eat the dog, or starve. In spite of Mr. Byron's 
desire to preserve the faithful animal, they took him by force 
and killed him. Thinking he was entitled to a share, he par- 
took of their repast. Three weeks afterwards, recollecting 
the spot where the dog was killed, he went to it, and was glad 
to riak'^ a meal o! the paws and skin." — Commodore Byron's 
Narrative. 

2 " The fact of men, in extreme cases, destroying each other 
for the sake of appeasing hunger, is but too well established 
—and to a great extent, on the raft of the French frigate 
Mgduse, when wrecked on the coast of Africa, and also on 
the rock in the Mediterranean, when the Nautilus frigate was 
lost." — Sir John Barrow. 

' " Being driven to distress for want of food, they soaked 
their shoes, and two hairy caps which were among them, in 
the water ; which being rendered soft, each partook of them. 
But day after day having passed, and the cravings of hunger 
pressing hard upon them, they fell upon the horrible and 
dreadful expedient of eating each other ; and in order to pre- 



LXXV. 

The lots were made, and mark'd, and mix'd, and 
handed. 

In silent horror,* and their distribution 
Lull'd even the savage hunger which demanded, 

Like the Promethean vulture, this pollution ; 
None in particular had sought or plann'd it, 

'Twas nature gnaw'd them to this resolution. 
By which none were permitted to be neuter — 
And the lot fell on Juan's luckless tutor. 

LXXVI. 

He but requested to be bled to death : 

The surgeon had his instruments, and bled ^ 

Pedrillo, and so gently ebb'd his breath. 
You hardly could perceive when he was dead. 

He died as born, a Catholic in faith, 

Like most in the belief in which they're bred, 

And first a little crucifix he kiss'd, 

And then held out his jugular and wrist. 

LXXVII. 

The surgeon, as there was no other fee, 

Had his first choice of morsels for his pains ; 

But being thirstiest at the moment, he 

Preferr'd a draught from the fast-flowing veins : *» 

Part was divided, part thrown in the sea. 
And such things as the entrails and the brains 

Regaled two sharks, who follow'd o'er the bil- 
low — 

The sailors ate the rest of poor Pedrillo. 

LXXVIII. 

The sailors ate him, all save three or four. 
Who were not quite so fond of animal food ; 

To these was added Juan, who, before 
Refusing his own spaniel, hardly could 

Feel now his appetite increased much more ; 
'Twas not to be expected that he should. 

Even in extremity of their disaster, 

Dine with them on his pastor and his master. 



vent any contention about who should become the food of the 
others, they cast lots to determine the sufFerer," — Sufferings of 
the Crew of the Thomas. 

* " The lots were drawn ; the captain, summoning all his 
strength, wrote upon slips of paper the name of each man, 
folded them up, put them into a hat, and shook them together. 
The crew, meanwhile, preserved an awful silence; each eye 
was fixed and each mouth open, while terror was strongly 
impressed upon every countenance. The unhappy person, 
with manly fortitude, resigned himself to his miserable asso- 
ciates." — Famine in the American Ship Peggy. 

5 "He requested to he bled to death, the surgeon being with 
them, and having his case of instruments in his pocket when 
he quitted the ship." — Thomas. 

6 " No sooner had the fatal instrument touched the vein, 
than the operator applied his parched lips, and drank the 
blood as it flowed, while the rest anxiously watched the vic- 
tim's departing breath, that they might proceed to satisfy the 
hunger which preyed upon them to so frightful a degree."— 
Ibid. 



742 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Canto II. 



LXXIX. 
'Twas better that he did not ; for, iu fact, 

The consequence was awfal in the extreme ; 
For they, who were most ravenous in the act, 

Went raging mad^ — Lord! how they did blas- 
pheme ! 
And foam, and roll, with strange convulsions rack'd, 

Drinking salt water like a mountain stream. 
Tearing, and grinning, howling, screeching, swearing, 
And, with hyaena-laughter, died despairing. 

LXXX. 

Their numbers were much thinn'd by this inflic- 
tion. 

And all the rest were thin enough. Heaven knows ; 
And some of them had lost their recollection, 

Happier than they who still perceived their woes ; 
But others ponder'd on a new dissection. 

As if not warn'd sufficiently by those 
Who had already perish'd, suffering madly, 
For having used their appetites so sadly. 

LXXXI. 

And next they thought upon the master's mate, 
As fattest ; but he saved himself, because. 

Besides being much averse from such a fate. 
There were some other reasons : the first was 

He had been rather indisposed of late ; 
And that which chiefly proved his saving clause, 

Was a small present made to him at Cadiz, 

By general subscription of the ladies. 

LXXXII. 

Of poor Pedrillo something still remained, 
But was used sparingly,— some were afraid, 

And others still their appetites constrain'd, 
Or but at times a little supper made ; 

All except Juan, who throughout abstained. 
Chewing a piece of bamboo, and some lead : ^ 

At length they caught two boobies, and a noddy ,3 

And then they left off eating the dead body. 



1 "Those who glutted themselves with human flesh and 
gore, and whose stomachs retained the unnatural food, soon 
perished with raging insanity^'' &c. — Thomas. 

2 "Another expedient we had frequent recourse to, finding 
it supplied our mouths with temporary moisture, was chewing 
any substance we could' find, generally a bit of canvas, or 
even lead. — Juno. 

3 " On the 25th, at noon, we caught a noddy. I divided it 
into eighteen portions. In the evening we caught ^wo fcoo&ies." 
— Bligh. 

< " Quando ebbe detto cid, con gli occhi torti 
Riprese il teschio misero co' denti, 
Che furo all' osso, come d'un can forti." 

The passage is thus powerfully rendered by Dante's last 
translator, Mr. Ichabod Wright— 

" Then both my hands through anguish I did bite ; 
And they, supposing that from want of food 
I did so, sudden raised themselves upright, 
And said — ' O father, less will be our pain. 
If thou wilt feed on us : thou didst bestow 
This wretched flesh — 'tis thine to take again :' 



LXXXIII. 

And if Pedrillo's fate should shocking be, 

Eemember Ugolino* condescends 
To eat the head of his arch-enemy 

The moment after he politely ends 
His tale ; if foes be food in hell, at sea 

'Tis surely fair to dine upon our friends, 
When shipwreck's short allowance grows too scanty, 
Without being much more horrible than Dante. 

LXXXIV. 

And the same night there fell a shower of rain. 
For which their mouths gaped, like the cracks of 
earth 

When dried to summer dust ; till taught by pain. 
Men really know not what good water's worth ; 

If you had been in Turkey or in Spain, 
Or with a famish'd boat's-crew had your berth, 

Or in the desert heard the camel's bell, 

You'd wish yourself where Truth is — in a well. 

LXXXV. 

It pour'd down torrents, but they were no richer 
Until they found a ragged piece of sheet. 

Which served them as a sort of spongy pitcher. 
And when they deem'd its moisture was complete, 

They wrung it out, and though a thirsty ditcher ^ 
Might not have thought the scanty draught so sweet 

As a full pot of porter, to their thinking 

They ne'er till now had known the joys of drinking. 

LXXXVI. 

And their baked lips, with many a bloody crack, 
Suck'd in the moisture, which like nectar stream'd ; 

Their throats were ovens, their swoln tongues were 
black. 
As the rich man's in hell, who vainly scream'd 

To beg the beggar, who could not rain back 
A drop of dew, when every drop had seem'd 

To taste of heaven — If this be true, indeed, 

Some Christians have a comfortable creed. 



Then was I calm, lest they the more should grieve. 
Two days all silent we remain'd. thou 
Hard Earth ! Why didst thou not beneath us cleave? 
Four days our agonies had been delay'd 
When Gaddo at my feet his body threw, 
Exclaiming, ' Father, why not give us aid?' 
He died— and as distinct as here I stand 
I saw the three fall one by one, before 
The sixth day closed: then, groping with my hand, 
I felt each wretched corpse, for sight had fail'd : 
Two days I call'd on those who were no more- 
Then hunger, stronger even than grief, prevail'd." 
This said — aside his vengeful eyes were thrown. 
And with his teeth again the skull he tore, 
Fierce as a dog to gnaw the very bone." ■ 

Inferno, c. xxx. v. 60. 
5 "In the evening there came on a squall, which brought 
the most seasonable relief, as it was accompanied with heavy 
rain: we had no means of catching it, but by spreading out 
our clothes ; catching the drops as they fell, or squeezing them 
out of our clothes."— CfentoMr. 



Canto II. 



DON JUAN. 



743 



LXXXVII. 

There were two fathers in this ghastly crew, 
And with them their two sons, of whom the one 

Was more robust and hardy to the view. 
But he died early ; and when he was gone, 

His nearest messmate told his sire, who threw 
One glance at him, and said, "Heaven's will be 

I can do nothing," and he saw him thrown [done! 

Into the deep without a tear or groan.^ 

LXXXVIII. 

The other father had a weaklier child. 

Of a soft cheek, and aspect delicate ; * 
But the boy bore up long, and with a mild 

And patient spirit held aloof his fate ; 
Little he said, and now and then he smiled, 

As if to win a part from off the weight 
He saw increasing on his father's heart. 
With the deep deadly thought, that they must part. 

LXXXIX. 

And o'er him bent his sire, and never raised 
His eyes from off his face, but wiped the foam 

From his pale lips, and ever on him gazed, 

And when the wish'd-for shower at length was come, 

And the boy's eyes, which the dull film half glazed, 
Brighten'd, and for a moment seem'd to roam. 

He squeezed from out a rag some drops of rain 

Into his dying child's mouth — but in vain.^ 

XC. 
The boy expired — the father held the clay. 

And look'd upon it long, and when at last 
Death left no doubt, and the dead burden lay 

Stiff on his heart, and pulse and hope were past, 

1 " Mr. "Wade's boy, a stout healthy lad, died early, and almost 
without a groan ; "wliile another, of the same age, but of a 
less promising appearance, held out much longer. Their 
fathers were both in the fore-top, when the boys were taken 
ill. Wade, hearing of his son's illness, answered, with in- 
difference, that h^ could do nothing for Mm, and left him to his 
fate."— Jwno. 

2 " 'Hie oth^ father hurried down. By that time only three 
or four planks of the quarter-deck remained, just over the 
weather-quarter gallery. To this spot the unhappy man led 
his son, making him fast to the rail, to prevent his being 
washed away." — Ibid. 

8 " Whenever the hoy was seized with a fit of retching, the 
father lifted him up and wiped away the foam from his lips; 
and if a shower cam^, he made him open his mouth to re- 
ceive the drops, or gently squeezed them into it from a rag." — 
Ihid. 

* "In this affecting situation both remained four or five 
days, till the hoy expired. The unfortunate parent, as if un- 
willing to believe the fact, raised the body, looked wistfully at 
it, and when he could no longer entertain any douht, watched 
it in silence urUil it was carried off hy sea; then wrapping 
himself in a piece of canvas, sunk down, and rose no more ; 
though he must have lived two days longer, as we judged 
from the quivering of his limbs, when a wave broke over 
him.."— Ihid. 

6 "This sublime and terrific description of a shipwreck is 
strangely and disgustingly broken by traits of low humor and 
buffoonery; — and we pass immediately from the moan.s of 
an agonizing father Mnting over his famished son, to face- 



He watch'd it wistfully, until away 

'Twas borne by the rude wave wherein 'twas cast ; * 
Then he himself sunk down all dumb and shivering, 
And gave no sign of life, save his limbs quivering.^ 

XCI. 
Now overhead a rainbow, bursting through 

The scattering clouds, shone, spanning the dark sea, 
Resting its bright base on the quivering blue ; 

And all within its arch appear'd to be 
Clearer than that without, and its wide hue 

Wax'd broad and waving, like a banner free. 
Then changed like to a bow that's bent, and then 
Forsook the dim eyes of these shipwreck'd men. 

XCII. 

It changed, of course ; a heavenly chameleon, 

The airy child of vapor and the sun. 
Brought forth in purple, cradled in vermilion, 

Baptized in molten gold, and swathed in dun, 
Glittering like crescents o'er a Turk's pavilion, 

And blending every color into one,^ 
Just like a black eye in a recent scuffle 
(For sometimes we must box without the muffle). 

XCIII. 

Our shipwreck'd seamen thought it a good omen — 
It is as well to think so, now and then ; 

'Twas an old custom of the Greek and Roman, 
And may become of great advantage when 

Folks are discouraged ; and most surely no men 
Had greater need to nerve themselves again 

Than these, and so this rainbow look'd like hope — 

Quite a celestial kaleidoscope.'' 

tious stories of Juan's begging the paw of his father's dog, 
and refusing a slice of his tutor ! — as if it were a fine thing to 
be hard-hearted, and pity and compassion were fit only to be 
laughed at." — jEFrREy. 

" I will answer your friend, who objects to the quick suc- 
cession of fun and gravity, as if in that ease the gravity did 
not (in intention at least) heighten the fun. His metaphor 
is, that ' we are never scorched and drenched at the same 
time.' Blessings on his experience ! Ask him these questions 
about ' scorching and drenching.' Did he never play at 
cricket, or walk a mile in hot weather ? Did he never spill a 
dish of tea over himself in handing the cup to his charmer, 
to the great shame of his nankeen breeches? Did he never 
swim in the sea at noonday with the sun in his eyes and on 
his head, which all the foam of ocean could not cool ? Did he 
never draw his foot out of too hot water, d — ning his eyes 
and his valet's ? Did he never tumble into a river or lake. 
fishing, and sit in his wet clothes in the boat, or on the bank, 
afterwards, ' scorched and drenched,' like a true sportsman ? 
' Oh for breath to utter !'— but make him my compliments ; he 
is a clever fellow for all that— a very clever fellow."— Zon/ 
Byron to Mr. Murray, Aug. 12, 1819. 

6 "Look upon the rainbow, and praise him that made it: 
very beautiful it is in its brightness; it encompasses the 
heavens with a glorious circle, and the hands of the Most 
High have bended ii."— Son of Sirach. 

1 An instrument, invented by Sir David Brejv^ster, which 
pleases the eye by an ever-varying succession of splendid 
tints and symmetrical forms, and has been of great service in 
suggesting patterns to our manufacturers. 



744 



BYRON'S WOEKS. 



Canto II. 



XCIV. 
About this time a beautiful white bird, 

Web-footed, not unlike a dove in size 
And plumage (probably it might have err'd 

Upon its course), pass'd oft before their eyes, 
And tried to perch, although it saw and heard 

The men within the boat, and in this guise 
It came and went, and flutter'd round them till 
Night fell :— this seem'd a better omen still.^ 

XCV. 
But in this case I also must remark, 

'Twas well this bird of promise did not perch, 
Because the tackle of our shatter'd bark 

Was not so safe for roosting as a church ; 
And had it been the dove from Noah's ark, 

Returning there from her successful search. 
Which in their way that moment chanced to fall, 
They would have eat her, olive-branch and all. 

XCVI. 

With twilight it again came on to blow, 
But not with violence ; the stars shone out. 

The boat made way ; yet now they were so low. 
They knew not where nor what they were about ; 

Some fancied they saw land, and some said " No !" 
The frequent fog-banks gave them cause to doubt — 

Some swore that they heard breakers, others guns,^ 

And all mistook about the latter once. 

XCVII. 

As morning broke, the light wind died away, 
When he who had the watch sung out and swore, 

If 'twas not land that rose with the sun's ray. 
He wish'd that land he never might see more ; ^ 

And the rest rubb'd their eyes and saw a bay. 
Or thought they saw, and shaped their course for 

For shore it was, and gradually grew [shore ; 

Distinct, and high, and palpable to view. 

XCVIII. 

And then of these some part burst into tears, 
And others, looking with a stupid stare,* 

Could not yet separate their hopes from fears, 
And seem'd as if they had no further care ; 

1 " About this time a beautiful white bird, web-footed and not 
unlike a dove in size and plumage, hovered over the mast-head 
of the cutter, and, notwithstanding the pitching of the boat, 
frequently attempted to perch on it, and continued to flutter there 
till dark. Trifling as this circumstance may appear, it was 
considered by us all as a propitious omen.^^ — Loss of the Lady 
Hobart. 

2 " I found it necessary to caution the people against being 
deceived by the appearance of land, or calling out till they 
were convinced of the reality, more especially as fog-banks 
are often mistaken for land: several of the poor fellows 
nevertheless repeatedly exclaimed they heard breakers, and 
some i\iQ firing of guns." — Ibid. 

* " At length one of them broke into a most immoderate swear- 
ing fit of joy, which I could not restrain, and declared, that he 
had never seen land in his life, if what he now saw was not land." 
— Oentawr. 



While a few pray'd— (the first time for some years) — 

And at the bottom of the boat three were 
Asleep : they shook them by the hand and head. 
And tried to awaken them, but found them dead. 

XCIX. 

The day before, fast sleeping on the water, 
They found a turtle of the hawk's-bill kind. 

And by good fortune, gliding softly, caught her,^ 
Which yielded a day's life, and to their mind 

Proved even still a more nutritious matter, 
Because it left encouragement behind : 

They thought that in such perils, more than chance 

Had sent them this for their deliverance. 

C. 

The land appear'd a high and rocky coast. 
And higher grew the mountains as they drew, 

Set by a current, toward it : they were lost 
In various conjectures, for none knew 

To what part of the earth they had been tost, 
So changeable had been the winds that blew ; 

Some thought it was Mount ^tna, some the highlands 

Of Candia, Cyprus, Rhodes, or other islands. 

CI. 

Meantime the current, with a rising gale. 
Still set them onwards to the welcome shore. 

Like Charon's bark of spectres, dull and pale : 
Their living freight was now reduced to four, 

And three dead, whom their strength could not avail 
To heave into the deep with those before, 

Though the two sharks still follow'd them, and 
dash'd 

The spray into their faces as they splash'd. 

gii. 

Famine, despair, cold, thirst, and heat, had done 
Their work on them by turns, and thinn'd them to 

Such things a mother had not known her son 
Amidst the skeletons of that gaunt crew ; <• 

By night chill'd, by day scorch'd, thus one by one 
They perish'd, until wither'd to these few, 

But chiefly by a species of self-slaughter. 

In washing down Pedrillo with salt water. 

* " The joy at a speedy relief affected us all in a most re- 
markable way. Many burst into tears; some looked ai each 
other with a stupid stare, as if doubtful of the reality of what 
they saw ; while several were in such a lethargic condition, 
that no animating words could rouse them to exertion. At 
this affecting period, I proposed offering up our solemn thanks 
to Heaven for the miraculous deliverance." — Lady Hobart. 

° "After having suffered the horrors of hunger and thirst 
for many days, they providentially took a small turtle whilst 
floating asleep on the surface of the water." — Thomas. 

® " Our bodies were nothing but skin and bones, our limbs 
were full of sores, and we were clothed in rags. An indiffer- 
ent spectator would have been at a loss which most to admire, 
the eyes of famine sparkling at immediate relief, or the horror 
of their preservers at the sight of so many spectres, whose 
ghastly countenances, if the cause had been unknown, would 
rather have excited terror than pity."— Bligh. 



Canto II. 



DON JUAN. 



745 



cm. 

As they drew nigh the land, which now was seen 

Unequal in its aspect here and there, 
They felt the freshness of its growing green, 

That waved in forest-tops, and smooth'd the air, 
And fell upon their glazed eyes like a screen 

From glistening waves, and skies so hot and bare- 
Lovely seem'd any object that should sweep 
Away the vast, salt, dread, eternal deep. 

CIV. 

The shore look'd wild, without a trace of man. 
And girt by formidable waves ; but they 

"Were mad for land, and thus their course they ran. 
Though right ahead the roaring breakers lay : 

A reef between them also now began 

To show its boiling surf and bounding spray, 

But finding no place for their landing better, 

They ran the boat for shore, — and overset her.^ 

CV. 

But in his native stream, the Guadalquivir, 
Juan to lave his youthful limbs was wont ; 

And having learnt to swim in that sweet river, 
Had often turn'd the art to some account : 

A better swimmer you could scarce see ever. 
He could, perhaps, have pass'd the Hellespont, 

As once (a feat on which ourselves we prided) 

Leander, Mr. Ekenhead, and I did.^ 

CVI. 

So here, though faint, emaciated, and stark, 
He buoy'd his boyish limbs, and strove to ply 

With the quick wave, and gain, ere it was dark, 
The beach which lay before him, high and dry : 

The greatest danger here was from a shark, 
That carried ofi" his neighbor by the thigh ; 

As for the other two, they could not swim, 

So nobody arrived on shore but him. 

CVII. 
Nor yet had he arrived but for the oar. 

Which, providentially for him, was wash'd 
Just as his feeble arms could strike no more. 

And the hard wave o'erwhelm'd him as 'twas 
dash'd 
Within his grasp ; he clung to it, and sore 

The waters beat while he thereto was lash'd ; 
At last, with swimming, wading, scrambling, he 
RoU'd on the beach, half senseless, from the sea : 

CVIII. 
There, breathless, with his digging nails he clung 

Fast to the sand, lest the returning wave. 
From whose reluctant roar his life he wrung. 

Should suck him back to her insatiate grave : 



J "They discovered land right ahead, and steered for it. 
There being a very heavy surf, they endeavored to turn the 
boat's head to it, which, from weakness, they were unable to 



And there he lay, full length, where he was flung, 

Before the entrance of a clifF-worn cave, 
With just enough of life to feel its pain. 
And deem that it was saved, perhaps, in vain. 

CIX. 

With slow and staggering effort he arose, 
But sunk again upon his bleeding knee 

And quivering hand ; and then he look'd for those 
Who long had been his mates upon the sea ; 

But none of them appear'd to share his woes. 
Save one, a corpse, from out the famish'd three, 

Who died two days before, and now had found 

An unknown barren beach for burial ground. 

ex. 

And as he gazed, his dizzy brain spun fast. 
And down he sunk ; and as he sunk, the sand 

Swam round and round, and all his senses pass'd : 
He fell upon his side, and his stretch'd hand 

Droop'd dripping on the oar (their jury-mast), 
And, like a wither'd lily, on the land 

His slender frame and pallid aspect lay. 

As fair a thing as e'er was form'd of clay. 

CXI. 

How long in his damp trance young Juan lay 
He knew not, for the earth was gone for him, 

And Time had nothing more of night nor day 
For his congealing blood, and senses dim ; 

And how this heavy faintness pass'd away 
He knew not, till each painful pulse and limb, 

And tingling vein, seem'd throbbing back to life. 

For Death, though vanquish'd, still retired with 
strife. 

CXII. 

His eyes he open'd, shut, again unclosed. 
For all was doubt and dizziness ; he thought 

He still was in the boat, and had but dozed. 
And felt again with his despair o'erwrought, 

And wish'd it death in which he had reposed. 
And then once more his feelings back were 
brought. 

And slowly by his swimming eyes was seen 

A lovely female face of seventeen. 

CXIII. 
'Twas bending close o'er his, and the small mouth 

Seem'd almost prying into his for breath ; 
And chafing him, the soft warm hand of youth 

Recall'd his answering spirits back from death ; 
And, bathing his chill temples, tried to soothe 

Each pulse to animation, till beneath 
Its gentle touch and trembling care, a sigh 
To these kind efibrts made a low reply. 



complete, and soon afterwards the boat upset." — Escape of De- 
serters from Saint Helena. 
2 See ante, p. 652. 



746 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Canto II. 



CXIV. 

Then was the cordial pour'd, and mantle flung 
Around his scarce-clad limbs ; and the fair arm 

Eaised higher the faint head which o'er it hung; 
And her transparent cheek, all pure and warm, 

Pillow'd his death-like forehead ; then she wrung 
His dewy curls, long drench'd by every storm ; 

And watch'd with eagerness each throb that drew 

A sigh from his heaved bosom — and hers, too. 

cxv. 

And lifting him with care into the cave, 
The gentle girl, and her attendant, — one 

Young, yet her elder, and of brow less grave. 
And more robust of figure, — then begun 

To kindle fire, and as the new flames gave 
Light to the rocks that roof'd them, which the 
sun 

Had never seen, the maid, or whatsoe'er 

She was, appear'd distinct, and tall, and fair. 

CXVI. 
Her brow was overhung with coins of gold. 

That sparkled o'er the auburn of her hair. 
Her clustering hair, whose longer locks were rolFd 

In braids behind ; and though her stature were 
Even of the highest for a female mould, 

They nearly reach'd her heel ; and in her air 
There was a something which bespoke command, 
As one who was a lady in the land. 

CXVII. 

Her hair, I said, was auburn ; but her eyes 
Were black as death, their lashes the same hue. 

Of downcast length, in whose silk shadow lies 
Deepest attraction ; for when to the view 

Forth from its raven fringe the full glance flies. 
Ne'er with such force the swiftest arrow flew ; 

'Tis as the snake late coil'd, who pours his length. 

And hurls at once his venom and his strength. 

CXVIII. 

Her brow was white and low, her cheek's pure dye 
Like twilight rosy still with the set sun ; 

Short upper lip— sweet lips ! that make us sigh 
Ever to have seen such ; for she was one 

Fit for the model of a statuary 

(A race of mere impostors, when all's done — 

I've seen much finer women, ripe and real, 

Than all the nonsense of their stone ideal). ^ 

CXIX. 

I'll tell you why I say so, for 'tis just 
One should not rail without a decent cause : 

There was an Irish lady, to whose bust 
I ne'er saw justice done, and yet she was 



1 " A set of humbug rascals, when all's done- 
I've seen much finer women, ripe and real, 
Than all the nonsense of their d — d ideal.' 



-MS. 



A frequent model ; and if e'er she must 

Yield to stern Time and Nature's wrinkling laws. 
They will destroy a face which mortal thought 
Ne'er compass'd, nor less mortal chisel wrought. 

cxx. 

And such was she, the lady of the cave : 
Her dress was very difierent from the Spanish, 

Simpler, and yet of colors not so grave ; 

For, as you know, the Spanish women banish 

Bright hues when out of doors, and yet, while wave 
Around them (what I hope will never vanish) 

The basquina and the mantilla, they 

Seem at the same time mystical and gay. 

CXXI. 

But with our damsel this was not the case : 
Her dress was many-color'd, finely spun ; 

Her locks curl'd negligently round her face. 

But through them gold and gems profusely shone : 

Her girdle sparkled, and the richest lace 
Flow'd in her veil, and many a precious stone 

Flash'd on her little hand ; but, what was shocking, 

Her small snow feet had slippers, but no stocking. 

CXXII. 

The other female's dress was not unlike, 

But of inferior materials : she 
Had not so many ornaments to strike. 

Her hair had silver only, bound to be 
Her dowry ; and her veil, in form alike, 

Was coarser; and her air, though firm, less free; 
Her hair was thicker, but less long ; her eyes 
As black, but quicker, and of smaller size. 

CXXIII. 

And these two tended him, and cheer'd him both 
With food and raiment, and those soft attentions, 

Which are — (as I must own) — of female growth. 
And have ten thousand delicate inventions : 

They made a most superior mess of broth, 
A thing which poesy but seldom mentions. 

But the best dish that e'er was cook'd since Homer's 

Achilles order'd dinner for new comers. 

CXXIV. 

I'll tell you who they were, this female pair, 
Lest they should seem princesses in disguise ; 

Besides, I hate all mystery, and that air 
Of clap-trap, which your recent poets prize ; 

And so, in short, the girls they really were 
They shall appear before your curious, eyes, 

Mistress and maid ; the first was only daughter 

Of an old man, who lived upon the water. 

cxxv. 

A fisherman he had been in his youth. 

And still a sort of fisherman was he ; 
But other speculations were, in sooth, 

Added to his connection with the sea, 



M 



Canto II. 



DON JUAN. 



747 



Perhaps not so respectable, in truth : 

A little smuggling, and some piracy, 
Left him, at last, the sole of many masters 
Of an ill-gotten million of piastres. 

CXXVI. 

A fisher, therefore, was he, — though of men, 
Like Peter the Apostle, — and he fish'd 

For wandering merchant-vessels, now and then, 
And sometimes caught as many as he wish'd ; 

The cargoes he confiscated, and gain 
He sought in the slave-market too, and dish'd 

Full many a morsel for that Turkish trade, 

By which, no doubt, a good deal may be made. 

CXXVII. 

He was a Greek, and on his isle had built 
(One of the wild and smaller Cyclades) 

A very handsome house from out his guilt. 
And there he lived exceedingly at ease ; 

Heaven knows what cash he got, or blood he spilt, 
A sad old fellow was he, if you please ; 

But this I knoAv, it was a spacious building. 

Full of barbaric carving, paint, and gilding. 

CXXVIII. 

He had an only daughter, call'd Haid^e, 
The greatest heiress of the Eastern Isles ; 

Besides, so very beautiful was she. 
Her dowry was as nothing to her smiles : 

Still in her teens, and like a lovely tree 

She grew to womanhood, and between whiles 

Rejected several suitors, just to learn 

How to accept a better in his turn. 

CXXIX. 

And walking out upon the beach, below 
The cliff, towards sunset, on that day she found, 

Insensible, — not dead, but nearly so, — 

Don Juan, almost famish'd, and half drown'd; 

But being naked, she was shock'd, you know, 
Yet deem'd herself in common pity bound. 

As far as in her lay, " to take him in, 

A stranger" dying, with so white a skin. 

cxxx. 

But taking him into her father's house 
Was not exactly the best way to save, 

But like conveying to the cat the mouse, 
Or people in a trance into their grave ; 

Because tlie good old man had so much " j/ous," 
Unlike the honest Arab thieves so brave. 

He would have hospitably cured the stranger, 

And sold him instantly when out of danger. 

CXXXI. 

And therefore, with her maid, she thought it best 
(A virgin always on her maid relies) 

To place him in the cave for present rest : 
And when, at last, he open'd his black eyes, 



Their charity increased about their guest ; 

And their compassion grew to such a size. 
It open'd half the turnpike-gates to heaven — 
(Saint Paul says, 'tis the toll which must be given). 

CXXXII. 

They made a fire, — but such a fire as they 
Upon the moment could contrive with such 

Materials as were cast up round the bay, — 
Some broken planks, and oars, that to the touch 

Were nearly tinder, since so long they lay 
A mast was almost crumbled to a crutch ; 

But, by God's grace, here wrecks were in such plenty, 

That there was fuel to have furnish'd twenty. 

CXXXIII. 

He had a bed of furs, and a pelisse. 

For Haidee stripp'd her sables ofi" to make 

His couch ; and, that he might be more at ease. 
And warm, in case by chance he should awake. 

They also gave a petticoat apiece,^ 

She and her maid, — and promised by daybreak 

To pay him a fresh visit, with a dish 

For breakfast, of eggs, coffee, bread, and fish. 

CXXXIV. 

And thus they left him to his lone repose : 
Juan slept like a top, or like the dead. 

Who sleep at last, perhaps (God only knows). 
Just for the present ; and in his lull'd head 

Not even a vision of his former woes 
Throbb'd in accursed dreams, which sometimes 
spread 2 

Unwelcome visions of our former years. 

Till the eye, cheated, opens thick with tears. 

cxxxv. 

Young Juan slept all dreamless : — but the maid. 
Who smooth'd his pillow, as she left the den 

Look'd back upon him, and a moment stay'd, 
And turn'd, believing that he call'd again. 

He slumber'd ; yet she thought, at least she said 
(The heart will slip, even as the tongue and pen), 

He had pronounced her name — but she forgot 

That at this moment Juan knew it not. 

CXXXVI. 

And pensive to her father's house she went. 

Enjoining silence strict to Zoe, who 
Better than her knew what, in fact, she meant. 

She being wiser by a year or two : 
A year or two's an age when rightly spent, 

And Zoe spent hers, as most women do, 
In gaining all that useful sort of knowledge 
Which is acquired in Nature's good old college. 



1 " And such a bed of furs, and a pelisse." — MS. 

• " which often spread, 

And come like opening hell upon the mind, 

No ' baseless fabric,' but ' a wreck behind.' " — MS. 



748 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Canto II. 



CXXXVII. 

The morn broke, and found Juan slumbering still 
Fast in his cave, and nothing clash'd upon 

His rest ; the rushing of the neighboring rill, 
And the young beams of the excluded sun, 

Troubled him not, and he might sleep his fill ; 
And need he had of slumber yet, for none 

Had sufier'd more — his hardships were comparative ^ 

To those related in my grand-dad's " Narrative." ^ 

CXXXVIII. 

Not so Haidee : she sadly toss'd and tumbled. 
And started from her sleep, and, turning o'er, [bled, 

Dream'd of a thousand wrecks, o'er which she stum- 
And handsome corpses strew'd upon the shore ; 

And woke her maid so early that she grumbled. 
And call'd her father's old slaves up, who swore 

In several oaths— Armenian, Turk, and Greek — 

They knew not what to think of such a freak. 

CXXXIX. 

But up she got, and up she made them get, 
With some pretence about the sun, that makes 

Sweet skies just when he rises, or is set ; 
And 'tis, no doubt, a sight to see when breaks 

Bright Phoebus, while the mountains still are wet 
With mist, and every bird with him awakes, 

And night is flung off like a mourning suit 

Worn for a husband, — or some other brute.^ 

CXL. 
I say, the sun is a most glorious sight, 

I've seen him rise full oft, indeed of late 
I have sat up on purpose all the night,* 

Which hastens, as physicians say, one's fate ; 
And so all ye, who would be in the riglit 

In health and purse,^ begin your day to date 
From daybreak, and when cofiin'd at fourscore, 
Engrave upon the plate, you rose at four.^ 

CXLI. 

And Haidee met the morning face to face ; 

Her own was freshest, though a feverish flush 
Had dyed it with the headlong blood, whose race 

From heart to cheek is curb'd into a blush, 

1 " Had e'er escaped more dangers on the deep ; — 

And those who are not drown'd, at least may sleep."— MS. 

2 Entitled "A Narrative of the Honorable John Byron 
(Commodore in a late expedition round the world), contain- 
ing an account of the great distresses suffered by himself and 
his companions on the coast of Patagonia, from the year 1740, 
till their arrival in England, 1746 ; written by himself." This 
narrative, one of the most interesting that ever appeared, 
was published in 1768. 

2 " Wore for a husband — or some such like brute." — MS. 

* " although of late 

I've changed, for some few years, the day to night."— MS. 

' " In the year 1784, Dr. Franklin published a most inge- 
nious essay on the advantages of early rising, as a mere piece 
of economy. He estimates the saving that might be made in 
Paris alone, by using sunshine instead of candles, at ninety- 



Like to a torrent which a mountain's base, 

That overpowers some Alpine river's rush. 
Checks to a lake, whose waves in circles spread ; 
Or the Red Sea— but the sea is not red.'' 

CXLII. 
And down the cliff the island virgin came. 

And near the cave her quick light footsteps drew, 
While the sun smiled on her with his first flame. 

And young Aurora kiss'd her lips with dew, 
Taking her for a sister ; just the same 

Mistake you would have made on seeing the two, 
Although the mortal, quite as fresh and fair, 
Had all the advantage, too, of not being air.^ 

CXLIII. 

And when into the cavern Haidee stepp'd 

All timidly, yet rapidly, she saw 
That like an infant Juan sweetly slept; 

And then she stopp'd, and stood as if in awe 
(For sleep is awful), and on tiptoe crept 

And wrapt him closer, lest the air, too raw. 
Should reach his blood, then o'er him still as death 
Bent, with hush'd lips, that drank his scarce-drawn 
breath. 

CXLIV. 

And thus like to an angel o'er the dying 
Who die in righteousness, she lean'd ; and there 

All tranquilly the shipwreck'd boy was lying. 
As o'er him lay the calm and stirless air : 

But Zoe the meantime some eggs was frying. 
Since, after all, no doubt the youthful pair 

Must breakfast, and betimes — lest they should ask it. 

She drew out her provision from the basket. 

CXLV. 

She knew that the best feelings must have victual, 
And that a shipwreck'd youth would hungry be 

Besides, being less in love, she yawn'd a little. 
And felt her veins chill'd by the neighboring sea; 

And so, she cook'd their breakfast to a tittle ; 
I can't say that she gave them any tea, 

But there were eggs, fruit, coffee, bread, fish, honey, 

With Scio wine, — and all for love, not money. 

six millions of French livres, or four millions sterling per 
annum." — Hill. 

6 " The plan of going to bed early, and rising betimes, has 
been called the golden rule for the attainment of health and 
long life. It is sanctioned by various proverbial expressions ; 
and when old people have been examined, regarding the 
causes of their long life, they uniformly agreed in one par- 
ticular,— that they went to bed early, and rose early." — Sir 
John Sinclair. 

1 "My opinion is, that it is from the large trees or plants 
of coral, spread everywhere over the bottom of the Eed Sea, 
perfectly in imitation of plants on land, that it has obtained 
this name." — Bruce. 

8 "just the same 

As at this moment I should like to do ; — 
But I have done with kisses — having kiss'd 
All those that would— regretting those I miss'd."— MS. 



Canto II. 



DON JUAN. 



749 



CXLVI. 

And Zoe, when the eggs were ready, and 
The coffee made, would fain have waken'd Juan ; 

But Haidee stopp'd her with her quick small hand, 
And without word, a sign her finger drew on 

Her lip, which Zoe needs must understand ; 
And, the first breakfast spoilt, prepared a new one, 

Because her mistress would not let her break 

That sleep which seem'd as it would ne'er awake. 

G^^LVII. 

For still he lay, and on his thin worn cheek 
A purple hectic play'd like dying day 

On the snow-tops of distant hills ; the streak 
Of suflFerance yet upon his forehead lay. 

Where the blue veins look'd shadowy, shrunk, and 
weak; 
And his black curls were dewy with the spray, 

"Which weigh'd upon them yet, all damp and salt, 

Mix'd with the stony vapors of the vault. 

CXLVIII. 

And she bent o'er him, and he lay beneath, 
Hush'd as the babe upon its mother's breast, 

Droop'd as the willow when no winds can breathe, 
Lull'd like the depth of ocean when at rest.i 

Fair as the crowning rose of the whole wreath. 
Soft as the callow cygnet in its nest ; 

In short, he was a very pretty fellow, 

Although his woes had turn'd him rather yellow. 

CXLIX. 
He woke and gazed, and would have slept again, 

But the fair face which met his eyes forbade 
Those eyes to close, though weariness and pain 

Had further sleep a further pleasure made : 
For woman's face was never form'd in vain 

For Juan, so that even when he pray'd 
He turn'd from grisly saints, and martyrs hairy, 
To the sweet portraits of the Virgin Mary. _^^ 

CL. 

And thus upon his elbow he arose, 
And look'd upon the lady, in whose cheek 

The pale contended with the purple rose. 
As with an effort she began to speak ; 

Her eyes were eloquent, her words would pose. 
Although she told him, in good modern Greek, 

With an Ionian accent, low and sweet, 

That he was faint, and must not talk, but eat. 

CLI. 
Now Juan could not understand a word. 

Being no Grecian ; but he had an ear. 
And her voice was the warble of a bird, 

So soft, so sweet, so delicately clear, 



' " Fair as the rose just pluck'd to crown the wreath, 
Soft as the unfledged birdling when at rest."— MS. 



That finer, simpler music ne'er was heard ; ^ 

The sort of sound we echo with a tear. 
Without knowing why — an overpowering tone, 
Whence Melody descends as from a throne. 

CLII. 
And Juan gazed as one who is awoke 

By a distant organ, doubting if he be 
Not yet a dreamer, till the spell is broke 

By the watchman, or some such reality, 
Or by one's early valet's cursed knock ; 

At least it is a heavy sound to me. 
Who like a morning slumber — for the night 
Shows stars and women in a better light. 

CLIII. 
And Juan, too, was help'd out from his dream, /^ 

Or sleep, or whatsoe'er it was, by feeling 
A most prodigious appetite ; the steam 

Of Zoe's cookery no doubt was stealing 
Upon his senses, and the kindling beam 

Of the new fire, which Zoe kept up, kneeling, 
To stir her viands, made him quite awake 
And long for food, but chiefly a beef-steak. 

CLIV. 
But beef is rare within these oxless isles ; 
Goat's flesh there is, no doubt, and kid, and mut- 
ton, 
And, when a holiday upon them smiles, 

A joint upon their barbarous spits they put on : 
But this occurs but seldom, between whiles. 
For some of these are rocks with scarce a hut 
on; 
Others are fair and fertile, among which 
This, though not large, was one of the most rich. 

CLV. 

I say that beef is rare, and can't help thinking 

That the old fable of the Minotaur — 
From which our modern morals, rightly shrinking, 

Condemn the royal lady's taste who wore 
A cow's shape for a mask — was only (sinking 

The allegory) a mere type, no more. 
That Pasiphae promoted breeding cattle. 
To make the Cretans bloodier in battle. 

CLVI. 
For we all know that English people are 

Fed upon beef-— I won't say much of beer. 
Because 'tis liquor only, and being far 

From this my subject, has no business here ; 
We know, too, they are very fond of war, 

A pleasure — like all pleasures — rather dear ; 
So were the Cretans — from which I infer, 
That beef and battles both were owing to her. 



2 "That finer melody was never heard, 
The kind of sound whose echo is a tear, 
Whose accents are the steps of Music's throne."— MS. 



750 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto II. 



i 



CLVII. 

But to resume. The languid Juan raised 

His head upon his elbow, and he saw 
A sight on which he had not lately gazed, 

As all his latter meals had been quite raw, 
Three or four things, for which the Lord he praised, 

And, feeling still the famish'd vulture gnaw. 
He fell upon whate'er was offer'd, like 
A priest, a shark, an alderman, or pike. 

CLVIII. 

He ate, and he was well supplied ; and she, 

Who watch'd him like a mother, would have fed 

Him past all bounds, because she smiled to see 
Such appetite in one she had deem'd dead : 

But Zoe, being older than Haid^e, 
Knew (by tradition, for she ne'er had read) 

That famish'd people must be slowly nurst. 

And fed by spoonfuls, else they always burst. 

CLIX. 

And so she took the liberty to state. 
Rather by deeds than words, because the case 

Was urgent, that the gentleman, whose fate 
Had made her mistress quit her bed to trace 

The sea-shore at this hour, must leave his plate, 
Unless he wish'd to die upon the place — 

She snatch'd it, and refused another morsel. 

Saying, he had gorged enough to make a horse ill. 

CLX. 

Next they — he being naked, save a tatter'd 
Pair of scarce decent trowsers — went to work, 

And in the fire his recent rags they scatter'd, 
And dress'd him, for the present, like a Turk, 

Or Greek — that is, although it not much matter'd. 
Omitting turban, slippers, pistols, dirk, — 

They furnish'd him, entire, except some stitches, 

With a clean shirt, and very spacious breeches. 

CLXI. 
And then fair Haidee tried her tongue at speaking, 

But not a word could Juan comprehend, 
Although he listen'd so that the young Greek in 

Her earnestness would ne'er have made an end ; 
And, as he interrupted not, went eking 

Her speech out to her protege and friend, 
Till pausing at the last her breath to take, 
She saw he did not understand Romaic. 

CLXII. 

And then she had recourse to nods, and signs. 
And smiles, and sparkles of the speaking eye, 

1 When at Seville in 1809, Lord Byron lodged in the house 
of two unmarried ladies ; and in his diary he describes him- 
self as having made earnest love to the younger of them, 
with the help of a dictionary. " For some time," he says, " I 
went on prosperously, both as a linguist and a lover, till at 
length, the lady took a fancy to a ring which I wore, and set 
her heart on my giving it to her, as a pledge of my sincerity. 
This, however, could not be ;— any thing but the ring, I de- 



And read (the only book she could) the lines 
Of his fair face, and found, by sympathy, 

The answer eloquent, where the soul shines 
And darts in one quick glance a long reply ; 

And thus in every look she saw exprest 

A world of words, and things at which she guess'd. 

CLXIII. 
And now, by dint of fingers and of eyes. 

And words repeated after her, he took 
A lesson in her tongue ; but by surmise, 

No doubt, less of her language than her look : 
As he who studies fervently the skies 

Turns oftener to the stars than to his book, 
Thus Juan learn'd his alpha beta better 
From Haidee's glance than any graven letter. 

CLXIV. 

'Tis pleasing to be school'd in a strange tongue 
By female lips and eyes — that is, I mean, 

When both the teacher and the taught are young, 
As was the case, at least, where I have been ; i 

They smile so when one's right, and when one's wrong 
They smile still more, and then there intervene 

Pressure of hands, perhaps even a chaste kiss ; — 

I learn'd the little that I know by this : 

CLXV. 

That is, some words of Spanish, Turk, and Greek, 
Italian not at all, having no teachers; ^ 

Much English I cannot pretend to speak. 

Learning that language chiefly from its preachers, 

Barrow, South, Tillotson, whom every week 
I study, also Blair, the highest reachers 

Of eloquence in piety and prose — 

I hate your poets, so read none of those. 

CLXVI. 

As for the ladies, I have nought to say, 
A wanderer from the British world of fashion,' 

Where I, like other " dogs, have had my day," 
Like other men, too, may have had my passion — 

But that, like other things, has pass'd away. 
And all her fools whom I could lay the lash on : 

Foes, friends, men, women, now are nought to me 

But dreams of what has been, no more to bs.' 

CLXVIL 
Return we to Don Juan. He begun 

To hear new words, and to repeat them ; but 
Some feelings, universal as the sun. 

Were such as could not in his breast be shut 



clared, was at her service, and much more than its value, — 
but the ring itself I had made a vow never to give away." 

2 " In 1813, I formed, in the fashionable world of London, 
an item, a fraction, the segment of a circle, the unit of a 
million, the nothing of something. I had been the lion of 
1812."— Byron Diary, 1821. 

3 " Foes, friends, sex, kind, are nothing more to me 
Than a mere dream of something o'er the sea."— MS. 



I 



I 



Canto II. 



DON JUAN. 



751 



More than within the bosom of a nun : 

He was in love,— as you would be, no doubt. 
With a young benefactress, — so was she, 
Just in the way we very often see. 

CLXYIII. 
And every day by daybreak — rather early 

For Juan, who was somewhat fond of rest — 
She came into the cave, but it was merely 

To see her bird reposing in his nest ; 
And she would softly stir his locks so curly, 

Without disturbing her yet slumbering guest, 
Breathing all gently o'er his cheek and mouth,* 
As o'er a bed of roses the sweet south. 

CLXIX. 

And every morn his color freshlier came, 
And every day help'd on his convalescence ; 

'Twas well, because health in the human frame 
Is pleasant, besides being true love's essence, 

For health and idleness to passion's flame 
Are oil and gunpowder ; and some good lessons 

Are also learnt from Ceres and from Bacchus, 

Without whom Venus will not long attack us.^ 

CLXX. 
While Venus fills the heart (without heart really 

Love, though good always, is not quite so good), 
Ceres presents a plate of vermicelli, — 

For love must be sustain'd like flesh and 
blood, — 
While Bacchus pours out wine, or hands a jelly : 

Eggs, oysters, too, are amatory food ; ^ 
But who is their purveyor from above 
Heaven knows, — it may be Neptune, Pan, or Jove. 

CLXXI. 
When Juan woke he found some good things 
ready, 

A bath, a breakfast, and the finest eyes 
That ever made a youthful heart less steady. 

Besides her maid's, as pretty for their size ; 
But I have spoken of all this already — 

And repetition's tiresome and unwise, — 
Well — Juan, after bathing in the sea, 
Came always back to coffee and Haid^e. 



1 " Holding her sweet breath o'er his cheek and mouth, 

As o'er a bed of roses," <tc. — MS. 
* "Doctors are not unanimous as to this conclusion, Ovid, 
indeed, who is good authority here, has said — 

'Et Venus in vinis, ignis in Igne fuit ;' 
but he qualifies this presumption in another place, by recom- 
mending moderation in our cups; for wine, saith he, is to 
love, what wind is to flame ; 

' Nascitur in vento, vento restringuitur ignis, 
• Lenis alit flammam, grandior aura necat:' 
but Aristophanes also, before Ovid, had christened wine, 
' the milk of Venus.' But Athenaius ascribes the chastity 
of Alexander to his excessive compotations ; and Montaigne 
supports the argument of Athenseus, by the converse of the 



CLXXII. 

Both were so young, and one so innocent, 
That bathing pass'd for nothing ; Juan seem'd 

To her, as 'twere, the kind of being sent. 
Of whom these two years she had nightly dream'd, 

A something to be loved, a creature meant 
To be her happiness, and whom she deem'd 

To render happy ; all who joy would win 

Must share it, — Happiness was born a twin.* 

CLXXIII. 

It was such pleasure to behold him, such 

Enlargement of existence to partake 
Nature with him, to thrill beneath his touch. 

To watch him slumbering, and to see him wake : 
To live with him for ever were too much ; 

But then the thought of parting made her 
quake ; 
He was her own, her ocean-treasure, cast 
Like a rich wreck — her first love, and her last.* 

CLXXIV. 

And thus a moon roll'd on, and fair Haid^e 

Paid daily visits to her boy, and took 
Such plentiful precautions, that still he 

Remain'd unknown within his craggy nook ; 
At last her father's prows put out to sea. 

For certain merchantmen upon the look, 
Not as of yore to carry ofi" an lo. 
But three Kagusan vessels, bound for Scio. 

CLXXV. 

Then came her freedom, for she had no mother, 
So that, her father being at sea, she was 

Free as a married women, or such other 
Female, as where she likes may freely pass, 

Without even the incumbrance of a brother, 
The-freest she that ever gazed on glass : 

I speak of Christian lands in this comparison, 

Where wives, at least, are seldom kept in garrison. 

CLXXVI. 

Now she prolong'd her visits and her talk 

(For they must talk), and he had learnt to say 

So much as to propose to take a walk, — 
For little had he wander'd since the day 



same proposition, when he attributes the successful gal- 
lantries of his contemporaries to their temperance in the use 
of wine."— Rev. C. Colton. 
3 " For without heart love is not quite so good ; 
Ceres is commissary to our bellies. 
And love, which also much depends on food, 

While Bacchus will provide with wine and jellies. 
Oysters and eggs are also living food." — MS. 
♦ " Lord Byron appears to have worked up no part of his 
poem with so much beauty and life of description, as that 
which narrates the loves of Juan and Ilaidfie. Whether it be 
an episode, or an integral part of his epic, it is well worth all 
the rest."— Brydges. 
6 " He was her own, her ocean-lover, cast 
To be her soul's first Idol, and its last."— MS, 



752 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



Canto II. 



On which, like a young flower snapp'd from the 

stalk, 
Drooping and dewy on the beach he lay, — 
And thus they walk'd out in the afternoon, 
And saw the sun set opposite the moon. 

CLXXVII. 

It was a wild and breaker-beaten coast. 
With cliffs above, and a broad sandy shore, 

Guarded by shoals and rocks as by an host, 
With here and there a creek, whose aspect wore 

A better welcome to the tempest-tost ; 
And rarely ceased the haughty billow's roar, 

Save on the dead long summer days, which make 

The outstretch'd ocean glitter like a lake. 

CLXXVIII. 

And the small ripple spilt upon the beach 
Scarcely o'erpass'd the cream of your champagne. 

When o'er the brim the sparkling bumpers reach, 
That spring-dew of the spirit! the heart's rain ! 

Few things surpass old wine ; and they may preach 
Who please, — the more because they preach in 
vain, — 

Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter. 

Sermons and soda-water the day after. 

CLXXIX. 
Man, being reasonable, must get drunk , 

The best of life is but intoxication : 
Glory, the grape, love, gold, in these are sunk 

The hopes of all men, and of every nation ; 
Without their sap, how branchless were the trunk 

Of life's strange tree, so fruitful on occasion ! 
But to return, — Get very drunk ; and when 
You wake with headache, you shall see what then. 

CLXXX. 
King for your valet — bid him quickly bring 

Some hock and soda-water, then you'll know 
A pleasure worthy Xerxes the great king ; 

For not the best sherbet, sublimed with snow, 
Nor the first sparkle of the desert-spring. 

Nor Burgundy in all its sunset glow,i 
After long travel, ennui, love, or slaughter, 
Vie with that draught of hock and soda-water. 

CLXXXI. 

The coast — I think it was the coast that I 
Was just describing — Yes, it was the coast — 

Lay at this period quiet as the sky. 
The sands untumbled, the blue waves untost, 

And all was stillness, save the sea-bird's cry, 
And dolphin's leap, and little billow crost 

By some low rock or shelve, that made it fret 

Against the boundary it scarcely wet. 



1 " A pleasure nought but drunkenness can bring ; 
For not the blest sherbet all chill'd with snow, 



CLXXXII. 

And forth they wander'd, her sire being gone, 

As I have said, upon an expedition ; 
And mother, brother, guardian, she had none, 

Save Zoe, who, although with due precision 
She waited on her lady with the sun, 

Thought daily service was her only mission, 
Bringing warm water, wreathing her long tresses, 
And asking now and then for cast-off dresses. 

CLXXXIII. 

It was the cooling hour, just when the rounded 
Bed sun sinks down behind the azure hill, 

Which then seems as if the whole earth it bounded. 
Circling all nature, hush'd, and dim, and still, 

With the far mountain-crescent half surrounded 
On one side, and the deep sea calm and chill 

Upon the other, and the rosy sky 

With one star sparkling through it like an eye. 

CLXXXIV. 

And thus they wander'd forth, and hand in hand, 

Over the shining pebbles and the shells. 
Glided along the smooth and harden'd sand. 

And in the worn and wild receptacles 
Work'd by the storms, yet work'd as it were plaun'd. 

In hollow halls, with sparry roofs and cells, 
They turn'd to rest ; and, each clasp'd by an arm, 

Yielded to the deep twilight's purple charm. 

CLXXXV. 

They look'd up to the sky, whose floating glow 
Spread like a rosy ocean, vast and bright ; 

They gazed upon the glittering sea below, 

Whence the broad moon rose circling into sight ; 

They heard the waves' splash, and the wind so low, 
And saw each other's dark eyes darting light 

Into each other— and, beholding this. 

Their lips drew near, and clung into a kiss ; 

CLXXXVI. 

A long, long kiss, a kiss of youth, and love, 

And beauty, all concentrating like rays 
Into one focus, kindled from above ; 

Such kisses as belong to early days. 
Where heart, and soul, and sense, in concert move, 

And the blood's lava, and the pulse a blaze, 
Each kiss a heart-quake, — for a kiss's strength, 

I think, it must be reckon'd by its length. 

CLXXXVII. 

By length I mean duration ; theirs endured 
Heaven knows how long — no doubt they never 
reckon'd ; 

And if they had, they could not have secured 
The sum of their sensations to a second : 



Nor the full sparkle of the desert-spring, 
Nor wine in all the purple of its glow."— MS. 



Canto II. 



DON JUAN. 



753 



They had not spoken ; but they felt allured, 

As if their souls and lips each other beckon'd, 
Which, being join'd, like swarming bees they clung — 
Their hearts the flowers from whence the honey 
sprung.^ 

CLXXXVIII. 
They were alone, but not alone as they 

Who shut in chambers think it loneliness ; 
The silent ocean, and the starlight bay. 

The twilight glow, which momently grew less, 
The voiceless sands, and dropping caves, that lay 

Around them, made them to each other press, 
As if there were no life beneath the sky 
Save theirs, and that their life could never die. 

CLXXXIX. 
They fear'd no eyes nor ears on that lone beach ; 

They felt no terrors from the night ; they were 
All in &U. to each other : though their speech 

Was broken words, they thought a language there, — 
And all the burning tongues the passions teach 

Found in one sigh the best interpreter 
Of nature's oracle — first love, — that all 
Which Eve has left her daughters since her fall. 

cxc. 

Haid^e spoke not of scruples, ask'd no vows, 

Nor ofFer'd any ; she had never heard 
Of plight and promises to be a spouse. 

Or perils by a loving maid incurr'd ; 
She was all which pure ignorance allows. 

And flew to her young mate like a young bird 
And, never having dreamt of falsehood, she 
Had not one word to say of constancy. 

CXCI. 
She loved, and was beloved — she adored. 

And she was worshipp'd; after nature's fashion. 
Their intense souls, into each other pour'd, 

If souls could die, had perish'd in that passion, — 
But by degrees their senses were restored, 

Again to be o'ercome, again to dash on ; 
And, beating 'gainst hi^ bosom, Haidee's heart 
Felt as if never more to beat apart. 

CXCII. 
Alas ! they were so young, so beautiful. 

So lonely, loving, helpless, and the hour 
Was that in which the heart is always full, 

And, having o'er itself no further power, 
Prompts deeds eternity can not annul. 

But pays off" moments in an endless shower 
Of hell-fire — all prepared for people giving 
Pleasure or pain to one another living. 

* " I'm sure they never reckon'd ; 



And being join'd — like swarming bees they clung, 
And mix'd until the very pleasure stung."— Or, 



48 



CXCIII. 

Alas ! for Juan and Haidee ! they were 
So loving and so lovely — till then never, 

Excepting our first parents, such a pair 
Had run the risk of being damn'd for ever : 

And Haidee, being devout as well as fair. 
Had, doubtless, heard about the Stygian river, 

And hell and purgatory — but forgot 

Just in the very crisis she should not. 

CXCIV. 

They look upon each other, and their eyes 

Gleam in the moonlight ; and her white arm clasps 

Round Juan's head, and his around her lies* 
Half buried in the tresses which it grasps ; 

She sits upon his knee, and drinks his sighs, 
He hers, until they end in broken gasps ; 

And thus they form a group that's quite antique. 

Half naked, loving, natural, and Greek. 

cxcv. 

And when those deep and burning moments pass'd, 
And Juan sunk to sleep within her arms. 

She slept not, but all tenderly, though fast, 
Sustain'd his head upon her bosom's charms ; 

And now and then her eye to heaven is cast, 

And then on the pale cheek her breast now warms, 

Pillow'd on her o'erflowing heart, which pants 

With all it granted, and with all it grants.^ 

CXCVI. 

An infant when it gazes on a light, 

A child the moment when it drains the breast, 
A devotee when soars the Host in sight. 

An Arab with a stranger for a guest, 
A sailor when the prize has struck in fight, 

A miser filling his most hoarded chest. 
Feel rapture ; but not such true joy are reaping 
As they who watch o'er what they love while sleeping. 

CXCVII. 

For there it lies so tranquil, so beloved. 
All that it hath of life with us is living ; 

So gentle, stirless, helpless, and unmoved. 
And all unconscious of the joy 'tis giving ; 

All it hath felt, inflicted, pass'd, and proved, 

Hush'd into depths beyond the watcher's diving : 

There lies the thing we love with all its errors 

And all its charms, like death without its terrors. 

CXCVIII. 
The lady watch'd her lover— and that hour 

Of Love's, and Night's, and Ocean's solitude, 
O'erflow'd her soul with their united power ; 

Amidst the barren sand and rocks so rude 



" And one was innocent, but both too young, 
Their heart the flowers," &c.— MS. 
2 " Pillow'd upon her beating heart— which panted 
With the sweot memory of all it granted."— MS. 



754 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Canto II. 



She and her wave- worn love had made their 
bower, 
Where nought upon their passion could intrude, 
And all the stars that crowded the blue space 
Saw nothing happier than her glowing face. 

CXCIX. 

Alas ! the love of women ! it is known 

To be a lovely and a fearful thing ; 
For all of theirs upon that die is thrown, 

And if 'tis lost, life hath no more to bring 
To them but mockeries of the past alone. 

And their revenge is as the tiger's spring. 
Deadly, and quick, and crushing ; yet, as real 
Torture is theirs, what they inflict they feel. 

CC. 

They are right ; for man, to man so oft unjust, 
Is always so to women ; one sole bond 

Awaits them, treachery is all their trust ; 
Taught to conceal, their bursting hearts despond 

Over their idol, till some wealthier lust 
Buys them in marriage — and what rests beyond ? 

A thankless husband, next a faithless lover. 

Then dressing, nursing, praying, and all's over. 

CCI. 

Some take a lover, some take drams or prayers, 
Some mind their household, others dissipation, 

Some run away, and but exchange their cares, 
Losing the advantage of a virtuous station ; 

Few changes e'er can better their affairs. 
Theirs being an unnatural situation. 

From the dull palace to the dirty hovel : ^ 

Some play the devil, and then write a novel.^ 

CCII. 
Haidee was Nature's bride, and knew not this ; 

Haidee was Passion's child, born where the sun 
Showers triple light, and scorches even the kiss 

Of his gazelle-eyed daughters ; she was one 
Made but to love, to feel that she was his 

Who was her chosen : what was said or done 
Elsewhere was nothing. She had nought to fear, 
Hope, care, nor love, beyond, — her heart beat here. 



1 " Perhaps there are not a few women who may profit from 
seeing in what a style of contemptuous coldness, the suffer- 
ings to which licentious love exposes them are talked of by 
such people as the author of Don Juan. The many fine eyes 
that have wept dangerous tears over the descriptions of the 
Gulnares and Medoras, cannot be the worse for seeing the 
true side of his picture."— Blackwood. 

2 " Lady Caroline Lamb was supposed by Lord Byron to 
have alluded to him in her novel of ' Glenarvon,' published 
in 1816. — ' Madame de Stael once asked me,' said Lord Byron, 
' if my real character was well drawn in that novel. She was 
only singular in putting the question in the dry way she did. 
There are many who pin their faith on that insincere pro- 
duction. I am made out a very amiable person in that work ! 
The only thing belonging to me in it is part of a letter.' "— 
Medwin, 



CCIII. 
And oh ! that quickening of the heart, that beat ! 

How much it costs us ! yet each rising throb 
Is in its cause as its effect so sweet. 

That Wisdom, ever on the watch to rob 
Joy of its alchemy, and to repeat 

Fine truths ; even Conscience, too, has a tough job 
To make us understand each good old maxim. 
So good — I wonder Castlereagh don't tax 'em. 

CCIV. 
And now 'twas done— on the lone shore were plighted 

Their hearts ; the stars, their nuptial torches, shed 
Beauty upon the beautiful they lighted : 

Ocean their witness, and the cave their bed, 
By their own feelings hallow'd and united. 

Their priest was Solitude, and they were wed •? 
And they were happy, for to their young eyes 
Each was an angel, and earth paradise.* 

« 

ccv. 

Oh, Love ! of whom great Csesar was the suitor, 

Titus the master, Antony the slave, 
Horace, Catullus, scholars, Ovid tutor, 

Sappho the sage blue-stocking, in whose grave 
All those may leap who rather would be neuter — 

(Leucadia's rock still overlooks the wave) — 
Oh, Love ! thou art the very god of evil. 
For, after all, we cannot call thee devil. 

CCVI. 
Thou mak'st the chaste connubial state precarious, 

And jestest with the brows of mightiest men : 
Caesar and Pompey, Mahomet, Belisarius, 

Have much employed the muse of history's pen 
Their lives and fortunes were extremely various, 

Such worthies Time will never see again ; 
Yet to these four in three things the same luck holds, 
They all were heroes, conquerors, and cuckolds. 

CCVII. 

Thou mak'st philosophers ; there's Epicurus 

And Aristippus, a material crew ! 
Who to immoral courses would allure us 

By theories quite practicable too ; 



3 " In their sweet feelings holily united, 

By Solitude (soft parson) they were wed."— MS. 

* " Don Juan is dashed on the shore of the Cyclades, where 
he is found by a beautiful and innocent girl, the daughter of 
an old Greek pirate,— with whom, as might be supposed, the 
same game of guilt and abandonment is played over again. 
There is, however, a very superior kind of poetry in the con- 
ception of this amour;— the desolate isle— the utter lone- 
liness of the maiden, who is as ignorant as she is innocent — 
the helpless condition of the youth — everything conspires 
to render it a true romance. How easy for Lord Byron to 
have kept it free from any stain of pollution ! What cruel 
barbarity, in creating so much of beauty only to mar and ruin 
it! This is really the very suicide of genius." — Black- 
wood. 



Canto II. 



DON JUAN. 



766 



If only from the devil they would insure us, 

How pleasant were the maxim (not quite new), 
" Eat, drink, and love, what can the rest avail us?" 
So said the royal sage Sardanapalus.' 



CCVIII. 
But Juan ! had he quite forgotten Julia? 

And should he have forgotten her so soon ? 
I can't but say it seems to me most truly a 

Perj)lexing question ; but, no doubt, the moon 
Does these things for us, and whenever newly a 

Strong palpitation rises, 'tis her boon. 
Else how the devil is it that fresh features 
Have such a charm for us poor human creatures ? 



CCIX. 
I hate inconstancy — I loathe, detest, 

Abhor, condemn, abjure the mortal made 
Of such quicksilver clay that in his breast 

No permanent foundation can be laid ; 
Love, constant love, has been my constant guest, 

And yet last night, being at a masquerade, 
I saw the prettiest creature, fresh from Milan, 
Which gave me some sensations like a villain. 



CCX. 
But soon Philosophy came to my aid, 

And whisper'd, " Think of every sacred tie !" 
" I will, my dear Philosophy !" I said, 

"But then her teeth, and then, oh. Heaven! her 
eye! 
I'll just inquire if she be wife or maid, 

Or neither — out of curiosity." 
" Stop !" cried Philosophy, with air so Grecian 
(Though she was mask'd then as a fair Venetian) ; 



CCXI. 

' Stop !" so I stopp'd.— But to return : that which 
Men call inconstancy is notliing more 

Than admiration due where nature's rich 
Profusion with young beauty covers o'er 

Some favor'd object ; and as in the niche 
A lovely statue we almost adore. 

This sort of adoration of the real 

Is but a heightening of the " beau ideal." 



CCXII. 

'Tis the perception of the beautiful, 
A fine extension of the faculties, 



» See ante, p. 296. 

^ "You say that one-half is very pood: you are wrong; 
fo»", if it were, it would be the finest poem in existence. 
Where is the poetry of which one-half is good? Is it the 
.S"neid? is it Milton's? is it Dryden's? is it any one's except 
Pope's and Goldsmith's, of which all is good? and yet these 



Platonic, universal, wonderful, 

Drawn from the stars, and filter'd through the 
skies. 
Without which life would be extremely dull ; 

In short, it is the use of our own eyes. 
With one or two small senses added, just 
To hint that flesh is form'd of fiery dust. 



CCXIII. 

Yet 'tis a painful feeling, and unwilling, 
For surely if we ahvays could perceive 

In the same object graces quite as killing 
As when she rose upon us like an Eve, 

'Twould save us many a heartache, many a shil- 
ling 
(For we must get them anyhow, or grieve), 

Whereas if one sole lady pleased for ever. 

How pleasant for the heart, as well as liver! 



CCXIV. 

The heart is like the sky, a part of heaven, 
But changes night and day, too, like the sky ; 

Now o'er it clouds and thunder must be driven, 
And darkness and destruction as on high : 

But when it hath been scorch'd, and pierced, and 
riven. 
Its storms expire in water-drops ; the eye 

Pouif forth at last the heart's blood turn'd to tears, 

Which make the English climate of our years. 



CCXV. 
The liver is the lazaret of bile, 

But very rarely executes its function, 
For the first passion stays there such a while, 

That all the rest creep in and form a junction, 
Like knots of vipers on a dunghill's soil. 

Rage, fear, hate, jealousy, revenge, compunction, 
So that all mischiefs spring up from this entrail, 
Like earthquakes from the hidden fire call'd " central.' 



CCXVI. 

In the mean time, without proceeding more 

In this anatomy, I've finish'd now 
Two hundred and odd stanzas as before. 

That being about the number I'll allow 
Each canto of the twelve, or twenty-four ; 

And, laying down my pen, I make my bow, 
Leaving Don Juan and Haidee to plead 
For them and theirs with all who deign to read.^ 



two last are the poets your pond poets would explode. But 
if one-half of these two cantos be good in your opinion, what 
the devil would you have more? No — no; no poetry is 
generally good — only by fits and starts — and you are lucky \jo 
get a sparkle here and there. You might as well want a mid- 
night all stars, as rhyme all perfect."— ixwd B. to Mr. Murray. 



lii 



756 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto III. 



Bon SJtian. 



CANTO THE THIRD.* 



I. 

Hail, Muse ! et cetera. — We left Juan sleeping, 
Pillow'd upon a fair and happy breast. 

And watch'd by eyes that never yet knew weeping, 
And loved by a young heart, too deeply blest 

To feel the poison through her spirit creeping. 
Or know who rested there, a foe to rest, 

Had soil'd the current of her sinless years, 

And turn'd her pure heart's purest blood to tears I 

II. 

Oh, Love ! what is it in this world of ours 
Which makes it fatal to be loved ? Ah, why 

With cypress branches hast thou wreathed thy bowers, 
And made thy best interpreter a sigh ? 

As those who dote on odors pluck the flowers. 
And place them on their breast — but place to die — 

Thus the frail beings we would fondly cherish 

Are laid within our bosoms but to perish.^ 

III. 
In her first passion woman loves her lover, 

In all the others all she loves is love, • 

Which grows a habit she can ne'er get over, 

And fits her loosely — like an easy glove. 
As you may find, whene'er you like to prove her : 

One man alone at first her heart can move ; 
She then prefers him in the plural number, 
Not finding that the additions much encumber. 

IV. 

I know not if the fault be men's or theirs ; 

But one thing's pretty sure : a woman planted 
(Unless at once she plunge for life in prayers) — 

After a decent time must be gallanted ; 
Although, no doubt, her first of love affairs 

Is that to which her heart is wholly granted ; 
Yet there are some, they say, who have had none. 
But those who have ne'er end with only one? 



I Lord Byron began to compose canto iii. in October, 1819 ; 
but the outcry raised by the publication of cantos i. and ii. 
annoyed him so much, that he for a time laid the work aside, 
and afterwards proceeded in it only by fits and starts. Mr. 
Moore, who visited him while canto iii. was in progress, says — 
"So sensitive, indeed,— in addition to his usual abundance 
of this quality,— did he, at length, grow on the subject, that 
when Mr. W. Bankes, who succeeded me as his visitor, hap- 
pened to tell him, one day, that he had heard a Mr. Saunders 
(or some such name), then resident at Venice, declare that, 
in his opinion, ' Don Juan was all Grub street,' such an effect 
had this disparaging speech upon his mind (though coming 
from a person who, as he himself would have it, was ' nothing 
but a d — d salt-fish seller '), that, for some time after, by his 
own confession to Mr, Bankes, he could not bring himself to 



V. 
'Tis melancholy, and a fearful sign 

Of human frailty, folly, also crime. 
That love and marriage rarely can combine, 

Although they are both born in the same clime , 
Marriage from love, like vinegar from wine — 

A sad, sour, sober beverage— by time 
Is sharpen'd from its high celestial flavor 
Down to a very homely household savor. 

VI. 

There's something of antipathy, as 'twere, 
Between their present and their future state ; 

A kind of flattery that's hardly fair 

Is used until the truth arrives too late — 

Yet what can people do, except despair ? 
The same things change their names at such a 
rate ; 

For instance — passion in a lover's glorious, 

But in a husband is pronounced uxorious. 

VII. 
Men grow ashamed of being so very fond ; 

They sometimes also get a little tired 
(But that, of course, is rare), and then despond ; 

The same things cannot always be admired. 
Yet 'tis " so nominated in the bond," 

That both are tied till one shall have expired. 
Sad thought ! to lose the spouse that was adorning 
Our days, and put one's servants into mourning. 

VIII. 

There's doubtless something in domestic doings 
Which forms, in fact, true love's antithesis ; 

Romances paint at full length people's wooings, 
But only give a bust of marriages ; 

For no one cares for matrimonial cooings. 
There's nothing wrong in a connubial kiss : 

Think you, if Liiura had been Petrarch's wife, 

He would have written sonnets all his life ? * 

IX. 

All tragedies are finish'd by a death. 
All comedies are ended by a marriage ; 

The future states of both are left to faith. 
For authors fear description might disparage 



write another line of the poem ; and one morning, opening a 
drawer where the neglected manuscript lay, be said to his 
friend, ' Look here— this is all Mr. Saunders's Grub street.' " 
Cantos iii., iv., and v. were published together in August, 
1821,— still without the name either of author or bookseller. 

2 " This, we must allow, is pretty enough, and not at all 
objectionable in a moral point of view. We fear, however, 
that we cannot say as much for what follows : marrying is no 
joke, and therefore not a fit subject to joke about ; besides, 
for a married man to be merry on that score, is very like 
trying to overcome the toothache by a laugh." — Hogg. 

3 These two lines are a versification of a saying of Mon- 
taigne. 

* " Had Petrarch's passion led to Petrarch's wedding, 
How many sonnets had ensued the bedding?"— MS. 



Canto III. 



DON JUAN. 



767 



The worlds to come of both, or fall beneath, 
And then both worlds would punish their miscar- 
riage ; 
So leaving each their priest and prayer-book ready. 
They say no more of Death or of the Lady.^ 

X. 

The only two that in my recollection 

Have sung of heaven and hell, or marriage, are 

Pante^ and Milton," and of both the affection 
Was hapless in their nuptials, for some bar 

Of fault or temper ruin'd the connection 
(Such things, in fact, it don't ask much to mar) ; 

But Dante's Beatrice and Milton's Eve 

Were not drawn from their spouses, you conceive.* 

XL 
Some persons say that Dante meant theology 

By Beatrice, and not a mistress — I, 
Although my opinion may require apology, 

Deem this a commentator's fantasy, 
Unless indeed it was from his own knowledge he 

Decided thus, and show'd good reason why ; 
I think that Dante's more abstruse ecstatics 
Meant to personify the mathematics.^ 

XII. 

Haidee and Juan were not married, but 
The fault was theirs, not mine : it is not fair, 

Chaste reader, then, in any way to put 

The blame on me, unless you wish they were ; 

Then if you'd have them wedded, please to shut 
The book which treats of this erroneous pair, 

Before the consequences grow too awful ; 

'Tis dangerous to read of loves unlawful. 

XIII. 
Yet they were happy, — happy in the illicit 

Indulgence of their innocent desires; 
But more imprudent grown with every visit, 

Haidee forgot the island was her sire's ; 
When we have what we like 'tis hard to miss it, 

At least in the beginning, ere one tires ; 
Thus she came often, not a moment losing, 
Whilst her piratical papa was cruising. 

XIV. 
Let not his mode of raising cash seem strange, 

Although he fleeced the flags of every nation. 
For into a prime minister but change 

His title, and 'tis nothing but taxation ; 



1 The old ballad of " Death and the Lady" is alluded to in 
Shakspeare. 

* Dante calls his wife, in the Inferno, " la fiera moglie." 
See ante, p. 595. 

3 Milton's first wife ran away from him within the first 
month. If she had not, what would John Milton have 
done? 

* "From whatever causes it may have arisen, the coinci- 
dence is no less striking than saddening, that, on the list of 



But he, more modest, took an humbler range 

Of life, and in an honester vocation 
Pursued o'er the high seas his watery journey,* 
And merely practiced as a sea-attorney. 

XV. 

The good old gentleman had been detain'd 

By winds and waves, and some important captures ; 

And, in the hope of more, at sea remain'd. 

Although a squall or two had damp'd his raptures, 

By swamping one of the prizes ; he had chain'd 
His prisoners, dividing them like chapters 

In number'd lots ; they all had cuffs and collars, 

And averaged each from ten to a hundred dollars. 

XVL 
Some he disposed of off" Cape Matapan, 

Among his friends the Mainots; some he sold 
To his Tunis correspondents, save one man 

Toss'd overboard unsalable (being old) ; 
The rest — save here and there some richer one. 

Reserved for future ransom — in the hold. 
Were link'd alike, as for the common people he 
Had a large order from the Dey of Tripoli. 

XVII. 

The merchandise was served in the same way, 
Pieced out for different marts in the Levant, 

Except some certain portions of the prey, 
Light classic articles of female want, 

French stuffs, lace, tweezers, toothpicks, teapot, 
tray, 
Guitars and castanets from Alicant, 

All which selected from the spoil he gathers, 

Robb'd for his daughter by the best of fathers. 

XVIIL 
A monkey, a Dutch mastiff", a macaw. 

Two parrots, with a Persian cat and kittens, 
He chose from several animals he saw — 

A terrier, too, which once had been a Briton's, 
Who dying on the coast of Ithaca, 

The peasants gave the poor dumb thing a pittance. 
These to secure in this strong blowing weather. 
He caged in one huge hamper all together. 

XIX. 

Then having settled his marine affairs. 

Despatching single cruisers here and there, 

His vessel having need of some repairs. 
He shaped his course to where his daughter fair 



married poets, who have been unhappy in their homes, there 
should already be found four such illustrious names as Dante, 
Milton, Shakspeare, and Dryden; and that we should now 
have to add, as a partner in their destiny, a name worthy of 
being placed beside the greatest of them."— Moore. 

6 " Lady B. would have made an excellent wrangler at 
Cambridge."— ^j/row Diary. 

• " Display'd much more of nerve, perhaps of wit, 
Than any of the parodies of Pitt."— MS. 



T58 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Canto III. 



Continued still her hospitable cares ; 

But that part of the coast being shoal and bare, 
And rough with reefs which ran out many a mile, 
His port lay on the other side o' the isle. 

XX. 

And there he went ashore without delay, 
Having no custom-house nor quarantine 

To ask him awkward questions on the way, 
About the time and place where he had been : 

He left his ship to be hove down next day, 
With orders to the people to careen ; 

So that all hands were busy beyond measure, 

In getting out goods, ballast, guns, and treasure. 

XXI. 

Arriving at the summit of a hill 

Which overlook'd the white walls of his home, 
He stopp'd. — What singular emotions fill 

Their bosoms who have been induced to roam ! 
With fluttering doubts if all be well or ill — 

With love for many, and with fears for some ; 
All feelings which o'erleap the years long lost, 
And bring our hearts back to their starting-post. 

XXII. 

The approach of home to husbands and to sires, 
After long travelling by land or water. 

Most naturally some small doubt inspires — 
A female family's a serious matter ; 

(None trusts the sex more, or so much admires — 
But they hate flattery, so I never flatter;) 

Wives in their husbands' absences grow subtler. 

And daughters sometimes run off with the butler. 

XXIII. 

An honest gentleman at his return 
May not have the good fortune of Ulysses ; 

Not all lone matrons for their husbands mourn, 
Or show the same dislike to suitors' kisses ; 

The odds are that he finds a handsome urn 

To his memory — and two or three young misses 

Born to some friend, who holds his wife and riches- 

And that his Argus ^ bites him by — the breeches. 

XXIV. 

If single, probably his plighted fair 
Has in his absence wedded some rich miser ; 

But all the better, for the happy pair 
May quarrel, and the lady growing wiser, 

He may resume his amatory care 
As cavalier servente, or despise her ; 



1 "Thus near the gates, conferring as they drew, 
Argus, the dog, his ancient master knew ; 
He, not unconscious of the voice and tread, 
Lifts to the sound his ear, and rears his head. 
He knew his lord ; he knew, and strove to meet, 
In vain he strove, to crawl and kiss his feet ; 



And that his sorrow may not be a dumb one, 
Write odes on the Inconstancy of Woman. 

XXV. 

And oh ! ye gentlemen who have already 
Some chaiste liaison of the kind — I mean 

An honest friendship with a married lady — 
The only thing of this sort ever seen 

To last — of all connections the most steady, 
And the true Hymen (the first's but a screen) — 

Yet for all that keep not too long away ; 

I've known the absent wrong'd four times a day.^ 

XXVI. 

Lambro, our sea-solicitor, who had 
Much less experience of dry land than ocean, 

On seeing his own chimney-smoke, felt glad ; 
But not knowing metaphysics, had no notion 

Of the true reason of his not being sad. 
Or that of any other strong emotion ; 

He loved his child, and would have wept the loss of her. 

But knew the cause no more than a philosopher. 

XXVII. 

He saw his white walls shining in the sun. 
His garden trees all shadowy and green ; 

He heard his rivulet's light bubbling run. 
The distant dog-bark ; and perceived between 

The umbrage of the wood so cool and dun 
The moving figures, and the sparkling sheen 

Of arms (in the East all arm) — and various dyes 

Of color'd garbs, as bright as butterflies. 

XXVIII. 

And as the spot where they appear he nears. 
Surprised at these unwonted signs of idling, 

He hears — alas ! no music of the spheres, 

But an unhallow'd, earthly sound of fiddling ! 

A melody which made him doubt his ears. 
The cause being past his guessing or unriddling; 

A pipe, too, and a drum, and shortly after, 

A most unoriental roar of laughter. 

XXIX. 

And still more nearly to the place advancing. 
Descending rather quickly the declivity. 

Through the waved branches, o'er the greensward 
'Midst other indications of festivity, [glancing, 

Seeing a troop of his domestics dancing 
Like dervises, who turn as on a pivot, he 

Perceived it was the Pyrrhic dance ^ so martial, 

To which the Levantines are very partial. 



Yet (all he could) his tail, his ears, his eyes 
Salute his master, and confess his joys," &c. 

Pope, Odyssey, b. xvii. 
2 " Yet for all that don't stay away too long, 

A sofa, like a bed, may come by wrong." — MS. 
8 "This dance is still performed by young men armed 
cap-2-pie, who execute, to the sound of instruments, all the 
proper movements of attack and defence."— Dk. E. Clarke. 



Canto III. 



DON JUAN. 



759 



XXX. 

And further on a troop of Grecian girls,* 
The first and tallest her white kerchief waving, 

Were strung together like a row of pearls, 
Link'd hand in hand, and dancing ; each too having 

Down her white neck long floating auburn curls — 
(The least of which would set ten poets raving) ;2 

Their leader sang — and bounded to her song, 

With choral step and voice, the virgin throng. 

XXXI. ^ 

And here, assembled cross-legg'd round their trays. 

Small social parties just begun to dine; 
Pilaus and meats of all sorts met the gaze, 

And flasks of Samian and of Chian wine, 
And sherbet cooling in the porous vase ; 

Above them their dessert grew on its vine ; 
The orange and pomegranate nodding o'er, 
Dropp'd in their laps, scarce pluck'd, their mellow 
store. 

XXXII. 
A band of children, round a snow-white ram, 

There wreathe his venerable horns with flowers ; 
While peaceful as if still an unwean'd lamb. 

The patriarch of the flock all gently cowers 
His sober head, majestically tame. 

Or eats from out the palm, or playful lowers 
His brow, as if in act to butt, and then 
Yielding to their small hands, draws back again. 

XXXIII. 
Their classical profiles, and glittering dresses. 

Their large black eyes, and soft seraphic cheeks. 
Crimson as cleft pomegranates, their long tresses. 

The gesture which enchants, the eye that speaks. 
The innocence which happy childhood blesses, 

Made quite a picture of these little Greeks ; 
So that the philosophical beholder 
Sigh'd for their sakes — that they should e'er grow 
older. 

XXXIV. 
Afar, a dwarf buffoon stood telling tales 

To a sedate gray circle of old smokers. 
Of secret treasures found in hidden vales, 

Of wonderful replies from Arab jokers, 
Of charms to make good gold and cure bad ails. 

Of rocks bewitch'd that open to the knockers. 
Of magic ladies who, by one sole act, 
Transform'd their lords to beasts (but that's a fact). 

1 "Their manner of dancing is certainly the same that 
Diana is sung to have danced on the banks of Eurotas. The 
great lady still loads the dance, and is followed by a troop- of 
young girls, who imitate her steps, and if she sings, make up 
the chorus. The tunes are extremely gay and lively, yet 
with something in them wonderfully soft. The steps are 
varied according to the pleasure of her that leads the dance, 
but always in exact time, and infinitely more agreeable than 
any of our dances."— Lady M. W. Montagu. 

« "That would have set Tom Moore, though married, 
raving."— MS. 

' "The piratical father of Haid6e having remained long at 



XXXV. 

Here was no lack of innocent diversion 

For the imagination or the senses, 
Song, dance, wine, music, stories from the Persian, 

All pretty pastimes in which no ofience is ; 
But Lambro saw all these things with aversion, 

Perceiving in his absence such expenses. 
Dreading that climax of all human ills, 
The inflammation of his weekly bills.^ 

XXXVI. 

Ah ! what is man ? what perils still environ 
The happiest mortals even after dinner ! 

A day of gold from out an age of iron 
Is all that life allows the luckiest sinner ; 

Pleasure (whene'er she sings, at lea,st) 's a siren. 
That lures, to flay alive, the young beginner ; 

Lambro's reception at his people's banquet 

Was such as fire accords to a wet blanket. 

XXXVII. 

He — being a man who seldom used a word 
Too much, and wishing gladly to surprise 

(In general he surprised men with the sword) 
His daughter — had not sent before to advise 

Of his arrival, so that no one stirr'd ; 
And long he paused to reassure his eyes. 

In fact much more astonish'd than delighted, 

To find so much good company invited. 

XXXVIII. 

He did not know (alas ! how men will lie) 

That a report (especially the Greeks) 
Avouch'd his death (such people never die). 

And put his house in mourning several weeks, — 
But now their eyes and also lips were dry ; 

The bloom, too, had return'd to Haidee's cheeks. 
Her tears, too, being return'd into their fount, 
She now kept house upon her own account. 

XXXIX. 

Hence all this rice, meat, dancing, wine, and fiddling, 
Which turn'd the isle into a place of pleasure ; 

The servants all were getting drunk or idling, 
A life which made them happy beyond measure. 

Her father's hospitality seem'd middling. 
Compared with what Haidee did with his treasure ; 

'Twas wonderful how things went on improving. 

While she had not one hour to spare from loving.* 

sea, it was supposed he had perished, and she, in consequence, 

took possession of all his treasures, and surrendered herself 
to the full enjoyment of her lover. The old gentleman, how- 
ever, returns, and, landing on a distant part of the i-sland, 
walks leisurely towards his home, while Juan and his daugh- 
ter are giving a public breakfa.st to their friends and acquaint- 
ances. The description of the f6te is executed with equal 
felicity and spirit ; we think it would be difficult to match 
the life and gayety of the picture by anything of the kind in 
Engli.sh — perhaps in any other poetry." — Bt.ackwood. 
* " All had been open heart, and open house, 
Ever since Juan served her for a spouse." — MS. 



760 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto III. 



XL. 

Perhaps you think, in stumbling on this feast, 
He flew into a passion, and in fact 

There was no mighty reason to be pleased ; 
Perhaps you prophesy some sudden act, 

The whip, the rack, or dungeon at the least, 
To teach his people to be more exact. 

And that, proceeding at a very high rate, 

He show'd the royal penchants of a pirate. 



■ XLI. 

You're wrong. — He was the 



mildest manner'd 



That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat ; 
With such true breeding of a gentleman. 

You never could divine his real thought ; 
No courtier could, and scarcely woman can 

Gird more deceit within a petticoat ; 
Pity he loved adventurous life's variety. 
He was so great a loss to good society .^ 

XLII. • 

Advancing to the nearest dinner tray. 

Tapping the shoulder of the nighest guest. 

With a peculiar smile, which, by the way. 
Boded no good, whatever it express'd, 

He ask'd the meaning of this holiday ; 
The vinous Greek to whom he had address'd 

His question, much too merry to divine 

The questioner, fiU'd up a glass of wine, 

XLIII. 

And without turning his facetious head, 
Over his shoulder, with a Bacchant air, 

Presented the o'erflowing cup, and said, 

" Talking's dry work, I have no time to spare." 

A second hiccup'd, " Our old master's dead. 
You'd better ask our mistress, who's his heir." 

" Our mistress !" quoth a third : " Our mistress !- 
pooh ! — 

You mean our master — not the old, but new." 

XLIV. 

These rascals, being new comers, knew not whom 
They thus address'd — and Lambro's visage fell — 

And o'er his eye a momentary gloom 
Pass'd, but he strove quite courteously to quell 

The expression, and endeavoring to resume 
His smile, requested one of them to tell 

The name and quality of his new patron, 

Who seem'd to have turn'd Haidee into a matron. 



J " The portrait of this man is one of the best, if not the 
very best, of all Lord Byron's gloomy portraits. It may be 
the Corsair grown into an elderly character and a father; 
but it is equal to the finest heads that ever Michael Angelo 
or Caravaggio painted with black and umber."— Blackwood. 
2 " Rispone allor' Margutte, a dir tel tosto, 
lo non credo piu al nero ch' all' azzurro ; 
Ma nel cappone, o lesso, o vuogli arrosto, 
E credo alcuna volta anco nel burro : 



XLV. 

" I know not," quoth the fellow, " who or what 
He is, nor whence he came — and little care ; 

But this I know, that this roast capon's fat, 
And that good wine ne'er wash'd down better 
fare; 

And if you are not satisfied with that. 
Direct your questions to my neighbor there ; 

He'll answer all for better or for worse. 

For none likes more to hear himself converse." * 

XLVI. 

I said that Lambro was a man of patience. 
And certainly he show'd the best of breeding. 

Which scarce even France, the paragon of nations, 
E'er saw her most polite of sons exceeding ; 

He bore these sneers against his near relations, 
His own anxiety, his heart, too, bleeding. 

The insults, too, of every servile glutton, 

Who all the time was eating up his mutton. 

XLVII. 

Now in a person used to much command — 
To bid men come, and go, and come again — 

To see his orders done, too, out of hand — 
Whether the word was death, or but the 
chain — 

It may seem strange to find his manners bland ; 
Yet such things are, which I cannot explain. 

Though doubtless he who can command himself 

Is good to govern — almost as a Guelf. 

XLVIII. 

Not that he was not sometimes rash or so, 
But never in his real and serious mood ; 

Then calm, concentrated, and still, and slow. 
He lay coil'd like the boa in the wood ; 

With him it never was a word and blow. 
His angry word once o'er, he shed no blood, 

But in his silence there was much to rue. 

And his one blow left little work for two. 

XLIX. 

He ask'd no further questions, and proceeded 
On to the house, but by a private way ,3 

So that the few who met him hardly heeded, 
So little they expected him that day ; 

If love paternal in his bosom pleaded 
For Haidee's sake, is more than I can say. 

But certainly to one deem'd dead returning. 

This revel seem'd a curious mode of mourning. 



Nella cervigia, e quando io n' ho nel mosto, 
E molto piu nell' espro che il mangurro ; 
Ma sopra tutto nel buon vino o fede, 
E credo che sia salvo chi gli crede." 

PuLCi: Mor garde Maggiore, ca. xviii. st. 151. 
8 "The account of Lambro proceeding to the house is 
poetically imagined ; and, in his character may be traced a 
vivid likeness of Ali Pacha, and happy illustrative allusions 
to the adventures of that chief."— Galt. 



Canto III. 



DON JUAN. 



761 



L. 

If all the dead could now return to life 
(Which God forbid !), or some, or a great many, 

For instance, if a husband or his wife 
(Nuptial examples are as good as any), 

No doubt, whate'er might be their former strife, 
The present weather would be much more rainy — 

Tears shed into the grave of the connection 

Would share most probably its resurrection. 

LI. 

He enter'd in the house no more his home, 
A thing to human feelings the most trying, 

And harder for the heart to overcome. 

Perhaps, than even the mental pangs of dying; 

To find our hearthstone turn'd into a tomb. 

And round its once warm precincts palely lying 

The ashes of our hopes, is a deep grief, 

Beyond a single gentleman's belief. 

LII. 
He enter'd in the house — his home no more, 

For without hearts there is no home ; — and felt 
The solitude of passing his own door 

Without a welcome : there he long had dwelt, 
There his few peaceful days Time had swept o'er. 

There his worn bosom and keen eye would melt 
Over the innocence of that sweet child, 
His only shrine of feelings undefiled. 

LIII. 
He was a man of a strange temperament. 

Of mild demeanor though of savage mood, 
Moderate in all his habits, and content 

With temperance in pleasure, as in food, 
Quick to perceive, and strong to bear, and meant 

For something better, if not wholly good ; 
His country's wrongs and his despair to save her 
Had stung him from a slave to an enslaver. 

LIV. 
The love of power, and rapid gain of gold. 

The hardness by long habitude produced. 
The dangerous life in which he had grown old, 

The mercy he had granted oft abused. 
The sights he was accustom'd to behold. 

The wild seas, and wild men with whom he cruised. 
Had cost his enemies a long repentance, 
And made him a good friend, but bad acquaintance. 

LV. 

But something of the spirit of old Greece 
Flash'd o'er his soul a few heroic rays, 

Such as lit onward to the Golden Fleece 
His predecessors in the Colchian days ; 

1 "And make him Samson-like— more fierce with blind- 
ness."— MS. 

" " Not so the single, deep, and wonlless ire 
Of a strong human heart," Ac- MS. 

" I said, I disliked the custom which some people had of 



'Tis true he had no ardent love for peace — 

Alas ! his country show'd no path to praise : 
Hate to the world and war with every nation 
He waged, in vengeance of her degradation. 

LVI. 

Still o'er his mind the influence of the clime 
Shed its Ionian elegance, which show'd 

Its power unconsciously full many a time, — 
A taste seen in the choice of his abode, 

A love of music and of scenes sublime, 
A pleasure in the gentle stream that flow'd 

Past him in crystal, and a joy in flowers, 

Bedew'd his spirit in his calmer hours. 

LVII. 

But whatsoe'er he had of love reposed 
On that beloved daughter ; she had been 

The only thing which kept his heart unclosed 
Amidst the savage deeds he had done and seen, 

A lonely pure afiection unopposed : 

There wanted but the loss of this to wean 

His feelings from all milk of human kindness. 

And turn him like the Cyclops i mad with blindness. 

LVIII. 

The cubless tigress in her jungle raging 
Is dreadful to the shepherd and the flock ; 

The ocean when its yeasty war is waging 
Is awful to the vessel near the rock ; 

But violent things will sooner bear assuaging, 
Their fury being spent by its own shock, 

Than the stern, single, deep, and wordless ire* 

Of a strong human heart, and in a sire. 

LIX. 
It is a hard although a common case 

To find our children running restive — they 
In whom our brightest days we would retrace, 

Our little selves re-form'd in finer clay, 
Just as old age is creeping on apace. 

And clouds come o'er the sunset of our day, 
They kindly leave us, though not quite alone, 
But in good company — the gout or stone. 

LX. 

Yet a fine family is a fine thing 

(Provided they don't come in after dinner) ;' 
'Tis beautiful to see a matron bring 

Her children up (if nursing them don't thin her); 
Like cherubs round an altar-piece they cling 

To the fireside (a sight to touch a sinner). 
A lady with her daughters or her nieces 
Shine like a guinea and seven-shilling pieces. 

bringing their children into company, because it in a manner 
forced us to pay foolish compliments to please their parents." 
— Johnson. " You are right, sir ; we may be excused for not 
caring much about other people's children, for there are 
many who care very little about their own."— Boswell, vol. 
vi. p. 47, ed. 1835. 



762 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto III. 



LXI. 

Old Lambro pass'd unseen a private gate, 
And stood within his hall at eventide ; 

Meantime the lady and her lover sate 
At wassail in their beauty and their pride . 

An ivory inlaid table spread with state 
Before them, and fair slaves on every side ; ^ 

Gems, gold, and silver, form'd the service mostly, 

Mother of pearl and coral the less costly.^ 

LXII. 

The dinner made about a hundred dishes ; 

Lamb and pistachio nuts — in short, all meats. 
And saffron soups, and sweetbreads ; and the fishes 

Were of the finest that e'er flounced in nets, 
Drest to a Sybarite's most pamper'd wishes ; 

The beverage was various sherbets 
Of raisin, orange, and pomegranate juice. 
Squeezed through the rind, which makes it best for 



LXIII. 

These were ranged round, each in its crystal ewer, 
And fruits, and date-bread loc-ves closed the repast, 

And Mocha's berry, from Arabia pure, 
In small fine china cups, came in at last ; 

Gold cups of filigree made to secure 

The hand from burning underneath them placed, 

Cloves, cinnamon, and saffron too were boil'd 

Up with the coffee, which (I think) they spoil'd.* 

LXIV. 

The hangings of the room were tapestry, made 
Of velvet panels, each of different hue. 

And thick with damask flowers of silk inlaid ; 
And round them ran a yellow border too ; 

The upper border, richly wrought, display'd, 
Embroider'd delicately o'er with blue. 

Soft Persian sentences, in lilac letters, 

From poets, or the moralists their betters.^ 

LXV. 

These Oriental writings on the wall. 
Quite common in those countries, are a kind 

Of monitors adapted to recall, 
Like skulls at Memphian banquets, to the mind 



^ " Almost all Don Juan is real life, either my own, or from 
people I knew. By the way, much of the description of the 
furniture, in canto third, is taken from Tulhfs Tripoli (pray 
note this), and the rest from my own observation. Remember, 
I never meant to conceal this at all, and have only not stated 
it, because Don Juan had no preface, nor name to it." — Lord 
Byron to Mr. Murray, Aug. 23, 1821. 

2 "A small table is brought in, when refreshments are 
served ; it is of ebony, inlaid with mother-o'-pearl, tortoise- 
shell, ivory, gold, and silver."— Tully's Tripoli, 4to, 1816, 
p. 133. 

3 "The beverage was various sherbets, composed of the 
juice of boiled raisins, oranges, and pomegranates, squeezed 
through the rind." — Ibid. p. 137. 

* "Coffee was served in small china cups; gold filigree 



The words which shook Belshazzar in his hall. 

And took his kingdom from him : You will find, 
Though sages may pour out their wisdom's treasure, 
There is no sterner moralist than Pleasure. 

LXVI. 

A beauty at the season's close grown hectic, 
A genius who has drunk himself to death, 

A rake turn'd methodistic, or Eclectic ^ — 

(For that's the name they like to pray beneath 

But most, an alderman struck apoplectic. 
Are things that really take away the breath, — 

And show that late hours, wine, and love are able 

To do not much less damage than the table. 

LXVII. 
Haidee and Juan carpeted their feet 

On crimson satin, border'd with pale blue ; 
Their sofa occupied three parts complete 

Of the apartment — and appear'd quite new ; 
The velvet cushions (for a throne more meet) 

Were scarlet, from whose glowing centre grew 
A sun emboss'd in gold,^ whose rays of tissue. 
Meridian-like, were seen all light to issue.^ 

LXVIII. 

Crystal and marble, plate and porcelain. 
Had done their work of splendor ; Indian mats 

And Persian carpets, which the heart bled to 
stain, 
Over the floors were spread ; gazelles and cats. 

And dwarfs and blacks, and such light things, that 
gain 
Their bread as ministers and favorites — (that's 

To say, by degradation) — mingled there 

As plentiful as in a court, or fair. 

LXIX. 

There was no want of lofty mirrors, and 

The tables, most of ebony inlaid 
With mother of pearl or ivory, stood at hand. 

Or were of tortoise-shell or rare woods made. 
Fretted with gold or silver ; — by command. 

The greater part of these were ready spread 
With viands and sherbets in ice — and wine — 
Kept for all comers at all hours to dine. 



cups were put under them. They introduced cloves, cinna- 
mon, and saffron into the coffee." — Ibid. p. 132. 

5 "The hangings of the room were of tapestry, made in 
panels of different colored velvets, thickly inlaid with flowers 
of silk damask ; a yellow border finished the tapestry at 
top and bottom, the upper border being embroidered with 
Moorish sentences out of the Koran in lilac letters." — Ibid. 
p. 133. 

6 See the Eclectic Eeview among the "Testimonies of 
Authors," ante, p. 695. 

"< " For that's the name they like to cant beneath." — ^MS. 

8 " The carpet was of crimson satin with a deep border of 
pale blue. The cushions that lay around were of crimson 
velvet ; the centre ones were embroidered with a sun in gold." 

8 "The upholsterer's 'flat lux' had bade to issue." — MS. 



Canto III. 



DON JUAN. 



763 



LXX. 

Of all the dresses I select Haid^e's : 
She wore two jelicks — one was of pale yellow ; 

Of azure, pink, and white was her chemise — * 
'Neath which her breast heaved like a little billow ; 

With buttons form'd of pearls as large as peas, 
All gold and crimson shone her jelick's fellow, 

And the striped white gauze baracan that bound her, 

Like fleecy clouds about the moon, flow'd round her.i 

LXXI. 

One large gold bracelet clasp'd each lovely arm, 
Lockless — so pliable from the pure gold 

That the hand stretch'd and shut it without harm, 
The limb which it adorn'd its only mould; 

So beautiful — its very shape would charm, 
And clinging as if loth to lose its hold, 

The purest ore enclosed the whitest skin 

That e'er by precious metal was held in,^ 

LXXII. 
Around, as princess of her father's land, 

A like gold bar above her instep roll'd^ 
Announced her rank ; twelve rings were on her hand ; 

Her hair was starr'd with gems ; her veil's fine fold 
Below her breast was fasten'd with a band 

Of lavish pearls, whose worth could scarce be told ; 
Her orange silk full Turkish trousers furl'd 
About the prettiest ankle in the world. 

LXXIII. 
Her hair's long auburn waves down to her heel 

Flow'd like an Alpine torrent which the sun 
Dyes with his morning light, — and would conceal 

Her person* if allow'd at large to run. 
And still they seem'd resentfully to feel 

The silken fillet's curb, and sought to shun 
Their bonds whene'er some Zephyr caught began 
To oflfer his young pinion as her fan. 

LXXIV. 

Round her she made an atmosphere of life. 
The very air seem'd lighter from her eyes, 

They were so soft and beautiful, and rife 
With all we can imagine of the skies. 



1 " Her chemise was covered with gold embroidery at the 
neck ; over it she wore a gold and silver tissue jclick, with 
coral and pearl buttons, set quite close together down the 
!Vi)nt. The baracan she wore over her dress was of the finest 
rimson transparent gauzes, between rich silk stripes of the 
■<ame color."— TuLLY, p. 31. 

• This dre.ss is Moori.sh, and the bracelets and bar are worn 
lu the manner described. The reader will perceive hereafter, 
that as the mother of Haidfie was of Fez, her daughter wore 
the garb of the country. 

' The bar of gold above the instep is a mark of sovereign 
ink in the women of the families of the deys, and is worn as 
Buch by their female relatives. 

♦ This is no exaggeration ; there were four women whom 
I remember to have seen, who possessed their hair in this 
profusion ; of these, three were English, the other was a Le- 



And pure as Psyche ere she grew a wife — 

Too pure even for the purest human ties ; 
Her overpowering presence made you feel 
It would not be idolatry to kneel.^ 

LXXV. 

Her eyelashes, though dark as night, were tinged 
(It is the country's custom 6), but in vain ; 

For those large black eyes were so blackly fringed, 
The glossy rebels mock'd the jetty stain, 

And in their native beauty stood avenged : 

Her nails were touch'd with henna ; but again 

The power of art was turn'd to nothing, for 

They could not look more rosy than before. 

LXXVI. 

The henna should be deeply dyed to make 
The skin relieved appear more fairly fair ; 

She had no need of this, day ne'er will break 
On mountain tops more heavenly white than 
her: 

The eye might doubt if it were well awake. 
She was so like a vision ; I might err, 

But Shakspeare also says, 'tis very silly 

" To gild refined gold, or paint the lily." 

LXXVII. 

Juan had on a shawl of black and gold. 
But a white baracan, and so transparent 

The sparkling gems beneath you might behold, 
Like small stars through the milky way apparent ; 

His turban, furl'd in many a graceful fold, 
An emerald aigrette with Haidee's hair in't 

Surmounted, as its clasp, a glowing crescent, 

Whose rays shone ever trembling, but incessant. 

LXXVIII. 

And now they were diverted by their suite. 

Dwarfs, dancing girls, black eunuchs, and a poet. 

Which made their new establishment complete ; 
The last was of great fame, and liked to show it ; 

His verses rarely wanted their due feet — 
And for his theme — he seldom sung below it. 

He being paid to satirize or flatter. 

As the psalm says, *' inditing a good matter." 



vantine. Their hair was of that length and quantity, that, 
when let down, it almost entirely shaded the person, so as 
nearly to render dress a superfluity. Of these, only one had 
dark hair ; the Oriental's had, perhaps, the lightest color of 
the four. 

6 " But Psyche owns no lord — 

She walks a goddess from above ; 
All saw, all praised her, all adored, 
But no one ever dared to love." — Cupid and Psyche, from 
Apuleius, by Mr. Hudson Gurney, 1803. 

« " It was, and still is, the custom to tinge the eyes of the 
women with an impalpable powder, prepared chiefly from 
crude antimony. This pigment, when applied to the inner 
surface of the lids, communicates to the eye a tender and 
fascinating languor."-*-HABESci. 



764 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto III. 



LXXIX. 

He praised the present, and abused the past, 
Reversing the good custom of old days, 

An Eastern anti-jacobin at last 

He turn'd, preferring pudding to no praise — 

For some few years his lot had been o'ercast 
By his seeming independent in his lays. 

But now he sung the Sultan and the Pacha 

With truth like Southey, and with verse like Crashaw.i 

LXXX. 

He was a man who had seen many changes, 
And always changed as true as any needle ; 

His polar star being one which rather ranges. 
And not the fix'd — he knew the way to wheedle : 

So vile he 'scaped the doom which oft avenges ; 
And being fluent (save indeed when fee'd ill), 

He lied with such a fervor of intention — 

There was no doubt he earn'd his laureate pension. 

LXXXI. 

But he had genius, — when a turncoat has it, 

The " Vates irritabilis" takes care 
That without notice few full moons shall pass it ; 

Even good men like to make the public stare : — 
But to my subject — let me see — what was it? — 

Oh ! — the third canto — and the pretty pair — 
Their loves, and feasts, and house, and dress, and 

mode 
Of living in their insular abode. 

LXXXII. 

Their poet, a sad trimmer, but no less 

In company a very pleasant fellow. 
Had been the favorite of full many a mess 

Of men, and made them speeches when half 
mellow ; 
And though his meaning they could rarely guess, 

Yet still they deign' d to hiccup or to bellow 
The glorious meed of popular applause, 
Of which the first ne'er knows the second cause. 

LXXXIII. 

But now being lifted into high society. 

And having pick'd up several odds and ends 

Of free thoughts in his travels for variety. 

He deem'd, being in a lone isle, among friends, 

That without any danger of a riot, he 

Might for long lying make himself amends ; 

And singing as he sung in his warm youth. 

Agree to a short armistice with truth. 



1 "Believed like Southey— and perused like Crashaw." — 
MS. — "Crashaw, the friend of Cowley, was honored," says 
"Warton, " with the praise of Pope ; who both read his poems 
and borrowed from them. Being ejected from his fellowship 
at Peterhouse for denying the covenant, he turned Roman 
Catholic," and died canon of the church at Loretto." The 
following are from Cowley's lines on his death :— 

" Angels (they say) brought the famed chapel there ; 

And bore the sacred load in triumph through the air : — 



LXXXIV. 

He had travell'd 'mongst the Arabs, Turks, and Franks, 
And knew the self-loves of the different nations ; 

And having lived with people of all ranks. 
Had something ready upon most occasions — 

Which got him a few presents and some thanks. 
He varied with some skill his adulations ; 

To " do at Rome as Romans do," a piece 

Of conduct was which he observed in Greece. 

LXXXV. 

Thus, usually, when he was asked to sing. 
He gave the different nations something national ; 

'Twas all the same to him — " God save the king," 
Or " Qa ira," according to the fashion all : 

His muse made increment of anything, 
From the high lyric down to the low rational ; 

If Pindar sang horse-races, what should hinder 

Himself from being as pliable as Pindar ? 

LXXXVI. 

In France, for instance, he would write a chanson ; 

In England a six-canto quarto tale ; 
In Spain he'd make a ballad or romance on 

The last war — much the same in Portugal ; 
In Germany, the Pegasus he'd prance on 

Would be old Goethe's — (see what says De Stael) ; 
In Italy he'd ape the " Trecentisti ;" ^ 
In Greece he'd sing some sort of hymn like this t' ye : 

1. 

The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece ! 

Where burning Sappho loved and sung, 
Where grew the arts of war and peace. 

Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung ! 
Eternal summer gilds them yet, 
But all, except their sun, is set. 



The Scian^ and the Teian muse,* 

The hero's harp, the lover's lute. 
Have found the fame your shores refuse : 

Their place of birth alone is mute 
To sounds which echo further west 
Than your sires' " Islands of the Blest."* 

3. 
The mountains look on Marathon* — 

And Marathon looks on the sea ; 
And musing there an hour alone, 

I dream'd that Greece might still be free ; 

'Tis surer much they brought thee there ; and they, 
And thou, their charge, went singing all the way." 

2 The poets of the fourteenth century— Dante, &c. 

3 Homer. * Anacreon. 

6 The vijo-oi naKapoiv of the Greek poets were supposed to 
have been the Cape de Verd Islands or the Canaries. 
« " Euboea looks on Marathon, 

And Marathon looks on the sea," &c. — MS. 



Cawto III. 



DON JUAN. 



765 



For standing on the Persians' grave, 
I could not deem myself a slave. 



A king sate on the rocky brow 
Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis ; 

And ships, by thousands, lay below, 
And men in nations ; — all were his ! 

He counted them at break of day — 

And when the sun set where were they?* 

5. 
And where are they ? and where art thou, 

My country ? On thy voiceless shore 
The heroic lay is tuneless now — 

The heroic bosom beats no more ! 
And must thy lyre, so long divine. 
Degenerate into hands like mine ? 

6. 
'Tis something, in the dearth of fame, 

Though link'd among a fetter'd race, 
To feel at least a patriot's shame. 

Even as I sing, suflFuse my face ; 
For what is left the poet here ? 
For Greeks a blush — for Greece a tear. 

7. 
Must we but weep o'er days more blest ? 

Must we but blush ? — Our fathers bled. 
Earth ! render back from out thy breast 

A remnant of our Spartan dead ! 
Of the three hundred grant but three. 
To make a new Thermopylae ! 

8. 
What, silent still ? and silent all ? 

Ah ! no ; — the voices of the dead 
Sound like a distant torrent's fall, 

And answer, " Let one living head. 
But one arise, — we come, we come !" 
'Tis but the living who are dumb. 

9. 
In vain— in vain : strike other chords ; 

Fill high the cup with Samiau wine ! 
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes, 

And shed the blood of Scio's vine ! 
Hark ! rising to the ignoble call — 
How answers each bold Bacchanal ! 

10. 
You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet, 
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone? 



* " Deep were the groans of Xerxes, when he saw 
This havoc ; for his seat, a lofty mound 
Commanding the wide sea, o'erlook'd the hosts. 
With rueful cries he rent his royal robes, 

And through his troops embattled on the shore 
Gave sidnal of retreat; then started wild 
And fled disorder'd."— iEscHYLUS. 

* " Which Hercules might deem his own."— MS. 



Of two such lessons, why forget 

The nobler and the manlier one? 
You have the letters Cadmus gave — 
Think ye he meant them for a slave ? 

11. 
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine ! 

We will not think of themes like these I 
It made Anacreon's song divine : 

He served — but served Polycrates — 
A tyrant ; but our masters then 
Were still, at least, our countrymen. 

12. 

The tyrant of the Chersonese 

Was freedom's best and bravest friend ; 
That tyrant was Miltiades ! 

Oh ! that the present hour would lend 
Another despot of the kind ! 
Such chains as his were sure to bind. 

13. 
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine ! 

On Suli's rock, and Parga's shore. 
Exists the remnant of a line 

Such as the Doric mothers bore ; 
And there, perhaps, some seed is sown, 
The Heracleidan blood might own.2 

14. 
Trust not for freedom to the Franks — 

They have a king who buys and sells ; 
In native swords, and native ranks. 

The only hope of courage dwells ; 
But Turkish force, and Latin fraud. 
Would break your shield, however broad. 

15. 
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine ! 

Our virgins dance beneath the shade — 
I see their glorious black eyes shine ; 

But gazing on each glowing maid. 
My own the burning tear-drop laves. 
To think such breasts must suckle slaves. 

16. 
Place me on Sunium's marbled steep, 

Where nothing, save the waves and I, 
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep ; 

There, swan-like, let me sing and die :' 
A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine — 
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine ! * 



' ..." Tevotfiav 

Iv' vkaev eneari novTOV 
npoS^VH-' iAi/cAvcTTOv, aKpav 

vno w\aKa Souj/iov. k. t. A." — SoPH. Ajax, V. 1217. 

* " This glorious ode on the aspirations of Greece after 

Liberty is instantly followed up by a strain of cold-blooded 

ribaldry ; and, in this way, all good feelings are excited only 

to accustom us to their speedy and complete extinction, aud 



766 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



Canto III. 



LXXXVII. 

Thus sung, or would, or could, or should have sung, 
The modern Greek, in tolerable verse ; 

If not like Orpheus quite, when Greece was young. 
Yet in these times he might have done much worse ; 

His strain display'd some feeling — right or wrong ; 
And feeling, in a *poet, is the source 

Of others' feeling; but they are such liars, 

And take all colors — like the hands of dyers. 

LXXXVIII. 

But words are things, and a small drop of ink, 
Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces 

That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think ; 
'Tis strange, the shortest letter which man uses 

Instead of speech, may form a lasting link 
Of ages ; to what straits old Time reduces 

Frail man, when paper — even a rag like this, 

Survives himself, his tomb, and all that's his. 

LXXXIX. 

And when his bones are dust, his grave a blank, 
His station, generation, even his nation, 

Become a thing, or nothing, save to rank 
In chronological commemoration, 

Some dull MS. oblivion long has sank, 
Or graven stone found in a barrack's station 

In digging the foundation of a closet, 

May turn his name up, as a rare deposit. 

XC. 

And glory long has made the sages smile ; 

'Tis something, nothing, words, illusion, wind — 
Depending more upon the historian's style 

Than on the name a person leaves behind : 
Troy owes to Homer what whist owes to Hoyle : 

The present century was growing blind 
To the great Marlborough's skill in giving knocks, 
Until his late Life by Archdeacon Coxe. 

XCI. 
Milton's the prince of poets — so we say ; 

A little heavy, but no less divine : 
An independent being in his day — 

Learn'd, pious, temperate in love and wine ; 
But his life falling into Johnson's way. 

We're told this great high priest of all the Nine 
Was whipt at college — a harsh sire — odd spouse, 
For the first Mrs. Milton left his house.i 



•we are brought back, from their transient and theatrical ex- 
hibition, to the staple and substantial doctrine of the work — 
the non-existence of constancy in women, or honor in men, 
and the folly of expecting to meet with any such virtues, or 
of cultivating them for an undeserving world ; — and all this 
mixed up with so much wit and cleverness, and knowledge 
of human nature, as to make it irresistibly pleasant and plau- 
sible—while there is not only no antidote supplied, but every 
thing that might have operated in that way has been antici- 
pated, and presented already in as strong and engaging a form 
as possible."— Jeffrey. 



XCII. 
All these are, certes, entertaining facts, [bribes ; 

Like Shakspeare's stealing deer, Lord Bacon's 
Like Titus' youth, and Csesar's earliest acts ; 

Like Burns (whom Doctor Currie well describes) ; 
Like Cromwell's pranks ; — but although truth exacts 

These amiable descriptions from the scribes, 
As most essential to their hero's story. 
They do not much contribute to his glory. 

XCIII. 

All are not moralists, like Southey, when 
He prated to the world of " Pantisocracy ;" * 

Or Wordsworth unexcised, unhired, who then 
Season'd his peddler poems with democracy ; ^ 

Or Coleridge,^ long before his flighty pen 
Let to the Morning Post its aristocracy ; * 

When he and Southey, following the same path. 

Espoused two partners (milliners of Bath). 

XCIV. 

Such names at present cut a convict figure. 
The very Botany Bay in moral geography ; 

Their loyal treason, renegado rigor, 
Are good manure for their more bare biography ; 

Wordsworth's last quarto, by the way, is bigger 
Than any since the birthday of typography ; 

A drowsy frowzy poem, call'd the " Excursion," 

Writ in a manner which is my aversion. 

XCV. 

He there builds up a formidable dyke 
Between his own and others' intellect ; 

But Wordsworth's poem, and his followers, like 
Johanna Southcote's Shiloh,^ and her sect. 

Are things which in this century don't strike 
The public mind — so few are the elect ; 

And the new births of both their stale virginities 

Have proved but dropsies, taken for divinities. 

XCVI. 

But let me to my story : I must own, 

If I have any fault, it is digression, 
Leaving my people to proceed alone. 

While I soliloquize beyond expression : 
But these are my addresses from the throne, 

Which put off business to the ensuing session : 
Forgetting each omission is a loss to 
The world, not quite so great as Ariosto. 



1 See Johnson's Life of Milton. 

2 " Confined his peddler poems to democracy."— MS. 

3 See Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, 1817. 

* " Flourish'd its sophistry for aristocracy."— MS, 
5 The followers of this fanatic are said to have amounted, 
at one time, to a hundred thousand. She announced herself 
as the mother of a second Shiloh, whose speedy advent she 
confidently predicted. A cradle of expensive materials was 
prepared for the expected prodigy. Dr. Eeece and another 
medical man attested her dropsy ; and many were her dupes 
down to the moment of her death, in 1814. 



Canto III. 



DON JUAN. 



767 



XCVII. 
I know that what our neighbors call " longueurs*^ 

(We've not so good a u-ord, but have the thing, 
In that complete perfection which insures 

An epic from Bob Southey every spring — ) 
Form not the true temptation which allures 

The reader ; but 'twould not be hard to bring 
Some fine examples of the epopee, 
To prove its grand ingredient is ennui.^ 

XCVIII. 
We learn from Horace, "Homer sometimes sleeps;" 

We feel without him, Wordsworth sometimes 
To show with what complacency he creeps, [wakes, — 

With his dear " Wagoners,''^ around his lakes.'' 
He wishes for " a boat" to sail the deeps — 

Of ocean ? — No, of air ; and then he makes 
Another outcry for " a little boat," 
And drivels seas to set it well afloat.^ 

XCIX. 

Jf he must fain sweep o'er the ethereal plain, 
And Pegasus runs restive in his " Wagon," 

Could he not beg the loan of Charles's Wain ? 
Or pray Medea for a single dragon ? 

Or if, too classic for his vulgar brain. 

He fear'd his neck to venture such a nag on, 

And he must needs mount nearer to the moon, 

Could not the blockhead ask for a balloon ? 

C. 
" Peddlers," and " Boats," and " Wagons !" Oh ! ye 
shades 

Of Pope and Dryden, are we come to this ? 
That trash of such sort not alone evades 

Contempt, but from the bathos' vast abyss . 
Floats scumlike uppermost, and these Jack Cades 

Of sense and song above your graves may hiss — 
The " little boatman " and his " Peter Bell " 
Can sneer at him who drew " Achitophel !" * 

CI. 

T' our tale. — The feast was over, the slaves gone, 
The dwarfs and dancing girls had all retired ; 

The Arab lore and poet's song were done. 
And every sound of revelry expired ; 



J Here follows in the original MS. — 
" Time has approved Ennui to be the best 

Of friends and opiate draughts ; your love and wine, 
Which shake so much the human brain and breast, 

Must end in languor ;— men must sleep like swine: 
The happy lover and the welcome guest 
Both sink at last into a swoon divine ; 
Full of deep raptures and of bumpers, they 
Are somewhat sick and sorry the next day." 
* Wordsworth's " Benjamin the Wagoner " appeared in 1819. 
» "There's something in a flying horse. 
There's something in a huge balloon ; 
But through the clouds I'll never float 
Until I have a little boat," Ac. 

Wordsworth's Peter Bell. 



I The lady and her lover, left alone, 
I The rosy flood of twilight's sky admired ; — 
j Ave Maria ! o'er the earth and sea. 
That heavenliest hour of Heaven is worthiest thee ! 

CII. 
Ave Maria ! blessed be the hour ! 

The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft 
Have felt that moment in its fullest power 

Sink o'er the earth so beautiful and soft. 
While swung the deep bell in the distant tower,^ 

Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft. 
And not a breath crept through the rosy air, 
And yet the forest leaves seem'd stirr'd with prayer. 

cm. 

Ave Maria ! 'tis the hour of prayer ! 

Ave Maria ! 'tis the hour of love ! 
Ave Maria ! may our spirits dare 

Look up to thine and to thy Son's above ! 
Ave Maria ! oh that face so fair ! 

Those downcast eyes beneath the Almighty 
dove — 
What though 'tis but a pictured image ? — strike — 
That painting is no idol, — 'tis too like. 

CIV. 

Some kinder casuists are pleased to say, 
In nameless print ^ — that I have no devotion ; 

But set those persons down with me to pray. 
And you shall see who has the properest notion 

Of getting into heaven the shortest way ; 
My altars are the mountains and the ocean, 

Earth, air, stars, — all that springs from the great 
Whole, 

Who hath produced, and will receive the soul. 

CV. 

Sweet hour of twilight ! — in the solitude 
Of the pine forest, and the silent shore 

Which bounds Kavenna's immemorial wood. 
Rooted where once the Adrian wave flow'd o'er, 

To where the last Csesarean fortress stood. 
Evergreen forest ! which Boccaccio's lore 

And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me. 

How have I loved the twilight hour and thee ! "^ 



4 "The verses of Dryden, once highly celebrated, are for- 
gotten."— Mr. W. Wordsworth's Preface. 
6 " WTiile swung the signal from the sacred tower."— MS. 

6 " Are not these pretty stanzas ?— some folks say — 

Downright in print — "—MS. 

7 "The first time I had a conversation with Lord Byron 
on the subject of religion was at Ravenna, my native country, 
in 1820, while we were riding on horseback in an extensive 
solitary wood of pines. The scene invited to religious med- 
itation. It was a fine day in spring. ' How,' he said, ' raising 
our eyes to heaven, or directing them to the earth, can we 
doubt of the existence of God? — or how, turning them to 
what is within us, can we doubt that there is something more 
noble and durable than the clay of which we are formed?' "— 
Count Gamba. 



768 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto IV. 



CVI. 

The shrill cicalas, people of the pine, 
Making their summer lives one ceaseless song, 

Were the sole echoes, save my steed's and mine, 
And vesper bell's, that rose the boughs along ; 

The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line, 
His hell-dogs, and their chase^ and the fair throng 

Which learn'd from this example not to fly 

From a true lover,— shadow'd my mind's eye.i 

CVII. 

Oh, Hesperus! thou bringest all good things 2— 
Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer, 

To the young bird the parent's brooding wings. 
The welcome stall to the o'erlabor'd steer ; 

Whate'er of peace about our hearthstone clings, 
Whate'er our household gods protect of dear, 

Are gather'd round us by thy look of rest ; 

Thou bring'st the child, too, to the mother's breast. 

CVIII. 
Soft hour ! which wakes the wish and melts the heart 

Of those who sail the seas, on the first day 
When they from their sweet friends are torn apart ; 

Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way 
As the far bell of vesper makes him start, 

Seeming to weep the dying day's decay; 
Is this a fancy which our reason scorns ? 
Ah ! surely nothing dies but something mourns ! ^ 

CIX. 

When Nero perish'd by the justest doom 
Which ever the destroyer yet destroy'd. 

Amidst the roar of liberated Rome, 

Of nations freed, and the world overjoy'd. 

Some hands unseen strew' d flowers upon his tomb : * 
Perhaps the weakness of a heart not void 



1 " By her example warn'd, the rest beware ; 
More easy, less imperious, were the fair ; 
And that one hunting, which the devil design'd 
For one fair female, lost him half the kind." 

Dryden's Theodore and Ilonoria. 
' " 'EeTTrepe navTa <^epeis 
^epeis oivov — (^epeis aiya, 
Oepei? /larept, TraiSa." — Fragment of Sappho. 
» " Era gia 1' ora che volge '1 disio, 

A' naviganti, e 'ntenerisce il cuore , 
Lo di oh' han detto a' dolci amici a dio ; 

E che lo nuovo peregrin' d' amore 
Punge, se ode Squilla di lontano, 
Che paia '1 giorno pianger che si muore." 

Dante's Purgatory, canto viii. 
This last line is the first of Gray's Elegy, taken by him 
without acknowledgment. 

* See Suetonius for this fact. — " The public joy was so great 
upon the occasion of his death, that the common people ran 
up and down with caps upon their heads. And yet there were 
some, who for a long time trimmed up his tomb with spring 
and summer flowers, and one while placed his image upon 
his rostra dressed up in state robes, another while published 
proclamations in his name, as if he was yet alive, and would 
shortly come to Rome again, with a vengeance to all his 
enemiea." 



Of feeling for some kindness done, when power 
Had left the wretch an uncorrupted hour. 

ex. 

But I'm digressing ; what on earth has Nero, 

Or any such like sovereign bufibons,^ 
To do with the transactions of my hero. 

More than such madmen's fellow man — the moon's? 
Sure my invention must be down at zero. 

And I grown one of many '' wooden spoons" 
Of verse (the name with which we Cantabs please 
To dub the last of honors in degrees). 

CXI. 
I feel this tediousness will never do — 

'Tis being too epic, and I must cut down 
(In copying) this long canto into two; 

They'll never find it out, unless I own 
The fact, excepting some experienced few ; 

And then as an improvement 'twill be shoAvn : 
I'll prove that such the opinion of the critic is 
From Aristotle passim. — See IIohjtiictjs. 



Bdn Sjtian. 



CANTO THE FOIJETH.« 



I. 

Nothing so diflGlcult as a beginning 

In poesy, unless perhaps the end ; 
For oftentimes when Pegasus seems winning 

The race, he sprains a wing, and down we tend, 



5 " But I'm digressing — what on earth have Nero 

And Wordsworth — both poetical buflbons," &c. — MS. 

« Canto iii. originally included almost all the stanzas which 
now form canto iv. Cantos iii., iv., and v., were published 
together, in 8vo, in August, 1821. The following are extracts 
from Lord Byron's letters to Mr. Murray : — 

Ravenna, December 4, 1819. — " The third canto of Don Juan 
is completed, in about two hundred stanzas ; very decent, I 
believe, but do not know, and it is useless to discuss." 

December 10, 1819. — " I have finished the third canto, but 
the things I have read and heard discourage all further pub- 
lication—at least for the present. The cry is up, and cant 
is up. I should have no objection to return the price of the 
copyright." 

February 7, 1820. — " I have cut the third caiito inio two, 
because it was too long ; and I tell you this beforehand, be- 
cause in case of any reckoning between you and me, these 
two are only to go for one, as this was the original form, and, 
in fact, the two together are not longer than one of the first: 
so remember that I have not made this division to double 
upon you. I have not yet sent oflF the cantos, and have some 
doubt whether they ought to be published, for they have not 
the spirit of the first. The outcry has not frightened but it 
has hurt me, and I have not written con amore this time." 

October 12, 1820.— "I don't feel inclined to care further 
about Don Juan. What do you think a very pretty Italiaa 



Canto IV. 



DON JUAN. 



769 



Like Lucifer when hurl'd from heaven for sinning ; 

Our sin the same, and hard as his to mend, 
Being pride,^ which leads the mind to soar too far, 
Till our own weakness shows us what we are.^ 

n. 

But Time, which brings all beings to their level. 
And sharp Adversity, will teach at last 

Man, — and, as we would hope, perhaps the devil, — 
That neither of their intellects are vast : 

While youth's hot wishes in our red veins revel, 
We know not this — the blood flows on too fast ; 

But as the torrent widens towards the ocean, 

We ponder deeply on each past emotion.^ 

in. 

As boy, I thought myself a clever fellow, 

And wish'd that others held the same opinion ; 



lady said to me the other day ? She had read it in the French, 
and paid me some compliments, with due drawbacks, upon 
it. I answered, that what she said was true, but that I sus- 
pected it would live longer than Childe Harold. — ' Ah, but ' 
(said she), ' / would rather have the fame of Childe Harold for 
three years than an immortality of Don Juan /' The truth 
is, that U is too true, and the women hate many things 
which strip oflF the tinsel of sentiment; and they are right, as it 
would rob them of their weapons. I never knew a woman who 
did not hate De Grammont's Memoirs for the same reason." 

We subjoin a single specimen of the contemporary criticism 
on cantos iii., iv., and v. 

" It seems to have become almost an axiom in the literary 
world, that nothing is so painful to the sensibilities of an 
author as the palpable neglect of his productions. From this 
species of mortification, no poet has ever, perhaps, been more 
fully exempt than Lord Byron. None of his publications 
have failed in at least exciting a sufficient portion of general 
interest and attention ; and even those among them which 
the scnitinizing eye of criticism might deem somewhat un- 
worthy of his powers, have never compelled him, like many 
of his poetical brethren, to seek refuge from the apathy and 
want of discernment of contemporaries, in the consoling an- 
ticipation of posthumous honors and triumphs. But, if we 
are to infer, from the axiom already alluded to, that exten- 
sive notoriety must be pleasing in the same proportion that 
neglect is distressing to an author, then none of his lordship's 
productions can afford him so ample a field for self-congratu- 
lation as the Don Juan. Revilers and partisans have alike 
contributed to the popularity of this singular work ; and the 
rvsult is, that scarcely any poem of the present day has been 
more generally road, or its continuation more eagerly and 
impatiently await( d. Its poetical merits have been extolled 
to the skies by its admirers; and the Priest and the Levite, 
though they have joined to anathematize it, have not, when 
they came in its way, ' passed by on the other side.' 

"But little progress is made in the history and adventures 
of the hero in these three a/^Mitional cantos. The fact is, 
however, that nothing has appeared, from the beginning, to 
be further from the auth<jr's intention, than to render his j 
Don Juan anything like a regular narrative. On the con- j 
trary, its general appearance tends strongly to remind us of 
the learned philosopher's treatise — ' De rebus omnibus et qui- 
buadam aliis.' And here we cannot avoid remarking, what 
an admirable method those persons must po.^sess of reconciling ' 
contradictions, who, in the same breath, censure the poem ! 
tor its want of plan, and impeach the writer of a deliberate \ 
design against the religion and government of the country. 
His lordship has himself given what appears to us a very 
candid exposition of his motives — I 

49 



They took it up when my days grew more mel- 
low. 

And other minds acknowledged my dominion : 
Now my sere fancy " falls into the yellow 

Leaf," * and Imagination droops her pinion, 
And the sad truth which hovers o'er my desk 
Turns what was once romantic to burlesque. 

IV. 
And if I laugh at any mortal thing, 

'Tis that I may not weep ; and if I weep, 
'Tis that our nature cannot always bring 

Itself to apathy, for we must steep 
Our hearts first in the depths of Lethe's spring. 

Ere what we least wish to behold will sleep : 
Thetis baptized her mortal son in Styx ;^ 
A mortal mother would on Lethe fix.* 



the fact is that I have nothing plann'd. 



Unless it were to be a moment merry, 

A novel word in my vocabulary.' 
Indeed, the whole poem has completely the appearance of 
being produced in those intervals in which an active and 
powerful mind, habitually engaged in literary occupation, 
relaxes from its more serious labors, and amuses itself with 
comparative trifling. Hence the narrative is interrupted by 
continual digressions, and the general character of the lan- 
guage is that of irony and sarcastic humor;— an apparent 
levity, which, however, often serves but as a veil to deep re- 
flection. Nor can the talent of the master-hand be always 
concealed : it involuntarily betrays itself in the touches of the 
pathetic and sublime which frequently present themselves in 
the course of the poem ; in the thoughts ' too big for utter- 
ance, and too deep for tears,' which are interspersed in various 
parts of it."— Campbell. 

1 " Pride and worse Ambition threw me down. 

Warring in heaven against heaven's matchless King." 

Paradise Lost. 

* " the same sin that overthrew the angels, 

And of all sins most easily besets 

Mortals the nearest to the angelic nature : 
The vile are only vain ; the great are proud." 

Marino Faliero. See ante, p. 245. 

3 " Time hovers o'er, impatient to destroy, 
And shuts up all the passages of joy : 

In vain their gifts the bounteous seasons pour, 
The fruit autumnal, and the vernal flow'r; 
With listless eyes the dotard views the store, 
He views, and wonders that they please no more." 

Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes. 
" 'Tis a grand poem — and so true ! — true as the tenth of 
Juvenal himself. The lapse of ages changes all things— 
time— language— the earth— the bounds of the sea— the .star-* 
of the sky, and every thing 'about, around, and underneath ' 
man, except man himself, who has always been, and always 
will be, an unlucky rascal. The infinite variety of lives 
conduct but to death, and the infinity of wishes lead but to 
disappointment." — Byron Diary, 1821. 

4 "my May of life 

Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf." — Macbeth. 
s Achilles is said to have been dipped by his mother in the 
river Styx, to render him invulnerable. 

• " Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls 

Her watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks 
Forthwith his former state and being forgets, 
Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain." 

Paradise Lost, b. vi. 



770 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



Canto IV. 



Some have accused me of a strange design 
Against the creed and morals of the land,* 

And trace it in this poem every line : 
I don't pretend that I quite understand 

My own meaning when I would be very fine ; 
But the fact is that I have nothing plann'd. 

Unless it were to be a moment merry, 

A novel word in my vocabulary. 

VI. 

To the kind reader of our sober clime 
This way of writing will appear exotic ; 

Pulci was sire of the half-serious rhyme,^ 
Who sang when chivalry was more Quixotic, 

And revell'd in the fancies of the time, 
True knights, chaste dames, huge giants, kings 
despotic ; 

But all these, save the last, being obsolete, 

I chose a modern subject as more meet. 

VII. 

How I have treated it, I do not know ; 

Perhaps no better than they have treated me, 
Who have imputed such designs as show 

Not what they saw, but what they wish'd to see : 
But if it gives them pleasure, be it so ; 

This is a liberal age, and thoughts are free : 
Meantime Apollo plucks me by the ear, 
And tells me to resume my story here.* 

VIII. 

Young Juan and his lady-love were left 
To their own hearts' most sweet society ; 

Even Time the pitiless in sorrow cleft 

With his rude scythe such gentle bosoms ; he 

Sigh'd to behold them of their hours bereft. 
Though foe to love ; and yet they could not be 

Meant to grow old, but die in happy spring, 

Before one charm or hope had taken wing. 

IX. 

Their faces were not made for wrinkles, their 
Pure blood to stagnate, their great hearts to fail ; 

The blank gray was not made to blast their hair, 
But like the climes that know nor snow nor hail, 



1 e. g. — " Lord Byron is the very Comus of poetry, who, 
by the bewitching airiness of his numbers, aims to turn the 
moral world into a herd of monsters."— Watkins. 

"Deep as Byron has dipped his pen into vice, he has 
dipped it still deeper into immorality. Alas! he shines 
only to mislead— he flashes only to destroy."— Colton. 

" In Don Juan he is highly profane ; but in that poem, the 
profaneness is in keeping with all the other qualities, and re- 
ligion comes in for a sneer, or a burlesque, only in common 
with every thing that is dear and valuable to us as moral and 
social beings."— ^fcL Rev. 

" Dost thou aspire, like a Satanic mind, 
With vice to waste and desolate mankind? 
Toward every rude and dark and dismal deed 
To see them hurrying on with swifter speed? 



They were all summer ; lightning might assail 

And shiver them to ashes, but to trail 
A long and snake-like life of dull decay 
Was not for them — they had too little clay. 

X. 

They were alone once more ; for them to be 
Thus was another Eden ; they were never 

Weary, unless when separate : the tree 
Cut from its forest root of years — the river 

Damm'd from its fountain — the child from the knee 
And breast maternal wean'd at once for ever,- 

Would wither less than these two torn apart ; * 

Alas ! there is no uistinct like the heart — 

XI. 

The heart — which may be broken : happy they ! 

Thrice fortunate ! who of that fragile mould, 
The precious porcelain of human clay. 

Break with the first fall : they can ne'er behold 
The long year link'd with heavy day on day, 

And all which must be borne, and never told ; 
While life's strange principle will often lie 
Deepest in those who long the most to die. 

XII. 

" Whom the gods love die young," was said of yore,^ 
And many deaths do they escape by this : 

The death of friends, and that which slays ever? 
more — 
The death of friendship, love, youth, all that is, 

Except mere breath ; and since the silent shore 
Awaits at last even those who longest miss 

The old archer's shafts, perhaps the early grave 

Which men weep over may be meant to save.® 

XIII. 

Haid^e and Juan thought not of the dead. 

The heavens, and earth, and air, seem'd made for 
them : 
They found no fault with Time, save that he fled ; 

They saw not in themselves aught to condemn : 
Each was the other's mirror, and but read 

Joy sparkling in their dark eyes like a gem. 
And knew such brightness was but the reflection 
Of their exchanging glances of affection. 



To make them, from restraint and conscience free. 
Bad as thyself, or worse — if such can be?"— Cottle. 

2 See ante, p. 574. 

8 " Cum canerem reges et prselia, Cynthius aurem 
Vellit, et admonuit."— ViRG. Ed. vi. 

* " from its mother's knee 

When its last weaning draught is drain'd for ever, 
The child divided— it were less to see, 
Than these two from each other torn apart." — MS. 

6 See Herodotus (Cleobis and Biton). The sentiment is : 
a fragment of Menander. 
' " The less of this cold world, the more of heaven." 

MiLMAN. 



Canto IV. 



DON JUAN. 



771 



XIV. 

The gentle pressure, and the thrilling touch, 
The least glance better understood than words, 

Which still said all, and ne'er could say too much ; 
A language, too, but like to that of birds. 

Known but to them, at least appearing such 
As but to lovers a true sense aftbrds ; 

Sweet playful phrases, which would seem absurd 

To those who have ceased to hear such, or ne'er heard — 

XV. 

All these were theirs, for they were children still. 
And children still they should have ever been ; 

They were not made in the real world to fill 
A busy character in the dull scene, 

But like two beings born from out a rill, 
A nymph and her beloved, all unseen 

To pass their lives in fountains and on flowers, 

And never know the weight of human hours. 

XVI. 

Moons changing had roll'd on, and changeless found 
Those their bright rise had lighted to such joys 

As rarely they beheld throughout their round ; 
And these were not of the vain kind which cloys, 

For theirs were buoyant spirits, never bound 
By the mere senses ; and that which destroys ^ 

Most love, possession, unto them appear'd 

A thing which each endearment more endear'd 

XVII. 
Oh, beautiful ! and rare as beautiful ! 

But theirs was love in which the mind delights 
To lose itself, when the old world grows dull, 

And we are sick of its hack sounds and sigh' 
Intrigues, adventures of the common school, 

Its potty passions, marriages, and flights, 
Where Hymen's torch but brands one strumpet more, 
Whose husband only knows her not a wh — re. 

XVIII. 
Hard words ; harsh truth ; a truth which many know. 

Enough. — The faithful and the fairy pair, 
Who never found a single hour too slow, 

What was it made them thus exempt from care ? 
Young innate feelings all have felt below. 

Which peri.sh in the rest, but in them were 
Inherent; what we mortals call romantic. 
And always envy, though we deem it frantic. 

XIX. 

This is in others a factitious state. 

An opium dream ' of too much youth and reading. 
But was in them their nature or their fate: 

No novels e'er had set their young hearts bleeding, 

^ " For theirs were buoyant spirits, which would bound 
'Gainst common failings," Ac— MS. 

» The "Confo5»sions of an English Opium Eater," by De 
Quincey, had been published shortly before this canto wa."* 
written. 



• For Haid^e's knowledge was by no means great. 
And Juan was a boy of saintly breeding ; 
So that there was no reason for their loves 
More than for those of nightingales or doves. 

XX. 

They gazed upon the sunset ; 'tis an hour 
Dear unto all, but dearest to their eyes, 

For it had made them what they were : the power 
Of love had first o'erwhelm'd them from such skirs, 

When happiness had been their only dower. 
And twilight saw them link'd in passion's ties ; 

Charm'd with each other, all things charm'd that 
brought 

The past still welcome as the present thought, 

XXI. 

I know not why, but in that hour to-night. 
Even as they gazed, a sudden tremor came. 

And swept, as 'twere, across their hearts' delight, 
Like the wind o'er a harp-string, or a flame. 

When one is shook in sound, and one in sight : 
And thus some boding flash'd through either frauje, 

And call'd from Juan's breast a faint low sigh. 

While one new tear arose in Haid6e's eye. 

XXII. 

That large black prophet eye seem'd to dilate 

And follow far the disappearing sun. 
As if their last day of a happy date 

With his broad, bright, and dropping orb were gone. 
Juan gazed on her as to ask his fate — 

He felt a grief, but knowing cause for none, 
His glance inquired of hers for some excuse 
For feelings causeless, or at least abstruse. 

XXIII. 

She turn'd to him, and smiled, but in that sort 

Which makes not others smile j'* then turn'd aside : 
Whatever feeling shook her, it seem'd short, 
And master'd by her wisdom or her pride ; 
When Juan spoke, too — it might be in sport — 
. Of this their mutual feeling, she replied — 
" If it should be so, — but — it cannot be — 
Or I at least shall not survive to see." 

XXIV. 
Juan would question further, but she press'd 

His lip to hers, and silenced him with this. 
And then dismiss'd the omen from her breast. 

Defying augury with that fond kiss ; 
And no doubt of all methods 'tis the best: 

Some people prefer wine — 'tis not amiss ; 
I have tried both ;* so those who would a part take 
May choose between the headache and the heartache. 



s " Seldom he smiles ; and smiles in such a sort, 
As if he mock'd himself," Ac— Shakspeare. 

♦ "The effect of all wines and spirits upon mR is strange. 
It aellles, but it makes me gloomy— gloomy at the very, 
moment of their effect, and not gay hardly ever. But it 



772 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Canto IV. 



XXV. 

One of the two, according to your choice, 
Woman or wine, you'll have to undergo ; 

Both maladies are taxes on our joys: 

But which to choose, I really hardly know ; 

And if I had to give a casting voice, 

For both sides I could many reasons show. 

And then decide, without great wrong to either, 

It were much better to have both than neither. 

XXVI. 

Juan and Haidee gazed upon each other 
With swimming looks of speechless tenderness, 

Which mix'd all feelings, friend, child, lover, brother ; 
All that the best can mingle and express 

When two pure hearts are pour'd in one another, 
And love too much, and yet can not love less ; 

But almost sanctify the sweet excess 

By the immortal wish and power to bless.i 

XXVII. 
Mix'd in each other's arms, and heart in heart, 

Why did they not then die ? — they had lived too long 
Should an hour come to bid them breathe apart ; 

Years could but bring them cruel things or wrong ; 
The world was not for them, nor the world's art 

For beings passionate as Sappho's song ; 
Love was born with them, in them, so intense, 
It was their very spirit — not a sense. 

XXVIII. 

They should have lived together deep in woods. 
Unseen as sings the nightingale ; ^ they were 

Unfit to mix in these thick solitudes 
Call'd social, haunts of Hate, and Vice, and Care : 



composes for a time, though sullenly. Swimming raises my 
spirits, — but in general they are low, and get daily lower. 
That is hopeless : for I do not think I am so much ennuye as 
I was at nineteen." — Byron Diary, 1821. 

1 " Learn by a mortal yearning to ascend 

Towards a higher object. Love was given, 
Encouraged, sanction'd, chiefly for that end ; 

For this the passion to excess was driven — 
That self might be annull'd — her bondage prove 
The fetters of a dream, opposed to love." 

Woedsworth's Laodamia. 

2 " The shadowy desert, unfrequented woods, 

I better brook than flourishing peopled towns : 
There can I sit alone, unseen of any, 
And to the nightingale's complaining notes 
Tune my distresses, and record my woes." 

Shakspeare. 
' In one of "Wilson's minor poems, " On the Death of a 
Child " (1812), occurs this beautiful image :— 

..." All her innocent thoughts. 
Like rose-leaves scatter'd." 
* "We are somewhat more than ourselves in our sleeps, 
and the slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of 
the soul. It is the ligation of sense, but the liberty of reason ; 
and our waking conceptions do not match the fancies of our 
sleeps. At ray nativity my ascendant was the watery sign of 
Scorpius ; I was born in the planetary hour of Saturn, and I 
think I have a piece of that leaden planet in me. I am no 



How lonely every freeborn creature broods ! 

The sweetest song-birds nestle in a pair ; 
The eagle soars alone ; the gull and crow 
Flock o'er their carrion, just like men below. 

XXIX. 

Now pillow'd cheek to cheek, in loving sleep, 

Haidee and Juan their siesta took, 
A gentle slumber, but it was not deep, 

For ever and anon a something shook 
Juan, and shuddering o'er his frame would creep ; 

And Haidee's sweet lips murmur'd like a brook 
A wordless music, and her face so fair 
Stirr'd with her dream, as rose-leaves with the air ; ' 

XXX. 

Or as the stirring of a deep clear stream 
Within an Alpine hollow, when the wind 

Walks o'er it, was she shaken by the dream, 
The mystical usurper of the mind* — 

O'erpowering us to be whate'er may seem 
Good to the soul which we no more can bind ; 

Strange state of being ! (for 'tis still to be) 

Senseless to feel, and with seal'd eyes to see.* 

XXXI. 

She dream'd of being alone on the sea-shore,^ 
Chain'd to a rock ; she knew not how, but stir 

She could not from the spot, and the loud roar 
Grew, and each wave rose roughly, threatening 
her; 

And o'er her upper lip they seem'd to pour, 
Until she sobb'd for breath, and soon they were 

Foaming o'er her lone head, so fierce and high — 

Each broke to drown her, yet she could not die. 



way facetious nor disposed for the mirth and galliardise of 
company ; yet in one dream I can compose a whole comedy, 
behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself 
awake at the conceits thereof. Were my memory as faithful 
as my reason is then fruitful, I would never study but in my 
dreams ; and this time also would I choose for my devotions ; 
but our grosser memories have then so little hold of our 
abstracted understandings, that they forget the story, and 
can only relate to oui- awakened souls a confused and broken 
tale of that that has passed."— Sir Thomas Browne. 

6 "Strange state of being!— for 'tis still to be— 
And who can know all false what then we see ?" — MS. 

6 " One of the finest moral tales I ever read, is an account 
of a dream in the Tatler, which, though it has every appear- 
ance of a real dream, comprehends a moral so sublime and 
so interesting, that I question whether any man who attends 
to it can ever forget it ; and, if he remembers, whether he 
can ever cease to be the better for it, Addison is the author 
of the paper ; and I shall give the story in his own elegant 
words :— ' I was once in agonies of grief that are unutterable, 
and in so great a distraction of mind, that I thought myself 
even out of the possibility of receiving comfort. The occa- 
sion was as follows :— When I was a youth, in a part of the 
army which was then quartered at Dover, I foil in love with 
an agreeable young woman of a good family in those parts, 
and had the satisfaction of seeing my addresses kindly re- 
ceived, which occasioned the perplexity I am going to relate. 
We were, in a calm evening, diverting ourselves, on the top 



I 



Canto IV. 



DON JUAN. 



773 



XXXII. 
Anon — she was released, and then she stray'd 

O'er the sharp shingles with her bleeding feet, 
And stumbled almost every step she made ; 

Aud something roU'd before her in a sheet, 
Which slie must still pursue howe'er afraid : 

'Twas white and indistinct, nor stopp'd to meet 
Her glance nor grasp, for still she gazed aud grasp'd, 
And run, but it escaped her as she clasp'd. 

XXXIII. 
The dream changed : — in a cave she stood, its walls 

Were hung with marble icicles ; the work 
Of ages on its water-fretted halls, 

Where waves might wash, and seals might breed 
and lurk ; 
Her hair was dripping, and the very balls 
Of her black eyes seem'd turn'd to tears, and 
mirk 
The sharp rocks look'd below each drop they caught. 
Which froze to marble as it fell, — she thought. 

XXXIV. 

And wet, and cold, and lifeless at her feet, 

Pale as the foam that froth'd on his dead brow. 

Which she essay 'd in vain to clear (how sweet 
Were once her cares, how idle seem'd they now !), 

Lay Juan, nor could aught renew the beat 
Of his quench'd heart : and the sea dirges low 

Rang in her sad ears like a mermaid's song, 

And that brief dream appear'd a life too long.i 

XXXV. 

And gazing on the dead, she thought his face 
Faded, or alter'd into something new — 

Like to her father's features, till each trace 
More like and like to Lambro's aspect grew — 

With all his keen worn look and Grecian grace; 
And starting, she awoke, and what to view? 

Oh ! Powers of Heaven ! what dark eye meets she 
there ? 

'Tis — 'tis her father's— fix'd upon the pair ! 

of a diflF, with the prospect of the sea; and trifling away the 
time in such little fondnesses, as are most ridiculous to people 
in business, and most agreeable to those in love. In the 
i midst of those our innocent endearments, she snatched a 
' ftaper of verses out of my hand, and ran away with them. I 
waj following her; M'hen on a sudden the ground, though at 
a ("lijiderable distance from the verge of the precipice, sunk 
under her, and threw her down from so prodigious a height, 
upon such a range of rocks, as would have dashed her into 
ten thousand pieces, had her body been made of adamant. 
It is much easier for my reader to imagine my state of mind 
npon such an occa-sion, than for me to express it. I said to 
myself, it is not in the power of Heaven to relieve me — when 
I awaked, equally transported and astonished, to see myself 
drawn out of an affliction, which, the very moment before, 
appeared to be altogether inextricable.'— What fable of 
iEsop, nay of Homer, or of Virgil, conveys so fine a moral? 
Yet most people have, if I mistake not, met with such de- 
liverances by means of a dream. Let us not despise instruc- 
ioQ, how mean soever the vehicle may be that brings it. 



XXXVI. 

Then shrieking, she arose, and shrieking fell. 
With joy and sorrow, hope and fear, to see 

Him whom she deem'd a habitant where dwell 
The ocean-buried, risen from death, to be 

Perchance the death of one she loved too well : 
Dear as her father had been to Haidee, 

It was a moment of that awful kind 

I have seen such — but must not call to mind. 



XXXVII. 

Up Juan sprang to Haidee's bitter shriek. 
And caught her falling, and from ofi" the wall 

Snatch'd down his sabre, in hot haste to wreak 
Vengeance on him who was the cause of all : 

Then Lambro, who till now forbore to speak. 
Smiled scornfully, and said, " Within my call, 

A thousand scimitars await the word ; 

Put up, young man, put up your silly sword." 



XXXVIIL 
And Haidee clung around him ; " Juan, 'tis — 

'Tis Lambro — 'tis my father ! Kneel with me — 
He will forgive us — yes — it must be — yes. 

Oh ! dearest father, in this agony 
Of pleasure and of pain — even while I kiss 

Thy garment's hem with transport, can it be 
That doubt should mingle with my filial joy ? 
Deal with me as thou wilt, but spare this boy." 



XXXIX. 

High and inscrutable the old man stood. 
Calm in his voice, and calm within his eye — 

Not always signs with him of calmest mood : 
He look'd upon her, but gave no reply ; 

Then turn'd to Juan, in whose cheek the blood 
Oft came and went, as there resolved to die ; 

In arms, at least, he stood, in act to spring 

On the first foe whom Lambro's call might bring. 



Even if it be a dream, let us learn to profit by it. For, 
whether asleep or awake, we are equally the care of Prov- 
idence; and neither a dream, nor a waking thought, can 
occur to us without the permission of him in whom we live, 
and move, and have our being."— Dr. Beattie. 

1 " I awoke from a dream — well ! and have not others 
dreamed ?— Such a dream !— but she did not overtake me. 
I wish the dead would rest, however. Ugh ! how my blood 
chilled— and I could not wake— and— heigho ! 
' Shadows to-night 
Have struck more terror in the soul of Richard, 
Than could the substance of ten thousand, 
Arm'd all in proof,' &c. A.C. 
I do not like this dream,— I hate its 'foregone conclusion.' 
And am I to be shaken by shadows? Ay, when they remixid 
me of— no matter— but, if I dream thus again, I will try 
whether all sleep has the like visions. Since I rose, I've 
been in considerable bodily pain also; but it is gone and 
over, and now, like Lord Oglcby, I am wound up for tbb 
day." — Byr^n Jowmal, 1813. 



774 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Canto IV. 



XL. 

" Young man, your sword ;" so Lambro once more said : 
Juan replied, " Not while this arm is free." 

The old man's cheek grew pale, but not with dread, 
And drawing from his belt a pistol, he 

Replied, " Your blood be then on your own head." 
Then look'd close at the flint, as if to see 

'Twas fresh — for he had lately used the lock — 

And next proceeded quietly to cock. 

XLI. 

It has a strange quick jar upon the ear. 
That cocking of a pistol, when you know 

A moment more will bring the sight to bear 
Upon your person, twelve yards off, or so ; 

A gentlemanly distance, not too near. 
If you have got a former friend for foe ; 

But after being fired at once or twice, 

The ear becomes more Irish, and less nice. 

XLII. 

Lambro presented, and one instant more 

Had stopp'd this Canto, and Don Juan's breath, 

When Haidee threw herself her boy before ; 

Stern as her sire : " On me," she cried, " let death 

Descend — the fault is mine ; this fatal shore 

He found — but sought not. I have pledged my 
faith ; 

I love him — I will die with him : I knew 

Your nature's firmness— know your daughter's too." 

XLIII. 
A minute past, and she had been all tears, 

And tenderness, and infancy ; but now 
She stood as one who champion' d human fears — 

Pale, statue-like, and stern, she woo'd the blow ; 
And tall beyond her sex, and their compeers, 

She drew up to her height, as if to show 
A fairer mark ; and with a fix'd eye scann'd 
Her father's face — but never stopp'd his hand. 

XLIV. 

He gazed on her, and she on him ; 'twas strange 
How like they look'd ! the expression was the same ; 

Serenely savage, with a little change 

In the large dark eye's mutual -darted flame ; 

For she, too, was as one who could avenge, 
If cause should be — a lioness, though tame, 

Her father's blood before her father's face 

Boil'd up, and proved her truly of his race. 

XLV. 

I said they were alike, their features and 
Their stature, differing but in sex and years ; 

1 " The reader will observe a curious mark of propinquity 
which the poet notices, with respect to the hands of the 
father and daughter. Lord Byron, we suspect, is indebted 
for the first hint of this to Ali Pacha, who, by the bye, is the 
original of Lambro; for when his lordship was introduced, 
with his friend Hobhouse, to that agreeable-manng red tyrant, 



Even to the delicacy of their hand ^ 

There was resemblance, such as true blood wears ; 
And now to see them, thus divided, stand 

In fix'd ferocity, when joyous tears. 
And sweet sensations, should have welcomed both, 
Show what the passions are in their full growth. 

XL VI. 
The father paused a moment, then withdrew 

His weapon, and replaced it ; but stood still, 
And looking on her, as to look her through, 

" Not /," he said, " have sought this stranger's 
ill; 
Not I have made this desolation : few 

Would bear such outrage, and forbear to kill ; 
But I must do my duty — how thou hast 
Done thine, the present vouches for the past.^ 

XLVII. 
" Let him disarm ; or, by my father's head, 

His own shall roll before you like a ball !" 
He raised his whistle, as the word he said. 

And blew ; another answer'd to the call, 
And rushing in disorderly, though led. 

And arm'd from boot to turban, one and all. 
Some twenty of his train came, rank on rank ; 
He gave the word, — " Arrest or slay the Frank." 

XLVIII. 
Then, with a sudden movement, he withdrew 

His daughter ; while compress'd within his clasp, 
'Twixt her and Juan interposed the crew ; 

In vain she struggled in her father's grasp — 
His arms were like a serpent's coil : then flew 

Upon their prey, as darts an angry asp. 
The file of pirates : save the foremost, who 
Had fallen, with his right shoulder half cut through, 

XLIX. 

The second had his cheek laid open ; but 
The third, a wary, cool old sworder, took 

The blows upon his cutlass, and then put 
His own well in ; so well, ere you could look, 

His man was floor'd, and helpless at his foot, 
With the blood running like a little brook 

From two smart sabre gashes, deep and red — 

One on the arni, the other on the head. 



And 



L. 

him 



where he fell, and 



then they bound 
bore 
Juan from the apartment : with a sign 
Old Lambro bade them take him to the shore. 
Where lay some ships which were to sail at nine.-' 

the vizier said that he knew he was the Megalos Anthropos 
(i. e. the Great Man), by the smallness of his ears and hands." 
— Galt. 

2 " And if / did my duty as thou hast, 
This hour were thine, and thy young minion's last."— MS- 

8 "Till further orders should his doom assign."— MS. 



( AXTO IV. 



DON JUAN. 



775 



They laid him in a boat, and plied the oar 
Until they rcach'd some galliots, placed in 
line; 
On board of one of these, and under hatches. 
They stow'd him, with strict orders to the watches. 

LI. 

The world is full of strange vicissitudes, 
And liere was one exceedingly unpleasant: 

A gentleman so rich in the world's goods. 
Handsome and young, enjoying all the present, 

Just at the very time when he least broods 
On such a thing, is suddenly to sea sent, 

Wounded and chain'd, so that he cannot move, 

And all because a lady fell in love. 

LII. 
Here I must leave him, for I grow pathetic. 

Moved by the Chinese nymph of tears, green 
tea! 
Than whom Cassandra was not more prophetic : 

For if my pure libations exceed three, 
I feel my heart become so sympathetic. 

That I must have recourse to black Bohea : 
'Tis pity wine should be so deleterious, 
For tea and coflfee leave us much more serious, 

LIII. 
Unless when qualified with thee, Cognac! 

Sweet Naiad of the Phlegethontic rill ! 
Ah ! why the liver wilt thou thus attack,^ 

And make, like other nymphs, thy lovers ill?' 
I would take refuge in weak punch, but rack 

(In each sense of the word), whene'er I fill 
My mind and midnight beakers to the brim, 
Wakes me next morning with its synonym. 

LIV. 

I leave Don Juan for the present, safe — 
Not sound, poor fellow, but severely wounded ; 

Yet could his corporal pangs amount to half 
Of those with which his Ilaidee's bosom bounded ! 

She was not one to weep, and rave, and chafe. 
And then give way, subdued because surrounded ; 



1 " But thou, sweet fury of the fiery rill, 
Maktst on the liver a still worse attack ; 
Besides, thy price is something dearer still." — MS. 

' " I have been considering what can be the reason why I 
always wake at a certain hour in the morning, and always in 
very bad spirits— I may .say, in actual despair and despond- 
ency, in all respects, even of that which pleased me over 
night. In about an hour or two this goes off, and I compose 
either to sleep again, or, at least, to quiet. In England, five 
years ago, I had the same kind of hypochondria, but accom- 
panied with so violent a thirst, that I have drunk as many 
as thirteen bottles of so^la-water in one night, after going to 
bod, and been still thirsty. At present I have not the thirst, 
but the depression of spirits is no less violent. What is it? 
—liver f I suppose that it is all hypochondria." — Syrow 
Diary, 1821. 

' "At Fez, the houses of the great and wealthy have, 



Her mother was a Moorish maid from Fez, 
Where all is Eden, or a wilderness. 

LV. 

There the large olive rains its amber store 

In marble fonts; there grain, and flower, and 
fruit. 

Gush from the earth until the land runs o'er ;' 
But there, too, many a poison-tree has root, 

And midnight listens to the lion's roar. 

And long, long deserts scorch the camel's foot, 

Or heaving whelm the helpless caravan ; 

And as the soil is, so the heart of man. 

LVI. 

Afric is all the sun's, and as her earth 

Her human clay is kindled ; full of power 

For good or evil, burning from its birth. 

The Moorish blood partakes the planet's hour, 

And like the soil beneath it will bring forth : 
Beauty and love were Haidee's mother's dower ; 

But her large dark eye show'd deep Passion's 
force, 

Though sleeping like a lion near a source.* 

LVII. 

Her daughter, temper'd with a milder ray, 

Like summer clouds all silvery, smooth, and fair, 

Till slowly charged with thunder they display 
Terror to earth, and tempest to the air. 

Had held till now her soft and milky way ; 
But overwrought with passion and despair. 

The fire burst forth from her Numidian veins. 

Even as the Simoom ^ sweeps the blasted plains. 

LVIII. 

The last sight which she saw was Juan's gore, 
And he himself o'erraaster'd and cut down ; 

His blood was running on the very floor 
Where late he trod, her beautiful, her own ; 

Thus much she view'd an instant and no more, — 
Her struggles ceased with one convulsive groan ; 

On her sire's arm, which until now scarce held 

Her writhing, fell she like a cedar fell'd. 



withinside, spacious courts, adorned with sumptuous gal- 
leries, founts of the finest marble, and fish-ponds, shaded 
with orange, lemon, pomegranate, and fig trees, abounding 
with fruit, and ornamented with roses, hyacinths, jasmine, 
violets, and other odoriferous flowers, emitting a delectable 
fragrance ; so that it is justly called a paradise."— Jackson's 
Morocco. 

* " Beauty and pa.ssion were the natural dower 
Of Ilaidee's mother, but hor climate's force 

Lay at her heart, though sleeping at the source." 
Or, 

" But in her largo eye lay deep passion's force, 

Like to a lion sleeping by a source." 
Or, 

" But in her large eye lay deep passion's force, 

As sleeps a lion by a river's source." — MS. 

* The suffocating blast of the desert. See ante, p. 77. 



776 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto IV. 



LIX. 

A veiu had burst, and her sweet lips' pure dyes* 
Were dabbled with the deep blood which ran o'er ; ^ 

And her head droop'd, as when the lily lies [bore 
O'ercharged with rain": her summon'd handmaids 

Their lady to her couch with gushing eyes ; 
Of herbs and cordials they produced their store, 

But she defied all means they could employ. 

Like one life could not hold, nor death destroy. 

LX. 

Days lay she in that state unchanged, though chill — 
With nothing livid, still her lips were red ; 

Bhe had no pulse, but death seem'd absent still ; 
No hideous sign proclaim'd her surely dead; 

Corruption came not, in each mind to kill 
All hope ; to look upon her sweet face bred 

New thoughts of life, for it seem'd full of soul — 

She had so much, earth could not claim the whole. 

LXI. 

The ruling passion, such as marble shows 
When exquisitely chisell'd, still lay there. 

But fix'd as marble's unchanged aspect throws 
O'er the fair Venus, but for ever fair ; ^ 

O'er the Laocoon's all-eternal throes,* 
And ever-dying Gladiator's air,^ 

Their energy like life forms all their fame. 

Yet looks not life, for they are still the same.* — 

LXII. 
She woke at length, but not as sleepers wake. 
Rather the dead, for life seem'd something new, 



1 " The blood gush'd from her lips, and ears, and eyes : 
Those eyes, so beautiful — beheld no more." — MS. 
This is no very uncommon effect of the violence of con- 
flicting and different passions. The doge Francis Foscari, 
on his deposition in 1457, hearing the bells of Saint Mark an- 
nounce the election of his successor, "mourut subitement 
d'une hemorragie causee par une veine qui s'eclata dans sa 
poitrine" (see Sismondi and Daru, vols. i. and ii. : see also 
ante, p. 354), at the age of eighty years, when " Who would 
have thought the old man had so much blood in him?" Before 
I was sixteen years of age, I was witness to a melancholy 
instance of the same effect of mixed passions upon a young 
person, who, however, did not die in consequence, at that 
time, but fell a victim some years afterwards to a seizure of 
the same kind, arising from causes intimately connected with 
agitation of mind. 

3 See anie, p. 55. "The view of the Venus of Medicis 
instantly suggests the lines in the ' Seasons,' — 

' With wild surprise. 

As if to marble struck, devoid of sense, 
A stupid moment motionless she stood : 
So stands the statue that enchants the world.' " 

HOBHOUSE. 

* "The sublime mark of a great soul shines forth, in all 
its beauty, through those affecting expressions of pain and 
anguish that appear in the countenance of the famous Lao- 
coon, and diffuse their horrors through his convulsed mem- 
bers. The bitterness of his torment seems to be imprinted 
on each muscle, and to swell every nerve ; and it is expressed 
with peculiar energy, by the contraction of the abdomen and 
all the lower parts of his body : this expression is so lively, 



A strange sensation which she must partake 
Perforce, since whatsoever met her view 

Struck not her memory, though a heavy ache 
Lay at her heart, whose earliest beat still true 

Brought back the sense of pain without the cause, 

For, for a while, the furies made a pause. 

LXIII. 

She look'd on many a face with vacant eye, 
On many a token without knowing what ; 

She saw them watch her without asking why ; 
And reck'd not who around her pillow sat ; 

Not speechless, though she spoke not ; not a sigh 
Relieved her thoughts ; dull silence and quick chat 

Were tried in vain by those who served ; she gave 

No sign, save breath, of having left the grave. 

LXIV. 

Her handmaids tended, but she heeded not ; 

Her father watch'd, she turn'd her eyes away ; 
She recognized no being, and no spot, 

However dear or cherish'd in their day ; 
They changed from room to room, but all forgot, 

Gentle, but without memory she lay ; 
At length those eyes, which they would fain be wean- 
ing 
Back to old thoughts, wax'd full of fearful meaning. 

LXV. 

And then a slave bethought her of a harp ; 

The harper came, and tuned his instrument ; 
At the first notes, irregular and sharp, 

On him her flashing eyes a moment bent, 

that the attentive spectator partakes, in some measure, of the 
anguish it represents. The sufferings of the body and the 
elevation of the soul are expressed in every member with 
equal energy, and form the most sublime contrast imaginable. 
Laocoon suffers it, but he suffers like the Philoctetes of So- 
phocles ; his lamentable situation pierces the heart, but fills 
us, at the same time, with an ambitious desire of being able 
to imitate his constancy and magnanimity in the pains and 
sufferings that may fall to our lot."— Winkelmann. 

" In the group of the Laocoon, the frigid ecstasies of Ger- 
man criticism have discovered pity like a vapor swimming 
on the father's eyes ; he is seen to suppress in the groan for 
his children the shriek for himself— his nostrils are drawn 
upward, to express indignation at unworthy sufferings, whilst 
he is said at the same time to implore celestial help. To 
these are added the winged effects of the serpent-poison, the 
writhings of the body, the spasms of the extremities : to the 
miraculous organization of such expression, Agesander, the 
sculptor of the Laocoon, was too wise to lay claim. His 
figure is a class: it characterizes every beauty of virility 
verging on age ; the prince, the priest, the father are visible, 
but, absorbed in the man, serve only to dignify the victim of 
one great expression ; though poised by the artist for us, to 
apply the compass to the face of the Laocoon is to measure 
the way fluctuating in the storm: this tempestuous front, 
this contracted nose, the immersion of these eyes, and, above 
all, that long-drawn mouth, are, separate and united, seats of 
convulsion, features of nature, struggling within the jaws of 
death."— FusELi. 

5 See ante, p. 66. 

9 " Distinct from life, as being still the same."— MS. 



ii 



Canto IV. 



DON JUAN. 



777 



Then to the wall she turn'd as if to warp 

Her thoughtis from sorrow through her heart re- 
sent; 
And he began a long low island song 
Of ancient days, ere tyranny grew strong. 



^ LXVI. 

Anon her thin wan fingers beat the wall 

In time to his old tune ; he changed the theme, 
And sung of love ; the fierce name struck through all 

Her recollection ; on her flash'd the dream 
Of what she was, and is, if ye could call 

To be so being; in a gushing stream 
The tears rush'd forth from her o'erclouded bruin. 
Like mountain mists at length dissolved in rain. 

LXVII. 

Short solace, vain relief !— thought came too quick. 
And whirl'd her brain to madness ; she arose 

As one who ne'er had dwelt among the sick. 
And flew at all she met, as on her foes ; 

But no one ever heard her speak or shriek. 

Although her paroxysm drew towards its close ; — 

Hers was a frenzy which disdain'd to rave. 

Even when they smote her, in the hope to save. 

LXVIII. 
Yet she betray'd at times a gleam of sense ; 

Nothing could make her meet her father's face, 
Though on all other things with looks intense 

She gazed, but none she ever could retrace ; 
Food she refused, and raiment ; no pretence 

Avail'd for either ; neither change of place. 
Nor time, nor skill, nor remedy, could give her 
Senses to sleep — the power seem'd gone for ever. 

LXIX. 
Twelve days and nights she wither'd thus ; at last, 

Without a groan, or sigh, or glance, to show 
A parting pang, the spirit from her pass'd : 

And they who watch'd her nearest could not know 
The very instant, till the change that cast 

Her sweet face into shadow, dull and slow, 
(ilazed o'er her eyes— the beautiful, the black — 
Oh ! to possess such lustre — and tlien lack ! * 



1 " And then he drew a dial from his poke, 
And looking on it with lack-lustre eyes." 

As You Like R. 
' " Have dawn'd a child of beauty, though of sin."— MS. 

' " Duncan is in his grave : 

After life's fitful fever be sleeps well." — Macbeth. 
* " We think that few will withhold their sympathy from 
this affecting catastrophe, or refuse to drop a tear over the 
fate of the lovely and unfortunate HaidCe, and to bid her 
' sleep well 
By the sea-shore, whereon she loved to dwell.' 
Over this charming creature the poet has thrown a beauty 
and a fascination, which were never, we think, surpassed. 
In this, as in the former cantos, he pours out a singular mix- 
tare of pathos, doggerel, wit, and satire ; taking a strange and 
almost malignant delight in datthing the laughter he ha£ 



LXX. 

She died, but not alone ; she held within 
A second principle of life, which might 

Have dawn'd a fair and sinless child of sin ;* 
But closed its little being without light. 

And went down to the grave unborn, wherein 
Blossom and bough lie wither'd with one blight ; 

In vain the dews of Heaven descend above 

The bleeding flower and blasted fruit of love. 

LXXI. 

Thus lived — thus died she ; never more on her 
Shall sorrow light, or shame. She was not made 

Through years or moons the inner weight to bear, 
Which colder hearts endure till they are laid 

By age in earth : her days and pleasures were 
Brief, but delightful— such as had not staid 

Long with her destiny ; but she sleeps welP 

By the sea-shore, whereon she loved to dwell.* 

LXXII. 
That isle is now all desolate and bare, 

Its dwellings down, its tenants pass'd away ; 
None but her own and fatlier's grave is there, 

And nothing outward tells of human clay ; 
Ye could not know where lies a thing so fair, 

No stone is there to show, no tongue to say. 
What was ; no dirge, except the hollow sea's,^ 
Mourns o'er the beauty of the Cyclades. 

LXXIII. 

But many a Greek maid in a loving song 
Sighs o'er her name ; and many an islander 

With her sire's story makes the night less long ; 
Valor was his, and beauty dwelt with her : 

If she loved rashly, her life paid for wrong* — 
A heavy price must all pay who thus err. 

In some shape ; let none think to fly the danger, 

For soon or late Love is his own avenger. 

LXXIV. 

But let me change this theme, which grows too sad, 
And lay this sheet of sorrows on the shelf; 

I don't much like describing people mad, 
For fear of seeming rather touch'd myself— 



raised with tears, and crossing his finest and most affecting 
passages with burlesque ideas, against which no gravity is 
proof."— Campbell. 

6 " No stone is there to read, nor tongue to say, 
No dirge — save when arise the stormy seas." — MS. 

6 " It will be advanced that her amours are objectionable, 
by some fa.stidious critic, 

' Who minces virtue, and doth shake the head 
To hear of pleasure's name.' 
If the loves of Juan and Haidfie are not pure and innocent, 
and dictated with sufficient delicacy and propriety, the tender 
pas.sion may as well be struck at once out of the list of the 
poet's themes. We mu.st shut our eyes and harden our 
hearts against the master-pa-ssion of our existence; and, 
becoming mere creatures of hypocrisy and form, charge even 
Milton himself with folly." — Campbell. 



778 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto IV. 



Besides, I've no more on this head to add ; 

And as my Muse is a capricious elf, 
We'll put about, and try another tack 
With Juan, left half kill'd some stanzas back. 

LXXV. 

Wounded and fetter'd, " cabin'd, cribb'd, confined," ^ 
Some days and nights elapsed before that he 

Could altogether call the past to mind ; 
And when he did, he found himself at sea, 

Sailing six knots an hour before the wind ; 
The shores of Ilion lay beneath their lee — 

Another time he might have liked to see 'em, 

But now was not much pleased with Cape Sigseum.^ 

LXXVI. 

There, on the green and village-cotted hill, is 
(Flank'd by the Hellespont, and by the sea) 

Entomb'd the bravest of the brave, Achilles ; 
They say so — (Bryant says the contrary) : 

And further downward, tall and towering still, is^ 
The tumulus — of whom ? Heaven knows ; 't may be 

Patroclus, Ajax, or Protesilaus ; * 

All hei-oes, who if living still would slay us. 

LXXVII. 

High barrows, without marble, or a name, 
A vast, untill'd, and mountain-skirted plain, 

And Ida in the distance, still the same, 
xind old Scamander (if 'tis he), remain; 

The situation seems still form'd for fame — 
A hundred thousand men might fight again, 



1 " But now I'm cabin'd, cribb'd," &c. — Shakspeare. 

2 " We had a full view of Mount Ida, 

' Where Juno once caress'd her amorous Jove, 
And the world's master lay subdued by love.' 
We anchored at Cape Janissary, the famous promontory of 
Sigseum. My curiosity supplied me with strength to climb 
to the top of it, to see the place where Achilles was buried, 
and where Alexander ran naked round his tomb, in honor 
of him — which no doubt was a great comfort to his ghost. 
Further downward we saw the promontory famed for the 
sepulchre of Ajax. While I reviewed these celebrated fields 
and rivers, I admired the exact geography of Homer, whom 
I had in my hand. Almost every epithet he gives to a moun- 
tain or plain is still just for it; and I spent several hours 
here in as agreeable cogitations as ever Don Quixote had on 
Mount Montesinos."— Lady M. W. Montagu. 

3 "Proceeding towards the east, and round the bay dis- 
tinctly pointed out by Strabo, as the harbor in which the 
Grecian fleet was stationed, we arrived at the sepulchre of 
Ajax, upon the ancient Rhsetian promontory. In all that 
remains of former ages, I know of nothing likely to affect the 
mind by emotions of local enthusiasm more powerfully than 
this most interesting tomb. It is impossible to view its sub- 
lime and simple form without calling to mind the veneration 
so long paid to it; without picturing to the imagination a 
successive series of mariners, of kings and heroes, who, from 
the Hellespont, or by the shores of Troas and Chersonesus, 
or on the sepulchre itself, poured forth the tribute of their 
homage ; and, finally, without representing to the mind the 
feelings of a native, or of a traveller, in those times, who, 
after viewing the existing monument," and witnessing the 
iostances of public and of private regard so constantly be- 



With ease ; but where I sought for Ilion's walls, 
The quiet sheep feeds, and the tortoise crawls ; 

LXXVIII. 
Troops of untended horses ; here and there 

Some little hamlets, with new names uncouth ; 
Some shepherds (unlike Paris), led to stare 

A moment at the European youth 
Whom to the spot their school-boy feelings bear ; * 

A Turk, with beads in hand, and pipe in mouth, 
Extremely taken with his own religion. 
Are what I found there— but the devil a Phrygian. 

LXXIX. 

Don Juan, here permitted to emerge 
From his dull cabin, found himself a slave ; 

Forlorn, and gazing on the deep blue surge, 
O'ershadow'd there by many a hero's grave ; 

Weak still with loss of blood, he scarce could urge 
A few brief questions ; and the answers gave 

No very satisfactory information 

About his past or present situation. 

LXXX. 

He saw some fellow captives, who appear'd 

To be Italians, as they were in fact ; 
From them, at least, their destiny he heard, 

Which was an odd one ; a troop going to act 
In Sicily— all singers, duly rear'd 

In their vocation ; had not been attack'd 
In sailing from Livorno by the pirate. 
But sold by the impresario at no high rate.^ 



stowed upon it, should have been told the age was to arrive 
when the existence of Troy, and of the mighty dead en- 
tombed upon its plain, would be considered as having no 
foundation in truth." — Dr. E. D. Clarke. 

4 " The Troad is a fine field for conjecture and snipe- 
shooting, and a good sportsman and an ingenious scholar 
may exercise their feet and faculties to great advantage upon 
the spot ;— or, if they prefer riding, lose their way, as I did, 
in a cursed quagmire of the Scamander, who wriggles about, 
as if the Dardan virgins still oftered their wonted tribute. 
The only vestige of Troy, or her destroyers, are the barrows 
supposed to contain the carcasses of Achilles, Antilochus, 
Ajax, &c. ; but Mount Ida is still in high feather, though the 
shepherds are nowadays not much like Ganymede." — Byron 
Letters, 1810. 

5 "Nothing could be more agreeable than our frequent 
rambles. The peasants of the numerous villages, whom we 
frequently encountered ploughing with their buffaloes, or 
driving their creaking wicker cars, laden with fagots from 
the mountains, whether Greeks or Turks, showed no inclin- 
ation to interrupt our pursuits. Parties of our crew might 
be seen scattered over the plain, collecting the tortoises 
which swarm on the sides of the rivulets, and are found 
under every furze-bush." — Hobhouse. 

6 This is a fact. A few years ago a man engaged a com- 
pany for some foreign theatre, embarked them at an Italian 
port, and carrying them to Algiers, sold them all. One of 
the women, returned from her captivity, I heard sing, by a 
strange coincidence, in Rossini's opera of "L'ltaliana in 
Algieri," at Venice, in the beginning of 1817. — We have 
reason to believe that the following, which we take from thft 
MS. journal of a highly respectable traveller, is a more cor- 



Canto IV. 



DON JUAN. 



779 



LXXXI. 

By one of these, the buffo ^ of the party, 
Juan was told about their curious case ; 

For although destined to the Turkish mart, he 
Still kept his spirits up — at least his face ; 

The little fellow really look'd quite hearty, 
And bore him with some gayety and grace, 

Showing a much more reconciled demeanor, 

Thau did the prima donna and the tenor. 

LXXXII. 

In a few words he told their hapless story, 
Saying, "Our Machiavellian impresario. 

Making a signal off some promontory, 
Hail'd a strange brig ; Corpo di Caio Mario ! 

We were transferr'd on board her in a hurry, 
Without a single scudo of salario ; 

But if the Sultan has a taste for song. 

We will revive our fortunes before long. 

LXXXIII. 

*' The prima donna, though a little old, 

And haggard with a dissipated life. 
And subject, when the house is thin, to cold, 

Has some good notes ; and then the tenor's wife. 
With no great voice, is pleasing to behold ; 

Last carnival she made a deal of strife. 
By carrying off Count Cesare Cicogna 
From an old Roman princess at Bologna. 

LXXXIV. 

" And then there are the dancers ; there's the 
Nini, 

With more than one profession gains by all ; 
Then there's that laughing slut the Pelegrini, 

She, too, was fortunate last cai-nival. 
And made at least five hundred good zecchini. 

But spends so fast, she has not now a paul ; 
And then there's the Grotesca — such a dancer ! 
Where men have souls or bodies she must answer. 

LXXXV. 

■ As for the figuranti,^ they are like 
The rest of all that tribe ; with here and there 

A pretty person, which perhaps may strike. 
The rest are hardly fitted for a fair ; 



rect account:— "In 1812, a Signer Guariglia induced several 
young persons of both sexes— none of them exceeding fifteen 
years of age — to accompany him on an operatic excursion; 
part to form the opera, and part the ballet. He contrived to 
get thf'm on board a vesssl, which took them to Janina, where 
he sold them for the basest purposes. Some died from the 
effect of thf. climate, and some from sufTering. Among the 
few who returned were a Signor Molinari, and a female 
dancer named Bonfiglia, who afterwards became the wife of 
Crespl, the tenor singer. The wretch who so basely sold 
them was, when T>ord Byron resided at Venice, employed as 
capo de' vestarj, or hea^l tailor, at the Fenice." — Graham. 

* A comic singer in the opera buffa. The Italians, how- 
ever, di.stingui«h the buffo cantante, which requires good 
waging, from the buffo cornice, in which there is more acting. 



There's one, though tall and stiffer than a pike, 

Yet has a sentimental kind of air 
Which might go far, but she don't dance with 

vigor; 
The more's the pity, with her face and figure. 

LXXXVI. 

" As for the men, they are a middling set ; 

The musico is but a crack'd old basin, 
But being qualified in one way yet, 

May the seraglio do to set his face in,' 
And as a servant some preferment get ; 

His singing I no further trust can place in : 
From all the Pope * makes yearly 'twould perplex 
To find three perfect pipes of the third sex. 

LXXXVII. 

" The tenor's voice is spoilt by affectation. 
And for the bass, the beast can only bellow ; 

In fact, he had no singing education. 
An ignorant, noteless, timeless, tuneless fellow ; 

But being the prima donna's near relation. 
Who swore his voice was very rich and mellow, 

They hired him, though to hear him you'd believe 

An ass was practicing recitative. 

LXXXVIII. 

" 'Twould not become myself to dwell upon 
My own merits, and though young — I see, sir- 
you 

Have got a travell'd air, which speaks you one 
To whom the opera is by no means new : 

You've heard of Raucocanti ? ^ — I'm the man; 
The time may come when you may hear me too ; 

You was not last year at the fair of Lugo, 

But next, when I'm engaged to sing there — do go. 

LXXXIX. 

"Our baritone^ I almost had forgot, 
A pretty lad, but bursting with conceit ; 

With graceful action, science not a jot, 
A voice of no great compass, and not sweet, 

He always is complaining of his lot. 

Forsooth, scarce fit for ballads in the street; 

In lovers' parts his passion more to breathe, 

Having no heart to show, he shows his teeth." 



2 " The figuranti are those dancers of a ballet who do not 
dance singly, but many together, and serve to fill up the 
background during the exhibition of individual performers. 
They correspond to the chorus in the opera."— Graham. 

8 "To help the ladies in their dress and lacing."— MS. 

* It is strange that it should be the pope and the sultan 
who are the chief cncouragers of this branch of trade — 
women being prohibited as singers at Saint Peter's, and not 
deemed trustworthy as guardians of the harem. 

6 Rauco-canti — may be rendered by Hoarse-song. 

• "A male voice, the compass of which partakes of those of 
the common bass and the tenor, but docs not extend so far 
downwards as the one, nor to an equal height with the other." 
—Graham. 



780 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Canto IV. 



XC. 

Here Raucocanti's eloquent recital 

Was interrupted by the pirate crew, 
Wlio came at stated moments to invite all 

The captives back to their sad berths ; each threw 
A rueful glance upon the waves (which bright all 

From the blue skies derived a double blue, 
Dancing all free and happy in the sun), 
And then went down the hatchway one by one. 

XCI. 

They heard next day— that ia the Dardanelles, 

Waiting for his Sublimity's firman, 
The most imperative of sovereign spells, 

Which everybody does without who can, 
More to secure them in their naval cells, 

Lady to lady, well as man to man. 
Were to be chain'd and lotted out per ouple, 
For the slave market of Constantinople. 

XCII. 

It seems when this allotment was made out, 
There chanced to be ain odd male, and odd female, 

Who (after some discussion and some doubt. 
If the soprano might be deem'd to be male, 

They placed him o'er the women as a scout) 
Were link'd together, and it happen 'd the male 

Was Juan, — who, an awkward thing at his age, 

Pair'd off with a Bacchante blooming visage. 

XCIII. 

With Raucocanti lucklessly was chain'd 
The tenor ; these two hated with a hate 

Found only on the stage, and each more pain'd 
With this his tuneful neighbor than his fate ; 

Sad strife arose, for they were so cross-grain'd. 
Instead of bearing up without debate. 

That each pull'd different ways with many an oath, 

" Arcades ambo," id est — blackguards both.^ 

XCIV. 
Juan's companion was a Romagnole, 

But bred within the march of old Ancona, 
With eyes that look'd into the very soul 

(And other chief points of a "bella donna"), 
Bright— and as black and burning as a coal ; 

And through her clear brunette complexion shone a 
Great wish to please — a most attractive dower, 
Especially when added to the power. 

xcv. 

But all that power was wasted upon him. 
For sorrow o'er each sense held stern command ; 

* " That each pull'd different ways— and waxing rough, 
Had cuff'd each other, only for the cuff."— MS. 

2 " Oh, who can hold a fire in his hand. 

By thinking on the frosty Caucasus ?"— Shakspeare. 
' " Having had some experience in my youth."— MS. 

* " Don Juan will be known, by and by, for what it is in- 
tended—a satire on abuses in the present states of society, 
and not an eulogy of vice. It may be now and then volup- 



Her eye might flash on his, but found it dim : 
And though thus chain'd, as natural her hand 

Touch'd his, nor that — nor any handsome limb 
(And she had some not easy to withstand) 

Could stir his pulse, or make his faith feel brittle ; 

Perhaps his recent wounds might help a little. 

XCVI. 

No matter ; we should ne'er too much inquire. 
But facts are facts : no knight could be more true, 

And firmer faith no ladye-love desire ; 
We will omit the proofs, save one or two : 

'Tis said no one in hand " can hold a fire 
By thought of frosty Caucasus ;" 2 but few, 

I really think ;' yet Juan's then ordeal 

Was more triumphant, and not much less real. 

XCVII. 

Here I might enter on a chaste description. 
Having withstood temptation in my youth,^ 

But hear that several people take exception 
At the first two books having too much truth ; 

Therefore I'll make Don Juan leave the ship soon, 
Because the publisher declares, in sooth, 

Through needles' eyes it easier for the camel is 

To pass, than those two cantos into families. 

XCVIII. 
'Tis all the same to me ; I'm fond of yielding, 

And therefore leave them to the purer page 
Of Smollett, Prior, Ariosto, Fielding, 

Who say strange things for so correct an age ; 
I once had great alacrity in wielding 

My pen, and liked poetic war to wage, 
And recollect the time when all this cant 
Would have provoked remarks which now it sha'n't.* 

XCIX. 

As boys love rows, my boyhood liked a squabble ; 

But at this hour I wish to part in peace. 
Leaving such to the literary rabble ; 

Whether my verse's fame be doom'd to cease 
While the right hand which wrote it still is able. 

Or of some centuries to take a lease. 
The grass upon my grave will grow as long. 
And sigh to midnight winds, but not to song. 

C. 

Of poets who come down to us through distance 
Of time and tongues, the foster-babes of Fame, 

Life seems the smallest portion of existence ; 
Where twenty ages gather o'er a name. 



tuous:— I can't help that. Ariosto is worse. Smollett (see 
Lord Strutwell in Roderick Random) ten times worse; and 
Fielding no better. No girl will ever be seduced by reading 
Don Juan:— No, no; she will go to lAttle's Poems, and 
Rousseau's Romans for that, or even to the immaculate De 
Stael. They will encourage her, and not the Don, who 
laughs at that, and— and— most other things. But never 
mind— ^a ira!" — Lord Byron to Mr. Murray, 1822. 



Canto IV. 



DON JUAN. 



781 



'Tis as a snowball which derives assistance 

From every flake, and yet rolls on the same, 
Even till an iceberg it may chance to grow ; 
But, after all, 'tis nothing but cold snow. 

CI. 

And so great names are nothing more than nominal, i 
And love of glory's but an airy lust, j 

Too often in its fury overcoming all 1 

Who would as 'twere identify their dust ' 

From out the wide destruction, which, entombing all, 
Leaves nothing till " the coming of the just" — 

Bave change : I've stood upon Achilles' tomb,* 

And heard Troy doubted ; 2 time will doubt of Eome. 

CII. 

The very generations of the dead 
Are swept away, and tomb inherits tomb, 

T'ntil the memory of an age is fled, 

And, buried, sinks beneath its offspring's doom : 

Where are the epitaphs our fathers read ? 
Save a few glean'd from the sepulchral gloom 

Which once-named myriads nameless lie beneath. 

And lose their own in universal death.^ 

CIII. 
I canter by the spot each afternoon 
Where perish'd in his fame the hero-boy, 

' " T stood upon the plain of Troy daily, for more than a 
month, in 1810 ; and if anything diminished my pleasure, it 
was th^t the hlackguard Bryant had impugned its veracity." 
—Byron Diary, 1821. 

* "It seems hardly to admit of doubt, that the plain of 
Anatolia, watered by the Mender, and backed by a mountain- 
ous ridge, of which Kazdaghy is the summit, offers the precise 
territory alluded to by Homer. The long controversy, ex- 
cit«Ki by Mr. Bryant's publication, and since so vehemently 
agitated, would probaJ)ly never have existed, had it not been 
for the erroneous maps of the country which, even to this 
hour, disprace our geographical knowledge of that part of 
.\.sia."— Dr. E. D. Clarke. 

" Although a real poet is naturally anxious to avail himself 
of interesting and well-known scenery, and a story hallowed 
by, tradition, yet it is only .so far as they suit liis purpose, that 
either tradition or topography will be adhered to: and it is 
surely preposterous to expect that in a poem, so long, so 
varied, and so busy as that of Homer, he should exactly con- . 
form to the sober rules of the annalist, or the land-surveyor. I 
It wan the general opinion of antiquity, that Homer had, in 
many respects, departed from the truth of history in the 
action of his poem. Nor can any reason be assignrd why he 
should not, by an equal privilege, have omitted or softened, 
or altered, sufh features of the scenery as interfered, in his 
opinion, with the effect or coherence of his narration. But, , 
while a poet himself is seldom thus particular, it is the priv- ' 
Ue*?e of poetry to bestow, even on imaginarj' scenery, the mi- I 
nuteness and liveliness which convoy the idea of accuracy, — 
and if only the general features of his picture are correct, the 
»jal of hi.'» admirers in after-ages will not fail to a.ssign a local 
habitation to even the wildest of his features. The sexton of 
Melrose ha.s already begun to point out the tomb of Michael 
Scott, as described in the Lay of the La.st Minstrel; and 
though the main outlines of Homer's picture are perfectly 
copit^ from nature, yet we doubt not that many of those ob- I 
jectH to whifh .'^tral>o refers, instead of affording subjects for 
the bard to describe, derived, in after-days, their name and 
designation from his description."— Bishop Hkbrr. ; 



Who lived too long for men, but died too soon 
For human vanity, the young De Foix ! 

A broken pillar, not uncouthly hewn, 

But which neglect is hastening to destroy. 

Records Ravenna's carnage on its face. 

While weeds and ordure rankle round the base.* 

CIV. 
I pass each day where Dante's bones are laid : 

A little cupola, more neat than solemn. 
Protects his dust, but reverence here is paid^ 

To the bard's tomb,« and not the warrior's 
column : 
The time must come, when both alike decay'd. 

The chieftain's trophy, and the poet's volume, 
Will sink where lie the songs and wars of earth, 
Before Pelides' death, or Homer's birth. 

CV. 
With human blood that column was cemented. 

With human filth that column is defiled, 
As if the peasant's coarse contempt were vented 

To show his loathing of the spot he soil'd : ' 
Thus is the trophy used, and thus lamented 

Should ever be those blood-hounds, from whose wild 
Instinct of gore and glory earth has known 
Those sufferings Dante saw in hell alone.^ 



8 " Look back who list unto the former ages, 
And call to count what is of them become; 
Where be those learned wits and antique sages 
Which of all wisdom knew the perfect sum? 
Where those great warriors which did overcome 
The world with conquest of their might and main, 
And made one mear of the earth and of their reign?" 

Spenser. 
♦ The pillar which records the battle of Ravenna is about 
two miles from the city, on the opposite side of the river to 
the road towards Forli. Gaston de Foix, who gained the 
battle, was killed in it: there fell on both sides twenty 
thousand men. The present state of the pillar and its site 
is described in the text. — " De Foix was Duke of Nemours, 
and nephew to Louis XII., who gave him the government of 
Milan, and made him general of his army in Italy. The 
young hero signalized his valor and abilities in various 
actions, which terminated in the battle of Eavenna, fought, 
on Easter-day, 1512. After he had obtained the victory, ho 
could not be dissuaded from pursuing a body of Spanish in- 
fantry, which retreated in good order. Making a furious 
charge on this brave troop, he was thrown from his horse, 
and despatched by a thrust of a pike. He perished in his 
twenty-fourth year, and the king's affliction for his death em- 
bittered all the joy arising from his success."— MoRERi. 
6 " Protects his tomb, but greater care is paid."— MS. 
8 "Dante was buried ('in sacra aiinorum tede') at Ra- 
venna, in a handsome tomb, which was erected by his pro- 
tector, Guido da Polenta, restored by Bernardo Bembo in 
1483, again ri -stored by Tardinal f'oisi in 1692, and replaced 
by a more magnificent sepulchre in 1780, at the expense of 
the cardinal Luigi Valent Gonzaga. The Florentines hav- 
ing in vain and frequently attempted to recover his body, 
crowned his image in a church, and his picture is still one 
of the idols of their cathedral." — Houhousk. 
1 "With human ordure is it now defiled, 
As if the pea.sant'3 scorn this mode invented 
To show his loathing of the thing he soil'd." — MS. 
8 "Those sufferings once reserved for hell alone."— MS. 



782 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto IV. 



CVI. 

Yet there will still be bards : though fame is stQoke, 
Its fumes are frankincense to human thought ; 

And the unquiet feelings, which first woke 
Song in the world, will seek what then they sought ; ^ 

As on the beach rtie waves at last are broke. 
Thus to their extreme verge the passions brought 

Dash into poetry, 2 'which is but passion, 

Or at least was so ere it grew a fashion. 

CVII. 

If in the course of such a life as was 
At once adventurous and contemplative, 

Men who partake all passions as they pass. 
Acquire the deep and bitter power to give' 

Their images again as in a glass, 
And in such colors that they seem to live ; 

You may do right forbidding them to show 'em, 

But spoil (I think) a very pretty poem. 

CVIII. 

Oh ! ye, who make the fortunes of all books ! 

Benign Ceruleans of the second sex ! 
Who advertise new poems by your looks, 

Your " imprimatur" will ye not annex ? 
What ! must I go to the oblivious cooks,* 

Those Cornish plunderers of Parnassian wrecks ? 
Ah ! must I then the only minstrel be, 
Proscribed from tasting your Castalian tea ! ^ 

CIX. 
What ! can I prove " a lion " then no more? 

A ball-room bard, a foolscap, hot-press darling ? 
T(A^ the compliments of many a bore, 

And sigh* " I can't get out," like Yorick's starling ; 

1 " Its fumes are frankincense ; and were there nought 
EJven of this vapor, still the chilling yoke 

Of silence would not long be borne by Thought." — MS. 

2 " ' The Bride of Abydos ' was written in four nights, to 
distract my dreams from . . . Were it not thus, it had never 
been composed ; and had I not done something at that time, 
I must have gone mad, by eating my own heart — bitter diet !" 
—Byron Diary, 1813. 

8 " I have drunk deep of passions as they pass, 

And dearly bought the bitter power to give." — MS. 
* " To pastry-cooks and moths, ' and there an end.' "— GiP- 

FORD. 

6 " What ! must I go with Wordy to the cooks ? 

Read — were it but your Grandmother's to vex— 
And let me not the only minstrel be 
Cut off from tasting your Castalian tea."— MS. 

« "Away, then, with the senseless iteration of the word 
popularity! In everything which is to send the soul into 
herself, to be admonished of her weakness, or to be made 
conscious of her strength ; wherever life and nature are de- 
scribed as operated upon by the creative or abstracting virtue 
of the imagination ; wherever the instinctive wisdom of an- 
tiquity, and her heroic passions, uniting, in the heart of the 
poet, with the meditative wisdom of later ages, have produced 
that accord of sublimated humanity, which is at once a his- 
tory of the remote past, and a prophetic announcement of 
the remotest future— iAere, the poet must reconcile himself 
for a season to few and scattered hearers." — Wordsworth's 
Second Preface. 



Why then I'll swear, as poet Wordy swore 

(Because the world won't read him, always snarling). 
That taste is gone, that fame is but a lottery, 
Drawn by the blue-coat misses of a coterie.* 

ex. 

Oh ! " darkly, deeply, beautifully blue," 
As some one somewhere sings about the sky, 

And I, ye learned ladies, say of you ; [why, 

They say your stockings are so — (Heaven knows 

I have examined few pair of that hue) ; 
Blue as the garters which serenely lie 

Round the Patrician left-legs, which adorn 

The festal midnight, and the levee morn.'' 

CXI. 

Yet some of you are most seraphic creatures — 
But times are alter'd since, a rhyming lover. 

You read my stanzas, and I read your features : 
And — but no matter, all those things are over ; 

Still I have no dislike to learned natures, 
For sometimes such a world of virtues cover ; 

I knew one woman of that purer school. 

The loveliest, chastest, best, but — quite a fool. 

CXII. 

Humboldt, " the first of travellers," but not 

The last, if late accounts be accurate. 
Invented, by some name I have forgot. 

As well as the sublime discovery's date, ^ 
An airy instrument, with which he sought 

To ascertain the atmospheric state. 
By measuring " the intensity of blue ;" ^ 
Oh, Lady Daphne ! let me measure you ! * 

7 " Not having look'd at many of that hue, 

Nor garters — save those of the 'honi soit^ — which lie 
Round the Patrician legs which walk about, 
The ornaments of levee and of rout."— MS. 

8 " The cyanometer— an instrument invented for ascer- 
taining the intensity of the blue color of the sky. On the 
summit of high mountains, elevated above the grosser por- 
tions of the atmosphere, it might be curious to compare ex- 
periments with those made with the same kind of instrument 
by M. Saussure on the Alps ; but it is mere ostentation to talk, 
as M. de Humboldt does, of such experiments made at sea 
with a view of being useful to navigation. We prefer, as 
more simple and more correct, that natural diaphanometer, 
which for ages has regulated the prognostics of mariners— 
' a great paleness of the setting sun, a wan color, an extra- 
ordinary disfiguration of its disc;' though we should be 
cautious in admitting that these meteorological phenomena 
are the unequivocal signs of a tempest. The marine barom- 
eter is far more important to the mariner than hygrometers 
or cyanometers. By this instrument a change. of weather 
never fails to be indicated by the least rising or falling of 
the mercury in the tube ; the descent, in tropical latitudes, 
of an eighth of an inch, when at a distance from the land, is 
the unequivocal indication of an approaching storm. Many 
a ship has been saved from destruction by the timely notice 
given by this instrument to prepare for a storm ; and no ship 
should be permitted to go to sea without one." — Barrow. 

9 " I'll back a London ' Bas ' against Peru." 

Or, " I'll bet some pair of stockings beat Peru." 
Or, " And so, old Sotheby, we'll measure you." — MS. 



Canto V. 



DON JUAN. 



783 



CXIII. 

But to the narrative :— The vessel bound 

With slaves to sell ofl' in the capital, 
After the usual process, might be found 

At anchor under the seraglio wall ; 
Her cargo, from the plague being safe and sound, 

Were landed in the market,* one and all, 
And there with Georgians, Russians, and Circas- 



Bought up for different purposes and passions. 

CXIV. 
Some went off dearly ; fifteen hundred dollars 

For one Circassian, a sweet girl, were given 
Warranted virgin ; beauty's brightest colors 

•Had deck'd her out in all the hues of heaven : 
Her sale sent home some disappointed bawlers. 

Who bade on till the hundreds reach'd eleven ; ' 
But when the offer went beyond, they knew 
'Twas for the Sultan, and at once withdrew. 

CXV. 

Twelve negresses from Nubia brought a price 
Which the West Indian market scarce could 
bring, 

Though Wilberforce, at last, has made it twice 
What 'twas ere Abolition ; and the thing 

Need not seem very wonderful, for vice 
Is always much more splendid than a king : 

The virtues, even the most exalted. Charity, 

Are saving — vice spares nothing for a rarity. 



* "The slave-market is a quadrangle, surrounded by a cov- 
ered gallery, and ranges of small and separate apartments. 
Here the poor wretches sit in a melancholy posture. Such of 
ihera, both men and women, to whom dame Nature has been 
niggardly of her charms, are set apart for the vilest purposes ; 
but such girls as have youth and beauty pass their time well 
enough. The retailers of this human ware are the Jews, who 
lake good care of their slaves' education, that they may sell 
the better: their chuicest they keep at home, and there you 
must go, if you would have better than ordinary ; for it is 
here, as in markets for horses, the handsomest do not always 
appear, but are k-pt within doors."— Tournefort. 

* The manner of purchasing slaves is thus described in 
the plain and unaffected narrative of a German merchant, 
•' which," says Mr. Thornton, " as I have been able to ascer- 
tain its general authenticity, may be relied upon as correct:" 
— " The girls were introduced to me one after another. A Cir- 
cassian maiden, eighteen years old, was the first who presented 
herself: she was well-dressed, and her face was covered with 
a veil. She advanced towards me, bowed down and kissed 
my hand : by order of her master she walked backwards and 
forwards, to show her shape and the easiness of hnr gait and 
carriage. When she took off her veil, she displayed a bust 
of the most attractive beauty : she rubbed her cheeks with a 
wet napkin to prove that she had not used art to heighten 
her complexion ; and she opened her inviting lips, to show a 
regular set of tooth of pearly whiteness. I was permitted to 
feel her pul>;e, that I mipht be convinced of the good state of 
her health and constitution. She was then ordered to retire 
while we dollberated uprm the bargain. The price of this 
beautiful girl was four thousand pia.stres." — See Voyage de 
N. E. E.leeman, and also Thornton's Turkey, vol. ii. p. 289. 



CXVI. 

But for the destiny of this young troop, 
How some were bought by pachas, some by Jews, 

How some to burdens were obliged to stoop, 
And others rose to the command of crews 

As renegadoes ; while in hapless grcmpj*" 
Hoping no very old vizier might choose. 

The females stood, as one by one they pick'd 'em, 

To make a mistress, or fourth wife, or victim : * 

CXVII. 

And this must be reserved for further song ; 

Also our hero's lot, howe'er unpleasant 
Because this Canto has become too long), 

Must be postponed discreetly for the present ; 
I'm sensible redundancy is wrong. 

But could not for the muse of me put less in't : 
And now delay the progress of Don Juan, 
Till what is call'd in Ossian the fifth Duan. 



IBon gfuan. 



CANTO THE FIFTH.* 



I. 

When amatory poets sing their loves 
In liquid lines mellifluously bland, 

And pair their rhymes as Venus yokes her doves, 
They little think what mischief is in hand ; 



3 " The females stood, till chosen each as victim 
To the soft oath of ' Ana seing Siktum !' "—MS. 

* Canto v. was begun at Ravenna, October the 16th, and 
finished November the 20th, 1820. It was published late in 
1821, along with cantos iii. and iv. ; and here the poet meant 
to stop — for what reason, the subjoined extracts from his 
letters will show : — 

February 16, 1821.—" The fifth is so far from being the last 
of Don Juan, that it is hardly the beginning. I meant to 
take him the tour of Europe, with a proper mixture of siege, 
battle, and adventure, and to make him finish as Anarcharsis 
Cloots, in the French Revolution. To how many cantos this 
may extend, I know not, nor whether (even if I live) I shall 
complete it ; but this was my notion. I meant to have made 
him a Cavalier Servente in Italv, and a cause for a divorce in 
England, and a sentimental ' Wcrther-faced man ' in Ger- 
many, so as to show the different ridicules of the society in 
each of those countries, and to have displayed him gradually 
gdiS and blas^ as he grew older, as is natural. But I had not 
quite fixed whether to make him end in hell, or in an un- 
happy marriage ; not knotving which would be the severest ; 
the Spanish tradition says hell : but it is probably only an 
allegory of the other state. You are now in possession of my 
notions on the subject." 

July 6, 1821.— "At the particular request of the countess 
Guiccioli I have promised not to continue Don Juan. You 
will therefore look upon these three cantos as the last of the 
poem. She had read the two first in the French translation, 
and never ceased beseeching me to write no more of it. The 
reason of this is not at first obvious to a superficial observer 
of KORKIGN manners ; but it arises from the wish of all women 
to exalt the sentiment of the passions, and to keep up tlie 



784 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto V. 



The greater their success the worse it proves, 

As Ovid's verse may give to understand; 
Even Petrarch's self, if judged with due severity. 
Is the Platonic pimp of all posterity.^ 

II. 

I therefore do denounce all amorous writing, 
Except in such a way as not to attract ; 

Plain— simple— short, and by no means inviting, 
But with a moral to each error tack'd, 

Form'd rather for instructing than delighting, 
And with all passions in their turn attack'd ; 

Now, if my Pegasus should not be shod ill, 

This poem will become a moral model. 

III. 

The European with the Asian shore 
Sprinkled with palaces; the Ocean stream * 

Here and there studded with a seventy-four ; 
Sophia's cupola with golden gleam ; ^ 

The cypress groves; Olympus high and hoar; 
The twelve isles, and the more than I could 
dream, 

Far less describe, present the very view 

Which charm'd the charming Mary Montagu.* 

IV. 

I have a passion for the name of " Mary,"* 
For once it was a magic sound to me ; 

And still it half calls up the realms of fairy, 
Where I beheld what never was to be ; 



illusion which is their empire. Now, Don Juan strips off this 
illusion, and laughs at that and most other things. I never 
knew a woman who did not protect Rousseau, nor one who 
did not dislike De Grammont, Gil Bias, and all the comedy of 
the passions, when brought oixt naturally. But ' king's blood 
must keep word,' as Sergeant Bothwell says." 

September 4, 1821. — " I read over the Juans, which are ex- 
cellent. Your squad are quite wrong ; and so you'll find, by 
and by. I regret that I do not go on with it, for I had all the 
plan for several cantos, and different countries and climes. 
You say nothing of the note I enclosed to you, which will ex- 
plain why I agreed to discontinue it." 

In Madame Guiccioli's note, here referred to, she had said, 
" Remember, my Byron, the promise you have made me. 
Never shall I be able to tell you the satisfaction I feel from 
it; so great are the sentiments of pleasure and confidence 
with which the sacrifice you have made has inspired me." 
In a postscript to the note she adds, " Mi reveresco solo che 
Don Giovanni non resti all' Inferno." " I am only sorry that 
Don Juan was not left in the infernal regioir3." 

1 See Appendix: "Hobhousc's Historical Notes to the 
fourth canto of Childe Harold." " 

2 'il/ceavoto peoio. This expression of Homer has been much 
criticised. It hardly answers to our Atlantic ideas of the 
ocean, but is sufl&ciently applicable to the Hellespont, and the 
Bosphorus, with the ^gean intersected with islands. 

* "Lady Mary Wortley errs strangely when she says,. 
'Saint Paul would cut a strange figure by Saint Sophia.' I 
have been in both, surveyed them inside and out attentively. 
Saint Sophia's is undoubtedly the most interesting, from its 
immense antiquity, and the circumstance of all the Greek 
emperors, from Justinian, having been crowned there, and 
several murdered at the altar, besides the Turkish sultana 



All feelings changed, but this was last to vary, 

A spell from which even yet I am not quite free : 
But I grow sad — and let a tale grow cold, 
Which must not be pathetically told. 

V. 

The wind swept down the Euxine, and the wave 
Broke foaming o'er the blue Symplegades ; 

'Tis a grand sight from off " the Giant's Grave"* 
To watch the progress of those rolling seas 

Between the Bosphorus, as they lash and lave 
Europe and Asia, you being quite at ease : 

There's not a sea the passenger e'er pukes in, 

Turns up more dangerous breakers than the Euxine. 

VI. 

'Twas a raw day of Autumn's bleak beginning, 
When nights are equal, but not so the days ; 

The Parcse then cut short the further spinning 
Of seamen's fates, and the loud tempests raise'' 

The waters, and repentance for past sinning 
lu all, who o'er the great deep take their ways : 

They vow to amend their lives, and yet they don't ; 

Because if drown'd, they can't— if spared, they won't. 

VII. 

A crowd of shivering slaves of every nation, 
And age, and sex, were in the market ranged ; 

Each bevy with the mercliant in his station : 
Poor creatures! their good looks were sadly 
changed. 



who attended it regularly. But it is not to be mentioned in 
the same page with Saint Paul's (I speak like a Cockney)." — 
Byron Letters, 1810. 

* " The pleasure of going in a barge to Chelsea is not com- 
parable to that of rowing upon the canal of the sea here, 
where, for twenty miles together, down the Bosphorus, the 
most beautiful variety of prospects present themselves. The 
Asian side is covered with fruit trees, villages, and the most 
delightful landscapes in nature ; on the European stands Con- 
stantinople, situated on seven hills; showing an agreeable 
mixture of gardens, pine and cypress trees, palaces, mosques, 
and public buildings, raised one above another, with as much 
beauty and appearance of symmetry as you ever saw in a 
cabinet adorned by the most skillful hands, where jars show 
themselves above jars, mixed with canisters, babies, and can- 
dlesticks. This is a very odd comparison ; but it gives me an 
exact id(5a of the thing."— Lady M. W. Montagu. 

5 See ante, p. 454. 

6 The " Giant's Grave " is a height on the Asiatic shore of 
the Bosphorus, much frequented by holiday parties; like 
Harrow and Highgate.— " In less than an hour, we were on the 
top of the mountain, and repaired to the Tekeh, or Dervishes' 
chapel, where we were shown, in the adjoining garden, a 
flower-bed more than fifty feet long, rimmed round with 
stone, and having a sepulchral turban at each end, which 
preserves a superstition attached to the spot long before the 
time of the Turks, or of the Byzantine Christians; and 
which, after having been called the tomb of Amycus, and 
the bed of Hercules, is now known as the Giant's Grave."— 

HOBHOUSE. 



For then the Parcse are most busy spinning 
The fates of seamen, and the loud winds raise.' 



-MS. 



Canto V. 



DON JUAN. 



785 



All save the blacks seem'd jaded with vexation, 

From friends, and home, and freedom far estranged ; 
The negroes more philosophy display'd — 
Used to it, no doubt, as eels are to be flay'd. 

VIII. 
Juan was juvenile, and thus was full, 

As most at his age are, of hope, and health ; 
Yet I must own, he look'd a little dull, 

And now and then a tear stole down by stealth ; 
Perhaps his recent loss of blood might pull 

His spirit down ; and then the loss of wealth, 
A mistress, and such comfortable quarters. 
To be put up for auction amongst Tartars, 

IX. 
Were things to shake a stoic ; ne'ertheless. 

Upon the whole his carriage was serene : 
His figure, and the splendor of his dress. 

Of which some gilded remnants still were seen. 
Drew all eyes on him, giving them to guess 

He was above the vulgar by his mien ; 
And then, though pale, he was so very handsome ; 
And then — they calculated on his ransom.i 

X. 

Like a backgammon board the place was dotted 
With whites and blacks, in groups on show for sale. 

Though rather more irregularly spotted : 
Some bought the jet, while others chose the pale. 

It chanced amongst the other people lotted, 
A man of thirty, rather stout and hale,^ 

With resolution in his dark gray eye. 

Next Juan stood, till some might choose to buy. 

XI. 

He had an English look ; that is, was square 
In make, of a complexion white and ruddy. 

Good teeth, with curling rather dark brown hair. 
And, it might be from thought, or toil, or study, 

An open brow a little mark'd with care : 
One arm had on a bandage rather bloody ; 

And there he stood with such sang froid, that greater 

Could scarce be shown even by a mere spectator. 

XII. 
But seeing at his elbow a mere lad. 

Of a high spirit evidently, though 
At present weigh'd down by a doom which had 

O'erthrown even men, he soon began to show 
A kind of blunt compassion for the sad 

Lot of so young a partner in the woe, 
Which for himself he seem'd to deem no worse 
Than any other scrape, a thing of course. 



' " That he a man of rank and birth had been, 
And then they calculated on his ransom, 
And last not least — he was so very handsome."— MS. 

50 



XIII. 

" My boy !" — said he, " amidst this motley crew 

Of Georgians, Kussians, Nubians, and what not, 
All ragamufiins differing but in hue. 

With whom it is our luck to cast our lot. 
The only gentlemen seem I and you ; 

So let us be acquainted, as we ought : 
If I could yield you any consolation, 
'Twould give me pleasure. — Pray, what is your 
nation?" 

XIV. 
When Juan answer'd — " Spanish !" he replied, 

" I thought, in fact, you could not be a Greek ; 
Those servile dogs are not so proudly eyed : 

Fortune has play'd you here a pretty freak. 
But that's her way with all men, till they're tried ; 

But never mind,— she'll turn, perhaps, next week ; 
She has served me also much the same as you. 
Except that I have found it nothing new." 

XV. 
" Pray, sir," said Juan, " if I may presume, [rare — 

What brought you here?" — "Oh! nothing very 
Six Tartars and a drag-chain " — " To this doom 

But what conducted, if the question's fair. 
Is that which \ would learn." — " I served for some 

Months with the Eussian army here and there ; 
And taking lately, by Suwarrow's bidding, 
A town, was ta'en myself instead of Widdin."^ 

XVI. 
"Have you no friends?"— "I had— but, by God's 
blessing, 

Have not been troubled with them lately. Now 
I have answer'd all your questions without pressing, 

And you an equal courtesy should show." 
" Alas !" said Juan, " 'twere a tale distressing. 

And long besides." — " Oh I if 'tis really so. 
You're right on both accounts to hold your tongue ; 
A sad tale saddens doubly when 'tis long. 

XVII. 

" But droop not : Fortune at your time of life, 

Although a female moderately fickle. 
Will hardly leave you (as she's not your wife) 

For any length of days in such a pickle. 
To strive, too, with our fate were such a strife 

As if the corn-sheaf should oppose the sickle : 
Men are the sport of circumstances, when 
The circumstances seem the sport of men." 

XVIII. 
" 'Tis not," said Juan, " for my present doom 
I mourn, but for the past ;— I loved a maid :"— 



2 " It chanced, that near him, separately lotted, 

From out the group of slaves put up for sale, 
A man of middle age, and," Ac— MS. 

3 A considerable town in Bulgaria, on the right bank of 
the Danube. 



786 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Canto V. 



He paused, and his dark eye grew full of gloom ; 

A single tear upon his eyelash staid 
A moment, and then dropp'd; " but to resume; 

'Tis not my present lot, as I have said. 
Which I deplore so much ; for I have borne 
Hardships which have the hardiest overworn, 

XIX. 
" On the rough deep. But this last blow — " and 
here \ 

He stopp'd again, and turn'd away his face. 
" Ay," quoth his friend, " I thought it would appear 

That there had been a lady in the case ; 
And these are things which ask a tender tear, 

Such as I, too, would shed if in your place : 
I cried upon my first wife's dying day. 
And also when my second ran away : 

XX. 

"My third " — "Your third!" quoth Juan, turn- 
ing round ; 

" You scarcely can be thirty : have you three?" 
" No — only two at present above ground : 

Surely 'tis nothing wonderful to see 
One person thrice in holy wedlock bound !" 

"Well, then, your third," said Juan, "what did 
she? 
She did not run away, too, — did she, sir?" 
" No, faith."—" What then ?"— " I ran away from her." 

XXI. 

" You take things coolly, sir," said Juan. " Why," 
Replied the other, " what can a man do ? 

There still are many rainbows in your sky, 
But mine have vanish'd. All, when life is new. 

Commence with feelings warm, and prospects high ; 
But time strips our illusions of their hue. 

And one by one in turn, some grand mistake 

Casts oiF its bright skin yearly like the snake. 

XXII. 

" 'Tis true, it gets another bright and fresh. 

Or fresher, brighter ; but the year gone through, 

This skin must go the way, too, of all flesh. 
Or sometimes only wear a week or two ; — 

Love's the first net which spreads its deadly mesh ; 
Ambition, Avarice, Vengeance, Glory, glue 

The glittering lime-twigs of our latter days. 

Where still we flutter on for pence or praise." 

1 " The intended bidders minutely examine the poor creat- 
ures merely to ascertain their qualities as animals, select the 
sleekest and best-conditioned from the different groups, and, 
besides handling and examining their make and size, subject 
their mouths, their teeth, and whatever chiefly engages at- 
tention, to a scrutiny of the most critical description." — De 

POUQUEVILLE. 

2 " Sir Robert Walpole is justly blamed for a want of polit- 
ical decorum, and for deriding public spirit, to which Pope 
alludes :— • 

Seen him, I have, but in his happier hour 
Of social pleasure, ill exchanged for power ; 



XXIII. 

" All this is very fine, and may be true," 
Said Juan ; " but I really don't see how 

It betters present times with me or you." 

" No ?" quoth the other ; " yet you will allow 

By setting things in their right point of view, 
Knowledge, at least, is gain'd ; for instance, now, 

We know what slavery is, and our disasters 

May teach us better to behave when masters." 

XXIV. 

" Would we were masters now, if but to try 
Their present lessons on our Pagan friends here," 

Said Juan, — swallowing a heart-burning sigh : 

" Heaven help the scholar, whom his fortune sends 

" Perhaps we shall be one day, by and by," [here !" 
Rejoin'd the other, " when our bad luck mends here ; 

Meantime (yon old black eunuch seems to eye us) 

I wish to G— d that somebody would buy us. 

XXV. 

" But after all, what is our present state ? 

'Tis bad, and may be better — all men's lot : 
Most men are slaves, none more so than the great, 

To their own whims and passions, and what not ; 
Society itself, which should create 

Kindness, destroys what little we had got : 
To feel for none is the true social art 
Of the world's stoics — men without a heart." 

XXVI. 

Just now a black old neutral personage 
Of the third sex stept up, and peering over 

The captives seem'd to mark their looks and age, 
And capabilities, as to discover 

If they were fitted for the purposed cage : 
No lady e'er is ogled by a lover. 

Horse by a blackleg, broadcloth by a tailor, 

Fee by a counsel, felon by a jailer, 

XXVII. 

As is a slave by his intended bidder.! 

'Tis pleasant purchasing our fellow creatures ; 
And all are to be sold, if you consider 

Their passions, and are dext'rous ; some by features 
Are bought up, others by a warlike leader. 

Some by a place — as tend their years or natures ; 
The most by ready cash — but all have prices,^ 
From crowns to kicks, according to their vices. 

Seen him, uncumber'd with the venal tribe, 
SmQe without art, and win without a bribe. 
Would he oblige me ! let me only find 
He does not think me what he thinks mankind.' 
Although it is not possible to justify him, yet this part of his 
conduct has been greatly exaggerated. The political axiom 
generally attributed, that all men have ''their price, was per- 
verted by leaving out the word those. Flowery oratory he 
despised ; he ascribed it to the interested views of themselves 
or their relatives, the declarations of pretended patriots, of 
whom he said, ' All those men have their price,' and in the 
event many of them justified his observation." — CoxE. 



Canto V. 



DON JUAN. 



787 



XXVIII. 

The eunuch, having eyed them o'er with care, 
Turn'd to the merchant, and began to bid 

First but for one, and after for the pair ; 
They haggled, wrangled, swore, too— so they did ! 

As though they were in a mere Christian fair, 
Cheapening an ox, an ass, a lamb, or kid ; 

So that their bargain sounded like a battle 

For this superior yoke of human cattle. 

XXIX. 
At last they settled into simple grumbling, 

And pulling out reluctant purses, and 
Turning each piece of silver o'er, and tumbling 

Some down, and weighing others in their hand, 
And by mistake sequins ^ with paras jumbling. 

Until the sum was accurately scann'd, 
And then the merchant giving change, and signing 
Receipts in full, began to think of dining. 

XXX. 

I wonder if his appetite was good ? 

Or, if it were, if also his digestion ? 
Methinks at meals some odd thoughts might intrude. 

And conscience ask a curious sort of question, 
About the right divine how far we should 

Sell flesh and blood. When dinner has opprest one, 
I think it is perhaps the gloomiest hour 
Which turns up out of the sad twenty -four. 

XXXI. 

Voltaire says " No :" he tells you that Candida 

Found life most tolerable after meals ; 
He's wrong — unless man were a pig, indeed, 

Repletion rather adds to what he feels. 
Unless he's drunk, and then no doubt he's freed 

From his own brain's oppression while it reels. 
Of food I think with Philip's son,^ or rather 
Ammon's (ill pleased with one world and one father) ; ' 

' The Turkish zecchino is a gold coin, worth about seven 
shillings and sixpence. The para is not quite equal to an 
English halfpennj, 

* See Plutarch in Alex., Q. Curt. Hist. Alexand., and Sir 
Richard Gayton's " Critical Inquiry into the Life of Alex- 
ander the Great." 

' "But for mere food, I think with Philip's son, 
Or Ammon's— for two fathers claim'd this one." — MS. 

♦ "Last night suflfered horribly from an indigestion. I 
remarked in my illness the complete inertion, inaction, and 
destruction of my chief mental faculties. I tried to rouse 
them, and yet could not. I should believe that the soul was 
married to the body, if they did not sympathize so much with 
each other. If the one rose when the other fell, it would he 
a sign that they longed for the natural state of divorce. But, 
as it is, they seem to draw together like post-horses."— 5yron 
IHary, 1821. 

6 The assassination alluded to took place on the 8th of De- 
cember, 1820, in the streets of Ravenna, not a hundred paces 
fh)m the residence of the writer. The circumstances were 
as described.— " December 9, 1820. I open my letter to tell 
you a fact, which will show the state of this country better 
than I can. The commandant of the troops is now lying 
dead in my house. He was shot at a little past eight o'clock. 



XXXII. 

I think with Alexander, that the act 

Of eating, with another act or two, 
Makes us feel our mortality in fact 

Redoubled ; when a roast and a ragout, 
And fish, and soup, by some side dishes back'd, 

Can give us either pain or pleasure, who 
Would pique himself on intellects, whose use 
Depends so much upon the gastric juice?* 

XXXIII. 
The other evening ('twas on Friday last) — 

This is a fact, and no poetic fable — 
Just as my great coat was about me cast. 

My hat and gloves still lying on the table, 
■I heard a shot — 'twas eight o'clock scarce past — 

And, running out as fast as I was able,^ 
I found the military commandant 
Stretch'd in the street, and able scarce to pant. 

XXXIV. 
Poor fellow ! for some reason, surely bad, 

They had slain him wdth five slugs ; and left him there 
To perish on the pavement : so I had 

Him borne into the house and up the stair, 
And stripp'd, and look'd to,« But why should I add 

More circumstances ? vain was every care ; 
The man was gone : in some Italian quarrel 
Kill'd by five bullets from an old gun-barrel."' 

XXXV. 

I gazed upon him, for I knew him well ; 

And though I have seen many corpses, never 
Saw one, whom such an accident befell, [and liver, 

So calm; though pierced through stomach, heart, 
He seem'd to sleep, — for you could scarcely tell 

(As he bled inwardly, no hideous river 
Of gore divulged the cause) that he was dead : 
So as I gazed on him, I thought or said — 

about two hundred paces from my door. I was putting on my 
great coat when I heard the shot. On coming into the hall, 
I found all my servants on the balcony, exclaiming that a 
man was murdered. I immediately ran down, calling on Tita 
(the bravest of them) to follow me. The rest wanted to hin- 
der us from going, as it is the custom for everybody here, it 
seems, to run aw-ay from the stricken deer."— 5yro7i Letters. 

« " so I had 

Him borne, as soon's I could, up several pair 

Of stairs— and look'd to, But why should I add 

More circumstances," &c. — MS. 

T "We found him lying on his back, almost, if not quite, 
dead, with five wounds, one in the heart, two in the stomach, 
one in the finger, and the other in the arm. Some soldiers 
cocked their guns, and wanted to hinder me from passing. 
However, we pa.sscd, and I found Diego, the adjutant, crying 
over him like a child — a surgeon, who said nothing of his 
profession— a priest, sobbing a frightened prayer— and the 
commandant, all this time, on his back, on the hard, cold 
pavement, without light or assistance, or anything around 
him but confusion and dismay. As nobody could, or would, 
do anything but howl and pray, and as no one would stir a 
finger to move him, for fear of consequences, I lost my 
patience — made my servant and a couple of the mob take up 



788 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto V. 



XXXVI. 

" Can this be death ? then what is life or death ? 

Speak!" but he spoke not: "wake!" but still he 
slept : — 
" But yesterday and who had mightier breath ? 

A thousand warriors by his word were kept 
In awe : he said, as the centurion saith, 

' Go,' and he goeth ; * come,' and forth he stepp'd. 
The trump and bugle till he spake were dumb — 
And now nought left him but the muffled drum." i 

XXXVII. 

And they who waited once and worshipp'd — they 
With their rough faces throng'd about the bed 

To gaze once more on the commanding clay 
Which for the last, though not the first, time bled ; 

And such an end ! that he who many a day 
Had faced Napoleon's foes until they fled, — 

The foremost in the charge or in the sally, 

Should now be butcher'd in a civic alley. 

XXXVIII. 
The scars of his old wounds were near his new. 

Those honorable scars which brought him fame ; 
And horrid was the contrast to the view ^ 

But let me quit the theme ; as such things claim 
Perhaps even more attention than is due 

From me : I gazed (as oft I have gazed the same) 
To try if I could wrench aught out of death 
Which should confirm, or shake, or make a faith ; 

XXXIX. 

But it was all a mystery. Here we are. 
And there we go : — but where f five bits of lead. 

Or three, or two, or one, send very far ! 
And is this blood, then, form'd but to be shed ? 

Can every element our elements mar ? 
And air — earth — water — fire live — and we dead ? 

We, whose minds comprehend all things ? No more ; 

But let us to the story as before. 

XL. 

The purchaser of Juan and acquaintance 

Bore ofi" his bargains to a gilded boat, 
Embark'd himself and them, and ofi" they went 
thence 

As fast as oars could pull and water float ; 
They look'd like persons being led to sentence, 

Wondering what next, till the caique ^ was brought 
Up in a little creek below a wall 
O'ertopp'd with cypresses, dark-green and tall. 



the body — sent off two soldiers to the guard — despatched 
Diego to the cardinal with the news, and had him carried up 
stairs into my own quarters. But it was too late — he was 
gone." — Byron Letters. 

1 " And now as silent as an unstrung drum."— MS. 

2 "I had him partly stripped — made the surgeon examine 
him, and examined him myself. He had been shot by cut 
balls or slugs. I felt one of the slugs which had gone through 
him, all but the skin. He only said, ' Dio !' and ' Giesu !' 



XLI. 

Here their conductor tapping at the wicket 
Of a small iron door, 'twas open'd, and 

He led them onward, first through a low thicket 
Flank'd by large groves, which tower'd on either 
hand: 

They almost lost their way, and had to pick it — 
For night was closing ere they came to land. 

The eunuch made a sign to those on board. 

Who row'd ofl", leaving them without a word. 

XLII. 

As they were plodding on their winding way 
Through orange bowers, and jasmine, and so forth 

(Of which I might have a good deal to say, 
There being no such profusion in the North 

Of Oriental plants, " et cetera," 
But that of late your scribblers think it worth 

Their while to rear whole hotbeds in their works, 

Because one poet travell'd 'mongst the Turks) :* 

XLIII. 

As they were threading on their way, there came 
Into Don Juan's head a thought, which he 

Whisper'd to his companion : — 'twas the same 
Which might have then occurr'd to you or me. 

" Methinks," — said he, — "it would be no great shame 
If we should strike a stroke to set us free ; 

Let's knock that old black fellow on the head. 

And march away — 'twere easier done than said." 

XLIV. 

" Yes," said the other, " and when done, what then? 

How get out ? how the devil got we in ? 
And when we once were fairly out, and when 

From Saint Bartholomew we have saved our skin,* 
To-morrow'd see us in some other den. 

And worse ofi" than we hitherto have been ; 
Besides, I'm hungry, and just now would take, 
Like Esau, for my birthright a beef-steak. 

XLV. 

" We must be near some place of man's abode ; — 
For the old negro's confidence in creeping. 

With his two captives, by so queer a road. 
Shows that he thinks his friends have not been 
sleeping ; 

A single cry would bring them all abroad : 
'Tis better therefore looking before leaping — 

And there, you see, this turn has brought us through, 

By Jove, a noble palace ! — lighted too." 

two or three times, and appeared to have suffered little. Poor 
fellow ! he was a brave officer ; but had made himself disliked 
by the people."— ^t/ron Letters. 

3 The light and elegant wherries plying about the quays of 
Constantinople are so called. 

* "Eastern Sketches," "Parga," "Phrosyne," "Ilderim," 
&c. &c, 

6 Saint Bartholomew is said to have been flayed alive. 



Canto V. 



DON JUAN. 



.789 



XLVI. 

It was indeed a wide extensive building 

Which open'd on their view, and o'er the front 

There seemed to be besprent a deal of gilding 
And various hues, as is the Turkish wont, — 

A gaudy taste ; for they are little skill'd in 
The arts of which these lands were once the font : 

Each villa on the Bosphorus looks a screen 

New painted, or a pretty opera-scene. 

XLVII. 
And nearer as they came, a genial savor 

Of certain stews, and roast meats, and pilaus, 
Things which in hungry mortals' eyes find favor, 

Made Juan in his harsh intentions pause, 
And put himself upon his good behavior : 

His friend, too, adding a new saving clause. 
Said, " In Heaven's name, let's get some supper 

now, 
And then I'm with you, if you're for a row." 

XLVIII. 
Some talk of an appeal unto some passion. 

Some to men's feelings, others to their reason ; 
The last of these was never much the fashion, 

For reason thinks all reasoning out of season : 
Some speakers whine, and others lay the lash on, 

But more or less continue still to tease on, 
With arguments according to their " forte ;" 
But no one ever dreams of being short. — 

XLIX. 

But I digress : of all appeals,— although 
I grant the power of pathos, and of gold. 

Of beauty, flattery, threats, a shilling, — no 
Method's more sure at moments to take hold ^ 

Of the best feelings of mankind, which grow 
More tender, as we every day behold, 

Than that all-softening, overpowering knell, 

The tocsin of the soul — the dinner-bell. 

L. 

Turkey contains no bells, and yet men dine ; 

And Juan and his friend, albeit they heard 
No Christian knoll to table, saw no line 

Of lackeys usher to the feast prepared. 
Yet smelt roast meat, beheld a huge fire shine. 

And cooks in motion with their clean arms bared, 



* "Of speeches, beauty, flattery— there is no 

Method more sure," Ac.— MS. 
'"Guide des Voyageurs," "Directions for Travellers," 
Ac.—" Rhymes, Incidental and Humorous," " Rhyming Rem- 
Iniacences," "Effusions in Rhyme," Ac— " Lady Morgan's 
Tour in Italy," "Tour through Istria," Ac. Ac— " Sketches 
of Italy," "Sketches of Modern Greece," Ac. Ac— The last 
Is a playful allusion to his friend Mr. Hobhouse's " Illustra- 
tioDS of Childe Harold." 

* In Turkey nothing i.s more common than for the Mussul- 
mans to take several glasses of strong spirits by way of ap- 
petizer. I have seen them take as many as six of raki before 
dinner, and swear that they dined the better for it : I tried 



And gazed around them to the left and right, 
With the prophetic eye of appetite. 

LI. 

And giving up all notions of resistance. 

They follow'd close behind their sable guide. 

Who little thought that his own crack'd existence 
Was on the point of being set aside : 

He motion'd them to stop at some small distance, 
Andi^nocking at the gate, 'twas open'd wide. 

And a magnificent large hall display'd 

The Asian pomp of Ottoman parade. 

LII. 

I won't describe ; description is my forte, 
But every fool describes in these bright days 

His wondrous journey to some foreign court, 
And spawns his quarto, and demands your praise — 

Death to his publisher, to him 'tis sport ; 
While Nature, tortured twenty thousand ways, 

Resigns herself with exemplary patience 

To guide-books, Rymes, tours, sketches, illustrations.' 

LIII. 

Along this hall, and up and down, some, squatted 
Upon their hams, were occupied at chess ; 

Others in monosyllable talk chatted. 
And some seem'd much in love with their own dress ; 

And divers smoked superb pipes, decorated 
With amber mouths of greater price or less ; 

And several strutted, others slept, and some 

Prepared for supper with a glass of rum.^ 

LIV. 

As the black eunuch entered with his brace 
Of purchased Infidels, some raised their eyes 

A moment, without slackening from their pace ; 
But those who sate, ne'er stirr'd in any wise : 

One or two stared the captives in the face, 
Just as one views a horse to guess his price ; 

Some nodded to the negro from their station. 

But no one troubled him with conversation.* 

LV. 

He leads them through the hall, and, without stopping, 
On through a farther range of goodly rooms, 

Splendid but silent, save in one, where, dropping,^ 
A marble fountain echoes through the glooms 

the experiment, but fared like the Scotchman, who having 
heard that the birds called kitti wakes were admirable whets, 
ate six of them, and complained that "he was no hungrier 
than when he began." 

* "Every thing is so still in the court of the seraglio, that 
the motion of a fly might, in a manner, be heard ; and if any 
one should presume to raise his voice ever so little, or show 
the least want of respect to the mansion-place of their em- 
peror, he would instantly have the bastinado by the ofl&cers 
that go the rounds."— Tournefort. 

6 A common furniture. I recollect being received by Ali 
Pacha, in a large room, paved with marble, containing a 



790 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Canto V. 



Of night, which robe the chamber, or where popping 

Some female head most curiously presumes 
To thrust its black eyes through the door or lattice, 
As wondering what the devil noise that is. 

LVI. / 

Some faint lamps gleaming from the lofty walls / 

Gave light enough to hiut their further way, 
But not enough to show the imperial halls 

In all the flashing of their full array ; % 

Perhaps there's nothing — I'll not say appalls. 

But saddens more by night as well as day, 
Than an enormous room without a soul 
To break the lifeless splendor of the whole. 

LVII. 

Two or three seem so little, dne seems nothing : 
In deserts, forests, crowds, or by the shore, 

There solitude, we know, has her full growth in 
The spots which were her realms for evermore ; 

But in a mighty hall or gallery, both in 
More modern buildings and those built of yore, 

A kind of death comes o'er us all alone. 

Seeing what's meant for many with but one. 

LVIII. 
A neat, snug study on a winter's night,i 

A book, friend, single lady, or a glass 
Of claret, sandwich, and an appetite, 

Are things which make an English evening pass ; 
Though certes by no means so grand a sight 

As is a theatre lit up by gas. 
I pass my evenings in long galleries solely, 
And that's the reason I'm so melancholy. 

LIX. 

Alas ! man makes that great which makes him 
little : 
I grant y6u in a church 'tis very well : 
What speaks of Heaven should by no means be 
brittle. 
But strong and lasting, till no tongue can tell 



marble basin, and fountain playing in the centre, &c. &c. 
See ante, p. 27. 

" In marble-paved pavilion, where a spring 

Of living water from the centre rose, 
Whose bubbling did a genial freshness fling, 

And soft voluptuous couches breathed repose, 
Aiii reclined, a man of war and woes," &c. 

1 " A small, snug chamber on a winter's night. 

Well furnish'd with a book, friend, girl, or glass," &c. 
—MS. 

2 See Ovid's Metamorphoses, lib. iv. 

" In Babylon, where first her queen, for state, 

Raised walls of brick magnificently great, 

Lived Pyramus and Thisbe, lovely pair ! 

He found no Eastern youth his equal there, 

And she beyond the fairest nymph was fair." — Garth. 

3 Babylon was enlarged by Nimrod, strengthened and beau- 
tified by Nebuchadonosor, and rebuilt by Semiramis. 

4 At the time when Lord Byron was writing this canto, the 
tuifortunate affair of Queen Caroline, charged, among other 



Their names who rear'd it ; but huge houses fit ill — 
And huge tombs worse — mankind, since Adam 
fell: 
Methinks the story of the tower of Babel 
Might teach them this much better than I'm able. 

LX. 

Babel was Nimrod's hunting-box, and then 
A town of gardens, walls, and wealth amazing. 

Where Nebuchadonosor, king of men, 
Reign'd, till one summer's day he took to grazing, 

And Daniel tamed the lions in their den, 
The people's awe and admiration raising ; 

'Twas famous, too, for Thisbe and for Pyramus,^ 

And the calumniated queen Semiramis ^ — 

LXI. 

That injured queen, by chroniclers so coarse 
Has been accused (I doubt not by conspiracy) 

Of an improper friendship for her horse 
(Love, like religion, sometimes runs to heresy) : 

This monstrous tale had probably its source 
(For such exaggerations here and there I see) 

In writing " Courser" by mistake for " Courier :'* 

I wish the case could come before a jury here.* 

LXII. 

But to resume, — should there be (what may not 
Be in these days ?) some infidels, who don't. 

Because they can't find out the very spot^ 
Of that same Babel, or because they won't 

(Though Claudius Rich, Esquire, some bricks has 
got, 
And written lately two memoirs upon't^) 

Believe the Jews, those unbelievers, who 

Must be believed, though they believe not you, 

LXIII. 

Yet let them think that Horace has exprest 
Shortly and sweetly the masonic folly 

Of those, forgetting the great place of rest, 
Who give themselves to architecture wholly ; 



offences, with admitting her chamberlain, Bergami, originally 
a courier, to her bed, was occupying much attention in Italy, 
as in England, The allusions to the domestic troubles of 
George IV. in the text, are frequent. 

5 " Excepting the ruins of some large and lofty turrets, like 
that of Babel or Belus, the cities of Babylon and Nineveh are 
so completely crumbled into dust, as to be wholly undistin- 
guishable but by a few inequalities of the surface on which 
they once stood. The humble tent of the Arab now occupies 
the spot formerly adorned with the palaces of kings, and his 
flocks procure but a scanty pittance of food, amidst the fallen 
fragments of ancient magnificence. The banks of the Eu- 
phrates and Tigris, once so prolific, are now, for the most 
part, covered with an impenetrable brushwood ; and the in- 
terior of the province, which was traversed and fertilized 
with innumerable canals, is destitute of either inhabitants , 
or vegetation." — Morier. 

6 "Two Memoirs on the Ruins of Babylon, by Claudius j 
James Rich, Esq., Resident for the East India Company at ; 
the Court of the Pasha of Bagdat." 



Canto V. 



DON JUAN. 



791 



We know where things and men must end at best : 

A moral (like all morals') melancholy, 
And " Et sepulchri immemor struis domos"^ 
Shows that we build when we should but entomb us. 

LXIV. 
At last they reach'd a quarter most retired, 

Where echo woke as if from a long slumber ; 
Though full of all things which could be desired. 

One wonder'd what to do with such a number 
Of articles which nobody required; 

Here wealth had done its utmost to encumber 
With furniture an exquisite apartment, 
Which puzzled Nature much to know what Art meant. 

LXV. 

It seem'd, however, but to open on 
A range or suite of further chambers, which 

Might lead to heaven knows where ; but in this one 
The movables were prodigally rich : 

Sofas 'twas half a sin to sit upon, 
So costly were they ; carpets every stitch 

Of workmanship so rare, they made you wish 

You could glide o'er them like a golden fish, t 

LXVI. 

The black, however, without hardly deigning 
A glance at that which wrapt the slaves in wonder, 

Trampled what they scarce trod for fear of staining. 
As if the milky way their feet was under 

With all its stars ; and with a stretch attaining 
A certain press or cupboard niched in yonder, 

In that remote recess which you may see — 

Or if you don't the fault is not in me, — 

LXVII. 

I wish to be perspicuous ; and the black, 
I say, unlocking the recess, pull'd forth 

A quantity of clothes fit for the back 
Of any Mussulman, whate'er his worth ; 

And of variety there was no lack — 
And yet, though I have said there was no 
dearth, — 

He chose himself to point out what he thought 

Most proper for the Christians he had bought. 

LXVIII. 

The suit he thought most suitable to each 
Was, for the elder and the stouter, first 

A Candiote cloak, which to the knee might reach. 
And trousers not so tight that they would burst. 

But such as fit an Asiatic breech ; 
A shawl, whose folds in Cashmire had been nurst, 

Slippers of saffron, dagger rich and handy; 

In short, all things which form a Turkish Dandy. 



1 " Day presses on the he«ls of day, 
And moons increase to their decay ; 
But you, with thoughtless pride elate, 
Unconscious of impending fate, 



LXIX. 

While he was dressing, Baba, their black friend. 
Hinted the vast advantages which they 

Might probably attain both in the end. 
If they would but pursue the proper way 

Which Fortune plainly seem'd to recommend; 
And then he added, that he needs must say, 

" 'Twould greatly tend to better their condition, 

If they would condescend to circumcision. 

LXX. 

" For his own part, he really should rejoice 
To see them true believers, but no less 

Would leave his proposition to their choice." 
The other, thanking him for this excess 

Of goodness, in thus leaving them a voice 
In such a trifle, scarcely could express 

"Sufficiently" (he said) "his approbation 

Of all the customs of this polish'd nation. 

LXXI. 

" For his own share — he saw but small objection 

To so respectable an ancient rite ; 
And, after swallowing down a slight refection. 

For which he own'd a present appetite, 
He doubted not a few hours of reflection 

Would reconcile him to the business quite." 
" Will it?" said Juan, sharply : " Strike me dead. 
But they as soon shall circumcise my head ! 2 

LXXII. 

" Cut ofi" a thousand heads, before " — " Now, 

Replied the other, " do not interrupt : [pray," 

You put me out in what I had to say. 
Sir ! — as I said, as soon as I have supt, 

I shall perpend if your proposal may 
Be such as I can properly accept ; 

Provided always your great goodness still 

Remits the matter to our own free will." 

LXXIII. 
Baba eyed Juan, and said, " Be so good 

As dress yourself" — and pointed out a suit 
In which a princess with great pleasure would 

Array her limbs ; but Juan standing mute. 
As not being in a masquerading mood, 

Gave it a slight kick with his Christian foot ; 
And when the old negro told him to " Get ready," 
Replied, "Old gentleman, I'm not a lady." 

LXXIV. 

" What you may be, I neither know nor care," 

Said Baba ; " but pray do as I desire : 
I have no more time nor many words to spare." 

" At least," said Juan, " sure I may inquire 



Command the pillar'd dome to rise, 
When, lol the tomb forgotten lies." 

Francis's Horace, 
« " If they shall not as soon cut off my head."— MS. 



792 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto V. 



The cause of this odd travesty?" — "Forbear," 
Said Baba, " to be curious ; 'twill transpire, 
No doubt, in proper place, and time, and season : 
I have no authority to tell the reason." 



-"—"Hold!" 



LXXV. 
" Then if I do," said Juan, " I'll be- 

Rejoin'd the negro, "pray be not provoking; 
This spirit's well, but it may wax too bold. 

And you will find us not too fond of joking." 
" What, sir !" said Juan, " shall it e'er be told 

That I unsex'd my dress?" But Baba, stroking 
The things down, said, " Incense me, and I call 
Those who will leave you of no sex at all. 

LXXVI. 
" I offer you a handsome suit of clothes : 

A woman's, true ; but then there is a cause 
Why you should wear them." — "What, though my 
soul loathes 

The effeminate garb ?" — thus, after a short pause, 
Sigh'd Juan, muttering also some slight oaths, 

" What the devil shall I do with all this gauze?" 
Thus he profanely term'd the finest lace 
Which e'er set off a marriage-morning face. 

LXXVII. 

And then he swore ; and, sighing, on he slipp'd 
A pair of trousers of flesh-color'd silk ; 

Next with a virgin zone he was equipp'd, 
Which girt a slight chemise as white as milk ; 

But tugging on his petticoat, he tripp'd, 
Which — as we say — or as the Scotch say, whilk 

(The rhyme obliges me to this; sometimes 

Monarchs are less imperative than rhymes),^ — 

LXXVIII. 
Whilk, which (or what you please), was owing to 

His garment's novelty, and his being awkward : 
And yet at last he managed to get through 

His toilet, though no doubt a little backward : 
The negro Baba help'd a little too, 

When some untoward part of raiment stuck 
hard; 
And, wrestling both his arms into a gown, 
He paused, and took a survey up and down. 

LXXIX. 

One difficulty still remain'd — his hair 
Was hardly long enough ; but Baba found 

So many false long tresses all to spare. 
That soon his head was most completely 
crown'd, 

After the manner then in fashion there ; 
And this addition with such gems was bound 

As suited the ensemble of his toilet. 

While Baba made him comb his head and oil it. 



1 " Kings are not more imperative than rhymes."— MS. 



LXXX. 

And now being femininely all array'd, 

With some small aid from scissors, paint, and 
tweezers. 
He look'd in almost all respects a maid, 

And Baba smilingly exclaim'd, " You see, sirs, 
A perfect transformation here display'd ; 

And now, then, you must come along with me, 
sirs. 
That is — the Lady :" clapping his hands twice, 
Four blacks were at his elbow in a trice. 

LXXXI. 

" You, sir," said Baba, nodding to the one, 
" Will please to accompany those gentlemen 

To supper ; but you, worthy Christian nun. 
Will follow me : no trifling, sir ; for when 

I say a thing, it must at once be done. 

What fear you ? think you this a lion's den ? 

Why, 'tis a palace ; where the truly wise 

Anticipate the Prophet's paradise. 

LXXXII. 

" You fool ! I tell you no one means you harm." 
" So much the better," Juan said, " for them ; 

Else they shall feel the weight of this my arm. 
Which is not quite so light as you may deem. 

I yield thus far ; but soon will break the charm, 
If any take me for that which I seem : 

So that I trust for every body's sake, 

That this disguise may lead to no mistake." 

LXXXIII. 

" Blockhead ! come on, and see," quoth Baba ; while 
Don Juan, turning to his comrade, who. 

Though somewhat grieved, could scarce forbear a 
smile 
Upon the metamorphosis in view, — 

" Farewell !" they mutually exclaim'd : " this soil 
Seems fertile in adventures strange and new ; 

One's turn'd half Mussulman, and one a maid, 

By this old black enchanter's unsought aid." 

LXXXIV. 

" Farewell !" said Juan : " should we meet no more, 
I wish you a good appetite." — " Farewell !" 

Replied the other ; " though it grieves me sore : 
When we next meet, we'll have a tale to tell : 

We needs must follow when Fate puts from shore. 
Keep your good name; though Eve herself once 
fell." 

"Nay," quoth the maid, "the Sultan's self sha'n't 
carry me. 

Unless his highness promises to marry me." 

LXXXV. 

And thus they parted, each by separate doors ; 

Baba led Juan onward room by room 
Through glittering galleries, and o'er marble floors, 

Till a gigantic portal through the gloom, 



Canto V. 



DON JUAN. 



793 



Haughty and huge, along the distance lowers ; 

And wafted far arose a rich perfume : 
It seem'd as though they came upon a shrine, 
For all was vast, still, fragrant, and divine. 

LXXXVI. 

The giant door was broad, and bright, and high, 
Of gilded bronze, and carved in curious guise ; 

"Warriors thereon were battling furiously ; 
Here stalks the victor, there the vanquish'd 
lies ; 

Tliere captives led in triumph droop the eye. 
And in perspective many a squadron flies : 

It seems the work of times before the line 

Of Eome transplanted fell with Constantine. 

LXXXVII. 

This massy portal stood at the wide close 
Of a huge hall, and on its either side 

Two little dwarfs, the least you could suppose, 
Were sate, like ugly imps, as if allied 

In mockery to the enormous gate which rose 
O'er them in almost pyramidic pride : 

The gate so splendid was in all its featiires,^ 

You never thought about those little creatures, 

LXXXVIII. 
Until you nearly trod on them, and then 

You started back in horror to survey 
The wondrous hideousness of those small men, 

Whose color was not black, nor white, nor gray, 
But an extraneous mixture, which no pen 

Can trace, although perhaps the pencil may ; 
They were misshapen pigmies, deaf and dumb — 
Monsters, who cost a no less monstrous sum. 

LXXXIX. 

Their duty was — for they were strong, and though 
They look'd so little, did strong things at times — 

To ope this door, which they could really do. 
The hinges being as smooth as Rogers' rhymes ; 

And now and then, with tough strings of the bow, 
As is the custom of those Eastern climes. 

To give some rebel Pacha a cravat : 

For mutes are generally used for that. 

XC. 

They spoke by signs — that is, not spoke at all ; 
And looking like two incubi, they glared 



J IkcUures of a gat« — a ministerial metaphor : " the feaiwre 
upon which this question hinges." See the " Fudge Family," 
or hear Castlereagh.— Phil. Fudge, in his letter to Lord 
Caatlereagh, says: 

" As thou wouldst say, my guide and teacher '■ 

In those gay metaphoric fringes, 
I now embark into ihafealure 

On which this letter chiefly hinges." 

The note adds, " verbatim from one of the noble viscount's 



As Baba with his fingers made them fall 
To heaving back the portal folds : it scared 

Juan a moment, as this pair so small, 
With shrinking serpent optics on him stared ; 

It was as if their little looks could poison 

Or fascinate whome'er they fix'd their eyes on. 

XCI. 

Before they enter'd, Baba paused to hint 
To Juan some slight lessons as his guide : 

" If you could just contrive," he said, " to stint 
That somewhat manly majesty of stride, 

'Twould be as well, and— (though there's not much 
in't) 
To swing a little less from side to side, 

Which has at times an aspect of the oddest ; — 

And also could you look a little modest, 

XCII. 

" 'Twould be convenient ; for these mutes have eyes 
Like needles, which may pierce those petticoats ; 

And if they should discover your disguise. 
You know how near us the deep Bosphorus 
floats ; 

And you and I may chance, ere morning rise, 
To find our way to Marmora without boats, 

Stitch'd up in sacks — a mode of navigation 

A good deal practiced here upon occasion." ' 

XCIII. 

With this encouragement, he led the way 

Into a room still nobler than the last ; 
A rich confusion form'd a disarray 

In such sort, that the eye along it cast 
Could hardly carry anything away, 

Object on object flash'd so bright and fast; 
A dazzling mass of gems, and gold, and glitter, 
Magnificently mingled in a litter. 

XCIV. 
Wealth had done wonders — taste not much ; such 
things 

Occur in Orient palaces, and even 
In the more chasten'd domes of Western kings 

(Of which I have also seen some six or seven), 
Where I can't say or gold or diamond flings 

Great lustre, there is much to be forgiven ; 
Groups of bad statues, tables, chairs, and pictures, 
On which I cannot pause to make my strictures. 



speeches : ' And now, sir, I must embark into the feature on 
which this question chiefly hinges.^ " — Fudge Family, p. 14. 

2 A few years ago the wife of Much tar Pacha complained 
to his father of his son's supjKtsed infidelity : he asked witi. 
whom, and she had the barbarity to give in a list of the 
twelve handsomest women in Yanina. They were seized, 
fastened up in sacks, and drowned in the lake the same night. 
One of the guards who was present informed me, that not 
one of the victims uttered a cry, or showed a symptom of 
terror at so sudden a " wrench from all we know, from all wo 
love." See ante, pp. 73, 89. 



794 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Canto V. 



XCV. 

In this imperial hall, at distance lay 

Under a canopy, and there reclined 
Quite in a confidential queenly way, 

A lady ; Baba stopp'd, and kneeling sign'd 
To Juan, who though not much used to pray, 

Knelt down by instinct, wondering in his mind 
What all this meant : while Baba bow'd and bended 
His head, until the ceremony ended. 

XCVI. 

The lady rising up with such an air 
As Venus rose with from the wave, on them 

Bent like an antelope a Paphian pair^ 
Of eyes, which put out each surrounding gem ; 

And raising up an arm as moonlight fair, 
She sign'd to Baba, who first kiss'd the hem 

Of her deep purple robe, and speaking low, 

Pointed to Juan, who remain'd below. 

XCVII. 

Her presence was as lofty as her state ; 

Her beauty of that overpowering kind, 
Whose force description only would abate : 

I'd rather leave it much to your own mind, 
Than lessen it by what I could relate 

Of forms and features ; it would strike you blind 
Could I do justice to the full detail ; 
So, luckily for both, my phrases fail. 

XCVIII. 

Thus much however I may add, — her years 
Were ripe, they might make six-and-twenty springs. 

But there are forms which Time to touch forbears. 
And turns aside his scythe to vulgar things : ^ 

Such as was Mary's Queen of Scots ; ^ true — tears 
And love destroy ; and sapping sorrow wrings 

Charms from the charmer, yet some never grow 

Ugly ; for instance — Ninon de I'Enclos.* 



XCIX. 

She spake some words to her attendants, who 
Composed a choir of girls, ten or a dozen, 

And were all clad alike ; like Juan, too. 
Who wore their uniform, by Baba chosen : 

They form'd a very nymph-like looking crew,^ 
Which might have call'd Diana's chorus " cousin. 

As far as outward show may correspond ; 

I won't be bail for anything beyond. 



They bow'd obeisance and withdrew, retiring. 
But not by the same door through which came in 

Baba and Juan, which last stood admiring. 
At some small distance, all he saw within 

This strange saloon, much fitted for inspiring 
Marvel and praise ; for both or none things win ; 

And I must say, I ne'er could see the very 

Great happiness of the " Nil admirari."^ 

CI. 

" Not to admire is all the art I know [speech) 

(Plain truth, dear Murray,'^ needs few flowers of 

To make men happy, or to keep them so :" 
(So take it in the very words of Creech). 

Thus Horace wrote we all know long ago ; 
And thus Pope ^ quotes the precept to reteach 

From his translation ; but had none admired, 

Would Pope have sung, or Horace been inspired ?9 

CII. 

Baba, when all the damsels were withdrawn, 
Motion'd to Juan to approach, and then 

A second time desired him to kneel down, 
And kiss the lady's foot ; which maxim when 

He heard repeated, Juan with a frown 
Drew himself up to his full height again. 

And said, " It grieved him, but he could not stoop 

To any shoe, unless it shod the Pope." 



-^_ , . 

Uni'O&rselle says— "In her old age, her house was the ren- 
dezvous of the most distinguished persons. Scarron con- 
sulted her on his romances, Saint Evremond on his poems, 
Moligre on his comedies, Fontenelle on his dialogues, and La 
Rochefoucauld on his maxims. Coligny, Sevigng, &c., were 
her lovers and friends. At her death, in 1705, and in her 
ninetieth year, she bequeathed to Voltaire a considerable 
sum, to expend in books." 

5 " Her fair maids were ranged below the sofa, and, to the 
number of twenty, were all dressed in fine light damasks, 
brocaded with silver. They put me in mind of the pictures 
of the ancient nymphs. I did not think all nature could 
have furnished such a scene of beauty," &c.— Lady M. W. 
Montagu. 

6 " Nil admirari, prope res est una, Numici, 

Solaque quae possit facere et servare beatum."— HoR.( 
lib. i. epist. vi. 
1 The " Murray " of Pope was the great Earl Mansfield. 
8 " Not to admire, is all the art I know 

To make men happy, and to keep them so, 

(Plain truth, dear Murray, needs no flowers of speech, 

So take it in the very words of Creech)." 
« " I maintained that Horace was wrong in placing happi- 



1 " As Venus rose from ocean— bent on them 
With a far-reaching glance, a Paphian pair."— MS. 

2 " But there are forms which Time adorns, not wears, 

And to which beauty obstinately clings." — MS. 

5* " With regard to the queen's person, all contemporary 
authors agree in ascribing to Mary the utmost beauty of 
countenance, and elegance of shape, of which the human form 
is capable. Her hair was black ; her eyes were a dark gray ; 
her complexion was exquisitely fine; and her hands and 
arms remarkably delicate, both as to shape and color. Her 
stature was of a height that rose to the majestic. She danced, 
walked, and rode with equal grace. Her taste for music was 
just, and she both sang and played upon the lute with un- 
common skill. No man, says Brantome, ever beheld her 
person without admiration and love, or will read her history 
without sorrow." — Robertson. 

4 Mademoiselle de I'Enclos, celebrated for her beauty, her 
wit, her gallantry, and, above all, for the extraordinary 
length of time during which she preserved her attractions. 
She intrigued with the young gentlemen of three genera- 
tions, and is said to have had a grandson of her own among 
her lovers. See the works of Madame de S6vigne, Voltaire, 
<fec. &c., for copious particulars of her life. The Biographic 



Canto V. 



JDON JUAN. 



795 



cm. 

Daba, indignant at this ill-timed pride, 
Made fierce remonstrances, and then a threat 

He mutter'd (but the last was given aside) 
About a bow-string — quite in vain ; not yet 

Would Juan bend, though 'twere to Mahomet's 
bride : 
There's nothing in the world like etiquette 

In kingly chambers or imperial halls, 

As also at the race and county balls. 

CIV. 
He stood like Atlas, with a world of words 

About his ears, and nathless would not bend ; 
The blood of all his line's Castilian lords 

Boil'd in his veins, and rather than descend 
To stain his pedigree, a thousand swords 

A thousand times of him had made an end ; 
At length perceiving the "foot" could not stand, 
Baba proposed that he should kiss the hand. 

CV. 
Here was an honorable compromise, 

A half-way house of diplomatic rest, 
Where they might meet in much more peaceful 
guise ; 

And Juan now his willingness exprest 
To use all fit and proper courtesies, 

Adding, that this was commonest and best, 
For through the South, the custom still commands 
The gentleman to kiss the lady's hands. 

CVI. 
And he advanced, though with but a bad grace, 

Though on more thorough-bred ^ or fairer fingers 
No lips e'er left their transitory trace : 

On such as these the lip too fondly lingers. 
And for one kiss would fain imprint a brace. 

As you will see, if she you love shall bring hers 
In contact ; and sometimes even a fair stranger's 
An almost twelvemonth's constancy endangers. 

CVII. 
The lady eyed him o'er and o'er, and bade 

Baba retire, which he obey'd in style. 
As if well used to the retreating trade ; 

And taking hints in good part all the while, 
He whisper'd Juan not to be afraid, 

And looking on him with a sort of smile. 
Took leave, with such a face of satisfaction. 
As good men wear who have done a virtuous action. 



ness in nil admirari, for that I thought admiration one of the 
most agreeable of all our feelings ; and I regretted that I had 
loet much of my disposition to admire, which people generally 
do as they advance in life. 'Sir,' said Johnson, 'as a man 
advances in life, he gets what is better than admiration— ;/w^/(7- 
tnerU, to estimate things at their true value.' I still insisted 
that admiration was more pleasing than judgment, as love is 
more pleasing than friendship. The feeling of friendship is 
like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, 



CVIII. 

When he was gone, there was a sudden change : 
I know not what might be the lady's thought. 

But o'er her bright brow flash'd a tumult strange. 
And into her clear cheek the blood was brought. 

Blood-red as sunset summer clouds which range 
The verge of heaven; and in her large eyes 
wrought, 

A mixture of sensations might be scann'd. 

Of half voluptuousness and half command. 

CIX. 
Her form had all the softness of her sex. 

Her features all the sweetness of the devil, 
When he put on the cherub to perplex 

Eve, and paved (God knows how) the road to evil ; 
The sun himself was scarce more free from specks 

Than she from aught at which the eye could cavil ; 
Yet, somehow, there was something somewhere want- 
ing, 

As if she rather ordered than was granting. — 

ex. 

Something imperial, or imperious, threw 
A chain o'er all she did ; that is, a chain 

Was thrown as 'twere about the neck of you, — 
And rapture's self will seem almost a pain 

With aught which looks like despotism in view ; 
Our souls at least are free, and 'tis in vain 

We would against them make the flesh obey — 

The spirit in the end will have its way. 

CXI. 

Her very smile was haughty, though so sweet ; 

Her very nod was not an inclination ; 
There was a self-will even in her small feet. 

As though they were quite conscious of her station — 
They trod as upon necks ; and to complete 

Her state (it is the custom of her nation), 
A poniard deck'd her girdle, as the sign 
She was a sultan's bride (thank Heaven, not mine !). 

CXII. 
" To hear and to obey " had been from birth 

The law of all around her ; to fulfill 
All fantasies which yielded joy or mirth. 

Had been her slaves' chief pleasure, as her will; 
Her blood was high, her beauty scarce of earth : 

Judge, then, if her caprices e'er stood still ; 
Had she but been a Christian, I've a notion 
We should have found out the " perpetual motion." 



like being enlivened with champagne. Johnson, 'No, sir; 
admiration and love are like being intoxicated with cham- 
pagne ; judgment and friendship like being enlivened. Waller 
has hit upon the same thought with you ; but I don't believe 
you have borrowed from Waller.' "— Boswell, vol. v. p. 306, 
edit. 18.3.5. 

1 There is nothing, perhaps, more distinctive of birth than 
the hand. It is almost the only sign of blood which aris- 
tocracy can generate. See ante, p. 774. 



796 



BYEGN'S WOEKS. 



Canto V. 



CXIII. 

Whate'er she saw and coveted was brought ; 

Whate'er she did not see, if she supposed 
It might be seen, with diligence was sought, [closed : 

And when 'twas found straightway the bargain 
There was no end unto the things she bought. 

Nor to the trouble which her fancies caused ; 
Yet even her tyranny had such a grace, 
The women pardon'd all except her face. 

CXIV. 

Juan, the latest of her whims, had caught 
Her eye in passing on his way to sale ; 

She order'd him directly to be bought, 
And Baba, who had ne'er been known to fail 

In any kind of mischief to be wrought, 
At all such auctions knew how to prevail : 

She had no prudence, but he had ; and this 

Explains the garb which Juan took amiss. 

cxv. 

His youth and features favor'd the disguise. 
And should you ask how she, a sultan's bride, 

Could risk or compass such strange fantasies, 
This I must leave sultanas to decide : 

Emperors are only husbands in wives' eyes, 
And kings and consorts oft are mystified,^ 

As we may ascertain with due precision, 

Some by experience, others by tradition. 

CXVI. 

But to the main point, where we have been tending ; — 
She now conceived all difficulties past. 

And deem'd herself extremely condescending 
When, being made her property at last. 

Without more preface, in her blue eyes blending 
Passion and power, a glance on him she cast, 

And merely saying, " Christian, canst thou love ?" 

Conceived that phrase was quite enough to move. 

CXVII. 
And so it was, in proper time and place ; 

But Juan, who had still his mind o'erflowing 
With Haidee's isle and soft Ionian face. 

Felt the warm blood, which in his face was glowing. 
Rush back upon his heart, which fill'd apace. 

And left his cheeks as pale as snowdrops blowing : 
These words went through his soul like Arab spears. 
So that he spoke not, but burst into tears. 

CXVIII. 

She was a good deal shock'd ; not shock'd at tears. 
For women shed and use them at their liking ; 

But there is something when man's eye appears 
Wet, still more disagreeable and striking : 

A woman's tear-drop melts, a man's half sears, 
Like molten lead, as if you thrust a pike in 



His heart to force it out, for (to be shorter) 
To them 'tis a relief, to us a torture. 



'• And husbands now and then are mystified."— MS. 
' But nature teaches what power cannot spoil, 
And, though it was a new and strange sensation, 



CXIX. 

And she would have consoled, but knew not how : 
Having no equals, nothing which had e'er 

Infected her with sympathy till now, 
And never having dreamt what 'twas to bear 

Aught of a serious, sorrowing kind, although 
There might arise some pouting petty care 

To cross her brow, she wonder'd how so near 

Her eyes another's eye could shed a tear. 

cxx. 

But nature teaches more than power can spoil,^ 
And, when a strong although a strange sensation 

Moves — female hearts are such a genial soil 
For kinder feelings, whatsoe'er their nation, 

They naturally pour the " wine and oil," 
Samaritans in every situation ; 

And thus Gulbeyaz, though she knew not why, 

Felt an odd glistening moisture in her eye. 

CXXI. 

But tears must stop like all things else ; and soon 
Juan, who for an instant had been moved 

To such a sorrow by the intrusive tone 
Of one who dared to ask if " he had loved," 

Call'd back the stoic to his eyes, which shone 
Bright with the very weakness he reproved ; 

And although sensitive to beauty, he 

Felt most indignant still at not being free. 

CXXII. 

Gulbeyaz, ior the first time in her days, 
Was much embarrass'd, never having met 

In all her life with aught save prayers and praise ; 
And as she also risk'd her life to get 

Him whom she meant to tutor in love's ways 
Into a comfortable t^te-^-tete. 

To lose the hour would make her quite a martyr, 

And they had wasted now almost a quarter. 

CXXIII. 
I also would suggest the fitting time. 

To gentlemen in any such like case. 
That is to say — in a meridian clime, 

With us there is more law given to the chase, 
But here a small delay forms a great crime : 

So recollect that the extremest grace 
Is just two minutes for your declaration — 
A moment more would hurt your reputation. 

CXXIV. 

Juan's was good ; and might have been still better, 
But he had got Haidee into his head : 

However strange, he could not yet forget her. 
Which made him seem exceedingly ill-bred. 



Young female hearts are such a genial soil 
For kinder feelings, she forgot her station. 



-MS. 



Canto V. 



DON JUAN. 



797 



Gulbeyaz, who look'd on him as her debtor 

For having had him to her palace led, 
Began to blush up to the eyes, and then 
Grow deadly pale, and then blush back again. 

cxxv. 

At length, in an imperial way, she laid 
Her hand on his, and bending on him eyes, 

Which needed not an empire to persuade, 
Look'd into his for love, where none replies : 

Her brow grew black, but she would not upbraid, 
That being the last thing a proud woman tries ; 

She rose, and pausing one chaste moment, threw 

Herself upon his breast, and there she grew. 

CXXVI. 

This was an awkward test, as Juan found, 

But he was steel'd by sorrow, wrath, and pride : 

With gentle force her white arms he unwound, 
And seated her all drooping by his side. 

Then rising haughtily he glanced around, 
And looking coldly in her face, he cried, 

" The prison'd eagle will not pair, nor I 

Serve a sultana's sensual fantasy. 

CXXVII. 

" Thou ask'st, if I can love ? be this the proof 
How much I have loved— that I love not thee t 

In this vile garb, the distaff, web, and woof, 
Were fitter for me : Love is for the free ! 

I am not dazzled by this splendid roof ; 
Whate'er thy power, and great it seems to be, 

Heads bow, knees bend, eyes watch around a 
throne. 

And hands obey — our hearts are still our own." 

CXXVIII. 
This was a truth to us extremely trite ; 

Not so to her, who ne'er had heard such things : 
She deem'd her least command must yield delight. 

Earth being only made for queens and kings. 
If hearts lay on the left side or the right 

She hardly knew, to such perfection brings 
Legitimacy its born votaries, when 
Aware of their due royal rights o'er men. 

CXXIX. 

Besides, as has been said, she was so fair 
As even in a much humbler lot had made 

A kingdom or confusion anywhere, 
And also, as may be presumed, she laid 



^ In Fielding's novel of Joseph Andrews. 

' "'But if my boy with virtue be endued, 
What harm will beauty do him ? Nay, what good? 
Say, what avail'd, of old, to Theseus' son, 
The stern resolve? what to Bellerophon? — 
0, then did Phsedra redden, then her pride 
Took fire to be so steadfastly denied ! 
Tlien, too, did Sthenobaa glow with shame 
And both burst forth with unextinguish'd flame.'— Juv. 



Some stress on charms, which seldom are, if e'er. 

By their possessors thrown into the shade : 
She thought hers gave a double " right divine ;" 
And half of that opinion's also mine. 

cxxx. • 

Remember, or (if you can not) imagine, 
Ye ! who have kept your chastity when young, 

While some more desperate dowager has been waging 
Love with you, and been in the dog-days stung 

By your refusal, recollect her raging ! 
Or recollect all that was said or sung 

On such a subject ; then suppose the face 

Of a young downright beauty in this case. 

CXXXI. 

Suppose, — but you already have supposed. 
The sjiouse of Potiphar, the Lady Booby ,* 

Phsedra,^ and all which story has disclosed 
Of good examples ; pity that so few by 

Poets and private tutors are exposed. 
To educate — ye youth of Europe — you by ! 

But when you have supposed the few we know, 

You can't suppose Gulbeyaz' angry brow. 

CXXXII. 

A tigress robb'd of young, a lioness. 

Or any interesting beast of prey. 
Are similes at hand for the distress 

Of ladies who can not have their own way ; 
But though my turn will not be served with less. 

These don't express one half what I should say : 
For what is stealing young ones, few or many. 
To cutting short their hopes of having any ? 

CXXXIII. 

The love of offspring's nature's general law, 
From tigresses and cubs to ducks and ducklings ; 

There's nothing whets the beak, or arms the claw. 
Like an invasion of their babes and sucklings ; 

And all who have seen a human nursery, saw 
How mothers love their children's squalls and 
chucklings : 

This strong extreme effect (to tire no longer 

Your patience) shows the cause must still be stronger. 

CXXXIV. 
If I said fire flash'd from Gulbeyaz' eyes, 

'Twere nothing— for her eyes flash'd always fire; 
Or said her cheeks assumed the deepest dyes, 

I should but bring disgrace upon the dyer. 



The adventures of Hippolytus, the son of Theseus, and Bel- 
lerophon are well known. They were accused of inconti- 
nence, by the women whose inordinante passions they had 
refused to gratify at the expense of their duty, and sacrificed 
to the fatal credulity of the husbands of the disappointed fair 
ones. It is very probable that both the stories are founded 
on the Scripture account of Joseph and Potiphar's wife."— 

GiFFORD. 



798 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Canto V. 



So supernatural was her passion's rise , 

For ne'er till now she knew a check'd desire : 
Even ye who know what a check'd woman is 
(Enough, God knows !) would much fall short of this. 

• cxxxv. 

Her rage was but a minute's, and 'twas well — 
A moment's more had slain her ; but the while 

It lasted 'twas like a short glimpse of hell : 
Nought's more sublime than energetic bile, 

Though horrible to see, yet grand to tell, 
Like ocean warring 'gainst a rocky isle ; 

And the deep passions flashing through her form 

Made her a beautiful embodied storm. 

CXXXVI. 

A vulgar tempest 'twere to a typhoon 
To match a common fury with her rage, 

And yet she did not want to reach the moon,i 
Like moderate Hotspur on the immortal page ; ^ 

Her anger pitch'd into a lower tune, 
Perhaps the fault of her soft sex and age — 

Her wish was but to " kill, kill, kill," like Lear's,^ 

And then her thirst of blood was quench'd in tears. 



CXXXVII. 

A storm it raged, and like the storm it pass'd, 
Pass'd without words — in fact she could not 

And then her sex's shame* broke in at last, 
A sentiment till then in her but weak, 

But now it flow'd in natural and fast. 
As water through an unexpected leak ; 

For she felt humbled — and humiliation 

Is sometimes good for people in her station. 



CXXXVIII. 

It teaches them that they are flesh and blood, 
It also gently hints to them that others. 

Although of clay, are yet not quite of mud ; 
That urns and pipkins are but fragile brothers, 

And works of the same pottery, bad or good. 

Though not all born of the same sires and mothers ; 

It teaches — Heaven knows only what it teaches, 

But sometimes it may mend, and often reaches. 

CXXXIX. 

Her first thought was to cut off Juan's head ; 

Her second, to cut only his — acquaintance ; 
Her third, to ask him where he had been bred ; 

Her fourth, to rally him into repentance ; 
Her fifth, to call her maids and go to bed ; 

Her sixth, to stab herself; her seventh, to sentence 



J " By heaven ! methinks, it were an easy leap, 
To pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon."- 
Henry IV. 

2 " Like natural Shakspeare on the immortal page."— MS. 

2 " And when I have stolen upon these sons-in-law, 
Then kill, kill, kill, kill, kUl, kiU."— iear. 



The lash to Baba : — but her gran.d resource 
Was to sit down again, and cry of course. 

CXL. 

She thought to stab herself, but then she had 
The dagger close at hand, which made it awkward ; 

For Eastern stays are little made to pad. 
So that a poniard pierces if 'tis stuck hard : 

She thought of killing Juan — but, poor lad ! 
Though he deserved it well for being so backward. 

The cutting off his head was not the art 

Most likely to attain her aim — his heart. 

CXLI. 
Juan was moved : he had made up his mind 

To be impaled, or quarter'd as a dish 
For dogs, or to be slain with pangs refined. 

Or thrown to lions, or made baits for fish. 
And thus heroically stood resign'd, 

Eather than sin — except to his own wish : 
But all his great preparatives for dying 
Dissolved like snow before a woman crying. 

CXLII. 

As through his palms Bob Acres' valor oozed,* 
So Juan's virtue ebb'd, I know not how ; 

And first he wonder'd why he had refused ; 
And then, if matters could be made up now ; 

And next his savage virtue he accused, 
Just as a friar may accuse his vow, 

Or as a dame repents her of her oath, 

Which mostly ends in some small breach of both. 

CXLIII. 

So he began to stammer some excuses ; 

But words are not enough in such a matter, 
Although you borrow'd all that e'er the muses 

Have sung, or even a Dandy's dandiest chatter, 
Or all the figures Castlereagh abuses ; ^ 

Just as a languid smile began to flatter 
His peace was making, but before he ventured 
Further, old Baba rather briskly enter'd. 

CXLIV. 

" Bride of the Sun ! and Sister of the Moon !" 
('Twas thus he spake) " and Empress of the Earth ! 

Whose frown would put the spheres all out of tune. 
Whose smile makes all the planets dance with mirth, 

Your slave brings tidings — he hopes not too soon — 
Which your sublime attention may be worth c 

The Sun himself has sent me like a ray. 

To hint that he is coming up this way." 



* " A woman scorn'd is pitiless as fate. 
For, there, the dread of shame adds stings to hate," 

Gifford's JvAjenal. 
s "Yes, my valor is certainly going! it is sneaking oflf! 
I feel it oozing, as it were, at the palms of my hands!"— 
Sheridan's Rivals, 
e " Or all the stuff which utter'd by the 'Blues ' is."~MS. 



:;■• i] 



Canto V 



DON JUAN. 



799 



CXLV. 
" Is it," exclaim'd Gulbeyaz, " as you say? 

I wish to heaven he would not shine till morning ! 
But bid my women form the milky way. 

Hence, my old comet ! give the stars due warning * — 
And, Christian ! mingle with them as you may. 

And as you'd have me pardon your past scorn- 
ing " 

Here they were interrupted by a humming 
Sound, and then by a cry, " The Sultan's coming!" 

CXLYI. 
First came her damsels, a decorous file, 

And then his Highness' eunuchs, black and 
white ; 
The train might reach a quarter of a mile : 

His majesty was always so polite 
As to announce his visits a long while 

Before he came, especially at night ; 
For being the last wife of the Emperor, 
She was of course the favorite of the four. 

CXLVII. 

His Highness was a man of solemn port, 
Shawl'd to the nose, and bearded to the eyes, 

Snatch'd from a prison to preside at court, 
His lately bowstrung brother caused his rise ; 

He was as good a sovereign of the sort 
As any mention'd in the histories 

Of Cantemir, or Knolles, where few shine 

Save Solyman, the glory of their liue.^ 

CXLVIII. 
He went to mosque in state, and said his prayers 

With more than " Oriental scrupulosity;"' 

He left to his vizier all state affairs. 

And show'd but little royal curiosity : 
I know not if he had domestic cares — 

No process proved connubial animosity ; 
Four wives and twice five hundred maids, unseen, 
Were ruled as calmly as a Christian queen.* 



1 " But prithee— get my women in the way, 

That all the stars may gleam with due adorning." — MS. 
' It may not be unworthy of remark, that Bacon, in his 
essay on " Empire," hints that Solyman was the last of his 
line ; on what authority, I know not. These are his words :— 
"The destruction of Mustapha was so fatal to Solyman's 
line ; as the succession of the Turks from Solyman until this 
day is suspected to be untrue, and of strange blood ; for that 
Selymus the second was thought to be supposititious." But 
Bacon, in his historical authorities, is often inaccurate. I 
could give half a dozen instances from his Apophthegms only. 
— See Api>endix: Don Juan, canto v. 
> Gibbon. 

* " Because he kept them wrapt up in his closet, he 
Ruled four wives and twelve hundred whores, unseen, 
More ea-sily than Christian kings one queen."— MS. 
» "There ondcd many a fair Sultana's trip: 

The public knew no more than does this rhyme; 
No printed scandals flew,— the fish, of course, 
Were better— while the morals were no worse."- MS. 



CXLIX. 

If now and then there happen'd a slight slip, 
Little was heard of criminal or crime ; 

The story scarcely pass'd a single lip — 
The sack and sea had settled all in time. 

From which the secret nobody could rip : 

The public knew no more than does this rhyme ; 

No scandals made the daily press a curse — 

Morals were better, and the fish no worse.^ 

CL. 

He saw with his own eyes the moon was round. 
Was also certain that the earth was square. 

Because he had journey'd fifty miles, and found 
No sign that it was circular anywhere ; 

His empire also was without a bound : 
'Tis true, a little troubled here and there, 

By rebel pachas, and encroaching giaours. 

But then they never came to " the Seven Towers ;" * 

CLI. 

Except in shape of envoys, who were sent 
To lodge there when a war broke out, according 

To the true law of nations, which ne'er meant 
Those scoundrels, who have never had a sword 
in 

Their dirty diplomatic hands, to vent 
Their spleen in making strife, and safely wording 

Their lies, yclept despatches, without risk or 

The singeing of a single inky whisker. 

CLII. 
He had fifty daughters and four dozen sons. 

Of whom all such as came of age were stow'd, 
The former in a palace, where like nuns 

They ^ived till some Bashaw was sent abroad. 
When she, whose turn it was, was wed at once, 

Sometimes at six years old'^ — though this seems 
odd, 
'Tis true ; the reason is, that the Bashaw 
Must make a present to his sire-in-law. 



6 " The state prison of Constantinople, in which the Porte 
shuts up the ministers of hostile powers who are dilatory in 
taking their departure, under pretence of protecting them 
from the insults of the mob." — Hope. 

" We attempted to visit the Seven Towers, but were stopped 
at the entrance, and informed that without a firuian it was 
inaccessible to strangers. It was supposed that C^ount Bu- 
lukoff, the Russian minister, would be the last of the Mous- 
snfirs, or imperial hostages, confined in this fortress; but 
since the year 1784, M. Ruffin and many of the French have 
been imprisoned in the same place ; and the dungeons were 
gaping, it seems, for the sacred persons of the gentlemen 
composing his Britannic Majesty's mission, previous to the 
rupture between Great Britain and the Porte in 1809.— Hob- 

UOUSE. 

^ "The princess" (Sulta Asma, daughter of Achmet III.) 
"exclaimed against the barbarity of the institution which, 
at six years old, had put her in the power of a decrepit old 
man, who, by treating her like a child, had only iusi)ired 
disgust."— De Tott. 



800 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto V. 



CLIII. 

His sons were kept in prison, till they grew 
Of years to fill a bowstring or the throne, 

One or the other, but which of the two 
Could yet be known unto the fates alone ; 

Meantime the education they went through 

Was princely, as the proofs have always shown ; 

So that the heir apparent still was found 

No less deserving to.be hang'd than crown'd. 

CLIV. 

His Majesty saluted his fourth spouse 

With all the ceremonies of his rank, 
Who clear'd her sparkling eyes and smooth'd her 
brows, 

As suits a matron who has play'd a prank ; 
These must seem doubly mindful of their vows. 

To save the credit of their breaking bank : 
To no men are such cordial greetings given 
As those whose wives have made them fit for 
heaven. 

CLV. 

His Highness cast around his great black eyes. 
And looking, as he always look'd, perceived 

Juan amongst the damsels in disguise, 
At which he seem'd no whit surprised nor 
grieved, 

But just remark'd with air sedate and wise, 
While still a fluttering sigh Gulbeyaz heaved, 

" I see you've bought another girl ; 'tis pity 

That a mere Christian should be half so pretty." 

CLVI. 

This compliment, which drew all eyes upon 
The new-bought virgin, made her blush and shake. 



1 This stanza — which Lord Byron composed in bed, February 
27, 1821, is not in the first edition. On discovering the omis- 
sion, he thus remonstrated with Mr. Murray : — " Upon what 
principle have you omitted one of the concluding stanzas 
sent as an addition ?— because it ended, I suppose, with— 

' And do not link two virtuous souls for life 
Into that moral centaur, man and wife?' 
Now, I must say, once for all, that I will not permit any 
human being to take such liberties with my writings because 
I am absent. I desire the omission to be replaced. I have 
read over the poem carefully, and I tell you, it is poetry. 
The little envious knot of parson-poets may say what they 
please: tims tvill show that lam not, in this instance, mistaken." 

2 Blackwood says, in No. LXV., for June, 1822, "These 
three cantos (iii., iv., v.) are, like all Byron's poems, and, 
by the way, like everything in this world, partly good and 
partly bad. In the particular descriptions they are not so 
naughty as their predecessors : indeed, his lordship has been 
so pretty and well-behaved on the present occasion, that we 
should not be surprised to hear of the work being detected 
among the thread-cases, flower-pots, and cheap tracts that 
litter the drawing-room tables of some of the best-regulated 
families. By those, however, who suspect him of 

' a strange design 

Against the creed and morals of the land. 
And trace it in this poem every line,' 



Her comrades, also, thought themselves undone : 
Oh, Mahomet ! that his Majesty should take 

Such notice of a giaour, while scarce to one 
Of them his lips imperial ever spake ! 

There was a general whisper, toss, and wriggle, 

But etiquette forbade them all to giggle. 

CLVII. 
The Turks do well to shut — at least, sometimes — 

The women up — because, in sad reality. 
Their chastity in these unhappy climes • 

Is not a thing of that astringent quality 
Which in the North prevents precocious crimes, 

And makes our snow less pure than our morality; 
The sun, which yearly melts the polar ice, 
Has quite the contrary effect on vice. 

CLVIII. 
Thus in the East they are extremely strict. 

And wedlock and a padlock mean the same : 
Excepting only when the former's pick'd 

It ne'er can be replaced in proper frame ; 
Spoilt, as a pipe of claret is when prick'd : 

But then their own polygamy's to blame ; 
Why don't they knead two virtuous souls for life 
Into that moral centaur, man and wife ? ^ 

CLIX. 

Thus far our chronicle ; and now we pause. 
Though not for want of matter ; but 'tis time, 

According to the ancient epic laws, 

To slacken sail, and anchor with our rhyme. 

Let this fifth canto meet with due applause. 
The sixth shall have a touch of the sublime ; 

Meanwhile, as Homer sometimes sleeps, perhaps 

You'll pardon to my muse a few short naps.'-* 



it will be found as bad as ever. He shows his knowledge of 
the world too openly ; and it is no extenuation of this free- 
dom that he does it playfully. Only infants can be shown 
naked in company ; but his lordship pulls the very robe-de- 
chambre from both men and women, and goes on with his 
exposure as smirkingly as a barrister cross-questioning a 
chambermaid in a case of crim. con. This, as nobody can 
approve, we must confess is very bad. Still, it is harsh to 
ascribe to wicked motives what may be owing to the tempta- 
tions of circumstances, or the headlong impulse of passion. 
Even the worst habits should be charitably considered, for 
they are often the result of the slow but irresistible force of 
nature, over the artificial manners and discipline of society— 
the flowing stream that wastes away its embankments. Man 
towards his fellow man should be at least compassionate ; for 
he can be no judge of the instincts and the impulses of 
action, he can only see effects. 

' Tremble, thou wretch. 

That hast within thee undivulged crimes, 
Unwhipp'd of justice : Hide thee, thou bloody hand ;— 
Thou perjured, and thou simular man of virtue, 
Thou art incestuous : Caitiff, to pieces shake, 
That under covert and convenient seeming 
Hast practiced on man's life ! — Close pent-up guilts, 
Kive your concealing continents, and cry 
These dreadful summoners grace.' — Lear." 



Canto VI. 



DON JUAN. 



801 



Bon 3Juan. 



PREFACE TO CANTOS VI., VII., AND VIII.i 

The details of the siege of Ismail in two of the 
following cantos (t. e., the seventh and eighth) are 
taken from a French work, entitled " Ilistoire de la 
Nouvelle Russie."^ Some of the incidents attributed 
to Don Juan really occurred, particularly the circum- 
stance of his saving the infant, which was the actual 
case of the late Due de Richelieu, ^ then a young 
volunteer in the Russian service, and afterward the 
founder and benefactor of Odessa,* where his name and 
memory can never cease to be regarded with reverence. 

In the course of these cantos, a stanza or two will 
be found relative to the late Marquis of Londonderry, 



1 Cantos vi., vii., and viii. were written at Pisa, in 
1822, and published by Mr. John Hunt in July, 1823. The 
poet's resumption of Don Juan is explained in the following 
extract from his correspondence:— 

Pisa, July 8, 1822. — " It is not impossible that I may have 
three or four cantos of Don Juan ready by autumn, or a 
little later, as I obtained a permission from my dietatress to 
continue it,— proi^ided always it was to be more guarded and 
decorous and sentimental in the continuation than in the 
commencement. How far these conditions have been ful- 
filled may be seen, perhaps, by and by ; but the embargo was 
only taken oflf upon these stipulations." 

* "Essai sur I'Histoire ancienne et moderne de la Nou- 
velle Eussie, par le Marquis Gabriel de Castelnau." 3 tom. 
Paris, 1820. 

' "Au commencement de 1803, le Due de Richelieu fut 
Bommg gouverneur d'Odessa. Quand le Due vint en prendre 
I'administration, aucune rue n'y C^tait formee, aucun etablisse- 
ment n'y Ctait achevg. On y comptait 3 peine cinq mille ha- 
bitans: onze ans plus tard, lorsqu'il s'en eloigna, on y en 
comptait trente-cinq milles. Les rues etaient tir6es au cor- 
deau, plantSes d'une double rang d'arbres ; et Ton y voyait 
tous les fitablissemens qu'exigent le culte, I'instruction, la 
commodite, et m<?rac les plaisirs des habitans. Un seul edi- 
fice public avait 6t6 nggligg ; le gouverneur, dans cet oubli de 
lai-mfime, et cette simplicitfi de moeurs, qui distinguaient son 
caract^re, n'avait rien voulu changer i la modcste habitation 
qu'il avait trouvg en arrivant. Le commerce, debarassfi d'en- 
f raves, avait pris I'essor le plus rapidc i Odessa, tandis que 
la 96curit6 ct la liberty de conscience y avaient promptement 
attir§ la population."— 5io^. Univ. 

♦ " Odessa is a very interesting place ; and being the seat of 
government, and the only quarantine allowed except Caffa 
and Taganrog, is, though of very recent erection, already 
wealthy and flourishing. Too much praise cannot be given 
to the Duke of Richelieu, to whose administration, not to any 
natural advantages, this town owes its prosperity." — Bishop 
Heber. 

' Robert, second marquis of Jy^ndonderry, died, by his 
own hand, at his seat at North Cray, in Kent, in August, 
1822. During the session of parliament which had just 
cloeed, his lordship appears to have sunk under the weight 
of his labors, and insanity was the consequence. The fol- 
lowing tributes to his eminent qualities we take from the 
leading Tory and WTiig newspapers of the day : — 

"Of high honor, fearless, undaunted, and firm in hLs 
resolves, he combined, in a remarkable manner, with the 
fortiter in re the suaviler in modo. To his political adver- 
51 



but written some time before his decease. Had that 
person's oligarchy died with him, they would have 
been suppressed; as it is, I am aware of nothing in 
the manner of his death ^ or of his life to prevent the 
free expression of the opinions of all whom his whole 
existence was consumed in endeavoring to enslave. 
That he was an amiable man in private life, may or 
may not be true ; but with this the public have noth- 
ing to do ; and as to lamenting his death, it will be 
time enough when Ireland has ceased to mourn for 
his birth. As a minister, I, for one of millions, looked 
upon him as the most despotic in intention, and the 
weakest in intellect, that ever tyrannized over a 
country. It is the first time indeed since the Normans 
that England has been insulted by a minister (at 
least) who could not speak English, and that Parlia- 
ment permitted itself to be dictated to in the language 
of Mrs. Malaprop.6 



saries (and he had no other) he was at once open, frank, un- 
assuming, and consequently conciliatory. He was happy in 
his union with a most amiable consort; he was the pride of 
a venerated father; and towards a beloved brother it might 
truly be said he was notiis animo fratemo. With regard to 
his public character, all admit his talents to have boon of 
a high order, and his industry in the discharge of his official 
duties to have been unremitting. Party animosity may ques- 
tion the wisdom of measures in which he was a principal 
actor, to save its own consistency, but it does not dare to 
breathe a doubt of his integrity and honor. His reputation 
as a minister is, however, above the reach of both friends and 
enemies. He was one of the leaders of that ministry which 
preserved the country from being subjugated by a power 
which subjugated all the rest of Europe — which fought 
the country against combined Europe, and triumphed — and 
which wrenched the sceptre of dominion from the desolating 
principles that the French revolution spread through the 
world, and restored it to religion and honesty. If to have 
preserved the faith and liberties of England from destruction 
— to have raised her to the most magnificent point of great- 
ness — to have liberated a quarter of the globe from a despot- 
ism which bowed down both body and soul — and to have 
placed the world again under the control of national law and 
just principles, be transcendent fame— such fame belongs to 
this ministry ; and of all its members, to none more than to 
the Marquis of Londonderry. During great part of the year, 
he toiled frequently for twelve or fourteen hours por day at 
the most exhausting of all kinds of labor, for a salary which, 
unaided by private fortune, would not have supported him. 
He labored for thirty years in the service of the country. In 
this service he ruined a robust constitution, broke a lofty 
spirit, destroyed a first-rate understanding, and met an un- 
timely death, without adding a shilling to his patrimonial 
fortune. What the country gained from him may never bo 
calculated— what he gained from the country was lunacy, 
and a martyr's grave."- xYe7t» Times. 

"Lord Londonderry was a man of unassuming manners, 
of simple tastes, and (so far as regarded private life) of kind 
and generous disposition. Towards the poor he was benef- 
icent: in his family mild, considerate, and forbearing. He 
was firm to the connections and associates of his earlier days, 
not only those of choice, but of accident, when not unworthy ; 
and to promote them, and to advance their interest, his 
efforts were sincere and indefatigable. In power he forgot 
no service rendered to him while he was in a private station, 
nor broke any promise, expressed or implied, nor abandoned 
any friend who claimed and merited his assistance." — IHmes. 
I « See Sheridan's comedy of " The Rivals." 



802 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Ganto VI. 



Of the manner of his death little need be said, except 
that if a poor radical, such as Waddington or Watson, 
had cut his throat, he would have been buried in a 
cross-road, with the usual appurtenances of the stake 
and mallet. But the minister was an elegant lunatic 
— a sentimental suicide— he merely cut the " carotid 
artery" (blessings on their learning!), and lo! the 
pageant, and the Abbey ! and " the syllables of dolor 
yelled forth" by the newspapers — and the harangue 
of the Coroner! in a eulogy over the bleeding body of 
the deceased— (an Antony worthy of such a Caesar)- 
and the nauseous and atrocious cant of a degraded 
crew of conspirators against all that is sincere and 
honorable. In his death he was necessarily one of 
two things by the law'^ — a felon or a madman — and 
in either case no great subject for panegyric.^ In his 
life he was — what all the world knows, and half of 
it will feel for years to come, unless his death prove 
a "moral lesson" to the surviving Sejani* of Europe. 
It may at least serve as some consolation to the 
nations, that their oppressors are not happy, and in 
some instances judge so justly of their own actions 
as to anticipate the sentence of mankind. Let us 
hear no more of this man ; and let Ireland remove 
the ashes of her Grattan from the sanctuary of West- 
minster. Shall the patriot of humanity repose by 
the Werther of politics ! ! ! 

With regard to the objections which have been 
made on another score to the already published 
cantos of this poem, I shall content myself with two 
quotations from Voltaire : — " La pudeur s'est enfuite 
des cceurs, et s'est refugiee sur les Igvres." . . ." Plus 
les moeurs sont depraves, plus les expressions devien- 
nent mesurees ; on croit regagner en langage ce qu'on 
a perdu en vertu." 

This is the real fact, as applicable to the degraded 
and hypocritical mass which leavens the present 
English generation, and is the only answer they de- 
serve. The hackneyed and lavished title of Blasphemer 
— which, with Radical, Liberal, Jacobin, Reformer, 
&c., are the changes which the hirelings are daily 



1 Lord Byron seems to have taken his notions of the pro- 
ceedings of this inquest from Cobbett's Register. What the 
coroner really did say was as follows : — " As a public man, it 
is impossible for me to weigh his character in any scales 
that I can hold. In private life I believe the world will 
admit that a more amiable man could not be found. Whether 
the important duties of the great office which he held pressed 
upon his mind, and conduced to the melancholy event which 
you are assembled to investigate, is a circumstance which, in 
all probability, never can be discovered. If it should unfor- 
tunately appear that there is not sufficient evidence to prove 
what is generally considered the indication of a disordered 
mind, I trust that the jury will pay some attention to my 
humble opinion, which is, that no man can be in his proper 
senses at the moment he commits so rash an act as self-mur- 
der. My opinion is in consonance with every moral senti- 
ment, and the information which the wisest of men have 
given to the world. The Bible declares that a man clings to 
nothing so strongly as his own life. I therefore view it as an 
axiom, and an abstract principle, that a man must necessarily 
be out of his mind at the moment of destroying himself." 



ringing in the ears of those who will listen— should 
be welcome to all who recollect on whom it was orig- 
inally bestowed. Socrates and Jesus Christ were put 
to death publicly as blasphemers, and so have been 
and may Ije many who dare to oppose the most 
notorious abuses of the name of God and the mind of 
man. But persecution is not refutation, nor even 
triumph : the " wretched infidel," as he is called, is 
probably happier in his prison than the proudest of 
his assailants. With his opinions I have nothing to 
do — they may be right or wrong — but he has suffered 
for them, and that very suffering for conscience' sake 
will make more proselytes to deism than the example 
of heterodox ^ Prelates to Christianity, suicide states- 
men to oppression, or over-pensioned homicides to the 
impious alliance which insults the world with the 
name of " Holy !" I havi no wish to trample on the 
dishonored or the dead ; but it would be well if the 
adherents to the classes from whence those persons 
sprung should abate a little of the cant which is the 
crying sin of this double-dealing and false-speaking 

time of selfish spoilers, and but enough for the 

present. 

Pisa, July, 1822. 



CANTO THE SIXTH. 



I. 

" Theee is a tide in the affairs of men, 
Which, — taken at the flood," — you know the rest,* 

And most of us have found it now and then : 
At least we think so, though but few have guess'd 

The moment, till too late to come again. 
But no doubt everything is for the best — 

Of which the surest sign is in the end : 

When things are at the worst they sometimes mend. 



2 I say by the Jaw of the tend— the laws of humanity judge 
more gently ; but as the legitimates have always the law in 
their mouths, let them here make the most of it. 

3 Upon this passage one of the magazines of the time ob- 
serves: "Lord Byron does not appear to have remembered 
that it is quite possible for an English nobleman to be both 
(in fact) a felon, and (what in common parlance is called) a 
madman." 

* From this number must be excepted Canning. Canning 
is a genius, almost a universal one, an orator, a wit, a poet, a 
statesman ; and no man of talent can long pursue the path 
of his late predecessor. Lord C. If ever man saved his 
country. Canning can, but will he? I, for one, hope so. 

6 When Lord Sandwich said "he did not know the dif- 
ference between orthodoxy and heterodoxy," Warburton, the 
bishop, replied, "Orthodoxy, my lord, is my doxy, heter- 
odoxy is another marHs doxy." A prelate of the present day 
has discovered, it seems, a third kind of doxy, which has not 
greatly exalted in the eyes of the elect that which Bentham 
calls " Church-of-Englandism." 

* See Shakspeare, Julius Caesar, act iv. sc. iii. 



Canto VI. 



DON JUAN. 



803 



II. 

There is a tide in the affiiirs of women, 

Which, taken at the flood, leads — God knows 
where : 

Those navigators must be able seamen 
Whose charts lay down its current to a hair ; 

Not all the reveries of Jacob Behmen ^ 

W^ith its strange whirls and eddies can compare : 

Men with their heads reflect on this and that — 

But women with their hearts on heaven knows what ! 

III. 
And yet a headlong, headstrong, downright she, 

Young, beautiful, and daring — who would risk 
A throne, the world, the universe, to be 

Beloved in her own way, and rather whisk 
The stars from out the sky, than not be free 

As are the billows when the breeze is brisk — 
Though such a she's a devil (if there be one), 
Yet she would make full many a Manichean. 

IV. 
Thrones, worlds, et cetera, are so oft upset 

By commonest ambition, that when passion 
Overthrows the same, we readily forget. 

Or at the least forgive, the loving rash one. 
If Antony be well remember'd yet, 

'Tis not his conquests keep his name in fashion, 
But Actium, lost for Cleopatra's eyes, 
Outbalances all Caesar's victories. 



He died at fifty for a queen of forty ; 

I wish their years had been fifteen and twenty. 
For then wealth, kingdoms, worlds are but a sport — I 

Remember when, though I had no great plenty 
Of worlds to lose, yet still, to pay my court, I 

Gave what I had— a heart ; as the world went, I 
Grave what was worth a world; for worlds could 

never 
Restore me those pure feelings, gone for ever. 

VI. 
'Twas the boy's " mite," and, like the " widow's," may 

Perhaps be weigh'd hereafter, if not now ; 
But whether such things do or do not weigh 

All who have loved, or love, will still allow 
Life has nought like it. God is love, they say, 

And Love's a god, or was before the brow 
Of earth was wrinkled by the sins and tears 
Of— but Chronology best knows the years. 



^ A noted visionary, born near Gorlitz, in Upper Lusatia, 
in 1575, and founder of the sect called Bohmenites. He had 
nnmerous followers in Grennany, and has not been without 
admirers in England; one of these, the famous William 
Law, author of the " Serious Call," edited an edition of his 
works. 

« " Cato gave up his wife Martla to his friend Hortensius ; 
bot, on the death of the latter, took her back again. This 
conduct was ridiculed by the Romans, who observed, that 



VII. 

We left our hero and third heroine in 
A kind of state more awkward than uncommon, 

For gentlemen must sometimes risk their skin 
For that sad tempter, a forbidden woman : 

Sultans too much abhor this sort of sin, 
And don't agree at all with the wise Roman, . 

Heroic, stoic Cato, the sententious, 

Who lent his lady to his friend Hortensius.^ 

VIII. 

I know Gulbeyaz was extremely wrong ; 

I own it, I deplore it, I condemn it ; 
But I detest all fiction even in song. 

And so must tell the truth, howe'er you blame it. 
Her reason being weak, her passions strong, 

She thought that her lord's heart (even could she 
claim it) 
Was scarce enough ; for he had fifty-nine 
Years, and a fifteen-hundredth concubine. 

IX. 

I am not, like Cassio, " an arithmetician," 
But by "the bookish theoric"^ it appears. 

If 'tis summ'd up with feminine precision. 
That, adding to the account his Highness' years, 

The fair Sultana err'd from inanition ; 
For, were the Sultan just to all his dears, 

She could but claim the fifteen-hundredth part 

Of what should be monopoly — the heart. 



It is observed that ladies are litigious - 

Upon all legal objects of possession, 
And not the least so when they are religious, « 

Which doubles what they think of the transgression ; 
With suits and prosecutions they besiege us, 

As the tribunals show through many a session. 
When they suspect that any one goes shares 
In that to which the law makes them sole heirs. 

XI. 

Now, if this holds good in a Christian land. 
The heathen also, though with lesser latitude. 

Are apt to carry things with a high hand. 
And take, what kings call " an imposing attitude ;'■ 

And for their rights connubial make a stand. 
When their liege husbands treat them with ingrati- 
tude; 

And as four wives must have quadruple claims. 

The Tigris hath its jealousies like Thames. 



Martia entered the house of Hortensius very poor, but re- 
turned to the bed of Cato loaded with treasures."— Plu- 
tarch. 
8 " Forsooth, a great arithmetician, 
One Michael Cassio, a Florentine, 
That never set a squadron in the field, 
Nor the division of a battle knows 
More than a spinster ; unless the bookish theoric," Ac. 
—OtheUo. 



804 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



Canto VL 



XII. 

Gulbeyaz was the fourth, and (as I said) 
The favorite ; but what's favor amongst four ? 

Polygamy may well be held in dread, 
Not only as a sin, but as a hore : 

Most wise men with one moderate woman wed, 
Will scarcely find philosophy for more ; 

And all (except Mahometans) forbear 

To make the nuptial couch a " Bed of Ware." ^ 

XIII. 
His Highness, the sublimest of mankind, — 

So styled according to the usual forms 
Of every monarch, till they are consign'd 

To those sad hungry jacobins the worms,^ 
Who on the very loftiest kings have dined, — 

His Highness gazed upon Gulbeyaz' charms, 
Expecting all the welcome of a lover 
(A " Highland welcome "^ all the wide world over). 

XIV. 

Now here we should distinguish ; for howe'er 
Kisses, sweet words, embraces, and all that. 

May look like what is — neither here nor there. 
They are put on as easily as a hat. 

Or rather bonnet, which the fair sex wear, 
Trimm'd either heads or hearts to decorate, 

Which form an ornament, but no more part 

Of heads, than their caresses of the heart. 

XV. 

A slight blush, a soft tremor, a calm kind 
Of gentle feminine delight, and shown 

More in the eyelids than the eyes, resign'd 
Rather to hide what pleases most unknown, 

Are the best tokens (to a modest mind) 

Of love, when seated on his loveliest throne, 

A sincere woman's breast, — for oyer-warm 

Or OYer-cold annihilates the charm. 

XVI. 

For over-warmth, if false, is worse than truth ; 

If true, 'tis no great lease of its own fire ; 
For no one, save in very early youth. 

Would like (I think) to trust all to desire, 
Which is but a precarious bond, in sooth, 

And apt to be transferr'd to the first buyer 
At a sad discount : while your over-chilly 
Women, on t'other hand, seem somewhat silly. 

XVII. 
That is, we cannot pardon their bad taste, 
For so it seems to lovers swift or slow. 



1 At Ware, the inn known by the sign of the Saracen's 
Head still contains the famous bed, measuring twelve feet 
sqtMre, to which an allusion is made by Shakspeare in 
" Twelfth Night." 

- "Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all 
creatures else, to fat us ; and we fat ourselves for maggots. 
Your fat king, and your lean beggar, is but variable service : 
two dishes but to one table : that's the Qn&."— Hamlet. 



Who fain would have a mutual flame confess'd, 

And see a sentimental passion glow. 
Even were Saint Francis' paramour their guest, 

In his monastic concubine of snow ; * — 
In short, the maxim for the amorous tribe is 
Iloratian, " Medio tu tutissimus ibis." 

XVIII. 

The " tu " 's too much, — but let it stand, — the verse 
Requires it, that's to say, the English rhyme, 

And not the pink of old hexameters ; 

But, after all, there's neither tune nor time 

In the last line, which cannot well be worse, 
And was thrust in to close the octave's chime : 

I own no prosody can ever rate it 

As a rule, but truth may, if you translate it. 

XIX. 
If fair Gulbeyaz overdid her part, 

I know not — it succeeded, and success 
Is much in most things, not less in the heart 

Than other articles of female dress. 
Self-love in man, too, beats all female art ; 

They lie, we lie, all lie, but love no less : 
And no one virtue yet, except starvation, 
Could stop that worst of vices — propagation. 

XX. 

We leave this royal couple to repose : 
A bed is not a throne, and they may sleep, 

Whate'er their dreams be, if of joys or woes : 
Yet disappointed joys are woes as deep 

As any man's clay mixture undergoes. 
Our least of sorrows are such as we weep ; 

'Tis the vile daily drop on drop which wears 

The soul out (like the stone) with petty cares. 

XXI. 
A scolding wife, a sullen son, a bill 

To pay, unpaid, protested, or discounted 
At a percentage ; a child cross, dog ill, 

A favorite horse fallen lame just as he's mounted, 
A bad old woman making a worse will, 

Which leaves you minus of the cash you counted 
As certain ; — these are paltry things, and yet 
I've rarely seen the man they did not fret. 

XXII. 

I'm a philosopher ; confound them all ! 

Bills, beasts, and men, and — no ! not womankind! 
With one good hearty curse I vent my gall, 

And then my stoicism leaves nought behind 

3 See Waverley. 

* " The blessed Francis, being strongly solicited one day by 
the emotions of the flesh, pulled oflF his clothes and scourged 
himself soundly : being after this inflamed with a wonderful 
fervor of mind, he plunged his naked body into a great heap 
of snow. The devil, being overcome, retired immediately, 
and the holy man returned victorious into his cell." See 
Butler's Lives of the Saints. 



Canto VI. 



DON JUAN. 



805 



Which it can either pain or evil call, 

And I can give my whole soul up to mind ; 
Though what is soul, or mind, thoir birth or growth, 
Is more than I know — the deuce tiike them both ! 

XXIII. 
So now all things are d — n'd one feels at ease, 

As after reading Athanasius' curse, 
Which doth your true believer so much please : 

I doubt if any now could make it worse 
O'er his worst enemy when at his knees, 

'Tis so sententious, positive, and terse, 
And decorates the book of Common Prayer, 
As doth a rainbow the just-clearing air. 

XXIV. 

Gulbeyaz and her lord were sleeping, or 

At least one of them ! — Oh, the heavy night. 

When wicked wives, who love some bachelor, 
Lie down in dudgeon to sigh for the light 

Of the gray morning, and look vainly for 
Its twinkle through the lattice dusky quite — 

To toss, to tumble, doze, revive, and quake 

Lest their too lawful bed-fellow should wake ! 

XXV. 

These are beneath the canopy of heaven, 

Also beneath the canopy of beds 
Four-posted and silk curtain'd, which are given 

For rich men and their brides to lay their heads 
Upon, in sheets white as what bards call " driven 

Snow."^ Well ! 'tis all hap-hazard when one weds. 
Gulbeyaz was an empress, but had been 
Perhaps as wretched if a peasant's quean. 

XXVI. 
Don Juan in his feminine disguise. 

With all the damsels in their long array, 
Had bow'd themselves before th' imperial eyes, 

And at the usual signal ta'en their way 
Back to their chambers, those long galleries 

In the seraglio, where the ladies lay 
Their delicate limbs ; a thousand bosoms there 
Beating for love, as the caged bird's for air. 

XXVII. 

I love the sex, and sometimes would reverse 
The tyrant's^ wish, "that mankind only had 

Ono neck, which he with one fell stroke might 
pierce :" 
My wish is quite as wide, but not so bad, 

And much more tender on the whole than fierce ; 
It being (not now, but only while a lad) 

^ The bards of Queen Caroline were continually, during 
the periwl of her trial, ringing the changes on the " driven 
snow" of her purity. 

' Caligula— see Suetonius. "Being in a rage at the peo- 
ple, for favoring a party in the Circensian games in oppo- 
sition to him, he cried out, ' I wish the Roman people had but 
one neck.' " 



That womankind had but one rosy mouth, 
To kiss them all at once from North to South. 

XXVIII. 

Oh, enviable Briareus ! with thy hands 

And heads, if thou hadst all things multiplied 

In such proportion ! — But my Muse withstands 
The giant thought of being a Titan's bride, 

Or travelling in Patagonian lands ; 
So let us back to Lilliput, and guide 

Our hero through the labyrinth of love 

In which we left him several lines above. 

XXIX. 

He went forth with the lovely Odalisques,' 
At the given signal join'd to their array ; 

And though he certainly ran many risks. 
Yet he could not at times keep, by the way, 

(Although the consequences of such frisks 
Are worse than the worst damages men pay 

In moral England, where the thing's a tax), 

From ogling all their charms from breasts to backs. 

XXX. 

Still he forgot not his disguise : — along 

The galleries from room to room they walk'd, 

A virgin-like and edifying throng, 

By eunuchs flank'd ; while at their head there stalk 'd 

A dame who kept up discipline among 

The female ranks, so that none stirr'd or talk'd, 

Without her sanction, on their she-parades : 

Her title was " the Mother of the Maids." 

XXXI. 

Whether she was a " mother," I know not. 
Or whether they were "maids" who call'd her 
mother ; 

But this is her seraglio title, got 

I know not how, but good as any other ; 

So Cantemir* can tell you, or De Tott:^ 
Her oflSice was to keep aloof or smother 

All bad propensities in fifteen hundred 

Young women, and correct them when they blunder'd. 

XXXII. 

A goodly sinecure, no doubt ! but made 
More easy by the absence of all men — 

Except his Majesty, — who, with her aid. 
And guards, and bolts, and walls, and now and then 

A slight example, just to cast a shade 

Along the rest, contrived to keep this den 

Of beauties cool as an Italian convent, 

Where all the passions have, alas 1 but one vent. 

' The ladies of the seraglio. 

♦ Demetrius Cantemir, a prince of Moldavia ; whose " His^ 
tory of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire " was 
translated into English by Tindal. lie died in 1723. 

* " Memoirs of the State of the Turkish Empire, HSS." 



806 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Canto VI. 



XXXIII. 

And what is that ? Devotion, doubtless — how 
Could you ask such a question ? — but we will 

Continue. As I said, this goodly row 
Of ladies of all countries at the will 

Of one good man, with stately march and slow, 
Like water-lilies floating down a rill — 

Or rather lake — for rills do not run slowly, — 

Paced on most maiden-like and melancholy. 

XXXIV. 

But when they reach'd their own apartments, there. 
Like birds, or boys, or bedlamites broke loose. 

Waves at spring-tide, or women anywhere 
When freed from bonds (which are of no great 
use 

After all), or like Irish at a fair, 
Their guards being gone, and as it were a truce 

Establish'd between them and bondage, they 

Began to sing, dance, chatter, smile, and play. 

XXXV. 

Their talk, of course, ran most on the new comer ; 

Her shape, her hair, her air, her everything : 
Some thought her dress did not so much become her, 

Or wonder'd at her ears without a ring ; 
Some said her years were getting nigh their summer. 

Others contended they were but in spring ; 
Some thought her rather masculine in height. 
While others wish'd that she had been so quite. 

XXXVI. 

But no one doubted on the whole, that she 
Was what her dress bespoke, a damsel fair, 

And fresh, and " beautiful exceedingly," i 
Who with the brightest Georgians 2 might compare : 

They wonder'd how Gulbeyaz, too, could be 
So silly as to buy slaves who might share 

(If that his Highness wearied of his bride) 

Her throne and power, and everything beside. 

XXXVII. 

But what was strangest in this virgin crew. 
Although her beauty was enough to vex. 

After the first investigating view. 
They all found out as few, or fewer, specks 

In the fair form of their companion new, 
Than is the custom of the gentle sex. 

When they survey, with Christian eyes or Heathen, 

In a new face " the ugliest creature breathing." 



1 " I guess, 'twas frightful there to see 
A lady so richly clad as she — 

Beautiful exceedingly."— Coleridge's Christabel. 

2 " It is in the adjacent climates of Georgia, Mingrelia, and 
Circassia, that nature has placed, at least to our eyes, the 
model of beauty, in the shape of the limbs, the color of the 
skin, the symmetry of the features, and the expression of the 
countenance : the men are formed for action, the women for 
Jove."— Gibbon. 

3 Padisha is the Turkish title of the Grand Signior. 



XXXVIII. 

And yet they had their little jealousies, 
Like all the rest ; but upon this occasion, 

Whether there are such things as sympathies 
Without our knowledge or our approbation, 

Although they could not see through his disguise, 
All felt a soft kind of concatenation. 

Like magnetism, or devilism, or what 

You please — we will not quarrel about that : 

XXXIX. 

But certain 'tis they all felt for their new 
Companion something newer still, as 'twere 

A sentimental friendship through and through, 
Extremely pure, which made them all concur 

In wishing her their sister, save a few 
Who wish'd they had a brother just like her. 

Whom, if they were at home in sweet Circassia, 

They would prefer to Padisha ^ or Pacha. 

XL. 

Of those who had most genius for this sort 
Of sentimental friendship, there were three, 

Lolah, Katinka,* and Dudu; in short 
(To save description), fair as fair can be 

Were they, according to the best report. 
Though diflering in stature and degree. 

And clime and time, and country and complexion ; 

They all alike admired their new connection. 

XLI. 
Lolah was dusk as India and as warm ; 

Katinka was a Georgian,^ white and red, 
With great blue eyes, a lovely hand and arm, 

And feet so small they scarce seem'd made to 
tread. 
But rather skim the earth ; while Dudii's form 

Look'd more adapted to be put to bed. 
Being somewhat large, and languishing, and lazy, 
Yet of a beauty that would drive you crazy. 

XLII. 
A kind of sleepy Venus seem'd Dudu, 

Yet very fit to " murder sleep" in those 
Who gazed upon her cheek's transcendent hue, 

Her Attic forehead, and her Phidian nose : 
Few angles were there in her form, 'tis true. 

Thinner she might have been, and yet scarce lose 
Yet, after all, 'twould puzzle to say where 
It would not spoil some separate charm to pare. 



* Katinka was the name of the youngest of the three girls, 
at whose house Lord Byron resided while at Athens, in 1810. 
See ante, p. 653. 

6 " The ' good points ' of a Georgian girl are a rosy or car- 
nation tint on her cheek, which they call numuch, ' the salt of 
beauty ;' dark hair, large black antelope eyes and arched eye- 
brows, a small nose or mouth, white teeth, long neck, delicate 
limbs and small joints. They are extremely beautiful, full of 
animation, grace, and elegance."— Morier. 



Canto VI. 



DON JUAN. 



807 



XLIII. 

She was not violently lively, but 

Stole on your spirit like a May-day breaking; 
Her eyes were not too sparkling, yet, half-shut, 

They put beholders in a tender taking ; 
She look'd (this simile's quite new) just cut 

From marble, like Pygmalion's statue waking, 
The mortal and the marble still at strife, 
And timidly expanding into life. 

XLIV. 

Lolah demanded the new damsel's name — 
" Juanna." — Well, a pretty name enough. 

Katinka ask'd her also whence she came— 
" From Spain." — " But where is Spain?" — " Don't 
ask such stuff. 

Nor show your Georgian ignorance — for shame !" 
Said Lolah, with an accent ratlier rough. 

To poor Katinka : " Spain's an island near 

Morocco, betwixt Egypt and Tangier." , 

XLV. 

Dudu said nothing, but sat down beside 
Juanna, playing with her veil or hair ; 

And looking at her steadfastly, she sigh'd, 
As if she pitied her for being there, 

A pretty stranger without friend or guide, 
And all abash'd, too, at the general stare 

Which welcomes hapless strangers in all places, 

With kind remarks upon their mien and faces. 

XL VI. 

But here the Mother of the Maids drew near, 

With " Ladies, it is time to go to rest. 
I'm puzzled what to do with you, my dear," 

She added to Juanna, their new guest : 
" Your coming has been unexpected here, 

And every couch is occupied ; you had best 
Partake of mine ; but by to-morrow early 
We will have all things settled for you fairly." 

XLVIL 
Here Lolah interposed — " Mamma, you know 

You don't sleep soundly, and I cannot bear 
That anybody should disturb you so ; 

I'll take Juanna; we're a slenderer pair 
Than you would make the half of; — don't say no; 

And I of your young charge will take due care." 
But here Katinka interfered, and said, 
" She also had compassion and a bed." 

XLVIII. 

" Besides, I hate to sleep alone," quoth she. 

The matron frown'd : " Why so ?" — " For fear of 
Replied Katinka ; " I am sure I see [ghosts," 

A phantom upon each of the four posts ; 
And then I have the worst dreams that can be. 

Of Guebres, Giaours, and Ginns, and Gouls in hosts." 
The dame replied, " Between your dreams and you, 
I fear Juanna's dreams would be but few. 



XLIX. 
" You, Lolah, must continue still to lie 

Alone, for reasons which don't matter ; you 
The same, Katinka, until by and by : 

And I shall place Juanna with Dudd, 
Who's quiet, inoffensive, silent, shy, 

And will not toss and chatter the night through. 
What say you, child?"— Dudii said nothing, as 
Her talents were of the more silent class ; 



But she rose up, and kiss'd the matron's brow 

Between the eyes, and Lolah on both cheeks, 
Katinka too ; and with a gentle bow 

(Curt'sies are neither used by Turks nor Greeks) 
She took Juanna by the hand to show 

Their place of rest, and left to both their piques. 
The others pouting at the matron's preference 
Of Dudu, though they held their tongues from defer- 
ence. 

LI. 
It was a spacious chamber (Oda is 

The Turkish title), and ranged round the wall 
Were couches, toilets — and much more than this 

I might describe, as I have seen it all. 
But it suffices — little was amiss ; 

'Twas on the whole a nobly furnish 'd hall, 
With all things ladies want, save one or two, 
And even those were nearer than they knew. 

LII. 

Dudu, as has been said, was a sweet creature, 
Not very dashing, but extremely winning. 

With the most regulated charms of feature. 
Which painters cannot catch like faces sinning 

Against proportion — the wild strokes of nature 
Which they hit off at once in the beginning, 

Full of expression, right or wrong, that strike, 

And pleasing, or unpleasing, still are like. 

LIII. 

But she was a soft landscape of mild earth. 
Where all was harmony, and calm, and quiet, 

Luxuriant, budding; cheerful without mirth. 
Which, if not happiness, is much more nigh it 

Than are your mighty passions and so forth, 
Which some call " the sublime :" I wish they'd 
try it : 

I've seen your stormy seas and stormy women, 

And pity lovers rather more than seamen. 

LIV. 

But she was pensive more than melancholy, 
And serious more than pensive, and serene, 

It may be, more than either— not unholy 
Her thoughts, at least till now, appear to have been. 

The strangest thing was, beauteous, she was wholly 
Unconscious, albeit turn'd of quick seventeen, 

That she was fair, or dark, or short, or tall ; 

She never thought about herself at all. 



808 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Canto YI. 



LV. 

And therefore was she kind and gentle as 
The Age of Gold (when gold was yet unknown, 

By which its nomenclature came to pass ; 
Thus most appropriately has been shown 

" Lucus a non lucendo," not what was, 
But what was not ; a sort of style that's grown 

Extremely common in this age, whose metal 

The devil may decompose, but never settle : 

LVI. 

I think it may be of " Corinthian Brass," i 
Which was a mixture of all metals, but 

The brazen uppermost). Kind reader! pass 
This long parenthesis : I could not shut 

It sooner for the soul of me, and class 

My faults even with your own! which meaneth, 
Put 

A kind construction upon them and me : 

But that you won't— then don't — I am not less free. 

LVII. 

'Tis time we should return to plain narration, 
And thus my narrative proceeds : — Dudu, 

With every kindness short of ostentation, 
Show'd Juan, or Juanna, through and through 

This labyrinth of females, and each station 
Described — what's strange — in words extremely 
few: 

I have but one simile, and that's a blunder, 

For wordless woman, which is silent thunder. 

LVIII. 

And next she gave her (I say her, because 
The gender still was epicene, at least -- ^ 

In outward show, which is a saving clause) 
An outline of the customs of the East, 

With all their chaste integrity of laws, 
By which the more a harem is increased, 

The stricter doubtless grow the vestal duties 

Of any supernumerary beauties. 

LIX. 

And then she gave Juanna a chaste kiss : 
Dudii was fond of kissing — which I'm sure 

That nobody can ever take amiss. 
Because 'tis pleasant, so that it be pure, 

And between females means no more than this — 
That they have nothing better near, or newer. 

" Kiss" rhymes to " bliss" in fact as well as verse — 

I wish it never led to something worse. 

LX. 

In perfect innocence she then unmade 
Her toilet, which cost little, for she was 

A child of Nature, carelessly array'd : 
If fond of a chance ogle at her glass, 

1 This brass, so famous in antiquity, is a mixture of gold, 
silver, and copper, and is supposed to have been produced by 



'Twas like the fawn, which, in the lake display'd, 

Beholds her own shy, shadowy image pass, 
When first she starts, and then returns to peep, 
Admiring this new native of the deep. 

LXI. 

And one by one her articles of dress 

Were laid aside ; but not before she offer'd 

Her aid to fair Juanna, whose excess 

Of modesty declined the assistance proffer'd : 

Which pass'd well off— as she Could do no less ; 
Though by this politesse she rather suffer'd, 

Pricking her fingers with those cursed pins. 

Which surely were invented for our sins, — 

LXII. 

Making a woman like a porcupine. 

Not to be rashly touch'd. But still more dread, 
Oh, ye ! whose fate it is, as once 'twas mine, 

In early youth, to turn a lady's maid ; — 
I did my very boyish best to shine 

In tricking her out for a masquerade : 
The pins were placed sufficiently, but not 
Stuck all exactly in the proper sjjot. 

LXIII. 

But these are foolish things to all the wise, 
And I love wisdom more than she loves me ; 

My tendency is to philosophize 
On most things, from a tyrant to a tree ; 

But still the spouseless virgin Knowledge flies. 
What are we ? and whence came we ? what shall be 

Our ultimate existence ? what's our present ? 

Are questions answerless, and yet incessant. 

LXIV. 
There was deep silence in the chamber : dim 

And distant from each other burn'd the lights, 
And slumber hover'd o'er each lovely limb 

Of the fair occupants : if there be sprites, 
They should have walk'd there in their sprightliest 
trim. 

By way of change from their sepulchral sites, 
And shown themselves as ghosts of better taste 
Than haunting some old ruin or wild waste. 

LXV. 

Many and beautiful lay those around. 

Like flowers of different hue, and clime, and root, 
In some exotic garden sometimes found. 

With cost, and care, and warmth induced to 
shoot. 
One with her auburn tresses lightly bound. 

And fair brows gently drooping, as the fruit 
Nods from the tree, was slumbering with soft 

breath. 
And lips apart, which show'd the pearls beneath. 

the fusion of these metals, in which Corinth abounded, when 
it was sacked. 



I 



Canto VI. 



DON JUAN. 



809 



LXVI. 

One with her flush'd cheek laid on her white arm, 
And raven ringlets gather'd in dark crowd 

Above her brow, lay dreaming soft and warm ; 

And smiling through her dream, as through a cloud 

The moon breaks, half unveil'd each further charm. 
As, slightly stirring in her snowy shroud. 

Tier beauties seized the unconscious hour of night 

All bashfully to struggle into light. 

LXVII. 

This is no bull, although it sounds so ; for 

'Twas night, but there were lamps, as hath been said. 
A third's all pallid aspect oflfer'd more 

The traits of sleeping sorrow, and betray'd 
Through the heaved breast the dream of some far 
shore 

Beloved and deplored ; while slowly stray'd 
(As night-dew, on a cypress glittering, tinges 
The black bough) tear-drops through her eyes' dark 
fringes. 

LXVIII. 
A fourth as marble, statue-like and still, 

Lay in a breathless, hush'd, and stony sleep ; 
White, cold, and pure, as looks a frozen rill, 

Or the snow minaret on an Alpine steep, 
Or Lot's wife done in salt, — or what you will : — 

My similes are gather'd in a heap, 
So pick and choose — perhaps you'll be content 
With a carved lady on a monument. 

LXIX. 
And lo ! a fifth appears ; — and what is she ? 

A lady of a " certain age," which means 
Certainly aged — what her years might be 

I know not, never counting past their teens ; 
But there she slept, not quite so fair to see. 

As ere that awful period intervenes 
Which lays both men and women on the shelf, 
To meditate upon their sins and self. 

LXX. 

But all this time how slept, or dream'd, Dudii? 

With strict inquiry I could ne'er discover, 
And scorn to add a syllable untrue ; 

But ere the middle watch was hardly over. 
Just when the fading lamps waned dim and blue, 

And phantoms hover'd, or might seem to hover. 
To those wlio like their company, about 
The apartment, on a sudden she scream'd out : 

LXXI. 
And that so loudly, that upstarted all 

The Oda, in a general commotion : 
Matron and maids, and those whom you may call 

Neither, came crowding like the waves of ocean. 
One on the other, throughout the whole hall, 

All trembling, wondering, without the least notion 
More than I have myself of what could make 
The calm DudQ so turbuleutly wake. 



LXXII. 

But wide awake she was, and round her bed, 
With floating draperies and with flying hair, 

With eager eyes, and light but hurried tread, 
And bosoms, arms, and ankles glancing bare, 

And bright as any meteor ever bred 

By the North Pole, — they sought her cause of care, 

For she seem'd agitated, flush'd, and frighten'd, 

Her eye dilated, and her color heighten'd. 

LXXIII. 

But Avhat is strange— and a strong proof how great 
A blessing is sound sleep — Juanna lay 

As fast as ever husband by his mate 
In holy matrimony snores away. 

Not all the clamor broke her happy state 
Of slumber, ere they shook her, — so they say 

At least, — and then she, too, unclosed her eyes. 

And yawn'd a good deal with discreet surprise. 

LXXIV. 

And now commenced a strict investigation. 

Which, as all spoke at once, and more than once 

Conjecturing, wondering, asking a narration, 
Alike might puzzle either wit or dunce. 

To answer in a very clear oration. 

Dudii had never pass'd for wanting sense, 

But being " no orator as Brutus is," 

Could not at first expound what was amiss. 

LXXV. 

At length she said, that in a slumber sound 
She dream'd a dream of walking in a wood — 

A " wood obscure," like that where Dante found ^ 
Himself in at the age when all grow good ; 

Life's half-way house, where dames with virtue 
crown'd 
Run much less risk of lovers turning rude ; 

And that this wood was full of pleasant fruits, 

And trees of goodly growth and spreading roots ; 

LXXVI. 

And in the midst a golden apple grew, — 
A most prodigious pippin — but it hung 

Rather too high and distant ; that she threw 
Her glances on it, and then, longing, flung 

Stones and whatever she could pick up, to 

Bring down the fruit, which still perversely clung 

To its own bough, and dangled yet in sight, 

But always at a most provoking height ; — 

LXXVII. 
That on a sudden, when she least had hope, 

It fell down of its own accord before 
Her feet ; that her first movement was to stoop 

And pick it up, and bite it to the core ; 



1 "Nell' mezzo del' cammin' Ji nostra vita 
Mi ritrovai per una selvd oscura," &c. — Inferno, 



810 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Canto VI. 



That just as her young lip began to ope 
Upon the golden fruit the vision bore, 
A bee flew out, and stung her to the heart, 
And so — she woke with a great scream and start. 

LXXVIII. 

All this she told with some confusion and 
Dismay, the usual consequence of dreams 

Of the unpleasant kind, with none at hand 
To expound their vain and visionary gleams. 

I've known some odd ones which seem'd really 
plann'd 
Prophetically, or that which one deems 

A " strange coincidence," to xise a phrase 

By which such things are settled nowadays.^ 

LXXIX. 

The damsels, who had thoughts of some great harm. 

Began, as is the consequence of fear, 
To scold a little at the false alarm 

That broke for nothing on their sleeping ear. 
The matron, too, was wroth to leave her warm 

Bed for the dream she had been obliged to hear, 
And chafed at poor Dudu, who only sigh'd, 
And said, that she was sorry she had cried. 

LXXX. 

"I've heard of stories of a cock and bull ; 

But visions of an apple and a bee. 
To take us from our natural rest, and pull 

The whole Oda from their beds at half-pasl 
three. 
Would make us think the moon is at its full. 

You surely are unwell, child ! we must see, 
To-morrow, what his Highness's physician 
Will say to this hysteric of a vision. 

LXXXI. 

" And poor Juanna, too, the child's first night 
Within these walls, to be broke in upon 

With such a clamor — I had thought it right 
That the young stranger should not lie alone. 

And, as the quietest of all, she might 

With you, Dudii, a good night's rest have known ; 

But now I must transfer her to the charge 

Of Lolah — though her couch is not so large." 

LXXXII. 

Lolah's eyes sparkled at the proposition ; 

But poor Dudil, with large drops in her own, 
llesulting from the scolding or the vision, 

Implored that present pardon might be shown 
For this first fault, and that on no condition 

(She added in a soft and piteous tone) 
Juanna should be taken from her, and 
Her future dreams should be all kept in hand. 



1 One of the advocates employed for Queen Caroline in the 
House of Lords spoke of some of the most puzzling passages 



LXXXIII. 

She promised never more to have a dream. 
At least to dream so loudly as just now ; 

She wonder'd at herself how she could scream — 
'Twas foolish, nervous, as she must allow, 

A fond hallucination, and a theme 
For laughter — but she felt her spirits low. 

And begg'd they would excuse her ; she'd get over 

This weakness in a few hours, and recover. 

LXXXIV. 

And here Juanna kindly interposed, 

And said she felt herself extremely well 
.Where she then was, as her sound sleep disclosed, 
When all around rang like a tocsin bell ; 

She did not find herself the least disposed 
To quit her gentle partner, and to dwell 

Apart from one who had no sin to show. 

Save that of dreaming once " mal-apropos." 

LXXXV. 

As thus Juanna spoke, Dudii turn'd round 
And hid her face within Juanna's breast : 

Her neck alone was seen, but that was found 
The color of a budding rose's crest. 

I can't tell why she blush'd, nor can expound 
The mystery of this rupture of their rest ; 

All that I know is, that the facts I state 

Are true as truth has ever been of late, 



and 



LXXXVI. 

And so good night to them, — or, if you will, 
Good morrow — for the cock had crown, 
light 

Began to clothe each Asiatic hill, 
And the mosque crescent struggled into sight 

Of the long caravan, which in the chill 
Of dewy dawn wound slowly round each height 

That stretches to the stony belt, which girds 

Asia, where Kafi" looks down upon the Kurds. 

LXXXVII. 

With the first ray, or rather gray of morn, 
Gulbeyaz rose from restlessness ; and pale 

As Passion rises, with its bosom worn, 
Array'd herself with mantle, gem, and veil. 

The nightingale that sings with the deep thorn, 
Which fable places in her breast of wail. 

Is lighter far of heart and voice than those 

Whose headlong passions form their proper woes. 

LXXXVIII. 

And that's the moral of this composition, 
If people would but see its real drift ; — 

But that they will not do without suspicion, 
Because all gentle readers have the gift 



in the history of her intercourse with Bergami, as amounting 
to " odd instances of strange coincidence." 



Canto VI. 



DON JUAN. 



811 



Of closing 'gainst the light their orbs of vision ; 

While gentle writers also love to lift 
Their voices 'gainst each other, which is natural, 
The numbers are too great for them to flatter all. 

LXXXIX. 

Rose the sultana from a bed of splendor, 
Softer than the soft Sybarite's, who cried 

Aloud because his feelings were too tender 
To brook a ruffled rose-leaf by his side, — 

So beautiful that art could little mend her. 
Though pale with conflicts between love and 

So agitated was she with her error, [pride ; — 

She did not even look into the mirror. 

XC. 
Also arose about the self-same time, 

Perhaps a little later, her great lord, 
Master of thirty kingdoms so sublime, 

And of a wife by whom he was abhorr'd ; 
A thing of much less import in that clime — 

At least to those of incomes which afford 
The filling up their whole connubial cargo — 
Than where two wives are under an embargo. 

XCI. 
He did not think much on the matter, nor 

Indeed on any other : as a man 
He liked to have a handsome paramour 

At hand, as one may like to have a fan, 
And therefore of Circassians had good store, 

As an amusement after the Divan ; 
Though an unusual fit of love, or duty. 
Had made him lately bask in his bride's beauty. 

XCII. 

And now he rose ; and after due ablutions 

Exacted by the customs of the East, 
And prayers and other pious evolutions. 

He drank six cups of coffee at the least. 
And then withdrew to hear about the Russians, 

Whose victories had recently increased 
In Catherine's reign, whom glory still adores, 
As greatest of all sovereigns and w s. 

XCIII. 

But oh, thou grand legitimate Alexander! 

Her son's son, let not this last phrase offend 
Thine ear, if it should reach — and now rhymes wander 

Almost as far as Petersburg, and lend 
A ilreadful impulse to each loud meander 

Of murmuring Liberty's wide waves, which blend 



1 Motraye, in describing the interior of the Grand Signior's 
palace, into which he gained admission as the assistant of a 
watchmaker, who was employed to regulate the clocks, says 
that the eunuch who received them at the entrance of the 
harem, conducted them into a hall, which appeared to be the 
most agreeable apartment in the edifice:— "Cette salle est 
incrustge de porcelaine fine; et le lambris dor6 et azurfi qui 
ome Ic fond d'une coupole qui rtigne au-desaus, est des plus 



Their roar even with the Baltic's — so you be 
Your father's son, 'tis quite enough for me. 

XCIV. 
To call men love-begotten, or proclaim 

Their mothers as the antipodes of Timon, 
That hater of mankind, would be a shame, 

A libel, or whate'er you please to rhyme on : 
But people's ancestors are history's game ; 

And if one lady's slip could leave a crime on 
All generations, I should like to know 
What pedigree the best would have to show ? 

xcv. 

Had Catherine and the sultan understood 

Their own true interests, which kings rarely know. 

Until 'tis taught by lessons rather rude. 
There was a way to end their strife, although 

Perhaps precarious, had they but thought good, 
Without the aid of prince or plenipo : 

She to dismiss her guards and he his harem. 

And for their other matters, meet and share 'em. 

XCVI. 

But as it was, his Highness had to hold 
His daily council upon ways and means 

How to encounter with this martial scold. 
This modern Amazon and queen of queans ; 

And the perplexity could not be told 
Of all the pillars of the state, which leans 

Sometimes a little heavy on the backs 

Of those who cannot lay on a new tax. 

XCVII. 

Meantime Gulbeyaz, when her king was gone, 
Retired into her boudoir, a sweet place 

For love or breakfast ; private, pleasing, lone, 
And rich with all contrivances which grace 

Those gay recesses : — many a precious stone 
Sparkled along its roof, and many a vase 

Of porcelain held in the fetter'd flowers, 

Those captive soothers of a captive's hours. 

XCVIII. 
Mother of pearl, and porphyry, and marble, 

Vied with each other oh this costly spot ; 
And singing birds without were heard to warble ; 

And the stain'd glass which lighted this fair grot 
Varied each ray ; — but all descriptions garble 

The true effect,^ and so we had better not 
Be too minute ; an outline is the best, — 
A lively reader's fancy does the rest. 



riches. Une fontaine artificielle et jaillissante, dont le bassin 
est d'un precieux marbre vert qui m'a paru serpentin ou 
jasp6, s'C'levoit directement au milieu, sous le dome. Je me 
trouvai la tfite si pleine de sophas, de prficicux plafonds, de 
meubles superbes, en un mot, d'une si grande confusion de 
matfiriaux magnifiques, qu'il seroit dlfl&cile d'en donner un 
id6e claire." — Voyages, tom. i. p. 220. 



812 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Canto VI. \ 



XCIX. 
And here she summon'd Baba, and required 

Don Juan at his hands, and information 
Of what had pass'd since all the slaves retired, 

And whether he had occupied their station : 
If matters had been managed as desired, 

And his disguise with due consideration 
Kept up ; and above all, the where and how 
He had pass'd the night, was what she wish'd to 
know. 

C. 
Baba, with some embarrassment, replied 

To this long catechism of questions, ask'd 
More easily than answer'd, — that he had tried 

His best to obey in what he had been task'd ; 
But there seem'd something that he wish'd to hide, 

Which hesitation more betray'd than mask'd ; 
He scratch'd his ear, the infallible resource 
To which embarrass'd people have recourse. 

CI. 

Gulbeyaz was no model of true patience. 
Nor much disposed to wait in word or deed ; 

She liked quick answers in all conversations ; 
And when she saw him stumbling like a steed 

In his replies, she puzzled him for fresh ones ; 
And as his speech grew still more broken-kneed. 

Her cheek began to flush, her eyes to sparkle, 

And her proud brow's blue veins to swell and darkle. 

CII. 
When Baba saw these symptoms, which he knew 

To bode him no great good, he deprecated 
Her anger, and beseech'd she'd hear him through — 

He could not help the thing which he related : 
Then out it came at length, that to Dudu 

Juan was given in charge, as hath been stated ; 
But not by Baba's fault, he said, and swore on 
The holy camel's hump, besides the Koran. 

CHI. 

The chief dame of the Oda, upon whom 
The discipline of the whole harem bore. 

As soon as they re-enter'd their own room. 
For Baba's function stopt short at the door. 

Had settled all ; nor could he then presume 
(The aforesaid Baba) just then to do more, 

Without exciting such suspicion as 

Might make the matter still worse than it was. 

CIV. 

He hoped, indeed he thought, he could be sure, 
Juan had not betray'd himself; in fact 

'Twas certain that his conduct had been pure. 
Because a foolish or imprudent act 

Would not alone have made him insecure, 
But ended in his being found out and sack'd, 

And thrown into the sea. — Thus Baba spoke 

Of all save Dudii* dream, which was no joke. 



CV. 



This he discreetly kept in the back ground. 
And talk'd away — and might have talk'd till now, 

For any further answer that he found, 
So deep an anguish wrung Gulbeyaz' brow : 

Her cheek turn'd ashes, ears rung, brain whirl'd 
round. 
As if she had received a sudden blow, 

And the heart's dew of pain sprang fast and chilly 

O'er her fair front, like Morning's on a lily. 

CVI. 

Although she was not of the fainting sort, 
Baba thought she would faint, but there he 
err'd — u-*^'' 

It was but a convulsion, which though short 
Can never be described ; we all have heard. 

And some of us have felt thus " all amort,'* ^ 
When things beyond the common have occurr'd ; — 

Gulbeyaz proved in that brief agony 

What she could ne'er express — then how should I ? 

CVII. 

She stood a moment as a Pythoness 
Stands on her tripod, agonized, and full 

Of inspiration gather'd from distress. 

When all the heart-strings like wild horses pull 

The heart asunder ; — then, as more or less 
Their speed abated or their strength grew dull. 

She sunk down on her seat by slow degrees. 

And bow'd her throbbing head o'er trembling knees. 

CVIII. 
Her face declined and was unseen ; her hair 

Fell in long tresses like the weeping willow. 
Sweeping the marble underneath her chair. 

Or rather sofa (for it was all pillow, 
A low, soft ottoman), and black despair 

Stirr'd up and down her bosom like a billow. 
Which rushes to some shore whose shingles check 
Its further course, but must receive its wreck. 

CIX. 

Her head hung down, and her long hair in stooping 
Conceal'd her features better than a veil ; 

And one hand o'er the ottoman lay drooping, 
White, waxen, and as alabaster pale : 

Would that I were a painter ! to be grouping 
All that a poet drags into detail ! 

Oh that my words were colors ! but their tints 

May serve perhaps as outlines or slight hints. 

ex. 

Baba, who knew by experience when to talk 
And when to hold his tongue, now held it till 

This passion might blow o'er, nor dared to balk 
Gulbeyaz' taciturn or speaking will. 



1 " How fares my Kate ? 
Taming of the Shrew. 



What! sweeting, all amorf; 



Canto VI. 



DON JUAN. 



813 



At length she rose up, and began to walk 
Slowly along the room, but silent still, 
And her brow clear'd, but not her troubled eye ; 
The wind was down, but still the sea ran high. 

CXI. 

She stopp'd, and raised her head to speak — but 
paused, 

And then moved on again with rapid pace ; 
Then slacken'd it, which is the march most caused 

By deep emotion : — you may sometimes trace 
A feeling in each footstep, as disclosed 

By Sallust in his Catiline, who, chased 
By all the demons of all passions, show'd 
Their work even by the way in which he trode.^ 

CXII. 

Gulbeyaz stopp'd and beckon'd Baba :— " Slave! 

Bring the two slaves !" she said in a low tone, 
But one which Baba did not like to brave. 

And yet he shudder'd, and seem'd rather prone 
To prove reluctant, and begg'd leave to crave 

I Though he well knew the meaning) to be 
shown 
What slaves her highness wish'd to indicate. 
For fear of any error, like the late. 

CXIII. 

" The Georgian and her paramour," replied 
The imperial bride — and added, " Let the boat 

Be ready by the secret portal's side : 
You know the rest." The words stuck in her 
throat. 

Despite her injured love and fiery pride ; 
And of this Baba willingly took note, 

And begg'd by every hair of Mahomet's beard, 

She would revoke the order he had heard. 

CXIY. 
" To hear is to obey," he said ; " but still, 

Sultana, think upon the consequence : 
It is not that I shall not all fulfill 

Your orders, even in their severest sense ; 
But such precipitation may end ill, 

Even at your own imperative expense : 
I do not mean destruction and exposure, 
In case of any premature disclosure ; 

cxv. 

" But your own feelings. Even should all the rest 
Be hidden by the rolling waves, which hide 

Already many a once love-beaten breast 
Deep in the caverns of the deadly tide — 

You love this boyish, new, seraglio guest. 
And if this violent remedy be tried — 



• "His guilty soul, at enmity with gods and men, could 
find no rest ; so violently was his mind torn and distracted 
\T a consciousDess of guilt. Accordingly hi.s countenance 



Excuse my freedom, when I here assure you, 
That killing him is not the way to cure you." 

CXVI. 

" What dost thou know of love or feeling? — 
Wretch ! 

Begone !" she cried, with kindling eyes — ** and 
do 
My bidding !" Baba vanish'd, for to stretch 

His own remonstrance further he well knew 
Might end in acting as his own " Jack Ketch ;" 

And though he wish'd extremely to get through 
This awkward business without harm to others, 
He still preferr'd his own neck to another's. 

CXVII. 
Away he went then upon his commission, ^ 

Growling and grumbling in good Turkish 
phrase. 
Against all women of whatever condition, 

Especially sultanas and their ways ; 
Their obstinacy, pride, and indecision, 

Their never knowing their own mind two days, 
The trouble that they gave, their immorality, 
Which made him daily bless his own neutrality. 

CXVIII. 
And then he call'd his brethren to his aid. 

And sent one on a summons to the pair. 
That they must instantly be well array'd, 

And above all be comb'd even to a hair, 
And brought before the empress, who had made 

Inquiries after them with kindest care : 
At which Dudu look'd strange, and Juan silly ; 
But go they must at once, and will I — nill I. 

CXIX. 

And here I leave them at their preparation 
For the imperial presence, wherein whether 

Gulbeyaz show'd them both commiseration, 
Or got rid of the parties altogether. 

Like other angry ladies of her nation, — 
Are things the turning of a hair or feather 

May settle ; but far be't from me to anticipate 

In what way feminine caprice may dissipate. 

cxx. 

I leave them for the present with good wishes, 
Though doubts of their well doing, to arrange 

Another part of history ; for the dishes 
Of this our banquet we must sometimes change; 

And trusting Juan may escape the fishes, 
Although his situation now seems strange, 

And scarce secure, as such digressions are fair, 

The Muse will take a little touch at warfare. 



wa.s pale, his eyes ghastly, his pace one while quick, another 
slow ; indeed, in all his looks there was an air of distraction." 
—Sallust. 



814 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Canto VII. 



IBon ^tian. 



CANTO THE SEVENTH.^ 



I. 

Oh, Love ! oh, Glory ! what are you who fly 

Around us ever, rarely to alight ? 
There's not a meteor in the polar sky 

Of such transcendent and more fleeting flight. 
Chill, and chain'd to cold earth, we lift on high 

Our eyes in search of either lovely light ; 
A thousand and a thousand colors they 
Assume, then leave us on our freezing way. 

II. 

And such as they are, such my present tale is, 
A nondescript and ever-varying rhyme, 

A versified Aurora Borealis, 
Which flashes o'er a waste and icy clime. 

When we know what all are, we must bewail us. 
But ne'ertheless I hope it is no crime 

To laugh at all things— for I wish to know 

What, after all, are all things — but a show? 

III. 

They accuse me— ilfe— the present writer of 
The present poem — of— I know not what — 

A tendency to underrate and scoff 
At human power and virtue, and all that ; 

And this they say in language rather rough. 
Good God ! I wonder what they would be at ! 

I say no more than hath been said in Dante's 

Verse, and by Solomon and by Cervantes ; 

IV. 

By Swift, by Machiavel, by Rochefoucauld, 
By Fenelon, by Luther, and by Plato ; 

By Tillotson, and Wesley, and Rousseau, 
Who knew this life was not worth a potato. 

'Tis not their fault, nor mine, if this be so, — 
For my part, I pretend not to be Cato, 

Nor even Diogenes.— We live and die, 

But which is best, you know no more than I. 

1 "The seventli and eighth cantos contain a full detail 
(like the storm in canto second) of the siege and assault of 
Ismail, with much of sarcasm on those butchers in large 
business, your mercenary soldiers. With these things and 
these fellows it is necessary, in the present clash of philosophy 
and tyranny, to throw away the scabbard. I know it is against 
fearful odds ; but the battle must be fought ; and it will be 
eventually for the good of mankind, whatever it may be for 
the individual who risks himself." — Byron Letters, Aug. 8, 1822. 

2 "Scrawled this additional page of life's log-book. One 
day more is over of it, and of me ;— but, ' which is best, life 
or death, the gods only know,' as Socrates said to his judges, 
on the breaking up of the tribunal. Two thousand years 
since that sage's declaration of ignorance have not enlightened 
us more upon this important point." — Byron Diary, 1821. 

^ "A short time before his death, Newton uttered this 
memorable sentiment:—' I do not know what I may appear 
to the world ; but to myself I seem to have been only like a 



V. 

Socrates said, our only knowledge was^ 

" To know that nothing could be known ;" a pleasant 
Science enough, which levels to an ass 

Each man of wisdom, future, past, or present. 
Newton (that proverb of the mind), alas ! 

Declared, with all his grand discoveries recent, 
That he himself felt only " like a youth 
Picking up shells by the great ocean — Truth." ^ 

VI. 

Ecclesiastes said, " that all is vanity " — 
Most modern preachers say the same, or show it 

By their examples of true Christianity : 

In short, all know, or very soon may know it ; 

And in this scene of all-confess'd inanity. 
By saint, by sage, by preacher, and by poet, 

Must I restrain me, through the fear of strife, 

From holding up the nothingness of life ? 

VII. 

Dogs, or men! — for I flatter you* in saying 
That ye are dogs — your betters far — ye may 

Read, or read not, what I am now essaying 
To show ye what ye are in every way. 

As little as the moon stops for the baying 
Of wolves, will the bright Muse withdraw one 
ray 

From out her skies — then howl your idle wrath ! 

While she still silvers o'er your gloomy path. 

VIII. 

*' Fierce loves and faithless wars" — I am not sure 
If this be the right reading — 'tis no matter ; 

The fact's about the same, I am secure ; 
I sing them both, and am about to batter 

A town which did a famous siege endure, 
And was beleaguer'd both by land and water ^ 

By Souvarofi", or Anglice Suwarrow, 

Who loved blood as an alderman loves marrow. 

IX. 

The fortress is call'd Ismail, and is placed 
Upon the Danube's left branch and left bank,« 

boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now 
and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than 
ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered 
before me.' — What a lesson to the vanity and presumption of 
philosophers ; to those, especially, who have never even found 
the smoother pebble or the prettier shell ! What a prepara- 
tion for the latest inquiries, and the last views, of the decaying 
spirit, — for those inspired doctrines which alone can throw a 
light over the dark ocean of undiscovered truth !"— Sir David 
Brewster. 

4 See " Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland 
Dog," ante, p. 646. 

5 " An. 1790. Le 30 de Novembre on s'approcha de la place ; 
les troupes de terres formaient un total de vingt mille hom- 
mes, indgpendamment de sept si huit mille Kosaks."— S"is<. de 
la Nouvelle Russie, tom. ii. p. 201. 

6 " Ismael est situg sur la rive gauche du bras gauche du 
Danube."— Jftid 



Canto VII. 



DON JUAN. 



816 



With buildings in the Oriental taste, 
But still a fortress of the foremost rank, 

Or was at least, unless 'tis since defaced, 

Which with your conquerors is a common prank 

It stands some eighty versts from the high sea, 

And measures round of toises thousands three.^ 

X. 

Within the extent of this fortification 
A borough is comprised along the height 

I pon the left, which from its loftier station 
Commands the city, and upon its site 

A Greek had raised around this elevation 
A quantity of palisades upright, 

So placed as to impede the fire of those 

Who held the place, and to assist the foe's.^ 

XI. 
This circumstance may serve to give a notion 

Of the high talents of this new Vauban : 
But the town ditch below was deep as ocean, 

The rampart higher than you'd wish to hang : 
But then there was a great want of precaution 

(Prithee, excuse this engineering slang), 
Nor work advanced, nor cover'd way was there,^ 
To hint at least " Here is no thoroughfare." 

XII. 
But a stone bastion, with a narrow gorge. 

And walls as thick as most skulls born as yet ; 
Two batteries, cap-^-pie, as our Saint George, 

Casemated* one, and t'other " a barbette," ^ 
Of Danube's bank took formidable charge ; 

While two-and-twenty cannon duly set 
Rose over the town's right side, in bristling tier, 
Forty feet high, upon a cavalier.^ 

XIII. 
But from the river the town's open quite. 

Because the Turks could never be persuaded 
A Russian vessel e'er would heave in sight;'' 

And such their creed was till they were invaded, 
When it grew rather late to set things right : 

But as the Danube could not well be waded, 



1 "a peu pr6s t quatre-vingts verstes de la met: elle a 

prfes de trois milles toises de tour."— //w/. de la N. R., p. 201. 

' " On a compris dans ces fortifications un faubourg Mol- 
dave, situg 3 la gauche de la ville, sur une hauteur qui la 
domine: I'ouvrage a 6t6 terming par un Grec. Pour donner 
une id6e des talens de cet ingfinieur; il suffira de dire qu'il 
fit placer les palissades perpendicufeirement sur le parapet, 
de raaniSre qu'elles favorisaient les assiggeans, et arrfitaient 
le feu des assieggs."— /ftjVf. p. 202. 

» "Le rem part en terre est prodigieusement 61ev(j 4 cause 
de rimmense profondeur du fosse ; il est cependant abso- 
lument rasant; il n'y a ni ouvrage avancg, ni chemin cou- 
▼ert."— /frirf. p. 202. 

♦ "Ciisfmate is a work made under the rampart, like a 
cellar or cave, with loopholes to place guns in it, and is bomb 
proof."— Milit. Diet. 

* " When thf breastwork of a battery is only of such height 
that the guns may fire over it without being obliged to make 
embrasures, the guns are said to fire in h&rhet."— Ibid. 



They look'd upon the Muscovite flotilla, 

And only shouted, " Allah !" and " Bis Millah !" 

XIV. 

The Russians now were ready to attack ; 

But oh, ye goddesses of war and glory ! 
How shall I spell the name of eacli Cossack 

Who were immortal, could one tell their story ? 
Alas ! what to their memory can lack ? 

Achilles' self was not more grim and gory 
Than thousands of this new and polish'd nation, 
Whose names want nothing but — pronunciation. 

XV. 

Still I'll record a few, if but to increase 

Our euphony : there was Strongenoff, and Strokonoff', 
Meknop, Serge Low, Arsniew of modern Greece, 

And Tschitsshakoflf, and Roguenoff, and ChokenoflF, 
And others of twelve consonants apiece ; 

And more might be found out, if I could poke enough 
Into gazettes ; but Fame (capricious strumpet). 
It seems, has got an ear as well as trumpet, 

XVI. 

And cannot tune those discords of narration. 
Which may be names at Moscow, into rhyme ; 

Yet there were several worth commemoration, 
As e'er was virgin of a nuptial chime ; 

Soft words, too, fitted for the peroration 
Of Londonderry drawling against time, 

Ending in "ischskin," "ousckin," "iflfskchy," 
"ouski," 

Of whom we can insert but Rousamouski,® 

XVII. 

Scherematofi" and Chrematoff, Koklophti, 
Koclobski, Kourakin, and Mouskin Pouskin, 

All proper men of weapons, as e'er scofi''d high 
Against a foe, or ran a sabre through skin : 

Little cared they for Mahomet or Mufti, 
Unless to make their kettle-drums a new skin 

Out of their hides, if parchment had grown dear. 

And no more handy substitute been near. 

« " Un bastion de pierres, ouvert par une gorge tr&s6troite, 
et dont les murailles son fort gpaisses, a un batterie casemat€e 
et une S, barbette; il defend la rive du Danube, Du cot^ 
droit de la ville est un cavalier de quarautc pieds d'616vation 
S, pic, garni de vingt-deux pieces de canon, et qui defend la 
partie gauche."— ^isi. de la N. R., p. 202. 

1 " Du cote du flcuve, la ville est absoluraent ouverte ; les 
Turcs ne croyaient pas que les Russes pussent jamais avoir 
une flotille dans le Danube."— /6wJ. p. 203. 

8 " La premiere attaque 6tait composge de trois colonnes, 
commandoes par les lieutenans-ggneraux Paul Potiemkin, 
Serge Lwow, les gfinfiraux-majors Lascy, Theodore Meknop. 
Trois autres colonnes avaient pour chefs le Comte Samoi'low, 
les g6n6raux Elie de Bezborodko, Michel Koutousow ; les 
brigadiers Orlow, Platow, Ribaupierre. La troisigme attaque 
par eau n'avait que deux colonnes, sous les ordres des g6n6r- 
aux-niajors Ribas et Ars6niew, des brigadiers Markoff et 
Tch6j)€ga," Ac.— /bid. p. 207. 



816 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto VII. 



XVIII. 

Then there were foreigners of much renown, 
• Of various nations, and all volunteers ; 
Not fighting for their country or its crown. 

But wishing to be one day brigadiers ; 
Also to have the sacking of a town ; 

A pleasant thing to young men at their years. 
'Mongst them were several Englishmen of pith, 
Sixteen call'd Thomson, and nineteen named Smith. 

XIX. 

Jack Thomson and Bill Thomson ; — all the rest 
Had been call'd " Jemm^/," after the great bard ; 

I don't know whether they had arms or crest, 
But such a godfather's as good a card. 

Three of the Smiths were Peters ; but the best 
Amongst them all, hard blows to inflict or ward, 

Was he, since so renown'd " in country quarters 

At Halifax ;" i but now he served the Tartars. 

XX. 

The rest were Jacks and Gills and Wills and Bills, 
But when I've added that the elder Jack Smith 

Was born in Cumberland among the hills. 
And that his father was an honest blacksmith, 

I've said all I know of a name that fills 
Three lines of the despatch in taking " Schmack- 
smith," 

A village of Moldavia's waste, wherein 

He fell, immortal in a bulletin. 

XXI. 

I wonder (although Mars no doubt's a god I 

Praise) if a man's name in a bulletin 
May make up for a hullet in his body ? 

I hope this little question is no sin. 
Because, though I am but a simple noddy, 

I think one Shakspeare puts the same thought in 
The mouth of some one in his plays so doting, 
Which many people pass for wits by quoting. 

XXII. 

Then there were Frenchmen, gallant, young, and gay ; 

But I'm too great a patriot to record 
Their Gallic names upon a glorious day ; 

I'd rather tell ten lies than say a word 
Of truth ; — such truths are treason ; they betray 

Their country ; and as traitors are abhorr'd, 
Who name the French in English, save to show [foe. 
How Peace should make John Bull the Frenchman's 



1 See the farce of " Love Laughs at Locksmiths." 

2 " On s'§tait propose deux buts Sgalement avantageux, par 
la construction de deux batteries sur I'ile qui avoisine Ismael : 
le premier, de bombarder la place, d'en abattre les principaux 
edifices avec du canon de quarrante-huit, effet d'autant plus 
probable, que la ville etant bdtie en amphitheatre, presque 
aucun coup ne serait perdu." — Hist, de la Nouvelle Russie, 
p. 203. 

8 " Le second objet §tait de profiter de ce moment d'alarme 
pour que la flotille, agissant en mgme temps, pdt dgtruire 



XXIII. 

The Russians, having built two batteries on 
An isle near Ismail, had two ends in view ; 

The first was to bombard it, and knock down 
The public buildings and the private too, 

No matter what poor souls might be undone. 
The city's shape suggested this, 'tis true ; 

Form'd like an amphitheatre, each dwelling 

Presented a fine mark to throw a shell in. 2 

XXIV. 

The second object was to profit by 
The moment of the general consternation, 

To attack the Turks' flotilla, which lay nigh 
Extremely tranquil, anchor'd at its station : 

But a third motive was as probably 
To frighten them into capitulation ; ' 

A fantasy which sometimes seizes warriors, 

Unless they are game as bull-dogs and fox-terriers. 

XXV. 

A habit rather blamable, which is 
That of despising those we combat with, 

Common in many cases, was in this 
The cause* of killing Tchitchitzkofi" and Smith ; 

One of the valorous " Smiths" whom we shall miss 
Out of those nineteen who late rhymed to " pith ;" 

But 'tis a name so spread o'er " Sir" and " Madam," 

That one would think the first who bore it " Adam." 

XXVI. 

The Russian batteries were incomplete. 
Because they were constructed in a hurry ; ^ 

Thus the same cause which makes a verse want feet, 
And throws a cloud o'er Longman and John 
Murray, 

When the sale of new books is not so fleet 
As they who print them think is necessary. 

May likewise put off" for a time what story 

Sometimes calls "murder," and at others "glory." 

XXVII. 

Whether it was their engineer's stupidity, 
Their haste or waste, I neither know nor care, 

Or some contractor's personal cupidity. 
Saving his soul by cheating in the ware 

Of homicide, but there was no solidity 
In the new batteries erected there ; 

They either miss'd, or they were never miss'd, 

And added greatly to the missing list. 



celle des Turcs. Un troisifeme motif, et vraisemblement le 
plus plausible, etait de jeter la consternation parmi les Turcs, 
et de les engager & capituler." — Ibid. p. 203. 

* "Un habitude blamable, celle de mepriser son ennemi, 
fut la cause."— /ftid. p. 203. 

6 . . . " du defaut de perfection dans la construction des 
batteries; on voulait agir promptement, et on nggligea de 
donner aux ouvrages la solidite qu'ils exigaient."— JMrf. 
p. 203. 



Canto VII. 



H 



DON JUAN. 



817 



XXVIII. 

A sad miscalculation about distance 
^I:ule all their naval matters incorrect; 

Three fireships lost their amiable existence 
Before they reach'd a spot to take effect ; 

The match was lit too soon, and no assistance 
Could remedy this lubberly defect; 

They blew up in the middle of the river, 

While, though 'twas dawn, the Turks slept fast as ever.i 

XXIX. 

At seven they rose, however, and survey'd 

The Russ flotilla getting under way ; 
'Twas nine, when still advancing undismay'd. 

Within a cable's length their vessels lay 
Off Ismail, and commenced a cannonade. 

Which was return'd with interest, I may say, 
And by a fire of musketry and grape, 
And shells and shot of every size and shape.^ 

XXX. 

For six hours bore they without intermission 
The Turkish fire, and, aided by their own 

Land batteries, work'd their guns with great precision ; 
At length they found mere cannonade alone 

By no means would produce the town's submission, 
And made a signal to retreat at one. 

One bark blew up, a second near the works 

Running aground, was taken by the Turks.^ 

XXXI. 

The Moslem, too, had lost both ships and men ; 

But when they saw the enemy retire, 
Their Delhis* mann'd some boats, and sail'd again, 

And gall'd the Russians with a heavy fire, 
And tried to make a landing on the main ; 

But here the effect fell short of their desire : 

unt Damas drove them back into the water. 
Pell-mell, and with a whole gazette of slaughter.* 



1 "On calcula raal la distance; la meme esprit fit raanquer 
I'effet de trois brtllots ; on se pressa d'allumer la mgche, ils 
brtilfirent au milieu du fleuve, et quoiqu'il fflt six heures du 
matin, les Turcs, encore couches, n'en prirent aucun ombrage." 
—Hist, de la Nouvelle Etissie, p. 203. 

I " ler December, 1790. La flotilla Russe s'avanga vers les 
sept heures; il en 6tait neuf lorsqu'elle se trouva it cinquante 
toises de la ville d'Ismael : elle souffrit, avec une Constance 
calme, un feu de mitraille et de raousqueterie . . ."—Ibid. 
p. 204. 

' . . . "prSs de six heures: les batteries de terre second- 
aient la flotille; mais on reconnOt alors que les canonnades 
ne suflBsaient pas pour rgduire la place, on fit la retraite i 
une heure. Un lanrjon sauta pendant Taction, un autre dfiriva 
par la force du oourant, et fut pris par les Turcs."— Ibid. p. 204. 

♦ " Properly madmen : a species of troops who, in the 
Turkish army, act as the forlorn hope."— D'Herbelot. 

5 "Les Turcs perdircnt beaucoup de monde et plusieurs 
vaisseaux ; 5 peine la retraite des Russfs fut-elle remarquee, 
que les plus braves d'entre les ennemis se jctferent dans de 
petites barques et essayfirent une descente: le C'omte de 
Damaa les mit en fuite, et leur tua plusieurs oflBcers et grand 
nombre de soldats."— //w/. de fa X. R., p. 204. 
52 



XXXII. 

"If" (says the historian here) " I could report 
All that the Russians did upon this day, 

I think that several volumes would fall short, 
And I should still have many things to say ;" ® 

And so he says no more — but pays his court 
To some distinguish'd strangers in that fray ; 

The Prince de Ligne, and Langcron, and Damas, 

Names great as any that the roll of Fame has.'' 

XXXIII. 

This being the case, may show us what Fame is : 
For out of these three "preux chevaliers," how 

Many of common readers give a guess 
That such existed ? (and they may live now 

For aught we know). Renown's all hit or miss ; 
There's fortune even in fame, we must allow. 

'Tis true, the Memoirs ^ of the Prince de Ligne' 

Have half withdrawn from him oblivion's screen. 

XXXIV. 

But here are men who fought in gallant actions 

As gallantly as ever heroes fought. 
But buried in the heap of such transactions 

Their names are rarely found, nor often sought. 
Thus even good fame may suffer sad contractions, 

And is extinguish'd sooner than she ought : 
Of all our modern battles, I will bet 
You can't repeat nine names from each gazette. 

XXXV. 

In short, this last attack, though rich in glory, 
Show'd that somewhere, somehow, there was a fault, 

And Admiral Ribas (known in Russian story) 
Most strongly recommended an assault ; 

In which he was opposed by young and hoary ,1° 
Which made a long debate ; but I must halt, 

For if I wrote down every warrior's speech, 

I doubt few readers e'er would mount the breach^r 



6 " On ne tarirait pas si on voulait rapporter tout ce que les 
Russes firent de memorable dans cette journge ; pour center 
les hauts faits d'armes, pour particulariser toutes les actions 
d'gclat, il faudrait composer des -volumes."— Ibid. p. 204. 

7 " Parmi les fitrangers, le Prince de Ligne se distiugua de 
manifire & m6ritcr I'estime gengrale ; de vrais chevaliers 
Franjais, attires par I'amour de la gloire, se montrferent digncs 
d'elle : les plus marquans gtaient le jeune Due de Richelieu, 
les Comtes de Langeron et Damas."— /6id. p. 204. 

8 "Letters and Reflections of the Austrian Field-Marshal, 
Charles Joseph, Prince de Ligng, edited by the Baroness de- 
Stael-Holstein," 2 vols. 1809. 

9 Charles Joseph, Comte de Ligne, was born at Brussels. 
Being, in 1782, sent by the emperor Joseph II. on a mission 
to Catherine, he became a great favorite with her. She ap- 
pointed him field-marshal, and gave him an estate in the 
Crimea. In 1788, he was sent to assist Potemkin at the siege 
of Oczakoff. He died in 1814. 

10 " L'Amiral Ribas dficlara, en plein conseil, que ce n'fitait 
qu'en donnant 1'a.ssaut qu'on obtiendrait la place: cet avis 
parut hardi; on lui opposa mille raisons, auxquelles il r6- 
I)ondit par de raeilleures."— ///«/. de la N. R., p. 205. 



818 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Canto VII. 



XXXVI. 

There was a man, if that he was a man, 
Not that his manhood could be call'd in ques- 
tion. 

For had he not been Hercules, his span 
Had been as short in youth as indigestion 

Made his last illness, w^hen, all worn and wan, 
He died beneath a tree, as much unblest on 

The soil of the green province he had wasted, 

As e'er was locust on the land it blasted. 

XXXVII. 

This was Potemkin ^ — a great thing in days 
When homicide and harlotry made great ; 

If stars and titles could entail long praise, 
His glory might half equal his estate. 

This fellow, being six foot high, could raise 
A kind of fantasy proportionate 

In the then sovereign of the Eussian people. 

Who measured men as you would do a steeple. 

XXXVIII. 

While things were in abeyance, Eibas sent 
A courier to the prince, and he succeeded 

In ordering matters after his own bent ; 
I cannot tell the way in which he pleaded, 

But shortly he had cause to be content. 
In the mean time, the batteries proceeded. 

And fourscore cannon on the Danube's border 

Were briskly fired and answer'd in due order.^ 

XXXIX. 

But on the thirteenth, when already part 
Of the troops were embark'd, the siege to raise, 

A courier on the spur inspired new heart 
Into all panters for newspaper praise, 

As well as dilettanti in war's art. 

By his despatches couch'd in pithy phrase ; 



1 The following character of Prince Potemkin is from the 
pen of Count Segur, who lived in habits of intimacy with 
him :— " In his person were collected the most opposite defects 
and advantages of every kind. He was avaricious and osten- 
tatious, despotic and obliging, politic and confiding, licentious 
and superstitious, bold and timid, ambitious and indiscreet ; 
lavish of his bounties to his relations, his mistresses, and his 
favorites, yet frequently paying neither his household nor 
his creditors. His consequence always depended on a woman, 
and he was always unfaithful to her. Nothing could equal 
the activity of his mind, nor the indolence of his body. No 
dangers could appall his courage ; no difficulties force him to 
abandon his projects. But the success of an enterprise always 
brought on disgust. Everything with him was desultory; 
business, pleasure, temper, courage. His presence was a re- 
straint on every company. He was morose to all that stood 
in awe of him, and caressed all such as accosted him with 
familiarity. None had read less than he; few people were 
better informed. One while he formed the project of becom- 
ing Duke of Courland ; at another he thought of bestowing 
on himself the crown of Poland. He frequently gave inti- 
mation of an intention to make himself a bishop, or even a 
simple monk. He built a superb palace, and wanted to sell it 
before it was finished. In his youth he had pleased Cather- 
ine by the ardor of his passion, by hig valor, and by his mas- 



Announcing the appointment of that lover of 
Battles to the command, Field-Marshal Souvaroff.-'^ 

XL. 

The letter of the prince to the same marshal 
Was worthy of a Spartan, had the cause 

Been one to which a good heart could be partial- 
Defence of freedom, country, or of laws ; 

But as it was mere lust of power to o'erarch all 
With its proud brow, it merits slight applause. 

Save for its style, which said, all in a trice, 

** You will take Ismail at whatever price."* 

XLI. 

"Let there be light! said God, and there was light!" 
" Let there be blood !" says man, and there's a sea I 

The fiat of this spoil'd child of the Night 
(For Day ne'er saw his merits) could decree 

More evil in an hour, than thirty bright 
Summers could renovate, though they should be 

Lovely as those which ripen'd Eden's fruit ; 

For war cuts up not only branch, but root. 

XLII. 

Our friends, the Turks, who with loud " AUahs" now 

Began to signalize the Euss retreat,^ 
Were damnably mistaken ; few are slow 

In thinking that their enemy is beat 
(Or beaten, if you insist on grammar, though 

1 never think about it in a heat). 

But here I say the Turks were much mistaken, 
Who, hating hogs, yet wish'd to save their bacon. 

XLIII. 
For, on the sixteenth, at full gallop, drew 

In sight two horsemen, who were deem'd Cossacks 
For some time, till they came in nearer view. 

They had but little baggage at their backs, 

culine beauty. Become the rival of OrloflF, he performed for 
his sovereign whatever the most romantic passion could in- 
spire. He put out an eye, to free it from a blemish which 
diminished his beauty. Banished by his rival, he ran to meet 
death in battle, and returned with glory. He died in 1791, at 
the age of fifty-two." 

2 " Ce projet, remis a un autre jour, gprouva encore les plus 
grandes difficultes ; le courage de Kibas les surmonta : 11 ne 
s'agissait que de determiner le Prince Potiemkin ; il y reussit. 
Tandis qu'il se demenait pour I'exgcution de projet agr6€, on 
construisait de nouvelles batteries ; on comptait, le 12 Decem- 
bre, quatre-vingts pieces de canon sur le bord du Danube, et 
cette journee se passa en vives canonnades."— -Htsioire de la 
Nouvelle Russie, tom. ii. p. 205. 

3 " Mais le 13«, una partie des troupes gtait embarquge ; un 
allait lever le sifege: un courrier arrive; ce courrier an- 
nonce, de la part du Prince, que le Margchal Souwarow va 
prendre le commandement des forces rgunies sous Ismael." — 
Ibid. p. 205. 

4 " La lettre du Prince Potiemkin S, Souwarow est tr6s- 
courte ; elle peint le caractfere de ces deux personnages. La 
voici dans toute sa teneur : ' Vous prendrez Ismael d quel prix 
que ce soil /' " — Ibid. p. 205. 

6 " Le courrier est temoin des cris de joie (AUahs) du Turc, 
qui se croyait si la fin de ses maux." — Ibid. p. 205. 



Canto YII. 



DON JUAN. 



819 



For there were but three shirts between the two ; 

But on they rode upon two Ukraine hacks, 
Till, in approaching, were at length descried 
In this plain pair, Suwarrow and his guide.^ 

XLIV. 
" Great joy to London now !" says some great fool. 

When London had a grand illumination, 
Which to that bottle-conjurer, John Bull, 

Is of all dreams the first hallucination ; 
So that the streets of color'd lamps are full, 

That sage {said John) surrenders at discretion 
His purse, his soul, his sense, and even his nonsense, 
To gratify, like a huge moth, this one sense. 

XLV. 

'Tis strange that he should further " damn his eyes," 
For they are damn'd ; that once all-famous oath 

Is to the devil now no further prize. 
Since John has lately lost the use of both. 

Debt he calls wealth, and taxes Paradise ; 
And Famine, with her gaunt and bony growth. 

Which stare him in the face, he won't examine. 

Or swears that Ceres hath begotten Famine. 

XLVI. 

But to the tale ; — great joy unto the camp ! 

To Russian, Tartar, English, French, Cossack, 
O'er whom Suwarrow shone like a gas lamp, 

Presaging a most luminous attack ; 
Or like a wisp along the marsh so damp. 

Which leads beholders on a boggy walk, 
He flitted to and fro a dancing light, 
Which all who saw it follow'd, wrong or right. 

XLVII. 

But certes matters took a different face ; 

There was enthusiasm and much applause. 
The fleet and camp saluted with great grace. 

And all presaged good fortune to their cause. 
Within a cannon-shot length of the place 

They drew, constructed ladders, repair'd flaws 
In former works, made new, prepared fascines,^ 
And all kinds of benevolent machines. 

XLVIII. 
*Tis thus the spirit of a single mind 
Makes that of multitudes take one direction, 

^ " Le 16«, on voit venir de loin cleux hommes courant S. toute 
bride : on les prit pour des Kosaks ; I'un §tait Souwarow, et 
I'autre son guide, portant un paquet gros comme le poing, et 
renfermant le bagage du ggn^ral."— ^n'^. de la N. R., p. 205. 

' " Les succfis multiplies de Souwarow, sa bravoure Si toute 
fipreuve, la confidence que le soldat avail en lui, produisirent 
un enthousiasme g6nf ral : une salve des batteries du camp 
et de la flotte c616br6rent son arrivge, et I'espoir du succfis 
ranima les esprits. Les choses prcnnent le mdme jour une 
autre tournure ; le camp se rapproche et s'fitablit a la portfie 
du canon de la place ; on prC-paro des fascines on construit 
des gchelles, on §tablit des batteries nouvelles."— Tfttrf. p. 206. 

' "L'ardeur de Souwarow, son Incroyable activity, son 



As roll the waters to the breathing wind, 
Or roams the herd beneath the bull's protec- 
tion; 

Or as a little dog will lead the blind. 

Or a bell-wether form the flock's connection 

Py tinkling sounds, when they go forth to victual ; 

Such is the sway of your great men o'er little. 

XLIX. 
The whole camp rung with joy; you would have 
thought 

That they were going to a marriage feast 
(This metaphor, I think, holds good as aught. 

Since there is discord after both at least) : 
There was not now a luggage boy but sought 

Danger and spoil with ardor much increased ; ' 
And why ? because a little — odd — old man, 
Stript to his shirt, was come to lead the van. 



But so it was ; and every preparation 
Was made with all alacrity : the first 

Detachment of three columns took its station, 
And waited but the signal's voice to burst 

Upon the foe : the second's ordination 
Was also in three columns, with a thirst 

For glory gaping o'er a sea of slaughter : 

The third, in columns two, attack'd by water.* 

LI. 

New batteries were erected, and was held 
A general council, in which unanimity. 

That stranger to most councils, here prevail'd,* 
As sometimes happens in a great extremity ; 

And every difficulty being dispell'd, 

Glory began to dawn with due sublimity. 

While Souvaroff, determined to obtain it, 

Was teaching his recruits to use the bayonet.^ 

LIT. 

It is an actual fact, that he, commander 
In chief, in proper person deign'd to drill 

The awkward squad, and could afford to squander 
His time, a corporal's duty to fulfill ; 

Just as you'd break a sucking salamander 
To swallow flame, and never take it ill : 

He show'd them how to mount a ladder (which 

Was not like Jacob's) or to cross a ditch."' 



mgpris des dangers, sa presque certitude de rgussir, son S.me 
enfin s'est communiqufie S. I'armge ; il n'est pas jusqu'au der- 
nier goujat qui ne dgsire d'obtenir I'honneur de monter S 
I'assaut."— /6id. p. 206. 

* " La premiere attaque gtaite composfie de trois colonnes— 
trois autres colonnes, destinies -1 la seconde attaque, avaient 
pour cbefs, Ac— la troisigme attaque par eau n'avoit que 
deux colonnes." — Fbid. p. 207. 

6 " On construisit de nouvelles batteries le 18«. On tint un 
conseil de guorre, on y examina les plans pour Passaut ; ils 
rCunirent tous los souffrages." — Ibid. p. 208. 

« Fact : Suwaroff did this in person. 

7 "Le 19e et le 20*, Souwarow exerga les soldats; il leur 



820 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Canto YII. 



LIII. 

Also he dress'd up, for the nonce, fascines 
Like men with turbans, scimitars, and dirks, 

And made them charge with bayonet these machines, 
By way of lesson against actual Turks ; i 

And when well practiced in these mimic scenes, 
He judged them proper to assail the works ; 

At which your wise men sneer'd in phrases witty : 

He made no answer ; but he took the city. 

LIV. 

Most things were in this posture on the eve 
Of the assault, and all the camp was in 

A stern repose ; which you would scarce conceive ; 
Yet men resolved to dash through thick and thin 

Are very silent when they once believe 
That all is settled : — there was little din, 

For some were thinking of their home and friends, 

And others of themselves and latter ends. 

LV. 

Suwarrow chiefly was on the alert, 

Surveying, drilling, ordering, jesting, pondering ; 
For the man was, we safely may assert, 

A thing to wonder at beyond most wondering ; 
Hero, buffoon, half-demon, and half-dirt. 

Praying, instructing, desolating, plundering ; 
Now Mars, now Momus ; and when bent to storm 
A fortress, Harlequin in uniform. 

LVI. 

The day before the assault, while upon drill — 
For this great conqueror play'd the corporal — 

Some Cossacks, hovering like hawks round a hill, 
Had met a p^rty towards the twilight's fall, 

One of whom spoke their tongue — or well or ill, 
'Twas much that he was understood at all ; 

But whether from his voice, or speech, or manner, 

They found that he had fought beneath their banner. 

LVII. 

Whereon immediately at his request 

They brought him and his comrades to head- 
quarters ; 
Their dress was Moslem, but you might have guess'd 

That these were merely masquerading Tartars, 
And that beneath each Turkish-fashion'd vest 

liurk'd Christianity; which sometimes barters 
Her inward grace for outward show, and makes 
It difficult to shun some strange mistakes. 

LVIII. 

Suwarrow, who was standing in his shirt 
Before a company of Calmucks, drilling. 

Exclaiming, fooling, swearing at the inert, 
And lecturing on the noble art of killing, — 



montra comment il fallait s'y prendre pour esealader ; il en- 
seigna aux recrues la mani6re de donner le coup de baionette." 
— Histoire de la Nouvelle Russie, p. 208. 



For deeming human clay but common dirt, 
This great philosopher was thus instilling 
His maxims, which to martial comprehension 
Proved death in battle equal to a pension ; — 

LIX. 

Suwarrow, when he saw this company 

Of Cossacks and their prey, turn'd round and cast 
Upon them his slow brow and piercing eye : — 

"Whence come ye?" — "From Constantinople last, 
Captives just now escaped," was the reply. [pass'd 

"What are ye?" — "What you see us." Briefly 
This dialogue ; for he who answer'd knew 
To whom he spoke, and made his words but few. 

LX. 
"Your names?" — "Mine's Johnson, and my com- 
rade's Juan ; 

The other two are women, and the third 
Is neither man nor woman." The chief threw on 

The party a slight glance, then said, " I have heard 
Your name before, the second is a new one : 

To bring the other three here was absurd : 
But let that pass : — I think I have heard your name 
In the Nikolaiew regiment?" — "The same." 

LXI. 

"You served at Widdin ?"— " Yes."— " You led the 
attack?" 

" I did."—" What next ?"— " I really hardly know." 
" You were the first i' the breach ?" — " I was not slack 

At least to follow those who might be so." 
" What follow'd ?" — " A shot laid me on my back, 

And I became a prisoner to the foe." 
" You shall have vengeance, for the town surrounded 
Is twice as strong as that where you were wounded. 

LXII. 
" Where will you serve ?" — " Where'er you please." — 

You like to be the hope of the forlorn, [" I know 
And doubtless would be foremost on the foe 

After the hardships you've already borne. 
And this young fellow— say what can he do ? 

He with the beardless chin and garments torn?" 
" Why, general, if he hath no greater fault 
In war than love, he had better lead the assault." 

LXIII. 

" He shall if that he dare." Here Juan bow'd 
Low as the complimenlf deserved. Suwarrow 

Continued : " Your old regiment's allow'd. 
By special providence, to lead to-morrow, 

Or it may be to-night, the assault : I have vow'd 
To several saints, that shortly plough or harrow 

Shall pass o'er what was Ismail, and its tusk 

Be unimpeded by the proudest mosque. 



1 " Pour ces exercices d'un nouveau genre, il se servit de 
fascines disposges de mani&re S. representer un Turc."— J&id. 



Canto VII. 



DON JUAN. 



821 



LXIV. 

" So now, my lads, for glory !" — Here be turn'd 
And drill'd away in the most classic Russian, 

Vntil each high, heroic bosom burn'd 

For cash and conquest, as if from a cushion 

A preacher bad held forth (wbo nobly spurn'd 
All earthly goods save tithes), and bade them push 
on 

To slay the Pagans who resisted, battering 

The armies of the Christian Empress Catherine. 

LXV. 

Johnson, Avho knew by this long colloquy 
Himself a favorite, ventured to address 

Suwarrow, though engaged with accents high 
In his resumed amusement. " I confess 

My debt in being thus allow'd to die 
Among the foremost ; but if you'd express 

Explicitly our several posts, my friend 

And self would know what duty to attend." 

LXYI. 

" Right! I was busy, and forgot. Why, you 
Will join your former regiment, which should be 

Now under arms. Ho ! Katskoff, take him to — 
(Here he call'd up a Polish orderly) 

His post, I mean the regiment Nikolaiew : 
The stranger strijiling may remain with me; 

He's a fine boy. The women may be sent 

To the other baggage, or to the sick tent." 

LXYII. 

But here a sort of scene began to ensue : 
The ladies, — who by no means had been bred 

To be disposed of in a way so new, 
Although their harem education led 

Doubtless to that of doctrines the most true, 
Passive obedience, — now raised up the head, 

With flashing eyes and starting tears, and flung 

Their arms, as hens their wings about their young, 

LXVIII. 
O'er the promoted couple of brave men 

Who were thus honor'd by the greatest chief 
That ever peopled hell with heroes slain, 

Or plunged a province or a realm in grief. 
Oh, foolish mortals ! Always taught in vain ! 

Oh, glorious laurel ! since for one sole leaf 
Of thine imaginary deathless tree, 
(Ji blood and tears must flow the unebbing sea. 

LXIX. 

"^uwarrow, who had small regard for tears, 
And not much sympathy for blood, survey'd 

The women with their hair about their ears 
And natural agonies, with a slight shade 

Of feeling : for however habit sears \^' 

Men's hearts against whole million8,when their trade 

Is butchery, sometimes a single sorrow 

Will touch even heroes— and such was Suwarrow. 



LXX. 

He said, — and in the kindest Calmuck tone, — 
" Why, Johnson, what the devil do you mean 

By bringing women here ? They shall be shown 
All the attention possible, and seen 

In safety to the wagons, where alone 

In fact they can be safe. You should have been 

Aware this kind of baggage never thrives ; 

Save wed a year, I hate recruits with wives." 

LXXI. 

" May it please your excellency," thus replied 
Our British friend, " these are the wives of others, 

And not our own. I am too qualified 
By service with my military brothers 

To break the rules by bringing one's own bride 
Into a camp : I know that nought so bothers 

The hearts of the heroic on a charge, 

As leaving a small family at large. 

LXXII. 

" But these are but two Turkish ladies, who 
With their attendant aided our escape. 

And afterwards accompanied us through 
A thousand perils in this dubious shape. 

To me this kind of life is not so new ; 
To them, poor things, it is an awkward scrape. 

I therefore, if you wish me to fight freely, 

Request that they may both be used genteelly." 

LXXIII. 
Meantime these two poor girls, with swimming 
eyes, 

Look'd on as if in doubt if they could trust 
Their own protectors ; nor was their surprise 

Less than their grief (and truly not less just) 
To see an old man, rather wild than wise 

In aspect, plainly clad, besmear'd with dust, 
Stript to his waistcoat, and that not too clean, 
More fear'd than all the sultans ever seen. 

LXXIV. 

For everything seem'd resting on his nod. 
As they could read in all eyes. Now to them, 

Who were accustom'd, as a sort of god, 
To see the sultan, rich in many a gem, 

Like an imperial peacock stalk abroad 
(That royal bird, whose tail's a diadem) 

With all the pomp of power, it was a doubt 

How power could condescend to do without. 

LXXV. 

John Johnson, seeing their extreme dismay, 
Though little versed in feelings Oriental, 

Suggested some slight comfort in his way : 
Don Juan, who was much more sentimental, 

Swore they should see him by the dawn of day, 
Or that the Russian army should repent all : 

And, strange to say, they found some consolation 

In this — for females like exaggeration. 



822 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Canto VII. 



LXXVI. 

And then with tears, and sighs, and some slight kisses, 
They parted for the present — these to await, 

According to the artillery's hits or misses, 

What sages call Chance, Providence, or Fate — 

(Uncertainty is one of many blisses, 
A mortgage on Humanity's estate) — 

While their beloved friends began to arm. 

To burn a town which never did them harm. 

LXXVII. 

Suwarrow,— who but saw things in the gross. 
Being much too gross to see them in detail, 

Who calculated life as so much dross, 
And as the wind a widow'd nation's wail, 

And cared as little for his army's loss 

(So that their efforts should at length prevail) 

As wife and friends did for the boils of Job, — 

What was't to him to hear two women sob ? 

LXXVIII. 

Nothing. — The work of glory still went on 

In preparations for a cannonade 
As terrible as that of Ilion, 

If Homer had found mortars ready made ; 
But now, instead of slaying Priam's son, 

We only can but talk of escalade, 
Bombs, drums, guns, bastions, batteries, bayonets, 

bullets ; 
Hard words, which stick in the soft Muses' gullets. 

LXXIX. 

Oh, thou eternal Homer ! who couldst charm 
All ears, though long ; all ages, though so short, 

By merely wielding with poetic arm 
Arms to which men will never more resort, 

Unless gunpowder should be found to harm 
Much less than is the hope of every court. 

Which now is leagued young Freedom to annoy ; 

But they will not find Liberty a Troy : — 

LXXX. 

Oh, thou eternal Homer ! I have now 
To paint a siege, wherein more men were slain. 

With deadlier engines and a speedier blow, 
Than in thy Greek gazette of that campaign ; 

And yet, like all men else, I must allow, 
To vie with thee would be about as vain 

As for a brook to cope with ocean's flood ; 

But still we moderns equal you in blood; 

LXXXI. 

If not in poetry, at least in fact ; 

And fact is truth, the grand desideratum ! 
Of which, howe'er the Muse describes each act. 

There should be ne'ertheless a slight substratum. 
But now the town is going to be attack'd ; 

Great deeds are doing— how shall I relate *em ? 
Souls of immortal generals ! Phoebus watches 
To color up his rays from your despatches. 



LXXXII. 

Oh, ye great bulletins of Bonaparte ! 

Oh, ye less grand long lists of kill'd and wounded ! 
Shade of Leonidas, who fought so hearty. 

When my poor Greece was once, as now, sur- 
rounded ! 
Oh, Caesar's Commentaries ! now impart, ye 

Shadows of glory ! (lest I be confounded), 
A portion of your fading twilight hues, 
So beautiful, so fleeting, to the Muse. 

LXXXIII. 

When I call " fading " martial immortality, 
I mean, that every age and every year. 

And almost every day, in sad reality. 
Some sucking hero is compell'd to rear. 

Who, when we come to sum up the totality 
Of deeds to human happiness most dear. 

Turns out to be a butcher in great business. 

Afflicting young folks with a sort of dizziness, 

LXXXIV. 

Medals, rank, ribbons, lace, embroidery, scarlet, 
Are things immortal to immortal man, 

As purple to the Babylonian harlot : 
An uniform to boys is like a fan 

To women ; there is scarce a crimson varlet 
But deems himself the first in Glory's van. 

But Glory's glory ; and if you would find 

What that is— ask the pig who sees the wind ! 

LXXXV. 

At least he feels it, and some say he sees, 

Because he runs before it like a pig ; 
Or, if that simple sentence should displease, 

Say, that he scuds before it like a brig, 
A schooner, or — but it is time to cease 

This canto, ere my Muse perceives fatigue. 
The next shall ring a peal to shake all people, 
Like a bob-major from a village steeple. 

LXXXVI. 

Hark ! through the silence of the cold, dull night, 
The hum of armies gathering rank on rank ! 

Lo ! dusky masses steal in dubious sight 
Along the leaguer'd wall and bristling bank 

Of the arm'd river, while with straggling light 
The stars peep through the vapors dim and dank, 

Which curl in curious wreaths : — how soon the smoke 

Of hell shall pall them in a deeper cloak ! 

LXXXVII. 

Here pause we for the present — as even then 
That awful pause, dividing life from death. 

Struck for an instant on the hearts of men. 

Thousands of whom were drawing their last breath ! 

A moment — and all will be life again ! 

The march ! the charge ! the shouts of either faith, 

Hurrah ! and Allah ! and — one moment more — 

The death-cry drowning in the battle's roar. 



Canto VIII. 



DON JUAN. 



823 



Ban 3uan. 



CANTO THE EIGHTH.* 



I. 



Oh, blood and thunder ! and oh, blood and wounds ! 

These are but vulgar oaths, as you may deem. 
Too gentle reader ! and most shocking sounds : 

And so they are ; yet this is Glory's dream 
Unriddled, and as my true Muse expounds 

At present such things, since they are her theme, 
So be they her inspirers ! Call them Mars, 
Bellona, what you will — they mean but wars. 

II. 

All was prepared — the fire, the sword, the men 

To wield them in their terrible array. 
The army, like a lion from his den, 

March 'd forth with nerve and sinews bent to slay, — 
A human Hydra, issuing from its fen 

To breathe destruction on its winding way. 
Whose heads were heroes, which cut off in vain, 
Immediately in others grew again. 

III. 
History can only take things in the gross ; 

But could we know them in detail, perchance 
In balancing the profit and the loss. 

War's merit it by no means might enhance. 
To waste so much gold for a little dross. 

As hath been done, mere conquest to advance. 
The drying up a single tear has more 
Of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore. 

IV. 

And why ? — because it brings self-approbation ; 

Whereas the other, after all its glare. 
Shouts, bridges, arches, pensions from a nation. 

Which (it may be) has not much left to spare, 
A higher title, or a loftier station. 

Though they may make Corruption gape or stare. 
Yet, in the end, except in Freedom's battles. 
Are nothing but a child of Murder's rattles. 

1 " This canto is almost entirely filled with the taking of 
Ismail by storm. It would be absurd to attempt, in prose, 
even a feeble outline of the varied horrors which marked that 
celebrated scene of ruthless and indiscriminate carnage; the 
noble writer has depicted them with all that vivid and ap- 
palling fidelity, which, on such a theme, might be expected 
from his powerful muse; and, if anything can add to the 
shuddering sensation we experience in reading these terrific 
details, it Is the consideration that poetry, in this instance, 
instead of dealing in fiction, must necessarily relate a tale 
that falls short of the truth." — Campbell. 

2 " La nuit fitait obscure ; un brouillard gpais ne nous 
permettait de distinguer autre chose que le feu de notre 
artillerie, dont I'horjzon fitait cmbrasfi de tous cotfis : ce feu, 
partant du milieu du Danube, se rgflechissait sur les eaux, et 
offrait un coup dVx'il trCs-singulier." — Hisloire de la Nouvelle 
Russie, torn. iii. p. 209. 



y. 

And such they are — and such they will be found : 

Not so Leonidas and Washington, 
Whose every battle-field is holy ground. 

Which breathes of nations saved, not worlds undone. 
How sweetly on the ear such echoes sound ! 

While the mere victor's may appall or stun 
The servile and the vain, such names will be 
A watchword till the future shall be free. 

VI. 

The night was dark, and the thick mist allow'd 
Nought to be seen save the artillery's flame, 

Which arch'd the horizon like a fiery cloud. 
And in the Danube's waters shone the same^ — 

A mirror'd hell ! the volleying roar, and loud 
Long booming of each peal on peal, o'ercame 

The ear far more than thunder; for heaven's flashes 

Spare, or smite rarely — man's make millions ashes ! 

VII. 

The column order'd on the assault scarce pass'd 
Beyond the Russian batteries a few toises, 

When up the bristling Moslem rose at last, 
Answering the Christian thunders with like voices : 

Then one vast fire, air, earth, and stream embraced, 
Which rock'd as 'twere beneath the mighty noises ; 

While the whole rampart blazed like Etna, when 

The restless Titan hiccups in his den ; ^ 

VIII. 

And one enormous shout of "Allah !"* rose 
In the same moment, loud as even the roar 

Of war's most mortal engines, to their foes 
Hurling defiance : city, stream, and shore 

Resounded "Allah !" and the clouds which close 
With thickening canopy the conflict o'er, 

Vibrate to the Eternal name. Hark ! through 

All sounds it pierceth, " Allah ! Allah ! Hu !" ^ 

IX. 

The columns were in movement one and all. 
But of the portion which attack'd by water. 

Thicker than leaves the lives began to fall,^ 
Though led by Arseniew, that great son of slaughter, 

8 " A peine eut on parcouru I'espace de quelques toises au- 
del5 des batteries, que les Turcs, qui n'avaient point tir5 
pendant toute la nuit s'appergevant de nos mouvemens, com- 
menc6rent de leur cot6 un feu tr6s-vif, qui embrasa le reste 
de I'horizon : mais ce fut bien autre chose lorsque, avancSs 
davantage, le feu de la mousqueterie commenga dans toute 
I'fitendue du rempart que nous appercevions. Ce fut alors 
que la place pariit i. nos yeux comme un volcan dont le feu 
sortait de toutes parties." — Ibid. p. 209. 

< " Un cri universel d' Allah! qui se rCpfitait tout autour 
de la ville, vint encore rendre plus extraordinaire cet in- 
stant, dont il est impossible de se faire une id6e." — Ibid. 
p. 209. 

6 Allah Hu ! is properly the war cry of the Mussulman*, 
and they dwell on the last syllable, which gives it a wild and 
peculiar effect. 

« "Toutes les colonnes fitaient en mouvement; celles qui 



824 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto VIII. 



As brave as ever faced both bomb and ball. 
"Carnage" (so Wordsworth tells you) "is God's 
daughter:"! 
If he speak truth, she is Christ's sister, and 
Just now behaved as in the Holy Land. 



The Prince de Ligne was wounded in the knee ; 

Count Chapeau-Bras, too, had a ball between 
His cap and head,''' which proves the head to be 

Aristocratic as was ever seen, 
Because it then received no injury 

More than the cap ; in fact, the ball could 
mean 
No harm unto a right legitimate head ; 
" Ashes to ashes" — why not lead to lead? 

XI. 

Also the General Markow, Brigadier, 

Insisting on removal of the prince 
Amidst some groaning thousands dying near, • 

All common fellows, who might writhe and 
wince. 
And shriek for water into a deaf ear,— 

The General Markow, who could thus evince 
His sympathy for rank, by the same token, 
To teach him greater, had his own leg broken.' 

XII. 

Three hundred cannon threw up their emetic, 
And thirty thousand muskets flung their pills 

Like hail, to make a bloody diuretic* 
Mortality ! thou hast thy monthly bills : 

Thy plagues, thy famines, thy physicians, yet tick, 
Like the death-watch, within our ears the ills 

Past, present, and to come ; — but all may yield 

To the true portrait of one battle-field ; 

XIII. 
There the still varying pangs, which multiply 

Until their very number makes men hard 
By the infinities of agony, 

Which meet the gaze, whate'er it may regard — 
The groan, the roll in dust, the all-white eye 

Turn'd back within its socket, — these reward 
Your rank and file by thousands, while the rest 
May win perhaps a ribbon at the breast ! 



attaquaient par eau commandees par le general Arseniew, 
essuyferent un feu gpouvantable, et perdirent avant le jour un 
tiers de leurs officiers." — Histoire de la Nouvelle Russie, t. iii. 
p. 209. 
1 " But Thy^ most dreaded instrument 
In working out a pure intent, 
Is man array 'd for mutual slaughter ; 
Yea, Carnage is thy daughter .'" 

Wordsworth's Thanksgiving Ode. 



* To ■wit, the Deity's : this is perhaps as pretty a pedigree for murder as 
ever was found out by Garter King at Arms. What would have been said, 
bad any free-spoken people discovered such a lineage ? 



XIV. 

Yet I love glory ; — glory's a great thing : — 
Think what it is to be in your old age 

Maintain'd at the expense of your good king : 
A moderate pension shakes full many a sage, 

And heroes are but made for bards to sing. 
Which is still better ; thus in verse to wage 

Your wars eternally, besides enjoying 

Half-pay for life, make mankind worth destroying. 

XV. 

The troops, already disembark'd, push'd on 
To take a battery on the right : the others, 

Who landed lower down, their landing done, 
Had set to work as briskly as their brothers : 

Being grenadiers, they mounted one by one, 
Cheerful as children climb the breasts of 
mothers. 

O'er the intrenchment and the palisade,^ 

Quite orderly, as if upon parade. 

XVI. 

And this was admirable ; for so hot 
The fire was, that were red Vesuvius loaded, 

Besides its lava, with all sorts of shot 
And shells or hells, it could not more have 
goaded. 

Of officers a third fell on the spot, 
A thing which victory by no means boded 

To gentlemen engaged in the assault : 

Hounds, when the huntsman tumbles, are at fault. 

XVII. 
But here I leave the general concern, 

To track our hero on his path of fame : 
He must his la,urels separately earn ; 

For fifty thousand heroes, name by name, 
Though all deserving equally to turn 

A couplet, or an elegy to claim. 
Would form a lengthy lexicon of glory, 
And what is worse still, a much longer story : 

XVIII. 

And therefore we must give the greater number 
To the Gazette — which doubtless fairly dealt 

By the deceased, who lie in famous slumber 
In ditches, fields, or wheresoe'er they felt 



2 "Le Prince de Ligne fut blesse au genou; le Due de 
Eiclielieu eut une balle entre le fond de son bonnet et sa 
tete:'—msL de la N. B., p. 210. 

3 "Le brigadier Markow, insistant pour qu'on emportat 
le prince blesse, regut un coup de fusil qui lui fracassa le 
ipied."— Ibid. p. 210. 

4 " Trois cents bouches si feu vomissaient sans interruption, 
et trente mille fusils alimentaient sans reldche une grele de 
h&\les."—Ibid. p. 210. 

8 "Les troupes, dSja debarquees, se portgrent S, droite 
pour s'emparer d'un batterie ; et celles debarquees plus bas, 
principaiement composees des grenadiers de Fanagorie, es- 
caladaient le retranchement et la palissade."— 26icZ. p. 210. 



Canto VIII. 



DON JUAN. 



825 



Their clay for the last time their souls encumber ; — 
Thrice happy he wh(>se name has been well spelt 
In the despatch : 1 knew a man whose loss 
Was printed Ch'ovc, although his name was Grose.^ 

XIX. 

Juan and Johnson join'd a certain corps, 
And fought away with might and main, not know- 
ing 

The way which they had never trod before, 
And still less guessing where they might be going; 

But on they march'd, dead bodies trampling o'er, 
Firing, and thrusting, slashing, sweating, glowing, 

But fighting thoughtlessly enough to win. 

To their two selves, one whole bright bulletin. 

XX. 

Thus on they wallow'd in the bloody mire 
Of dead and dying thousands, — sometimes gaining 

A yard or two of ground, which brought them nigher 
To some odd angle for which all were straining ; 

At other times, repulsed by the close fire. 
Which really pour'd as if all hell were raining 

Instead of heaven, they stumbled backwards o'er 

A wounded comrade, sprawling in his gore. 

XXI. 

Though 'twas Don Juan's first of fields, and though 
The nightly muster and the silent march 

In the chill dark, when courage does not glow 
So much as under a triumphal arch. 

Perhaps might make him shiver, yawn, or throw 
A glance on the dull clouds (as thick as starch, 

Which stiflfen'd heaven) as if he wish'd for day; — 

Yet for all this he did not run away. 

XXII. 
Indeed he could not. But what if he had ? 

There have been and are heroes who begun 
With something not much better, or as bad : 

Frederick the Great from Molwitz deign'd to run 
For the first and last time ; for, like a pad, 

Or hawk, or bride, most mortals after one 
Warm bout are broken in to their new tricks, 
And fight like fiends for pay or politics. 

XXIII. 

He was what Erin calls, in her sublime 
Old Erse or Irish, or it may be Punic; — 

(The antiquarians 2 who can settle time. 
Which settles all things, Roman, Greek, or Runic, 

Swear that Pat's language sprung from the same clime 
With Hannibal, and wears the Tyrian tunic 



' A fact: see the Waterloo Gazettes. I recollect remarking 
at the time to a frif nd : — " Th/re is fame ! a man is kiJled, 
hia name is Grose, and they print it Grove." I was at college 
with the decea.se<l, who wa.s a very amiable and clever man, 
and his society in great request for hia wit, gayoty, and 
"Chansons a boire." 

' See General Valancey and Sir Lawrence Parsons. 



Of Dido's alphabet ; and this is rational 
As any other notion, and not national ;) — 

XXIV. 

But Juan was quite " a broth of a boy," 
A thing of impulse and a child of song ; 

Now swimming in the sentiment of joy. 
Or the sensation (if that phrase seem wrong), 

And afterward, if he must needs destroy. 
In such good company as always throng 

To battles, sieges, and that kind of pleasure, 

No less delighted to employ his leisure ; 

XXV. 

But always without malice : if he warr'd 
Or loved, it was with what we call " the best 

Intentions," which form all mankind's trump card, 
To be produced when brouglit up to the test. 

The statesman, hero, harlot, lawyer — ward 
Off each attack, when people are in quest 

Of their designs, by saying they meant well; 

'Tis pity " that such meaning should pave helL"^ 

XXVI. 

I almost lately have begun to doubt 
Whether hell's pavement — if it be so paved — 

Must not have latterly been quite worn out. 
Not by the numbers good intent hath saved, 

But by the mass who go below without 
Those ancient good intentions, which once 
shaved 

And smooth'd the brimstone of that street of hell 

Which bears the greatest likeness to Pall Mall. 

XXVII. 

Juan, by some strange chance, which oft divides 
Warrior from warrior in their grim career. 

Like chastest wives from constant husbands' sides 
Just at the close of the first bridal year, 

By one of those odd turns of Fortune's tides, 
Was on a sudden rather puzzled here. 

When, after a good deal of heavy firing. 

He found himself alone, and friends retiring. 

XXVIII. 

I don't know how the thing occurr'd — it might 
Be that the greater part were kill'd or wounded, 

And that the rest had faced unto the right 
About; a circumstance which has confounded 

Csesar himself, Avho, in the very sight 
Of his whole army, which so much abounded 

In courage, was obliged to snatch a shield, 

And rally back his Romans to the field.* 

8 The Portuguese proverb says that "hell is paved with 
goo<l intentions." — See ante, p. 619. 

* " The Nervii marched to tho number of sixty thousand, 
and fell upon Ctesar, as he was fortifying his camp, and had 
not the least notion of so sudden an attack. They first 
routed his cavalry, and then .surrounded the twelfth and the 
aeventh legions, and killed all the officers. Uad not Csesar 



826 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Canto VIII. 



XXIX. 

Juan, who had no shield to snatch, and was 
No Caesar, but a fine young lad, who fought 

He knew not why, arriving at this pass, 
Stopp'd for a minute, as perhaps he ought 

For a much longer time ; then, like an ass — 
(Start not, kind reader, since great Homer 
thought 

This simile enough for Ajax, Juan 

Perhaps may find it better than a new one) ; — 

XXX. 

Then, like an ass, he went upon his way. 
And, what was stranger, never look'd behind ; 

But seeing, flashing forward, like the day 
Over the hills, a fire enough to blind 

Those who dislike to look upon a fray. 
He stumbled on, to try if he could find 

A path, to add his own slight arm and forces 

To corps, the greater part of which were corses. 

XXXI. 

Perceiving then no more the commandant 

Of his own corps, nor even the corps, which had 

Quite disappear'd — the gods know how ! (I can't 
Account for everything which may look bad 

In history ; but we at least may grant 
It was not marvellous that a mere lad, 

In search of glory, should look on before, 

Nor care a pinch of snutF about his corps :) — 

XXXII. 

Perceiving nor commander nor commanded, 
And left at large, like a young heir, to make 

His way to — where he knew not — single handed ; 
As travellers follow over bog and brake 

An " ignis fatuus ;" or as sailors stranded 
Unto the nearest hut themselves betake ; 

So Juan, following honor and hjs nose, 

Rush'd where the thickest fire announced most foes.^ 

XXXIII. 

He knew not where he was, nor greatly cared, 

For he was dizzy, busy, and his veins 
Fill'd as with lightning— for his spirit shared 

The hour, as is the case with lively brains ; 
And where the hottest fire was seen and heard. 

And the loud cannon peal'd his hoarsest strains. 
He rush'd, while earth and air were sadly shaken 
By thy humane discovery, Friar Bacon ! ^ 



snatched a buckler from one of his own men, forced his way- 
through the combatants before him, and rushed upon the 
barbarians ; or had not the tenth legion, seeing his danger, 
ran from the heights where they were posted, and mowed 
down the enemy's ranks, not one Roman would have survived 
the battle."— Plutarch. 

1 " N'appercevant plus le commandant du corps dont je 
faisais partie, et ignorant oH je devais porter mes pas, je crus 
reconnoitre le lieu oil le rempart gtait situ6 ; on y faisait un 



XXXIV. 

And as he rush'd along, it came to pass he 
Fell in with what was late the second column, 

Under the orders of the General Lascy, 
But now reduced, as is a bulky volume 

Into an elegant extract (much less massy) 
Of heroism, and took his place with solemn 

Air 'midst the rest, who kept their valiant faces 

And levell'd weapons still against the glacis. 

XXXV. 

Just at this crisis up came Johnson too, 
Who had " retreated," as the phrase is when 

Men run away much rather than go through 
Destruction's jaws into the devil's den ; 

But Johnson was a clever fellow, who 
Knew when and how "to cut and come again," 

And never ran away, except when running 

Was nothing but a valorous kind of cunning. 

XXXVI. 

And so, when all his corps were dead or dying, 
Except Don Juan, a mere novice, whose 

More virgin valor never dreamt of flying. 
From ignorance of danger, which endues 

Its votaries, like innocence relying 
On its own strength, with careless nerves and 
thews, — 

Johnson retired a little, just to rally 

Those who catch cold in " shadows of Death's valley." 

XXXVII. 

And there, a little shelter' d from the shot. 
Which rain'd from bastion, battery, parapet, 

Rampart, wall, casemate, house— for there was not 
In this extensive city, sore beset 

By Christian soldiery, a single spot 
Which did not combat like the devil, as yet, — 

He found a number of Chasseurs, all scatter'd 

By the resistance of the chase they batter'd. 

XXXVIII. 

And these he call'd on ; and, what's strange, they came 
Unto his call, unlike " the spirits from 

The vasty deep," to whom you may exclaim, 
Says Hotspur, long ere they will leave their home.^ 

Their reasons were uncertainty, or shame 
At shrinking from a bullet or a bomb. 

And that odd impulse, which in wars or creeds 

Makes men, like cattle, follow him who leads. 



feu assez vif, que je jugeai 6tre celui du general-major de 
Lascy."— ^is^. de la N. R., p. 210. 

2 Gunpowder is said to have been discovered by this friar, 
N. B. Though Friar Bacon seems to have discovered gun- 
powder, he had the humanity not to record his discovery in 
intelligible language. 
8 '■'Glendower. I can call spirits from the vasty deep. 
Hotspur. Why so can I, or so can any man : 

But will they come when you do call for 
them?"— Zfewy IV. 



Canto VIII. 



DON JUAN. 



827 



XXXIX. 

By Jove ! he was a noble fellow, Johnson, 
And though his name, than Ajax or Achilles, 

Sounds less harmonious, underneath the sun soon 
We shall not see his likeness : he could kill his 

Man quite as quietly as blows the monsoon [is) : 

Her steady breath (which some months the same still 

Seldom he varied feature, hue, or muscle, 

And could be very busy without bustle ; 

XL. 

And therefore, when he ran away, he did so 

Upon reflection, knowing that behind 
He would find others who would fain be rid so 

Of idle apprehensions, which like wind 
Trouble heroic stomachs. Though their lids so 

Oft are soon closed, all heroes are not blind, 
But when they light upon immediate death. 
Retire a little, merely to take breath. 

XLI. 

But Johnson only ran off, to return 
With many other warriors, as we said. 

Unto that rathsr somewhat misty bourne, 
Which Hamlet tells us is a pass of dread.i 

To Jack, howe'er, this gave but slight concern : 
His soul (like galvanism upon the dead) 

Acted upon the living as on wire. 

And led them back into the heaviest fire. 

XLII. 
Egad ! they found the second time what they 

The first time thought quite terrible enough 
To fly from, malgre all which people say 

Of glory, and all that immortal stuff 
Which fills a regiment (besides their pay, 

That daily shilling which makes warriors tough) — 
They found on their return the self-same welcome, 
Which made some think, and others know, a hell come. 

XLIII. 
They fell as thick as harvests beneath hail, 

Grass before scythes, or corn below the sickle. 
Proving that trite old truth, that life's as frail 

As any othei' boon for which men stickle. 
The Turkish batteries thrash'd them like a flail, 

Or a good boxer, into a sad pickle 
Putting the very bravest, who were knock'd 
Upon the head before their guns were coc]|:'d. 



" the dread of something after death,- 



The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn 
No traveller returns."— /fam/e/. 

* TaliLx, the slope or inclination of a wall, whereby, re- 
clining at the top so a.s to fall within its base, the thickness is 
gradually lossened according to the height."— 3/i7£/. Diet. 

' " Appellant ceux des cha.sseurs qui fitaient autour de moi 
en assez grand nombre, je m'avangai et reconnus ne m'fitre 
point tromp6 dans mon calcul ; c'6tait en effet cette colonnc 
qui 4 I'instant parvenait au sommet du rempart. Les Turcs 
dederriftre les travers et les flancsdes bastions yoisins fa.'^aient 
tur ellu un feu trSs-vif de canon et de mousqueterie. Je 



XLIV. 
The Turks behind the traverses and flanks 

Of the next bastion, fired away like devils, 
And swept, as gales sweep foam away, whole ranks : 

However, Heaven knows how, the Fate who levels 
Towns, nations, worlds, in her revolving pranks, 

So order'd it, amidst these sulphury revels. 
That Johnson, and some few who had not scamper'd, 
Reach'd the interior talus 2 of the rampart.^ 

XLV. 

First one or two, then five, six, and a dozen 
Came mounting quickly up, for it was now 

All neck or nothing, as, like pitch or rosin. 
Flame was shower'd forth above, as well's below, 

So that you scarce could say who best had chosen, 
The gentlemen that were the first to show 

Their martial faces on the parapet. 

Or those who thought it brave to wait as yet. 

XLVI. 

But those who scaled, found out that their advance 
Was favor'd by an accident or blunder : 

The Greek or Turkish Cohorn's ignorance 
Had palisado'd in a way you'd wonder 

To see in forts of Netherlands or France — 

(Though these to our Gibraltar must knock under) — 

Right in the middle of the parapet 

Just named, these palisades were primly set : * 

XLVII. 

So that on either side some nine or ten 

Paces were left, whereon you could contrive 

To march ; a great convenience to our men, 
At least to all those who were left alive. 

Who thus could form a line and fight again ; 
And that which further aided them to strive 

Was, that they could kick down the palisades. 

Which scarcely rose much higher than grass blades.* 

XLVIII. 

Among the first, — I will not say the first, 
For such precedence upon such occasions 

Will oftentimes make deadly quarrels burst 
Out between friends as well as allied nations : 

The Briton must be bold who really durst 
Put to such trial John Bull's partial patience, 

As say that Wellington at Waterloo 

Was beaten, — though the Prussians say so too ; — 

gravis, avec les gens qui m'avaient suivi, le talus intgrieur du 
rempart."— /Tiy/. de la N. R., p. 211. 

4 " Ce fut dans cet instant que je reconnus combien I'ig- 
norance du constructeur des palissades 6tait importante pour 
nous ; car, comrae elles gtaient places au milieu du parapet," 
Ac— Ibid. p. 211. 

6 " 11 y avait de chaque c6t6 neuf &dix pieds sur lesquels on 
pouvait marcher; et les soldats, apprgs 6tre montCs, avaient 
pu se ranger commod6ment sur I'espace ext6rieur, qui ne 
s'61eva que d'^-peu-prfes deux pieds au-d,e3SU3 du niveau de la 
terre."— /6id. p. 211. 



828 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Canto VIII. 



XLIX. 

And that if Blucher, Bulow, Gneisenau, 
And God knows who besides in " au " and " ow,' 

Had not come up in time to cast an awe ^ 
Into the hearts of those who fought till now 

As tigers combat with an empty craw, 
The Duke of Wellington had ceased to show 

His orders, also to receive his pensions ; 

Which are the heaviest that our history mentions. 



But never mind ; — " God save the king !" and kings ! 

For if he don't, I doubt if men will longer — 
I think I hear a little bird, who sings 

The people by and by will be the stronger : 
The veriest jade will wince whose harness wrings 

So much into the raw as quite to wrong her 
Beyond the rules of posting, — and the mob 
At last fall sick of imitating Job. 

LI. 

At first it grumbles, then it swears, and then, 
Like David, flings smooth pebbles 'gainst a giant ; 

At last it takes to weapons such a»s men 
Snatch when despair makes human hearts less 
pliant. 

Then comes " the tug of war ;" — 'twill come again, 
I rather doubt ; and I would fain say " fie on't," 

If I had not perceived that revolution 

Alone can save the earth from hell's pollution. 

LII. ^' 

But to continue : — I say not the first. 

But of the first, our little friend Don Juan 
Walk'd o'er the walls of Ismail, as if nursed 

Amidst such scenes — though this was quite a new 
one 
To him, and I should hope to most. The thirst 

Of glory, which so pierces through and through one. 
Pervaded him — although a generous creature, 
As warm in heart as feminine in feature. 

LIIL 

And here he was — who upon woman's breast, 
Even from a child, felt like a child ; howe'er 

The man in all the rest might be confest. 
To him it was Elysium to be there ; 

And he could even withstand that awkward test 
Which Rousseau points out to the dubious fair, 

" Observe your lover when he leaves your arms ;" 

But Juan never left them while they had charms. 



1 "It has been a favorite assertion witli almost all the 
French, and some English writers, that the English were on 
the point of being defeated, when the Prussian force came 
up. The contrary is the truth. Baron Muffling has given 
the most explicit testimony, 'that the battle could have 
afforded no favorable result to the enemy, even if the Prus- 
sians had never come up.' The laurels of Waterloo must be 
divided— the British won the battle, the Prussians achieved 
and rendered available the victory."— Sir Waltek Scott. 



LIV. 

Unless compell'd by fate, or wave, or wind. 
Or near relations, who are much the same. 

But here he was ! — where each tie that can bind 
Humanity must yield to steel and flame : 

And he whose very body was all mind. 
Flung here by fate or circumstance, which tame 

The loftiest, hurried by the time and place, 

Dash'd on like a spurr'd blood-horse in a race. 

LV. 

So was his blood stirr'd while he found resistance, 
As is the hunter's at the five-bar gate. 

Or double post and rail, where the existence 
Of Britain's youth depends upon their weight, 

The lightest being the safest : at a distance 
He hated cruelty, as all men hate 

Blood, until heated — and even then his own 

At times would curdle o'er some heavy groan. 

LVI. 

The General Lascy, who had been hard press'd, 

Seeing arrive an aid so opportune 
As were some hundred youngsters all abreast, 

Who came as if just dropp'd down from the 
moon. 
To Juan, who was nearest him, address'd 

His thanks, and hopes to take the city soon, 
Not reckoning him to be a ** base Bezonian " 2 
(As Pistol calls it), but a young Livonian.* 

LVII. 

Juan, to whom he spoke in German, knew 
As much of German as of Sanscrit, and 

In answer made an inclination to 
The general who held him in command ; 

For seeing one with ribbons, black and blue. 
Stars, medals, and a bloody sword in hand. 

Addressing him in tones which seem'd to thank, 

He recognized an oflSlcer of rank. 

LVIII. 

Short speeches pass between two men who speak 
No common language ; and besides, in time 

Of war and taking towns, when many a shriek 
Rings o'er the dialogue, and many a crime 

Is perpetrated ere a word can break 
Upon the ear, and sounds of horror chime 

In like church-bells, with sigh, howl, groan, yell, 
prayer. 

There cannot be much conversation there. 



2 Pistol's " Bezonian " is a corruption of hisognoso — a needy 
man— metaphorically (at least) a scoundrel. 

3 " Le General Lascy, voyant arriver un corps, si 3-propos 
a son secour, s'avanga vers I'officier qui I'avait conduit, et, le 
prenant pour un Livonien, lui fit, en Allemand, les compli- 
mens les plus flatteurs ; le jeune militaire (le Due de Riche- 
lieu) qui parlait parfaitement cette langue, y repondit avec 
sa modestie ordinaire."— jffis^. de la N. It., p, 211. 



Canto VIII. 



DON JUAN. 



829 



LIX. 

Aud therefore all we have related in 
Two long octaves, pass'd in a little minute ; 

But in the same small minute, every sin 
Contrived to get itself comprised within it. 

The very cannon, deafen'd by the din. 
Grew dumb, for you might almost hear a linnet, 

As soon as thunder, 'midst the general noise 

Of human nature's agonizing voice ! 

LX. 

The town was enter'd. Oh, eternity ! — 
" God made the country, and man made the town,' 

So Cowper says — and I begin to be 
Of his opinion, when I see cast down 

Rome, Babylon, Tyre, Carthage, Nineveh, 
All walls men know, and many never known ; 

Aud pondering on the present and the past, 

To deem the woods shall be our home at last : — 

LXI. 

Of all men, saving Sylla^ the man-slayer. 
Who passes for in life and death most lucky, 

Of the great names which in our faces stare. 
The General Boone, backwoodsman of Kentucky, 

Was happiest among mortals anywhere ; 
For killing nothing but a bear or buck, he 

Enjoy'd the lonely, vigorous, harmless days 

Of his old age in wilds of deepest maze.^ 

LXII. 
Crime came not near him — she is not the child 

Of solitude ; Health shrank not from him — for 
Her home is in the rarely-trodden wild, 

Where if men seek her not, and death be more 
Their choice than life, forgive them, as beguiled 

By habit to what their own hearts abhor — 
In cities caged. The present case in point I 
Cite is, that Boone lived hunting up to ninety ; 

LXIII. 
And what's still stranger, left behind a name 

For which men vainly decimate the throng. 
Not only famous, but of that good fame 

Without which glory's but a tavern song — 
Simple, serene, the antipodes of sliame, 

Which hate nor envy e'er could tinge with wrong; 
An active hermit, even in age the child 
Of Nature, or the Man of Ross run wild. 



I See ante, p. ?4<5. 

' " The wildest solitudes are to the taste of some people. 
General Boone, who was chiefly instrumental in the first set- 
tlement of Kentucky, is of this turn. It is said, that he is 
now (1818), at the age of seventy, pursuing the daily chase 
two hundred miles to the westward of the last abode of civil- 
ized man. He had retired to a chosen spot, beyond the Mis- 
souri, which, after him, is named Boone's Lick, out of the 
reach, as he flattered himself, of intrusion ; but white men, 
"V n there, encroached upon him, and two years ago, he 



LXIV. 

'Tis true he shrank from men even of his nation, 
When they built up unto his darling trees, — 

He moved some hundred miles oflf, for a station 
Where there were fewer houses and more ease ;* 

The inconvenience of civilization 
Is, that you neither can be pleased nor please ; 

But where he met the individual man. 

He show'd himself as kind as mortal can. 

LXV. 

He was not all alone : around him grew 
A sylvan tribe of children of the chase. 

Whose young, unwaken'd world was ever new, 
Nor sword nor sorrow yet had left a trace 

On her unwrinkled brow, nor could you view 
A frown on Nature's or on human face ; 

The free-born forest found and kept them free, 

And fresh as is a torrent or a tree. 

LXVI. 

And tall, and strong, and swift of foot were they, 
Beyond the dwarfing city's pale abortions. 

Because their thoughts had never been the prey 
Of care or gain : the green woods were their portions ; 

No sinking spirits told them they grew gray, 
No fashion made them apes of her distortions ; 

Simple they were, not savage ; and their rifles, 

Though very true, were not yet used for trifles. 

LXVII. 

Motion was in their days, rest in their slumbers, 
And cheerfulness the handmaid of their toil ; 

Nor yet too many nor too few their numbers ; 
Corruption could not make their hearts her soil ; 

The lust which stings, the splendor which encumbers, 
With the free foresters divide no spoil ; 

Serene, not sullen, were the solitudes 

Of this unsighing people of the woods. 

LXVIII. 

So much for Nature : — by way of variety, 
Now back to thy great joys. Civilization ! 

And the sweet consequence of large society, 
War, pestilence, the despot's desolation, 

The kingly scourge, the lust of notoriety, 
The millions slain by soldiers for their ration, 

The scenes like Catherine's boudoir at threescore, 

With Ismail's storm to soften it the more. 



went back two hundred miles further."— Birkbeck's Notes 
on America. 

3 " Such is the restless disposition of these backwoodsmen, 
and so averse are their habits from those of a civilized neigh- 
borhood, that nothing short of the salt, sandy desert can stop 
them. Tlic notorious Daniel Boone, who about fifty diflferent 
times has shifted his abode westward, as civilization ap- 
proached his dwelling, when asked the cause of his frequent 
change, replied, ' I think it time to remove, when I can no 
longer fell a tree for fuel, so that its top will lie within a few 
yards of my cabin.' "—Quart. Rev., vol. xxix. p. 14. 



830 



BYEON^S WOEKS. 



Canto VIII. 



LXIX. 

The town was enter'd : first one column made 
Its sanguinary way good — then another ; 

The reeking bayonet and the flashing blade 
Clash'd 'gainst the scimitar, and babe and mother 

With distant shrieks were heard Heaven to upbraid : — 
Still closer sulphury clouds began to smother 

The breath of morn and man, where foot by foot 

The madden'd Turks their city still dispute. 

LXX. 

Koutousow, he who afterwards beat back 
(With some assistance from the frost and snow) 

Napoleon on his bold and bloody track, 
It happen'd was himself beat back just now : 

He was a jolly fellow, and could crack 
His jest alike in face of friend or foe, 

Though life, and death, and victory were at stake ; i 

But here it seem'd his jokes had ceased to take : 

LXXI. 

For having thrown himself into a ditch, 
Follow'd in haste by various grenadiers, 

Whose blood the puddle greatly did enrich, 
He climb'd to where the parapet appears ; 

But there his project reach 'd its utmost pitch 
('Mongst other deaths the General Ribaupierre's 

Was much regretted), for the Moslem men 

Threw them all down into the ditch again .'-' 

LXXII. 

And had it not been for some stray troops landing 
They knew not where, being carried by the stream 

To some spot, where they lost their understanding. 
And wander'd up and down as in a dream, 

Until they reach'd, as daybreak was expanding, 
That which a portal to their eyes did seem, — 

The great and gay Koutousow might have lain 

Where three parts of his column yet remain.^ 

LXXIII. 

And scrambling round the rampart, these same troops. 
After the taking of the " Cavalier,"* 



1 " Parmi les colonnes, une de celles qui souffrirent le plus 
etait commandge par le General Koutouzow (aujour-d'hul 
Prince de Smolensko). Ce brave militaire rgunit I'lntrgpidite 
S, un grand nombre de connaissances acquises ; il marche au 
feu avec la mgme gaiete qu'il va a; une fete ; 11 salt commander 
avec autant de sang froid qu'il dgploie d'esprit et d'amabilite 
dans le commerce habituel de la vie."— ^w^. de la Nouvelle 
Bussie, torn. iii. p. 212. 

2 "Ce brave Koutouzow se jeta dans le fosse, fut suivi 
des siens, et ne penetra jusqu'au haut du parapet qu'aprgs 
avoir gprouvS des difficultes incroyables. (Le brigadier 
Ribaupierre perdit la vie dans cette occasion: il avait fixe 
I'estime g6n§rale, et sa mort occasionna beaucoup de regrets. 
Les Turcs accoururent en grand nombre; cette multitude 
repoussa deux fois le general jusqu'au fossg."— /6tU p. 212. 

3 "Quelques troupes Busses, emportees par le courant, 
n'ayant pu debarquer sur le terrein qu'on leur avait prgscrit," 
&c.—Ibid. p. 213. 

* "A 'cavalier' is an elevation of earth, situated ordina- 
rily in the gorge of a bastion, bordered with a parapet, and 



Just as Koutousow's most "forlorn" of "hopes" 
Took, like chameleons, some slight tinge of fear, 

Open'd the gate call'd "Kilia," to the groups ^ 
Of baffled heroes, who stood shyly near, 

Sliding knee-deep in lately frozen mud, 

Now thaw'd into a marsh of human blood. 

LXXIV. 

The Kozacks, or, if so you please, Cossacks — 
(I don't much pique myself upon orthography. 

So that I do not grossly err in facts, 
Statistics, tactics, politics, and geography) — 

Having been used to serve on horses' backs. 
And no great dilettanti in topography 

Of fortresses, but fighting where it pleases 

Their chiefs to order, — were all cut to pieces.^ 

LXXV. 

Their column, though the Turkish batteries thunder'ti! 

Upon them, ne'ertheless had reach'd the rampart,' 
And naturally thought they could have plunder'd 

The city, without being further hamper'd ; 
But as it happens to brave men, they blunder'd — 

The Turks at first pretended to have scamper'd. 
Only to draw them 'twixt two bastion comers,^ 
From whence they sallied on those Christian scorners. 

LXXVI. v^^ 

Then being taken by the tail — a taking 

Fatal to bishops as to soldiers — these 
Cossacks were all cut off" as day was breaking, 

And found their lives were let at a short lease — 
But perish'd without shivering or shaking. 

Leaving as ladders their heap'd carcasses, 
O'er which Lieutenant-Colonel Yesouskoi 
March'd with the brave battalion of Polouzki :» — 

LXXVII. 

This valiant man kill'd all the Turks he met, 
But could not eat them, being in his turn 

Slain by some Mussulmans,^" who would not yet. 
Without resistance, see their city burn. 



cut into more or fewer embrasures, according to its capacity." 
— Milii. Diet. 

6 . . . " longferent le rempart, aprgs la prisg du cavalier, et 
ouvrirent la porte dite de Kilia aux soldats du G6ngral Kou- 
touzow." — Hist, de la N. E., p. 213. 

6 "II etait reserve aux Kozaks de combler de leur corps 
la partie du fosse oil ils combattaient ; leur colonne avait etg 
divisee entre MM. Platow et d'Orlow . . . " — Ibid. p. 213. 

7 ..." La premiere partie, devant se joindre S. la gauche 
du Gengral Arsenieu, fut foudroyge par le feu des batteries, 
et parvint neanmoins au haut du rempart." — Tbid. p. 213. 

8 "Les Turcs lalaissferent un peu s'avancer, dans la ville, 
et firent deux sorties par les angles saillans des bastions."— 
Ibid. p. 213. 

9 " Alors, se trouvant prise en queue, elle fut ecrasge ; ce- 
pendant le Lieutenant-colonel Yegousko'f , qui commandait la 
reserve composee d'un bataillon du regiment de Polosk, tra- 
versa le fossg sur les cadavres des Kozaks. . . "—Ibid. p. 212. 

10 ..." et extermina tous les Turcs qu'il eut en t6te : ce 
brav« homme fut tug pendant Vaetion."— Ibid. p. 213. 



Canto VIII. 



DON JUAN. 



831 



The walls were won, but 'twas an even bet 

Which of the armies would have cause to mourn : 
'Twas blow for blow, disputing inch by inch, 
For one would not retreat, nor t'other flinch. 

LXXVIII. 

Another column also sufier'd much : — 

And here we may remark with the historian, 
You should but give few cartridges to such 
_ Troops as are meant to march with greatest glory 

on: 
When matters must be carried by the touch 

Of the bright bayonet, and they all should hurry on, 
They sometimes, with a hankering for existence. 
Keep merely firing at a foolish distance.^ 

LXXIX. 
A junction of the General Meknop's men 

(Without the General, who had fallen some time 
Before, being badly seconded just then) 

Was made at length with those who dared to 
climb 
The death-disgorging rampart once again ; 

And though the Turks' resistance was sublime, 
They took the bastion, which the Seraskier 
Defended at a price extremely dear.^ 

■^ LXXX, 

Juan and Johnson, and some volunteers 

Among the foremost, ofier'd him good quarter, 
A word which little suits with Seraskiers, 

Or at least suited not this valiant Tartar. 
He died, deserving well his country's tears, 

A savage sort of military martyr. 
An English naval officer, who wish'd 
To make him prisoner, was also dish'd : 

LXXXI. 

For all the answer to his proposition 
Was from a pistol-shot that laid him dead ; ^ 

On which the rest, without more intermission, 
Began to lay about with steel and lead — 

The pious metals most in requisition 
On such occasions ; not a single head 

Was spared; — three thousand Moslems perish'd 
here. 

And sixteen bayonets pierced the Seraskier.* 



> •* L'autre partie des Kozaks, qu' Orlow coramandait, 
Bouffirit de la manigre la plus cruelle: elle attaqua S. maintes 
reprises, fut souvent repoussge, et perdit les deux tiers de son 
monde. Et c'cst ici Ic lieu de placer une ohsTvation, que 
nous prenons dans les mgmoires qui nous guident ; elle fait 
remarquer comV^ien il est mal vu de donner beaucoup de car- 
touchea aux soldats qui doivent eraporter un poste de vlve 
force, et par consequent oil la baionnette doit principalement 
aglr ; lis pensont ne devoir se servir de cette derniSre arme, 
que lorsque les cartouches sont fipuis^es: dans cette persua- 
sion, ils retardent leur raarche, et restent plus long-temps ex- 
pos^ au canon et i la raitraille de I'enneini." — Hist, de la 
NouveUe Rttssie, torn. iii. p. 214. 

• "La jonction de la colonne de Meknop — fie ggnfiral 



LXXXII. 

The city's taken — only part by part — 

And Death is drunk with gore : there's not a 
street 
Where fights not to the last some desperate heart 

For those for whom it soon shall cease to beat.^ 
Here War forgot his own destructive art 

In more destroying Nature ; and the heat 
Of carnage, like the Nile's sun-sodden slime, 
Engender'd monstrous shapes of every crime. 

LXXXIII. 

A Russian officer, in martial tread 

Over a heap of bodies, felt his heel 
Seized fast, as if 'twere by the serpent's head 

Whose fangs Eve taught her human seed to feel ; 
In vain he kick'd, and swore, and writhed, and 
bled. 

And howl'd for help as wolves do for a meal — 
The teeth still kept their gratifying hold. 
As do the subtle snakes described of old. 

LXXXIV. 

A dying Moslem, who had felt the foot 
Of a foe o'er him, snatch'd at it, and bit 

The very tendon which is most acute — 

(That which some ancient Muse or modern wit 

Named after thee, Achilles) and quite through't 
He made the teeth meet, nor relinquish'd it 

Even with his life — for (but they lie) 'tis said 

To the live leg still clung the sever'd head. 

LXXXV. 

However this may be, 'tis pretty sure 
The Russian officer for life was lamed. 

For the Turk's teeth stuck faster than a skewer. 
And left him 'midst the invalid and maim'd : 

The regimental surgeon could not cure 
His patient, and perhaps was to be blamed 

More than the head of the inveterate foe. 

Which was cut off, and scarce even then let go. 

LXXXVI. 

But then the fact's a fact— and 'tis the part 

Of a true poet to escape from fiction 
Whene'er he can ; for there is little art 

In leaving verse more free from the restriction 



gtant mal secondg fut tu6) — s'fitant effectufie avec celle qui 
I'avoisinait, ces colonnes attaqu6rent un bastion, et gprou- 
v6rent un resistance opiniatre ; mais bientot des cris de vic- 
toire se font entendre de toutes parts, et le bastion est empor- 
t6: le s6raskier dfifendait cette partie." — Ihid. p. 214. 

8 . . . " un ofBcier de marine Anglais, veut le faire prison- 
nier, et revolt un coup de pistolet qui Tfitend roide mort."— 
Ibid. p. 214. 

* " Les Russes passent trois mille Turcs au fil de l'6p6e ; 
seize baionnettes percent S. la fois le sfiraskier." — Ibid. p. 214. 

6 " La ville est emportge ; I'image de la mort et de la 
destruction se reprfisente de tous les cotCs ; le soldat furieux 
n'Ccoute plus la voix de ses officiers, il ne respire que le car- 
nage ; alt6r6 de sang, tout est indifferent pour lui."— ibid, p 214, 



832 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Canto VIII. 



Of truth tlian prose, unless to suit tlie mart 

For what is sometimes call'd poetic diction 
And that outrageous appetite for lies 
Which Satan angles with for souls, like flies. 

LXXXVII. 

The city's taken, but not render'd ! — No ! 

There's not a Moslem that hath yielded sword : 
The blood may gush out, as the Danube's flow 

Eolls by the city wall ; but deed nor word 
Acknowledge aught of dread of death or foe : 

In vain the yell of victory is roar'd 
By the advancing Muscovite— the groan 
Of the last foe is echo'd by his own. 

LXXXVIII. 

The bayonet pierces and the sabre cleaves, 
And human lives are lavish'd everywhere, 

As the year closing whirls the scarlet leaves 
When the stripp'd forest bows to the bleak air. 

And groans ; and thus the peopled city grieves, 
Shorn of its best and loveliest, and left bare ; 

But still it falls in vast and awful splinters, 

As oaks blown down with all their thousand winters. 

LXXXIX. 

It is an awful topic — but 'tis not 

My cue for any time to be terrific : 
For checker'd as is seen our human lot 

With good, and bad, and worse, alike prolific 
Of melancholy merriment, to quote 

Too much of one sort would be soporific ; — 
Without, or with, offence to friends or foes, 
I sketch your world exactly as it goes. 

XC. 

And one good action in the midst of crimes 
Is "quite refreshing," in the affected phrase 

Of these ambrosial, Pharisaic times. 

With all their pretty milk-and-water ways. 

And may serve therefore to bedew these rhymes, 
A little scorch'd at present with the blaze 

Of conquest and its consequences, which 

Make epic poesy so rare and rich. 

XCI. 
Upon a taken bastion, where there lay 

Thousands of slaughter'd men, a yet warm group 
Of murder'd women, who had found their way 

To this vain refuge, made the good heart droop 



1 " Je sauvai la vie S, une fille de dix ans, dont I'innocence 
et la candeur formaient un contraste bien frappant avec la 
rage de tout ce qui m'environnait. En arrivant sur le bastion 
oft commen^a le carnage, j'apperyus un groupe de quatre 
femmes 6gorgees, entre lesquelles cet enfant, d'une figure 
charmante, cherchait un asile cont"e la fureur de deux Ko- 
zaks qui gtaient sur le point de la massacrer." — Due de 
Richelieu. See Hist, de la Nouv. Russ., torn. iii. p. 217. 

2 " But never mention hell to ears polite."— Pope. 

8 " Ce spectacle m'attira bientot, et je n'hgsitai pas, comme 



And shudder ; — while, as beautiful as May, 
A female child of ten years tried to stoop 
And hide her little palpitating breast 
Amidst the bodies lull'd in bloody rest.^ 

XCII. 

Two villainous Cossacks pursued the child 
With flashing eyes and weapons : match'd with them, 

The rudest brute that roams Siberia's wild 
Has feelings pure and polish'd as a gem, — 

The bear is civilized, the wolf is mild ; 
And whom for this at last must we condemn ? 

Their natures ? or their sovereigns, who employ 

All arts to teach their subjects to destroy ? 

XCIII. 

Their sabres glitter'd o'er her little head. 
Whence her fair hair rose twining with affright, 

Her hidden face was plunged amidst the dead : 
When Juan caught a glimpse of this sad sight, 

I shall not say exactly what he said, 
Because it might not solace " ears polite ;" ^ 

But what he did, was to lay on their backs, 

The readiest way of reasoning with Cossacks. 

XCIV. 
One's hip he slash'd, and split the other's shoulder,- 

And drove them with their brutal yells to seek 
If there might be chirurgeons who could solder 

The wounds they richly merited,^ and shriek 
Their baffled rage and pain ; while waxing colder 

As he turn'd o'er each pale and gory cheek, 
Don Juan raised his little captive from 
The heap a moment more had made her tomb. 

xcv. 

And she was chill as they, and on her face 
A slender streak of blood announced how near 

Her fate had been to that of all her race ; 
For the same blow which laid her mother here 

Had scarr'd her brow, and left its crimson trace, 
As the last link with all she had held dear ; * 

But else unhurt, she open'd her large eyes, 

And gazed on Juan with a wild surprise. 

XCVI. 

Just at this instant, while their eyes were fix'd 

Upon each other, with dilated glance. 
In Juan's look, pain, pleasure, hope, fear, mix'd 

With joy to save, and dread of some mischance 



on pent le croire, S, prendre entre mes bras cette infortunee, 
que les barbares voulaient y poursuivre encore. J'eus bien 
de la peine si me retenir et S, ne pas percer ces miserables du 
sabre que je tenais suspendu sur leur tete :— je me contentai 
cependant de les eloigner, non sans leur prodiguer les coups 
et lea injures qu'ils meritaient. . . "—Richelieu. 

4 . . . " J'eus le plaisir d'appergevoir que ma petite prison- 
nifire n'avait d'autre mal qu'une coupure IggSre que lui 
avait faite au visage le meme fer qui avait perc§ sa mSre."— 
Richelieu. 



Canto VIII. 



DON JUAN. 



833 



Unto his prot^g^e ; while hers, transfix'd 

With infant terrors, glared as from a trance, 
A pure, transparent, i^ale, yet radiant face, 
Like to a lighted alabaster vase ; — 

XCVII. 

Up came John Johnson (I will not say "Jack" 
For that were vulgar, cold, and commonplace 

On great occasions, such as an attack 
On cities, as hath been the present case) : 

Up Johnson came, with hundreds at his back, 
Exclaiming : — " Juan ! Juan ! On, boy ! brace 

Your arm, and I'll bet Moscow to a dollar, 

That you and I will win Saint George's collar.^ 

XCVIII. 
" The Seraskier is knock'd upon the head. 

But the stone bastion still remains, wherein 
The old Pacha sits among some hundreds dead. 

Smoking his pipe quite calmly 'midst the din 
Of our artillery and his own : 'tis said 

Our kill'd, already piled up to the chin, 
Lie round the battery ; but still it batters, 
And grape in volleys, like a vineyard, scatters. 

XCIX. 
" Then up with me !" — But Juan answer'd, " Look 

Upon this child — I saved her — must not leave 
Her life to chance ; but point me out some nook 

Of safety, where she less may shrink and grieve. 
And I am with you." — Whereon Johnson took 

A glance around — and shrugg'd — and twitch'd his 
sleeve 
And black silk neckcloth— and replied, " You're right ; 
Poor thing ! what's to be done ? I'm puzzled quite." 

C. 

Said Juan — " Whatsoever is to be 

Done, I'll not quit her till she seems secure 

Of present life a good deal more than we," — 
Quoth Johnson—" Neither will I quite insure ; 

But at the least you may die gloriously." — 
Juan replied — " At least I will endure 

Whate'er is to be borne — but not resign 

This child, who is parentless, and therefore mine." 

CI. 
Johnson said— "Juan, we've no time to lose; 

The child's a pretty child— a very pretty — 
I never saw such eyes— but hark ! now choose 

Between your fame and feelings, pride and pity :— 
Hark ! how the roar increases ! — no excuse 

Will serve when there is plunder in a city ; — 
I should be loth to march without you, but, 
By God ! we'll be too late for the first cut." 



* A Russian military order. 

• "Le sultan pgrit dans Paction en brave honime, digne 
d'un meilleur destin ; ce fut lui qui rallia les Turcs lorsque 
I'ennemi pfingtra dans le place: ce sultan, d'une valeur 

63 



CII. 

But Juan was immovable ; until 
Johnson, who really loved him in his way, 

Pick'd out amongst his followers with some skill 
Such as he thought the least given up to prey ; 

And swearing if the infant came to ill 
That they should all be shot on the next day ; 

But if she were deliver'd safe and sound, 

They should at least have fifty rubles round, 

cm. 

And all allowances besides of plunder 

In fair proportion with their comrades ; — then 

Juan consented to march on through thunder. 
Which thinn'd at every step their ranks of men : 

And yet the rest rush'd eagerly — no wonder, 
For they were heated by the hope of gain, 

A thing which happens everywhere each day — 

No hero trusteth wholly to half pay. 

CIV. 

And such is victory, and such is man ! 

At least nine tenths of what we call so : — God 
May have another name for half we scan 

As human beings, or his ways are odd. 
But to our subject : a brave Tartar khan — 

Or " sultan," as the author (to whose nod 
In prose I bend my humble verse) doth call 
This chieftain — somehow would not yield at all : 

CV. 

But flank'd hjfive brave sons (such is polygamy. 
That she spawns warriors by the score, where none 

Are prosecuted for that false crime bigamy). 
He never would believe the city won 

While courage clung to but a single twig. — Am I 
Describing Priam's, Peleus', or Jove's son ? 

Neither — but a good, plain, old, temperate man. 

Who fought with his five children in the van.^ 

CVI. 

To take him was the point.— The truly brave, 
When they behold the brave oppress'd with odds, 

Are touch'd with a desire to shield and save ; — 
A mixture of wild beasts and demi-gods 

Are they — now furious as the sweeping wave, 
Now moved with pity : even as sometimes nods 

The rugged tree unto the summer wind, 

Compassion breathes along the savage mind. 

CVII. 
But he would not be taken, and replied 

To all the propositions of surrender 
By mowing Christians down on every side. 

As obstinate as Swedish Charles at Bender.' 



gprouvge, surpassait en ggnerositg les plus civilisgs de sa 
nation ; cinq de ses fils combattaient S. ses c6t6s, il les encour- 
ageait par son exemple."— ZTis^ de la N. R., torn. iii. p. 215. 
8 "At Bender, after the fatal battle of Pultawa, Charles 



834 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Canto VIII. 



His five brave boys no less the foe defied ; 

Whereon the Russian pathos grew less tender, 
As being a virtue, like terrestrial patience, 
Apt to wear out on trifling provocations. 

CVIII. 
And spite of Johnson and of Juan, who 

Expended all their Eastern phraseology 
In begging him, for God's sake, just to show 

So much less fight as might form an apology 
For them in saving such a desperate foe — 

He hew'd away, like doctors of theology 
When they dispute with skeptics ; and with curses 
Struck at his friends, as babies beat their nurses. 

CIX. 
Nay, he had wounded, though but slightly, both 

Juan and Johnson ; whereupon they fell. 
The first with sighs, the second with an oath, 

Upon his angry sultanship, pell-mell. 
And all around were grown exceeding wroth 

At such a pertinacious infidel. 
And pour'd upon him and his sons like rain, 
Which they resisted like a sandy plain 

ex. 

That drinks and still is dry. At last they perish'd- 
His second son was levell'd by a shot ; 

His third was sabred ; and the fourth, most cherish' 
Of all the five, on bayonets met his lot ; 

The fifth, who, by a Christian mother nourished. 
Had been neglected, ill-used, and what not. 

Because deform'd, yet died all game and bottom, 

To save a sire who blush'd that he begot him. 

CXI. 

The eldest was a true and tameless Tartar, 

As great a scorner of the Nazarene 
As ever Mahomet pick'd out for a martyr. 

Who only saw the black-eyed girls in green. 
Who make the beds of those who won't take 
quarter 

On earth, in Paradise ; and when once seen, 
Those houris, like all other pretty creatures. 
Do just whate'er they please, by dint of features. 

CXII. 

And what they pleased to do with the young khan 
In heaven I know not, nor pretend to guess ; 

But doubtless they prefer a fine young man 
To tough old heroes, and can do no less ; 

And that's the cause no doubt why, if we scan 
A field of battle's ghastly wilderness, 



gave a proof of that unreasonable obstinacy which occa- 
sioned all his misfortunes in Turkey. When advised to 
write to the grand vizier, according to the custom of the 
Turks, he said it was beneath his dignity. The same obsti- 
nacy placed him necessarily at variance with all the ministers 
of the Porte."— VoLTAiRK. 



For one rough, weather-beaten, veteran body, 
You'll find ten thousand handsome coxcombs bloody. 

CXIII. 

Your houris also have a natural pleasure 
In lopping oflf your lately married men, 

Before the bridal hours have danced their measure, 
And the sad, second moon grows dim again. 

Or dull repentance hath had dreary leisure 
To wish him back a bachelor now and then : 

And thus your houri (it may be) disputes 

Of these brief blossoms the immediate fruits. 

CXIV. 

Thus the young khan, with houris in his sight. 
Thought not upon the charms of four young brides, 

But bravely rush'd on his first heavenly night. 
In short, howe'er our better faith derides. 

These black-eyed virgins make the Moslems fight. 
As though there were one heaven and none be- 
sides — 

Whereas, if all be true we hear of heaven 

And hell, there must at least be six or seven. 

cxv. 

So fully flash'd the phantom on his eyes. 
That when the very lance was in his heart, 

He shouted " Allah !" and saw Paradise 
With all its veil of mystery drawn apart, 

And bright eternity without disguise 
On his soul, like a ceaseless sunrise, dart : — 

With prophets, houris, angels, saints, descried 

In one voluptuous blaze, — and then he died : 

CXVI. 

But with a heavenly rapture on his face. 

The good old khan, who long had ceased to see 
Houris, or aught except his florid race, 

Who grew like cedars round him gloriously — 
When he beheld his latest hero grace 

The earth, which he became like a fell'd tree, 
Paused for a moment from the fight, and cast 
A glance on that slain son, his first and last. 

CXVII. 

The soldiers, who beheld him drop his point, 
Stopp'd as if once more willing to concede 

Quarter, in case he bade them not " aroynt !" 
As he before had done. He did not heed 

Their pause nor signs : his heart was out of joint, 
And shook (till now unshaken) like a reed, 

As he look'd down upon his children gone, 

And felt — though done with life — he was alone.* 



1 "Ces cinq fils furent tous tugs sous ces yeux: il ne 
cessa point de se battre, rgpondit par des coups de sabre aux 
propositions de se rendre, et ne fut atteint du coup mortel 
qu' aprfes avoir abattu de sa main beaucoup de Kozaks des 
plus acharnes 5 sa prise; le reste de sa troupe fut massacrg." 
—Hist, de la N. M., p. 215. 



Canto VIII. 



DON JUAN. 



835 



CXVIII. 
But 'twas a transient tremor : — with a spring 

Upon the Russian steel his breast he flung, 
As carelessly as hurls the moth her wing 

Against the light wherein she dies : he clung 
Closer, that all the deadlier they might wring. 

Unto the bayonets which had pierced his young ; 
And throwing back a dim look on his sons, 
In one wide wound pour'd forth his soul at once. 

CXIX. 

'Tis strange enough — the rough, tough soldiers, who 
Spared neither sex nor age in their career 

Of carnage, when this old man was pierced through. 
And lay before them with his children near, 

Touch'd by the heroism of him they slew. 
Were melted for a moment ; though no tear 

Flow'd from their bloodshot eyes, all red with 
strife, 

They honor'd such determined scorn of life. 

CXX. 

But the stone bastion still kept up its fire, 
Where the chief pacha calmly held his post : 

Some twenty times he made the Russ retire, 
And baffled the assaults of all their host ; 

At length he condescended to inquire 
If yet the city's rest were won or lost ; 

And being told the latter, sent a bey 

To answer Ribas' summons to give way.i 

CXXI. 

In the mean time, cross-legg'd, with great sang-froid, 
Among the scorching ruins he sat smoking 

Tobacco on a little carpet ; — Troy 
Saw nothing like the scene around ;— yet looking 

With martial stoicism, nought seem'd to annoy 
His stern philosophy ; but gently stroking 

His beard, he puff' d his pipe's ambrosial gales, 

As if he had three lives, as well as tails.^* 

CXXII. 

The town was taken — whether he might yield 
Himself or bastion, little matter'd now : 

His stubborn valor was no future shield. 
Ismail's no more ! The crescent's silver bow 



1 "Quoique les Russes fussent rgpandus dans la ville, le 
bastion de pierre rfisistait encore; il 6tait dfifendu par un 
vieillard, pacha S, trois queues, et commandant les forces rg- 
unles i Isma^. On lui proposa une capitulation ; il dc- 
manda si le reste de la ville 6tait conquis ; sur cette rgponse, 
il autorisa quelques-uns de ces ofBciers i capituler avec M. de 
Ribas."— //m^ de la N. R., p. 215. 

2 " Pendant ce colloque, il resta fitendu sur des tapis placgs 
8ur les mines de la forteresse, fumant sa pipe avec la mfime 
tranquillity et la mfime indifflSrence que s'il elit 6t€ Stranger 
i tout ce qui sc passait." — Tbid. p. 215. 

' "No man could describe the horrors which ensued. The 
ferocious victors, instead of being struck with admiration or 
respect by the noble defence of the brave garrison, were so 
enraged at the great slaughter of their fellows which had 



Sunk, and the crimson cross glared o'er the field. 

But red with no redeeming gore : the glow 
Of burning streets, like moonlight on the water, 
Was imaged back in blood, the sea of slaughter. 

CXXIII. 

All that the mind would shrink from of excesses ; 

All that the body perpetrates of bad ; 
All that we read, hear, dream, of man's distresses ; 

All that the devil would do if run stark mad ; 
All that defies the worst which pen expresses ; 

All by which hell is peopled, or as sad 
As hell— mere mortals who their power abuse — 
Was here (as heretofore and since) let loose.^ 

CXXIV. 

If here and there some transient trait of pity 
Was shown, and some more noble heart broke 
through 

Its bloody bond, and saved, perhaps, some pretty 
Child, or an aged, helpless man or two — 

What's this in one annihilated city, 
Where thousand loves, and ties, and duties grew ? 

Cockneys of London ! Muscadins of Paris ! 

Just ponder what a pious pastime war is. 

CXXV. 

Think how the joys of reading a Gazette 
Are purchased by all agonies and crimes : 

Or if these do not move you, don't forget 
Such doom may be your own in after times. 

Meantime the Taxes, Castlereagh, and Debt, 
Are hints as good as sermons, or as rhymes. 

Read your own hearts and Ireland's present story, 

Then feed her famine fat with Wellesley's glory. 

CXXVI. 

But still there is unto a patriot nation, 
Which loves so well its country and its king, 

A subject of sublimest exultation — 
Bear it, ye Muses, on your brightest wing ! 

Howe'er the mighty locust. Desolation, 
Strip your green fields, and to your harvests cling, 

Gaunt famine never shall approach the throne — 

Though Ireland starve, great George weighs twenty 
stone. 



taken place, that no bounds could be prescribed to the excess 
of their fury. All order and command seem to have been 
entirely at an end during the horrors of that terrible night : 
the officers could neither restrain the slaughter, nor prevent 
the general plunder, made by the lawless and ferocious sol- 
diers. Thousands of the Turks, incapable of enduring the 
sight of the horrid scenes of destruction in which all that 
was dear to them was involved, rushed desperately upon the 
bayonets of the enemy, in order to shorten their misery ; 
while those who could reach the Danube threw themselves 
headlong Into it for the same purpose. The streets and pas- 
sages were so choked by the heaps of dead and dying bodies 
which lay in them, as considerably to impede the progress 
of the victors in their eager search for plunder."— Dr. Lau- 
rence, in Ann. Eeg.for 1791. 



836 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



Canto VIII. 



CXXVII. 

But let me put an end unto my theme : 

There was an end of Ismail — hapless town ! 

Far flash'd her burning towers o'er Danube's stream, 
And redly ran his blushing waters down. 

The horrid war-whoop and the shriller scream 
Rose still ; but fainter were the thunders grown : 

Of forty thousand who had mann'd the wall, 

Some hundreds breathed— the rest were silent all ! ^ 

CXXVIII. 

In one thing ne'ertheless 'tis fit to praise 
The Russian army upon this occasion, 

A virtue much in fashion nowadays. 

And therefore worthy of commemoration : 

The topic's tender, so shall be my phrase- 
Perhaps the season's chill, and their long station 

In winter's depth, or want of rest and victual, 

Had made them chaste ; — they ravish'd very little. 

CXXIX. 
Much did they slay, more plunder, and no less 

Might here and there occur some violation 
In the other line ; — but not to such excess 

As when the French, that dissipated nation, 
Take towns by storm : no causes can I guess, 

Except cold weather and commiseration ; 
But all the ladies, save some twenty score, 
Were almost as much virgins as before. 

cxxx. 

Some odd mistakes, too, happen'd in the dark, 
"Which show'd a want of lanterns, or of taste — 

Indeed the smoke was such they scarce could mark 
Their friends from foes, — besides such things from 

Occur, though rarely, when there is a spark [haste 
Of light to save the venerably chaste : 

But six old damsels, each of seventy years, 

Were all deflower'd by different grenadiers. 

CXXXI. 

But on the whole their continence was great ; 

So that some disappointment there ensued 
To those who had felt the inconvenient state 

Of " single blessedness," and thought it good 
(Since it was not their fault, but only fate, 

To bear these crosses) for each waning prude 
To make a Roman sort of Sabine wedding. 
Without the expense and the suspense of bedding. 

1 "On ggorgea indistinctement, on saccagea la place; et 
la rage du vainqueur se repandit comme un torrent furieux 
qui a renverse les digues qui le rgtenaient : personne obtint 
de grace, et trente huit mille huit cent soixante Turcs perirent 
dans cette journee de %&ng."—Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie, torn, 
iii. p. 214. 

"Among those who fell were a number of the bravest, 
most experienced, and renowned commanders in the Turkish 
armies. Six or seven Tartar princes of the illustrious line 
of Gherai likewise perished with the rest. A few hundreds 
of prisoners were preserved, to serve as melancholy recorders 
and witnesses of the destruction which they had beheld. In 



CXXXII. 

Some voices of the buxom middle-aged 

Were also heard to wonder in the din 
(Widows of forty were these birds long caged) 

" Wherefore the ravishing did not begin !" 
But while the thirst for gore and plunder raged, 

There was small leisure for superfluous sin ; 
But whether they escaped or no, lies hid 
In darkness— I can only hope they did. ^- 

CXXXIII. 

Suwarrow now was conqueror — a match 

For Timour or for Zinghis in his trade. [thatch 

While mosques and streets, beneath his eyes, like 

Blazed, and the cannon's roar was scarce allay'd. 
With bloody hands he wrote his first despatch ; 

And here exactly follows what he said : — 
"Glory to God and to the Empress!" {Powers 
Eternal ! such names mingled I) " Ismail's ours."^ 

CXXXIV. 

Methinks these are the most tremendous words. 
Since " Mene, Meng, Tekel," and " Upharsin," 

Which hands or pens have ever traced of swords. 
Heaven help me ! I'm but little of a parson : 

What Daniel read was short-hand of the Lord's, 
Severe, sublime ; the prophet wrote no farce on 

The fate of nations ; — but this Russ so witty 

Could rhyme, like Nero, o'er a burning city.^ 

cxxxv. 

He wrote this Polar melody, and set it. 
Duly accompanied by shrieks and groans, 

Which few will sing, I trust, but none forget it — 
For I will teach, if possible, the stones 

To rise against earth's tyrants. Never let it 
Be said that we still truckle unto thrones ; — 

But ye — our children's children \ think how we 

Show'd what things were before the world was free ! 



CXXXVI. 

That hour is not for us, but 'tis for you : 
And as, in the great joy of your millennium, — 

You hardly will believe such things were true 
As now occur, I thought that I would pen you 'em ; 

But may their very memory perish too ! — 
Yet if perchance remember'd, still disdain you 'em 

More than you scorn the savages of yore. 

Who painted their hare limbs, but not with gore. 

consequence of an accurate inquiry set on foot by an Otto- 
man commander of rank, it appears that the whole number 
of Turks who perished in the slaughter of Ismail amounted 
to thirty-eight thousand eight hundred and sixteen."— Dk. 
Laurence. 

2 In the original Russian — 

" Slava bogu ! slava vam ! 
Krepost Vzala y ia tarn ;" 
a kind of couplet ; for he was a poet. 

3 " Mr. Tweddell, who met with Suwarrow in the Ukraine, 
says— 'He is a most extraordinary character. He dines 
every morning about nine. He sleeps almost naked; he 



1^' 



Canto IX. 



DON JUAN. 



837 



CXXXVII. 
And when you hear historians talk of thrones, 

And those that sate upon them, let it be 
As we now gaze upon the mammoth's bones. 

And wonder what old world such things could see. 
Or hieroglyphics on Egyptian stones. 

The pleasant riddles of futurity — 
Guessing at what shall happily be hid, 
As the real purpose of a pyramid. 

CXXXVIII. 
Reader ! I have kept my word,— at least so far 

As the first canto promised. You have now 
Had sketches of love, tempest, travel, war, — 

All very accurate, you must allow. 
And epic, if plain truth should prove no bar; 

For I have drawn much less with a long bow 
Than my forerunners. Carelessly I sing. 
But Phoebus lends me now and then a string, 

CXXXIX. 

With which I still can harp, and carp, and fiddle. 

What further hath befallen or may befall 
The hero of this grand poetic riddle, 

I by and by may tell you, if at all : 
But now I choose to break olF in the middle, 

Worn out with battering Ismail's stubborn wall, 
While Juan is sent off" with the despatch. 
For which all Petersburg is on the watch.i 

affects a perfect indifference to heat and cold ; and quits his 
chamber, which approaches to suffocation, in order to review 
his troops, in a thin linen jacket, while the thermometer of 
Reaumur is at ten degrees below freezing. His manners 
correspond with his humors. I dined with him this morn- 
ing. He cried to me across the table,— " Tweddell !" (he 
generally addressed me by my surname, without addition) 
" the French have taken Portsmouth— I have just received a 
courier from England. The king is in the Tower; and 
Sheridan, protector." A great deal of his whimsical manner 
is affected ; he finds that it suits his troops, and the people 
he has to deal with. I asked him, if, after the massacre, at 
Ismail, he was perfectly satisfied with the conduct of the 
day. He said he went home and wept in his tent.'"— i2e- 
mains, p. 135. 

1 "The ostentatious and fantastic display of the bloody 
trophies taken at Ismail, which were some time after exhib- 
ited at Petersburg, was unworthy the greatness, the mag- 
nanimity, and the high character of the empress Catherine. 
The tragedy should have closed at the conclusion of the last 
act on the spot. It was attributed more to a desire of grati- 
fying the excessive vanity of Prince Potemkin, which was 
not f-asily satiated, than that of the empress herself."— Dr. 
Laurence. 

2 See anle, p. 27. 

8 "Cantos vi., vii., and viii., if we except some parts of 
the assault of Ismail, contain a considerably less proportion 
of the higher class of poetry than was to be found in those 
which preceded them. But in the keen and pervading satire, 
the bitter and biting irony, which constitute the peculiar 
forte of I^rd Byron, we perceive no falling off in these 
present cantos. Nor are they deficient in that vein of play- 
ful humor, and that felicitous transition ' from grave to gay, 
from lively to severe,' so conspicuous in their predecessors. 
The execution, on the whole, we think quite equal to that 
displayed in the earlier parts of the poem." — Campbell. 



CXL. 

This special honor was conferr'd, because 
He had behaved with courage and humanity — 

Which last men like, when they have time to pause 
From their ferocities produced by vanity. 

His little captive gain'd him some applause 
For saving her amidst the wild insanity 

Of carnage, — and I think he was more glad in her 

Safety, than his new order of Saint Vladimir. 

CXLI. 
The Moslem orphan went with her protector, 

For she was homeless, houseless, helpless ; all 
Her friends, like the sad family of Hector, 

Had perish'd in the field or by the wall : 
Her very place of birth was but a spectre 

Of what it had been ; there the Muezzin's call ^ 
To prayer was heard no more ! — and Juan wept. 
And made a vow to shield her, which he kept.^ 



Bon f uan. 



CANTO THE NINTH.* 



Oh, Wellington ! (or " Villainton " & — for Fame 
Sounds the heroic syllables both ways ; 

4 Cantos ix., x., and xi., were written at Pisa, and pub- 
lished in London, by Mr. John Hunt, in August, 1823. We 
extract the following specimen of contemporary criticism : — 

" That there is a great deal of what is objectionable in these 
three cantos, who can deny? What can be more so than to 
attack the king, with low, vile, personal buffooneries — 
bottomed in utter falsehood, and expressed in crawling 
malice ? What can be more exquisitely worthy of contempt 
than the savage imbecility of these eternal tirades against 
the Duke of Wellington ? What more pitiable than the state 
of mind that can find any gratification in calling such a man 
as Southey by nicknames that one would be ashamed of ap- 
plying to a coal-heaver ? What can be so abject as this eternal 
trampling upon the dust of Castlereagh ? Lord Byron ought 
to know that all men, of all parties, unite in regarding all 
these things, but especially the first and the last, as insults to 
themselves, and as most miserable degradations of him. 

"But still Don Juan is, without exception, the first of 
Lord Byron's works. It is by far the most original in point 
of conception. It is decidedly original in point of tone. It 
contains the finest specimens of serious poetry he has ever 
written ; and it contains the finest specimens of ludicrous 
poetry that our age has witnessed. Frere may have written 
the stanza earlier; he may have written it more carefully, 
more musically, if you will ; but what is he to Byron ? Where 
is the sweep, the pith, the soaring pinion, the lavish luxury 
of genius revelling in strength ? No : no : Don Juan, say the 
canting world what it will, is destined to hold a permanent 
rank in the literature of our country. It will always be 
referred to as furnishing the most powerful picture of that 
vein of thought fno matter how false and bad) which distin- 
guishes a great portion of the thinking people of our time." — 
Blackwood. 

6 " Faut qu' lord Villainton ait tout pris, 

N'y a plus d'argent dans c'gueux de Paris." 

De Beranger. . 



838 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto IX. 



France could not even conquer your great name, 
But punn'd it down to this facetious phrase — 

Beating or beaten she will laugh the same,) 
You have obtain'd great pensions and much 
praise : 

Glory like yours should any dare gainsay, 

Humanity would rise, and thunder " Nay !" ^ 

II. 
I don't think that you used Kinnaird quite well 

In Marinet's affair^ — in fact, 'twas shabby, 
And like some other things won't do to tell 

Upon your tomb in Westminster's old abbey. 
Upon the rest 'tis not worth while to dwell. 

Such tales being for the tea-hours of some 
tabby ; 
But though your years as man tend fast to zero, 
In fact your grace is still but a young hero. 

III. 

Though Britain owes (and pays you too) so much, 
Yet Europe doubtless owes you greatly more : 

You have repair'd Legitimacy's crutch, 
A prop not quite so certain as before : 

The Spanish, and the French, as well as Dutch, 
Have seen, and felt, how strongly you restore; 

And Waterloo has made the world your debtor 

(I wish your bards would sing it rather better). 

IV. 

You are " the best of cut-throats :" ^ — do not start ; 

The phrase is Shakspeare's, and not misap- 
plied : — 
War's a brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art, 

Unless her cause by right be sanctified. 
If you have acted once a generous part, 

The world, not the world's masters, will decide. 
And I shall be delighted to learn who, 
Save you and yours, have gain'd by Waterloo ? 



1 Query, Ney f— Printer's Devil. 

2 The late Lord Kinnaird was received in Paris, in 1814, 
with great civility by the Duke of Wellington and the royal 
family of France ; but he had himself presented to Buonaparte 
during the hundred days, and intrigued on with those of 
that faction, in spite of the duke's remonstrances, until the 
restored government ordered him out of the French terri- 
tory in 1816. In 1817, he became acquainted at Brussels with 
one MarinU, an adventurer mixed up in a conspiracy to 
assassinate the duke in the streets of Paris. This fellow at 
first promised to discover the man who actually shot at his 
grace, but, on reaching Paris, shuffled and would say nothing ; 
and Lord Kinnaird's avowed cause of complaint against the 
duke was, that he did not protect this creature from the 
French police, who, not doubting that he had been one of 
the conspirators against his grace's life, arrested him accord- 
ingly. He was tried along with the actual assassin, and both 
were acquitted by the Parisian jury. 

3 "Thou art the best o' the cut-throats." — Macbeth, act 
iii. sc. iii. 

* Vide Speeches in Parliament, after the battle of Waterloo. 

9 "I at this time got a post, being for fatigue, with four 

others. We were sent to break biscuit, and make a mess for 



V. 

I am no flatterer—you've supp'd full of flattery : 
They say you like it too — 'tis no great wonder. 

He whose whole life has been assault and battery, 
At last may get a little tired of thunder ; 

And swallowing eulogy much more than satire, he 
May like being praised for every lucky blunder, 

Call'd " Saviour of the Nations" — not yet saved, 

And " Europe's Liberator" — still enslaved.* 

VI. 
I've done. Now go and dine from oflf the plate 

Presented by the Prince of the Brazils, 
And send the sentinel before your gate 

A slice or two from your luxurious meals : ^ 
He fought, but has not fed so well of late,- 

Some hunger, too, they say the people feels : — 
There is no doubt that you deserve your ration, 
But pray give back a little to the nation. 

VII. 

I don't mean to reflect — a man so great as 
You, my lord duke ! is far above reflection : 

The high Eoman fashion, too, of Cincinnatus, 
With modern history has but small connection : 

Though as an Irishman you love potatoes, -- 

You need not take them under your direction ; 

And half a million for your Sabine farm 

Is rather dear ! — I'm sure I mean no harm. 

VIII. 
Great men have always scorn'd great recompenses : 

Epaminondas saved his Thebes, and died, 
Not leaving even his funeral expenses : ^ 

George Washington had thanks, and nought beside, 
Except the all-cloudless glory (which few men's is) 

To free his country : Pitt too had his pride. 
And as a high-soul'd minister of state is 
Eenown'd for ruining Great Britain gratis.'^ 



Lord Wellington's hounds. I was very hungry, and thought 
it a good job at the time, as we got our own fill while we 
broke the biscuit, — a thing I had not got for some days. 
When thus engaged, the Prodigal Son was never once out of 
my mind ; and I sighed, as I fed the dogs, over my humble 
situation and my ruined hopes." — Journal of a soldier of the 
list Regiment during the War in Spain. 

6 "In other illustrious men you will observe that each 
possessed some one shining quality, which was the foundation 
of his fame: in Epaminondas, all the virtues are found 
united; force of body, eloquence of expression, vigor of 
mind, contempt of riches." — Diod. Sic. lib. xv. 

1 Those persons who represent our statesmen as living 
and fattening upon the public spoil, must either be grossly 
ignorant, or wicked enough to employ arguments which they 
know to be false. The emoluments of office, almost in every 
department of the state, and especially in all the highest, are 
notoriously inadequate to the expenditure which the situa- 
tion requires. Mr. Pitt, who was no gambler, no prodigal, 
and too much of a man of business to have expensive habits 
of any kind, died in debt; and the nation discharged his 
debts, not less as a mark of respect, than as an act of jus- 
tice."— Southey. 



Canto IX. 



DON JUAN. 



839 



IX. 

Never had mortal man such opportunity, 

Except Napoleon, or abused it more : 
You might have freed fallen Europe from the unity 

Of tyrants, and been blest from shore to shore : [ye ? 
And now — what is your fame ? Shall the Muse tune it 

Now — that the rabble's first vain shouts are o'er? 
Go ! hear it in your famish'd country's cries ! 
Behold the world ! and curse your victories ! 



As these new cantos touch on warlike feats, 
To you the unflattering Muse deigns to inscribe 

Truths, that you will not read in the Gazettes, 
But which 'tis time to teach the hireling tribe 

Who fatten on their country's gore, and debts. 
Must be recited — and without a bribe. 

You did great things : but not being great in mind, 

Have left undone the greatest— diiidi mankind. 

XI. 

Death laughs — Go ponder o'er the skeleton 

With which men image out the unknown thing 

That hides the past world, like to a set sun 

Which still elsewhere may rouse a brighter spring — 

Death laughs at all you weep for : — look upon 
This hourly dread of all ! whose threaten' d sting 

Turns life to terror, even though in its sheath : 

Mark ! how its lipless mouth grins without breath ! 

XII. 

Mark I how it laughs and scorns at all you are ! 

And yet was what you are ; from ear to ear 
It laughs not — there is now no fleshy bar 

So call'd ; the Antic long hath ceased to hear, 
But still he smiles; and whether near or far, 

He strips from man that mantle (far more dear 
Than even the tailor's), his incarnate skin, 
W^hite, black, or copper — the dead bones will grin. 

XIII. 
And thus Death laughs, — it is sad merriment, 

But still it is so ; and with such example 
Why should not Life be equally content 

With his superior, in a smile to trample 
Upon the nothings which are daily spent 

Like bubbles on an ocean much less ample 
Tlian the eternal deluge, which devours 
Suns as rays — worlds like atoms — years like hours ? 

XIV. 

" To be, or not to be ? that is the question," 
Says Shakspeare, who just now is much in fashion. 

I am neither Alexander nor Hephsestion, 
Nor ever had for abstract fame much passion ; 

1 " O, dura messorum ilia !" Ac. — Horace. 

* See Biographie Universelle, torn. xix. p. 434. 

' "Pyrrho, the philosopher of Elis, was in continual sus- 
pense of judgment: he doubted of everything; never made 
any conclusion; and when he had carefully examined a 



But would much rather have a sound digestion 
Than Buonaparte's cancer : — could I dash on 
Through fifty victories to shame or fame. 
Without a stomach— what were a good name ? 

XV. 

" O dura ilia messorum !" i — " Oh, 

Ye rigid guts of reapers !" I translate 
For the great benefit of those who know 

What indigestion is — that inward fate 
Which makes all Styx through one small liver flow. 

A peasant's sweat is worth his lord's estate : 
Let this one toil for bread — that rack for rent, 
He who sleeps best may be the most content. 

XVI. 

" To be, or not to be ?"— Ere I decide, 
I should be glad to know that which is being. 

'Tis true we speculate both far and wide, 
And deem, because we see, we are all-seeing : 

For my part, I'll enlist on neither side. 
Until I see both sides for once agreeing. 

For me, I sometimes think that life is death, 

Rather than life a mere afiair of breath. 

XVII. 

" Que scais-je?"2 was the motto of Montaigne, 

As also of the first academicians : 
That all is dubious which man may attain. 

Was one of their most favorite positions. 
There's no such thing as certainty, that's plain 

As any of Mortality's conditions ; 
So little do we know what we're about in 
This world, I doubt if doubt itself be doubting. 

XVIII. 

It is a pleasant voyage perhaps to float, 
Like Pyrrho,^ on a sea of speculation ; 

But what if carrying sail capsize the boat? 
Your wise men don't know much of navigation ; 

And swimming long in the abyss of thought 
Is apt to tire ; a calm and shallow station 

Well nigh the shore, where one stoops down and 
gathers 

Some pretty shell, is best for moderate bathers. 

XIX. 

" But heaven," as Cassio says, " is above all * — 
No more of this, then, let us pray !" We have 

Souls to save, since Eve's slip and Adam's fall, 
Which tumbled all mankind into the grave. 

Besides fish, beasts, and birds. " The sparrow's fall 
Is special providence,"^ though how it gave 

Offence, we know not ; probably it perch'd 

Upon the tree which Eve so fondly searched. 

subject, and investigated all its points, he concluded by still 
doubting of its evidence." — Auii. Gel. 

4 See Othello. 

6 " we defy augury : there is a special providence iu 

the fall of a sparrow."— /Taniie^. 



840 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Canto IX. 



XX. 

Oh, ye immortal gods ! what is theogony ? 

Oh, thou, too, mortal man ! what is philanthropy ? 
Oh, world ! which was and is, what is cosmogony ? 

Some people have accused me of misanthropy ; 
And yet I know no more than the mahogany 

That forms this desk, of what they mean ; lykan- 
I comprehend, for without transformation [thropy^ 
Men become wolves on any slight occasion. 

XXI. 

But I, the mildest, meekest of mankind, 
Like Moses, or Melancthon, who have ne'er 

Done anything exceedingly unkind, — 
And (though I could not now and then forbear 

Following the bent of body or of mind) 
Have always had a tendency to spare, — 

Why do they call me misanthrope ? Because 
hate me, not I them : — and here we'll pause. 



XXII. 

'Tis time we should proceed with our good poem, — 

For I maintain that it is really good, 
Not only in the body but the proem. 

However little both are understood 
Just now, — but by and by the Truth will show 'em 

Herself in her sublimest attitude : 
And till she doth, I fain must be content 
To share her beauty and her banishment. 

XXIII. 

Our hero (and, I trust, kind reader ! yours) 
Was left upon his way to the chief city 

Of the immortal Peter's polish'd boors, [witty. 

Who still have shown themselves more brave than 

I know its mighty empire now allures 

Much flattery — even Voltaire's, and that's a pity. 

For me, I deem an absolute autocrat 

Not a barbarian, but much worse than that. 

XXIV. 

And I will war, at least in words (and — should 
My chance so happen — deeds), with all who war 

With Thought ; — and of Thought's foes by far most 
rude, 
Tyrants and sycophants have been and are, 

I know not who may conquer : if I could 
Have such a prescience, it should be no bar 

To this my plain, sworn, downright detestation 

Of every despotism in every nation. 

XXV. 

It is not that I adulate the people : 
Without me, there are demagogues enough, 

And infidels, to pull down every steeple. 
And set up in their stead some proper stuff". 



^ " A kind of madness, in which men have the qualities of 
wild beasts." — Todd. 



Whether they may sow skepticism to reap hell, 

As is the Christian dogma rather rough, 
I do not know ; — I wish men to be free 
As much from mobs as kings — from you as me. 

XXVI. 

The consequence is, being of no party, 
I shall offend all parties : — never mind ! 

My words, at least, are more sincere and hearty 
Than if I sought to sail before the wind. 

He who has nought to gain can have small art : he 
Who neither wishes to be bound nor bind, 

May still expatiate freely, as will I, 

Nor give my voice to slavery's jackal cry. 

XXVII. 

That's an appropriate simile, that jackal ; — 
I've heard them in the Ephesian ruins howl 2 

By night, as do that mercenary pack all, 
Power's base purveyors, who for pickings prowl, 

And scent the prey their masters would attack all. 
However, the poor jackals are less foul 

(As being the brave lions' keen providers) 

Than human insects, catering for spiders. 

XXVIII. 

Raise but an arm ! 'twill brush their web away, 
And without that, their poison and their claws 

Are useless. Mind, good people ! what I say — 
(Or rather peoples) — go on without pause ! 

The web of these tarantulas each day 
Increases, till you shall make common cause : 

None, save the Spanish fly and Attic bee, 

As yet are strongly stinging to be free. 

XXIX. 

Don Juan, who had shone in the late slaughter, 
Was left upon his way with the despatch. 

Where blood was talk'd of as we would of water ; 
And carcasses that lay as thick as thatch 

O'er silenced cities, merely served to flatter 
Fair Catherine's pastime — who look'd on the 
match 

Between these nations as a main of cocks, 

Wherein she liked her own to stand like rocks. 

XXX. 

And there in a kibitka he roll'd on 

(A cursed sort of carriage without springs. 

Which on rough roads leaves scarcely a whole 
bone). 
Pondering on glory, chivalry, and kings, 

And orders, and on all that he had done — 
And wishing that post-horses had the wings 

Of Pegasus, or at the least post-chaises 

Had feathers, when a traveller on deep ways is. 



2 In Greece I never saw or heard these animals; but 
among the ruins of Ephesus I have heard them by hun» 
dreds. — See ante, p. 154. 



Canto IX. 



DON JUAN. 



841 



XXXI. 

At every jolt — and they were many — still 
He turn'd his eyes upon his little charge, 

As if he wish'd that she should fare less ill 
Than he, in these sad highways left at large 

To ruts, and flints, and lovely Nature's skill. 
Who is no pavior, nor admits a barge 

On her canals, where God takes sea and land, 

Fishery and farm, both into his own hand. 

XXXII. 

At least he pays no rent, and has best right 
To be the first of what we used to call 

" Gentlemen farmers " — a race worn out quite, 
Since lately there have been no rents at all, 

And " gentlemen " are in a piteous plight, 
And " farmers " can't raise Ceres from her fall : 

She fell with Buonaparte — What strange thoughts 

Arise, when we see emperors fall with oats ! 

XXXIII. 
But Juan tum'd his eyes on the sweet child 

Whom he had saved from slaughter — what a trophy ! 
Oh ! ye who build up monuments, defiled 

With gore, like Nadir Shah, that costive sophy, 
Who, after leaving Hindostan a wild, 

And scarce to the Mogul a cup of cofiee 
To soothe his woes withal, was slain, the sinner ! 
Because he could no more digest his dinner ; i — 

XXXIV. 

Oh, ye! or we! or he! or she! reflect. 
That one life saved, especially if young 

Or pretty, is a thing to recollect 
Far sweeter than the greenest laurels sprung 

From the manure of human clay, though deck'd 
With all the praises ever said or sung : 2 

Though hymn'd by every harp, unless within 

Your heart joins chorus, Fame is but a din. 

XXXV. 

Oh, ye great authors luminous, voluminous ! 

Ye twice ten hundred thousand daily scribes ! 
Whose pamphlets, volumes, newspapers, illumine us I 

Whether you're paid by government in bribes, 
To prove the public debt is not consuming us — 

Or, roughly treading on the " courtier's kibes " 
With clownish heel,^ your popular circulation 
Feeds you by printing half the realm's starvation ; — 

XXXVI. 

Oh, ye great authors ! — " Apropos des bottes," — 

1 have forgotten what I meant to say, 

As sometimes have been greater sages' lots ; — 
'Twas something calculated to allay 

^ He was killed in a conspiracy, after hia temper had been 
exasperated by his extreme costivity to a degree of insanity. 

2 "One virtuous, or a mere good-natured deed, 
Does all desert in sciences exceed." — Sheffield. 



All wrath in barracks, palaces, or cots : 

Certes it would have been but thrown away, 
And that's one comfort for my lost advice, 
Although no doubt it was beyond all price. 

XXXVII. 

But let it go :— it will one day be found 
With other relics of " a former woi'ld," 

When this world shall be former, underground, 
Thrown topsy-turvy, twisted, crisp'd, and curl'd. 

Baked, fried, or burnt, turn'd inside out, or drown'd, 
Like all the worlds before, which have been hurl'd 

First out of, and then back again to chaos, 

The superstratum which will overlay us. 

XXXVIII. 

So Cuvier says : — and then shall come again 

Unto the new creation, rising out 
From our old crash, some mystic, ancient strain 

Of things destroy'd and left in airy doubt ; 
Like to the notions we now entertain 

Of Titans, giants, fellows of about 
Some hundred feet in height, not to say miles, 
And mammoths, and your winged crocodiles. 

XXXIX. 

Think if then George the Fourth should be dug up ! 

How the new worldlings of the then new East 
Will wonder where such animals could sup ! 

(For they themselves will be but of the least : 
Even worlds miscarry, when too oft they pup, 

And every new creation hath decreased 
In size, from overworking the material — 
Men are but maggots of some huge Earth's burial.) 

XL. 

Hoio will — to these young people, just thrust out 
From some fresh Paradise, and set to plough, 

And dig, and sweat, and turn themselves about, 
And plant, and reap, and spin, and grind, and 
sow. 

Till all the arts at length are brought about, 
Especially of war and taxing, — how, 

I say, will these great relics, when they see 'em, 

Look like the monsters of a new museum I 

XLI. 

But I am apt to grow too metaphysical : 
" The time is out of joint," * — and so am I ; 

I quite forget this poem's merely quizzical, 
And deviate into matters rather dry, 

I ne'er decide what I shall say, and this I call 
Much too poetical : men should know why 

They write, and for what end : but, note or text, 

I never know the word which will come next. 

8 " The age is grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant 
comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe ." — 
Hamlet. 

* "The time is out of joint :— cursed spite ! 
That ever I was born to set it vighi."— Hamlet. 



842 



BYRON'S WOEKS. 



Canto IX. 



XLII. 

So on I ramble, now and then narrating, 

Now pondering : — it is time we should narrate. 

I left Don Juan with his horses baiting — 
Now we'll get o'er the ground at a great rate. 

I shall not be particular in stating 
His journey, we've so many tours of late : 

Suppose him then at Petersburg ; suppose 

That pleasant capital of painted snows ; 

XLIII. 

Suppose him in a handsome uniform ; 

A scarlet coat, black facings, a long plume, 
Waving, like sails new shiver'd in a storm, 

Over a cock'd hat in a crowded room, , 

And brilliant breeches, bright as a cairngorm,^ y 

Of yellow casimire we may presume. 
White stockings drawn uncurdled as new milk 
O'er limbs whose symmetry set off the silk ; 

XLIV. 

Suppose him sword by side, and hat in hand, 
Made up by youth, fame, and an army tailor — 

That great enchanter, at whose rod's command 
Beauty springs forth, and Nature's self turns paler, 

Seeing how Art can make her work more grand 
(When she don't pin men's limbs in like a jailer) — 

Behold him placed as if upon a pillar ! He 

Seems Love turn'd a lieutenant of artillery ! 

XLV. 

His bandage slipp'd down into a cravat ; 

His wings subdued to epaulettes ; his quiver 
Shrunk to a scabbard, with his arrows at 

His side as a small-sword, but sharp as ever ; 
His bow converted into a cock'd hat ; 

But still so like, that Psyche were more clever 
Than some wives (who make blunders no less stupid), 
If she had not mistaken him for Cupid. 

XLVI. 

The courtiers stared, the ladies whisper'd, and 
The empress smiled : the reigning favorite frown'd — 

I quite forget which of them was in hand 
Just then ; as they are rather numerous found. 

Who took by turns that difficult command 
Since first her majesty was singly crown'd : 

But they were mostly nervous six-foot fellows. 

All fit to make a Patagonian jealous. 

1 "A yellow-colored crystal, denominated from a hill in 
Inverness-sliire, where it is found. This has been generally 
called the Scottish topaz ; but it now gives place to another 
crystal of a far harder quality, found near Invercauld." — 
Jamieson. 

2 He was the grande passion of the grande Catherine. See 
her Lives under the head of "Lanskoi." — "Lanskoi was a 
youth of as fine and interesting a figure as the imagination 
can paint. Of all^ Catherine's favorites, he was the man 
whom she loved the most. His education having been 
neglected, she took the care of his improvement upon her- 
self. In 1784, he was attacked with a fever, and perished in 



XLVII. 

Juan was none of these, but slight and slim, 
Blushing and beardless ; and yet ne'ertheless 

There was a something in his turn of limb, 
And still more in his eye, which seem'd to express, 

That though he look'd like one of the seraphim, 
There lurk'd a man beneath the spirit's dress. 

Besides, the empress sometimes liked a boy. 

And had just buried the fair-faced Lanskoi.^ 

XLVIII. 

No wonder then that Yermoloff, or Momonoff, 

Or Scherbatoff, or any other off 
Or on^ might dread her majesty had not room enough 

Within her bosom (which was not too tough) 
For a new flame ; a thought to cast of gloom enough 

Along the aspect, whether smooth or rough, 
Of him who, in the language of his station, 
Then held that " high official situation." 

XLIX. 

Oh, gentle ladies ! should you seek to know 

The import of this diplomatic phrase, 
Bid Ireland's Londonderry's Marquess ^ show 

His parts of speech ; and in the strange displays 
Of that odd string of words, all in a row. 

Which none divine, and every one obeys, 
Perhaps you may pick out some queer no meaning, 
Of that weak wordy harvest the sole gleaning. 



I think I can explain myself without 

That sad inexplicable beast of prey — 
That Sphinx, whose words would ever be a doubt. 

Did not his deeds unriddle them each day — 
That monstrous hieroglyphic — that long spout 

Of blood and water, leaden Castlereagh ! 
And here I must an anecdote relate. 
But luckily of no great length or weight. 

LI. 

An English lady ask'd of an Italian, 
What were the actual and official duties 

Of the strange thing, some women set a value on. 
Which hovers oft about some married beauties, 

Called " Cavalier servente ;" * a Pygmalion 
Whose statues warm (I fear, alas ! too true 'tis) 

Beneath his art. The dame, press'd to disclose them, 

Said — " Lady, I beseech you to suppose them." 

the flower of his age, in the arms of her majesty. When he 
was no more, Catherine gave herself up to the most poignant 
grief, and remained three months without going out of her 
palace of Tzarsko-selo. She afterwards raised a superb 
monument to his memory, in the gardens of that imperial 
seat. Lanskoi's fortune was estimated at three million rubles. 
He bequeathed it to the empress, who returned it to the sis- 
ters of that favorite, reserving only to herself the right of 
purchasing the pictures, medals, and library." — Tooke. 

3 This was written long before the suicide of that person. 

* See ante, p. 175. 



Canto IX. 



DON JUAN. 



843 



LII. 

And thus I supplicate your supposition, 
And mildest, matron-like interpretation, 

Of the imperial favorite's condition. 
'Twas a high place, the highest in the nation 

In fact, if not in rank ; and the suspicion 
Of any one's attaining to his station, 

No doubt gave pain, where each new pair of shoulders. 

If rather broad, made stocks rise and their holders. 

LIII. 
Juan, I said, was a most beauteous boy, 

And had retain'd his boyish look beyond 
The usual hirsute seasons which destroy. 

With beards and whiskers, and the like, the fond 
PaiHsian aspect, which upset old Troy 

And founded Doctors' Commons : — I have conn'd 
The history of divorces, which, though checker'd, 
Calls Ilion's the first damages on record. 

LIV. 

And Catherine, who loved all things (save her lord. 
Who was gone to his place), and pass'd for much, 

Admiring those (by dainty dames abhorr'd) 
Gigantic gentlemen, yet had a touch 

Of sentiment; and he she most adored 
Was the lamented Lanskoi, who was such 

A lover as had cost her many a tear, 

And yet but made a middling grenadier, 

LV. 

Oh, thou "teterrima causa" of all " belli "i — 
Thou gate of life and death— thou nondescript ! 

Whence is our exit and our entrance, — well I 
May pause in pondering how all souls are dipt 

In thy perennial fountain : — how man fell I 
Know not, since knowledge saw her branches stript 

Of her first fruit ; but how he falls and rises 

Since, thou hast settled beyond all surmises. 

LVI. 

Some call thee " the worst cause of war," but I 
Maintain thou art the best : for after all. 

From thee we come, to thee we go, and why 
To get at thee not batter down a wall. 

Or waste a world ? since no one can deny 

Thou dost replenish worlds both great and small : 



1 Hot. Sat. lib. i. sat. iii. 

2 " The union of debauchery and ferocity which character- 
ized Catherine, are admirably depicted in her manner of 
feeding her ambition witii the perusal of the despatch, and 
gratifying her rising passion with the contemplation of Juan ; 
who, in spite of the jealousy and raurmurings of rival ex- 
pectants and candidates, is fairly installed into the 'high 
official situation ' of Catherine's favorite." — Campbell. 

3 "Catherine had been handsome in her youth, and she 
preserved a gracefulness and majesty to the last period of her 
life. She was of a moderate stature, but well proportioned ; 
and as she carried her head very high, she appeared rather 
tall. She had an open front, an aquiline nose, an agreeable 
mouth, and her chin, though long, was not misshapen. Her 



With, or without thee, all things at a stand 
Are, or would be, thou sea of life's dry land ! 

LVII. 

Catherine, who was the grand epitome 
Of that great cause of war, or peace, or what 

You please (it causes all the things which be, 
So you may take your choice of this or that) — 

Catherine, I say, was very glad to see 
The handsome herald, on whose plumage sat 

Victory ; and, pausing as she saw him kneel 

With his despatch, forgot to break the seal.^ 

LVIII. 

Then recollecting the whole empress, nor 
Forgetting quite the woman (which composed 

At least three parts of this great whole), she tore 
The letter open with an air which posed 

The court, that watch'd each look her visage wore, 
Until a royal smile at length disclosed 

Fair weather for the day. Though rather spacious. 

Her face was noble, her eyes fine, mouth gracious.* 

LIX. 

Great joy was hers, or rather joys : the first 
Was a ta'en city, thirty thousand slain. 

Glory and triumph o'er her aspect burst, 
As an East Indian sunrise on the main. 

These quench'd a moment her ambition's thirst — 
So Arab deserts drink in summer's rain : 

In vain ! — As fall the dews on quenchless sands, 

Blood only serves to wash Ambition's hands ! 

LX. 

Her next amusement was more fanciful ; 

She smiled at mad Suwarrow's rhymes, who threw 
Into a Russian couplet rather dull 

The whole Gazette of thousands whom he slew.* 
Her third was feminine enough to annul 

The shudder which runs naturally through 
Our veins, when things call'd sovereigns think it best 
To kill, and generals turn it into jest. 

LXI. 

The two first feelings ran their course complete, 
And lighted first her eye, and then her mouth : 

The whole court look'd immediately most sweet. 
Like flowers well water'd after a long drouth : — 



hair was auburn, her eyebrows black and rather thick, and 
her blue eyes had a gentleness which was often affected, but 
oftener still a mixture of pride. Her physiognomy was not 
deficient in expression ; but this expression never discovered 
what was passing in the soul of Catherine, or rather it served 
her the better to disguise it."— Tooke. 

* " Suwarrow is as singular for the brevity of his style as 
for the rapidity of his conquests. On the taking of Tour- 
tourkaya, in Bulgaria, he actually wrote no more to the 
empress than two lines of Russ poetry : — 

' Slawo Bogon, Slawo bowam, 

Glory to God, glory to you, 

Tourtourkaya aviala, ia tam, 

Tourtourkaya is taken, here am I.' "— ToOKK. 



844 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Canto IX. 



But when on the lieutenant at her feet 

Her majesty, who liked to gaze on youth 
Almost as much as on a new despatch, 
Glanced mildly, all the world was on the watch. 

LXII. 

Though somewhat large, exuberant, and truculent. 
When wroth — while pleased, she was as fine a figure 

As those who like things rosy, ripe, and succulent. 
Would wish to look on, while they are in vigor. 

She could repay each amatory look you lent 
With interest, and in turn was wont with rigor 

To exact of Cupid's bills the full amount 

At sight, nor would permit you to discount. 

LXIII. 
With her the latter, though at times convenient, 

Was not so necessary ; for they tell [lenient. 

That she was handsome, and though fierce looked 

And always used her favorites too well. 
If once beyond her boudoir's precincts in ye went, 

Your " fortune" was in a fair way " to swell 
A man" (as Giles says) ; ^ for though she would widow 

all 
Nations, she liked man as an individual. 

LXIV. 

What a strange thing is man ! and what a stranger 
Is woman ! What a whirlwind is her head, 

And what a whirlpool full of deptfi and danger 
Is all the rest about her ! Whether wed. 

Or widow, maid, or mother, she can change her 
Mind like the wind : whatever she has said 

Or done, is light to what she'll say or do ; — 

The oldest thing on record, and yet new ! 

LXV. 

Oh, Catherine ! (for of all interjections, 
To thee both oh ! and ah I belong of right 

In love and war) how odd are the connections 
Of human thoughts, which jostle in their flight ! 

Just now yours were cut out in different sections : 
First Ismail's capture caught your fancy quite ; 

Next of new knights, the fresh and glorious batch : 

And thirdly he who brought you the despatch ! 

LXVI. 

Shakspeare talks of " the herald Mercury 
New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill :"2 

And some such visions cross'd her majesty, 
While her young herald knelt before her still. 

'Tis very true the hill seem'd rather high, 
For a lieutenant to climb up ; but skill [blessing, 

Smooth'd even the Simplon's steep, and by God's 

With youth and health all kisses are " heaven-kissing." 

^ "His fortune swells him, it is rank, he's married." — 
Sir Cfiles Overreach; Massinger's New Way to pay Old Debts. 
2 Hamlet, act iii, sc. iv. 

' " Not Caesar's empress would I deign to prove ; 
No ! make me mistress to the man I love."— Pope : Eloisa, 



LXVII. 

Her majesty look'd down, the youth look'd up — 
And so they fell in love ; — she with his face, 

His grace, his God-knows- what : for Cupid's cup 
With the first draught intoxicates apace, 

A quintessential laudanum or "black drop," 
Which makes one drunk at once, without the base 

Expedient of full bumpers ; for the eye 

In love drinks all life's fountains (save tears) dry. 

LXVIII. 

He, on the other hand, if not in love, 
Fell into that no less imperious passion, 

Self-love — which, when some sort of thing above 
Ourselves, a singer, dancer, much in fashion. 

Or duchess, princess, empress, " deigns to prove " ^ 
('Tis Pope's phrase) a great longing, though a rash 

For one especial person out of many — [one. 

Makes us believe ourselves as good as any. 

LXIX. 

Besides, he was of that delighted age 
Which makes all female ages equal — when 

We don't much care with whom we may engage, 
As bold as Daniel in the lions' den. 

So that we can our native sun assuage 
In the next ocean, which may flow just then. 

To make a twilight in, just as Sol's heat is 

Quench'd in the lap of the salt sea, or Thetis. 

LXX. 

And Catherine (we must say thus much for Catherine); 

Though bold and bloody, was the kind of thing 
Whose temporary passion was quite flattering. 

Because each lover look'd a sort of king, 
Made up upon an amatory pattern, 

A royal husband in all save the ring — 
Which, being the damn'dest part of matrimony, 
Seem'd taking out the sting to leave the honey. 

LXXI. 

And when you add to this, her womanhood 
In its meridian, her blue eyes* or gray — 

(The last, if they have soul, are quite as good, 
Or better, as the best examples say : 

Napoleon's, Mary's & (queen of Scotland), should 
Lend to that color a transcendent ray ; 

And Pallas also sanctions the same hue. 

Too wise to look through optics black or blue) — 

LXXII. 

Her sweet smile, and her then majestic figure, 
Her plumpness, her imperial condescension, 

Her preference of a boy to men much bigger 
(Fellows whom Messalina's self would pension), 

* " Several persons who lived at the court affirm that Cath- 
erine had very blue eyes, and not gray, as M. Eulhiferes has 
stated." — TooKE. 

6 See ante, p. 794. 



Canto IX. 



DON JUAN. 



845 



Her prime of life, just now in juicy vigor, 

With other extras, which we need not mention, — 
All these, or any one of these, explain 
Enough to make a stripling very vain. 

LXXIII. 

And that's enough, for love is vanity. 

Selfish in its beginning as its end, 
Except where 'tis a mere insanity, 

A maddening spirit which would strive to blend 
Itself with beauty's frail inanity, 

On which the passion's self seems to depend ; 
And hence some heathenish philosophers 
Make love the main-spring of the universe. 

LXXIV. 

Besides Platonic love, besides the love 

Of God, the love of sentiment, the loving 
Of faithful pairs — (I needs must rhyme with dove. 

That good old steamboat which keeps verses moving 
'Gainst reason — Reason ne'er was hand-and-glove 

^S'ith rhyme, but always leant less to improving 
The sound than sense) — besides all these pretences 
To love, there are those things which words name 
senses ; 

LXXV. 
Those movements, those improvements in our bodies 

Which make all bodies anxious to get out 
Of their own sand-pits, to mix with a goddess, 

For such all women are at first no doubt. 
How beautiful that moment ! and how odd is 

That fever which precedes the languid rout 
Of our sensations ! What a curious way 
The whole thing is of clothing souls in clay ! 

LXXVI. 

The noblest kind of love is love Platonical, 
To end or to begin with ; the next grand 

Is that which may be christen'd love canonical, 
Because the clergy take the thing in hand ; 

The third sort to be noted in our chronicle 
As flourishing in everj' Christian land, 

Is, when chaste matrons to their other ties 

Add what may be call'd marriage in disguise. 

LXXVII. 

Well, we won't analyze — our story must 
Tell fbr itself: the sovereign was smitten, 

Juan much flatter'd by her love, or lust;^ — 
I cannot stop to alter words once written, 

1 "Lust, through certain strainers well refined. 
Is gentle love, and charms all womankind."— Popk. 

* A Russian estate is always valued by the number of the 
slaves upon it. 

» " Peter the Third died in July, 1762, just one week after 
his deposition. The real manner in which he came by his 
death is one of those events over which, it is probable, there 
will be for ever a veil impenetrable to human eyes, and known 
only to that Being to whom the heart is open, and from whom 
no 3ecret3 are concealed. The partisans that might have re- 



And the two are so mix'd with human dust, 

That he who names one, both perchance may hit on : 
But in such matters Russia's mighty empress 
Behaved no better than a common sempstress. 

LXXVIII. 

The whole court melted into one wide whisper, 
And all lips were applied unto all ears ! 

The elder ladies' wrinkles curl'd much crisper 
As they beheld ; the younger cast some leers 

On one another, and each lovely lisper 
Smiled as she talk'd the matter o'er ; but tears 

Of rivalship rose in each clouded eye 

Of all the standing army who stood by. 

LXXIX. 

All the ambassadors of all the powers 
Inquired, Who was this very new young man, 

Who promised to be great in some few hours? 
Which is full soon (though life is but a span). 

Already they beheld the silver showers 
Of rubles rain, as fast as specie can, 

Upon his cabinet, besides the presents 

Of several ribbons, and some thousand peasants.' 

LXXX. 

Catherine was generous, — all such ladies are : 
Love — that great opener of the heart and all 

The ways that lead there, be they near or far, 
Above, below, by turnpikes great or small, — 

Love — (though she had a cursed taste for war, 
And was not the best wife,^ unless we call 

Such Clytemnestra, though perhaps 'tis better 

That one should die, than two drag on the fetter) — 

LXXXL 

Love had made Catherine make each lover's fortune. 
Unlike our own half-chaste Elizabeth, 

Whose avarice all disbursements did importune, 
If history, the grand liar, ever saith [shorten, 

The truth; and though grief her old age might 
Because she put a favorite to death. 

Her vile, ambiguous method of flirtation. 

And stinginess, disgrace her sex and station. 

LXXXIL 

But when the levee rose, and all was bustle 
In the dissolving circle, all the nations* 

Ambassadors began as 'twere to hustle 
Round the young man with their congratulations. 

taincd their attachment to him after his fall ; the murmurs 
of the populace, who quit^tly permit revolutions to be effected, 
and afterwards lament those who have fallen their victims ; 
the difficulties arising from keeping in custody a prisoner of 
such consequence ; all these motives in conjunction tend to 
give credit to the opinion, that some hand of uncontrollable 
authority .shortened his days. But the conduct of Catherine 
before that event, and especially for four and thirty years 
that she afterwards reigned, is of itself alone a sufficient 
refutation of so atrocious a calumny as would fix the guilt of 
it on her."— TooKE. 



846 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Canto X. ^ 



Also the softer silks were heard to rustle 

Of gentle dames, among whose recreations 
It is to speculate on handsome faces, 
Especially when such lead to high places. 

LXXXIII. 
Juan, who found himself, he knew not how, 

A general object of attention, made 
His answers with a very graceful bow, 

As if born for the ministerial trade. 
Though modest, on his unembarrassed brow 

Nature had written " gentleman." He said 
Little, but to the purpose ; and his manner 
Flung hovering graces o'er him like a banner. 

LXXXIV. 

An order from her majesty consign'd 
Our young lieutenant to the genial care 

Of those in office : all the world look'd kind 
(As it will look sometimes with the first stare, 

Which youth would not act ill to keep in mind), 
As also did Miss Protasofi" then there. 

Named from her mystic office *' I'Eprouveuse," 

A term inexplicable to the Muse. 

LXXXV. 

With her then, as in humble duty bound, 

Juan retired, — and so will I, until 
My Pegasus shall tire of touching ground. 

We have just lit on a " heaven-kissing hill," 
So lofty that I feel my brain turn round, 

And all my fancies whirling like a mill ; 
Which is a signal to my nerves and brain, 
To take a quiet ride in some green lane. 



Bon gjtian^ 



CANTO THE TENTH. 



I. 

When Newton saw an apple fall, he found 
In that slight startle from his contemplation — 

'Tis said (for I'll not answer above ground 
For any sage's creed or calculation) — 

A mode of proving that the earth turn'd round 
In a most natural whirl, called " gravitation ;" 

And this is the sole mortal who could grapple. 

Since Adam, with a fall, or with an apple.^ 



1 " The celebrated apple-tree, the fall of one of the apples 
of which is said to have turned the attention of Newton to 
the subject of gravity, was destroyed by wind about four 
years ago. The anecdote of the falling apple is mentioned 



II. 

Man fell with apples, and with apples rose, 
If this be true ; for we must deem the mode 

In which Sir Isaac Newton could disclose 
Through the then unpaved stars the turnpike road, 

A thing to counterbalance human woes : 
For ever since immortal man hath glow'd 

With all kinds of mechanics, and full soon 

Steam-engines will conduct him to the moon. 

III. 

And wherefore this exordium ? — Why, just now, 
In taking up this paltry sheet of paper. 

My bosom underwent a glorious glow. 
And my internal spirit cut a caper : 

And though so much inferior, as I know. 
To those who, by the dint of glass and vapor, 

Discover stars, and sail in the wind's eye, 

I wish to do as much by poesy. 

IV. 

In the wind's eye I have sail'd, and sail ; but for 

The stars, I own my telescope is dim ; 
But at the least I have shunn'd the common shore, 

And leaving land far out of sight, would skim 
The ocean of eternity : the roar 

Of breakers has not daunted my slight, trim, 
But still sea- worthy skiff; and she may float 
Where ships have founder'd, as doth many a boat. 

V. 

We left our hero, Juan, in the bloom 
Of favoritism, but not yet in the blush; — 

And far be it from my Muses to presume 
(For I have more than one Muse at a pushy 

To follow him beyond the drawing-room : 
It is enough that Fortune found him flush 

Of youth, and vigor, beauty, and those things 

Which for an instant clip enjoyment's wings. 

VI. 

But soon they grow again and leave their nest. 

" Oh !" saith the Psalmist, "that I had a dove's 
Pinions to flee away, and be at rest !" 

And who that recollects young years and loves, — 
Though hoary now, and with a withering breast. 

And palsied fancy, which no longer roves [rather 
Beyond its dimm'd eye's sphere, — but would much 
Sigh like his son, than cough like his grandfather? 

VII. 
But sighs subside, and tears (even widows') shrink. 

Like Arno in the summer, to a shallow. 
So narrow as to shame their wintry brink. 

Which threatens inundations deep and yellow ! 



neither by Dr. Stukeley nor by Mr. Conduit, and, as I haT 
not been able to find any authority for it whatever, I did nof^ 
feel myself at liberty to use it."— Brewster's lAfe of Newton,^ 
p. 344. 



Canto X. 



DON JUAN. 



847 



Such difference doth a few months make. You'd 
think 
Grief a rich field whick never would lie fallow ; 
No more it doth, its ploughs but change their boys, 
Who furrow some new soil to sow for joys. 

VIII. 
But coughs will come when sighs depart — and now 

And then before sighs cease ; for oft the one 
Will bring the other, ere the lake-like brow 

Is ruflfled by a wrinkle, or the sun 
Of life reach'd t^n o'clock : and while a glow 

Hectic and brief as summer's day nigh done, 
O'erspreads the cheek which seems too pure for clay. 
Thousands blaze, love, hope, die, — how happy they ! — 

IX. 

But Juan was not meant to die so soon. 

We left him in the focus of such glory 
As may be won by favor of the moon. 

Or ladies' fancies — rather transitory 
Perhaps ; but who would scorn the month of June, 

Because December, with his breath so hoary. 
Must come ? Much rather should he court the ray, 
To hoard up warmth against a wintry day. 

X. 

Resides, he had some qualities which fix 
Middle-aged ladies even more than young : [chicks 

The former know what's what ; while new-fledged 
Know little more of love than what is sung 

In rhymes, or dreamt (for fancy will play tricks) 
In visions of those skies from whence Love sprung. 

Some reckon women by their suns or years, 

I rather think the moon should date the dears. 

I XI. 

And why ? because she's changeable and chaste. 

I know no other reason, whatsoe'er 
Suspicious people, who find fault in haste. 

May choose to tax me with ; which is not fair, 
Nor flattering to " their temper or their taste," 

As my friend Jeffrey writes with such an air : ^ 
However, I forgive him, and I trust 
He will forgive himself ;— if not, I must. 

XII. 
Old enemies who have become new friends 

Should so continue — 'tis a point of honor; 
And I know nothing which could make amends 

For a return to hatred : I would shun her 

^ See ante, p. 698 :— " I have read the recent article of 
JeflFrey. I suppose the long and the short of it is, that he 
wishes to provoke me to reply. But I won't, for I owe him a 
good turn still for hLs kindness bygone. Indeed, I presume 
that the present opportunity of attacking me again was irre- 
sistible ; and I can't blame him, knowing what human nature 
is." — Byron Letters, June, 1822. 

» " Reformers," or rather " Reformed." The baron Brad- 
wardine in Waverley is authority for the word. 



Like garlic, howsoever she extends 

Her hundred arms and legs, and fain outrun her. 
Old flames, new wives, become our bitterest foes — 
Converted foes should scorn to join with those. 

XIII. 

This were the worst desertion : — renegadoes, 
Even shuffling Southey, that incarnate lie, 

Would scarcely join again the " reformadoes," ^ 
Whom he forsook to fill the laureate's sty ; 

And honest men from Iceland to Barbadoes, 
Whether in Caledon or Italy, 

Should not veer round with every breath, nor seize 

To pain, the moment when you cease to please. 

XIV. 

The lawyer and the critic but behold 

The baser sides of literature and life, 
And nought remains unseen, but much untold, 

By those who scour those double vales of strife. 
While common men grow ignorantly old, 

The lawyer's brief is like the surgeon's knife, 
Dissecting the whole inside of a question. 
And with it all the process of digestion. 

XV. 

A legal broom's a moral chimney-sweeper, 
And that's the reason he himself 's so dirty ; 

The endless soot^ bestows a tint far deeper 
Than can be hid by altering his shirt ; he 

Retains the sable stains of the dark creeper, 
At least some twenty-nine do out of thirty, 

In all their habits ; — not so you, I own ; 

As Csesar wore his robe you wear your gown. 

XVI. 

And all our little feuds, at least all mine, 
Dear Jeffrey, once my most redoubted foe 

(As far as rhyme and criticism combine 
To make such puppets of us things below). 

Are over : Here's a health to " Auld Lang Syne !" 
I do not know you, and may never know 

Your face — but you have acted on the whole 

Most nobly, and I own it from my soul.* 

XVII. 
And when I use the phrase of *' Auld Lang Syne !" 

'Tis not address'd to you— the more's the pity 
For me, for I would rather take my wine 

With you, than aught (save Scott) in your proud 
city. 

8 Query, suit f— Printer's Devil. 

* "This tribute to a former antagonist displays so much 
frankness, generosity, and manly feeling, that it must erad- 
icate all latent remains of animosity from the bosom of any 
but the most rancorous and vindictive. In addition to these 
merits, the felicitous introduction of the poet's recollections 
of his boyish days renders this passage equal in poetical 
beauty to any that has proceeded from his pen." — Campbell. 



848 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Canto X. 



But somehow — it may seem a schoolboy's whine, 

And yet I seek not to be grand nor witty, 
But I am half a Scot by birth, and bred 
A whole one, and my heart flies to my head,i — 

XVIII. 

As " Auld Lang Syne " brings Scotland, one and all, 
Scotch plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue hills, and 
clear streams. 

The Dee, the Don, Balgounie's brig's black wall^^ 
All my boy feelings, all my gentler dreams 

Of what I then dreamt, clothed in their own pall, 
Like Banquo's offspring ; — floating past me seems 

My childhood in this childishness of mine : 

I care not— 'tis a glimpse of " Auld Lang Syne." 

XIX. 

And though, as you remember, in a fit 
Of wrath and rhyme, when juvenile and curly, 

I rail'd at Scots to show my wrath and wit, 
Which must be own'd was sensitive and surly. 

Yet 'tis in vain such sallies to permit. 
They cannot quench young feelings fresh and 
early ; 

I ^' scotch'' d not kill'd" the Scotchman in my blood, 

And love the land of " mountain and of flood." ^ 

XX. 

Don Juan, wno was real, or ideal, — 

For both are much the same, since what men 
think 
Exists when the once thinkers are less real 

Than what they thought, for mind can never sink. 
And 'gainst the body makes a strong appeal ; 

And yet 'tis very puzzling on the brink 
Of what is call'd eternity, to stare, 
And know no more of what is here, than there ; — 

XXI. 

Don Juan grew a very polish'd Russian — 
ITow we won't mention, why we need not say : 

Few youthful minds can stand the strong concussion 
Of any slight temptation in their way ; 

But /ii5 just now were spread as is a cushion 
Smooth'd for a monarch's seat of honor : gay 

Damsels, and dances, revels, ready money. 

Made ice seem paradise, and winter sunny. 



1 " I don't like to bore you about the Scotcb novels (as 
they call them, though two of them are English, and the rest 
half so) ; but nothing can or could ever persuade me, since I 
■was the first ten minutes in your company, that you are not 
the man : to me these novels have so much of ^Auld lang 
syne' (I was bred a canny Scot till ten years old), that I 
never move without them." — Lord Byron to Sir W. Scott, 
Jan. 12, 1822. 

2 The brig of Don, near the "auld toun" of Aberdeen, 
with its one arch, and its black deep salmon stream below, is 
in my memory as yesterday. I still remember, though per- 
haps I may misquote, the awful proverb which made me 
pause to cross it, and yet lean over it with a childish delight, 
being an only son, at least by the mother's side. The saying 



XXII. 

The favor of the empress was agreeable ; 

And though the duty waxid a little hard, 
Young people at his time of life should be able 

To come off" handsomely in that regard. 
He was now growing up like a green tree, able 

For love, war, or ambition, which reward 
Their luckier votaries, till old age's tedium 
Make some prefer the circulating medium. -~> 

XXIIL 

About this time, as might have been anticipated, 
Seduced by youth and dangerous examples, 

Don Juan grew, I fear, a little dissipated ; 
Which is a sad thing, and not only tramples 

On our fresh feelings, but — as being participated 
With all kinds of incorrigible samples 

Of frail humanity — must make us selfish. 

And shut our souls up in us like a shell-fish. 

XXIV. 

This we pass over. We will also pass 
The usual progress of intrigues between 

Unequal matches, such as are, alas ! 
A young lieutenant's with a not old queen, 

But one who is not so youthful as she was 
In all the royalty of sweet seventeen. 

Sovereigns may sway materials, but not matter, 

And wrinkles, the d — d democrats, won't flatter. 

XXV. 

And Death, the sovereign's sovereign, though the 
great 

Gracchus of all mortality, who levels. 
With his Agrarian laws,* the high estate 

Of him who feasts, and fights, and roars, and revels, 
To one small grass-grown patch (which must await 

Corruption for its crop) with the poor devils 
Who never had a foot of land till now, — 
Death's a reformer, all men must allow. 

XXVI. 

He lived (not Death, but Juan) in a hurry 
Of waste, and haste, and glare, and gloss, and 
glitter, ■ 

In this gay clime of bear-skins black and furry — 
Which (though I hate to say a thing that's bitter) 

as recollected by me was this, but I have never heard or seen 
it since I was nine years of age :— 

" Brig of Balgounie, black's your wa' ; 

Wi' a wife's ae son, and a mear's aefoal, 

Doun ye shall fa' !" 

3 " Land of brown heath and shaggy wood. 
Laud of the mountain and the flood," &c. 

Lay of the Last Minstrel. 
* Tiberius Gracchus, being tribune of the people, demanded 
in their name the execution of the Agrarian law ; by which 
all persons possessing above a certain number of acres were 
to be deprived of the surplus for the benefit of the poor 
citizens. 



Canto X. 



DON JUAN. 



849 



Peep out sometimes, when things are in a flurry, 
Through all the " purple and fine linen," fitter 
For Babylon's than Russia's royal harlot — 
And neutralize her outward show of scarlet. 

XXVII. 
And this same state we won't describe : we would 

Perhaps from hearsay, or from recollection ; 
But getting nigh grim Dante's " obscure wood," ^ 

That horrid equinox, that hateful section 
Of human years, that half-way house, that rude 

Hut, whence wise travellers drive with circum- 
spection 
Life's sad post-horses o'er the dreary frontier 
Of age, and looking back to youth, give one tear ; — 

XXVIII. 
I won't describe, — that is, if I can help 

Description ; and I won't reflect, — that is. 
If I can stave ofl" thought, which — as a whelp 

Clings to its teat — sticks to me through the abyss 
Of this odd labyrinth ; or as the kelp 

Holds by the rock ; or as a lover's kiss 
Drains its first draught of lips : — but, as I said, 
I icon't philosophize, and will be read. 

XXIX. 
Juan, instead of courting courts, was courted, — 

A thing which happens rarely : this he owed 
Much to his youth, and much to his reported 

Valor ; much also to the blood he show'd. 
Like a race-horse ; much to each dress he sported, 

Which set the beauty ofl" in which he glow'd. 
As purple clouds befringe the sun ; but most 
He owed to an old woman and his post. 

XXX. 

He wrote to Spain ; — and all his near relations. 

Perceiving he was in a handsome way 
Of getting on himself, and finding stations 

For cousins also, answer'd the same day. 
Several prepared themselves for emigrations ; 

And eating ices, were o'erheard to say, 
That with the addition of a slight pelisse, 
Madrid's and Moscow's climes were of a piece. 

XXXL 

His mother, Donna Inez, finding, too. 
That in the lieu of drawing on his banker, 

Where his assets were waxing rather few, [anchor, — 
He had brought his spending to a handsome 

Replied, " that she was glad to see him through 
Those pleasures after which wild youth will hanker ; 

As the sole sign of man's being in his senses 

Is, learning to reduce his past expenses. 

> "Mi retrovai per un selva oscura." — Inferno, canto i. 

* A metaphor taken from the "forty-horse power" of a 
steam-engine. That mad wag, the Tievcrend Sydney Smith, 
sitting by a brother clergyman at dinner, observed afterwards 
54 



XXXII. 

"She also recommended him to God, 
And no less to God's Son, as well as Mother ; 

Warn'd him against Greek worship, which looks odd 
In Catholic eyes ; but told him, too, to smother 

Outward dislike, which don't look well abroad ; 
Inform'd him that he had a little brother 

Born in a second wedlock ; and above 

All, praised the empress's maternal love. 

XXXIII. 

" She could not too much give her approbation 
Unto an empress, who preferr'd young men 

Whose age, and what was better still, whose nation 
And climate, stopp'd all scandal (now and then) ;— 

At home it might have given her some vexation ; 
But where thermometers sink down to ten, 

Or five, or one, or zero, she could never 

Believe that virtue thaw'd before the river." 

XXXIV. 

Oh for a forty-parson power ^ to chant 
Thy praise. Hypocrisy ! Oh for a hymn 

Loud as the virtues thou dost loudly vaunt. 
Not practice ! Oh for trump of cherubim ! 

Or the ear-trumpet of my good old aunt. 
Who, though her spectacles at last grew dim, 

Drew quiet consolation through its hint, 

When she no more could read the pious print. 

XXXV. 

She was no hypocrite at least, poor soul, 
But went to heaven in as sincere a way 

As anybody on the elected roll. 

Which portions out upon the judgment day 

Heaven's freeholds, in a sort of doomsday scroll, 
Such as the conqueror William did repay 

His knights with, lotting others' properties 

Into some sixty thousand new knights' fees. 

XXXVI. 

I can't complain, whose ancestors are there, 
Erneis, Radulphus, — eight-and-forty manors 

(If that my memory doth not greatly err) 
Were their reward for following Billy's bannefs : 

And though I can't help thinking 'twas scarce fair 
To strip the Saxons of their hydes,^ like tannei-s ; 

Yet as they founded churches with the produce, 

You'll deem, no doubt, they put it to a good use. 

XXXVII. 

The gentle Juan flourish'd, though at times 

He felt like other plants call'd sensitive, [rhymes^ 

Which shrink from touch, as raonarchs do from 
Save such as Southey can afibrd to give. 

that his dull neighbor had a ^^twelve-parson power" of con- 
versation. 

8 See CoUins's Peerage, vol. vii. p. 71. 

* "Hyde."— I believe a hyde of land to be a legitimate 
word, and, as such, subject to the tax of a quibble. 



850 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



Canto X. 



Perhaps he long'd in bitter frosts for climes 

In which the Neva's ice would cease to live 
Before May-day : perhaps, despite his duty, 
In royalty's vast arms he sigli'd for beauty : 

XXXVIII. 
Perhaps — ^but, sans perhaps, we need not seek 

For causes young or old : the canker-worm 
Will feed upon the fairest, freshest cheek. 

As well as further drain the wither'd form : 
Care, like a housekeeper, brings every week 

His bills in, and however we may storm. 
They must be paid: though six days smoothly 

run. 
The seventh will bring blue devils or a dun. 

XXXIX. 

I don't know how it was, but he grew sick : 
The empress was alarm'd, and her physician 

(The same who physick'd Peter) found the tick 
Of his fierce pulse betoken a condition 

Which augur'd of the dead, however quick 
Itself, and show'd a feverish disposition ; 

At which the whole court was extremely troubled, 

The sovereign shock'd, and all his medicines doubled. 

XL. 

Low were the whispers, manifold the rumors : 
Some said he had been poison'd by Potemkin ; 

Others talk'd learnedly of certain tumors, 
Exhaustion, or disorders of the same kin ; 

Some said 'twas a concoction of the humors, 
Which with the blood too readily will claim kin ; 

Others again were ready to maintain, 

** 'Twas only the fatigue of last campaign." 

XLI. 

But here is one prescription out of many 
"Sodse sulphat. Svj. 5fs. Mannse optim. 

Aq. fervent, f. S ifs. Sij. tinct. Sennse 
Haustus" (and here the surgeon came and cupp'd 
him) 

" R Pulv. Com. gr. iij. Ipecacuanhse " 
(With more beside if Juan had not stopp'd 'em). 

" Bolus Potassse Sulphuret. sumendus, 

Et haustus ter in die capiendus." 

XLII. 

This is the way physicians mend or end us, 
Secundum artem : but although we sneer 

In health — when ill, we call them to attend us, 
Without the least propensity to jeer; 

While that "hiatus maxime deflendus" 
To be fill'd up by spade or mattock's near. 

Instead of gliding graciously down Lethe, 

We tease mild Baillie,i or soft Abernethy.^ 



1 For an account of Dr. Baillie's visit to Lord Byron, see 
aiUe, p. 712, 



XLIII. 
Juan demurr'd at this first notice to 

Quit ; and though death had threaten'd an ejection, 
His youth and constitution bore him through. 

And sent the doctors in a new direction. 
But still his state was delicate : the hue 

Of health but flicker' d with a faint reflection 
Along his wasted cheek, and seem'd to gravel 
The faculty — who said that he must travel. 

XLIV. 

The climate was too cold, they said, for him, 
Meridian-born, to bloom in. This opinion 

Made the chaste Catherine look a little grim, 
Who did not like at first to lose her minion : 

But when she saw his dazzling eye wax dim, 
And drooping like an eagle's with dipt pinion, 

She then resolved to send him on a mission, 

But in a style becoming his condition. 

XLV. 
There was just then a kind of a discussion, 

A sort of treaty or negotiation, 
Between the British cabinet and Russian, 

Maintain'd with all the due prevarication 
With which great states such things are apt to push 
on: 

Something about the Baltics navigation. 
Hides, train-oil, tallow, and the rights of Thetis, 
Which Britons deem their " uti possidetis." 

XLVI. 

So Catherine, who had a handsome way 

Of fitting out her favorites, conferr'd 
This secret charge on Juan, to display 

At once her royal splendor, and reward 
His services. He kiss'd hands the next day, 

Received instructions how to play his card. 
Was laden with all kinds of gifts and honors. 
Which show'd what great discernment was the donor's. 

XLVII. 
But she was lucky, and luck's all. Your queens 

Are generally prosperous in reigning ; 
Which puzzles us to know what Fortune means. 

But to continue : though her years were waning, 
Her climacteric teased her like her teens ; 

And though her dignity brook'd no complaining, 
So much did Juan's setting ofl" distress her, 
She could not find at first a fit successor. \,^-^ 

XLVIII. 

But time, the comforter, will come at last ; 

And four-and-twenty hours, and twice that number 
Of candidates requesting to be placed. 

Made Catherine taste next night a quiet slumber : — 



2 Both Dr. Baillie and John Abernethy, the great surgeon, 
were remarkable for plainness of speech. 



Canto X. 



DON JUAN 



861 



Not that she meant to fix again in haste, 

Nor did she find the quantity encumber, 
But always choosing with deliberation, 
Kept the place open for their emulation. 

XLIX. 

While this high post of honor's in abeyance, 
For one or two days, reader, we request 

You'll mount with our young hero the conveyance 
Which wafted him from Petersburg : the best 

Barouche, which had the glory to display once 
The fair czarina's autocratic crest, 

When, a new Iphigene, she went to Tauris, 

Was given to her favorite,^ and now bore his. 

L. 

A bulldog, and a bullfinch, and an ermine, 
All private favorites of Don Juan ; — for 

(Let deeper sages the true cause determine) 
He had a kind of inclination, or 

Weakness, for what most people deem mere vermin, 
Live animals : an old maid of threescore 

For cats and birds more penchant ne'er display'd, 

Although he was not old, nor even a maid ; — 

LI. 
The animals aforesaid occupied 

Their station : there were valets, secretaries. 
In other vehicles ; but at his side 

Sat little Leila, who survived the parries 
He made 'gainst Cossack sabres in the wide 

Slaughter of Ismail. Though my wild Muse varies 
Her note, she don't forget the infant girl 
Whom he preserved, a pure and living pearl. 

LTI. 
Poor little thing ! She was as fair as docile, 

And with that gentle, serious character, 
As rare in living beings as a fossil 

Man 'midst thy mouldy mammoths, "grand Cu- 
vier!" 
Ill fitted was her ignorance to jostle 

With this o'erwhelming world, where all must err : 
But she was yet but ten years old, and therefore 
Was tranquil, though she knew not why or wherefore. 

LIII. 
Don Juan loved her, and she loved him, as 

Nor brother, father, sister, daughter love. 
I cannot tell exactly what it was ; 

He was not yet quite old enough to prove 



1 The empress went to the Crimea, accompanied by the 
emperor Joseph, in the year— I forget which.— The Prince 
deLlgnfi, who accompanied Catherine in her progress through 
her southern provinces, in 1787, gives the following particu- 
lars:— "We have been traversing, during several days, an 
immense tract of deserts formerly inhabited by hostile Tartar 
hordes, but recovered by the arms of her majesty, and at 
present ornamented from stage to stage with magnificent 
tents, where we are supplied with breakfast, collation, dinner, 



Parental feelings, and the other class, 

Call'd brotherly afiection, could not move 
His bosom, — for he never had a sister : 
Ah ! if he had, how much he would have miss'd her ! 

LIV. 

And still less was it sensual : for besides 

That he was not an ancient debauchee 
(Who like sour fruit, to stir their veins' salt tides. 

As acids rouse a dormant alkali). 
Although ('twill happen as our planet guides) 

His youth was not the chastest that might be, 
There was the purest Platonism at bottom 
Of all his feelings — only he forgot 'em. 

LV. 

Just now there was no peril of temptation ; 

He loved the infant orphan he had saved, 
As patriots (now and then) may love a nation ; 

His pride, too, felt that she was not enslaved 
Owing to him ; — as also her salvation 

Through his means and the church's might be 
paved. 
But one thing's-^dd, which here must be inserted. 
The little Turk refused to be converted. 

LVI. 

'Twas strange enough she should retain the impression 
Through such a scene of change, and dread, and 
slaughter ; 

But though three bishops told her the transgression, 
She show'd a great dislike to holy water ; 

She also had no passion for confession ; 

Perhaps she had nothing to confess ; — no matter : 

Whate'er the cause, the church made little of it — 

She still held out that Mahomet was a prophet. 

LVII. 

In fact, the only Christian she could bear , 
Was Juan ; whom she seem'd to have selected 

In place of what her home and friends once were. 
He naturally loved what he protected : 

And thus they form'd a rather curious pair, 
A guardian green in years, a ward connected 

In neither clime, time, blood, with her defender ; 

And yet this want of ties made theirs more tender. 

LVIII. 
They journey'd on through Poland and through 
Warsaw, 
Famous for mines of salt and yokes of iron : 



supper, and lodging ; and our encampments, decorated with 
all the pomp of Asiatic splendor, present a noble military 
spectacle. The empress has left, in each town, presents to the 
amount of 100,000 roubles. Each day of rest is marked by the 
gift of some diamonds, by balls, by fireworks, and by illumi- 
nations extending for leagues in every direction. During 
the last two months I have been daily employed in throwing 
money out of our carriage windows, and have thus distributed 
the value of some millions of livres." — Letires et Pensees. 



852 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto X. 



Through Courland also, which that famous farce saw, 
Which gave her dukes the graceless name of 
"Biron."i 

'Tis the same landscape which the modern Mars saw, 
Who march'd to Moscow, led by Fame, the siren ! 

To lose by one month's frost some twenty years 

Of conquest, and his guard of grenadiers. 

LIX. 

Let this not seem an anti-climax : — " Oh ! [clay. 

My guard ! my old guard !" 2 exclaim'd that god of 
Think of the Thunderer's falling down below 

Carotid-artery-cutting Castlereagh ! 
Alas ! that glory should be chill'd by snow ! 

But should we wish to warm us on our way 
Through Poland, there is Kosciusko's name 
Might scatter fire through ice, like Hecla's flame.^ 

LX. 

From Poland they came on through Prussia Proper, 
And Konigsberg, the capital, whose vaunt, 

Besides some veins of iron, lead, or copper. 
Has lately been the great Professor Kant.* 

Juan, who cared not a tobacco-stopper 
About philosophy, pursued his jaunt 

To Germany, whose somewhat tardy millions 

Have princes who spur more than their postilions. 

LXI. 

And thence through Berlin, Dresden, and the like, 
Until he reach'd the castellated Ehine : — 

Ye glorious Gothic scenes ! how much ye strike 
All fantasies, not even excepting mine I 

A gray wall, a green ruin, rusty pike. 
Make my soul pass the equinoctial line 

Between the present and past worlds, and hover 

Upon their airy confines, half-seas-over. 

LXII. 

But Juan posted on through Mannheim, Bonn, 
Which Drachenfels^ frowns over like a spectre 



1 In the empress Anne's time, Biren, her favorite, as- 
sumed the name and arms of the " Birons " of France ; which 
families are yet extant with that of England. There are 
still the daughters of Courland of that name ; one of them 
I rememher seeing in England in the blessed year of the 
Allies (1814)— the Duchess of S. — to whom the English Duch- 
ess of Somerset presented me as a namesake. — " Ernest John 
Biren, become so famous by his great advancements, and his 
not less extraordinary reverses of fortune, was born in Cour- 
land, of a family of mean extraction. His grandfather had 
been head groom to James, the third duke of Courland, and 
obtained from his master the present of a small estate in 
land. ... In 1714, he made his appearance at St. Petersburg, 
and solicited the place of page to the princess Charlotte, wife 
of the tzarovitch Alexey ; but being contemptuously rejected 
as a person of mean extraction, retired to Mittau, where he 
chanced to ingratiate himself with Count Bestucheff, master 
of the household of Anne, widow of Frederic William Duke 
of Courland, who resided at Mittau. Being of a handsome 
figure and polite address, he soon gained the good will of the 
duchess, and became her secretary and chief favorite. On 



Of the good feudal times for ever gone. 
On which I have not time just now to lecture. 

From thence he was drawn onwards to Cologne, 
A city which presents to the inspector 

Eleven thousand maidenheads of bone. 

The greatest number flesh hath ever known .^ 

LXIII. 
From thence to Holland's Hague and Helvoetsluys, 

That water-land of Dutchmen and of ditches, 
Where juniper expresses its best juice. 

The poor man's sparkling substitute for riches. 
Senates and sages have condemn'd its use — 

But to deny the mob a cordial, which is 
Too often all the clothing, meat, or fuel. 
Good government has left them, seems but cruel. 

LXIV. 
Here he embark'd, and with a flowing sail 

Went bounding for the island of the free. 
Towards which the impatient wind blew half a gale ; 

High dash'd the spray, the bows dipp'd in the sea, 
And sea-sick passengers turn'd somewhat pale ; 

But Juan, season'd, as he well might be. 
By former voyages, stood to watch the skifis 
Which pass'd, or catch the first glimpse of the clifis. 

LXV. 

At length they rose, like a white wall along 
The blue sea's border ; and Don Juan felt — 

What even young strangers feel a little strong 
At the first sight of Albion's chalky belt — 

A kind of pride that he should be among 

Those haughty shopkeepers, who sternly dealt 

Their goods and edicts out from pole to pole, 

And made the very billows pay them toll. 

LXVI. 

I've no great cause to love that spot of earth. 

Which holds what might have been the noblest 
nation ; 



her being declared sovereign of Eussia, Anne called Biren 
to Petersburg, and the secretary soon became Duke of Cour- 
land, and first minister or rather despot of Kussia. On the 
death of Anne, which happened in 1740, Biren, being declared 
regent, continued daily increasing his vexations and cruel- 
ties, till he was arrested, on the 18th of December, only 
twenty days after he had been appointed to the regency ; and 
at the revolution that ensued he was exiled to the frozen 
shores of the Oby." — Tooke. 

2 Napoleon's exclamation at the Elysee Bourbon, June the 
23d, 1815. 

3 " Hope for a moment bade the world farewell. 

And Freedom shriek'd when Kosciusko fell." — Campb. 
* Immanuel Kant, the celebrated founder of a new philo- 
sophical sect, was born at Konigsberg. He died in 1804. 
6 " The castled crag of Drachenfels 
Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine," &c. 
See ante, p. 40. 

6 Saint Ursula and her eleven thousand virgins were still 
extant in 1816, and may be so yet, as much as ever. 



Canto X. 



DON JUAN. 



853 



But though I owe it little but my birth, 

I feel a mix'd regret and veneration 
For its decaying fame and former worth. 

Seven years (the usual term of transportation) 
Of absence lay one's old resentments level, 
When a man's country's going to the devil. 

LXVII. 

Alas ! could she but fully, truly, know 

How her great name is now throughout abhorr'd ; 

How eager all the earth is for the blow 
Which shall lay bare her bosom to the sword ; 

How all the nations deem her their worst foe, 
That worse than tvorst of foes, the once adored 

False friend, who held out freedom to mankind. 

And now would chain them, to the very mind ; — 

LXVIII. 
Would she be proud, or boast herself the free. 

Who is but first of slaves ? The nations are 
In prison, — but the jailer, what is he? 

No less a victim to the bolt and bar. 
Is the poor privilege to turn the key 

Upon the captive, freedom ? He's as far 
From the enjoyment of the earth and air 
Who watches o'er the chain, as they who wear. 

LXIX. 
Don Juan now saw Albion's earliest beauties, 

Thy clifis, dear Dover ! harbor, and hotel ; 
Thy custom-house, with all its delicate duties ; 

Thy waiters running mucks at every bell; 
Thy packets, all whose passengers are booties 

To those who upon land or water dwell ; 
And last, not least, to strangers uninstructed. 
Thy long, long bills, whence nothing is deducted. 

LXX. 
Juan, though careless, young, and magnifique, 

And rich in rubles, diamonds, cash, and credit, 
Who did not limit much his bills per week. 

Yet stared at this a little, though he paid it, — 
(His Maggior Duomo, a smart, subtle Greek, 

Before him summ'd the awful scroll and read 
it): 
But doubtless as the air, though seldom sunny, 
Is free, the respiration's worth the money. 



1 On the tomb of the prince lies a whole-length brass figure 
of him, his armor with a hood of mail, and a skull-cap en- 
riched with a coronet, which had been once studded with, 
jewels, but only the collets now remain. 

» Becket was assassinated in the cathedral, in 1171. 

3 The French inscription on the Black Prince's monument 
is thus translated in the History of Kent : — 
" Whoso thou be that passest by 
Where these corps interred lie, 
Understand what I shall say. 
As at this time speak I may. 
Such as thou art, sometime was I, 
Such as I am, such shalt thou be. 



LXXI. 

On with the horses ! Off to Canterbury ! 

Tramp, tramp o'er pebble, and splash, 
through puddle ; 
Hurrah ! how swiftly speeds the post so merry ! 

Not like slow Germany, wherein they muddle 
Along the road, as if they went to bury 

Their fare ; and also pause besides, to fuddle. 
With "schnapps" — sad dogs! whom " Hundsfot, 

• " Verflucter," 
Affect no more than lightning a conductor. 

LXXII. 

Now there is nothing gives a man such spirits. 
Leavening his blood as cayenne doth a curry, 

As going at full speed— no matter where its 
Direction be, so 'tis but in a hurry. 

And merely for the sake of its own merits ; 
For the less cause there is for all this flurry. 

The greater is the pleasure in arriving 

At the great e7id of travel — which is driving. 



LXXIII. 

They saw at Canterbury the cathedrax ; 

Black Edward's helra,i and Becket's bloody stone,^ 
Were pointed out as usual by the bedral. 

In the same quaint, uninterested tone : — 
There's glory again for you, gentle reader ! All 

Ends in a rusty casque and dubious bone,^ 
Half solved into these sodas or magnesias. 
Which form that bitter draught, the human species. 

LXXIV. 

The effect on Juan was of course sublime : 
He breathed a thousand Cressys, as he saw 

That casque, which never stoop'd except to Time. 
Even the bold Churchman's tomb excited awe, 

Who died in the then great attempt to climb 
O'er kings, who now at least must talk of law 

Before they butcher. Little Leila gazed. 

And asked why such a structure had been raised : 

LXXV. 

And being told it was " God's house," she said 
He was well lodged, but only wonder'd how 

He suffer'd Infidels in his homestead, 
The cruel Nazarenes, who had laid low 



I little thought on the hour of death 
So long as I enjoyed breath. 
Great riches here I did possess, 
Whereof I made great nobleness; 
I had gold, silver, wardrobes, and 
Great treasures, horses, houses, land. 
But now a caitiff poor am I, 
Deep in the ground, lo here I lie; 
My beauty great is all quite gone, 
My flesh is wasted to the bone ; 
And if you should see me this day, 
I do not think but you would say. 
That I had never been a man, 
So much alter'd now I am." 



854 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto X, 



His holy temples in the lands which bred 

The True Believers ; — and her infant brow 
Was bent with grief that Mahomet should resign 
A mosque so noble, flung like pearls to swine. 

LXXVI. 

On ! on ! through meadows, managed like a garden, 
A paradise of hops and high production ; 

For, after years of travel by a bard in 

Countries of greater heat, but lesser suction, 

A green field is a sight which makes him pardon 
The absence of that more sublime construction, 

Which mixes up vines, olives, precipices, 

Glaciers, volcanoes, oranges, and ices. 

LXXVII. 
And when I think upon a pot of beer 

But I won't weep ! — and so drive on, postilions ! 
As the smart boys spurr'd fast in their career, 

Juan admired these highways of free millions ; 
A country in all senses the most dear 

To foreigner or native, save some silly ones. 
Who " kick against the pricks " just at this juncture, 
And for their pains get only a fresh puncture. 

LXXVIII. 
What a delightful thing's a turnpike road ! 

So smooth, so level, such a mode of shaving 
The earth, as scarce the eagle in the broad 

Air can accomplish, with his wide wings waving. 
Had such been cut in Phaeton's time, the god 

Had told his son to satisfy his craving 
With the York mail ; — but onward as we roll, 
" Surgit amari aliquid " — the toll ! 

LXXIX. 
Alas ! how deeply painful is all payment ! 

Take lives, take wives, take aught except men's 
purses. 
As Machiavel shows those in purple raiment. 

Such is the shortest way to general curses. 
They hate a murderer much less than a claimant 

On that sweet ore which everybody nurses. — 
Kill a man's family, and he may brook it, 
But keep your hands out of his breeches' pocket : 

LXXX. 

So said the Florentine : ye monarchs, hearken 
To your instructor. Juan now was borne. 

Just as the day began to wane and darken, 

O'er the high hill, which looks with pride or scorn 



" Under his proud survey the city lies, 

And like a mist beneath a hill doth rise. 

Whose state and wealth, the business and the crowd 

Seem at this distance but a darker cloud, 

And is, to him who rightly things esteems, 

No other in eflfect than what it seems ; 

Where, with like haste, tho' several ways they run, 

Some to undo, and some to be undone ; 



Toward the great city. — Ye who have a spark in 
Your veins of Cockney spirit, smile or mourn 
According as you take things well or ill ; — 
Bold Britons, we are now on Shooter's Hill ! ^ 

LXXXI. 

The sun went down, the smoke rose up, as from 
A half-unquench'd volcano, o'er a space 

Which well beseem'd the " devil's drawing-room," 
As some have qualified that wondrous place : 

But Juan felt, though not approaching home, 
As one who, though he were not of the race, 

Revered the soil, of those true sons the mother, 

Who butcher'd half the earth, and bullied t'other.^ 

LXXXII. 

A mighty mass of brick, and smoke, and shipping, 

Dirty and dusky, but as wide as ey 
Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping 

In sight, then lost amidst the forestry 
Of masts ; a wilderness of steeples peeping 

On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy ; 
A huge, dun cupola, like a foolscap crown 
On a fool's head — and there is London Town ! 

LXXXIII. 

But Juan saw not this : each wreath of smoke 
Appear'd to him but as the magic vapor 

Of some alchemic furnace, from whence broke 
The wealth of worlds (a wealth of tax and paper) ; 

The gloomy clouds, which o'er it as a yoke 
Are bow'd, and put the sun out like a taper, 

Were nothing but the natural atmosphere. 

Extremely wholesome, though but rarely clear. 

LXXXIV. 

He paused — and so will I ; as doth a crew 
Before they give their broadside. By and by, 

My gentle countrymen, we will renew 
Our old acquaintance ; and at least I'll try 

To tell you truths you will not take as true. 
Because they are so ; — a male Mrs. Fry,^ 

With a soft besom will I sweep your halls. 

And brush a web or two from off the walls. 

LXXXV. 

Oh, Mrs. Fry ! Why go to Newgate? Why 
Preach to poor rogues? And wherefore not 
begin 

With Carlton, or with other houses ? Try 
Your hand at harden'd and imperial sin. 



While luxury and wealth, like war and peace, 
Are each the other's ruin and increase." 

Denham. " 

2 India; America. 

3 The Quaker lady, whose benevolent exertions have ef- 
fected so great a change in the condition of the female pris- 
oners in Newgate. 



i 



Canto XI. 



DON JUAN. 



855 



To mend the people's an absurdity, 

A jargon, a mere pliilanth'-opic din, 
Unless you make their betters better : — Fy ! 
I thought you had more religion, Mrs. Fry. 

LXXXYI. 
Teach them the decencies of good threescore ; 

Cure them of tours, hussar and highland dresses ; 
Tell them that youth once gone returns no more, 

That hired huzzas redeem no land's distresses ; 
Tell them Sir William Curtis^ is a bore, 

Too dull even for the dullest of excesses, 
The witless Falstaflf of a hoary Hal, 
A fool whose bells have ceased to ring at all. 

LXXXVII. 
Tell them, though it may be perhaps too late 

On life's worn confine, jaded, bloated, sated, 
To set up vain pretence of being great, 

'Tis not so to be good ; and be it stated, 
The worthiest kings have ever loved least state : 

And tell them But you won't, and I have 

prated 
Just now enough ; but by and by I'll prattle 
Like Roland's horn ^ in Roncesvalles' battle. 



Bon guatt, 



CANTO THE ELEVENTH. 



When Bishop Berkeley said " there was no matter," ^ 
And proved it — 'twas no matter what he said : 

They say his system 'tis in vain to batter, 
Too subtle for the airiest human heaa, 

And yet who can believe it ? I would shatter 
Gladly all matters down to stone or lead, 

Or adamant, to find the world a spirit, 

And wear my head, denying that I wear it. 

1 This worthy alderman died in 1829. 
* " Oh for a blast of that dread horn, 
On Fontarabian echoes borue, 

That to King Charles did come, 
When Rowland brave, and Olivier, 
And every paladin and peer, 

On Roncesvalles died." — Marmion. 
3 " The celebrated and ingenious Bishop of Cloyne, in his 
' Principles of Human Knowledge,' denies, without any cere- 
mony, the existence of every kind of matter whatever , nor 
does he think this conclusion one that need, in any degree, 
stagger the incredulous. 'Some truths there arc,' says he, 
*so near and obvious to the mind, that a man need only open 
his eyes to see them. Such I take this important one to be, 
that all the choir of heaven, and furniture of earth, — in a 
word, all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the 



n. 

What a sublime discovery 'twas to make the 

Universe universal egotism. 
That all's ideal — all ourselves! — I'll stake the 

World (be it what you will) that that's no schism. 
Oh, Doubt! — if thou be'st Doubt, for which some 
take thee. 

But which I doubt extremely — thou sole prism 
Of the Truth's rays, spoil not my draught of spirit ! 
Heaven's brandy, though our brain can hardly bear it. 

III. 

For ever and anon comes Indigestion 

(Not the most " dainty Ariel"*), and perplexes 

Our soarings with another sort of question : 
And that which after all my spirit vexes. 

Is, that I find no spot where man can rest eye on, 
Without confusion of the sorts and sexes. 

Of beings, stars, and this unriddled wonder, 

The world, which at the worst's a glorious blunder — 

IV. 

If it be chance ; or if it be according 
To the old text, still better : — lest it should 

Turn out so, we'll say nothing 'gainst the wording, 
As several people think such hazards rude. 

They're right ; our days are too brief for affording 
Space to dispute what no one ever could 

Decide, and everybody one day will 

Know very clearly — or at least lie still. 



And therefore will I leave off metaphysical 
Discussion, which is neither here nor there : 

If I agree that what is, is ; then this I call 
Being quite perspicuous and extremely fair ; 

The truth is, I've grown lately rather phthisical : 
I don't know what the reason is — the air 

Perhaps ; but as I suffer from the shocks 

Of illness, I grow much more orthodox. 

VI. 

The first attack at once proved the Divinity 
But that I never doubted, nor the Devil) ; 

The next, the Virgin's mystical virginity ; 
The third, the usual Origin of Evil ; 

world,— have not any subsistence without a mind.' This de- 
duction, however singular, was readily made from the theory 
of our perceptions laid down by Descartes and Mr. Locke, 
and ut that time generally received in the world. According 
to that theory, we perceive nothing but ideas which are 
present in the mind, and which have no dependence what- 
ever upon external things ; so that we have no evidence of 
the existence of anything external to our minds. Berkeley 
appears to have been altogether in earnest, in maintaining 
his skepticism concerning the existence of matter ; and the 
more so, as he conceived this system to be highly favorable 
to the doctrines of religion, since it removed matter from 
the world, which had already been the stronghold of the 
Atheists."— Sir David Brkwster. 
* " Prosp. Why, that's my dainty Ariel; I shall miss thee; 
But yet thou shall have itacdom."-- Tempest. 



856 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Canto XI. 



t 



The fourth at once establish'd the whole Trinity 

On so uncontrovertible a level, 
That I devoutly wish'd the three were four 
On purpose to believe so much the more. 

VII. 

To our theme. — The man who has stood on the 
Acropolis, 

And look'd down over Attica : or he 
Who has saiPd where picturesque Constantinople is, 

Or seen Timbuctoo, or hath taken tea 
In small-eyed China's crockery-ware metropolis, 

Or sat amidst the bricks of Nineveh, 
May not think much of London's first appearance — 
But ask him what he thinks of it a year hence ? 

VIII. 
Don Juan had got out on Shooter's Hill ; 

Sunset the time, the place the same declivity 
Which looks along that vale of good and ill 

Where London streets ferment in full activity. 
While everything around was calm and still. 

Except the creak of wheels, which on their pivot he 
Heard, — and that bee-like, bubbling, busy hum 
Of cities, that boil over with their scum : — 

IX. 

I say, Don Juan, wrapt in contemplation, 
Walk'd on behind his carriage, o'er the summit, 

And lost in wonder of so great a nation. 

Gave way to't, since he could not overcome it. 

"And here," he cried, "is Freedom's chosen station; 
Here peals the people's voice, nor can entomb it 

Backs, prisons, inquisitions ; resurrection 

Awaits it, each new meeting or election. 

X. 

" Here are chaste wives, pure lives ; here people pay 
But what they please ; and if that things be dear, 

'Tis only that they love to throw away 
Their cash, to show how much they have a year. 

Here laws are all inviolate ; none lay 

Traps for the traveller ; every highway's clear ; 

Here" — he was interrupted by a knife. 

With — " Damn your eyes ! your money or your 
life !"— 

XI. 

These freeborn sounds proceeded from four pads 
' In ambush laid, who had perceived him loiter 
Behind his carriage ; and, like handy lads. 

Had seized the lucky hour to reconnoitre, 
In which the heedless gentleman who gads 

Upon the road, unless he prove a fighter. 
May find himself within that isle of riches 
Exposed to lose his life as well as breeches. 



1 "Falstaff. Diana's foresters, gentlemen of the shade, min- 
ions of the moon : and let men say, we be men of good gov- 
ernment; being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and 



XII. 

Juan, who did not understand a word 

Of English, save their shibboleth, " God damn !" 
And even that he had so rarely heard. 

He sometimes thought 'twas only their " Salam," 
Or " God be with you !" — and 'tis not absurd 

To think so : for half English as I am 
(To my misfortune), never can I say 
I heard them wish " God with you," save that way ; — 

XIII. 

Juan yet quickly understood their gesture, 
And being somewhat choleric and sudden, 

Drew forth a pocket pistol from his vesture, 
And fired it into one assailant's pudding — 

Who fell, as rolls an ox o'er in his pasture, 
And roar'd out, as he writhed his native mud in. 

Unto his nearest follower or henchman, 

"Oh, Jack! I'm floor'd by that 'ere bloody French- 
man !" 

XIV. 

On which Jack and his train set off at speed, 
And Juan's suite, late scatter'd at a distance, 

Came up, all marvelling at such a deed, 
And offering, as usual, late assistance. 

Juan, who saw the moon's late minion i bleed 
As if his veins would pour out his existence. 

Stood calling out for bandages and lint, 

And wish'd he had been less hasty with his flint. 

XV. 

" Perhaps," thought he, "it is the country's wont 
To welcome foreigners in this way : now 

I recollect some innkeepers who don't 
Differ, except in robbing with a bow, 

In lieu of a bare blade and brazen front. 
But what is to be done ? I can't allow 

The fellow to lie groaning on the road : 

So take him up ; I'll help you with the load." 

XVI. 

But ere they cou^d perform this pious duty. 
The dying man cried, " Hold ! I've got my gruel ! 

Oh, for a glass of max ! ^ We've miss'd our booty 
Let me die where I am !" And as the fuel 

Of life shrunk in his heart, and thick and sooty 
The drops fell from his death -wound, and he drew ill 

His breath, — he from his swelling throat untied 

A kerchief, crying, " Give Sal that !" — and died. 

XVII. 

The cravat stain'd with bloody drops fell down 
Before Don Juan's feet : he could not tell 

Exactly why it was before him thrown. 
Nor what the meaning of the man's farewell. 



♦ 



chaste mistress the moon, 
steal." — Henry IV. 
2 Gin or Hollands. 



under whose countenance 



Canto XI. 



DON JUAN. 



867 



Poor Tom was once a kiddy ^ upon town, 
A thorough varmint, and a real swell,^ 
Full flash,3 all fa cy, until fairly diddled, 
His pockets first and then his body riddled. 

XVIII. 
Don Juan, having done the best he could 

In all the circumstances of the case, 
As soon as "Crowner's quest"* allow'd, pursued 

His travels to the capital apace ; — 
Esteeming it a little hard he should 

In twelve hours' time, and very little space, 
Have been obliged to slay a frgeborn native 
In self-defence : this made him meditative. 

XIX. 

He from the world had cut off a great man, 
Who in his time had made heroic bustle. 

"Who in a row like Tom could lead the van, 
Booze in the ken,^ or at the spellken^ hustle? 

Who queer a flat? ^ Who (spite of Bow Street's ban) 
On the high toby-spice ^ so flash the muzzle? 

Who on a lark,^ with black-eyed Sal (his blowing lO), 

So prime, so swell,^i so nutty,!^ an^ go knowing ?i3 

XX. 

But Tom's no more — and so no more of Tom. 

Heroes must die ; and by God's blessing 'tis 
Not long before the most of them go home. 

Hail ! Thamis, hail ! Upon thy verge it is 
That Juan's chariot, rolling like a drum 

In thunder, holds the way it can't well miss. 
Through Kennington and all the other " tons," 
Which make us wish ourselves in town at once ; — 

XXI. 
Tlirough Groves, so call'd as being void of trees 
(Like lucus from no light) ; through prospects named 

1 " A thief of the lower order, who, when he is breeched by 
a course of successful depredation, dresses in the extreme of 
vulgar gentility, and affects a knowingness in his air and 
conversation, which renders him in reality an object of rid- 
icule." — Vaux. 

* " Any well-dressed person is emphatically called a swell, 
or a real swell."— P. Egan. 

' " A fellow who affects any particular habit, as swearing, 
dressing in a particular manner, taking snuff, Ac, merely to 
be noticed, is said to do it out of flash." — Ibid. 

* "2d Clown. But is this law? 

\st Clown. Ay, marry is't; crowner's quest law." — 
Hamlet. 

* A house that harbors thieves la called a ken.—^ The 
playhouse.— 7 To puzzle or confound a gull, or silly fellow. — 
• Robbery on horseback. — * Fun or sport of any kind. — 
w A pickpocket's trull.— ii So gentlemanly. See Slanff Dic- 
tionary. 

12 "To be nuts upon, is to be very much pleased or gratified 
with any thing: thus, a person who conceives a strong in- 
clination for another of the opposite sex is said to be quite 
nutty upon him or her." — Ibid. 

" The advance of science and. of language has rendered it 
unnecessary to tran.slatc the above good and true English, 
tspoken in its original purity by the select mobility and their 



Mount Pleasant, as containing nought to please. 
Nor much to climb ; through little boxes framed 

Of bricks, to let the dust in at your ease. 
With *' To be let," upon their doors proclaim'd ; 

Through " Rows " most modestly call'd " Paradise," 

Which Eve might quit without much sacrifice ; — 

XXII. 

Through coaches, drays, choked turnpikes, and a 
whirl 

Of wheels, and roar of voices, and confusion ; 
Here taverns wooing to a pint of " purl," ^* 

There mails fast flying off like a delusion ; 
There barbers' blocks with periwigs in curl 

In windows ; here the lamplighter's infusion 
Slowly distill'd into the glimmering glass 
(For in those days we had not got to gas i^) ; — • 

XXIII, 

Through this, and much, and more, is the approach. 

Of travellers to mighty Babylon : 
Whether they come by horse, or chaise, or coach, 

With slight exceptions, all the ways seem one. 
I could say more, but do not choose to encroach 

Upon the guide-book's privilege. The sun 
Had set some time, and night was on the ridge 
Of twilight, as the party cross'd the bridge. 

XXIV. 

That's rather fine, the gentle sound of Thamis- 

Who vindicates a moment, too, his stream — 
Though hardly heard through multifarious 
** damme's." 
The lamps of Westminster's more regular gleam, 
The breadth of pavement, and yon shrine where fame 
spectral resident — whose pallid beam [is 

In shape of moonshine hovers o'er the pile — 
Make this a sacred part of Albion's isle. ^^ 

patrons. The following is a stanza of a song which was very 
popular, at least in my early days : — 

" On the high toby-spice flash the muzzle, 

In spite of each gallows old scout ; 
If you at the spellken can't hustle, 

You'll be hobbled in making a Clout. 
" Then your Blowing will wax gallows haughty, 

When she hears of your scaly mistake, 
She'll surely turn snitch for the forty — 
That her Jack may be regular weight." 
If there be any gemman so ignorant as to require a traduc- 
tion, I refer him to my old friend and corporeal pastor and 
master, John Jackson, Esq., Professor of Pugilism; who, I 
trust, still retains the strength and symmetry of his model of 
a form, together with his good humor, and athletic as well as 
mental accomplishments. 

'■* " A kind of medicated malt liquor, in which wormwood 
and aromatics are infused." — Todd. 

16 The streets of London were first regularly lighted with 
gas in 1812. 

lo " I very often," says Addison, " walk by myself in 
Westminster Abbey. When I look upon the tombs of the 
great, every emotion of envy dies in mo; when I read the 
epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out . 
when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my 



858 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Canto XI. 



XXV. 

The Druids' groves are gone — so much the better: 
Stonehenge is not — but what the devil is it? — 

But Bedlam still exists with its sage fetter, 
That madmen may not bite you on a visit ; 

The Bench too seats or suits full many a debtor ; 
The Mansion House, too (though some people quiz 
it), 

To me appears a stiff yet grand erection ; 

But then the Abbey's worth the whole collection. 

XXVI. 

The line of lights, too, up to Charing Cross, 
Pall Mall, and so forth, have a coruscation 

Like gold as in comparison to dross, 

Match'd with the Continent's illumination, 

Whose cities Night by no means deigns to gloss. 
The French were not yet a lamp-lighting nation. 

And when they grew so — on their new-found lan- 
tern. 

Instead of wicks, they made a wicked man turn. 

XXVII. 

A row of gentlemen along the streets 

Suspended may illuminate mankind, 
As also bonfires made of country seats : 

But the old way is best for the purblind : - '"" 
The other looks like phosphorus on sheets, 

A sort of ignis fatuus to the mind. 
Which, though 'tis certain to perplex and frighten, 
Must burn more mildly ere it cart enlighten. 

XXVIII. 

But London's so well lit, that if Diogenes 
Could recommence to hunt his honest man, 

And found him not amidst the various progenies 
Of this enormous city's spreading span, 

'Twere not for want of lamps to aid his dodging his 
Yet undiscover'd treasure. What I can, 

I've done to find the same throughout life's journey. 

But see the world is only one attorney. 

XXIX. 

Over the stones still rattling, up Pall Mall, 

Through crowds and carriages, but waxing thinner 

As thunder'd knockers broke the long-seal'd spell 
Of doors 'gainst duns, and to an early dinner 

Admitted a small party as night fell, — 
Don Juan, our young diplomatic sinner, 

Pursued his path, and drove past some hotels, 

Saint James's Palace and Saint James's " Hells." i 



heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the 
parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for 
those whom we must quickly follow. When I see kings lying 
by those who deposed them; when I consider rival wits 
placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world 
with their contests and disputes ; I reflect with sorrow and 
astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates 
of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of 
some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I 



XXX. 

They reach'd the hotel : forth stream'd from the front 
door 

A tide of well-clad waiters, and around 
The mob stood, and as usual several score 

Of those pedestrian Paphians who abound 
In decent London when the daylight's o'er ; 

Commodious but immoral, they are found 
Useful, like Malthus, in promoting marriage. — 
But Juan now is stepping from his carriage 

XXXI. 

Into one of the sweetest of hotels, 

Especially for foreigners — and mostly 
For those whom favor or whom fortune swells, 

And cannot find a bill's small items costly. 
There many an envoy either dwelt or dwells 

(The den of many a diplomatic lost lie), 
Until to some conspicuous square they pass, 
And blazon o'er the door their names in brass. 

XXXII. 
Juan, whose was a delicate commission. 

Private, though publicly important, bore 
No title to point out with due precision 

The exact affair on which he was sent o'er. 
'Twas merely known, that on a secret mission 

A foreigner of rank had graced our shore. 
Young, handsome, and accomplish'd, who was 

said 
(In whispers) to have turn'd his sovereign's head. 

XXXIII. 
Some rumor also of some strange adventures 

Had gone before him, and his wars and loves ; 
And as romantic heads are pretty painters, 

And, above all, an Englishwoman's roves 
Into the excursive, breaking the indentures 

Of sober reason, wheresoe'er it moves, 
He found himself extremely in the fashion, 
Which serves our thinking people for a passion. 

XXXIV. 

I don't mean that they are passionless, but quite 
The contrary; but then 'tis in the head; 

Yet as the consequences are as bright 
As if they acted with the heart instead, 

What after all can signify the site 

Of ladies' lucubrations ? So they lead 

In safety to the place for which you start, 

What matters if the road be head or heart ? 



consider that great day, when we shall all of us be contem- 
poraries, and make our appearance together." 

1 " Hells," gaming-houses. What their number may now 
be in this life, I know not. Before I was of age I knew them 
pretty accurately, both "gold" and "silver." I was onco 
nearly called out by an acquaintance, because when he asked 
me where I thought that his soul would be found hereafter, I 
answered, " In Silver Hell." 



Canto XI. 



DON JUAN. 



859 



XXXV. 

Juan presented in the proper place, 
To proper placemen, every Russ credential ; 

And was received with all the due grimace 
By those who govern in the mood potential. 

Who, seeing a handsome stripling with smooth 
face. 
Thought (what in state affairs is most essential) 

That they as eiisily might do the youngster 

As hawks may pounce upon a woodland songster. 

XXXYI. 

They err'd, as aged men will do ; but by 
And by we'll talk of that ; and if we don't, 

'Twill be because our notion is not high 
Of politicians and their double front, 

Who live by lies, yet dare not boldly lie : — 
Now what I love in women is, they won't 

Or can't do otherwise than lie, but do it 

So well, the very truth seems falsehood to it. 

XXXVII. 
And, after all, what is a lie ? 'Tis but 

The truth in masquerade ; and I defy 
Historians, heroes, lawyers, priests, to put 

A fact without some leaven of a lie. 
The very shadow of true Truth would shut 

Up annals, revelations, poesy, 
And prophecy — except it should be dated 
Some years before the incidents related. 

XXXVIII. 
Praised be all liars and all liesl Who now 

Can tax my mild Muse with misanthropy ? 
She rings the world's " Te Deum," and her brow 

Blushes for those who will not : — but to sigh 
Is idle ; let us like most others bow. 

Kiss hands, feet, any part of majesty. 
After the good example of " Green Erin," ^ 
Whose shamrock now seems rather worse for wearing. 

XXXIX. 

Don Juan was presented, and his dress 
And mien excited general admiration — 

I don't know which was more admired or less : 
One monstrous diamond drew much observation, 

Which Catherine in a moment of "ivresse" 
(In love or brandy's fervent fermentation) 

Bestow'd upon him, as the public learn'd; 

And, to say truth, it had been fairly eam'd. 

XL. 
Besides the ministers and underlings. 

Who must be courteous to the accredited 
Diplomatists of rather wavering kings, 

Until their royal riddle's fully read, 

1 See the Irish Avatar, arUe, p. 688. 

3 "Anent" was a Scotch phrase meaning "concerning"— 



The very clerks, — those somewhat dirty springs 

Of ofl&ce, or the house of office, fed 
By foul corruption into streams, — even they 
Were hardly rude enough to earn their pay : 

XLI. 

And insolence no doubt is what they are 
Employ'd for, since it is their daily labor. 

In the dear offices of peace or war ; 
And should you doubt, pray ask of your next 
neighbor. 

When for a passport, or some other bar 

To freedom, he applied (a grief and a bore^, 

If he found not this spawn of taxborn riches. 

Like lap-dogs, the least civil sons of b s. 

XLII. 
But Juan was received with much " empressement :" — 

These phrases of refinement I must borrow 
From our next neighbors' land, where, like a chess- 
man, 

There is a move set down for joy or sorrow, " 
Not only in mere talking, but the press. Man 

In islands is, it seems, downright and thorough, 
More than on continents — as if the sea 
(See Billingsgate) made even the tongue more free. 

XLIII. 

And yet the British " Damme " 's rather Attic, 
Your continental oaths are but incontinent. 

And turn on things which no aristocratic 

Spirit would name, and therefore even I won't anent ^ 

This subject quote ; as it would be schismatic 
In politesse, and have a sound affronting in't ; — 

But " Damme " 's quite ethereal, though too daring — 

Platonic blasphemy, the soul of swearing. 

XLIV. 

For downright rudeness, ye may stay at home ; 

For true or false politeness (and scarce that 
Now) you may cross the blue deep and white foam — 

The first the emblem (rarely though) of what 
You leave behind, the next of much you come 

To meet. However, 'tis no time to chat 
On general topics : poems must confine 
Themselves to unity, like this of mine. 

XLV. 
In the great world, — which, being interpreted, 

Meancth the west or worst end of a city. 
And about twice two thousand people bred 

By no means to be very wise or witty. 
But to sit up while others lie in bed. 

And look down on the universe with pity, — 
Juan, as an inveterate patrician. 
Was well received by persons of condition. 



"with regard to:" it has been made English by the Scotch 
novels ; and, aa the Frenchman said, " If it he not, ought to be 
English." 



860 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Canto XI. 



XLVI. 

He was a bachelor, which is a matter 
Of import both to virgin and to bride, 

The former's hymeneal hopes to flatter ; 
And (should she not hold fast by love or pride) 

'Tis also of some moment to the latter : 
A rib's a thorn in a wed gallant's side, 

Kequires decorum, and is apt to double 

The horrid sin— and what's still worse, the trouble. 

XLVII. 
But Juan was a bachelor — of arts, 

And parts, and hearts: he danced and sung, and 
had 
An air as sentimental as Mozart's 

Softest of melodies ; and could be sad 
Or cheerful, without any " flaws or starts," i 

Just at the proper time : and though a lad, 
Had seen the world — which is a curious sight, 
And very much unlike what people write. 

XLVIII. 

Fair virgins blush'd upon him ; wedded dames 

Bloom' d also in less transitory hues ; 
For both commodities dwell by the Thames, 

The painting and the painted ; youth, ceruse, 
Against his heart preferr'd their usual claims, 

Such as no gentleman can quite refuse : 
Daughters admired his dress, and pious mothers 
Inquired his income, and if he had brothers. 

XLIX. 

The milliners who furnish " drapery Misses" 2 
Throughout the season, upon speculation 

Of payment ere the honeymoon's last kisses 
Have waned into a crescent's coruscation. 

Thought such an opportunity as this is, 
Of a rich foreigner's initiation. 

Not to be overlook'd — and gave such credit. 

That future bridegrooms swore, and sigh'd, and paid it. 



The Blues, that tender tribe, who sigh o'er sonnets. 
And with the pages of the last Review 

Line the interior of their heads or bonnets. 
Advanced in all their azure's highest hue : 

They talk'd bad French or Spanish, and upon its 
Late authors ask'd him for a hint or two ; 

And which was softest, Russian or Castilian ? 

And whether in his travels he saw Ilion ? 



" Oh, these flaws, and starts, 



(Impostors to true fear,) would well become 

A woman's story," &c. — Macbeth. 
2 " Drapery Misses." — This term is probably anything now 
but a mystery. It was, however, almost so to me when 
I first returned from the East in 1811-1812. It means a 
pretty, a high-born, a fashionable young female, well in- 
structed by her friends, and furnished by her milliner with 
a wardrobe upon credit, to be repaid, when married, by the 
hmband. The riddle was first read to me by a young and 



LI. 

Juan, who was a little superficial, 
And not in literature a great Drawcansir, 

Examined by this learned and especial 
Jury of matrons, scarce knew what to answer : 

His duties warlike, loving, or official. 
His steady application as a dancer. 

Had kept him from the brink of Hippocrene, 

Which now he found was blue instead of green. 

LII. 

However, he replied at hazard, with 
A modest confidence and calm assurance. 

Which lent his learned lucubrations pith, 
And pass'd for arguments of good endurance. 

That prodigy. Miss Araminta Smith 

(Who at sixteen translated " Hercules Furens" 

Into as furious English), with her best look, 

Set down his sayings in her commonplace book. 

LIII. 

Juan knew several languages — as well 
He might — and brought them up with skill, : 
time 

To save his fame with each accomplish'd belle, 
Who still regretted that he did not rhyme. 

There wanted but this requisite to swell 
His qualities (with them) into sublime : 

Lady Fitz-Frisky, and Miss Msevia Mannish, 

Both long'd extremely to be sung in Spanish. 

LIV. 

However, he did pretty well, and was 

Admitted as an aspirant to all 
The coteries, and, as in Banquo's glass. 

At great assemblies or in parties small, 
He saw ten thousand living authors pass, 

That being about their average numeral ; 
Also the eighty " greatest living poets," 
As every paltry magazine can show its. 

LV. 

In twice five years the " greatest living poet," 
Like to the champion in the fisty ring, 

Is call'd on to support his claim, or show it, 
Although 'tis an imaginary thing. 

Even I, — albeit I'm sure I did not know it, 
Nor sought of foolscap subjects to be king, — 

Was reckon'd, a considerable time. 

The grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme. 



pretty heiress, on my praising the "drapery" of the "«n- 
tochered " but " pretty virginities " (like Mrs. Anne Page) of 
the then day, which has now been some years yesterday ; she 
assured me that the thing was common in London ; and as 
her own thousands, and blooming looks, and rich simplicity 
of array, put any suspicion in her own case out of the ques- 
tion, I confess I gave some credit to the allegation. If neces- 
sary, authorities might be cited ; in which case I could quote 
both "drapery" and the wearers. Let us hope, however, 
that it is now obsolete. 



Canto XI. 



DON JUAN. 



861 



LVI. 
But Juan was my Moscow, and Faliero 

My Leipsic, and my Mont Saint Jean seems Cain : ^ 
" La Belle Alliance" of dunces down at zero, 

Now that the Lion's fall'n, may rise again : 
But I will fall at least as fell my hero ; 

Nor reign at all, or as a monarch reign ; 
Or to some lonely isle of jailers go, 
With turncoat Southey for my turnkey Lowe. 

LVII. 
Sir Walter reign'd before me ; Moore and Campbell 

Before and after ; but now grown more holy, 
The Muses upon Sion's hill must ramble 

With poets almost clergymen, or wholly ; 
And Pegasus has a psalniodic amble 

Beneath the very Reverend Rowley Powley, 
Who shoes the glorious animal with stilts, 
A modern Ancient Pistol— by the hilts ! 

LVIII. 
Still he excels that artificial hard 

Laborer in the same vineyard, though the vine 
Yields him but vinegar for his reward, — 

That neutralized dull Dorus of the Nine ; 
That swarthy Sporus, neither man nor bard ; 

That ox of verse, who ploughs for every line : — 
Cambyses' roaring Romans beat at least 
The howling Hebrews of Cybele's priest. — 

LIX. 
Then there's my gentle Euphues ; who, they say, 

Sets up for being a sort of moral me ; ^ 
He'll find it rather difiicult some day 

To turn out both, or either, it may be. 
Some persons think that Coleridge hath the sway ; 

And Wordsworth has supporters, two or three ; 
And that deep-mouth'd Boeotian "Savage Landor"^ 
ILw taken for a swan rogue Southey's gander. 

LX. 
John Keats, who was kill'd off by one critique. 

Just as he really promised something great, 
{( not intelligible, without Greek 

Contrived to talk about the gods of late, 
Much as they might have been supposed to speak.* 

Poor fellow ! His was an untoward fate ; 
'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle,^ 
Should let itself be snuif' d out by an article. 

LXL 

The list grows long of live and dead pretenders 
To that which none will gain — or none will know 



1 See ante, p. 401. 

• Some Reviewer had bestowed the title of "a Moral By- 
ron " on Mr. Bryan Procter, author of " Dramatic Sketches," 
Ac. Ac., all published under the name of " Barry Cornwall." 

' See ante, p. 615. 

♦ The Biographical Dictionary says,— "Being in delicate 
health, he was induced U> try the climate of Italy, where ho 
arrived in November, 1820, and died in the following Decem- 



The conqueror at least ; who, ere Time renders 
His last award, will have the long grass grow 

Above his burnt-out brain, and sapless cinders. 
If I might augur, I should rate but low 

Their chances ; — they're too numerous, like the thirty 

Mock tyrants, when Rome's annals wax'd but dirty. 

LXII. 
This is the literary lower empire, 

Where the praetorian bands take up the matter ; — 
A " dreadful trade," like his who " gathers samphire," ' 

The insolent soldiery to soothe and flatter. 
With the same feelings as you'd coax a vampire. 

Now, were I once at home, and in good satire, 
I'd try conclusions with those Janizaries, 
And show them %vhat an intellectual war is. 

LXIII. 

I think I know a trick or two, would turn 
Their flanks ; — but it is hardly worth my while, 

With such small gear to give myself concern : 
Indeed I've not the necessary bile ; 

My natural temper's really aught but stern, 
And even my Muse's worst reproof's a smile ; 

And then she drops a brief and modern curtsy, 

And glides away, assured she never hurts ye. 

LXIV. 

My Juan, whom I left in deadly peril 
Amongst live poets and blue ladies, pass'd 

With some small profit through that field so sterile, 
Being tired in time, and neither least nor last. 

Left it before he had been treated very ill ; 
And henceforth found himself more gayly class'd 

Amongst the higher spirits of the day, 

The sun's true son, no vapor, but a ray. 

LXV. 

His morns he pass'd in business — which dissected, 
Was like all business, a laborious nothing 

That leads to lassitude, the most infected 
And Centaur Nessus garb of mortal clothing,'^ 

And on our sofas makes us lie dejected, 
And talk in tender horrors of our loathing 

All kinds of toil, save for our country's good — 

Which grows no better, though 'tis time it should. 

LXVI. 

His afternoons he pass'd in visits, luncheons. 
Lounging, and boxing; and the twilight hour 

In riding round those vegetable puncheons [flower 
Call'd " Parks," where there is neither fruit nor 



ber. His death has been attributed to the attacks of critics ; 
but it was, in fact, owing to a consumptive complaint of long 
standing." Compare, however, ante, p. 687. 
5 "Divinae particulum aurse." 

« " Half-way down 

Hangs one that gathers samphire ; dreadful trade !" 

Lear. 
^ " Illita Ncsseo tibi texta venono." — Ovid. Epist. ix. 



862 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Canto XI. 



Enough to gratify a bee's slight munchings ; 

But after all it is the only '' bower " i 
(In Moore's phrase) where the fashionable fair 
Can form a slight acquaintance with fresh air. 

LXVII. 
Then dress, then dinner, then awakes the world ! 

Then glare the lamps, then whirl the wheels, then 
roar 
Through street and square fast flashing chariots hurl'd 

Like harness'd meteors ; then along the floor 
Chalk mimics painting ; then festoons are twirl'd ; 

Then roll the brazen thunders of the door, 
"Which opens to the thousand happy few 
An earthly Paradise of ''Or Molu." 

LXVIII. 

There stands the noble hostess, nor shall sink 
With the three-thousandth curtsy ; there the waltz, 

The only dance which teaches girls to think,^ 
Makes one in love even with its very faults. 

Saloon, room, hall, o'erflow beyond their brink, 
And long the latest of arrivals halts, 

'Midst royal dukes and dames condemn'd to climb. 

And gain an inch of staircase at a time. 

LXIX. 

Thrice happy he who, after a survey 
Of the good company, can win a corner, 

A door that's in or boudoir out of the way. 

Where he may fix himself like small "Jack Horner," 

And let the Babel round run as it may. 
And look on as a mourner, or a scorner. 

Or an approver, or a mere spectator. 

Yawning a little as the night grows later. 

LXX. 

But this won't do, save by and by ; and he 
Who, like Don Juan, takes an active share. 

Must steer with care through all that glittering sea 
Of gems and plumes and pearls and silks, to where 

He deems it is his proper place to be ; 
Dissolving in the waltz to some soft air. 

Or proudlier prancing with mercurial skill. 

Where Science marshals forth her own quadrille. 

LXXI. 

Or, if he dance not, but hath higher views 
Upon an heiress or his neighbor's bride, 

Let him take care that that which he pursues 
Is not at once too palpably descried. 

Full many an eager gentleman oft rues 
His haste ; impatience is a blundering guide, 

Amongst a people famous for reflection. 

Who like to play the fool with circumspection. 



I " Come to me, love, I've wander'd far, 
'Tis past the promised hour : 
Come to me, love, the twilight star 
Shall guide thee to my bower." — MoORE, 



LXXII. 
But, if you can contrive, get next at supper ; 

Or if forestall'd, get opposite and ogle : — 
Oh, ye ambrosial moments ! always upper 

In mind, a sort of sentimental bogle,^ 
Which sits for ever upon memory's crupper. 

The ghost of vanish'd pleasures once in vogue ! Ill 
Can tender souls relate the rise and fall 
Of hopes and fears which shake a single ball. 

LXXIII. 

But these precautionary hints can touch 
Only the common run, who must pursue, 

And watch, and ward ; whose plans a word too much 
Or little overturns ; and not the few 

Or many (for the number's sometimes such) 
Whom a good mien, especially if new, 

Or fame, or name, for wit, war, sense, or nonsense, 

Permits whate'er they please, or did not long since. 

LXXIV. 

Our hero, as a hero, young and handsome. 
Noble, rich, celebrated, and a stranger, 

Like other slaves of course must pay his ransom. 
Before he can escape from so much danger 

As will environ a conspicuous man. Some 
Talk about poetry, and " rack and manger," 

And ugliness, disease, as toil and trouble ; — 

I wish they knew the life of a young noble. 

LXXV. 

They are young, but know not youth — it is anticipated ; 

Handsome but wasted, rich without a sou ; 
Their vigor in a thousand arms is dissipated ; 

Their cash comes from, their wealth goes to, a Jew ; 
Both senates see their nightly votes participated 

Between the tyrant's and the tribunes' crew ; 
And having voted, dined, drank, gamed, and whored, 
The family vault receives another lord. 

LXXVI. 

"Where is the world?" cries Young, at eighty* — 
"Where 

The world in which a man was born ?" Alas ! 
Where is the world of eight years past ? ' Twas there — 

I look for it — 'tis gone, a globe of glass ! 
Crack'd, shiver'd, vanish'd, scarcely gazed on, ere 

A silent change dissolves the glittering mass. 
Statesmen, chiefs, orators, queens, patriots, kings. 
And dandies, all are gone on the wind's wings. 

Lxxvii. 

Where is Napoleon the grand ? God knows : 
Where little Castlereagh ? The devil can tell : 

Where Grattan, Curran, Sheridan, all those 
Who bound the bar or senate in their spell ? 



2 See ante, p. 541. 

3 Scotch for goblin. 

* Young was more than eighty years old when he pub- 
lished his poem entitled "Kesignation," &c. 



Canto XI. 



DON JUAN. 



863 



Where is the unhappy Queen, with all her woes ? 

And where the Daughter, whom the Isles loved well ? 
Where are those martyr'd saints the Five per Cents ?i 
And where — oh, where the devil are the Rents ? 

LXXYIII. 
Where's Brummell? Dish'd, Where's Long Pole 
Wellesley ? Diddled. 
Where's Whitbread? Romilly? Where's George 
the Third ? 
Where is his will?^ (That's not so soon unriddled.) 
And where is "Fum" the Fourth, our "royal 
bird"?3 
Gone down, it seems, to Scotland to be fiddled 

Unto by Sawney's violin, we have heard : 
"Caw me, caw thee" — for six months hath been 

hatching 
This scene of royal itch and loyal scratching. 

LXXIX. 
Where is Lord This ? And where my Lady That ? 

The Honorable Mistresses and Misses ? 
Some laid aside like an old Opera hat. 

Married, unmarried, and remarried : (this is 
An evolution oft performed of late). 

Where are the Dublin shouts — and London hisses ? 
Where are the Grenvilles ? Turn'd as usual. Where 
My friends the Whigs ? Exactly where they were. 

LXXX. 

Where are the Lady Carolines and Franceses ? 

Divorced or doing thereanent. Ye annals 
So brilliant, where the list of routs and dances is, — 

Thou Morning Post, sole record of the panels 
Broken in carriages, and all the fantasies 

Of fashion, — say what streams now fill those chan- 
nels? 
Some die, some fly, some languish on the Continent, 
Because the times have hardly left them one tenant. 

LXXXL 
Some who once set their caps at cautious dukes. 

Have taken up at length with younger brothers : 
Some heiresses have bit at sharpers' hooks : 

Some maids have been made wives, some merely 
mothers : 
Others have lost their fresh and fairy looks : 

In short, the list of alterations bothers. 
There's little strange in this, but something strange is 
The unusual quickness of these common changes. 



> " I am ready to accept the, or almost any mortgage, any 
thing to get out of the tremulous Funds of these oscillatory 
times. There will be a war somewhere, no doubt— and 
wherever it may be, the Funds will be affected more or less ; 
so pray get us out of them with all proper expedition. It has 
been the burden of my song to you three years and better, 
and about as useful as better counsels."— iord Byrcn to Mr. 
Einnaird, Jan. 18, 1823. 

• The old story of the will of George I., said to have been 



LXXXII. 

Talk not of seventy years as age ; in seven 

I have seen more changes, down from monarchs to 

The humblest individual under heaven. 
That might suffice a moderate century through. 

I knew that nought was lasting, but now even 

Change grows too changeable, without being new : 

Nought's permanent among the human race, 

Except the Whigs not getting into place. 

LXXXIII. 

I have seen Napoleon, who seem'd quite a Jupiter, 
Shrink to a Saturn. I have seen a duke 

(No matter which) turn politician stupider. 
If that can well be, than his wooden look. 

But it is time that I should hoist my " blue Peter," 
And sail for a new theme: — I have seen — and 
shook 

To see it — the king hiss'd, and then carest ; 

But don't pretend to settle which was best. 

LXXXIV. 

I have seen the Landholders without a rap— 
I have seen Johanna Southcote — I have seen 

The House of Commons turn'd to a tax-trap — 
I have seen that sad affair of the late Queen — 

I have seen crowns worn instead of a fool's cap — 
I have seen a Congress* doing all that's mean — 

I have seen some nations, like o'erloaded asses. 

Kick off their burdens — meaning the high classes, 

LXXXV. 

I have seen small poets, and great prosers, and 
Interminable — not eternal — speakers — 

I have seen the funds at war with house and land — 
I have seen the country gentlemen turn squeakers— 

I have seen the people ridden o'er like sand 

By slaves on horseback — I have seen malt liquors 

Exchanged for "thin potations "^ by John Bull — 

I have seen John half detect himself a fool. — 



.?"6 



LXXXVI. 

But "carpe diem," Juan, "carpe, carpe] 

To-morrow sees another race as gay 
And transient, and devour'd by the same harpy. 

" Life's a poor player," — then "play out the play,'^ 
Ye villains !" and above all keep a sharp eye 

Much less on what you do than what you say : 
Be hypocritical, be cautious, be 
Not what you seem, but always what you see. 



destroyed by George II. No such calumny was ever heard 
of as to George III. 

3 See Moore's " Fum and Hum, the Two Birds of Royalty," 
appended to his " Fudge Family." 

* The Congress at Verona, in 1822. See ante, p. 633. 

6 " If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I 
would teach them should be to forswear thin potations, and 
addict themselves to sack."— Shakspeare: Henry IV. 

* " Carpe diem, qudm minimum credula postero." — HoR. 
^ " Out, yoTi rogue ! play out the play."— //enry JV. 



864 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



Canto XII. 



LXXXVII. 

But how shall I relate in other cantos 

Of what befell our hero in the land, 
Which 'tis the common cry and lie to vaunt as 

A moral country ? But I hold my hand — 
For I disdain to write an Atalantis ; ^ 

But 'tis as well at once to understand, 
You are not a moral people, and you know it, 
Without the aid of too sincere a poet. 

LXXXVIII. 

What Juan saw and underwent shall be 
My topic, with of course the due restriction 

Which is required by proper courtesy ; 
And recollect the work is only fiction, 

And that I sing of neither mine nor me. 

Though every scribe, in some slight turn of 
diction. 

Will hint allusions never meant. Ne'er doubt 

TAis— when I speak, I donH hint, but speak out. 

LXXXIX. 

Whether he married with the third or fourth 
Offspring of some sage husband-hunting countess. 

Or whether with some virgin of more worth 
(I mean in Fortune's matrimonial bounties) 

He took to regularly peopling earth, 
Of which your lawful, awful wedlock fount is, — 

Or whether he was taken in for damages. 

For being too excursive in his homages, — \ 

XC. 

Is yet within the unread events of time. 

Thus far, go forth, thou lay, which I will back 
Against the same given quantity of rhyme. 

For being as much the subject of attack 



1 See the "New Atalantis, or Memoirs and Manners of 
several Persons of Quality," — a work in which the authoress, 
Mrs. Manley, makes very free with many distinguished char- 
acters of her day. Warburton calls it " a famous book, full 
of court and party scandal, and written in a loose effeminacy 
of style and sentiment, which well suited the debauched 
taste of the better vulgar." Pope also alludes to it in the 
" Rape of the Lock," — 

" As long as Atalantis shall be read, 
Or the small pillow grace a lady's bed. 
While nymphs take treats or assignations give, 
So long my honor, name, and praise shall live." 
And Swift, in his ballad on " Corinna :"— 

" Her commonplace book all gallant is ; 

Of scandal now a cornucopia- 
She pours it out in Atalantis, 
Or memoirs of the New Utopia." 

2 Cantos xii., xiii., and xiv., appeared in London, in 
November, 1823. 

8 In an unpublished letter to Mr. Douglas Kinnaird, dated 
Genoa, January 18, 1823, we find the following passage :— " I 
will economize and do, as I have partly proved to you by my 
surplus revenue of 1822, which almost equals the ditto of the 
United States of America (vide President's Report to Con- 
gress); and do you second my parsimony by judicious dis- 
bursements of what is requisite, and a moderate liquidation. 



As ever yet was any work sublime, 

By those who love to say that white is black. 
So much the better ! — I may stand alone, 
But would not change my free thoughts for a throne. 



Bon ®uan. 



CANTO THE TWELFTH.^ 



I. 

Of all the barbarous middle ages, that 
Which is most barbarous is the middle age 

Of man ! it is — I really scarce know what ; 
But when we hover between fool and sage, 

And don't know justly what we would be at — 
A period something like a printed page. 

Black letter upon foolscap, while our hair 

Grows grizzled, and we are not what we were ; — 

II. 

Too old for youth, — too young, at thirty -five, 
To herd with boys, or hoard with good three- 
score, — 

I wonder people should be left alive ; 
But since they are, that epoch is a bore : 

Love lingers still, although 'twere late to wive : 
And as for other love, the illusion's o'er ; 

And money, that most pure imagination. 

Gleams only through the dawn of its creation.' 



Also make an investment of any spare moneys as may render 
some usance to the owner; because, however little, 'every 
little makes a mickle,' as we of the north say, with more 
reason than rhyme. I hope that you have all receipts, &c. 
&c. &c., and acknowledgments of moneys paid in liquidation 
of debts, to prevent extortion, and hinder the fellows from 
coming twice, of which they would be capable, particularly 
as my absence would lend a pretext to the pretension. — You 
will perhaps wonder at this recent and furious fit of accumu- 
lation and retrenchment ; but it is not so unnatural. I am 
not naturally ostentatious, although once careless, and ex- 
pensive because careless: and my most extravagant passions 
have pretty well subsided, as it is time they should on the 
very verge of thirty-five. I always looked to about thirty as 
the barrier of any real or fierce delight in the passions, and 
determined to work them out in the younger ore and better 
veins of the mine ; and I flatter myself (perhaps) that I have 
pretty well done so, and now the dross is coming, and I loves 
lucre: for we must love something. At any rate, then, I 
have a passion the more, and thus a feeling. However, it is 
not for myself; but I should like, God willing, to leave 
something to my relatives more than a mere name; and 
besides that, to be able to do good to others to a greater 
extent. If nothing else will do, I must try bread and water ; 
which, by the way, are very nourishing and sufficient, if good 
of thgir kind." 



Canto XII. 



DON JUAN. 



865 



III. 

Oh, Gold ! Why call we raisers miserable ? ^ 
Theirs is the pleasure that can never pall ; 

Theirs is the best bower anchor, the chain cable 
Which holds fast other pleasures great and small. 

Ye who but see the saving man at table, 
x\nd scorn his temperate board, as none at all. 

And wonder how the wealthy can be sparing. 

Know not what visions spring from each cheese-paring. 

IV. 

Love or lust makes man sick, and wine much sicker; 

Ambition rends, and gaming gains a loss ; 
But making money, slowly first, then quicker. 

And adding still a little through each cross 
Which will come over things), beats love or liquor. 

The gamester's counter, or the statesman's dross. 
Oh, Gold ! I still prefer thee unto paper. 
Which makes bank credit like a hank of vapor. 

V. 

Who hold the balance of the world ? Who reign 
O'er congress, whether royalist or liberal ? 

Who rouse the shirtless patriots of Spain ? 2 [ber all). 
(That make old Europe's journals squeak and gib- 

Who keep the world, both old and new, in pain 
Or pleasure ? Who make politics run glibber all ? 

The shade of Buonaparte's noble daring? — 

Jew Rothschild, and his fellow Christian, Baring. 

VI. 
Those, and the truly liberal Lafitte, 

Are the true lords of Europe. Every loan 
Is not a merely speculative hit, 

But seats a nation or upsets a throne. 
Republics also get involved a bit ; 

Columbia's stock hath holders not unknown 
On 'Change ; and even thy silver soil, Peru, 
Must get itself discounted by a Jew. 

VII. 
Why call the miser miserable ? as 

I said before : the frugal life is his, 
Which in a siint or cynic ever was 

The theme of praise : a hermit would not miss 
Canonization for the self-same cause. 

And wherefore blame gaunt wealth's austerities ? 
Because, you'll say, nought calls for such a trial ; — 
Then there's more merit in his self-denial. 

VIII. 
He is your only poet; — passion, pure, 
And sparkling on from heap to heap, displays. 



* "BoswELL. 'I have heard old Mr. Sheridan maintain, 
with much ingenuity, that a comploto raiser is a happy man : 
a miser who jfives himself wholly to the one passion of sav- 
ing.'— Johnson. ' That is flying in the face of all the world, 
who have called an avaricious man a miser, because he is 
miserable. No, .sir ; a man who both spends and saves money 
is the happiest man, because he has both enjoyments.'"— 
B08WELL, vol. vii. p. 174, edit. 1835. 
55 



Possess' d, the ore, of which viere hopes allure 
Nations athwart the deep : tlie golden rays 

Flash up in ingots from tlie mine obscure : 
On him the diamond pours its brilliant blaze, 

While the mild emerald's beam shades down the dyes 

Of other stones, to soothe the miser's eyes. 

IX. 

The lands on either side are his ; the ship 
From Ceylon, Inde, or far Cathay ,3 unloads 

For him the fragrant produce of each trip ; 
Beneath his cars of Ceres groan the roads. 

And the vine blushes like Aurora's lip ; 
His very cellars might be kings' abodes ; 

While he, despising every sensual call. 

Commands — the intellectual lord of all. 



Perhaps he hath great projects in his mind, • 

To build a college, or to found a race,* 

A hospital, a church, — and leave behind 
Some dome surmounted by his meagre face : 

Perhaps he fain would liberate mankind 
Even with the very ore which makes them base ; 

Perhaps he would be wealthiest of his nation. 

Or revel in the joys of calculation. 

XI. 

But whether all, or each, or none of these 
May be the hoarder's principle of action. 

The fool will call such mania a disease : — 

What is his oion f Go — look at each transaction, 

Wars, revels, loves — do these bring men more ease 
Than the mere plodding through each ** vulgar 
fraction " ? 

Or do they benefit mankind ? Lean miser ! 

Let spendthrifts' heirs inquire of yours — who's wiser ? 

XII. 
How beauteous are rouleaus ! how charming chests 

Containing ingots, bags of dollars, coins 
(Not of old victors, all whose heads and crests 

Weigh not the thin ore where their visage shines, 
But) of fine unclipt gold, where dully rests 

Some likeness, which the glittering cirque confines. 
Of modern, reigning, sterling, stupid stamp ! — 
Yes ! ready money is Aladdin's lamp. 

XIII. 

" Love rules the camp, the court, the grove,— for love 
Is heaven, and heaven is love :" ^ — so sings the bard ; 

Which it were rather difficult to prove 
(A thing with poetry in general hard). 

2 The Descamisados. 

8 China. 

* " Die, and endow a college, or a cat."— Pope. 

' "Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, 
And men below, and saints above, 
For love is lu.-aven, and heaven is love." 

Lay of the Last Minstrel. 



sm 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Canto XIL 



Perhaps there may be something in " the grove," 
At least it rhymes to " love :" but I'm prepared 
To doubt (no less than landlords of their rental) 
If " courts " and " camps " be quite so sentimental. 

XIV. 

But if Love don't, Cash does, and Cash alone : 
Cash rules the grove, and fells it too besides ; 

Without cash, camps were thin, and courts were none ; 
"Without cash, Malthus tells you — " take no brides."^ 

So Cash rules Love the ruler, on his own 

High ground, as virgin Cynthia sways the tides : 

And as for " Heaven being Love," why not say honey 

Is wax ? Heaven is not Love, 'tis Matrimony. 

XV. 

Is not all love prohibited whatever, 
Excepting marriage ? which is love, no doubt. 

After a sort; but somehow people never 
With the same thought the two words have help'd 
out. 

Love may exist with marriage, and should ever, 
And marriage also may exist without, 

But love sans banns is both a sin and shame, 

And ought to go by quite another name. 

XVI. 
Now if the " court," and " camp," and " grove," be 
not 
Recruited all with constant married men, 
Who never coveted their neighbor's lot, 

I say that line's a lapsus of the pen ; — 
Strange too in my "buon camerado" Scott, 
So celebrated for his morals, when 



1 " Mr. Malthus tells us, that the way to reduce our poor- 
rates is to persuade the lower orders to continence; to dis- 
courage them, as much as possible, from marrying ; to preach 
wedding-sermons to them, if they will marry, upon the 
immorality of breeding, — that being a luxury reserved only 
for those who can afford it; and if they will persist in so 
improper and immoral a practice, after so solemn and well- 
timed a warning, to leave them to the punishment of severe 
want, and rigidly deny all parish assistance. No public 
relief is to be given to the starving infant ; it is worth noth- 
ing to society, for its place will be presently supplied, and 
society, therefore, has no further business than to hang the 
mother, if she should shorten the sufferings of her babe rather 
than see it die of want. The rich are to be called upon for 
no sacrifices ; nothing more is required of them, than that 
they should harden their hearts. That we may not be sus- 
pected of exaggerating the detestable hard-heartedness of his 
system, we present it in his own language." — Southey. 

2 " We have no notion that Lord Byron had any mischiev- 
ous intention in these publications, and readily acquit him of 
any wish to corrupt the morals or impair the happiness of 
his readers ; but it is our duty to say, that much of what he 
has published appears to us to have this tendency. How op- 
posite to this is the system, or the temper, of the great author 
of Waverley! With all his unrivalled power of invention 
and judgment, of pathos and pleasantry, the tenor of his 
sentiments is uniformly generous, indulgent, and good- 
humored : and so remote from the bitterness of misanthropy, 
that he never indulges in sarcasm, and scarcely, in any case, 



My Jeflfrey held him up as an example ^ 

To me ; — of which these morals are a sample. 

XVIL 
Well, if I don't succeed, I have succeeded, 

And that's enough ; succeeded in my youth. 
The only time when much success is needed : 

And my success produced what I, in sooth. 
Cared most about; it need not now be pleaded — 

Whate'er it was, 'twas mine ; I've paid, in truth, 
Of late, the penalty of such success, 
But have not learn'd to wish it any less. 

XVIII. 
That suit in Chancery, — which some persons plead 

In an appeal to the unborn, whom they. 
In the faith of their procreative creed, 

Baptize posterity, or future clay, — 
To me seems but a dubious kind of reed 

To lean on for support in any way ; 
Since odds are that posterity will know 
No more of them, than they of her, I trow. 

XIX. 

Why, I'm posterity — and so are you ; 

And whom do we remember ? Not a hundred. 
Were every memory written down all true. 

The tenth or twentieth name would be but 
blunder'd ; 
Even Plutarch's Lives have but picis'd out a few. 

And 'gainst those few your annalists have 
thunder'd ; 
And Mitford '^ in the nineteenth century 
Gives, with Greek truth, the good old Greek the lie.* 



carries his merriment so far as derision. But the peculiarity 
by which he stands most broadly and proudly distinguished 
from Lord Byron is, that beginning, as he frequently does, 
with some ludicrous or satirical theme, he never fails to raise 
out of it some feelings of a generous or gentle kind, and to 
end by exciting our tender pity, or deep respect, for those 
very individuals or classes of persons who seemed at first to 
be brought on the stage for our mere sport and amusement ; — 
thus making the ludicrous itself subservient to the cause of 
benevolence — and inculcating, at every turn, and as the true 
end and result of all his trials and experiments, the love of 
our kind, and the duty and delight of a cordial and genuine 
sympathy with the joys and sorrows of every condition of 
men."— Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh Review for 1822. 

3 See Mitford's Greece. " Graecia Verax." His great pleas- 
ure consists in praising tyrants, abusing Plutarch, spelling 
oddly, and writing quaintly ; and what is strange, after all, 
his is the best modern history of Greece in any language, 
and he is perhaps the best of all modern historians whatso- 
ever. Having named his sins, it is but fair to state his vir- 
tues — learning, labor, research, wrath, and partiality. I call 
the latter virtues in a writer, because they make him write 
in earnest. 

* " It has been, injuriously for him, too extensively held 
among modern writers, that Plutarch was to be considered 
as an historian whose authority might be quoted for matters 
of fact with the same confidence as that of Thucydides or 
Xenophon, or Caesar or Tacitus. Sometimes, indeed, he un- 
dertakes historical discussion, or, relating dilFerent reports, 



Cajsto XII. 



DON JUAN. 



867 



XX. 

Good people all, of every degree, 

Ye gentle readers and ungentle writers, 

In this twelfth Canto 'tis mv wish to be 
As serious as if I had for inditers 

Malthus and Wilberforce : — the last set free 
The Negroes, and is worth a million fighters ; 

"While Wellington has but enslaved the Whites, 

And Malthus does the thing 'gainst which he writes. 

XXI. 
I'm serious — so are all men upon paper , 

And why should I not form my speculation. 
And hold up to the sun my little taper ? ^ 

Mankind just now seem wrapt in meditation 
On constitutions and steamboats of vapor ; 

While sages write against all procreation, 
Unless a man can calculate his means 
Of feeding brats the moment his wife weans. 

XXII. 

That's noble ! That's romantic ! For my part, 
I think that " Philo-genitiveness " is — 

(Now here's a word quite after my own heart. 
Though there's a shorter a good deal than 
this, 

If that politeness set it not apart ; 
But I'm resolved to say nought that's amiss) — 

I say, methinks that " Philo-genitiveness " ^ 

Might meet from men a little more forgiveness. 

XXIII. 

And now to business. — Oh, my gentle Juan ! 

Thou art in London — in that pleasant place, 
Where every kind of mischief's daily brewing, 

Which can await warm youth in its wild 
race. 
'Tis true, that thy career is not a new one ; 

Thou art no novice in the headlong chase 
Of early life ; but this is a new land. 
Which foreigners can never understand. 

XXIV. 
What with a small diversity of climate, 

Of hot or cold, mercurial or sedate, 
I could send forth my mandate like a primate 

Upon the rest of Europe's social state ; 
But thou art the most difficult to rhyme at. 

Great Britain, which the Muse may penetrate. 
All countries have their " Lions," but in thee 
There is but one superb menagerie. 



leaves judgment on them to hLs reader. When truth thus 
appears his object, his matter is valuable for the historian. 
But generally to do justice to his great work, his Lives, 
apparently it should be considered that, next at least to 
panegyric of his nation, example, political and moral, was his 
purpose, more than historical information. Little scrupulous 
as he has shown himself about transactions the most public, 
concerning which he often contradicts, without reserve or 
apology, not only the highest authorities, but even himself, it 



XXV. 

But I am sick of politics. Begin, 

" Paulo Majora." Juan, undecided 
Amongst the paths of being " taken in," 

Above the ice had like a skater glided : 
When tired of play, he flirted without sin 

With some of those fair creatures who have prided 
Themselves on innocent tantalization. 
And hate all vice except its reputation. 

XXVI. 

But these are few, and in the end they make 
Some devilish escapade or stir, which shows 

That even the purest people may mistake 
Their way through virtue's primrose paths of snows ; 

And then men stare, as if a new ass spake 
To Balaam, and from tongue to ear o'erflows 

Quicksilver small talk, ending (if you note it) 

With the kind world's amen — "Who would have 
thought it?" 

XXVII. 

The little Leila, with her Orient eyes. 
And taciturn Asiatic disposition * 

(Which saw all Western things with small surprise, 
To the surprise of people of condition, 

Who think that novelties are butterflies 
To be pursued as food for inanition). 

Her charming figure and romantic history, 

Became a kind of fashionable mystery. 

XXVIII. 

The women much divided — as is usual 
Amongst the sex in little things or great. 

Think not, fair creatures, that I mean to abuse you 
all— 
I have always liked you better than I state : 

Since I've grown moral, still I must accuse you all 
Of being apt to talk at a great rate ; 

And now there was a general sensation 

Amongst you, about Leila's education. 

XXIX. 

In one point only were you settled — and 
You had reason ; 'twas that a young child of grace, 

As beautiful as her own native land. 
And far away, the last bud of her race, 

Howe'er our friend Don Juan might command 
Himself for five, four, three, or two years' space, 

Would be much better taught beneath the eye 

Of peeresses whose follies had run dry. 

can hardly be supposed that he would scrutinize with great 
solicitude the testimonies to private anecdotes, if even he does 
not sometimes indulge his invention." — Mitford. 

1 " Thus commentators each dark passage shun, 
And hold their farthing candles to the sun."— YOUWG. 

* Philo-progenitiveness. Spurzheim and Gall discover the 
organ of this name in a bump behind the ears, and say it is 
remarkably developed in the bulL 



1 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Canto XII. 



XXX. 

So first there was a generous emulation, 
And then there was a general competition, 

To undertake the orphan's education. 
As Juan was a person of condition, 

It had been an afiront on this occasion 
To talk of a subscription or petition ; 

But sixteen dowagers, ten unwed she sages 

Whose tale belongs to " Hallam's Middle Ages," 

XXXI. 

And one or two sad, separate wives, without 

A fruit to bloom upon their withering bough — 
Begg'd to bring up the little girl, and "• out" — 

For that's the phrase that settles all things now. 
Meaning a virgin's first blush at a rout, 

And all her points as thorough-bred to show : 
And I assure you, that like virgin honey- 
Tastes their first season (mostly if they have money). 

XXXII. 

How all the needy honorable misters, 

Each out-at-elbow peer, or desperate dandy, 

The watchful mothers, and the careful sisters 
(Who, by the by, when clever, are more handy 

At making matches, where " 'tis gold that glisters," 
Than their he relatives), like flies o'er candy 

Buzz round " the Fortune " with their busy battery, 

To turn her head with waltzing and with flattery ! 

XXXIII. 

Each aunt, each cousin, hath her speculation ; 

Nay, married dames will now and then discover 
Such pure disinterestedness of passion, 

I've known them court an heiress for their lover. 
" Tantsene !" ^ Such the virtues of high station. 

Even in the hopeful Isle, whose outlet's "Dover!" 
While the poor rich wretch, object of these cares. 
Has cause to wish her sire had had male heirs. 

XXXIV. 

Some are soon bagg'd, and some reject three dozen. 

'Tis fine to see them scattering refusals 
And wild dismay o'er every angry cousin 

(Friends of the party), who begin accusals, 
Such as — " Unless Miss (Blank) meant to have 
chosen 

Poor Frederick, why did she accord perusals 
To his billets? Why waltz with him? Why, I 

pray, 
Look yes last night, and yet say no to-day ? 

XXXV. 

" Why ? — Why ? — Besides, Fred really was attached; 

'Twas not her fortune — he has enough without : 
The time will come she'll wish that she had snatch'd 

So good an opportunity, no doubt : — 



1 " Tantaene animis coelestibus irae !"— Vikgil. 



But the old Marchioness some plan had hatch'd, 

As I'll tell Aurea at to-morrow's rout : 
And after all poor Frederick may do better — 
Pray did you see her answer to his letter ?" 

XXXVI. 

Smart uniforms and sparkling coronets 
Are spurn'd in turn, until her turn arrives, 

After male loss of time, and hearts, and bets 
Upon the sweepstakes for substantial wives ; 

And when at last the pretty creature gets 

Some gentleman, who fights, or writes, or 
drives, 

It soothes the awkward squad of the rejected 

To find how very badly she selected. 

XXXVII. 

For sometimes they accept some long pursuer, 
Worn out with importunity ; or fall 

(But here perhaps the instances are fewer) 
To the lot of him who scarce pursued at all. 

A hazy widower turn'd of forty's sure ^ 
(If 'tis not vain examples to recall) 

To draw a high prize : now, howe'er he got her, I 

See nought more strange in this than t'other 
lottery. 

XXXVIII, 

I, for my part — (one "modern instance" more, 
"True, 'tis a pity — pity 'tis, 'tis true") — 

Was chosen from out an amatory score. 
Albeit my years were less discreet than few ; 

But though I also had reform'd before 

Those became one who soon were to be two, 

I'll not gainsay the generous public's voice. 

That the young lady made a monstrous choice. 

XXXIX. 

Oh, pardon my digression — or at least 
Peruse ! 'Tis always with a moral end 

That I dissert, like grace before a feast : 
For like an aged aunt, or tiresome friend, 

A rigid guardian, or a zealous priest. 
My Muse by exhortation means to mend 

All people, at all times, and in most places. 

Which puts my Pegasus to these grave paces. 

XL. 

But now I'm going to be immoral ; now 
I mean to show things really as they are, 

Not as they ought to be : for I avow, 
That till we see what's what in fact, we're far 

From much improvement with that virtuous 
plough 
Which skims the surface, leaving scarce a scar 

Upon the black loam long manured by Vice, 

Only to keep its corn at the old price. 



s This line may puzzle the commentators more than the 
present generation. 



Canto XII. 



DON JUAN. 



869 



XLI. 
But first of little Leila we'll dispose; 

For like a dav-dawn she was young and pure, 
Or like the old comparison of snows, 

Which are more pure than pleasant to be sure. 
Like many people everybody knows, 

Don Juan was delighted to secure 
A goodly guardian for his infant charge, 
Who might not profit mucli by being at large. 

XLII. 
Besides, he had found out he was no tutor 

(I wish that others would find out the same). 
And rather wish'd in such things to stand neuter, 

For silly wards will bring their guardians blame : 
So when he saw each ancient dame a suitor 

To make his little wild Asiatic tame. 
Consulting "the Society for Vice 
Suppression," Lady Pinchbeck was his choice. 

XLIII. 
Olden she was — but had been very young ; 

Virtuous she was — and had been, I believe ; 
Although the world has such an evil tongue 

That but my chaster ear will not receive 

An echo of a syllable that's wrong : 

In fact, there's nothing makes me so much grieve, 
As that abominable tittle-tattle, 
Which is the cud eschew'd by human cattle. 

XLIV. 
Moreover I've remark'd (and I was once 

A slight observer in a modest way), 
And so may every one except a dunce. 

That ladies in their youth a little gay". 
Besides their knowledge of the world, and sense 

Of the sad consequence of going astray, 
Are wiser in their warnings 'gainst the woe 
Which the mere passionless can never know. . 

XLV. 
While the harsh prude indemnifies her virtue 

By railing at the unknown and envied passion, 
Seeking far less to save you than to hurt you. 

Or, what's still worse, to put you out of fashion, — 
The kinder veteran with calm words will court 
you. 

Entreating you to pause before you dash on ; 
Ex founding and illustrating the riddle 
Ol epic Love's beginning, end, and middle. 

XLVI. 
Now whether it be thus, or that they are stricter, 

As better knowing why they should be so, 
I think you'll find from many a family picture, 

That daughters of such mothers as may know 
The world by experience rather than by lecture, 

Turn out much better for the Smithfield Show 
Of vestals broui,'ht into tlie marriage mart, 
Than those bred up by prudes without a lieart. 



XLVII. 

I said that Lady Pinchbeck had been talk'd about — 
As who has not, if female, young, and pretty ? 

But now no more the ghost of Scandal stalk'd about; 
She merely was deem'd amiable and witty. 

And several of her best bon-mots were hawk'd about : 
Then she was given to charity and pity, 

And pass'd (at least the latter years of life) 

For being a most exemplary wife. 

XLVIII. 

High in high circles, gentle in her own. 
She was the mild reprover of the young, 

Whenever — which means every day — they'd shown 
An awkward inclination to go wrong. 

The quantity of good she did's unknown. 
Or at the least would lengthen out my song : 

In brief, the little orphan of the East 

Had raised an interest in her, which increased. 

XLIX. 

Juan, too, was a sort of favorite with her. 

Because she thought him a good heart at bottom, 

A little spoil'd, but not so altogether ; 

Which was a wonder, if you think who got him, 

And how he had been toss'd, he scarce knew 
whither : 
Though this might ruin others, it did not him, 

At least entirely — for he had seen too many 

Changes in youth, to be surprised at any. 



And these vicissitudes tell best in youth ; 

For when they happen at a riper age. 
People are apt to blame the Fates, forsooth, 

And wonder Providence is not more sage. 
Adversity is the first path to truth : 

He who hath proved war, storm, or woman's rage, 
Whether his winters be eighteen or eighty. 
Hath won the experience which is deem'd so weighty. 

LI. 

How far it profits is another matter. — 

Our hero gladly saw his little charge 
Safe with a lady, whose last grown-up daughter 

Being long married, and thus set at large. 
Had left all the accomplishments she taught her 

To be transmitted, like the Lord Mayor's barge, 
To the next comer ; or — as it will tell 
More Muse-like— like to Cytherea's shell. 

LII. 

I call such things transmission ; for there is 
A floating balance of accomplishment. 

Which forms a pedigree from Miss to Miss, 
According as their minds or backs are bent. 

Some waltz ; some draw ; some fathom the abyss 
Of metaphysics ; others are content 

With music ; the most moderate shine as wits ; 

While others have a genius turn'd for fits. 



870 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto XII. 



LIII. 

But whether fits, or wits, or harpsichords, 

Theology, fine arts, or finer stays, 
May be the baits for gentlemen, or lords 

With regular descent, in these our days. 
The last year to the new transfers its hoards ; 

New vestals claim men's eyes with the same 
praise 
Of " elegant" etcoetera, in fresh batches — 
All matchless creatures, and yet bent on matches. 

LIV. 
But now I will begin my poem. 'Tis 

Perhaps a little strange, if not quite new. 
That from the first of Cantos up to this 

I've not begun what we have to go through. 
These first twelve books are merely flourishes, 

Preludios, trying just a string or two 
Upon my lyre, or making the pegs sure ; 
And when so, you shall have the overture. 

LV. 

My Muses do not care a pinch of rosin 
About what's call'd success, or not succeeding : 

Such thoughts are quite below the strain they have 
chosen ; 
'Tis a " great moral lesson " ^ they are reading. 

I thought, at setting ofi", about two dozen 
Cantos would do ; but at Apollo's pleading. 

If that my Pegasus should not be founder'd, 

I think to canter gently through a hundred. 

LVI. 
Don Juan saw that microcosm on stilts, 

Yclept the Great World ; for it is the least. 
Although the highest : but as swords have hilts 

By which their power of mischief is increased. 
When man in battle or in quarrel tilts. 

Thus the low world, north, south, or west, or east, 
Must still obey the high ^ — which is their handle, 
Their moon, their sun, their gas, their farthing candle. 

LVII. 
He had many friends who had many wives, and was 

Well look'd upon by both, to that extent 
Of friendship which you may accept or pass, 

It ddes nor good nor harm ; being merely meant 
To keep the wheels going of the higher class. 

And draw them nightly when a ticket's sent ; 
And what with masquerades, and f§tes, and balls. 
For the first season such a life scarce palls. 



1 " The same feeling that makes the people of France wish 
to keep the pictures and statues of other nations, must natur- 
ally make other nations wish, now that victory is on their 
side, to return those articles to the lawful owners. Accord- 
ing to my feelings, it would not only be unjust in the Allied 
Sovereigns to gratify the French people, but the sacrifice they 
would make would be impolitic, as it would deprive them of 
the opportunity of giving the French nation a great moral 
lesson." — "Wellington, Paris, 1815. 



LVIII. 

A young unmarried man, with a good name 
And fortune, has an awkward part to play ; 

For good society is but a game, 
" The royal game of Goose," ^ as I may say, 

Where everybody has some separate aim. 
An end to answer, or a plan to lay — 

The single ladies wishing to be double. 

The married ones to save the virgins trouble. 

LIX. 

I don't mean this as general, but particular 
Examples may be found of such pursuits : 

Though several also keep their perpendicular 
Like poplars, with good principles for roots ; 

Yet many have a method more reticular — 
" Fishers for men," like sirens with soft lutes : 

For talk six times with the same single lady, 

And you may get the wedding dresses ready. 

LX. 

Perhaps you'll have a letter from the mother. 
To say her daughter's feelings are trepann'd ; 

Perhaps you'll have a visit from the brother. 
All strut, and stays, and whiskers, to demand 

What " your intentions are ?" — One way or other 
It seems the virgin's heart expects your hand : 

And between pity for her case and yours, 

You'll add to Matrimony's list of cures. 

LXI. 

I've known a dozen weddings made even thus, 
And some of them high names: I have also 
known 

Young men who — though they hated to discuss 
Pretensions which they never dream'd to have 
shown — 

Yet neither frighten'd by a female fuss. 
Nor by mustachios moved, were let alone, 

And lived, as did the broken-hearted fair. 

In happier plight than if they form'd a pair. 

LXII. 

There's also nightly, to the uninitiated, 
A peril — not indeed like love or marriage, 

But not the less for this to be depreciated : 
It is — I meant and mean not to disparage 

The show of virtue even in the vitiated — 
It adds an outward grace unto their carriage — 

But to denounce the amphibious sort of harlot, 

" Couleur de rose," who's neither white nor scarlet. 



2 " Enfin partout la bonne socigte rfegle tout."— Voltaire. 

3 "This ancient game originated, I believe, in Germany, 
and is well calculated to make young persons ready at reck- 
oning the produce of two given numbers. It is called the 
game of the goose, because at every fourth and fifth com- 
partment of the table in succession a goose is depicted ; and 
if the cast thrown by the player falls upon a goose, he moves 
forward double the number of his throw."— Stkutt. 



Canto XII. 



DON JUAN. 



871 



LXIII. 
Such is your cold coquette, who can't say " No," 
And won't say " Yes," and keeps you on and 
oflf-ing 
On a lee shore, till it begins to blow — 
Then sees your heart wreck'd with an inward 
scoffing. 
This works a world of sentimental woe. 

And sends new Werters yearly to their coffin ; 
But yet is merely innocent flirtation, 
Not quite adultery, but adulteration. 

LXIV. 

" Ye gods, I grow a talker !" Let us prate. 

The next of perils, though I place it sternest, 
Is when, without regard to " church or state," 

A wife makes or takes love in upright earnest. 
Abroad, such things decide few women's fate — 

(Such, early traveller ! is the truth thou leamest) — 
But in old England, when a young bride errs, 
Poor thing ! Eve's was a trifling case to hers. 

LXV. 

For 'tis a low, newspaper, humdrum, lawsuit 
Country, where a young couple of the same ages 

Can't form a friendship, but the world o'erawes it. 
Then there's the vulgar trick of those d — d damages ! 

A verdict — grievous foe to those who cause it ! — 
Forms a sad climax to romantic homages ; 

Besides those soothing speeches of the pleaders, 

And evidences which regale all readers. 

LXVI. 

But they who blunder thus are raw beginners ; 

A little genial sprinkling of hypocrisy 
Has saved the fame of thousand splendid sinners. 

The loveliest oligarchs of our gynocracy ; 
You may see such at all the balls and dinners, 

Among the proudest of our aristocracy. 
So gentle, charming, charitable, chaste — 
And all by having tact as well as taste. 

LXVII. 
Juan, who did not stand in the predicament 

Of a mere novice, had one safeguard more ; 

For he was sick no, 'twas not the word sick 1 

meant — 

But he had seen so much good love before, 
That he was not in heart so very weak ; — I meant 

But thus much, and no sneer against the shore 
Of white cliffs, white necks, blue eyes, bluer stockings. 
Tithes, taxes, duns, and doors with double knockings. 

LXVIII. 

But coming young from lands a.id scenes romantic, 
Where lives, not lawsuits, must be risk'd for Passion, 



1 Major Denham says, that, when he first saw European 
women after his travels in Africa, they appeared to him to 
have unnatural aickly countenances. 



And Passion's self must have a spice of frantic. 
Into a country where 'tis half a fashion, 

Seem'd to him half commercial, half pedantic, 
Howe'er he might esteem this moral nation : 

Besides (alas ! his taste — forgive and pity !) 

At first he did not think the women pretty. 

LXIX. 

I say ^i first — for he found out at last, 
But by degrees, that they were fairer far 

Than the more glowing dames whose lot is cast 
Beneath the influence of the eastern star. 

A further proof we should not judge in haste ; 
Yet inexperience could not be his bar 

To taste :— the truth is, if men would confess, 

That novelties i^lease less than they impress. 

LXX. 

Though travell'd, I have never had the luck to 
Trace up those shuffling negroes, Nile or Niger, 

To that impracticable place Timbuctoo, 

Where Geography finds no one to oblige her 

With such a chart as may be safely stuck to — 
For Europe ploughs in Afric like '' bos piger :" 

But if I had been at Timbuctoo, there 

No doubt I should be told that black is fair.^ 

LXXI. 

It is. I will not swear that black is white ; 

But I suspect in fact that white is black, 
And the whole matter rests upon eyesight. 

Ask a blind man, the best judge. You'll attack 
Perhaps this new position — but I'm right ; 

Or if I'm wrong, I'll not be ta'en aback : — 
He hath no morn nor night, but all is dark 
Within ; and what seest thou ? A dubious spark. 

LXXII. 

But I'm relapsing into metaphysics, 
That labyrinth, whose clue is of the same 

Construction as your cures for hectic phthisics, 
Those bright moths fluttering round a dying flame : 

And this reflection brings me to plain physics. 
And to the beauties of a foreign dame. 

Compared with those of our pure pearls of price. 

Those polar summers, all sun, and some ice. 

LXXIII. 

Or say they are like virtuous mermaids, whose 
Beginnings are fair faces, ends mere fishes ; — 

Not that there's not a quantity of those 
Who have a due respect for their own wishes. 

Like Bu.ssians rushing from hot baths to snows " 
Are they, at bottom virtuous even when vicious : 

They warm into a scrape, but keep of course. 

As a reserve, a plunge into remorse. 



' The Russians, as is well known, run out from their hot 
baths to plunge into the Neva ; a pleasant practical antithesis, 
which it aeems cbes them no harm. 



872 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto XII. 



LXXIV. 

But this has nought to do with their outsides. 

I said that Juan did not think them pretty 
At the first blush; for a fair Briton hides 

Half her attractions — probably from pity — 
And rather calmly into the heart glides, 

Than storms it as a foe would take a city ; 
But once there (if you doubt this, prithee try) 
She keeps it for you like a true ally. 

LXXV. 

She cannot step as does an Arab barb, 
Or Andalusian girl from mass returning, 

Nor wear as gracefully as Gauls her garb. 
Nor in her eye Ausonia's glance is burning ; 

Her voice, though sweet, is not so fit to warb- 
le those bravuras (which still I am learning 

To like, though I have been seven years in Italy, 

And have, or had, an ear that served me prettily) ;— 

LXXVI. 

She cannot do these things, nor one or two 
Others, in that off-hand and dashing style 

Which takes so much — to give the devil his due ; 
Nor is she quite so ready with her smile, 

Nor settles all things in one interview 

(A thing approved as saving time and toil) ; — 

But though the soil may give you time and trouble, 

Well cultivated, it will render double. 

LXXVII. 

And if in fact she takes to a "grande passion," 

It is a very serious thing indeed : 
Nine times in ten 'tis but caprice or fashion, 

Coquetry, or a wish to take the lead. 
The pride of a mere child with a new sash on, 

Or wish to make a rival's bosom bleed : 
But the tenth instance will be a tornado, 
For there's no saying what they will or may do. 

LXXVIII. 

The reason's obvious ; if there's an ^clat, 
They lose their caste at once, as do the Farias ; 

And when the delicacies of the law 
Have fiU'd their papers with their comments 
various. 

Society, that china without flaw 

(The hypocrite!), will banish them like Marius, 

To sit amidst the ruins of their guilt : ^ 

For Fame's a Carthage not so soon rebuilt. 



1 " A Gaulish or German soldier sent to arrest him, over- 
awed by his aspect, recoiled from the task ; and the people of 
the place, as if moved by the miracle, concurred in aiding his 
escape. The presence of such an exile on the ground where 
Carthage had stood was supposed to increase the majesty and 
the melancholy of the scene. ' Go,' he said to the lictor who 
brought him the orders of the praetor to depart, ' tell him that 
you have seen Marius sitting on the ruins of Carthage.' " — 
Feeguson. 

2 For a description and print of this inhabitant of the polar 



LXXIX. 

Perhaps this is as it should be ; — it is 
A comment on the Gospel's " Sin no more, 

And be thy sins forgiven :" — but upon this 
I leave the saints to settle their own score. 

Abroad, though doubtless they do much amiss, 
An erring woman finds an opener door 

For her return to Virtue — as they call 

That lady, who should be at home to all. 

LXXX. 

For me, I leave the matter where I find it. 
Knowing that such uneasy virtue leads 

People some ten times less in fact to mind it, 
And care but for discoveries, and not deeds. 

And as for chastity, you'll never bind it 
By all the laws the strictest lawyer pleads, 

But aggravate the crime you have not prevented. 

By rendering desperate those who had else repented. 

LXXXI. 

But Juan was no casuist, nor had ponder'd 

Upon the moral lessons of mankind : 
Besides, he had not seen of several hundred 

A lady altogether to his mind. 
A little "blase " — 'tis not to be wonder'd 

At, that his heart had got a tougher rind : 
And though not vainer from his past success, 
No doubt his sensibilities were less. 

LXXXII. 

He also had been busy seeing sights — 
The Parliament and all the other houses ; 

Had sat beneath the gallery at nights. 
To hear debates whose thunder roiised (not rotises) 

The world to gaze upon those northern lights. 
Which flash' d as far as where the musk-bull 
browses ; ^ 

He had also stood at times behind the throne — 

But Grey ^ was not arrived, and Chatham gone.* 

LXXXIII. 

He saw, however, at the closing session. 

That noble sight, when really free the nation, 

A king in constitutional possession 

Of such a throne as is the proudest station, 

Though despots know it not — till the progression 
Of freedom shall complete their education. 

'Tis not mere splendor makes the show august 

To eye or heart — it is the people's trust. 



regions and native country of the Aurorae Boreales, see 
Parry's Voyage in search of a Northwest Passage. — See 
ante, p. 618. 

3 Charles, second Earl Grey, succeeded to the peerage in 

1807. 

* William Pitt, first earl of Chatham, died in May, 1778, 
after having been carried home from the House of Lords, 
where he had fainted away at the close of a remarkable speech 
on the American war. 



I': 



Canto XIII. 



DON JUAN. 



873 



LXXXIV. 

There, too, he saw (whate'er he may be now) 
A Prince, the prince of princes at the time,i 

With fascination in his very bow, 

And full of promise, as the spring of prime. 

Though royalty was written on his brow, 
He had then the grace, too, rare in every clime, 

Of being, without alloy of fop or beau, 

A finish'd gentleman from top to toe.^ 

LXXXV. 

And Juan was received, as hath been said, 

Into the best society ; and there 
Occurr'd what often happens, I'm afraid, 

However disciplined and debonnaire : — 
The talent and good humor he display 'd, 

Besides the mark'd distinction of his air, 
pjxposed liim, as was natural, to temptation, 
Even though himself avoided the occasion. 

LXXXVI, 
But what, and where, with whom, and when, and why. 

Is not to be put hastily together ; 
And as my object is morality 

(Whatever people say), I don't know whether 
I'll leave a single reader's eyelid dry, 

But harrow up his feelings till they wither, 
And hew out a huge monument of pathos, 
As Philip's son proposed to do with Athos.' 

LXXXYII. 
Here the twelfth canto of our introduction 

Ends. When the body of the book's begun, 
You'll find it of a different construction 

From what some people say 'twill be when done ; 
The plan at present's simply in concoction. 

I can't oblige you, reader, to read on; 
That's your affair, not mine : a real spirit 
Should neither court neglect, nor dread to bear it. 

LXXXVIII. 

And if my thunderbolt not always rattles. 
Remember, reader ! you have had before, 



1 "Nature had bestowed uncommon graces on his figure 
and person. Convivial as well as social in his temper, des- 
titute of all reserve, and affable even to familiarity in his re- 
ception of every person who had the honor to approach him ; 
endued with all the aptitudes to profit of instruction, his mind 
had been cultivated with great care ; and he was probably the 
only prince in Europe, heir to a powerful monarchy, com- 
petent to peruse the Greek as well as the Roman poets and 
historians in their own language. Humane and compassion- 
ate, his purse was of>en to every application of distress; nor 
was it ever shut against genius or merit." — Wraxall, 1783. 

' " Waiving myself, let me talk to you of the prince regent. 
He ordered me to be presented to him at a ball; and after 
-)me sayings pf culiarly pleasing from royal lips, as to my own 
•ittempts, he talked to me of you and your immortalities; he 
[.referred you to every other bard past and present. He 
sjKjke alternately of Homer and yourself, and seemed well 
acquainted with both. All this was conveyed in language 



The worst of tempests and the best of battles, 
That e'er were brew'd from elements or gore. 

Besides the most sublime of— Heaven knows what 
else; 
An usurer could scarce expect much more — 

But my best canto, save one on astronomy, 

Will turn upon " political economy." 

LXXXIX. 

That is your present theme for popxilarity : 
Now that the public hedge hath scarce a stake, 

It grows an act of patriotic charity, 
To show the people the best way to break. 

My plan (but I, if but for singularity. 
Reserve it) will be very sure to take. 

Meantime, read all the national-debt sinkers. 

And tell me what you think of our great thinkers. 



Bon Sifuan* 



CANTO THE THIETEENTH. 



I. 

I NOW mean to be serious ; — it is time, 
Since laughter nowadays is deem'd too serious ; 

A jest at Vice by Virtue's call'd a crime, 
And critically held as deleterious : 

Besides, the sad's a source of the sublime. 
Although when long a little apt to weary us ; 

And therefore shall my lay soar high and solemn, 

As an old temple dwindled to a column. 

II. 

The Lady Adeline Amundeville 

('Tis an old Norman name, and to be found 
In pedigrees, by those who wander still 

Along the last fields of that Gothic ground) 



which would only suffer by my attempting to transcribe it, 
and with a tone and taste which gave me a very high idea of 
his abilities and accomplishments, which I had hitherto con- 
sidered as confined to manners certainly superior to those of 
any living gentleman."— Lord Byron to Sir Walter Scott, July, 
1812. 

3 A sculptor projected to hew Mount Athos into a statue of 
Alexander, with a city in one hand, and, I believe, a river in 
his pocket, with various other similar devices. But Alex- 
ander's gone, and Athos remains, I trust ere long to look over 
a nation of freemen.—" Strasicrates, an engineer in the service 
of Alexander, offered to convert the whole mountain into a 
statue of that prince. The enormous figure was to hold a 
city in its left hand, containing ten thou.sand inhabitants, 
and in the right, an immense basin, whence the collected 
torrents of the mountain should issue in a mighty river. But 
the project was thought to be too extravagant, even by Alex- 
ander."— Beloe. 



874 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Canto XIII. 



Was high-born, wealthy by her father's will, 

And beauteous, even where beauties most abound, 
In Britain — which of course true patriots find 
The goodliest soil of body and of mind. 

III. 
I'll not gainsay them ; it is not my cue ; 

I'll leave them to their taste, no doubt the best : 
An eye's an eye, and whether black or blue, 

Is no great matter, so 'tis in request ; 
'Tis nonsense to dispute about a hue — 

The kindest may be taken as a test. 
The fair sex should be always fair ; and no man. 
Till thirty, should perceive there's a plain woman. 

IV. 
And after that serene and somewhat dull 

Epoch, that awkward corner turn'd for days 
More quiet, when our moon's no more at full, 

We may presume to criticise or praise ; 
Because indifference begins to lull 

Our passions, and we walk in wisdom's ways ; 
Also because the figure and the face 
Hint, that 'tis time to give the younger place. 

V. 

I know that some would fain postpone this era, 

Eeluctant as all placemen to resign 
Their post ; but theirs is merely a chimera, 

For they have pass'd life's equinoctial line : 
But then they have their claret and Madeira, 

To irrigate the dryness of decline ; 
And county meetings, and the parliament, 
And debt, and what not, for their solace sent. 

VI. 

And is there not religion, and reform. 

Peace, war, the taxes, and what's call'd the " Na- 
tion" ? 
The struggle to be pilots in a storm ? 

The landed and the money'd speculation ? 
The joys of mutual hate to keep them warm, 

Instead of love, that mere hallucination ? 
Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure ; 
Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure. 

VII. 
Rough Johnson, the great moralist, profess'd. 
Eight honestly, " he liked an honest hater !"i— 

1 " Sir, I love a good hater," See Boswell's Johnson, vol. 
ix. p. 30, edit. 1835. 

2 Mephistopheles is the name of the devil in Goethe's 
Faust. 

3 "Mr. Spence, the author of the late ingenious Tour in 
Spain, seems to believe, what I should have supposed was 
entirely exploded, that Cervantes wrote his book for the pur- 
pose of ridiculing knight-errantry ; and that, unfortunately 
for his country, his satire put out of fashion, not merely the 
absurd misdirection of the spirit of heroism, but that sacred 
spirit itself. But the practice of knight-errantry, if ever there 



The only truth that yet has been confest 
Within these latest thousand years or later. 

Perhaps the fine old fellow spoke in jest : — 
For my part, I am but a mere spectator, 

And gaze where'er the palace or the hovel is. 

Much in the mode of Goethe's Mephistopheles ; * 

VIII. 
But neither love nor hate in much excess ; 

Though 'twas not once so. If I sneer sometimes, 
It is because I cannot well do less, 

And now and then it also suits my rhymes. 
I should be very willing to redress 

Men's wrongs, and rather check than punish 
crimes. 
Had not Cervantes, in that too true tale 
Of Quixote, shown how all such efforts fail. 

IX. 

Of all tales 'tis the saddest — and more sad, 
Because it makes us smile : his hero's right. 

And still pursues the right ;— to curb the bad 
His only object, and 'gainst odds to fight 

His guerdon : 'tis his virtue makes him mad ! 
But his adventures form a sorry sight; — 

A sorrier still is the great moral taught 

By that real epic unto all who have thought. 

X. 

Redressing injury, revenging wrong, 
To aid the damsel and destroy the caitiff; 

Opposing singly the united strong, 
From foreign yoke to free the helpless native : — 

Alas ! must noblest views, like an old song, 
Be for mere fancy's sport a theme creative, 

A jest, a riddle, Fame through thin and thick 
sought ! 

And Socrates himself but Wisdom's Quixote ? 

XI. 

Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away ; 

A single laugh demolish'd the right arm 
Of his own country ; — seldom since that day 

Has Spain had heroes. While Romance could 
charm. 
The world gave ground before her bright array ; 

And therefore have his volumes done such harm, 
That all their glory, as a composition, 
Was dearly purchased by his land's perdition.' 

was such a thing, had, it is well known, been out of date long 
before the age in which Don Quixote appeared ; and as for 
the spirit of heroism, I think few will sympathize with the 
critic who deems it possible that an individual, to say nothing 
of a nation, should have imbibed any contempt, either for 
that or any other elevating principle of our nature, from the 
manly page of Cervantes. One of the greatest triumphs of 
his skill is the success with which he continually prevents ua 
from confounding the absurdities of the knight-errant with 
the generous aspirations of the cavalier. For the last, even 
in the midst of madness, we respect Don Quixote himself." — 
LocKHAKT : Preface to Don Quixote, 1823. 



Caitto XIII. 



DON JUAN. 



875 



XII. 

I'm " at my old lunes " ' — digression, and forget 

The Lady Adeline Amundeville ; 
The fair most fatal Juan ever met, 

Although she was not evil nor meant ill ; 
But Destiny and Passion spread the net 

(Fate is a good excuse for our own will), 
And caught them ; — what do they not catch, methinks ? 
But I'm not CEdipus, and life's a Sphinx. 

XIII. 
I tell the tale as it is told, nor dare 

To venture a solution : " Davus sum !" 2 
And now I will proceed upon the pair. 

Sweet Adeline, amidst the gay world's hum. 
Was the Queen-Bee, the glass of all that's fair ; 

Whose charms made all men speak, and women 
dumb. 
The last's a miracle, and such was reckon'd. 
And since that time there has not been a second. 

XIV. 
Chaste was she, to detraction's desperation. 

And wedded unto one she had loved well — 
A man known in the councils of the nation, 

Cool, and quite English, imperturbable, 
Though apt to act with fire upon occasion. 

Proud of himself and her : the world could tell 
Nought against either, and both seem'd secure — 
She in her virtue, he in his hauteur. 

XV. 

It chanced some diplomatical relations, 
Arising out of business, often brought 

Himself and Juan in their mutual stations 
Into close contact. Though reserved, nor caught 

By specious seeming, Juan's youth, and patience, 
And talent, on his haughty spirit wrought, 

And form'd a basis of esteem, which ends 

In making men what courtesy calls friends. 

XVI. 
And thus Lord Henry, who was cautious as 

Reserve and pride could make him, and full slow 
In judging men — when once his judgment was 

Determined, right or wrong, on friend or foe. 
Had all the pertinacity pride has, 

Which knows no ebb to its imperious flow, 
And loves or hates, disdaining to be guided. 
Because its own good pleasure hath decided. 

XVII. 
His friendships, therefore, and no less aversions, 

Though oft well founded, which confirm'd but more 
His prepossessions, like the laws of Persians 

And Medea, would ne'er revoke what went before. 



> "Your husband is in his old lunes again."— iferry Wives 
of WiruUor. 
• "Davus sum, non CEdipus."— Tek. 



His feelings had not those strange fits, like tertians, 

Of common likings, which make some deplore 
What they should laugh at — the mere ague still 
Of men's regard, the fever or the chiU. 

XVIII. 

" 'Tis not in mortals to command success :3 
But do you more, Sempronius — don't deserve it," 

And take my word, you won't have any less. 
Be wary, watch the time, and always serve it ; 

Give gently way, when there's too great a press ; 
And for your conscience, only learn to nerve it ; 

For, like a racer, or a boxer training, 

'Twill make, if proved, vast efforts without paining. 

XIX. 
Lord Henry also liked to be superior. 

As most men do, the little or the great ; 
The very lowest find out an inferior. 

At least they think so, to exert their state 
Upon : for there are very few things wearier 

Than solitary Pride's oppressive weight, 
Which mortals generously would divide. 
By bidding others carry while they ride. 

XX. 

In birth, in rank, in fortune likewise equal. 
O'er Juan he could no distinction claim ; 

In years he had the advantage of time's sequel ; 
And, as he thought, in country much the same — 

Because bold Britons have a tongue and free 
quill. 
At which all modern nations vainly aim ; 

And the Lord Henry was a great debater, 

So that few members kept the house up later. 

XXI. 

These were advantages : and then he thought — 
It was his foible, but by no means sinister — 

That few or none more than himself had caught 
Court mysteries, having been himself a minister: 

He liked to teach that which he had been taught. 
And greatly shone whenever there had been a 
stir; 

And reconciled all qualities which grace man. 

Always a patriot, and sometimes a placeman. 

XXIL 

He liked the gentle Spaniard for his gravity ; 

He almost honor'd him for his docility ; 
Because, though young, he acquiesced with suavity, 

,0r contradicted but with proud humility. 
He knew the world, and would not see depravity 

In faults which sometimes show the soil's fertility. 
If that the weeds o'erlive not the first crop — 
For then they are very difficult to stop. 



" 'Tis not in mortals to command success ; 

But we'll do more, Sempronius — we'll deserve it." 

Oxto. 



876 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Canto XIII. 



XXIII. 

And then he talk'd with him about Madrid, 
Constantinople, and such distant places ; 

Where people always did as they were bid, 
Or did what they should not with foreign graces. 

Of coursers also spake they : Henry rid 

Well, like most Englishmen, and loved the races ; 

And Juan, like a true-born Andalusian, 

Could back a horse, as despots ride a Russian. 

« 

XXIV. 

And thus acquaintance grew, at noble routs, 

And diplomatic dinners, or at other — 
For Juan stood well both with Ins g,nd Outs, 

As in freemasonry a higher brother. 
Upon his talent Henry had no doubts ; 

His manner show'd him sprung from a high mother ; 
And all men like to show their hospitality 
To him whose breeding matches with his quality. 

XXV. 

At Blank-Blank Square; — for we will break no 
squares 

By naming streets : since men are so censorious, 
And apt to sow an author's wheat with tares. 

Reaping allusions private and inglorious. 
Where none were dreamt of, unto love's aflfairs. 

Which were, or are, or are to be notorious. 
That therefore do I previously declare. 
Lord Henry's mansion was in Blank-Blank Square. 

XXVI. 

Also there bin i another pious reason 

For making squares and streets anonymous ; 

Which is, that there is scarce a single season 
Which doth not shake some very splendid house 

With some slight heart-quake of domestic treason — 
A topic scandal doth delight to rouse : 

Such I might stumble over unawares. 

Unless I knew the very chastest squares. 

XXVII. 

'Tis true, I might have chosen Piccadilly, 
A place where peccadilloes are unknown ; 

But I have motives, whether wise or silly, 
For letting that pure sanctuary alone. 

Therefore I name not square, street, place, until I 
Find one where nothing naughty can be shown, 

A vestal shrine of innocence of heart : 

Such are but I have lost the London Chart. 

XXVIII. 

At Henry's mansion then, in Blank-Blank Square, 
Was Juan a recherche, welcome guest. 

As many other noble scions were ; 
And some who had but talent for their crest ; 



1 " With every thing that pretty bin, 
My lady sweet, arise,"— Shakspe ark. 



Or wealth, which is a passport everywhere ; 

Or even mere fashion, which indeed's the best 
Recommendation ; and to be well drest 
Will very often supersede the rest. 

XXIX. 

And since " there's safety in a multitude 

Of counsellors," as Solomon has said. 
Or some one for him, in some sage, grave mood ; — 

Indeed we see the daily proof display'd 
In senates, at the bar, in wordy feud. 

Where'er collective wisdom can parade. 
Which is the only cause that we can guess 
Of Britain's present wealth and happiness ; — 

XXX. 

But as "there's safety" grafted in the number 
" Of counsellors," for men, — thus for the sex 

A large acquaintance lets not Virtue slumber ; 

Or should it shake, the choice will more perplex— 

Variety itself will more encumber. 

'Midst many rocks we guard more against wrecks 

And thus with women : howsoe'er it shocks some's 

Self-love, there's safety in a crowd of coxcombs. 

XXXI. 

But Adeline had not the least occasion 
For such a shield, which leaves but little merit 

To virtue proper, or good education. 
Her chief resource was in her own high spirit, 

Which judged mankind at their due estimation ; 
And for coquetry, she disdain'd to wear it : 

Secure of admiration, its impression 

Was faint, as of an every-day possession. 

XXXII. 

To ail she was polite without parade ; 

To some she show'd attention of that kind 
Which flatters, but is flattery convey'd 

In such a sort as cannot leave behind 
A trace unworthy either wife or maid ; — 

A gentle, genial courtesy of mind. 
To those who were, or pass'd for, meritorious, 
Just to console sad glory for being glorious ; 

XXXIII. 

Which is in all respects, save now and then, 
A dull and desolate appendage. Gaze 

Upon the shades of those distinguish'd men 
Who were or are the puppet-shows of praise, 

The praise of persecution. Gaze again 
On the most favor'd ; and amidst the blaze 

Of sunset halos o'er the laurel-brow'd. 

What can ye recognize ? — a gilded cloud. 

XXXIV. 
There also was of cou^-se in Adeline 

That calm patrician polish in the address, 
Which ne'er can pass the equinoctial line 

Of anything which nature would express ; 



Canto XIII. 



DON JUAN. 



877 



Just as a mandarin finds nothing fine, — 

At least his manner suffers not to guess, 
That anything he views can greatly please. 
Perhaps we have borrow'd this from the Chinese — 

XXXV. 

Perhaps from Horace : his ^^ Nil admirari"^ 
Was what he call'd the "Art of Happiness ;" 

An art on which the artists greatly vary, 
And have not yet attaiu'd to much success. 

However, 'tis expedient to be wary : 

Indifference certes don't produce distress ; 

And rash enthusiasm in good society 

Were nothing but a moral inebriety. 

XXXVI. 
But Adeline was not indifferent : for 

(Naw for a commonplace !) beneath the snow, 
As a volcano holds the lava more 

Within — et ccetera. Shall I go on? — No ! 
I hate to hunt down a tired metaphor, 

So let the often-used volcano go. 
Poor thing ! How frequently, by me and others, 
It hath been stirr'd up till its smoke quite smothers ! 

XXXVII. 
I'll have another figure in a trice : — 

What say you to a bottle of champagne? 
Frozen into a very vinous ice, 

Which leaves few drops of that immortal rain, 
Yet in the very centre, past all price. 

About a liquid glassful will remain ; 
And this is stronger than the strongest grape 
Could e'er express in its expanded shape : 

XXXVIII. 
'Tis the whole spirit brought to a quintessence ; 

And thus the chilliest aspects may concentre 
A hidden nectar under a cold presence. 

And such are many — though I only meant her 
From whom I now deduce these moral lessons, 

On which the Muse has always sought to enter. 
And your cold people are beyond all price. 
When once you've broken their confounded ice. 

XXXIX. 

But after all they are a Nortliwest Passage 

Unto the glowing India of the soul ; 
Aud as the good ships sent upon that message 

Have not exactly ascertain'd the Pole 



1 Seo ante, p. 794. 

» " The crpcd of Zoroaster, which naturally occurs to un- 
aasiated reason as a mode of accounting for the mingled ex- 
istence of good and evil in the visible world,— that belief 
which, in one modification or another, supposes the co-exists 
ence of a benevolent and malevolent principle, which contend 
together without either being able decisively to prevail over 
his antagonist, — leads the fear and awe deeply impressed on 
tho human mind to the worship as well of the author of 



(Though Parry's efforts look a lucky presage). 

Thus gentlemen may run upon a shoal ; 
For if the Pole's not open, but all frost 
(A chance still), 'tis a voyage or vessel lost. 

XL. 

And young beginners may as well commence 
With quiet cruising o'er the ocean woman ; 

While those who are not beginners should have sense 
Enough to make for port, ere Time shall summon 

With his gray signal-flag ; and the past tense, 
The dreary " Fuimus" of all things human. 

Must be declined, while life's thin thread's spun out 

Between the gaping heir and gnawing gout. 

XLI, 

But heaven must be diverted : its diversion 
Is sometimes truculent— but never mind : 

The world upon the whole is worth the assertion 
(If but for comfort) that all things are kind : 

And that same devilish doctrine of the Persian," 
Of the two principles, but leaves behind 

As many doubts as any other doctrine 

Has ever puzzled Faith withal, or yoked her in. 

XLII. 

The English winter — ending in July, 
To recommence in August — now was done. 

'Tis the postilion's paradise : wheels fly ; 
On roads, east, south, north, west, there is a run. 

But for post-horses who finds sympathy ? 
Man's pity's for himself, or for his son. 

Always premising that said son at college 

Has not contracted much more debt than knowledge. 

XLIII. 

The London winter's ended in July — 

Sometimes a little later. I don't err 
In this : whatever other blunders lie 

Upon my shoulders, here I must aver 
My Muse a glass of weatherology ; 

For parliament is our barometer : 
Let radicals its other acts attack. 
Its sessions form our only almanac. 

XLIV. 
When its quicksilver's down at zero, — lo ! 

Coach, chariot, luggage, baggage, equipage ! 
Wheels whirl from Carlton palace to Soho, 

And happiest they who horses can engage ; 



evil, so tremendous in all the effects of which credulity 
accounts him the primary cause, as to that of his great op- 
ponent, who is loved and adored as the father of all that is 
good and bountiful. Nay, such is the timid servility of human 
\ nature, that the worshippers will neglect the altar of the 
j Author of good, rather than that of Arimanes ; trusting with 
indifference to the well-known mercy of the one, while they 
shrink from the idea of irritating the vengeful jealousy of 
the awful father of evil." — Sib Walter Scott : Demonology, 
p. 88. 



878 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Canto XIII. 



The turnpikes glow with dust ; and Rotten Row 

Sleeps from the chivalry of this bright age ; 
And tradesmen, with long bills and longer faces, 
Sigh — as the postboys fasten on the traces. 

XLV. 
They and their bills, " Arcadians both,"i are left 

To the Greek kalends of another session. 
Alas ! to them of ready cash bereft, 

What hope remains ? Of hope the full possession, 
Or generous draft, conceded as a gift, 

At a long date — till they can get a fresh one — 
Hawk'd about at a discount, small or large ; 
Also the solace of an overcharge. 

XL VI. 

But these are trifles. Downward flies my lord, 
Nodding beside my lady in his carriage. 

Away ! away ! " Fresh horses !" are the word, 
And changed as quickly as hearts after marriage ; 

The obsequious landlord hath the change restored ; 
The postboys have no reason to disparage 

Their fee; but ere the water'd wheels may hiss 
hence. 

The ostler pleads too for a reminiscence. 

XLVII. 

'Tis granted ; and the valet mounts the dickey — 
That gentleman of lords and gentlemen ; 

Also my lady's gentlewoman, tricky, 
Trick'd out, but modest more than poet's pen 

Can paint, — "Cos^ viaggino i RicchiP^'^ 
(Excuse a foreign slipslop now and then, 

If but to show I've travell'd : and what's travel, 

Unless it teaches one to quote and cavil ?) 

XLVIII. 
The London winter and the country summer 

Were wellnigh over. 'Tis perhaps a pity. 
When Nature wears the gown that doth become her, 

To lose those best months in a sweaty city, 
And wait until the nightingale grows dumber, 

Listening debates not very wise or witty, 
Ere patriots their true country can remember ; — 
But there's no shooting (save grouse) till September. 

XLIX. 
I've done with my tirade. The world was gone ; 

The twice two thousand, for whom earth was made. 
Were vanish'd to be what they call alone — 

That is, with thirty servants for parade, 
As many guests, or more ; before whom groan ' 

As many covers, duly, daily laid. 
Let none accuse old England's hospitality — 
Its quantity is but condensed to quality. 

1 " Arcades ambo." 

2 " Thus the rich travel." 

3 "Byron was too good by nature for what he wished to be 
—he could not drain the blood of the cavaliers out of his 
veins— he could not cover the coronet all over with the red 



L. 

Lord Henry and the Lady Adeline 
Departed like the rest of their compeers, 

The peerage, to a mansion very fine ; 
The Gothic Babel of a thousand years. 

None than themselves could boast a longer line. 
Where time through heroes and through beauties 

And oaks as olden as their pedigree [steers ; 

Told of their sires, a tomb in every tree. 

LI. 

A paragraph in every paper told 
Of their departure : such is modem fame : 

'Tis pity that it takes no further hold 
Than an advertisement, or much the same ; 

When, ere the ink be dry, the sound grows cold. 
The Morning Post was foremost to proclaim — 

" Departure, for his country seat, to-day, 

Lord H. Amundeville and Lady A. 

LII. 

" We understand the splendid host intends 

To entertain, this autumn, a select 
And numerous party of his noble friends ; [correct, 

'Midst whom we have heard, from sources quite 
The Duke of D the shooting season spends, 

With many more by rank and fashion deck'd ; 
Also a foreigner of high condition. 
The envoy of the secret Russian mission." 

LIII. 
And thus we see — who doubts the Morning Post ? 

(Whose articles are like the " Thirty-nine," 
Which those most swear to who believe them most) — 

Our gay Russ Spaniard was ordain'd to shine, 
Deck'd by the rays reflected from his host, 

With those who. Pope says, " greatly daring dine." — 
'Tis odd, but true, — last war the News abounded 
More with these dinners than the kill'd or wounded ; — 

LIV. 

As thus : " On Thursday there was a grand dinner ; 

Present, Lords A. B. C."— Earls, dukes, by name 
Announced with no less pomp than victory's winner : 

Then underneath, and in the very same 
Column : date, " Falmouth. There has lately been here 

The Slap-dash regiment, so well known to fame, 
Whose loss in the late action we regret : 
The vacancies are fiU'd up— see Gazette." 

LV. 

To Norman Abbey whirl'd the noble pair, — 

An old, old monastery once, and now 
Still older mansion ,3— of a rich and rare 

Mix'd Gothic, such as artists all allow 

night-cap ;— hence that self-reproaching melancholy which 
was eternally crossing and unnerving him, — hence the dark 
heaving of soul with which he must have written, in his 
Italian villeggiatura, this glorious description of his own lost 
ancestral seat."— Lockhakt, 1824. 



CAifTo xin. 



DON JUAN. 



879 



Few specimens yet left us can compare 
Withal : ^ it lies perhaps a little low, 
Because the monks preferr'd a hill behind, 
To shelter their devotion from the wind.^ 

LVI. 
It stood embosom'd in a happy valley, 

Crown'd by high woodlands, where the Druid oak 
Stood like Caractacus, in act to rally 

His host, with broad arms 'gainst the thunder- 
stroke ; 
And from beneath his boughs were seen to sally 

The dappled foresters ; as day awoke, 
The branching stag swept down with all his herd. 
To quaflf a brook which murmur'd like a bird.' 

LVII. 
Before the mansion lay a lucid lake,* 

Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed 
By a river, which its soften'd way did take 

In currents through the calmer waters spread 
Around : the wildfowl nestled in the brake 

And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed : 
The woods sloped downwards to its brink, and stood 
With their green faces fix'd upon the flood. 

LVIII. 

Its outlet dash'd into a deep cascade. 
Sparkling with foam, until again subsiding, 

Its shriller echoes — like an infant made 
Quiet — sank into softer ripples, gliding 

Into a rivulet ; and thus allay'd. 
Pursued its course, now gleaming, and now hiding 

Its windings through the woods ; now clear, now blue. 

According as the skies their shadows threw. 

LIX. 
A glorious remnant of the Gothic pile 

(While yet the church was Rome's) stood half apart 
In a grand arch, which once screen'd many an aisle. 

These last had disappear'd — a loss to art : 
The first yet frown'd superbly o'er the soil. 

And kindled feelings in the roughest heart. 
Which moum'd the power of time's or tempest's 

march, 
In gazing on that venerable arch. 



1 "The front of Newstead Abbey has a most noble and 
majestic appearance ; being built in the form of the west end 
of a cathedral, adorned with rich carvings and lofty pin- 
nacles."— Art. Newstead, in Beauties of England, vol. xii. 

« "How sweetly in front looked the transparent water, 
and the light of religious remains (equalled by no architect- 
ure scarcely in the kingdom, except that of York cathedral), 
backed by the most splendid field beauties, diversified by the 
swells of the earth on which they were rooted !"— Thoro- 
TON'8 NoUingharmhire. 

' "The beautiful park of Newstede, which once wa.s richly 
ornamented with two thousand seven hundred head of deer, 
and numberless fine-spreading oaks, is now divided and sub- 
divided into farms."— /fcici. 



LX. 

Within a niche, nigh to its pinnacle. 

Twelve saints had once stood sanctified in stone ; 
But these had fallen, not when the friars fell, 

But in the war which struck Charles from his 
throne. 
When each house was a fortalice— as tell 

The annals of full many a line undone, — 
The gallant cavaliers, who fought in vain 
For those who knew not to resign or reign .& 

LXI. 

But in a higher niche, alone, but crown'd, 
The Virgin Mother of the God-born Child,* 

With her Son in her blessed arras, look'd round ; 
Spared by some chance when all beside was spoil'd ; 

She made the earth below seem holy ground ; 
This may be superstition, weak or wild. 

But even the faintest relics of a shrine 

Of any worship wake some thoughts divine. 

LXII. 

A mighty window, hollow in the centre, 
Sliorn of its glass of thousand colorings. 

Through which the deepen'd glories once could enter. 
Streaming from off the sun like seraph's wings, 

Now yawns all desolate : now loud, now fainter, 
The gale sweeps through its fretwork, and oft sings 

The owl his anthem, where the silenced choir 

Lie with their hallelujahs quench'd like fire. 

LXIII. 

But in the noontide of the moon, and when 
The wind is winged from one point of heaven, 

There moans a strange unearthly sound, which then 
Is musical — a dying accent driven 

Through the huge arch, which soars and sinks again. 
Some deem it but the distant echo given 

Back to the night wind by the waterfall, 

And harmonized by the old choral wall : 

LXIV. 

Others, that some original shape, or form 
Shaped by decay perchance, hath given the power 

(Though less than that of Memnon's statue,'' warm 
In Egypt's rays, to harp at a fix'd hour) 



♦ See ante, p. 560 :— 
" I did remind thee of our own dear Lake, 

By the old Hall, which may be mine no more : 
Leman's is fair ; but think not I forsake 

The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore ; 

Sad havoc Time must with my memory make, 

Ere thai or thou can fade these eyes before." 

Epistle to Augusta. 

6 See ante, p. 447, 

« " In the bow-window of the Hall there are yet the arms 
of Newstede Priory, viz., England, with a chief azure, in the 
middle whereof is the Virgin Mary with Babe or." — Thoro- 
TON. 

7 " The history of this wonderful statue seems to be simply 
this:— Herodotus, when he went into Egypt, was shown the 



880 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto XIIL 



To this gray ruin, with a voice to charm 

Sad, but serene, it sweeps o'er tree or tower ; 
The cause I know not, nor can solve ; but such 
The fact :— I've heard it, — once perhaps too much.i 

LXV. 

Amidst the court a Gothic fountain play'd,^ 

Symmetrical, but deck'd with carvings quaint- 
Strange faces, like to men in masquerade, 

And here perhaps a monster, there a saint : 
The spring gush'd through grim mouths -of granite 
made, 
And sparkled into basins, where it spent 
Its little torrent in a thousand bubbles, 
Like man's vain glory, and his vainer troubles. 

LXVI. 

The mansion's self was vast and venerable. 
With more of the monastic than has been 

Elsewhere preserved : the cloisters still were stable, 
The cells, too, and refectory, I ween ; 

An exquisite small chapel had been able, 
Still unimpair'd, to decorate the scene ; ' 

The rest had been reform'd, replaced, or sunk, 

And spoke more of the baron than the monk. 

LXVII. 

Huge halls, long galleries, spacious chambers, join'd 
By no quite lawful marriage of the arts. 

Might shock a connoisseur ; but when combined, 
Form'd a whole which, irregular in parts. 

Yet left a grand impression on the mind, 
At least of those whose eyes are in their hearts : 

We gaze upon a giant for his statute, 

forjudge at first if all be true to nature. 

LXVIII. 

Steel barons, molten the next generation 
To silken rows of gay and garter'd earls, 

Glanced from the walls in goodly preservation : 
And Lady Marys blooming into girls. 



fragments of a colossus, thrown down some years before by 
Cambyses. This he calls Memnon ; but says not a syllable 
respecting its emitting a vocal sound ; a prodigy which ap- 
pears to have been an after-thought of the priests of Thebes. 
The upper part of this statue has been covered by the sand 
for many ages ; it is that which yet remains on its pedestal 
which performs the wonders mentioned by so many travellers. 
In a word, the whole appears to have been a trick, not ill 
adapted to such a place as Egypt, where men went, and still 
go, with a face of foolish wonderment, predisposed to swallow 
the grossest absurdities. The sound (for some sound there 
was), I incline to think, with De Pauw, proceeded from an 
excavation near the plinth, the sides of which might be 
struck, at a preconcerted moment, with a bar of sonorous 
metal. Even Savary, who saw nothing but prodigies in Egypt, 
treats this foolish affair as an artifice of the priests. So much 
for the harp of Memnon !"—Gipford. See also Sir David 
Brewster's Natural Magic, p. 234. 

1 " Next to the apartment called King Edward the Third's 
room, on account of that monarch having slept there, is the 



With fair long locks, had also kept their station : 

And countesses mature in robes and pearls : 
Also some beauties of Sir Peter Lely, 
Whose drapery hints we may admire them freely. 

LXIX. 

Judges in very formidable ermine 

Were there, with brows that did not much invite 
The accused to think their lordships would determina 

His cause by leaning much from might to right : 
Bishops, who had not left a single sermon ; 

Attorneys-general, awful to the sight. 
As hinting more (unless our judgments warp us) 
Of the "Star Chamber" than of "Habeas Corpus." 

LXX. 

Generals, some all in armor, of the old 
And iron time, ere lead had ta'en the lead ; 

Others in wigs of Marlborough's martial fold, 
Huger than twelve of our degenerate breed : 

Lordlings, with staves of white or keys of gold : 
Nimrods, whose canvas scarce contain'd the 
steed ; 

And here and there some stern high patriot stood, 

Who could not get the place for which he sued. 

LXXI. 

But ever and anon, to soothe your vision, 
Fatigued with these hereditary glories, 

There rose a Carlo Dolce or a Titian, 
Or wilder group of savage Salvatore's : * 

Here danced Albano's boys, and here the sea shone 
In Vernet's ocean lights ; and there the stories 

Of martyrs awed, as Spagnoletto tainted 

His brush with all the blood of all the sainted. 

LXXIL 
Here sweetly spread a landscape of Lorraine ; 

There Rembrandt made his darkness equal light. 
Or gloomy Caravaggio's gloomier stain 

Bronzed o'er some lean and stoic anchorite : — 



sounding gallery,— so called from a very remarkable echo 
which it possesses." — Art. Newstead, in Beauties of England, 
vol. xii. 

2 " From the windows of the gallery over the cloisters, we 
see the cloister court, with a basin in the centre, used as a 
stew for fish, &c." — Art. Newstead, in Beauties of England, 
vol. xii. 

8 "The cloisters exactly resemble those of Westminster 
Abbey, only on a smaller scale ; but possessing, if possible, a 
more venerable appearance. These were the cloisters of the 
ancient abbey, and many of its ancient tenants now lie in 
silent repose under the flagged pavement. The ancient 
chapel, too, is still entire; its ceiling is a very handsome 
specimen of the Gothic style of springing arches."— Art. 
Newstead, in Beauties of England, vol. xii. 

* Salvator Rosa — 
" Whate'er Lorraine light touch'd with softening hue, 
Or savage Rosa dash'd, or learned Poussin drew."— 

Thomson's Castle of Indolence. 



Canto XIII. 



DON JUAN. 



881 



But, lo ! a Teniers woos, and not in vain, 

Your eyes to revel in a livelier sight : 
His bell-mouth'd goblet makes me feel quite Danish ^ 
Or Dutch with thirst— What, ho ! a flask of Rhenish. 

LXXIII. 

Oh, reader ! if that thou canst read, — and know, 
'Tis not enough to spell, or even to read, 

To constitute a reader ; there must go 

Virtues of which both you and I have need. 

Firstly, begin with the beginning— (though 
That clause is hard) ; and secondly, proceed : 

Thirdly, commence not with the end— or, sinning 

In this sort, end at last with the beginning. 

LXXIV. 
But, reader, thou hast patient been of late. 

While I, without remorse of rhyme, or fear, 
Have built and laid out ground at such a rate, 

Dan Phoebus takes me for an auctioneer. 
That poets were so from their earliest date, 

By Homer's " Catalogue of ships " is clear ; 
But a mere modern must be moderate — 
I spare you then the furniture and plate. 

LXXV. 

The mellow autumn came, and with it came 
The promised party, to enjoy its sweets. 

The corn is cut, the manor full of game ; 
The pointer ranges, and the sportsman beats 

In russet jacket : — lynx-like is his aim ; 
Full grows his bag, and -wonderful his feats. 

Ah, nutbrown partridges ! Ah, brilliant pheasants ! 

And ah, ye poachers 1 — 'Tis no sport for peasants. 

LXXVI. 

An English autumn, though it hath no vines, 
Blushing with Bacchant coronals along 

The paths, o'er which the far festoon entwines 
The red grape in the sunny lands of song. 

Hath yet a purchased choice of choicest wines ; 
The claret light, and the Madeira strong. 

If Britain mourn her bleakness, we can tell her, 

The very best of vineyards is the cellar. 

LXXVIT. 

Then, if she hath not that serene decline 

Which makes the southern autumn's day appear 

As if 'twould to a second spring resign 
The season, rather than to winter drear, — 

Of in-door comforts still she hath a mine, — 
The sea-coal fires, the " earliest of the year ;"2 

1 If I err not, " your Dane " is one of lago's catalogues of 
nations " exquisite in their drinkintc." 

• " Gray's omitted stanza — 
' Here scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year, 

By hands unseen, are showers of violets found ; 
The redbreast loves to build and warble here. 
And little footsteps lightly print the ground,' 
56 



Without doors, too, she may compete in mellow. 
As what is lost in green is gain'd in yellow. 

LXXVIII. 

And for the effeminate villeggiatura — [chase. 

Rife with more horns than hounds — she hath the 

So animated that it might allure a 
Saint from his beads to join the jocund race ; 

Even Nimrod's self might leave the plains of Dura,^ 
And wear the Melton jacket* for a space : 

If she hath no wild boars, she hath a tame 

Preserve of bores, who ought to be made game. 

LXXIX. 

The noble guests, assembled at the Abbey, 
Consisted of— we give the sex the pas — 

The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke ; the Countess Crabby ; 
The Ladies Scilly, Busey ; — Miss Eclat, 

Miss Bombazeen, Miss Mackstay, Miss O'Tabby, 
And Mrs. Rabbi, the rich banker's squaw ; 

Also the honorable Mrs. Sleep, 

Who look'd a white lamb, yet was a black sheep : 

LXXX. 

With other Countesses of Blank — but rank ; 

At once the " lie " and the " elite " of crowds ; 
Who pass like water filter'd in a tank. 

All purged and pious from their native clouds ; 
Or paper turn'd to money by the Bank : 

No matter how or why, the passport shrouds 
The "passee" and the past; for good society 
Is no less famed for tolerance than piety, — 

LXXXI. 

That is, up to a certain point ; which point 
Forms the most difficult in punctuation. 

Appearances appear to form the joint 
On which it hinges in a higher station ; 

And so that no explosion cry " Aroint 
Thee, witch !" ^ or each Medea has her Jason ; 

Or (to the point with Horace and with Pulci) 

"Omne tulit punctum, quae miscuit utile dulci.'* 

LXXXII. 

I can't exactly trace their rule of right, 
Which hath a little leaning to a lottery. 

I've seen a virtuous woman put down quite 
By the mere combination of a coterie ; 

Also a so-so matron boldly fight 
Her way back to the world by dint of plottery. 

And shine the very Siria^ of the spheres. 

Escaping with a few slight, scarless sneers. 



is as fine as any in the Elegy. I wonder that he could have 
the heart to omit \iV— Byron Diary, Feb. 1821. 

8 In Assyria. 

* For a graphic account of Melton Mowbray, the head- 
j quarters of the English chase, see Quarterly Review, vol. 
xlvii. p. 216. 

6 " AroirU thee, witch ! the rump-fed ronyon cries." — Macbeth. 

« Siria, i.e., bitch-star. 



882 



j)l^>l> Woyj<^. 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Canto XIII. 



LXXXIII. 

I have seen more than I'll say : — but we will see 

How our villeggiatura will get on. 
The party might consist of thirty-three 

Of highest caste — the Brahmins of the ton. 
I have named a few, not foremost in degree, 

But ta'en at hazard as the rhyme may run. 
By way of sprinkling, scatter'd amongst these. 
There also were some Irish absentees. 

LXXXIV. 

There was ParoUes, too, the legal bully, 

Who limits all his battles to the bar 
And senate : when invited elsewhere, truly, 

He shows more appetite for words than war. 
There was the young bard Rackrhyme, who had 
newly 

Come out and glimmer'd as a six weeks' star. 
There was Lord Pyrrho, too, the great freethinker ; 
And Sir John Pottledeep, the mighty drinker. 

LXXXV. 

There was the Duke of Dash, who was a — duke, 
" Ay, every inch a " duke ; there were twelve peers 

Like Charlemagne's — and all such peers in look 
And intellect, that neither eyes nor ears 

For commoners had ever them mistook. 
There were the six Miss Eawbolds — pretty dears ! 

All song and sentiment ; whose hearts were set 

Less on a convent than a coronet. 

LXXXVI. 

There were four Honorable Misters, whose 
Honor was more before their names than after ; 

There was the preux Chevalier de la E,use, 
Whom France and Fortune lately deign'd to waft 
here. 

Whose chiefly harmless talent was to amuse ; 
But the clubs found it rather serious laughter. 

Because — such was his magic power to please — 

The dice seem'd charm'd, too, with his repartees. 

LXXXVII. 

There was Dick Dubious, the metaphysician. 
Who loved philosophy and a good dinner ; 

Angle, the soi-disant mathematician ; 
Sir Henry Silvercup, the great race-winner. 

There was the Reverend Rodomont Precisian, 
Who did not hate so much the sin as sinner : 

And Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet, 

Good at all things, but better at a bet. 

LXXXVIII. 

There was Jack Jargon, the gigantic guardsman ; 

And General Fireface, famous in the field, 
A great tactician, and no less a swordsman, 

Who ate, last war, more Yankees than he kill'd. 



1 George Hardinge, Esq., M. P., one of the Welsh judges, 
died in 1816. His works were collected, in 1818, by Mr. Nichols. 



There was the waggish Welsh Judge, Jefieries Hards- 
man,i 
In his grave office so completely skill'd, /f] 
That when a culprit came for condemnation, v 
He had his judge's joke for consolation. 

LXXXIX. k 
Good company's a chess-board — there are kings, 

Queens, bishops, knights, rooks, pawns ; the world's 
a game ; 
Save that the puppets pull at their own strings, 

Methinks gay Punch hath something of the same. 
My Muse, the butterfly hath but her wings, 

Not stings, and flits through ether without aim, 
Alighting rarely :— were she but a hornet. 
Perhaps there might be vices which would mourn it. 

XC. 

I had forgotten — but must not forget — 

An orator, the latest of the session, 
Who had deliver'd well a very set 

Smooth speech, his first and maidenly transgression 
Upon debate : the papers echo'd yet 

With his debut, which made a strong impression, 
And rank'd with what is every day display'd — 
'* The best first speech that ever yet was made." 

XCI. 
Proud of his " Hear hims !" proud, too, of his vote 

And lost virginity of oratory, 
Proud of his learning (just enough to quote). 

He revell'd in his Ciceronian glory : 
With memory excellent to get by rote, 

With wit to hatch a pun or tell a story, 
Graced with some merit, and with more effrontery, 
" His country's pride," he came down to the country. 

XCII. 
There also were two wits by acclamation. 

Longbow from Ireland, Strongbow from the Tweed,^ 
Both lawyers and both men of education ; 

But Strongbow's wit was of more polish'd breed ; 
Longbow was rich in an imagination 

As beautiful and bounding as a steed. 
But sometimes stumbling over a potato, — 
While Strongbow's best things might have come from 
Cato. 

XCIII. 

Strongbow was like a new-tuned harpsichord ; 

But Longbow wild as an JEolian harp. 
With which the winds of heaven can claim accord, 

And make a music, whether flat or sharp. 
Of Strongbow's talk you would not change a word : 

At Longbow's phrases you might sometimes carp : 
Both wits — one born so, and the other bred, 
This by his heart — his rival by his head. 



2 Curran and Erskine. 



Canto XIII. 



DON JUAN. 



883 



xciv. 

If all these seem an heterogeneous mass 

To be assembled at a country seat, 
Yet think, a specimen of every class 

Is better than a humdrum tete-i\-tete. 
The days of Comedy are gone, alas ! 

When Congreve's fool could vie with Moligre's bite , 
Society is smooth'd to that excess, 
That manners hardly differ more than dress. 

xcv. 

Our ridicules are kept in the back-ground — 

Ridiculous enough, but also dull ; 
Professions, too, are no more to be found 

Professional ; and there is nought to cull 
Of folly's fruit; for though your fools abound, 

They're barren, and not worth the pains to pull. 
Society is now one polish'd horde, 
Form'd of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored, 

XCVI. 

But from being farmers, we turn gleaners, gleaning 
The scanty but right- well thresh'd ears of truth ; 

And, gentle reader ! when you gather meaning, « 
You may be Boaz, and I — modest Ruth. 

Further I'd quote, but Scripture intervening 
Forbids. A great impression in my youth 

Was made by Mrs. Adams, where she cries, 

" That Scriptures out of church are blasphemies." i 

XCVII. 
But what we can we glean in this vile age 

Of chaflf, although our gleanings be not grist. 
I must not quite omit the talking sage, 

Kit-Cat, the famous conversationist. 
Who, in his commonplace book, had a page 

Prepared each morn for evenings. " List, oh list !' 
" Alas, poor ghost !" — What unexpected woes 
Await those wlio have studied their bons-mots ! 

XCVIII. 
Firstly, they must allure the conversation. 

By many windings, to their clever clinch ; 
And secondly, must let slip no occasion. 

Nor bate (abate) their hearers of an inch, 
But take an ell — and make a great sensation. 

If possible ; and thirdly, never flinch 
When some smart talker puts them to the test. 
But seize the last word, which no doubt's the best. 

XCIX. 
Lord Henry and his lady were the hosts ; 

The party we have touch'd on were the guests. 
Their table was a board to tempt even ghosts 

To pass the Styx for more substantial feasts. 



> "Mrs. Adams answered Mr. Adams, that it was blas- 
phemous to talk of Scripture out of church." This dogma 
was broached to her husband— the beat Christian in any 
book.— See Joseph Andrews. 



I will not dwell upon ragoiits or roasts, 

Albeit all human history attests 
That happiness for man— the hungry sinner ! — 
Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner.'^ 

C. 
Witness the lands which "flow'd with milk and 
honey," 

Held out unto the hungry Israelites : 
To this we have added since, the love of money, 

Tlie only sort of pleasure which requites. 
Youth fades, and leaves our days no longer sunny ; 

We tire of mistresses and parasites ; 
But oh, ambrosial cash ! Ah ! who would lose thee ? 
When we no more can use, or even abuse thee ! 

CI. 

The gentlemen got up betimes to shoot, 

Or hunt : the young, because they liked the sport — 
The first thing boys like after play and fruit ; 

The middle-aged, to make the day more short ; 
For ennui is a growth of English root, 

Though nameless in our language : — we retort 
The fact for words, and let the French translate 
That awful yawn which sleep can not abate. 

CII. 
The elderly walk'd through the library. 

And tumbled books, or criticised the pictures, 
Or saunter'd through the gardens piteously, 
j And made upon the hot-house several strictures, 
' Or rode a nag which trotted not too high, 
! Or on the morning papers read their lectures, 
; Or on the watch their longing eyes would fix, 
Longing at sixty for the hour of six. 

cm. 

But none were " gen^ :" the great hour of union 
Was rung by dinner's knell ; till then all were 

Masters of their own time — or in communion. 
Or solitary, as they chose to bear 

The hours, which how to pass is but to few known. 
Each rose up at his own, and had to spare 

What time he chose for dress, and broke his fast 

When, where, and how he chose for that repast. 

CIV. 

The ladies — some rouged, some a little pale — 
Met the morn as they might. If fine, they rode, 

Or walk'd ; if foul, they read, or told a tale. 
Sung, or rehearsed the last dance from abroad ; 

Discuss'd the fashion which might next prevail. 
And settled bonnets by the newest code. 

Or cramm'd twelve sheets into one little letter. 

To make each correspondent a new debtor. 



2 "A man .seldom thinks with more earnestness of any 
thing than he does of his dinner; and if he cannot get that 
well dressed, he should be suspected of inaccuracy in other 
things."— .Johnson. 



884 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Canto XIV. 



CV. 



For some had absent lovers, all had friends. 

The earth has nothing like §, she epistle, 
And hardly heaven — because it never ends. 

I love the mystery of a female missal, 
Which, like a creed, ne'er says all it intends, 

But full of cunning as Ulysses' whistle. 
When he allured poor Dolon : — you had better 
Take care what you reply to such a letter. 

CVI. 
Then there were billiards ; cards, too, but no dice ; — 

Save in the clubs no man of honor plays ; — 
Boats when 'twas water, skating when 'twas ice, 

And the hard frost destroy'd the scenting days : 
And angling, too, that solitary vice, 

Whatever Izaak Walton sings or says : 
The quaint, old, cruel coxcomb, in his gullet 
Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it.i 

CVII. 

With evening came the banquet and the wine ; 

The conversazione ; the duet. 
Attuned by voices more or less divine 

(My heart or head aches with the memory yet). 
The four Miss Rawbolds in a glee would shine ; 

But the two youngest loved more to be set 
Down to the harp — because to music's charms 
They added graceful necks, white hands and arms. 

CVIII. 

Sometimes a dance (though rarely on field days, 
For then the gentlemen were rather tired) 

Display' d some sylph-like figures in its maze ; 
Then there was small-talk ready when required; 

Flirtation — but decorous ; the mere praise 

Of charms that should or should not be admired. 

The hunters fought their fox-hunt o'er again. 

And then retreated soberly — at ten. 

CIX. 
The politicians, in a nook apart, 

Discuss'd the world, and settled all the spheres : 
The wits watch'd every loophole for their art, 

To introduce a bon-mot head and ears ; 
Small is the rest of those who would be smart, 

A moment's good thing may have cost them years 
Before they find an hour to introduce it ; 
And then, even then, some bore may make them lose it. 



1 It would have taught him humanity at least. This sen- 
timental savage, whom, it is a mode to quote (amongst the 
novelists) to show their sympathy for innocent sports and 
old songs, teaches how to sew up frogs, and break their legs 
by way of experiment, in addition to the art of angling, — the 
crudest, the coldest, and the stupidest of pretended sports. 
They may talk about the beauties of nature, but the angler 
merely thinks of his dish of fish ; he has no leisure to take 
his eyes from off the streams, and a single bite is worth to him 
more than all the scenery around. Besides, some fish bite 
best on a rainy day. The whale, the shark, and the tunny 



ex. 



But all was gentle and aristocratic 

In this our party ; polish'd, smooth, and cold, 
As Phidian forms cut out of marble Attic. 

There now are no Squire Westerns as of old ; 
And our Sophias are not so emphatic, 

But fair as then, or fairer to behold. 
We have no accomplish'd blackguards, like Tom 

Jones, 
But gentlemen in stays, as stiff as stones. 

CXI. 
They separated at an early hour ; 

That is, ere midnight — which is London's noon : 
But in the country ladies seek their bower 

A little earlier than the waning moon. 
Peace to the slumbers of each folded flower — 

May the rose call back its true color soon ! 
Good hours of fair cheeks are the fairest tinters. 
And lower the price of rouge — at least some winters. 



Bon 3?uan« 



CANTO THE FOTJETEENTH. 



I. 

If from great nature's or our own abyss 
Of thought we could but snatch a certainty. 

Perhaps mankind might find the path they miss — 
But then 'twould spoil much good philosophy. 

One system eats another up, and this 
Much as old Saturn ate his progeny ; 

For when his pious consort gave him stones 

In lieu of sons, of these he made no bones. 

II. 

But System doth reverse the Titan's breakfast. 
And eats her parents, albeit the digestion 

Is difficult. Pray tell me, can you make fast, 
After due search, your faith to any question ? 

Look back o'er ages, ere unto the stake fast 
You bind yourself, and call some mode the best one. 

Nothing more true than not to trust your senses ; 

And yet what are your other evidences ? 



fishery have somewhat of noble and perilous in them ; even 
net fishing, trawling, &c., are more humane and useful. But 
angling !— no angler can be a good man. 

" One of the best men I ever knew, — as humane, delicate- 
minded, generous, and excellent a creature as any in the 
world, — was an angler: true, he angled with painted flies, 
and would have been incapable of the extravagancies of I. 
Walton." 

The above addition was made by a friend in reading over 
the MS.—" Audi alteram partem."— I leave it to counterbal- 
ance my own observation. 



Canto XIV. 



DON JUAN. 



886 



III. 

For me, I know nought ; nothing I deny, 
Admit, reject, contemn ; and what know you, 

Except perhaps that you were born to die ? 
And both may after all turn out untrue. 

An age may come. Font of Eternity, 
When nothing shall be either old or new. 

Death, so call'd, is a thing which makes men weep. 

And yet a third of life is pass'd in sleep. 

IV. 

A sleep without dreams, after a rough day 
Of toil, is what we covet most ; and yet 

How clay shrinks back from more quiescent clay ! 
The very Suicide that pays his debt 

At once without installments (an old way 
Of paying debts, which creditors regret), 

Lets out impatiently his rushing breath, 

Less from disgust of life than dread of death. 

V. 
'Tis round him, near him, here, there, everywhere, 

And there's a courage which grows out of fear, 
Perhaps of all most desperate,' which will dare 

The worst to know it : — when the mountains rear 
Their peaks beneath your human foot, and there 

You look down o'er the precipice, and drear 
The gulf of rock yawns, — you can't gaze a minute, 
Without an awful wish to plunge within it. 

VI. 
'Tie true, you don't — but, pale and struck with terror. 

Retire : but look into your past impression ! 
And you will find, though shuddering at the mirror 

Of your own thoughts, in all their self-confession, 
The lurking bias, be it truth or error, 

To the unknown ; a secret prepossession, [not, 

To plunge with all your fears — but where ? You know 
And that's the reason why you do — or do not. 

VII. 
But what's this to the purpose ? you will say. 

Gent, reader, nothing ; a mere speculation. 
For which my sole excuse is — 'tis my way ; 

Sometimes with and sometimes without occasion, 
I write what's uppermost, without delay ; 

This narrative is not meant for narration, 
But a mere airy and fantastic basis. 
To build up common things with common places. 

VIII. 
You know, or don't know, that great Bacon saith, 

"Fling up a straw, 'twill show the way the wind 
blows ;" 
And such a straw, borne on by human breath. 

Is poesy, according a.s the mind glows; 
A paper kite which flies 'twixt life and death, 

A shadow which the onward soul behind throws : 
And mine's a bubble, not blown up for praise, 
But just to play with, as an infant plays. 



IX. 

The world is all before me — or behind ; 

For I have seen a poftion of that same, 
And quite enough for me to keep in mind ; — 

Of passions, too, I have proved enough to blame, 
To the great pleasure of our friends, mankind. 

Who like to mix some slight alloy with fame ; 
For I was rather famous in my time. 
Until I fairly knock'd it up with rhyme. 

X. 

I have brought this world about my ears, and eke 
The other ; that's to say, the clergy — who 

Upon my head have bid their thunders break 
In pious libels by no means a few. 

And yet I can't help scribbling once a week, 
Tiring old readers, nor discovering new. 

In youth I wrote because my mind was full, 

And now because I feel it growing dull. 

XI. 

But " why then publish ?" ^ — there are no rewards 
Of fame or profit when the world grows weary. 

I ask in turn, — Why do you play at cards ? 
Why drink ? Why read ? — To make some hour less 
dreary. 

It occupies me to turn back regards 
On what I've seen or ponder'd, sad or cheery ; 

And what I write I cast upon the stream, 

To swim or sink — I have had at least my dream. 

XII. 

I think that were I certain of success, 

I hardly could compose another line : 
So long I've battled either more or less, 

That no defeat can drive me from the Nine. 
This feeling 'tis not easy to express. 

And yet 'tis not affected, I opine. 
In play, there are two pleasures for your choosing — 
The one is winning, and the other losing. 

XIIL 
Besides, my Muse by no means deals in fiction : 

She gathers a repertory of facts, 
Of course with some reserve and slight restriction, 

But mostly sings of human things and acts — 
And that's one cause she meets with contradiction ; 

For too much truth, at first sight, ne'er attracts; 
And were her object only what's call'd glory. 
With more ease too she'd tell a different story. 

XIV. 

Love, war, a tempest — surely there's variety ; 

Also a seasoning slight of lucubration ; 
A bird's-eye view, too, of that wild, Society ; 

A slight glance thrown on men of every station. 



1 "But why then publish ? — Granville, the polite, 
And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write." 

POPB. 



886 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



Canto XIV. 



If you have nought else, here's at least satiety, 

Both in performance and in preparation ; 
And though these lines should^)nly line portmanteaus, 
Trade will be all the better for these Cantos. 

XV. 

The portion of this world which I at present 
Have taken up to fill the following sermon, 

Is one of which there's no description recent : 
The reason why, is easy to determine : 

Although it seems both prominent and pleasant, 
There is a sameness in its gems and ermine, 

A dull and family likeness through all ages, 

Of no great promise for poetic pages. 

XVI. 

With much to excite, there's little to exalt ; 

Nothing that speaks to all men and all times ; 
A sort of varnish over every fault ; 

A kind of commonplace, even in their crimes ; 
Factitious passions, wit without much salt, 

A want of that true nature which sublimes 
Whate'er it shows with truth ; a smooth monotony 
Of character, in those at least who have got any. 

XVIT. 

Sometimes, indeed, like soldiers ojff parade. 
They break their ranks and gladly leave the drill ; 

But then the roll-call draws them back afraid. 
And they must be or seem what they were : still 

Doubtless it is a brilliant masquerade : 
But when of the first sight you have had your fill. 

It palls — at least it did so upon me, 

This paradise of pleasure and ennui. 

XVIII. 
When we have made our love, and gamed our gaming, 

Drest, voted, shone, and, may be, something more ; 
With dandies dined ; heard senators declaiming ; 

Seen beauties brought to market by the score, 
Sad rakes to sadder husbands chastely taming ; 

There's little left but to be bored or bore. 
Witness those " ci-devant jeunes hommes" who stem 
The stream, nor leave the world which leaveth them. 

XIX. 

'Tis said — indeed a general complaint — 
That no one has succeeded in describing 

The monde, exactly as they ought to paint : 
Some say, that authors only snatch, by bribing 

The porter, some slight scandals strange and quaint. 
To furnish matter for their moral gibing ; 

And that their books have but one style in common — 

My lady's prattle, filter'd through her woman. 

XX. 

But this can't well be true, just now ; for writers 
Are grown of the beau monde a part potential : 

I've seen them balance even the scale with fighters, 
Especially when young, for that's essential. 



Why do their sketches fail them as inditers 

Of what they deem themselves most consequential, 
The real portrait of the highest tribe ? 
'Tis that, in fact, there's little to describe. 

XXI. 

"Haud ignara loquor ;" these are Nugce, "quarum 
Pars parva/m," but still art and part. 

Now I could much more easily sketch a harem, 
A battle, wreck, or history of the heart, 

Than these things ; and besides, I wish to spare 'em, 
For reasons which I choose to keep apart. 

" Vetabo Cereris sacrum qui vulgarit " ^ — 

Which means, tha^ vulgar people must not share it. 

XXII. 

And therefore what I throw off is ideal — 
Lower'd, leaven'd, like a history of freemasons ; 

Which bears the same relation to the real, 
As Captain Parry's voyage may do to Jason's. 

The grand arcanum's not for men to see at all \ 
My music has some mystic diapasons ; 

And there is much which could not be appreciated 

In any manner by the uninitiated. 

XXIII. 

Alas ! worlds fall — and woman, since she fell'd 
The world (as, since that history, less polite 

Than true, hath been a creed so strictly held). 
Has not yet given up the practice quite. 

Poor thing of usages ! coerced, compell'd, 
Victim when wrong, and martyr oft when right, 

Condemn'd to child-bed, as men for their sins 

Have shaving too entail'd upon their chins, — 

XXIV. 

A daily plague, which in the aggregate 

May average on the whole with parturition. 

But as to women, who can penetrate 
The real sufferings of their she condition ? 

Man's very sympathy with their estate 
Has much of selfishness, and more suspicion. 

Their love, their virtue, beauty, education. 

But form good housekeepers, to breed a nation. 

XXV. 

All this were very well, and can't be better ; 

But even this is difficult. Heaven knows, 
So many troubles from her birth beset her, 

Such small distinction between friends and foes, 
The gilding wears so soon from off her. fetter, 

That but ask any woman if she'd choose 

(Take her at thirty, that is) to have been 
Female or male ? a schoolboy or a queen? 

XXVI. 

" Petticoat influence " is a great reproach, 
Which even those who obey would fain be thought 

1 Hor. Carm. 1. iii. od. 2. > 



Canto XIV. 



DON JUAN, 



887 



To &j from, as from hungry pikes a roach ; 

But since beneath it upon earth we are brought, 
By various joltings of life's hackney coach, 

I for one venerate a petticoat — 
A garment of a mystical sublimity, 
No matter whether russet, silk, or dimity. 

XXVII. 
Much I respect, and much I have adored. 

In my young days, that chaste and goodly veil, 
Which holds a treasure, like a miser's hoard, 

And more attracts by all it doth conceal — 
A golden scabbard on a Damasque sword, 

A loving letter with a mystic seal, 
A cure for grief— for what can ever rankle 
Before a petticoat and peeping ankle ? 

XXVIII. 
And when upon a silent, sullen day, 

With a sirocco, for example, blowing, 
When even the sea looks dim with all its spray, 

And sulkily the river's ripple's flowing, 
And the sky shows that very ancient gray, 

The sober, sad antithesis to glowing, — 
'Tis pleasant, if then anything is pleasant, 
To catch a glimpse even of a pretty peasant. 

XXIX. 

We left our heroes and our heroines 
In that fair clime which don't depend on 
climate, 

Quite independent of the Zodiac's signs, 
Though certainly more diflacult to rhyme at. 

Because the sun, and stars, and aught that shines, 
Mountains, and all we can be most sublime at, 

Are there oft dull and dreary as a dun — 

Whether a sky's or tradesman's is all one. 

XXX. 

An indoor life is less poetical ; 

And out-of-door hath showers, and mists, and 
sleet. 
With which I could not brew a pastoral. 

But be it as it may, a bard must meet 
All difficulties, whether great or small, 

To spoil his undertaking, or complete, 
And work away like spirit upon matter, 
Embarrass'd somewhat both with fire and water. 

XXXI. 

Juan — in this respect, at least, like saints — 
Was all things unto people of all sorts, 

And lived contentedly, without complaints. 
In camps, in ships, in cottages, or courts — 

1 Q-aning.— "To crane" is, or waa, an expression used to 
denote a gentleman's stretching out his neck over a hedge, 
" to look before he leaped ;" — a pause in his " vaulting am- 
bition," which in the field doth occasion some delay and 
execration in those who may be Immediately behind the 
equestrian skeptic. " Sir, if you don't choose to take the leap, 



Born with that happy soul which seldom faints, 

And mingling modestly in toils or sports. 
He likewise could be rnost things to all women, 
Without the coxcombry of certain she men. 

XXXII. 
A fox-hunt to a foreigner is strange ; 

'Tis also subject to the double danger 
Of tumbling first, and having in exchange 

Some pleasant jesting at the awkward stranger : 
But Juan had been early taught to range 

The wilds, as doth an Arab turn'd avenger. 
So that his horse, or charger, hunter, hack, 
Knew that he had a rider on his back. 

XXXIII. 

And now in this new field, with some applause. 
He clear'd hedge, ditch, and double post and rail, 

And never craned,^ and made but few '^ faux pas,'^ 
And only fretted when the scent 'gan fail. 

He broke, 'tis true, some statutes of the laws 
Of hunting — for the sagest youth is frail. 

Rode o'er the hounds, it may be, now and then, 

And once o'er several country gentlemen. 

XXXIV. 

But on the whole, to general admiration 
He acquitted both himself and horse : the squires 

Marvell'd at merit of another nation ; [Sires, 

The boors cried " Dang it ! who'd have thought it?" — 

The Nestors of the sporting generation. 
Swore praises, and recall'd their former fires ; 

The huntsman's self relented to a grin. 

And rated him almost a whipper-in. 

XXXV. 

Such were his trophies — not of spear and shield. 
But leaps, and bursts, and sometimes foxes' brushes ; 

Yet I must own, — although in this I yield 
To patriot sympathy a Briton's blushes, — \ 

He thought at heart like courtly Chesterfield, 
Who, after a long chase o'er hills, dales, bushes, 

And what not, though he rode beyond all price, 

Ask'd next day, " If men ever hunted twicef'^'^ 

XXXVI. 

He also had a quality uncommon 

To early risers after a long chase. 
Who wake in winter ere the cock can summon 

December's drowsy day to his dull race,— 
A quality agreeable to woman, 

When her soft, liquid words run on apace. 
Who likes a listener, whether saint or sinner, — 
He did not fall asleep just after dinner ; 



let me !"— was a phrase which generally sent the aspirant on 
again ; and to good purpose : for though "^the horse and 
rider" might fall, they made a gap through which, and over 
him and his steed, the field might follow. 

2 See his Letters to his Son. 



888 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto XIV. 



XXXVII. 

But, light and airy, stood on the alert, 
And shone in the best part of dialogue, 

By humoring always what they might assert. 
And listening to the topics most in vogue, 

Now grave, now gay, but never dull or pert ; 
And smiling but in secret— cunning rogue !— 

He ne'er presumed to make an error clearer ; — 

In short, there never was a better hearer. 

XXXVIII. 

And then he danced ;— all foreigners excel 

The serious Angles in the eloquence 
Of pantomime ;— he danced, I say, right well, 

With emphasis, and also with good sense — 
A thing in footing indispensable ; 

He danced without theatrical pretence, 
Not like a ballet-master in the van 
Of his drill'd nymphs, but like a gentleman. 

XXXIX. 

Chaste were his steps, each kept within due bound, 
And elegance was sprinkled o'er his figure : 

Like swift Camilla, he scarce skimm'd the ground,^ 
And rather held in than put forth his vigor; 

And then he had an ear for music's sound, 
Which might defy a crotchet critic's rigor. 

Such classic pas — sans flaws — set ofif our hero, 

He glanced like a personified Bolero ; ^ 

XL. 

Or like a flying Hour before Aurora, 
In Guido's famous fresco,^ which alone 

Is worth a tour to Rome, although no more a 
Remnant were there of the old world's sole 
throne. 

The " tout ensemble " of his movements wore a 
Grace of the soft ideal, seldom shown, 

And ne'er to be described ; for to the dolor 

Of bards and prosers, words are void of color. 

XLI. 
No marvel then he was a favorite ; 

A full-grown Cupid, very much admired ; 
A little spoilt, but by no means so quite ; 

At least he kept his vanity retired. 
Such was his tact, he could alike delight 

The chaste, and those who are not so much inspired. 
The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke, who loved " tracasserie" 
Began to treat him with some small " agacerie." 

XLII. 

She was a fine and somewhat full-blown blonde, 

Desirable, distinguish'd, celebrated 
For several winters in the grand, grand monde. 

I'd rather not say what might be related 



" as she skimm'd along, 

Her flying feet unbathed on billows hung." 

Dryden's Virgil. 



Of her exploits, for this were ticklish ground ; 

Besides there might be falsehood in what's stated : 
Her late performance had been a dead set 
At Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet. 

XLIII. 

This noble personage began to look 
A little black upon this new flirtation ; 

But such small licenses must lovers brook. 
Mere freedoms of the female corporation. 

Woe to the man who ventures a rebuke ! 
'Twill but precipitate a situation 

Extremely disagreeable, but common 

To calculators when they count on woman. 

XLIV. 

The circle smiled, then whisper'd, and then sneer'd ; 

The misses bridled, and the matrons frown'd ; 
Some hoped things might not turn out as they fear'd ; 

Some would not deem such women could be found ; 
Some ne'er believed one half of what they heard ; 

Some look'd perplex'd, and others look'd pro- 
found ; 
And several pitied with sincere regret 
Poor Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet. 

XLV. 

But what is odd, none ever named the duke. 
Who, one might think, was something in the 
afiiair ; 

True, he was absent, and, 'twas rumor'd, took 
But small concern about the when, or where, 

Or what his consort did : if he could brook 
Her gayeties, none had a right to stare : 

Theirs was that best of unions, past all doubt, 

Which never meets, and therefore can't fall out. 

XLVI. 

But, oh ! that I should ever pen so sad a line ! 

Fired with an abstract love of virtue, she. 
My Dian of the Ephesians, Lady Adeline, 

Began to think the duchess' conduct free ; 
Regretting much that she had chosen so bad a line, 

And waxing chiller in her courtesy, 
Look'd grave and pale to see her friend's fragility, 
For which most friends reserve their sensibility. 

XLVII. 

There's nought in this bad world like sympathy : 

'Tis so becoming to the soul and face. 
Sets to soft music the harmonious sigh. 

And robes sweet friendship in a Brussels lace. 
Without a friend, what were humanity. 

To hunt our errors up with a good grace ? 
Consoling us with — " Would you had thought twice ! 
Ah ! if you had but follow'd my advice !" 



2 A Spanish dance noted for its liveliness. 

3 " Guido's most celebrated work, in the palaces of Rome, is 
his fresco of the Aurora, in the Palazzo Eospigliosi." — ^Beyant. 



Canto XIV 



DON JUAN. 



889 



XLVIII. 
Oh, Job 1 you had two friends : one's quite enough, 

Especially when we are ill at ease ; 
They are but bad pilots when the weather's rough, 

Doctors less famous for their cures than fees. 
Let no man grumble when his friends fall off, 

As they will do like leaves at the first breeze : 
When your affairs come round, one way or t'other. 
Go to the coffee-house, and take another.^ 

XLIX. 

But this is not my maxim : had it been, [not — 

Some heartaches had been spared me: yet I care 

I would not be a tortoise in his screen [not. 

Of stubborn shell, which waves and weather wear 

'Tis better on the whole to have felt and seen 
That which humanity may bear, or bear not : 

'Twill teach discernment to the sensitive, 

And not to pour their ocean in a sieve. 



Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe. 
Sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast, 

Is that portentous phrase, " I told you so," 
Utter'd by friends, those prophets of the past. 

Who, 'stead of saying what you now should do. 
Own they foresaw that you would fall at last. 

And solace your slight lapse 'gainst "bonos more^," 

With a long memorandum of old stories. 

LI. 
The Lady Adeline's serene severity 

Was not confined to feeling for her friend. 
Whose fame she rather doubted with posterity, 

Unless her habits should begin to mend : 
But Juan also shared in her austerity, 

But mix'd with pity, pure as e'er was penn'd : 
His inexperience moved her gentle ruth, 
And (as her junior by six weeks) his youth. 

LII. 
These forty days' advantage of her years — 

And hers were those which can face calculation. 
Boldly referring to the list of peers 

And noble births, nor dread the enumeration — 
Gave her a right to have maternal fears 

For a young gentleman's fit education. 
Though she was far from that leap year, whose leap, 
In female dates, strikes Time all of a heap. 

LIII. 
This may be fix'd at somewhere before thirty — 
Say seven-and-twenty ; for I never knew 



1 In Swift's or Horace Walp>ole's lettera I think it is men- 
tioned that somebody, regretting the loss of a friend, was 
answered by an universal Pylades: "When I lose one, I go 
to the Saint James's Coffee-house, and take another." I rec- 
ollect having heard an anecdote of the same kind. — Sir W. 
D. was a great gamester. Coming in one day to the club of 



The strictest in chronology and virtue 
Advance beyond, while they could pas^s for ncTf. 

Oh, Time ! why dost not pause ? Thy scythe, so dirty 
With rust, should surely cease to hack and hew. 

Reset it ; shave more smoothly, also slower, 

If but to keep thy credit as a mower. 

LIV. 

But Adeline was far from that ripe age, 
Whose ripeness is but bitter at the best : 

'Twas rather her experience made her sage, 
For she had seen the world and stood its test, 

As I have said in — I forget what page ; 

My Muse despises reference, as you have guess'd 

By this time ; — but strike six from seven-and-twenty. 

And you will find her sum of years in plenty. 

LV. 

At sixteen she came out ; j^resented, vaunted. 

She put all coronets into commotion : 
At seventeen, too, the world was still enchanted 

With the new Venus of their brilliant ocean : 
At eighteen, though below her feet still panted 

A hecatomb of suitors with devotion. 
She had consented to create again 
That Adam, call'd " The happiest of men." 

LVI. 

Since then she had sparkled through three glowing 
winters. 

Admired, adored ; but also so correct. 
That she had puzzled all the acutest hinters, 

Without the apparel of being circumspect : 
They could not even glean the slightest splinters 

From off the marble, which had no defect. 
She had also snatch'd a moment since her marriage 
To bear a son and heir — and one miscarriage. 

LVII. 

Fondly the wheeling fire-flies flew around her, 
Those little glitterers of the London night ; 

But none of these possess'd a sting to wound her — 
She was a pitch beyond a coxcomb's flight. 

Perhaps she wish'd an aspirant profounder ; 
But whatsoe'er she wish'd, she acted right ; 

And whether coldness, pride, or virtue, dignify 

A woman, so she's good, what does it signify ? 

LVIII. 
I hate a motive, like a lingering bottle 

Which with the landlord makes too long a stand. 
Leaving all-claretless the unmoisten'd throttle, 

Especially with politics on hand ; 



which he was a member, he was observed to look melancholy. 
"What is the matter, Sir William?" cried Hare, of facetious 
memory. " Ah !" replied Sir W., " I have just lost poor Lady 
D."—"Lost! What at? Quinze oi Hazard f" was the con- 
solatory rejoinder of the querist. 



890 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Canto XIV. 



I hate it, as I hate a drove of cattle, 

Who whirl the dust as simooms whirl the sand ; 
I hate it, as I hate an argument, 
A laureate's ode, or servile peer's "content." 

LIX. 

'Tis sad to hack into the roots of things, 
They are so much intertwisted with the earth ; 

So that the branch a goodly verdure flings, 
I reck not if an acorn gave it birth. 

To trace all actions to their secret springs 
Would make indeed some melancholy mirth ; 

But this is not at present my concern. 

And I refer you to wise Oxenstiern.i 

LX. 

With the kind view of saving an 6clat, 

Both to the duchess and diplomatist, 
The Lady Adeline, as soon's she saw 

That Juan was unlikely to resist — 
(For foreigners don't know that a faux pas 

In England ranks quite on a diflerent list 
From those of other lands unblest with juries, 
Whose verdict for such sin a certain cure is ; — ) 

LXI. 

The Lady Adeline resolved to take 
Such measures as she thought might best 
impede 

The further progress of this sad mistake. 
She thought with some simplicity indeed ; 

But innocence is bold even at the stake. 
And simple in the world, and doth not need 

Nor use those palisades by dames erected, 

Whose virtue lies in never being detected. 

LXII. 

It was not that she fear'd the very worst : 
His Grace was an enduring, married man. 

And was not likely all at once to burst 
Into a scene, and swell the clients' clan 

Of Doctors' Commons ; but she dreaded first 
The magic of her Grace's talisman, 

And next a quarrel (as he seem'd to fret) 

With Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet. 

Lxin. 

Her Grace, too, pass'd for being an intrigante, 
And somewhat on^chante in her amorous sphere ; 

One of those pretty, precious plagues, which haunt 
A lover with caprices soft and dear. 

That like to make a quarrel, when they can't 
Find one, each day of the delightful year : 

Bewitching, torturing, as they freeze or glow. 

And — what is worst of all — won't let you go : 

1 The famous Chancellor Oxenstiern said to his son, on the 
latter expressing his surprise upon the great effects arising 
from petty causes in the presumed mystery of politics : " You 
see by this, my son, with how little wisdom the kingdoms of 
the world are governed." — The true story is : young Oxen- 



LXIV. 

The sort of thing to turn a young man's head, 

Or make a Werter of him in the end. 
No wonder then a purer soul should dread 

This sort of chaste liaison for a friend ; 
It were much better to be wed or dead. 

Than wear a heart a woman loves to rend. 
'Tis best to pause, and think, ere you rush on, 
If that a *' bonne fortune" be really " bonne." 

LXV. 

And first, in the overflowing of her heart. 

Which really knew or thought it knew no guile. 

She call'd her husband now and then apart. 
And bade him counsel Juan. With a smile 

Lord Henry heard her plans of artless art 
To wean Don Juan from the siren's wile ; 

And answer'd, like a statesman or a prophet, 

In such guise that she could make nothing of it. 

LXVI. 

Firstly, he said, " he never interfered 
In anybody's business but the king's :" 

Next, that " he never judged from what appear'd, 
Without strong reason, of those sort of things :" 

Thirdly, that " Juan had more brain than beard, 
And was not to be held in leading strings ;" 

And fourthly, what need hardly be said twice, 

"That good but rarely came from good advice." 

LXVII. 

And, therefore, doubtless to approve the truth 
Of the last axiom, he advised his spouse 

To leave the parties to themselves, forsooth — 
At least as far as biens^ance allows : 

That time would temper Juan's faults of youth ; 
That young men rarely made monastic vows ; 

That opposition only more attaches — 

But here a messenger brought in despatches : 

LXVIII. 
And being of the council call'd " the Privy," 

Lord Henry walk'd into his cabinet, 
To furnish matter for some, future Livy 

To tell how he reduced the nation's debt ; 
And if their full contents I do not give ye, 

It is because I do not know them yet ; 
But I shall add them in a brief appendix, 
To come between mine epic and its index. 

LXIX. 

But ere he went, he added a slight hint, 

Another gentle commonplace or two. 
Such as are coin'd in conversation's mint. 

And pass, for want of better, though not new : 

stiern, on being told he was to proceed on some diplomatic 
mission, expressed his doubts of his own fitness for such an 
office. The old chancellor, laughing, answered, — " Nescis, mt 
fill, quantula scientiS, gubernatur mundus." 



Canto XIV. 



DON JUAN. 



891 



Then broke his packet, to see what was in't, 

And having casually glanced it through, 
Retired : and, as he went out, calmly kiss'd her, 
Leas like a young wife than an aged sister. 

LXX. 

He was a cold, good, honorable man. 

Proud of his birth, and proud of everything; 

A goodly spirit for a state divan, 
A figure fit to walk before a king ; 

Tall, stately, form'd to lead the courtly van 
On birthdays, glorious with a star and string ; 

The very model of a chamberlain — 

And such I mean to make him when I reign. 

LXXI. 

But there was something wanting on the whole — 
I don't know what, and therefore cannot tell — 

Which pretty women — the sweet souls ! — call soul. 
Certe3 it was not body ; he was well 

Proportion'd, as a poplar or a pole, 

A handsome man, that human miracle ; 

And in each circumstance of love or war 

Had still preserved his perpendicular. 

LXXII. 
Still there was something wanting, as I've said — 

That undefinable " Je ne sgais quoi," 
Which, for what I know, may of yore have led 

To Homer's Iliad, since it drew to Troy 
The Greek Eve, Helen, from the Spartan's bed ; 

Though on the whole, no doubt, the Dardan boy 
Was much inferior to King Menelaiis : — 
But thus it is some women will betray us. 

LXXIII. 
There is an awkward thing which much perplexes. 

Unless like wise Tiresias we had proved 
By turns the difference of the several sexes ; 

Neither can show quite how they would be loved. 
The sensual for a short time but connects us — 

The sentimental boasts to be unmoved; 
But both together form a kind of centaur, 
Upon whose back 'tis better not to venture. 

LXXIV. 
A something all-sufficient for the heart 

Is that for which the sex are always seeking : 
But how to fill up that same vacant part? 

There lies the rub — and this they are but weak in. 
Frail mariners afloat without a chart, [ing ; 

They run before the wind tlirough high seas break- 
And when they have made the shore through every 
'Tis odd, or odds, it may turn out a rock. [shock, 

LXXV. 
There is a flower call'd " Love in Idleness," 
For which see Shakspeare's ever blooming garden ; — 

1 See " La Nouvelle Hfilolae." 



I will not make his great description less. 
And beg his British godship's humble pardon, 

If, in my extremity of rhyme's distress, 

I touch a single leaf where he is warden ; — 

But though the flower is different, with the 
French 

Or Swiss Rousseau, cry ^'Voild, la Fervenche!"^ 

LXXVL 

Eureka ! I have found it ! What I mean 

To say is, not that love is idleness, 
But that in love such idleness has been 

An accessory, as I have cause to guess. 
Hard labor's an indifferent go-between ; 

Your men of business are not apt to express 
Much passion, since the merchant-ship, the Argo, 
Convey'd Medea as her supercargo. 

LXXVII. 

" Beatus ille procul !" from "negotiis,"^ 
Saith Horace ; the great little poet's wrong ; 

His other maxim, " Noscitur cb sociis," 
Is much more to the purpose of his song ; 

Though even that were sometimes too ferocious, 
Unless good company be kept too long ; 

But, in his teeth, whate'er their state or station, 

Thrice happy they who have an occupation ! 

LXXVIII. 

Adam exchanged his paradise for ploughing. 

Eve made up millinery with fig leaves — 
The earliest knowledge from the tree so knowing. 

As far as I know, that the church receives : 
And since that time it need not cost much show- 
ing, 
, That many of the ills o'er which man grieves, N 
/ And still more woman, spring from not employing I 
(_Some hours to make the remnant worth enjoying. J 

LXXIX. 

And hence high life is oft a dreary void, 
A rack of pleasures, where we must invent 

A something wherewithal to be annoy'd. 
Bards may sing what they please about Content; 

Contented, when translated, means but cloy'd ; 
And hence arise the woes of sentiment. 

Blue devils, and blue-stockings, and romances 

Reduced to practice, and perform'd like dances. 

LXXX. 

I do declare, upon an affidavit, 

Romances I ne'er read like those I have seen ; 
Nor, if unto the world I ever gave it. 

Would some believe that such a tale had been : 
But such intent I never had, nor have it; 

Some truths are better kept behind a screen, 
Especially when they would look like lies; 
I therefore deal in generalities. 

« Hor. Epod. od. ii. 



892 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Canto XIV. 



LXXXI. 

" An oyster may be cross'd in love,"i — and why? 

Because he mopeth idly in his shell, 
And heaves a lonely subterraqueoue sigh, 

Much as a monk may do within his cell : 
And dpropos of monks, their piety 

With sloth hath found it difl&cult to dwell ; 
Those vegetables of the Catholic creed 
Are apt exceedingly to run to seed. 

LXXXII. 

Oh, Wilberforce ! thou man of black renown, 
Whose merit none enough can sing or say. 

Thou hast struck one immense Colossus down, 
Thou moral Washington of Africa ! 

But there's another little thing, I own. 
Which you should perpetrate some summer's day. 

And set the other half of earth to rights ; 

You have freed the blacks — now pray shut up the 
whites. 

LXXXIII. 

Shut up the bald-coot 2 bully Alexander ! 

Ship off the Holy Three to Senegal ; 
Teach them that " sauce for goose is sauce for gander," 

And ask them how they like to be in thrall ? 
Shut up each high heroic salamander. 

Who eats fire gratis (since the pay's but small) ; 
Shut up — no, not the King, but the Pavilion,^ 
Or else 'twill cost us all another million. 

LXXXIV. 

Shut up the world at large, let Bedlam out ; 

And you will be perhaps surprised to find 
All things pursue exactly the same route. 

As now with those of soi-disant sound mind. 
This I could prove beyond a single doubt, 

Were there a jot of sense among mankind; 
But till that ^omi d'appui is found, alas ! 
Like Archimedes, I leave earth as 'twas. 

LXXXV. 

Our gentle Adeline had one defect — 

Her heart was vacant, though a splendid mansion ; 
Her conduct had been perfectly correct. 

As she had seen nought claiming its expansion. 
A wavering spirit may be easier wreck'd, 

Because 'tis frailer, doubtless, than a stanch one ; 
But when the latter works its own undoing, 
Its inner crash is like an earthquake's ruin. 

LXXXVI. 

She loved her lord, or thought so ; but that love 

Cost her an effort, which is a sad toil. 
The stone of Sisyphus, if once we move 

Our feelings 'gainst the nature of the soil. 



1 See Sheridan's " Critic." 

2 The bald-coot is a small bird of prey in marshes. The 
emperor Alexander was baldish. 



She had nothing to complain of, or reprove, 

No bickerings, no connubial turmoil : 
Their union was a model to behold, 
Serene and noble — conjugal, but cold. 

LXXXVII. 

There was no great disparity of years, 
Though much in temper; but they never 
clash'd : 

They moved like stars united in their spheres, 
Or like the Rhone by Leman's waters wash'd, 

Where mingled and yet separate appears 
The river from the lake, all .bluely dash'd 

Through the serene and placid glassy deep, 

Which fain would lull its river-child to sleep.* 

LXXXVIII. 

Now when she once had ta'en an interest 
In anything, however she might flatter 

Herself that her intentions were the best. 
Intense intentions are a dangerous matter : 

Impressions were much stronger than she guess'd. 
And gather'd as they run like growing water 

Upon her mind ; the more so, as her breast 

Was not at first too readily impress'd. 

LXXXIX. 

But when it was, she had that lurking demon 
Of double nature, and thus doubly named — 

Firmness yclept in heroes, kings, and seamen. 
That is, when they succeed ; but greatly blamed 

As obstinacy, both in men and women. 

Whene'er their triumph pales, or star is tamed :— 

And 'twill perplex the casuist in morality 

To fix the due bounds of this dangerous quality. 

XC. 

Had Buonaparte won at Waterloo, 

It had been firmness ; now 'tis pertinacity : 

Must the event decide between the two ? 
I leave it to your people of sagacity 

To draw the line between the false and true, 
If such can e'er be drawn by man's capacity : 

My business is with Lady Adeline, 

Who in her way too was a heroine. 

XCI. " 

She knew not her own heart ; then how should I ? 

I think not she was then in love with Juan : 
If so, she would have had the strength to fly 

The wild sensation, unto her a new one : 
She merely felt a common sympathy 

(I will not say it was a false or true one, 
In him, because she thought he was in danger, — 
Her husband's friend, her own, young, and a 
stranger. 

8 The king's palace at Brighton. 
4 See ante, p. 42. 



Canto XIV. 



DON JUAN. 



893 



XCII. 

She was, or thought she was, his friend— and this 
Without the farce of friendship, or romance 

Of platonism, which leads so oft amiss 
Ladies who have studied friendship but in 
France, 

Or Germany, where people purely kiss. 
To thus much Adeline would not advance ; 

But of such friendship as man's may to man be 

She was as capable as woman can be. 

XCIII. 
No doubt the secret influence of the sex 

Will there, as also in the ties of blood, 
An innocent predominance annex, 

And tune the concord to a finer mood. 
If free from passion, which all friendship checks. 

And your true feelings fully understood, 
No friend like to a woman earth discovers. 
So that you havg not been nor will be lovers. 

XCIV. 
Love bears within its breast the very germ 

Of change ; and how should this be otherwise ? 
That violent things more quickly find a term 

Is shown through nature's whole analogies:* 
And how should the most fierce of all be firm ? 

Would you have endless lightning in the skies ? 
Methinks Love's very title says enough : 
How should " the tender passion" e'er be tough f 

XCV. 
Alas ! by all experience, seldom yet 

(I merely quote what I have heard from many) 
Had lovers not some reason to regret 

The passion which made Solomon a zany ; 
I've also seen some wives (not to forget 

The marriage state, the best or worst of any) 
Who were the very paragons of wives. 
Yet made the misery of at least two lives. 

XCVI. 
I've also seen some female /r ten c?5 ('tis odd. 

But true— as, if expedient, I could prove) 
That faithful were through thick and thin, 
abroad. 

At home, far more than ever yet was Love — 
Who did not quit me when Oppression trod 

Upon me ; whom no scandal could remove ; 
Who fought, and fight, in absence, too, my battles, 
Despite the snake Society's loud rattles. 

XCVII. 
Whether Don Juan and chaste Adeline 

Grew friends in this or any other sense, 
Will be discuss'd hereafter, I opine : 

At present I am glad of a pretence 

1 "These violent delights have violent ends, 
And in their triumph di« ^'—Borneo and Juliet. 



To leave them hovering, as the efiect is fine. 

And keeps the atrocious reader in suspense : 
The surest way for ladies and for books 
To bait their tender or their tenter hooks. 

XCVIII. 
Whether they rode, or walk'd, or studied Spanish, 

To read Don Quixote in the original, 
A pleasure before which all others vanish ; 

Whether their talk was of the kind call'd 
" small," 
Or serious, are the topics I must banish 

To the next canto ; where perhaps I shall 
Say something to the purpose, and display 
Considerable talent in my way. 

XCIX. 

Above all, I beg all men to forbear 
Anticipating aught about the matter : 

They'll only make mistakes about the fair, 
And Juan too, especially the latter. 

And I shall take a much more serious air 
Than I have yet done, in this epic satire. 

It is not clear that Adeline and Juan 

Will fall ; but if they do, 'twill be their ruin. 

C. 

But great things spring from little: — Would you 
think. 

That in our youth, as dangerous a passion 
As e'er brought man and woman to the brink 

Of ruin, rose from such a slight occasion, 
As few would ever dream could form the link 

Of such a sentimental situation ? 
You'll never guess, I'll bet you millions, mil- 
liards — 
It all sprung from a harmless game at billiards. 

CI. 

'Tis strange,— but true ; for truth is always strange ; 

Stranger than fiction : if it could be told. 
How much would novels gain by the exchange ! 

How differently the world would men behold ! 
How oft would vice and virtue places change ! 

The new world would be nothing to the old, 
If some Columbus of the moral seas 
Would show mankind their souls' antipodes. 

CII. 
What " antres vast and deserts idle "^ then 

W^ould be discover'd in the human soul ! 
What icebergs in the hearts of mighty men, 

With self-love in the centre as their pole I 
What Anthropophagi are nine or ten 

Of those who hold the kingdoms in control ! 
Were things but only cail'd by their right name, 
Csesar himself would be ashamed of fame. 



a Othello, act i. sc. iii. 



894 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



Canto XV. 



Bon Uuan. 



CANTO THE FIFTEENTH.! 



I. 

Ah ! — What should follow slips from my reflection ; 

Whatever follows ne'ertheless may be 
As dpropos of hope or retrospection, 

As though the lurking thought had foUow'd free. 
All present life is but an interjection, 

An " Oh !" or " Ah !" of joy or misery. 
Or a " Ha ! ha !" or " Bah !"— a yawn, or " Pooh !" 
Of which perhaps the latter is most true. 

II. 

But, more or less, the whole's a syncop6 
Or a singultus — emblems of emotion, 

The grand antithesis to great ennui. 
Wherewith we break our bubbles on the ocean, 

That watery outline of eternity, 
Or miniature at least, as is my notion, 

Which ministers unto the soul's delight, 

In seeing matters which are out of sight. 

III. 

But all are better than the sigh supprest. 
Corroding in the cavern of the heart, 

Making the countenance a mask of rest. 
And turning human nature to an art. 

Few men dare show their thoughts of worst or 
best; 
Dissimulation always sets apart 

A corner for herself; and therefore fiction 

Is that which passes with least contradiction. 

IV. 

Ah ! who can tell ? Or rather, who can not 
Remember, without telling, passion's errors ? 

The drainer of oblivion, even the sot. 
Hath got blue devils for his morning mirrors : 

What though on Lethe's stream he seem to float, 
He cannot sink his tremors or his terrors ; 

The ruby glass that shakes within his hand 

Leaves a sad sediment of Time's worst sand. 



V. 

And as for love — oh, love ! We will proce 

The Lady Adeline Amundeville, 
A pretty name as one would wish to read. 

Must perch harmonious on my tuneful quill. 
There's music in the sighing of a reed ; 

There's music in the gushing of a rill ; 
There's music in all things, if men had ears : 
Their earth is but an echo of the spheres. 



^ Cantos XV. and xvi. were published in London, in March, 
1824. 



VI. 

The Lady Adeline, right honorable, 
And honor'd, ran a risk of growing less so ; 

For few of the soft sex are very stable 

In their resolves — alas ! that I should say so ; 

They differ as wine differs from its label. 

When once decanted ; — I presume to guess so 

But will not swear : yet both upon occasion, 

Till old, may undergo adulteration. 

VII. 

But Adeline was of the purest vintage, 

The unmingled essence of the grape ; and yet 

Bright as a new Napoleon from its mintage. 
Or glorious as a diamond richly set ; 

A page where Time should hesitate to 'print age, 
And for which Nature might forego her debt — 

Sole creditor whose process doth involve in't 

The luck of finding everybody solvent. 

VIII. 

Oh, Death ! thou dunnest of all duns ! thou daily 
Knockest at doors, at first with modest tap, 

Like a meek tradesman when, approaching palely, 
Some splendid debtor he would take by sap : 

But oft denied, as patience 'gins to fail, he 
Advances with exasperated rap, 

And (if let in) insists, in terms unhandsome, 

On ready money, or "a draft on Ransom." 2 

IX. 
Whate'er thou takest, spare awhile poor Beauty 

She is so rare, and thou hast so much prey. 
What though she now and then may slip from duty. 

The more's the reason why you ought to stay ; 
Gaunt Gourmand! with whole nations for your 
booty. 

You should be civil in a modest way : 
Suppress, then, some slight feminine diseases, 
And take as many heroes as Heaven pleases. 

X. 

Fair Adeline, the more ingenuous 
Where she was interested (as was said), 

Because she was not apt, like some of us, 
To like too readily, or too high bred 

To show it — (points we need not now discuss) — 
Would give up artlessly both heart and head 

Unto such feelings as seem'd innocent. 

For objects worthy of the sentiment. 

XI. 

Some parts of Juan's history, which Rumor, 
That live gazette, had scatter'd to disfigure. 

She had heard; but women hear with more good 
humor 
Such aberrations than we men of rigor : 

2 Ransom, Kinnaird & Co. were Lord Byron's bankers. 



Canto XV. 



DON JUAN. 



895 



Besides, his conduct, since in England, grew more 

Strict, and his mind assumed a manlier vigor; 
Because he had, like Alcibiades, 
The art of living in all climes with ease.^ 

• 
XII. 
His manner was perhaps the more seductive. 

Because he ne'er seem'd anxious to seduce; 
Nothing affected, studied, or constructive 

Of coxcombry or conquest : no abuse ♦ 

Of his attractions marr'd the fair perspective. 

To indicate a Cupidon broke loose, 
And seem to say, " Resist us if you can " — 
Which makes a dandy while it spoils a man. 

XIII. 
They are wrong — that's not the way to set about it ; 

As, if they told the truth, could well be shown. 
But, right or wrong, Don Juan was without it ; 

In fact, his manner was his own alone : 
Sincere he was — at least you could not doubt it, 

In listening merely to his voice's tone. 
The devil hath not in all his quiver's choice 
An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice. 

XIV. 
By nature soft, his whole address held off 

Suspicion : though not timid, his regard 
Was such as rather seem'd to keep aloof. 

To shield himself than put you on your guard : 
Perhaps 'twas hardly quite assured enough. 

But modesty's at times its own reward, 
Like virtue ; and the absence of pretension 
Will go much further than there's need to mention. 

XV. 

Serene, accomplish'd, cheerful but not loud ; 

Insinuating without insinuation ; 
Observant of the foibles of the crowd, 

Yet ne'er betraying this in conversation; 
Proud with the proud, yet courteously proud, 

So as to make them feel he knew his station 
And theirs : — without a struggle for priority, 
He neither brook'd nor claim'd superiority — 

XVI. 
That is, with men : with women he was what 

They pleased to make or take him for ; and their 
Imagination's quite enough for that : 

So that the outline's tolerably fair, 
They fill the canvas up — and " verbum sat." 

If once their fantasies be brought to bear 



' See Mitford's Greece, vol. iii. 

* Raphael's masterpiece is called the Transfiguration. 

9 As it is necessary in these times to avoid ambiguity, I say 
that I mean, by " Diviner still," Christ. If ever God was 
man— or man God— he was both. I never arraigned his 
creed, but the use — or abuse — made of it. Mr. Canning one 
day quoted Christianity to sanction negro slavery, and Mr. 



Upon an object, whether sad or playful, 

They can transfigure brighter than a Raphael. ^ 

XVII. 
Adeline, no deep judge of character. 

Was apt to add a coloring from her own : 
'Tis thus the good will amiably err, 

And eke the wise, as has been often shown. 
Experience is the chief philosopher. 

But saddest when his science is well known : 
And persecuted sages teach the schools 

Their folly in forgetting there are fools. 

XVIII. 

Was it not so, great Locke ? and greater Bacon ? 

Great Socrates ? And thou. Diviner still,^ 
Whose lot it is by man to be mistaken. 

And thy pure creed made sanction of all ill ? 
Redeeming worlds to be by bigots shaken. 

How was thy toil rewarded ? We might fill 
Volumes with similar sad illustrations. 
But leave them to the conscience of the nations. 

XIX. 

I perch upon an humbler promontory, 

Amidst life's infinite variety : 
With no great care for what is nicknamed glory, 

But speculating as I cast mine eye 
On what may suit or may not suit my story, 

And never straining hard to versify, 
I rattle on exactly as I'd talk 
With anybody in a ride or walk. 

XX. 

I don't know that there may be much ability 
Shown in this sort of desultory rhyme ; 

But there's a conversational facility, 
Which may round off an hour upon a time. 

Of this I'm sure at least, there's no servility 
In mine irregularity of chime. 

Which rings what's uppermost of new or hoary, 

Just as I feel the " Improvvisatore." 

XXI. 

" Omnia vult helle Matho dicere — die aliquando 
Et bene, die neutrum, die aliquando male."* 

The first is rather more than mortal can do ; 
The second may be sadly done or gayly ; 

The third is still more difficult to stand to ; 
The fourth we hear, and see, and say too, daily ; 

The whole together is what I could wish 

To serve in this conundrum of a dish. 



Wilberforce had little to say in reply. And was Christ cru- 
cified, that black men might bo scourged? If so, he had 
better been born a Mulatto, to give both colors an equal 
chance of freedom, or at least salvation. 
* "Thou finely wouldst say all? Say something well : 
Say something ill, if thou wouldst bear the bell." 

Elphinston. 



896 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto XV 



XXII. 

A modest hope— but modesty's my forte, 
And pride my feeble : — let us ramble on. 

I meant to make this poem very short, 
But now I can't tell where it may not run. 

No doubt, if I had wish'd to pay my court 
To critics, or to hail the setting sun 

Of tyranny of all kinds, my concision 

Were more ; — but I was born for opposition. 

XXIII. 

But then 'tis mostly on the weaker side ; 

So that I verily believe if they 
Who now are basking in their full-blown pride 

Were shaken down, and "dogs had had their day," ^ 
Though at the first I might perchance deride 

Their tumble, I should turn the other way, 
And wax an ultra-royalist in loyalty, 
Because I hate even democratic royalty. 

XXIV. 
I think I should have made a decent spouse, 

If I had never proved the soft condition ; 
I think I should have made monastic vows. 

But for my own peculiar superstition : 
'Gainst rhyme I never should have knock'd my brows. 

Nor broken my own head, nor that of Priscian, 
Nor worn the motley mantle of a poet, 
If some one had not told me to forego it.^ 

XXV. 

But " laissez aller " — knights and dames I sing, 
Such as the times may furnish. 'Tis a flight 

Which seems at first to need no lofty wing, 
Plumed by Longinus or the Stagyrite : 

The difficulty lies in coloring 

(Keeping the due proportions still in sight) 

With nature manners which are artificial, 

And rend'ring general that which is especial. 

XXVI. 

The difierence is, that in the days of old 
Men made the manners ; manners now make men — 

Pinn'd like a flock, and fleeced too in their fold, 
At least nine, and a ninth beside of ten. 

Now this at all events must render cold 
Your writers, who must either draw again 

Days better drawn before, or else assume 

The present, with their commonplace costume. 



1 "The cat will mew, and dog will have his day."— -HamZe<. 

2 The reader has already seen in what style the Edinburgh 
Reviewers dealt with Lord Byron's early performance (junte, 
p. 495)— the effect which that criticism produced on him at 
the time— and how he felt the more favorable treatment 
which he received from the Monthly Review (p. 496). We 
should not, however, in the page last referred to, have forgot- 
ten to observe, that the young poet was not less courteously 
and encouragingly welcomed in another publication. We 
allude to an article on the " Hours of Idleness," by .T. H. 
Markland, Esq., the learned editor of the Chester Mysteries^ 



XXVII. 

We'll do our best to make the best on't : — March ! 

March, my Muse ! If you cannot fly, yet flutter ; 
And when you may not be sublime, be arch. 

Or starch, as 'are the edicts statesmen utter. 
We surely may find something worth research : 

Columbus found a new world in a cutter. 
Or brigantine, or pink, of no great tonnage, 
While yet America was in her non-age.^ 

XXVIII. 

When Adeline, in all her growing sense 

Of Juan's merits and his situation. 
Felt on the whole an interest intense, — 

Partly perhaps because a fresh sensation, 
Or that he had an air of innocence, 

Which is for innocence a sad temptation, — 
As women hate half measures, on the whole, 
She 'gan to ponder how to save his soul. 

XXIX. 

She had a good opinion of advice, 
Like all who give and eke receive it gratis, 

For which small thanks are still the market price. 
Even where the article at highest rate is : 

She thought upon the subject twice or thrice. 
And morally decided, the best state is 

For morals, marriage ; and this question carried. 

She seriously advised him to get married. 

XXX. 

Juan replied, with all becoming deference, 

He had a predilection for that tie : 
But that, at present, with immediate reference 

To his own circumstances, there might lie 
Some difficulties, as in his own preference. 

Or that of her to whom he might apply : 
That still he'd wed with such or such a lady. 
If that they were not married all already. 

XXXI. 

Next to the making matches for herself. 
And daughters, brothers, sisters, kith or kin, 

Arranging them like books on the same shelf. 
There's nothing women love to dabble in 

More (like a stockholder in growing pelf) 
Than match-making in general : 'tis no sin 

Certes, but a preventative, and therefore 

That is, no doubt, the only reason wherefore. 



which concluded in these terms:— "We heartily hope that 
the illness and depression of spirits, which evidently pervade 
the greater part of these effusions, are entirely dispelled; 
and are confident that 'George Gordon Lord Byron' will 
have a conspicuous niche in every future edition of ' Royal 
and Noble Authors.' " See Gentleman's Magazine, vol. Ixxvi. 
p. 1217. 

3 " Three small vessels were apparently all that Columbus 
had required. Two of them were light barques, called cara- 
vels, not superior to river and coasting craft of more modern 
days. That such long and perilous expeditions into unknown 



Canto XV. 



DON JUAN. 



897 



XXXII. 

But never yet (except of course a miss 

Unweil, or mistress never to be wed, 
Or wed already, who object to this) 

Was there chaste dame who had not in her head 
Some drama of the marriage unities, 

Observed as strictly both at board and bed. 
As those of Aristotle, though sometimes 
They turn out melodrames or pantomimes. 

XXXIII. 
They generally have some only son. 

Some heir to a large property, some friend 
Of an old family, some gay Sir John, [end 

Or grave Lord George, with whom perhaps might 
A line, and leave posterity undone. 

Unless a marriage was applied to mend 
The prospect and their morals : and besides. 
They have at hand a blooming glut of brides. 

XXXIV. 

From these they will be careful to select. 
For this an heiress, and for that a beauty ; 

For one a songstress who hath no defect, 
For t'other one who promises much duty ; 

For this a lady no one can reject. 
Whose sole accomplishments were quite a booty ; 

A second for her excellent connections ; 

A third, because there can be no objections. 

XXXV. 

When Rapp the Harmonist embargo'd marriage ^ 
In his harmonious settlement — (which flourishes 

Strangely enough as yet without miscarriage. 

Because it breeds no more mouths than it nourishes, 

Without those sad expenses which disparage 
What Nature naturally most encourages) — 

Why call'd he " Harmony" a state sans wedlock? 

Now here I've got the preacher at a dead lock, 

XXXVI. 
Because he either meant to sneer at harmony 

Or marriage, by divorcing them thus oddly. 
But whether reverend Rapp learn'd this in Germany 

Or no, 'tis said his sect is rich and godly, 
Pious and pure, beyond what I can term any 

Of ours, although they propagate more broadly. 
My objection's to his title, not his ritual. 
Although I wonder how it grew habitual. 



seas should be undertaken in vessels without decks, and that 
they should live through the violent tempests by which they 
were frequently assailed, remain amonc? the singular circum- 
atances of those daring voyages."— Washington Irving. 

1 This extraordinary and flourishing German colony in 
America does not entirely exclude matrimony, as the "Shak- 
ers" do; but lays such restrictions upon it as prevents more 
than a certain quantum of births within a certain number of 
years; which births (as Mr. Hulme observes) generally ar- 
rive " in a little flock like those of a farmer's lambs, all within 
the same month perhaps." These Harmonists (so called from 
the name of their settlement) are represented as a remarkably 
57 



XXXVII. 

But Rapp is the reverse of zealous matrons, 
Who favor, malgre Malthus, generation — 

Professors of that genial art, and patrons 
Of all the modest part of propagation ; 

Which after all at such a desperate rate runs, 
That half its produce tends to emigration. 

That sad result of passions and potatoes — 

Two weeds which pose our economic Catos. 

XXXVIII. 

Had Adeline read Malthus ? I can't tell ; 

1 wish she had : his book's the eleventh command- 

ment. 
Which says, " Thou shalt not marry," unless well ; 

This he (as far I can understand) meant. 
'Tis not my purpose on his views to dwell. 

Nor canvass what " so eminent a hand " meant ; * 
But certes it conducts to lives ascetic, 
Or turning marriage into arithmetic. 

XXXIX. 

But Adeline, who probably presumed 

That Juan had enough of maintenance, 
Or separate maintenance, in case 'twas doom'd — 

As on the whole it is an even chance 
That bridegrooms, after they are fairly groom'd, 

May retrograde a little in the dance 
Of marriage — (which might form a painter's fame. 
Like Holbein's "Dance of Death "^ — but 'tis the 
same) ; — 

XL. 
But Adeline determined Juan's wedding 

In her own mind, and that's enough for woman : 
But then, with whom? There was the sage Miss 
Reading, 
Miss Raw, Miss Flaw, Miss Showman, and Miss 
Knowman, 
And the two fair co-heiresses Giltbedding. 
She deem'd his merits something more than com- 
mon: 
All these were unobjectionable matches. 
And might go on, if well wound up, like watches. 

XLI. 

There was Miss Millpond, smooth as summer's sea, 
That usual paragon, an only daughter. 

Who seem'd the cream of equanimity, [water, 

Till skimm'd— and then there was some milk and 

flourishing, pious, and quiet people. See the various recent 
writers on America. 

2 Jacob Tonson, according to Mr. Pope, was accustomed to 
call his writers "able pens," "persons of honor," and es- 
pecially " eminent hands." Vide Correspondence, &c. &c.— 
"Perhaps I should myself be much better pleased, if I were 
told you called me your little friend, than if you complimented 
me with the title of a 'great genius,' or an 'eminent hand,' 
as Jacob does all his authors."— Pop«? to Steele. 

3 See Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature, New Series, vol. ii. 
p. 80S, and the Dissertation prefixed to Mr. Douce's valuable 
edition of Hollar's Dance of Death. 



898 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto XV, 



With a slight shade of blue too, it might be, 

Beneath the surface ; but what did it matter ? 
Love's riotous, but marriage should have quiet, 
And being consumptive, live on a milk diet. 

XLII. 

And then there was the Miss Audacia Shoestring, 

A dashing demoiselle of good estate. 
Whose heart was fix'd upon a star or blue string ; 

But whether English dukes grew rare of late. 
Or that she had not harp'd upon the true string, 

By which such sirens can attract our great, 
She took up with some foreign younger brother, 
A Russ or Turk — the one's as good as t'other. 

XLIII. 

And then there was — but why should I go on, 
Unless the ladies should go off? — there was 

Indeed a certain fair and fairy one, 
Of the best class, and better than her class, — 

Aurora Raby, a young star who shone 

O'er life, too sweet an image for such glass, 

A lovely being, scarcely form'd or moulded, 

A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded ; • 

XLIV. 
Rich, noble, but an orphan ; left an only 

Child to the care of guardians good and kind ; 
But still her aspect had an air so lonely ! 

Blood is not water ; and where shall we find 
Feelings of youth like those which overthrown lie 

By death, when we are left, alas ! behind, 
To feel, in friendless palaces, a home 
Is wanting, and our best ties in the tomb ? 

XLV. 

Early in years, and yet more infantine 
In figure, she had something of sublime 

In eyes which sadly shone, as seraphs' shine. 
All youth — but with an aspect beyond time ; 

Radiant and grave — as pitying man's decline ; 
Mournful — but mournful of another's crime, 

She look'd as if she sat by Eden's door. 

And grieved for those who could return no more. 

XLVI. 
She was a Catholic, too, sincere, austere, 

As far as her own gentle heart allow'd. 
And deem'd that fallen worship far more dear 

Perhaps because 'twas fallen : her sires were proud 
Of deeds and days when they had fill'd the ear 

Of nations, and had never bent or bow'd 
To novel power ; and as she was the last. 
She held their old faith and old feelings fast. 

XLVII. 

She gazed upon a world she scarcely knew, 
As seeking not to know it ; silent, lone. 

As grows a flower, thus quietly she grew. 
And kept her heart serene within its zone. 



There was awe in the homage which she drew ; 

Her spirit seem'd as seated on a throne 
Apart from the surrounding world, and strong 
In its own strength — most strange in one so young ! 

XLVIII. 

Now it so happen'd, in the catalogue 

Of Adeline, Aurora was omitted. 
Although her birth and wealth had given her vogue. 

Beyond the charmers we have already cited ; 
Her beauty also seem'd to form no clog 

Against her being mention'd as well fitted, 
By many virtues, to be worth the trouble 
Of single gentlemen who would be double. 

XLIX. 

And this omission, like that of the bust 
Of Brutus at the pageant of Tiberius,^ 

Made Juan wonder, as no doubt he must. 
This he express'd half smiling and half serious ; 

When Adeline replied with some disgust. 
And with an air, to say the least, imperious. 

She marvell'd " what he saw in such a baby 

As that prim, silent, cold Aurora Raby ?" 

L. 

Juan rejoin'd — " She was a Catholic, 
And therefore fittest, as of his persuasion ; 

Since he was sure his mother would fall sick. 
And the Pope thunder excommunication. 

If " But here Adeline, who seem'd to pique 

Herself extremely on the inoculation 

Of others with her own opinions, stated — 

As usual — the same reason which she late did. 

LI. 

And wherefore not ? A reasonable reason. 
If good, is none the worse for repetition ; 

If bad, the best way's certainly to tease on, 
And amplify : you lose much by concision. 

Whereas insisting in or out of season 
Convinces all men, even a politician ; 

Or — what is just the same — it wearies out. 

So the end's gain'd, what signifies the route ? 

LII. 

Why Adeline had this slight prejudice— 
For prejudice it was — against a creature 

As pure as sanctity itself from vice. 
With all the added charm of form and feature, 

For me appears a question far too nice, 
Since Adeline was liberal by nature ; 

But nature's nature, and has more caprices 

Than I have time, or will, to take to pieces. 

LIII. 
Perhaps she did not like the quiet way 
With which Aurora on those baubles look'd, 

1 See Tacitus, b. vi. 



Canto XV. 



DON JUAN 



899 



Which charm most people in their earlier day : 
For there are few things by mankind less brook'd, 

And womankind too, if we so may say, 
Than finding thus their genius stand rebuked, 

Like " Antony's by Caesar," ^ by the few 

Who look upon them as they ought to do. 

LIV. 

It was not envy — Adeline had none; 

Her place was far beyond it, and her mind. 
It was not scorn — which could not light on one 

Whose greatest /a w7^ was leaving few to find. 
It was not jealousy, I think : but shun 

Following the "ignes fatui" of mankind. 

It was not but 'tis easier far, alas ! 

To say what it was not than what it was. 

LV. 

Little Aurora deem'd she was the theme 
Of such discussion. She was there a guest; 

A beauteous ripple of the brilliant stream 

Of rank and youth, though purer than the rest, 

Which flow'd on for a moment in the beam 
Time sheds a moment o'er each sparkling crest. 

Had she known this, she would have calmly smiled — 

She had so much, or little, of the child. 

LVI. 
The dashing and proud air of Adeline 

Imposed not upon her : she saw her blaze 
Much as she would have seen a glow-worm shine, 

Then turn'd unto the stars for loftier rays. 
Juan was something she could not divine, 

Being no sibyl in the new world's ways ; 
Yet she was nothing dazzled by the meteor, 
Because she did not pin her faith on feature. 

LVII. 
His fame too, — for he had that kind of fame 

Which sometimes plays the deuce with womankind, 
A heterogeneous mass of glorious blame. 

Half virtues and whole vices being combined ; 
Faults which attract because they are not tame ; 

Follies trick'd out so brightly that they blind : — 
These seals upon her wax made no impression, 
Such was her coldness or her self-possession. 

LVIII. 
Juan knew nought of such a character — 

High, yet resembling not his lost Haid^e ; 
Yet each was radiant in her proper sphere : 

The island girl, bred up by the lone sea, 
More warm, as lovely, and not less sincere. 

Was Nature's all : Aurora could not be, 



^ " And, under him, 

My genius is rebuked ; as it is said 
Mark Antony's was by Caesar."— Macbeth. 
* WarrUon — cri-de-guerre— note of assault :— 
" Either receive within thy towers 
Two hundred of my maater's powers, 



Nor would be thus : — the diflference in them 
Was such as lies between a flower and gem. 

LIX. 

Having wound up with this sublime comparison, 
Methinks we may proceed upon our narrative. 

And, as my friend Scott says, " I sound my warrison ;" - 
Scott, the superlative of my comparative — 

Scott, who can paint your Christian knight or Saracen, 
Serf, lord, man, with such skill as none would share 
it, if 

There had not been one Shakspeare and Voltaire, 

Of one or both of whom he seems the heir. 

LX. 

I say, in my slight way I may proceed 
To play upon the surface of humanity. 

I write the world, nor care if the world read. 
At least for this I cannot spare its vanity. 

My Muse hath bred, and still perhaps may breed 
More foes by this same scroll : when I began it, I 

Thought that it might turn out so — now I know it, 

But still I am, or was, a pretty poet. 

LXI. 

The conference or congress (for it ended 

As congresses of late do) of the Lady 
Adeline and Don Juan rather blended 

Some acids with the sweets — for she was heady ; 
But, ere the matter could be marr'd or mended, 

The silvery bell rang, not for " dinner ready," 
But for that hour, call'd half-hour, given to dress, 
Though ladies' robes seem scant enough for less. 

LXII. 
Great things were now to be achieved at table, 

With massy plate for armor, knives and forks 
For weapons ; but what Muse since Homer's able 

(His feasts are not the worst part of his works) 
To draw up in array a single day -bill 

Of modem dinners ? where more mystery lurks, 
In soups or sauces, or a sole ragout, 
Than witches, b — ches, or physicians, brew. 

LXIII. 

There was a goodly " soupe k la bonne fenvme," ' 
Though God knows whence it came from ; there 
was, too, 

A turbot for relief of those who cram, 
Relieved with " dindon ^ la Parigeux ;" 

There also was the sinner that I am ! 

How shall I get this gourmand stanza through ? — 

"Soupe k la Beauveau," whose relief was dory, 

Relieved itself by pork, for greater glory. 

Or straight they sound their warrison, 
And storm and spoil thy garrison." 

Lay of (he Last Minstrel. 

' See Almanach des Gourmands, Code Gourmand, Le Cuiei- 
nier Boyal, &c. &e. 



900 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



CAiTTO XV. 



LXIV. 

But I must crowd all into one grand mess 
Or mass ; for should I stretch into detail, 

My Muse would run much more into excess, 
Than when some squeamish people deem her frail ; 

But though a "bonne vivante," I must confess 
Her stomach's not her peccant part ; this tale 

However doth require some slight refection, 

Just to relieve her spirits from dejection. 

LXV. 

Fowls " k la Cond^," slices eke of salmon. 
With "sauces Genevoises," and haunch of venison; 

Wines too, which might again have slain young 
Ammon — 
A man like whom I hope we sha'n't see many 
soon; 

They also set a glazed Westphalian ham on, 
Whereon Apicius would bestow his benison ; 

And then there was champagne with foaming whirls, 

As white as Cleopatra's melted pearls. 

LXVI. 
Then there was God knows what " ^ I'AUemande," 

"A I'Espagnole," "timballe," and "salpicon" — 
With things I can't withstand or understand, 

Though swallow'd with much zest upon the whole ; 
And " entremets " to piddle with at hand. 

Gently to lull down the subsiding soul ; 
While great Lucullus' Home triumphal muflfles — 
{There's fame) — young partridge fillets, deck'd with 
truffles.i 

LXVII. 

What are the fillets on the victor's brow 

To these? They are rags or dust. Where is the 
arch 
Which nodded to the nation's spoils below ? 

Where the triumphal chariots' haughty march ? 
Gone to where victories must like dinners go. 

Further I shall not follow the research : 
But oh ! ye modern heroes with your cartridges. 
When will your names lend lustre e'en to partridges? 

LXVIII. 

Those truffles too are no bad accessaries, 
Follow'd by " petits puits d'amour " — a dish 

Of which perhaps the cookery rather varies, 
So every one may dress it to his wish, 

According to the best of dictionaries. 

Which encyclopedize both flesh and fish ; 

But even sans " confitures," it no less true is, 

There's pretty picking in those "petits puits." 2 



1 A dish " a la Lucullus." This hero, who conquered the 
East, has left his more extended celebrity to the transplant- 
ation of cherries (which he first brought into Europe), and 
the nomenclature of some very good dishes ;— and I am not 
sure that (barring indigestion) he has not done more service 
to mankind by his cookery than by his conquests. A cherry 



LXIX. 
The mind is lost in mighty contemplation 

Of intellect expanded on two courses ; 
And indigestion's grand multiplication 

Requires arithmetic beyond my forces. 
Who would suppose, from Adam's simple ration, 

That cookery could have call'd forth such re- 
sources. 
As form a science and a nomenclature 
From out the commonest demands of nature ? 

LXX. 

The glasses jingled, and the palates tingled ; 

The diners of celebrity dined well ; 
The ladies with more moderation mingled 

In the feast, pecking less than I can tell ; 
Also the younger men too : for a springald 

Can't, like ripe age, in gormandise excel, 
But thinks less of good eating than the whisper 
(When seated next him) of some pretty lisper. 

LXXI. 

Alas ! I must leave undescribed the gibier, 

The salmi, the consomme, the puree, 
All which I use to make my rhymes run glibber 

Than could roast beef in our rough John Bull 
way: 
I must not introduce even a spare rib here, 

"Bubble and squeak" would spoil my liquid 

lay, 

But I have dined, and must forego, alas ! 
The chaste description even of a " becasse ;" 

LXXII. 

And fruits, and ice, and all that art refines 
From nature for the service of the gout — 

Taste or the gout, — pronounce it as inclines 
Your stomach! Ere you dine, the French will 
do; 

But after, there are sometimes certain signs 
Which prove plain English truer of the two. 

Hast ever had the gout f I have not had it — 

But I may have, and you too, reader, dread it. 

LXXIII. 

The simple olives, best allies of wine, 

Must I pass over in my bill of fare ? 
I must, although a favorite "plat" of mine 

In Spain, and Lucca, Athens, everywhere : 
On them and bread 'twas oft my luck to dine. 

The grass my table-cloth, in open air, 
On Sunium or Hymettus, like Diogenes, 
Of whom half my philosophy the progeny is.^ 



tree may weigh against a bloody laurel ; besides, he has con- 
trived to earn celebrity from both. 

2 " Petits puits d'amour garnis des confitures," — a classical 
and well-known dish for part of the flank of a second course. 

3 " To-day in a palace, to-morrow in a cow-house— this day 
with the pasha, the next with a shepherd."— 5. Letters, 1810. 



Canto XV. 



DON JUAN. 



901 



LXXIV. 
Amidst this tumult of fish, flesh, and fowl, 

And vegetables, all in masquerade, 
The guests were placed according to their roll, 

But various as the various meats display'd : 
Don Juan sat next an " a FEspagnole" — 

Xo damsel, but a dish, as hath been said ; 
But so far like a lady, that 'twas drest 
Superbly, and contain 'd a world of zest. 

LXXV. 

By some odd chance too, he was placed between 

Aurora and the Lady Adeline — 
A situation difficult, I ween, 

For man therein, with eyes and heart, to dine. 
Also the conference which we have seen 

Was not such as to encourage him to shine, 
For Adeline, addressing a few words to him, 
With two transcendent eyes seem'd to look through 
him. 

LXXVI. 
I sometimes almost think that eyes have ears : 

This much is sure, that, out of earshot, things 
Vre somehow echo'd to the pretty dears, 

Of which I can't tell whence their knowledge 
springs. 
Like that same mystic music of the spheres, 

Which no one hears, so loudly though it rings, 
'Tis wonderful how oft the sex have heard 
Long dialogues — which pass'd without a word ! 

LXXVII. 

Aurora sat with that indifference 

Which piques a preux chevalier — as it ought : 
Of all offences that's the worst offence, 

Which seems to hint you are not worth a thought. 
Now Juan, though no coxcomb in pretence. 

Was not exactly pleased to be so caught ; 
Like a good ship entangled among ice, 
And after so much excellent advice. 

LXXVIII. 

To his gay nothings, nothing was replied. 
Or something which was nothing, as urbanity 

Required. Aurora scarcely look'd aside, 
Xor even smiled enough for any vanity. 

The devil was in the girl ! Could it be pride? 
Or modesty, or absence, or inanity? 

Ih'jtven knows! But Adeline's malicious eyes 

>lJtirkled with her successful prophecies, 

LXXIX. 

And look'd as much as if to say, " I said it;" 
A kind of triumph I'll not recommend, 

Because it sometimes, as I have seen or read it. 
Both in the case of lover and of friend. 

Will pique a gentleman, for his own credit. 
To bring what was a jest to a serious end : 

For all men prophesy wliat is or was, 

And hate those who won't let them come to pass. 



LXXX. 

Juan was drawn thus into some attentions. 
Slight but select, and just enough to express, 

To females of perspicuous comprehensions, 
That he would rather make them more than less. 

Aurora at the last (so history mentions, 
Though probably much less a fact than guess) 

So far relax'd her thoughts from their sweet prison, 

As once or twice to smile, if not to listen. 

LXXXI. 

From answering she began to question : this 
With her was rare ; and Adeline, who as yet 

Thought her predictions went not much amiss. 
Began to dread she'd thaw to a coquette — 

So very difficult, they say, it is 

To keep extremes from meeting, when once set 

In motion ; but she here too much refined — 

Aurora's spirit was not of that kind. 

LXXXII. 

But Juan had a sort of winning way, 

A proud humility, if such there be. 
Which show'd such deference to what females say. 

As if each charming word were a decree. 
His tact, too, temper'd him from grave to gay. 

And taught him when to be reserved or free : 
He had the art of drawing people out. 
Without their seeing what he was about. 

LXXXIII. 
Aurora, who in her indifference 

Confounded him in common with the crowd 
Of flatterers, though she deem'd he had more sense 

Than whispering foplings, or than witlings loud — 
Commenced (from such slight things will great com- 
mence) 

To feel that flattery which attracts the proud 
Rather by deference than compliment. 
And wins even by a delicate dissent. 

LXXXIV. 

And then he had good looks ; — that point was carried 
Nem. con. amongst the women, which I grieve 

To say leads oft to crim. con. with the married — 
A case which to the juries we may leave. 

Since with digressions we too long have tarried. 
Now though we know of old that looks deceive, 

And always have done, somehow these good looks 

Make more impression than the best of books. 

LXXXV. 

Aurora, who look'd more on books than faces. 
Was very young, although so very sage, 

Admiring more Minerva than the Graces, 
Especially upon a printed page. 

But Virtue's self, with all her tightest laces, 
Has not the natural stays of strict old age ; 

And Socrates, that model of all duty, 

Own'd to a penchant, though discreet, for beauty. 



902 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



Canto XV. 



LXXXVI. 

And girls of sixteen are thus far Socratic, 

But innocently so, as Socrates ; 
And really, if the sage sublime and Attic 

At seventy years had fantasies like these, 
Which Plato in his dialogues dramatic 

Has shown, I know not why they should displease 
In virgins — always in a modest way. 
Observe ; for that with me's a " sine qua."i 

LXXXVII. 

Also observe, that, like the great Lord Coke 
(See Littleton), whene'er I have express'd 

Opinions two, which at first sight may look 
Twin opposites, the second is the best. 

Perhaps I have a third too, in a nook, 
Or none at all — which seems a sorry jest : 

But if a writer should be quite consistent, 

How could he possibly show things existent? 

LXXXVIII. 
If people contradict themselves, can I 

Help contradicting them, and everybody. 
Even my veracious self? — But that's a lie : 

I never did so, never will — how should I ? 
He who doubts all things nothing can deny : [muddy, 

Truth's fountains may be clear — her streams are 
And cut through such canals of contradiction. 
That she must often navigate o'er fiction. 

LXXXIX. 

Apologue, fable, poesy, and parable, 
Are false, but may be render'd also true, 

By those who sow them in a land that's arable. 
'Tis wonderful what fable will not do ! 

'Tis said it makes reality more bearable : 
But what's reality ? Who has its clue ? 

Philosophy ? No ; she too much rejects. 

Religion ? Yes; but which of all her sects ? 

XC. 

Some millions must be wrong, that's pretty clear ; 

Perhaps it may turn out that all were right. 
God help us ! Since we have need on our career 

To keep our holy beacons always bright, 
'Tis time that some new prophet should appear, 

Or old indulge man with a second sight. 
Opinions wear out in some thousand years. 
Without a small refreshment from the spheres. 

XCI. 

But here again, why will I thus entangle 
Myself with metaphysics ? None can hate 

So much as I do any kind of wrangle ; 
And yet, such is my folly, or my fate, 

1 Subauditur "non;" omitted for the sake of euphony. 

2 John Scott, Earl of Eldon, Chancellor of England (with 
the interruption of fourteen months) from 1801 to 1830. 

3 Hecla is a famous hot spring in Iceland. 
■* Hamlet, act iii. sc. ii. 



I always knock my head against some angle 

About the present, past, or future state : 
Yet I wish well to Trojan and to Tyrian, 
For I was bred a moderate Presbyterian. 

XCII. 
But though I am a temperate theologian, 

And also meek as a metaphysician. 
Impartial between Tyrian and Trojan 

As Eldon 2 on a lunatic commission, — 
In politics my duty is to show John 

Bull something of the lower world's condition. 
It makes my blood boil like the springs of Hecla,^ 
To see men let these scoundrel sovereigns break law. 

XCIII. 

But politics, and policy, and piety, 
Are topics which I sometimes introduce, 

Not only for the sake of their variety. 
But as subservient to a moral use ; 

Because my business is to dress society, 
And stufi" with sage that very verdant goose. 

And now, that we may furnish with some matter all 

Tastes, we are going to try the supernatural. 

XCIV. 
And now I will give up all argument ; 

And positively henceforth no temptation 
Shall " fool me to the top up of my bent:"* — 

Yes, I'll begin a thorough reformation. 
Indeed, I never knew what people meant 

By deeming that my Muse's conversation 
Was dangerous ; — I think she is as harmless 
As some who labor more and yet may charm less. 

XCV. 
Grim reader ! did you ever see a ghost ? 

No; but you have heard — I understand — be 
dumb! 
And don't regret the time you may have lost. 

For you have got that pleasure still to come : 
And do not think I mean to sneer at most 

Of these things, or by ridicule benumb 
That source of the sublime and the mysterious : — 
For certain reasons my belief is serious. 

XCVI. 

Serious? You laugh ;— you may : that will I not ; 

My smiles must be sincere or not at all. 
I say I do believe a haunted spot 

Exists — and where ? That shall I not recall, 
Because I'd rather it should be forgot, 

" Shadows the soul of Richard "^ may appall. 
In short, upon that subject I've some qualms very 
Like those of the philosopher of Malmsbury.^ 

6 " By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night 
Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard 
Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers," &c. 

Richard HI. " 

6 Hobbes : who, doubting of his own soul, paid that com- 



i 



Canto XVI. 



PON JUAN. 



903 



XCVII. 
The right — (I sing by night — sometimes an owl, 

And now and then a nightingale) — is dim, 
And the load shriek of sage Minerva's fowl 

Rattles around me her discordant hymn : 
Old portraits from old walls upon me scowl — 

I wish to heaven they would not look so grim ; 
The dying embers dwindle in the grate— 
I think too that I have sat up too late : 

XCVIII. 

And therefore, though 'tis by no means my way 
To rhyme at noon — when I have other things 

To think of, if I ever think — I say 

I feel some chilly midnight shudderings, 

And prudently postpone, until mid-day. 
Treating a topic which, alas ! but brings 

Shadows ; — but you must be in my condition, 

Before you learn to call this superstition. 

XCIX. 

Between two worlds life hovers like a star, 

'Twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge. 

How little do we know that which we are ! 
How less what we may be I The eternal surge 

Of time and tide rolls on and bears afar 
Our bubbles ; as the old burst, new emerge, 

Lash'd from the foam of ages ; while the graves 

Of empires heave but like some passing waves.i 



IBon guan. 



CANTO THE SIXTEENTH. 



I. 
The antique Persians taught three useful things, 

To draw the bow, to ride, and speak the truth.^ 
This was the mode of Cyrus, best of kings — 

A mode adopted since by modem youth. 
Bows have they, generally with two strings ; 

Horses they ride without remorse or ruth ; 
At speaking truth perhaps they are less clever, 
But draw the long bow better now than ever. 



pliment to the souls of other people as to decline their visits, 

of which he had some apprehension, 
I "Man's life is like a sparrow — mighty king! 
That, stealing in while by the fire you sit, 
Housed with rejoicing friends, is seen to flit 
Safe from the storm, in comfort tarrying. 
Here did it enter — there on hasty wing 
Flics out, and passes on from cold to cold ; 
But whence it came we know not, nor behold 



II. 

The cause of this effect, or this defect, — 
" For this eflfect defective comes by cause,"'— 

Is what I have not leisure to inspect ; 
But this I must say in my own applause, 

Of all the Muses that I recollect, 

Whate'er may be her follies or her flaws 

In some things, mine's beyond all contradiction 

The most sincere that ever dealt in fiction. 

III. 

And as she treats all things, and ne'er retreats 
From anything, this epic will contain 

A wilderness of the most rare conceits. 
Which you might elsewhere hope to find in 
vain. 

'Tis true there be some bitters with the sweets, 
Yet mix'd so slightly, that you can't complain, 

But wonder they so few are, since my tale is 

" De rebus cunctis et quibusdam aliis." 

IV. 

But of all truths which she has told, the most 
True is that which she is about to tell. 

I said it was a story of a ghost — 
What then? I only know it so befell. 

Have you explored the limits of the coast, 
Where all the dwellers of the earth must 
dwell? 

'Tis time to strike such puny doubters dumb as 

The skeptics who would not believe Columbus. 

V. 

Some people would impose now with authority, 
Turpin's or Monmouth Geoffry's Chronicle ; 

Men whose historical superiority 
Is always greatest at a miracle. 

But Saint Augustine has the great priority, 
Who bids all men believe the impossible, 

Because 'tis so. Who nibble, scribble, quibble, he 

Quiets at once with ''quia impossibile." 

VI. 

And therefore, mortals, cavil not at all ; 

Believe : — if 'tis improbable, you must, 
And if it is impossible, you shall : 

'Tis always best to take things upon trust. 
I do not speak profanely, to recall 

Those holier mysteries which the wise and just 
Receive as gospel, and which grow more rooted, 
As all truths must, the more they are disputed : 



Whither it goes. Even such that transient thing 
The human soul : not utterly unknown 
While in the body lodged, her warm abode; 
But from what world she came, what woe or weal 
On her departure waits, no tongue hath shown." 

Wordsworth. 

2 Xenophon, Cyrop. 

3 Hamlet, act ii. so. ii. 



904 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Canto XVI. 



VII. 

I merely mean to say what Johnson said, 
That in the course of some six thousand years, 

All nations have believed that from the dead 
A visitant at intervals appears : ^ 

And what is strangest upon this strange head, 
Is, that whatever bar the reason rears 

'Gainst ^uch belief, there's something stronger 
still 

In its behalf, let those deny who will. 

VIII. 

The dinner and the soiree too were done, 

The supper too discuss'd, the dames admired, 

The banqueteers had dropp'd off one by one — 
The song was silent, and the dance expired : 

The last thin petticoats were vanish'd, gone 
Like fleecy clouds into the sky retired, 

And nothing brighter gleam'd through the saloon 
'Than dying tapers — and the peeping moon. 

IX. 

The evaporation of a joyous day 

Is like the last glass of champagne, without 
The foam which made its virgin bumper gay ; 

Or like a system coupled with a doubt ; 
Or like a soda bottle when its spray 

Has sparkled and let half its spirit out ; 
Or like a billow left by storms behind, 
Without the animation of the wind ; 

X. 

Or like an opiate, which brings troubled rest, 
Or none ; or like — like nothing that I know 

Except itself; — such is the human breast; 
A thing, of which similitudes can show 

No real likeness, — like the old Tyrian vest 
Dyed purple, none at present can tell how, 

If from a shell -fish or from cochineal. ^ 

So perish every tyrant's robe piecemeal ! 

XI. 

But next to dressing for a rout or ball. 
Undressing is a woe ; our robe de chambre 

May sit like that of Nessus,^ and recall 
Thoughts quite as yellow, but less clear than 
amber. 

Titus exclaim'd, " I've lost a day !" Of all 
The nights and days most people can remember 

(I have had of both, some not to be disdain'd), 

I wish they'd state how many they have gain'd. 



1 " That the dead are seen no more," said Imlac, " I will 
HOt undertake to maintain, against the concurrent and un- 
varied testimony of all ages, and of all nations. There is no 
people, rude or unlearned, among whom apparitions of the 
dead are not related and believed. This opinion, which pre- 
vails as far as human nature is diffused, could become univer- 
sal only by its truth ; those that never heard of one another 
would not have agreed in a tale which nothing but experience 
can make credible. That it is doubted by single cavillers, 



XII. 

And Juan, on retiring for the night. 

Felt restless, and perplex'd, and compromised : 
He thought Aurora Raby's eyes more bright 

Than Adeline (such is advice) advised ; 
If he had known exactly his own plight, 

He probably would have philosophized : 
A great resource to all, and ne'er denied 
Till wanted ; therefore Juan only sigh'd. 

XIII. 

He sigh'd ; — the next resource is the full moon, 
Where all sighs are deposited ; and now 

It happen'd luckily, the chaste orb shone 
As clear as such a climate will allow ; 

And Juan's mind was in the proper tone 
To hail her with the apostrophe — '* Oh, thou !" 

Of amatory egotism the Tuism, 

Which further to explain would be a truism. 

XIV. 

But lover, poet, or astronomer. 

Shepherd, or swain, whoever may behold. 
Feel some abstraction when they gaze on her ; 

Great thoughts we catch from thence (besides a 
cold 
Sometimes, unless my feelings rather err) ; 

Deep secrets to her rolling light are told ; 
The ocean's tides and mortals' brains she sways, 
And also hearts, if there be truth in lays. 

XV. 

Juan felt somewhat pensive, and disposed 
For contemplation rather than his pillow : 

The Gothic chamber, where he was enclosed, 
Let in the rippling sound of the lake's billow, 

With all the mystery by midnight caused : 

Below his window waved (of course) a willow ; 

And he stood gazing out on the cascade 

That flash'd and after darken'd in the shade. 

XVI. 

Upon his table or his toilet, — which 

Of these is not exactly ascertain'd — 
(I state this, for I am cautious to a pitch 

Of nicety, where a fact is to be gain'd), 
A lamp burn'd high, while he leant from a 
niche, 

Where many a Gothic ornament remain'd. 
In chisell'd stone and painted glass, and all 
That time has left our fathers of their hall. 



can very little weaken the general evidence ; and some, who 
deny it with their tongues, confess it with their fears."— 
Rasselas. 

2 The composition of the old Tyrian purple, whether from 
a shell-fish, or from cochineal, or from kermes, is still an 
article of dispute; and even its color — some say purple, 
others scarlet : I say nothing. 

3 See Ovid, epist. ix. 



Canto XVI. 



DON JUAN. 



905 



XVII. 
Then, as the night was clear though cold, he threw 

His chamber door wide open — and went forth 
Into a gallery, of a sombre hue. 

Long, furnish'd with old pictures of great worth, 
Of knights and dames heroic and chaste too, 

As doubtless should be people of high birth. 
But by dim lights the portraits of the dead 
Have something ghastly, desolate, and dread. 

XVIII. 
The forms of the grim knight and pictured saint 

Look living in the moon ; and as you turn 
Backward and forward to the echoes faint 

Of your own footsteps — voices from the urn 
Appear to wake, and shadows wild and quaint 

Start from the frames which fence their aspects 
stem. 
As if to ask how you can dare to keep 
A vigil there, where all but death should sleep. 

XIX. 

And the pale smile of beauties in the grave, 
The charms of other days, in starlight gleams, 

Glimmer on high ; their buried locks still wave 
Along the canvas ; their eyes glance like dreams 

On ours, or spars within some dusky cave, 
But death is imaged in their shadowy beams. 

A picture is the past ; even ere its frame 

Be gilt, who sate hath ceased to be the same. 

XX. 

As Juan mused on mutability, 

Or on his mistress — terms synonymous — 

No sound except the echo of his sigh 
Or step ran sadly through that antique house ; 

When suddenly he heard, or thought so, nigh, 
A supernatural agent — or a mouse, 

"Whose little nibbling rustle will embarrass 

Most people as it plays along the arras. 

XXL 

It was no mouse, but lo ! a monk, array'd 

In cowl and beads, and dusky garb, appear'd. 

Now in the moonlight, and now lapsed in shade, 
With steps that trod as heavy, yet unheard ; 

His garments only a slight murmur made ; 
He moved as shadowy as the sisters weird,^ 

But slowly ; and as he passed Juan by. 

Glanced, without pausing, on him a bright eye. 

XXII. 
Juan was petrified ; he had heard a hint 

Of such a spirit in these halls of old. 
But thought, like most men, there was nothing in't 

Beyond the rumor which such spots unfold. 



1 " Show his eyes, and grieve his heart ; 
Come like shatlows, so depart," — Macbeth. 



Coin'd from surviving superstition's mint, 

Which passes ghosts in currency like gold. 
But rarely seen, like gold compared with paper. 
And did he see this ? or was it a vapor ? 

XXIII. 

Once, twice, thrice pass'd, repass'd — the thing of air, 
Or earth beneath, or heaven, or t'other place ; 

And Juan gazed upon it with a stare. 

Yet could not speak or move ; but, on its base 

As stands a statue, stood : he felt his hair 
Twine like a knot of snakes around his face ; 

He tax'd his tongue for words, which were not granted. 

To ask the reverend person what he wanted. 

XXIV. 

The third time, after a still longer pause, 

The shadow pass'd away — but where ? the hall 

Was long, and thus far there was no great cause 
To think his vanishing unnatural : 

Doors there were many, through which, by the laws 
Of physics, bodies whether short or tall 

Might come or go ; but Juan could not state 

Through which the spectre seem'd to evaporate. 

XXV. 

He stood — how long he knew not, but it seem'd 
An age — expectant, powerless, with his eyes 

Strain'd on the spot where first the figure gleam'd ; 
Then by degrees recall'd his energies. 

And would have pass'd the whole off" as a dream, 
But could not wake ; he was, he did surmise, 

Waking already, and return'd at length 

Back to his chamber, shorn of half his strength. 

XXVL 

All there was as he left it : still his taper 
Burnt, and not blue, as modest tapers use, 

Receiving sprites with sympathetic vapor ; 
He rubb'd his eyes, and they did not refuse 

Their office : he took up an old newspaper ; 
The paper was right easy to peruse ; 

He read an article the king attacking, 

And a long eulogy of " patent blacking." 

XXVII. 
This savor'd of this world ; but his hand shook : 

He shut his door, and after having read 
A paragraph, I think about Home Tooke, 

Undrest, and rather slowly went to bed. 
There, couch'd all snugly on his pillow's nook, 

With what he had seen his fantasy he fed ; 
And though it was no opiate, slumber crept 
Upon him by degrees, and so he slept. 

XXVIII. 

He woke betimes ; and, as may be supposed, 

Ponder'd upon his visitant or vision. 
And whether it ought not to be disclosed, 

At risk of being quizz'd for superstition ; 



906 



BYRON'S WOEKS. 



Canto XVI. 



The more he thought, the more his mind was 
posed : 
In the mean time, his valet, whose precision 
Was great, because his master brook'd no less, 
Knock'd to inform him it was time to dress. 

XXIX. 

(He dress'd; and like young people he was wont 
To take some trouble with his toilet, but 

This morning rather spent less time upon't ; 
Aside his very mirror soon was put ; 

His curls fell negligently o'er his front, 

His clothes were not curb'd to their usual cut, 

His very neckcloth's Gordian knot was tied 

Almost an hair's breadth too much on one side. 

XXX. 

And when he walk'd down into the saloon. 
He sate him pensive o'er a dish of tea. 

Which he perhaps had not discover'd soon. 
Had it not happen'd scalding hot to be, 

Which made him have recourse unto his spoon , 
So much distrait he was, that all could see 

That something was the matter — Adeline 

The first — but what she could not well divine. 

XXXI. 

She look'd, and saw him pale, and turn'd as pale 
Herself; then hastily look'd down, and mutter'd 

Something, but what's not stated in my tale. 
Lord Henry said, his muffin was ill butter'd ; 

The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke play'd with her veil, 
And look'd at Juan hard, but nothing utter'd. 

Aurora Raby with her large dark eyes 

Survey'd him with a kind of calm surprise. 

XXXII. 

But seeing him all cold and silent still. 
And everybody wondering more or less, 

Fair Adeline inquired, " If he were ill?" 

He started, and said, " Yes — no — rather — yes." 

The family physician had great skill, 
And being present, now began to express 

His readiness to feel his pulse and tell 

The cause, but Juan said, "He was quite well." 

XXXIII. 

"Quite well; yes, — no." — These answers were mys- 
terious. 

And yet his looks appear'd to sanction both, 
However they might savor of delirious ; 

Something like illness of a sudden growth 
Weigh'd on his spirit, though by no means 
serious : 

But for the rest, as he himself seem'd loth 
To state the case, it might be ta'en for granted 
It was not the physician that he wanted. 

1 " During a visit to Newstead, in 1814, Lord Byron actually 
fancied he saw the ghost of the Black Friar, which was sup- 



XXXIV. 

Lord Henry, who had now discuss'd his chocolate, 
Also the muffin whereof he complain'd. 

Said, Juan had not got his usual look elate, 
At which he marvell'd, since it had not rain'd ; 

Then ask'd her Grace what news were of the duke of 
late? 
Her Grace replied, his Grace was rather pain'd 

With some slight, light, hereditary twinges 

Of gout, which rusts aristocratic hinges. 

XXXV. 

Then Henry turn'd to Juan, and address'd 
A few words of condolence on his state : 

" You look," quoth he, " as if you had had your rest 
Broke in upon by the Black Friar of late." 

"What Friar?" said Juan; and he did his best 
To put the question with an air sedate. 

Or careless ; but the effiart was not valid 

To hinder him from growing still more pallid. 

XXXVI. 

" Oh ! have you never heard of the Black Friar ? 

The spirit of these walls?"—" In truth not I." 
"Why Fame — ^but Fame you know's sometimes a 
liar — 

Tells an odd story, of which by and by : 
Whether with time the spectre has grown shyer, 

Or that our sires had a more gifted eye 
For such sights, though the tale is half believed. 
The Friar of late has not been oft perceived. 

XXXVII. 

" The last time was " — " I pray," said Adeline — 

(Who watch'd the changes of Don Juan's brow, 

And from its context thought she could divine 
Connections stronger than he chose to avow 

With this same legend) — "if you but design 

To jest, you'll choose some other theme just now, 

Because the present tale has oft been told, 

And is not much improved by growing old." 

XXXVIII. 

"Jest!" quoth Milor; "why, Adeline, you know 
That we ourselves — 'twas in the honeymoon — 

Saw " — " Well, no matter, 'twas so long ago ; 

But, come, I'll set your story to a tune." 

Graceful as Dian when she draws her bow. 
She seized her harp, whose strings were kindled soon 

As touch'd, and plaintively began to play 

The air of " 'Twas a Friar of Orders Gray." 

XXXIX. 

" But add the words," cried Henry, "which you made ; 

For Adeline is half a poetess," 
Turning round to the rest, he smiling said. 

Of course the others could not but express 



posed to have haunted the abbey from the time of the dis-. 
solution of the monasteries."— Moore. 



Canto XVI. 



DON JUAN. 



907 



In courtesy their wish to see display'd 

By one three talents, for there were no less — 
The voice, the words, the harper's skill, at once, 
Could hardly be united by a dunce. 

XL. 
After some fascinating hesitation, — 

The charming of these charmers, who seem bound, 
I can't tell why, to this dissimulation, — 

Fair Adeline, with eyes fix'd on the ground 
At first, then kindling into animation. 

Added her sweet voice to the lyric sound, 
And sang with much simplicity, — a merit 
Not the less precious, that we seldom hear it. 

1. 
Beware ! beware ! of the Black Friar, 

Who sitteth by Norman stone. 
For he mutters his prayer in the midnight air, 

And his mass of the days that are gone. 
When the Lord of the Hill, Amundeville, 

Made Norman Church his prey. 
And expell'd the friars, one friar stiU 

Would not be driven away. 



Though he came in his might, with King Henry's right. 

To turn church lands to lay. 
With sword in hand, and torch to light 

Their walls, if they said nay ; 
A monk remain'd, unchased, unchain'd 

And he did not seem form'd of clay, 
For he's seen in the porch, and he's seen in the church, 

Though he is not seen by day. 

3. 
And whether for good, or whether for ill, 

It is not mine to say ; 
But still with the house of Amundeville 

He abideth night and day. 
By tlie marriage-bed of their lords, 'tis said. 

He flits on the bridal eve ; 
And 'tis held as faith, to their bed of death 

He comes — but not to grieve. 

4. 
When an heir is bom, he's heard to mourn, 

And when aught is to befall 
That ancient line, in the pale moonshine 

He walks from hall to hall.^ 
His form you may trace, but not his face, 

'Tis shadow'd by his cowl ; 

1 "Of the leading superstitions, one of the most beautiful 
is the Irish fiction, which assigns to certain families of ancient 
descent and distinguished rank, the privilege of a Banshie, 
whose oflSce it is to appear, seemingly mourning, while she 
announces the approaching death of some one of thedestined 
race. The subject has been lately, and beautifully, investi- 
gated by Mr. Crofton Croker, in his Fairy Legends." — Sir 
WALfl-KH Scott, 1829. 



But his eyes may be seen from the folds between, 
And they seem of a parted soul. 

5. 
But beware ! beware ! of the Black Friar, 

He still retains his sway, 
For he is yet the church's heir. 

Whoever may be the lay. 
Amundeville is lord by day. 

But the monk is lord by night ; 
Nor wine nor wassail could raise a vassal 

To question that friar's right 



Say nought to him as he walks the hall, 

And he'll say nought to you ; 
He sweeps along in his dusky pall, 

As o'er the grass the dew. 
Then gramercy ! for the Black Friar ; 

Heaven sain him ! fair or foul. 
And whatsoe'er may be his prayer, 

Let ours be for his soul. 

XLI. 

The lady's voice ceased, and the thrilling wires 
Died from the touch that kindled them to sound 

And the pause follow'd, which when song expires 
Pervades a moment those who listen round ; 

And then of course the circle much admires, 
Nor less applauds, as in politeness bound, 

The tones, the feeling, and the execution, 

To the performer's diffident confusion. 

XLII. 

Fair Adeline, though in a careless way. 
As if she rated such accomplishment 

As the mere pastime of an idle day. 
Pursued an instant for her own content. 

Would now and then as 'twere without display, 
Yet with display in fact, at times relent 

To such performances with haughty smile. 

To show she could, if it were worth her while. 

XLIII. 

Now this (but we will whisper it aside) 
Was — pardon the pedantic illustration — 

Trampling on Plato's pride with greater pride. 
As did the Cynic on some like occasion ; 

Deeming the sage would be much mortified. 
Or thrown into a philosophic passion, 

For a spoilt carpet — but the " Attic Bee " 

Was much consoled by his own repartee.'* 



2 I think that it was a carpet on which Diogenes trod, with 
— " Thus I trample on the pride of Plato !"— " With greater 
pride," as the other replied. But as carpets are meant to be 
trodden upon, my memory probably misgives me, and it might 
be a robe, or tapestry, or a table-cloth, or some other expens- 
ive and uncynical piece of furniture. 



908 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto XVI. 



XLIV. 

Thus Adeline would throw into the shade 

(By doing easily, whene'er she chose, 
What dilettanti do with vast parade) 

Their sort of half profession; for it grows 
To something like this when too oft display'd ; 

And that it is so, everybody knows, 
Who have heard Miss That or This, or Lady T'other, 
Show off— to please their company or mother. 

XLV. 

Oh, the long evenings of duets and trios ! 

The admirations and the speculations ; 
The " Mamma Mia's !" and the " Amor Mio's !" 

The " Tanti palpiti's" on such occasions : 
The " Lasciami's," and quavering " Addio's!" 

Amongst our own most musical of nations ; 
With " Tu mi chamas's " from Portingale,i 
To soothe our ears, lest Italy should fail.=^ 

XLVI. 

In Babylon's bravuras — as the home 

Heart-ballads of Green Erin or Gray Highlands, 
That bring Lochaber back to eyes that roam 

O'er far Atlantic continents or islands. 
The calentures of music which o'ercome 

All mountaineers with dreams that they are nigh 
lands. 
No more to be beheld but in such visions — 
Was Adeline well versed, as compositions. 

XLVII. 

She also had a twilight tinge of "jB^ue," [wrote, 

Could write rhymes, and compose more than she 

Made epigrams occasionally too 

Upon her friends, as everybody ought. 

But still from that sublimer azure hue. 
So much the present dye, she was remote ; 

Was weak enough to deem Pope a great poet, 

And what was worse, was not ashamed to show it. 

XLVIII. 

Aurora— since we are touching upon taste, 

Which nowadays is the thermometer 
By whose degrees all characters are class'd — 

Was more Shaksperian, if I do not err. 
The worlds beyond this world's perplexing waste 

Had more of her existence, for in her 
There was a depth of feeling to embrace 
Thoughts, boundless, deep, but silent too as Space. 



1 For two translations of this Portuguese song, see p. 667. 

2 I remember that the mayoress of a provincial town, some- 
what surfeited with a similar display from foreign parts, did 
rather indecorously break through the applauses of an intel- 
ligent audience— intelligent, I mean, as to music — for the 
words, besides being in recondite language (it was some 
years before the peace, ere all the world had travelled, and 
while I was a collegian), were sorely disguised by the per- 
formers : — this mayoress, I say, broke out with, " Eot your 
Italianos ! for my part, I loves a simple ballat !" Rossini will 



XLIX. 

Not so her gracious, graceful, graceless Grace, 
The full-grown Hebe of Fitz-Fulke, whose mind, 

If she had any, was upon her face. 
And that was of a fascinating kind. 

A little turn for mischief you might trace 
Also thereon, — but that's not much ; we find 

Few females without some such gentle leaven. 

For fear we should suppose us quite in heaven. 



I have not heard she was at all poetic, [Guide," 

Tlrough once she was seen reading the "Bath 

And "Hayley's Triumphs," which she deem'd 
pathetic. 
Because she said her temper had been tried 

So much, the bard had really been prophetic 
Of what she had gone through with — since a bride. 

But of all verse, what most ensured her praise 

Were sonnets to herself, or " bouts rimes." ^ 

LI. 

'Twere difficult to say what was the object 

Of Adeline, in bringing this same lay 
To bear on what appear'd to her the siibject 

Of Juan's nervous feelings on that day. 
Perhaps she merely had the simple project 

To laugh him out of his supposed dismay ; 
Perhaps she might wish to confirm him in it, . 
Though why I cannot say — at least this minute. 

LII. 

But so far the immediate effect 

Was to restore him to his self-propriety, 

A thing quite necessary to the elect. 

Who wish to take the tone of their society : 

In which you cannot be too circumspect. 
Whether the mode be persiflage or piety. 

But wear tlie newest mantle of hypocrisy. 

On pain of much displeasing the gynocracy.* 

LIII. 

And therefore Juan now began to rally 
His spirits, and without more explanation 

To jest upon such themes in many a sally. 
Her Grace, too, also seized the same occasion, 

With various similar remarks to tally, 

But wish'd for a still more detail'd narration 

Of this same mystic friar's curious doings, 

About the present family's deaths and wooings. 



go a good way to bring most people to the same opinion some 
day. Who would imagine that he was to be the successor of 
Mozart ? However, I state this with diffidence, as a liege and 
loyal admirer of Italian music in general, and of much of 
Rossini's ; but we may say, as the connoisseur did of painting 
in " The Vicar of Wakefield," that " the picture would be 
better painted if the painter had taken more pains." 

8 " The last words or rhymes of a number of verses given 
to a poet to be filled up."— Todd. 

* " Petticoat government— female power," — Ibid. 



CAirro XVI. 



DON JUAN. 



909 



LIV. 

Of these few could say more than has been said ; 

They pass'd as such things do, for superstition 
With some, while others, who had n^re in dread 

The theme, half credited the strange tradition ; 
And much was talk'd on all sides on that head : 

But Juan, when cross-question 'd on the vision, 
Which some supposed (though he had not avow'd 

it) 
Had stirr'd him, answer'd in a way to cloud it. 

LV. 

And then, the mid-day having worn to one, 

The company prepared to separate ; 
Some to their several pastimes, or to none. 

Some wondering 'twas so early, some so late. 
There was a goodly match too, to be run 

Between some greyhounds on my lord's estate 
And a young race-horse of old pedigree, 
M^tch'd for the spring, whom several went to see. 

LVI. 
There was a picture-dealer who had brought 

A special Titian, warranted original. 
So precious that it was not to be bought, 

Though princes the possessor were besieging all. 
The king himself had cheapen'd it, but thought 

The civil list he deigns to accept (obliging all 
His subjects by his gracious acceptation) 
Too scanty, in these times of low taxation. 

LYII. 
But as Lord Henry was a connoisseur, — 

The friend of artists, if not arts, — the owner, 
With motives the most classical and pure, 

So that he would have been the very donor, 
Rather than seller, had his wants been fewer. 

So much he deem'd his patronage an honor, 
Had brought the capo d'opera,i not for sale. 
But for his judgment — never known to fail. 

LYIII. 
There was a modern Goth, I mean a Gothic 

Bricklayer of Babel, call'd an architect, 
Brought to survey these gray walls, which though so 
thick, 

Might have from time acquired some slight defect ; 
Who, after rummaging the Abbey through thick 

And thin, produced a plan whereby to erect 
New buildings of correctest conformation, 
And throw down old, which he call'd restoration. 



1 Capo d^opera — chef-d'oeuvre— maBterpiece. 

' "Ausu Romano, aere Veneto " is the inscription (and well 
inscribed in this instance) on the sea walls between the 
Adriatic and "Venice. The walls were a republican work of 
the Venetians; the inscription, I believe, imperial; and in- 
scribed by Napoleon the First. It is time to continue to him 
that title— there will be a second by and by, "Spes altera 
miindi," if he live; let him not defeat it like his father. But 



LIX. 

The cost would be a trifle— an " old song," 
Set to some thousands ('tis the usual burden 

Of that same tune, when people hum it long) — 
The price would speedily repay its worth in 

An edifice no less sublime than strong. 
By which Lord Henry's good taste would go 
forth in 

Its glory, through all ages shining sunny. 

For Gothic daring shown in English money.' 

LX. 
There were two lawyers busy on a mortgage 

Lord Henry wish'd to raise for a new purchase 
Also a lawsuit upon tenures burgage. 

And one on tithes, which sure are Discord's 
torches. 
Kindling Religion till she throws down her gage, 

" Untying " squires " to fight against the churches ;" * 
There was a prize ox, a prize pig, and ploughman 
For Henry was a sort of Sabine showman. 

LXI. 

There were two poachers caught in a steel trap. 
Ready for jail, their place of convalescence; 

There was a country girl in a close cap 
And scarlet cloak (I hate the sight to see, since — 

Since — since — in youth, I had the sad mishap — 
But luckily I have paid few parish fees since) : 

That scarlet cloak, alas ! unclosed with rigor. 

Presents the problem of a double figure. 

LXII. 

A reel within a bottle is a mystery. 
One can't tell how it e'er got in or out ; 

Therefore the present piece of natural history 
I leave to those who are fond of solving doubt ; 

And merely state, though not for the consistory. 
Lord Henry was a justice, and that Scout 

The constable, beneath a warrant's banner. 

Had bagg'd this poacher upon Nature's manor. 

LXIII. 
Now justices of peace must judge all pieces 

Of mischief of all kinds, and keep the game 
And morals of the country from caprices 

Of those who have not a license for the same ; 
And of all things, excepting tithes and leases. 

Perhaps these are most difiicult to tame : 
Preserving partridges and pretty wenches 
Are puzzles tb the most precautious benches. 



in any case, he will be preferable to Imbficiles. There is a 
glorious field for him, if he know how to cultivate it. — Na- 
poleon, Duke of Reichstadt, died at Vienna in 1832 — to the 
disappointment of many prophets. 
8 "I conjure you, by that which you profess 
(Howe'er you come to know it), answer me: 
Though ye untie the winds, and let them fight 
Against the churches."— Macbeth. 



910 



BYBON'S WOKKS. 



Canto XVI. 



LXIV. 

The present culprit was extremely pale, 
Pale as if painted so ; her cheek being red 

By nature, as in higher dames less hale 
'Tis white, at least when they just rise from bed. 

Perhaps she was ashamed of seeming frail, 
Poor soul ! for she was country born and bred, 

And knew no better in her immorality 

Than to wax white— for blushes are for quality. 

LXV. 

Her black, bright, downcast, yet espiegle eye, 
Had gather'd a large tear into its corner. 

Which the poor thing at times essay'd to dry, 
For she was not a sentimental mourner 

Parading all her sensibility. 

Nor insolent enough to scorn the scorner, 

But stood in trembling, patient tribulation, 

To be call'd up for her examination. 

LXVI. 

Of course these groups were scattered here and 
there, 

Not nigh the gay saloon of ladies gent. 
The lawyers in the study ; and in air 

The prize pig, ploughman, poachers ; the men sent 
From town, viz., architect and dealer, were 

Both busy (as a general in his tent 
Writing despatches) in their several stations, 
Exulting in their brilliant lucubrations. 

LXVII. 

But this poor girl was left in the great hall, 
While Scout, the parish guardian of the frail, 

Discuss'd (he hated beer yclept the " small ") 
A mighty mug of moral double ale. 

She waited until Justice could recall 
Its kind attentions to their proper pale. 

To name a thing in nomenclature rather 

Perplexing for most virgins — a child's father. 

LXVIII. 

You see here was enough of occupation 
For the Lord Henry, link'd with dogs and horses. 

There was much bustle too, and preparation 
Below stairs on the score of second courses ; 

Because, as suits their rank and situation. 
Those who in counties have great land resources 

Have "public days," when all men may carouse. 

Though not exactly what's call'd " open house." 

LXIX. 

But once a week or fortnight, wmnvited 
(Thus we tranalate a general invitation) 

All country gentlemen, esquired or knighted. 
May drop in without cards, and take their station 

At the full board, and sit alike delighted 
With fashionable wines and conversation ; 

And, as the isthmus of the grand connection, 

Talk o'er themselves the past and next election. 



LXX. 

Lord Henry was a great electioneerer, 
Burrowing for boroughs like a rat or rabbit. 

But county contests cost him rather dearer. 
Because the neighboring Scotch Earl of Giftgabbit 

Had English influence, in the self-same sphere here ; 
His son, the Honorable Dick Dicedrabbit, 

Was member for the " other interest" (meaning 

The same self-interest, with a different leaning). 

LXXI. 

Courteous and cautious therefore in his county. 
He was all things to all men, and dispensed 

To some civility, to others bounty. 
And promises to all — which last commenced 

To gather to a somewhat large amount, he 
Not calculating how much they condensed ; 

But what with keeping some, and breaking others, 

His word had the same value as another's. 

LXXII. 

A friend to freedom and freeholders — yet 
No less a friend to government — he held. 

That he exactly the just medium hit 
'Twixt place and patriotism — albeit compell'd, 

Such was his sovereign's pleasure (though unfit. 
He added modestly, when rebels rail'd), 

To hold some sinecures he wish'd abolish'd. 

But that with them all law would be demolish'd. 

LXXIII. 

He was " free to confess " — (whence comes this phrase ? 

Is't English ? No — 'tis only parliamentary) 
That innovation's spirit nowadays 

Had made more progress than for the last century. 
He would not tread a factious path to praise, 

Though for the public weal disposed to venture 
high; 
As for his place, he could but say this of it, 
That the fatigue was greater than the profit. 

LXXIV. 

Heaven, and his friends, knew that a private life 
Had ever been his sole and whole ambition ; 

But could he quit his king in times of strife, 
Which threaten'd the whole country with perdition ? 

When demagogues would with a butcher's knife 
Cut through and through (oh, damnable incision!) 

The Gordian or the Geordi-an knot, whose strings 

Have tied together commons, lords, and kings. 

LXXV. 

Sooner " come place into the civil list 

And champion him to the utmost "^ — he would 
keep it. 
Till duly disappointed or dismiss'd : 

Profit he cared not for, let others reap it ; 



" Rather than so, come, fate, into the list, 
And champion me to the utterance."— il!fae6e<A. 



Canto XVI. 



DON JUAN. 



911 



But should the day come when place ceased to exist, 
The country would have far more cause to weep it : 
For how could it go on ? Explain who can ! 
He gloried in the name of Englishman. 

LXXVI. 

He was as independent — ay, much more — 
Than those who were not paid for independence, 

As common soldiers, or a common shore. 

Have in their several arts or parts ascendance 

O'er the irregulars in lust or gore. 
Who do not give professional attendance. 

Thus on the mob all statesmen are as eager 

To prove their pride, as footmen to a beggar. 

LXXVII. 
All this (save the last stanza) Henry said. 

And thought. I say no more — I've said too much ; 
For all of us have either heard or read — 

Off— or upon the hustings — some slight such 
Hints from the independent heart or head 

Of the official candidate. I'll touch 
No more on this — the dinner-bell hath rung. 
And grace is said ; the grace I should have sung — 

LXXVIII. 
But I'm too late, and therefore must make play. 

'Twas a great banquet, such as Albion old 
Was wont to boast — as if a glutton's tray 

Were something very glorious to behold. 
But 'twas a public feast and public day, — 

Quite full, right dull, guests hot, and dishes cold. 
Great plenty, much formality, small cheer, 
And everybody out of their own sphere. 

LXXIX. 

The squires familiarly formal, and 
My lords and ladies proudly condescending ; 

The very servants puzzling how to hand 
Their plates— without it might be too much 
bending 

From their high places by the sideboard's stand — 
Yet, like their masters, fearful of offending. 

For any deviation from the graces 

Might cost both man and master too— their places. 

LXXX. 
There were some hunters bold, and coursers keen, 

Whose hounds ne'er err'd, nor greyhounds deign'd 
to lurch ; 
Some deadly shots too, Septembrizers, seen 

Earliest to rise, and last to quit the search 
Of the poor partridge through his stubble screen. 

There were some massy members of the church, 
Takers of tithes, and makers of good matches. 
And several who sung fewer psalms than catches. 



J Query, Sydney Smith, author of Peter Plymley's Letters? 
-Printer'B Devil. 



LXXXI. 

There were some country wags too — and, alas ! 

Some exiles from the town, who had been driven 
To gaze, instead of pavement, upon grass. 

And rise at nine in lieu of long eleven. 
And lo ! upon that day it came to pass, 

1 sate next that o'erwhelming son of heaven, 
The very powerful parson, Peter Pith,i 

The loudest wit I e'er was deafen 'd with. 

LXXXII. 

I knew him in his livelier London days, 
A brilliant diner out, though but a curate, 

And not a joke he cut but earn'd its praise, 
Until preferment, coming at a sure rate 

(Oh, Providence ! how wondrous are thy ways ! 
Who would suppose thy gifts sometimes ob- 
durate?). 

Gave him, to lay the devil who looks o'er Lincoln, 

A fat fen vicarage, and nought to think on. 

LXXXIII. 

His jokes were sermons, and his sermons jokes ; 

But both were thrown away amongst the fens ; 
For wit hath no great friend in aguish folks. 

No longer ready ears and short-hand pens 
Imbibed the gay bon-mot, or happy hoax : 

The poor priest was reduced to common sense, 
Or to coarse efforts very loud and long. 
To hammer a hoarse laugh from the thick throng. 

LXXXIV. 

There is a difference, says the song, " between 
A beggar and a queen," 2 or was (of late 

The latter worse used of the two we've seen — 
But we'll say nothing of affairs of state) ; 

A difference " 'twixt a bishop and a dean," 
A difference between crockery ware and plate. 

As between English beef and Spartan broth — 

And yet great heroes have been bred by both. 

LXXXV. 

But of all nature's discrepancies, none 
Upon the whole is greater than the difference 

Beheld between the country and the town. 
Of which the latter merits every preference 

From those who have few resources of their own, 
And only think, or act, or feel, with reference 

To some small plan of interest or ambition — 

Both which are limited to no condition. 

LXXXVI. 

But " en avant !" The light loves languish o'er 
Long banquets and too many guests, although 

A slight repast makes people love much more, 
Bacchus and Ceres being, as we know, 

2 " There's a difference between a beggar and a queen ; 

And I'll tell you the reason why ; 
A queen does not swagger, nor get drunk like a beggar, 
Nor be half so merry as I," &c. 



912 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto XVI. 



Even from our grammar upwards, friends of yore 

With vivifying Venus,i who doth owe 
To these the invention of champagne and truffles : 
Temperance delights her, but long fasting ruffles. 

LXXXVII. 
Dully pass'd o'er the dinner of the day ; 

And Juan took his place, he knew not where, 
Confused, in the confusion, and distrait, 

And sitting as if nail'd upon his chair : 
Though knives and forks clank'd round as in a 
fray, 

He seem'd unconscious of all passing there. 
Till some one, with a groan, exprest a wish 
(Unheeded twice) to have a fin of fish. 

LXXXVIII. 

On which, at the third asking of the banns, 
He started ; and perceiving smiles around 

Broadening to grins, he color'd more than once. 
And hastily — as nothing can confound 

A wise man more than laughter from a dunce — 
Inflicted on the dish a deadly wound. 

And with such hurry, that, ere he could curb it, 

He had paid his neighbor's prayer with half a turbot. 

LXXXIX. 

This was no bad mistake, as it occurr'd, 

The supplicator being an amateur ; 
But others, who were left with scarce a third, 

Were angry^as they well might, to be sure. 
They wonder'd how a young man so absurd 

Lord Henry at his table should endure ; 
And this, and his not knowing how much oats 
Had fallen last market, cost his host three votes. 

XC. 

They little knew, or might have sympathized, 
That he the night before had seen a ghost, 

A prologue which but slightly harmonized 
With the substantial company engross'd 

By matter, and so much materialized. 

That one scarce knew at what to marvel most 

Of two things — how (the question rather odd is) 

Such bodies could have souls, or souls such bodies. 

XCI. 
But what confused him more than smile or stare, 

From all the 'squires and 'squiresses around. 
Who wonder'd at the abstraction of his air. 

Especially as he had been renown'd 
For some vivacity among the fair. 

Even in the country circle's narrow bound 
(For little things upon my lord's estate 
Were good small talk for others still less great)— 



1 "Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus."— Adag. 

2 In French "mobilM." I am not sure that mobility is 
English : but it is expressive of a quality which rather belongs 
to other climates, though it is sometimes seen to a great ex- 



XCII. 
Was, that he caught Aurora's eye on his. 

And something like a smile upon her chjeek. 
Now this he really rather took amiss ; 

In those who rarely smile, their smile bespeaks 
A strong external motive ; and in this 

Smile of Aurora's there was nought to pique 
Or hope, or love, with any of the wiles 
Which some pretend to trace in ladies' smiles. 

XCIII. 

'Twas a mere quiet smile of contemplation, 

Indicative of some surprise and pity ; 
And Juan grew carnation with vexation. 

Which was not very wise, and still less witty. 
Since he had gain'd at least her observation, 

A most important outwork of the city — 
As Juan should have known, had not his senses 
By last night's ghost been driven from their defences. 

XCIV. 

But what was bad, she did not blush in turn. 
Nor seem embarrass'd — quite the contrary ; 

Her aspect was as usual, still — not stern — 
And she withdrew, but cast not down, her eye. 

Yet grew a little pale — with what? concern? 
I know not ; but her color ne'er was high — 

Though sometimes faintly flush'd — and always clear, 

As deep seas in a sunny atmosphere. 

XCV. 
But Adeline was occupied by fame 

This day ; and watching, witching, condescending 
To the consumers of fish, fowl, and game. 

And dignity with courtesy so blending. 
As all must blend whose part it is to aim 

(Especially as the sixth year is ending) 
At their lord's, son's, or similar connection's 
Safe conduct through the rocks of re-elections. 

XCVI. 
Though this was most expedient on the whole, 

And usual — Juan, when he cast a glance 
On Adeline while playing her grand rdle, 

Which she went through as though it were a dance, 
Betraying only now and then her soul 

By a look scarce perceptibly askance 
(Of weariness or scorn), began to feel 
Some doubt how much of Adeline was real ; 

XCVII. 
So well she acted all and every part 

By turns — with that vivacious versatility, 
Which many people take for want of heart. 

They err — 'tis merely what is call'd mobility,^ 



tent in our own. It may be defined as an excessive suscep- 
tibility of immediate impressions— at the same time without 
losing the past : and is, though sometimes apparently useful 
to the possessor, a most painful and unhappy attribute.— 



Canto XVI. 



DON JUAN. 



913 



A thing of temperament and not of art, 

Though seeming so, from its supposed facility ; 
And false — though true ; for surely they're sincerest, 
Who are strongly acted on by what is nearest. 

XCVIII. 
This makes your actors, artists, and romancers, 

Heroes sometimes, though seldom — sages never ; 
But speakers, bards, diplomatists, and dancers, 

Little that's great, but much of what is clever ; 
Most orators, but very few financiers, 

Though all Exchequer chancellors endeavor, 
Of late years, to dispense with Cocker's rigors, 
And grow quite figurative Avith their figures. 

XCIX. 
The poets of arithmetic are they 

Who, though they prove not two and two to be 
Five, as they might do in a modest way, 

Have plainly made it out that four are three, 
Judging by what they take, and what they pay 

The Sinking Fund's unfathomable sea. 
That most unliquidating liquid, leaves 
The debt unsunk, yet sinks all it receives. 



While Adeline displayed her airs and graces, 
The fair Fitz-Fulke seem'd very much at ease ; 

Though too well bre<J to quiz men to their faces, 
Her laughing blue eyes with a glance could seize 

The ridicules of people in all places — 
That honey of your fashionable bees — 

And store it up for mischievous enjoyment; 

And this at present was her kind employment. 

CI. 
However, the day closed, as days must close ; 

The evening also waned — and cofiee came. 
Each carriage was announced, and ladies rose, 

And curtsying off, as curtsies country dame, 
Retired : with most unfashionable bows 

Their docile esquires also did the same, 
Delighted with their dinner and their host, 
But with the Lady Adeline the most. 

CII. 
Some praised her beauty : others her great grace ; 

The warmth of her politeness, whose sincerity 
Was obvious in each feature of her face, 

Whose trait^s were radiant with the rays of verity. 
Yes ; she was truly worthy her high place ! 

No one could envy her deserved prosperity. 



"That Lord Byron was fully aware not only of the abun- 
dance of this quality in his own nature, but of the danger in 
which it placed consistency and singleness of character, did 
not require this note to assure you. The consciousness, in- 
deed, of his own natural tendency to yield thus to every 
chance impression, and change with every passing impulse, 
waa not only for ever present in his mind, but had the effect 
58 



And then her dress — what beautiful simplicity 
Draperied her form with curious felicity ! ^ 

cm. 

Meanwhile sweet Adeline deserved their praises, 

By an impartial indemnification 
For all her past exertion and soft phrases, 

In a most edifying conversation, 
Which turn'd upon their late guests' miens and faces, 

And families, even to the last relation ; 
Their hideous wives, their horrid selves and dresses, 
And truculent distortion of their tresses. 

CIV. 
True, she said little — 'twas the rest that broke 

Forth into universal epigram ; 
But then 'twas to the purpose what she spoke : 

Like Addison's " faint praise," ^ so wont to damn, 
Her own but served to set off every joke. 

As music chimes in with a melodrame. 
How sweet the task to shield an absent friend ! 
I ask but this of mine, to not defend. 

CV. 

There were but two exceptions to this keen 
Skirmish of wits o'er the departed ; one 

Aurora, with her pure and placid mien ; 
And Juan, too, in general behind none 

In gay remark on what he had heard or seen, 
Sate silent now, his usual spirits gone : 

In vain he heard the others rail or rally, 

He would not join them in a single sally. 

CVI. 

'Tis true he saw Aurora look as though 
She approved his silence ; she perhaps mistook 

Its motive for that charity we owe 
But seldom pay the absent, nor would look 

Further ; it might or it might not be so. 
But Juan, sitting silent in his nook, 

Observing little in his reverie, 

Yet saw this much, which he was glad to see. 

CVII. 
The ghost at least had done him this much good, 

In making him as silent as a ghost, 
If in the circumstances which ensued 

He gain'd esteem where it was worth the most ; 
And certainly Aurora had renew'd 

In him some feelings he had lately lost. 
Or harden'd : feelings which, perhaps ideal, 
Are so divine, that I must deem them real : — 



of keeping him in that general line of consistency, on certain 
great subjects, which he continued to preserve throughout 
life."— Moore. 

1 "Curiosa felicitas."— Petronius Arbiter. 

2 " Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer." 

Pope on Addison. 



914 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Canto XVI. 



CVIII. 

The love of higher things and better days ; 

The unbounded hope, and heavenly ignorance 
Of what is call'd the world, and the world's ways ; 

The moments when we gather from a glance 
More joy than from all future pride or praise, 

Which kindle manhood, but can ne'er entrance 
The heart in an existence of its own, 
Of which another's bosom is the zone. 

CIX. 

Who would not sigh At ai rav Kv0epeiav 

That hath a memory, or that had a heart ? 
Alas ! her star must fade like that of Dian : 

Ray fades on ray, as years on years depart. 
Anacreon only had the soul to tie an 

Unwithering myrtle round the unblunted dart 
Of Eros: but though thou hast play'd us many 

tricks, 
Still we respect thee, " Alma Venus Genetrix !" i 

ex. 

And full of sentiments, sublime as billows 
Heaving between this world and worMs beyond, 

Don Juan, when the midnight hour of pillows 
Arrived, retired to his ; but to despond 

Rather than rest. Instead of poppies, willows 
Waved o'er his couch ; he meditated, fond 

Of those sweet bitter thoughts which banish sleep, 

And make the worldling sneer, the youngling weep. 

CXI. 

The night was as before : he was undrest. 
Saving his night-gown, which is an undress ; 

Completely " sans culotte," and without vest; 
In short, he hardly could be clothed with less : 

But apprehensive of his spectral guest, 
He sate with feelings awkward to express 

(By those who have not had such visitations), 

Expectant of the ghost's fresh operations. 

CXII. 

And not in vain he listen'd ; — Hush ! what's that ? 

I see — I see — Ah, no ! — 'tis not — yet 'tis — 
Ye powers ! it is the — the — the — Pooh ! the cat ! 

The devil may take that stealthy pace of his ! 
So like a spiritual pit-a-pat, 

Or tiptoe of an amatory Miss, 
Gliding the first time to a rendezvous, 
And dreading the chaste echoes of her shoe. 

CXIII. 

Again — what is't ? The wind ? No, no, — this time 

It is the sable Friar as before. 
With awful footsteps regular as rhyme. 

Or (as rhymes may be in these days) much more. 



1 " genetrix hominum, divomque voluptas, 

Alma Venus !"— Lucret, lib. i. 



Again through shadows of the night sublime, 

When deep sleep fell on men, and the world wore 
The starry darkness round her like a girdle 
Spangled with gems — the monk made his blood 
curdle. 

CXIV. 

A noise like to wet fingers drawn on glass,^ 
Which sets the teeth on edge ; and a slight clatter, 

Like showers which on the midnight gusts will 
pass. 
Sounding like very supernatural water. 

Came over Juan's ear, which throbb'd, alas ! 
For immaterialism's a serious matter ; 

So that even those whose faith is the most great 

In souls immortal, shun them tete-^-tete. 

cxv. 

Were his eyes open ? — Yes ! and his mouth too. 

Surprise has this effect — to make one dumb, 
Yet leave the gate which eloquence slips through 

As wide as if a long speech were to come. 
Nigh and more nigh the awful echoes drew, 

Tremendous to a mortal tympanum : 
His eyes were open, and (as was before 
Stated) his mouth. What open'd next ?— the door. 

CXVI. 

It open'd with a most infernal creak, 
Like that of hell. '* Lasciate ogni speranza 

Voi ch' entrate !" The hinge seem'd to speak, 
Dreadful as Dante's rhima, or this stanza ; 

Or— but all words upon such themes are weak : 
A single shade's sufficient to entrance a 

Hero — for what is substance to a spirit ? 

Or how is't matter trembles to come near it ? 

CXVII. 

The door flew wide, not swiftly, — but, as fly 
The sea-gulls, with a steady, sober flight — 

And then swung back ; nor close,— but stood awry, 
Half letting in long shadows on the light, 

Which still in Juan's candlesticks burn'd high, 
For he had two, both tolerably bright, 

And in the doorway, darkening darkness, stood 

The sable Friar in his solemn hood. 

CXVIII. 

Don Juan shook, as erst he had been shaken 
The night before ; but being sick of shaking, 

He first inclined to think he had been mistaken ; 
And then to be ashamed of such mistaking ; 

His own internal ghost began to awaken 
Within him, and to quell his corporal quaking — 

Hinting that soul and body on the whole 

Were odds against a disembodied soul. 



2 See the account of the ghost of the uncle of Prince 
Charles of Saxony, raised by Schroepfer— " Karl— Karl— was 
willst du mit mir ?" 



Canto XVI. 



DON JUAN. 



915 



CXIX. 

And then his dread grew wrath, and his wrath fierce, 
And he arose, advanced — the shade retreated ; 

But Juan, eager now the truth to pierce, 
Follow'd, his veins no longer cold, but heated, 

Resolved to thrust the mystery carte and tierce. 
At whatsoever risk of being defeated : 

The ghost stopp'd, menaced, then retired, until 

He reach'd the ancient wall, then stood stone still. 

cxx. 

Juan put forth one arm — Eternal powers ! 

It touch'd no soul, nor body, bift the wall. 
On which the moonbeams fell in silvery showers, 

Checkered with all the tracery of the hall ; 
He shudder'd, as no doubt the bravest cowers 

When he can't tell what 'tis that doth appall. 
How odd, a single hobgoblin's nonentity 
Should cause more fear than a whole host's identity ! 

CXXI. 

But still the shade remain'd : the blue eyes glared, 

And rather variably for stony death ; 
Yet one thing rather good the grave had spared. 

The ghost had a remarkably sweet breath : 



A straggling curl show'd he had been fair-hair'd ; 

A red lip, with two rows of pearls beneath, 
Gleam'd forth, as through the casement's ivy 

shroud 
The moon peep'd, just escaped from a gray cloud. 

CXXII. 

And Juan, puzzled, but still curious, thrust 
His other arm forth — Wonder upon wonder ! 

It press'd upon a hard but glowing bust, 
Which beat as if there was a warm heart under. 

He found, as people on most trials must, 
That he had made at first a silly blunder, 

And that in his confusion he had caught 

Only the wall, instead of what he sought. 

CXXIII. 

The ghost, if ghost it were, seem'd a sweet soul 
As ever lurk'd beneath a holy hood : 

A dimpled chin, a neck of ivory, stole 

Forth into something much like flesh and blood ; 

Back fell the sable frock and dreary cowl. 
And they reveal'd— alas ! that e'er they should ! 

In full, voluptuous, but not o'ergrown bulk, 

The phantom of her frolic Grace — Fitz-Fulke I 



APPENDIX. 



att)(ltre Jgarolti's pilgrimage. 



CANTO THE FIRST. 

KoTE A. — Battle of Talavera. See p. 10. 

" 7b jeed the crow on Talavera' s plain, 
And fertilize the field that each pretends to gain." 

Stanza xli. 

Wf. think it right to restore here a note which Lord Byron 
himself suppressed with reluctance, at the urgent request of a 
friend. It alludes, irUer alia, to the then recent publication of 
Sir Walter Scott's " Vision of Don Roderick," of which work 
the profits had been handsomely given to the cause of Portu- 
guese patriotism:— "We have heard wonders of the Portu- 
guese lately, and their gallantry. Pray Heaven it continue ! 
yet ' would it were bed-time, Hal, and all were well !' They 
must fight a great many hours, by ' Shrewsbury clock,' before 
the number of their slain equals that of our countrymen 
butchered by these kind creatures, now metamorphosed into 
' cagadores,' and what not. I merely state a fact, not confined 
to Portugal ; for in Sicily and Malta we are knocked on the 
head at a handsome average nightly, and not a Sicilian or 
Maltese is ever punished ! The neglect of protection is dis- 
graceful to our government and governors ; for the murders 
are a.s notorious as the moon that shines upon them, and the 
apathy that overlooks them. The Portuguese, it is to be 
hoped, are complimented with the 'Forlorn Hope,' — if the 
cowards are become brave (like the rest of their kind, in a 
corner), pray let them display it. But there is a subscription 
for these ' i>pa<rv-6€iAoi' (they need not be ashamed of the 
epithet once applied to the Spartans) ; and all the charitable 
patronymics, from ostentatious A. to diffident Z., and 1/. Is. 
M. from 'An admirer of Valor,' are in requisition for the 
lists at Lloyd's, and the honor of British benevolence. Well ! 
we have fought, and subscribed, and bestowed peerages, and 
buried the killed by our friends and foes ; and, lo ! all this 
is to be done over again! Like Lien Chi (in Goldsmith's 
Citizen of the World;, as we 'grow older, we grow never tlic 
better.' It would be pleasant to learn wlio will subscribe 
for us, in or about the year 1815, and what nation will send 
fifty thousand men, first to be decimated in the capital, and 
then decimated again (in the Irish fashion, nine out of ten) 
in the 'bed of honor;' which, as Sergeant Kite says, is con- 
siderably larger and more commodious than 'the bed of 
Ware.' Then they must have a poet to write the ' Vision of 
Don Perceval,' and generously bestow the profits of the well 
and widely printed quarto, to rebuild the ' Backwynd ' and 
the Tanontiate,' or furnish new kilts for the half-roasted 
Highlanders. Lord Wellington, however, has enacted mar- 
vels ; and so did his Oriental brother, whom I saw charioteer- 
ing over the French flag, and heard clipping bad Spanish, 
aft<^r li.stening to the speech of a patriotic cobbler of Cadi/, on 
theevent of hisown entry into that city, and the exit of some 
five thousand bold Britons out of this 'best of all possible 



worlds.' Sorely were we puzzled how to dispose of that 
same victory of Talavera ; and a victory it surely was some- 
where, for everybody claimed it. The Spanish despatch and 
mob called it Cuesta's, and made no great mention of the 
viscount ; the French called it theirs (to my great discom- 
fiture, — for a French consul stopped my mouth in Greece 
with a pestilent Paris Gazette, just as I had killed Sebastiana 
'in buckram,' and King Joseph 'in Kendal green')— and 
we have not yet determined what to call it, or whose; for, 
certes, it was none of our own. Howbeit, Massena's retreat 
is a great comfort; and as we have not been in the habit ol 
pursuing for some years past, no wonder we are a little 
awkward at first. No doubt we shall improve ; or, if not, we 
have only to take to our old way of retrograding, and there 
we are at home." 



Note A.- 



CANTO THE SECOND. , 

-Removal of the Works op Art from 
Athens. See p. 21. 



" BtU most the modern PicCs ignoble boa^t, 

To rive what Goth, and Turk, and Time hath spared.'* 

Stanza xii. 

At this moment (January 3, 1810), besides what has been 
already deposited in London, an Hydriot vessel is in the 
Piraeus to receive every portable relic. Thus, as I heard a 
young Greek observe, in common with many of his country- 
men — for, lost as they are, they yet feel on this occasion — 
thus may Lord Elgin boast of having ruined Athens. An 
Italian painter of the first eminence, named Lusieri, is the 
agent of devastation ; and like the Greek finder of Vorres in 
Sicily, who followed the same profession, be has proved the 
able instrument of plunder. Between this artist and the 
French consul Fauvel, who wishes to rescue the remains 
for his own government, there is now a violent dispute con- 
cerning a car employed in their conveyance, the wheel of 
which— I wish they were both broken upon it!— has been 
locked up by the consul, and Lusieri has laid his complaint 
before the waywode. Lord Elt^in has been extremely happy 
in his choice of Signer Lusieri. During a residence of ten 
years in Athens, he never had the curiosity to proceed as 
far as Sunium (now Cape Colonna), till he accompanied 
us in our second excursion. However, his works, as far as 
they go, are most beautiful : but they are almost all un- 
finished. While he and his patrons confine themselves to 
tasting medals, appreciating cameos, sketching columns, and 
cheapening gems, their little absurdities are as harmless as 
insect or fox-bunting, maiden speechifying, barouche-driv- 
ing, or any such pastime ; t)ut when they carry away three 
or four shiploads of the most valuable and massy relics that 
time and barbarism have left to the most injured and most 
celebrated of cities ; when they destroy, in a vain attempt to 
tear down those works which have been the admiration o( 
ages, I know no motive which can excuse, no name which cau 

(917) 



918 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



designate the perpetrators of this dastardly devastation. It 
was not the least of the crimes laid to the charge of Verres, 
that he had plundered Sicily, in the manner since imitated at 
Athens. The most unblushing impudence could hardly go 
further than to aflELx the name of its plunderer to the walls 
of the Acropolis ; while the wanton and useless defacement 
of the whole range of the basso-relievos, in one compartment 
of the temple, will never permit that name to be pronounced 
by an observer without execration. 

On this occasion I speak impartially : I am not a collector 
or admirer of collections, consequently no rival ; but I have 
some early prepossessions in favor of Greece, and do not 
think the honor of England advanced by plunder, whether 
of India or Attica. 

Another noble lord has done better, because he has done 
less: but some others, more or less noble, yet "all honor- 
able men," have done best, because, after a deal of excavation 
and execration, bribery to the waywode, mining and counter- 
mining, they have done nothing at all. We had such ink 
shed, and wine shed, which almost ended in bloodshed! 
Lord E.'s "prig"— see Jonathan Wild for the definition of 
" priggism "—quarrelled with another, Gropius'^ byname (a 
very good name too for his business), and muttered some- 
thing about satisfaction, in a verbal answer to a note of the 
poor Prussian : this was stated at table to Gropius, who 
laughed, but could eat no dinner afterwards. The rivals 
were not reconciled when I left Greece. I have reason to 
remember their squabble, for they wanted to make me their 
arbitrator. 



Note B.— Albania and the Albanians, 
See p. 24. 

" Land of Albania ! let me bend mine eyes 
On thee, thou rugged nurse of savage men !" 

Stanza xxxviii. 

Albania comprises part of Macedonia, lUyria, Chaonia, and 
Epirus. Iskander is the Turkish word for Alexander; and 
the celebrated Scanderbeg (Lord Alexander) is alluded to 
in the third and fourth lines of the thirty-eighth stanza. I 
do not know whether I am correct in making Scanderbeg 
the countryman of Alexander, who was born at Pella in 
Macedon, but Mr. Gibbon terms him so, and adds Pyrrhus to 
the list, in speaking of his exploits. 

Of Albania Gibbon remarks, that a country " within sight 
of Italy is less known than the interior of America." Cir- 
cumstances, of little consequence to mention, led Mr. Hob- 
house and myself into that country before we visited any 
other part of the Ottoman dominions ; and with the excep- 
tion of Major Leake, then oflBicially resident at Joannina, no 
other Englishmen have ever advanced beyond the capital 
into the interior, as that gentleman very lately assured me. 
Ali Pacha was at that time (October, 1809) carrying on war 
against Ibrahim Pacha, whom he had driven to Berat, a 
strong fortress, which he was then besieging ; on our arrival 
at Joannina we were invited to Tepaleni, his highness's 
birthplace, and favorite serai, only one day's distance from 
Berat; at this juncture the vizier had made it his head- 
quarters. After some stay in the capital, we accordingly 
followed ; but though furnished with every accommodation, 
and escorted by one of the vizier's secretaries, we were nine 
days (on account of the rains) in accomplishing a journey 
which, on our return, barely occupied four. On our route 



1 This Sr. Gropius was employed by a noble lord for the sole purpose 
of sketching, in which he excels; but I am sorry to say, that he has, 
through the abused sanction of that most respectable name, been treading 
at humble distance in the steps of Sr. Lusieri.— A ahipful of his trophies 
was detained, and I believe confiscated, at Constantinople in 1810. I am 
most happy to be now enabled to state, that " this was not in his bond ;" 
that he was employed solely as a painter, and that his noble patron dis- 



we passed two cities, Argyrocastro and Libochabo, apparently 
little inferior to Yanina in size ; and no pencil or pen can 
ever do justice to the scenery in the vicinity of Zitka and Del- 
vinachi, the frontier village of Epirus and Albania proper. 

On Albania and its inhabitants I am unwilling to descant, 
because this will be done so much better by my fellow trav- 
eller, in a work which may probably precede this in publica- 
tion, that I as little wish to follow as I would to anticipate 
him. But some few observations are necessary to the text. 
The Arnaouts, or Albanese, struck me forcibly by their 
resemblance to the Highlanders of Scotland, in dress, figure, 
and manner of living. Their very mountains seemed Cale- 
donian, with a kinder climate. The kilt, though white ; the 
spare, active form ; their dialect, Celtic in its sound, and their 
hardy habits, all carried me back to Morven. No nation are 
so detested and dreaded by their neighbors as. the Albanese ; 
the Greeks hardly regard them as Christians, or the Turks 
as Moslems; and in fact they are a mixture of both, and 
sometimes neither. Their habits are predatory— all are 
armed; and the red-shawled Arnaouts, the Montenegrins, 
Chimariots, and Gegdes are treacherous; the others differ 
somewhat in garb, and essentially in character. As far as 
my own experience goes, I can speak favorably. I was 
attended by two, an Infidel and a Mussulman, to Constanti- 
nople and every other part of Turkey which came within 
my observation ; and more faithful in peril, or indefatigable 
in service, are rarely to be found. The Infidel was named 
Basilius, the Moslem, Dervish Tahiri ; the former a man of 
middle age, and the latter about my own. Basilius was 
strictly charged by Ali Pacha in person to attend us ; and 
Dervish was one of fifty who accompanied us through the 
forests of Acarnania to the banks of Achelous, and onward 
to Messalonghi in ^tolia. There I took him into my own 
service, and never had occasion to repent it till the moment 
of my departure. 

When, in 1810, after the departure of my friend Mr. Hob- 
house for England, I was seized with a severe fever in the 
Morea, these men saved my life by frightening away my 
physician, whose throat they threatened to cut if I was not 
cured within a given time. To this consolatory assurance of 
posthumous retribution, and a resolute refusal of Dr. Boma- 
nell's prescriptions, I attributed my recovery. I had left my 
last remaining English servant at Athens; my dragoman 
was as ill as myself, and my poor Arnaouts nursed me with 
an attention which would have done honor to civilization. 
They had a variety of adventures ; for the Moslem, Dervish, 
being a remarkably handsome man, was always squabbling 
with the husbands of Athens ; insomuch that four of the 
principal Turks paid me a visit of remonstrance at the con- 
vent, on the subject of his having taken a woman from the 
bath — whom he had lawfully bought, however — a thing quite 
contrary to etiquette. Basilius also was extremely gallant 
amongst his own persuasion, and had the greatest venera- 
tion for the church, mixed with the highest contempt of 
churchmen, whom he cuffed upon occasion in a most het- 
erodox manner. Yet he never passed a church without 
crossing himself; and I remember the risk he ran in enter- 
ing Saint Sophia, in Stambol, because it had once been a 
place of his worship. On remonstrating with him on his 
inconsistent proceedings, he invariably answered, "Our 
church is holy, our priests are thieves ;" and then he crossed 
himself as usual, and boxed the ears of the first "papas" 
who refused to assist in any required operation, as was 
always found to be necessary where a priest had any influ- 
ence with the cogia bashi of his village. Indeed, a more 

avows all connection with him, except as an artist. If the error in the first 
and second edition of this poem has given the noble lord a moment's pain, I 
am very sorry for it : Sr. Gropius has assumed for years the name of his 
agent; and though I cannot much condemn myself for sharing in the mis- 
take of so many, I am happy in being one of the first to be undeceived. In- 
deed, I have as much pleasure in contradicting this as I felt regret in stating 
it.— ^o«e to third edition. 



APPENDIX. 



919 



abandoned race of miscreants cannot exist than the lower 
orders of the Greek clergy. 

When preparations were made for my return, my Alban- 
ians were summoned to receive their pay. Basilius took his 
with an awkward show of regret at my intended departure, 
and marched away to his quarters with his bag of piastres. 
I sent for Dervish, but for some time he was not to be found ; 
at last he entered, just as Signor Logotheti, father to the ci- 
devant Anglo-consul of Athens, and some other of my Greek 
acquaintances, paid me a visit. Dervish took the money, 
but on a sudden dashed it to the ground ; and clasping his 
hands, which he raised to his forehead, rushed out of the 
room weeping bitterly. From that moment to the hour of 
my embarkation, he continued his lamentations, and all our 
efforts to console him only produced this answer, " M' a^ieivei.," 
" He leaves me." Signor Logotheti, who never wept before 
for anything less than the loss of a para (about the fourth of 
a farthing), melted ; the padre of the convent, my attendants, 
my visitors— and I verily believe that even Sterne's " foolish 
fat scullion " would have left her " fish-kettle " to sympathize 
with the unaflected and unexpected sorrow of this barbarian. 

For my own part, when I remembered that, a short time 
before my departure from England, a noble and most intimate 
associate had excused himself from taking leave of me because 
he had to attend a relation " to a milliner's," I felt no less 
surprised than humiliated by the present occurrence and the 
past recollection. That Dervish would leave me with some 
regret was to be expected ; when master and man have been 
scrambling over the mountains of a dozen provinces together, 
they are unwilling to separate; but his present feelings, 
contrasted with his native ferocity, improved my opinion of 
the human heart. I believe this almost feudal fidelity is 
frequent amongst them. One day, on our journey over 
Parnassus, an Englishman in my service gave him a push in 
some dispute about the baggage, which he unluckily mistook 
for a blow; he spoke not, but sat down, leaning his head 
upon his hands. Foreseeing the consequences, we endeav- 
ored to explain away the affront, which produced the follow- 
ing answer:— "I have been a robber; 1 am a soldier; no 
captain ever struck me; you are my master, I have eaten 
your bread, but by thai bread ! (an usual oath) had it been 
otherwise, I would have stabbed the dog your servant, and 
gone to the mountains." So the affair ended, but from that 
day forward he never thoroughly forgave the thoughtless 
fellow who insulted him. Dervish excelled in the dance of 
his country, conjectured to be a remnant of the ancient 
Pyrrhic : be that as it may, it is manly, and requires wonder- 
ful agility. It is very distinct from the stupid Romaika, the 
dull round-about of the Greeks, of which our Athenian party 
had so many specimens. 

The Albanians in general (I do not mean the cultivators of 
the earth in the provinces, who have also that appellation, 
but the mountaineers) have a fine cast of countenance ; and 
the most beautiful women I ever beheld, in stature and in 
features, we saw levelling the road broken down by the tor- 
rents between Delvinachi and Libochabo. Their manner of 
walking is truly theatrical; but this strut is probably the 
effect of the capote, or cloak, depending from one shoulder. 
Their long hair reminds you of the Spartans, and their cour- 
age in desultory warfare is unquestionable. Though they 
have some cavalry amongst the Gegdeg, I never saw a good 
Amaout horseman ; my own preferred the English saddles, 
which, however, they could never keep. But on foot they are 
not to be subdued by fatigue. 



which are generally chanted in dancing by men or women 
indiscriminately. The first words are merely a kind of 
chorus without meaning, like some in our own and all other 
languages. 



NoTB C— Specimkn of the Albanian or Arnaout 

Dialect of the Illyric. See p. 29. 

" While thus in concert they this lay half sang, half scream'd." 

Stanza Ixxii. 
Afl a specimen of the Albanian or Amaout dialect of the 
Illyric, I here insert two of their most popular choral songs, 



1. Bo, Bo, Bo, Bo, Bo, Bo, 
Naciarura, popuso. 

2. Naciarura na civin 
Ha pen derini ti hin. 

3. Ha pe uderi escrotini 
Ti Vin ti mar servetini. 

4. Caliriote me surme 
Ea ha pe pse dua tive. 

5. Buo, Bo, Bo, Bo, Bo, 
Gi egem spirta esimiro. 

6. Caliriote vu le funde 
Ede vete tunde tunde. 

7. Caliriote me surme 
Ti mi put e poi mi le. 

8. Se ti puta citi mora 

Si mi ri ni veti udo gia. 

9. Va le ni il che cadale 
Celo more, more celo. 

10. Plu hari ti tirete 

Plu huron cai pra seti. 



1. Lo, Lo, I come, I come; be 

thou silent. 

2. I come, I run ; open the door 

that I may enter. 

3. Open the door by halves, that 

I may take my turban. 

4. Calirlotesi with the dark 

eyes, open the gate that I 
may enter. 

5. Lo, Lo, I hear thee, my soul. 

6. An Arnaout girl, in costly 

garb, walks with graceful 
pride. 

7. Caliriot maid of the dark 

eyes, give me a kiss. 

8. If I have kissed thee, what 

hast thou gained ? My soul 
is consumed with fire. 

9. Dance lightly, more gently, 

and gently still. 
10. Make not so much dust to 
destroy your embroidered 



The last stanza would puzzle a commentator: the men 
have certainly buskins of the most beautiful texture, but the 
ladies (to whom the above is supposed to be addressed) have 
nothing under their little yellow boots and slippers but a 
well-turned and sometimes very white ankle. The Arnaout 
girls are much handsomer than the Greeks, and their dress 
is far more picturesque. They preserve their shape much 
longer also, from being always in the open air. It is to be 
observed, that the Arnaout is not a written language: the 
words of this song, therefore, as well as the one which follows, 
are spelt according to their pronunciation. They are copied 
by one who speaks and understands the dialect perfectly, and 
who is a native of Athens. 



1. Ndi sefda tinde ulavossa 
Vettimi upri vi lofsa. 

2. Ah vaisisso mi privi lofse 
Si mi rini mi la vosse. 

3. Uti tasa roba stua 
Sitti eve tulati dua. 

4. Roba stinori ssidua 
Qu mi sini vetti dua. 

5. Qurmini dua civileni 
Roba ti siarmi tildi eni. 

6. Utara pisa vaisisso me 

sirai rin ti hapti 
Eti mi hire a piste si gui 
dendroi tiltati. 

7. Udi vura udorini udiri 

cicova cilti mora 
Udorini talti hoUna u 
ede caimoni mora. 



1. I am wounded by thy love, 

and have loved but to scorch 
myself. 

2. Thou hast consumed me ! Ah, 

maid ! thou hast struck me 
to the heart. 

3. I have said I wish no dowry, 

but thine eyes and eye- 
lashes. 

4. The accursed dowry I want 

not, but thee only. 

5. Give me thjjfcharms, and let 

the portion feed the flames. 

6. I have loved thee, maid, with 

a sincere soul, but thou 
hast left me like a withered 
tree. 

7. If I have placed my hand on 

thy bosom, what have I 
gained? my hand is with- 
drawn, but retains the 
flame. 



1 The Albanese, partlcnlarly the women, are frequently termed " Cali- 
riotes ;" for wbat reason I inquired In vain. 



920 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



I believe the two last stanzas, as they are in a different 
measure, ought to belong to another ballad. An idea some- 
thing similar to the thought in the last lines was expressed 
by Socrates, whose arm having come in contact with one of 
his " vnoKoknioL," Critobulus or Cleobulus, the philosopher 
complained of a shooting pain as far as his shoulder for some 
days after, and therefore very properly resolved to teach his 
disciples in future without touching them. 



Note D.— Thoughts on the Present State of Greece. 
See p. 29. 

" Fhir Greece ! sad relic of departed worth ! 
Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great!" 

Stanza Ixxlii. 
I. 

Before I say anything about a city of which everybody, 
traveller or not, has thought it necessary to say something, 
I will request Miss Owenson, when she next borrows an 
Athenian heroine for her four volumes, to have the goodness 
to marry her to somebody more of a gentleman than a 
" Disdar Aga" (who by the by is not an aga), the most im- 
polite of petty officers, the greatest patron of larceny Athens 
ever saw (except Lord E.), and the unworthy occupant of the 
Acropolis, on a handsome annual stipend of one hundred 
and fifty piastres (eight pounds sterling), out of which he has 
only to pay his garrison, the most ill-regulated corps in the 
ill-regulated Ottoman Empire. I speak it tenderly, seeing I 
was once the cause of the husband of " Ida of Athens " nearly 
suffering the bastinado ; and because the said " Disdar " is a 
turbulent husband, and beats his wife ; so that I exhort. and 
beseech Miss Owenson to sue for a separate maintenance in 
behalf of " Ida." Having premised thus much, on a matter 
of such import to the readers of romances, I may now leave 
Ida, to mention her birthplace. 

Setting aside the magic of the name, and all those asso- 
ciations which it would be pedantic and superfluous to re- 
capitulate, the very situation of Athens would render it the 
favorite of all who have eyes for art or nature. The climate, 
to me at least, -appeared a perpetual spring ; during eight 
months I never passed a day without being as many hours 
on horseback : rain is extremely rare, snow never lies in the 
plains, and a cloudy day is an agreeable rarity. In Spain, 
Portugal, and every part of the East which I visited, except 
Ionia and Attica, I perceived no such superiority of climate 
to our own; and at Constantinople, where I passed May, 
June, and part of July (1810), you might " damn the climate, 
and complain of spleen," five days out of seven. 

The air of the Morea is heavy and unwholesome, but the 
moment you pass the isthmus in the direction of Megara the 
change is strikingly perceptible. But I fear Hesiod will still 
be found correct in his description of a Boeotian winter. 

We found at Livadia an "esprit fort" in a Greek bishop, 
of all freethinkers ! This worthy hypocrite rallied his own 
religion with ^at intrepidity (but not before his flock), and 
talked of a mass as a " coglioneria." It was impossible to 
think better of him for this ; but, for a Boeotian, he was brisk 
with all his absurdity. This phenomenon (with the excep- 
tion indeed of Thebes, the remains of Chseronea, the plain 
of Platea, Orchomenus, Livadja, and its nominal cave of 
Trophonius) was the only remarkable thing we saw before we 
passed Mount Cithseron. 

The fountain of Dirce turns a mill: at least my companion 
(who, resolving to be at once cleanly and classical, bathed in 
it) pronounced it to be the fountain of Dirce, and anybody 
who thinks it worth while may contradict him. At Castri 
we drank of half a dozen streamlets, some not of the purest, 
before we decided to our satisfaction which was the true 
Castalian, and even that had a villainous twang, probably 



from the snow, though it did not throw us into an epic fever, 
like poor Dr. Chandler. 

From Fort Phyle, of which large remains still exist, the 
plain of Athens, Pentelicus, Hymettus, the JEgean, and the 
Acropolis, burst upon the eye at once; in my opinion, a 
more glorious prospect than even Cintra or Istambol. Not 
the view from the Troad, with Ida, the Hellespont, and the 
more distant Mount Athos, can equal it, though so superior 
in extent. 

I heard much of the beauty of Arcadia, but excepting the 
view from the monastery of Megaspelion (which is inferior 
to Zitza in a command of country), and the descent from the 
mountains on the way from Tripolitza to Argos, Arcadia has 
little to recommend it beyond the name. 

" Sternitur, et dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos." 

Virgil could have put this into the mouth of none but an 
Argive, and (with reverence be it spoken) it does not deserve 
the epithet. And if the Polynices of Statins, "In mediis 
audit duo litora campis," did actually hear both shores in 
crossing the isthmus of Corinth, he had better ears than have 
ever been worn in such a journey since. 

" Athens," says a celebrated topographer, " is still the most 
polished city of Greece." Perhaps it may of Grreece, but not 
of the Greeks; for Joannina in Epirus is universally allowed, 
amongst themselves, to be superior in the wealth, refine- 
ment, learning, and dialect of its inhabitants. The Athen- 
ians are remarkable for their cunning ; and the lower orders 
are not improperly characterized in that proverb, which 
classes them with " the Jews of Salonica, and the Turks of 
the Negropont." 

Among the various foreigners resident in Athens, French, 
Italians, Germans, Ragusans, &c., there was never a differ- 
ence of opinion in their estimate of the Greek character, 
though on all other topics they disputed with great acri- 
mony. 

M. Fauvel, the French consul, who has passed thirty years 
principally at Athens, and to whose talents as an artist, and 
manners as a gentleman, none who have known him can 
refuse their testimony, has frequently declared in my hearing 
that the Greeks do not deserve to be emancipated ; reasoning 
on the grounds of their " national and individual depravity !" 
while he forgot that such depravity is to be attributed to 
causes which can only be removed by the measure he repro- 
bates. 

M. Roque, a French merchant of respectability long settled 
in Athens, asserted with the most amusing gravity, "Sir, 
they are the same canaille that existed in the days of Thends- 
tocles .'" an alarming remark to the " Laudator temporis acti." 
The ancients banished Themistocles ; the moderns cheat 
Monsieur Roque : thus great men have ever been treated ! 

In short, all the Franks who are fixtures, and most of the 
Englishmen, Germans, Danes, &c., of passage, came over by 
degrees to their opinion, on much the same grounds that a 
Turk in England would condemn the nation by wholesale, 
because he was wronged by his lackey, and overcharged by 
his washerwoman. 

Certainly it was not a little staggering when the Sieurs 
Fauvel and Lusieri, the two greatest demagogues of the day, 
who divide between them the power of Pericles and the 
popularity of Cleon, and puzzle the poor waywode with per- 
petual differences, agreed in the utter condemnation, " nulla 
virtute redemptum," of the Greeks in general, and of the 
Athenians in particular. 

For my own humble opinion, I am loth to hazard it, know- 
ing as I do that there be now in MS. no less than five tours of 
the first magnitude and of the most threatening aspect, all 
in typographical array, by persons of wit and honor, and 
regular commonplace books : but, if I may say this without 
offence, it seems to me rather hard to declare so positively and 
pertinaciously, as almost everybody has declared, that the 
Greeks, because they are very bad, will never be better. 



APPENDIX. 



921 



Eton and Sonnlnl bavc led us astray by their panegyrics 
and projects ; but, on the other hand, De Pauw and Thornton 
have debased the Greeks beyond their demerits. 

The Greeks will never be independent; they will never be 
sovereigns as heretofore, and God forbid they ever should ! 
but they may be subjects without being slaves. Our colonies 
are not independent, but they are free and industrious, and 
such may Greece be hereafter. 

At present, like the Catholics of Ireland and the Jews 
throughout the world, and such other cudgelled and hetero- 
dox people, they sulfer all the moral and physical ills that 
can afflict humanity. Their life is a struggle against truth ; 
they are vicious in their own defence. They are so unused 
to kindness, that when they occasionally meet with it they 
look upon it with suspicion, as a dog often beaten snaps at 
your fingers if you attempt to caress him. " They are un- 
grateful, notoriously, abominably ungrateful !"— this is the 
general cry. Now, in the name of Nemesis! for what are 
they to be grateful ? Where is the human being that ever 
conferred a benefit on Greek or Greeks? They are to be 
grateful to the Turks for their fetters, and to the Franks for 
their broken promises and lying counsels. They are to be 
grateful to the artist who engraves their ruins, and to the 
antiquary who carries them away ; to the traveller whose 
janissary flogs them, and to the scribbler whose journal 
abuses them! This is the amount of their obligations to 
foreigners. 

II. 
lyanciscan Ckmvent, Athem, January 23, 1811. 

Amongst the remnants of the barbarous policy of the earlier 
ages, are the traces of bondage which yet exist in different 
countries; whose inhabitants, however divided in religion 
and manners, almost all agree in oppression. 

The English have at last compassionated their negroes, and, 
under a less bigoted government, may probably one day 
release their Catholic brethren : but the interposition of for- 
eigners alone can emancipate the Greeks, who, otherwise, 
appear to have as small a chance of redemption from the 
Turks, as the Jews have from mankind in general. 

Of the ancient Greeks we know more than enough ; at least 
the younger men of Europe devote much of their time to the 
study of the Greek writers and history, which would be more 
usefully spent in mastering their own. Of the moderns we 
are perhaps more neglectful than they deserve; and while 
every man of any pretensions to learning is tiring out his 
youth, and often his age, in the study of the language and of 
the harangues of the Athenian demagogues in favor of free- 
dom, the real or supposed descendants of these sturdy repub- 
Ucans are left to the actual tyranny of their masters, although 
a very slight effort is required to strike off their chains. 

To talk, as the Greeks themselves do, of their rising again 
to their pristine superiority, would be ridiculous : as the rest 
of the world must resume its barbarism, after reasserting the 
sovereignty of Greece: but there seems to be no very great 
obstacle, except in the apathy of the Franks, to their becom- 
ing an useful dependency, or even a free state with a proper 
guarantee; — under correction, however, be it spoken, for 
many and well-informed men doubt the practicability even 
of this. 

The Greeks have never lost their hope, though they are 
now more divided in opinion on the subject of their probable 
deliverers. Religion recommends the Russians ; but they 
have twice been deceived and abandoned by that power, and 
the dreadful lesson they receivefl after the Muscovite deser- 
tion in the Moroa has never been forgotten. The French 
they dislike; although the subjugation of the rest of Europe 
trill, probably, be attended by the deliverance of continental 



Greece. The islanders look to the English for succor, as 
they have very lately possessed themselves of the Ionian re- 
public, Corfu excepted. But whoever appear with arms in 
their hands will be welcome ; and when that day arrives, 
Heaven have mercy on the Ottomans ! they cannot expect it 
from the Giaours. 

But instead of considering what thoy have been, and specu- 
lating on what they may be, let us look at them as they are. 

And here it is impossible to reconcile the contrariety of 
opinions: some, particularly the merchants, decrying the 
Greeks in the strongest language ; others, generally travellers, 
turning periods in their eulogy, and publishing very curious 
speculations grafted on their former state, which can have no 
more effect on their present lot, than the existence of the 
Incas on the future fortunes of Peru. 

One very ingenious person terms them the " natural allies 
of Englishmen ;" another, no less ingenious, will not allow 
them to be the allies of anybody, and denies their very de- 
scent from the ancients; a third, more ingonious than either, 
builds a Greek empire on a Russian foundation, and realizes 
(on paper) all the chimeras of Catherine II. As to the ques- 
tion of their descent, what can it import whether the Mainotes 
are the lineal Laconians or not ? or the present Athenians as 
indigenous as the' bees of Hymettus, or as the grasshoppers, 
to which they once likened themselves? What Englishman 
cares if he be of a Danish, Saxon, Norman, or Trojan blood ? 
or who, except a Welshman, is afflicted with a desire of being 
descended from Caractacus ? 

The poor Greeks do not so much abound in the good things 
of this world, as to render even their claims to antiquity an 
object of envy; it is very cruel, then, in Mr. Thornton to 
disturb them in the possession of all that time has left them ; 
viz., their pedigree, of which they are the more tenacious, as 
it is all they can call their own. It would be worth while to 
publish together, and compare the works of Messrs. Thornton 
and De Pauw, Eton and Sonnini ; paradox on one side, and 
prejudice on the other. Mr. Thornton conceives himself to 
have claims to public confidence from a fourteen years' resi- 
dence at Pera ; perhaps he may on the subject of the Turks, 
but this can give him no more insight into the real state of 
Greece and her inhabitants, than as many years spent in 
Wapping into that of the Western Highlands. 

The Greeks of Constantinople live in Fanal ; and if Mr. 
Thornton did not oftener cross the Golden Horn than his 
brother merchants are accustomed to do, I should place no 
great reliance on his information. I actually heard one of 
these gentlemen boast of their little general intercourse with 
the city, and assert of himself, with an air of triumph, that he 
had been but four times at Constantinople in as many years. 

As to Mr. Thornton's voyages in the Black Sea with Greek 
vessels, they gave him the same idea of Greece as a cruise to 
Berwick in a Scotch smack would of Johnny Grot's house. 
Upon what grounds then does he arrogate the right of con- 
demning by wholesale a body of men, of whom he can know 
little? It is rather a curious circumstance that Mr. Thorn- 
ton, who so lavishly dispraises Pouqueville on every occasion 
of mentioning the Turks, has yet recourse to him as authority 
on the Greeks, and terms him an impartial observer. Now, 
Dr. Pouqueville is as little entitled to that appellation as Mr. 
Thornton to confer it on him. 

The fact is, we are deplorably in want of information on 
the subject of the Greeks, and in particular their literature; 
nor is there any probability of our being better acquainted, 
till our intercourse becomes more intimate or their inde- 
pendence confirmed : the relations of passing travellers are as 
little to be depended on as the invectives of angry factors; 
but till something more can be attained, we must be content 
with the little to be acquired from similar sources.i 



I A word, enpoMant, with Mr. Thornton and Dr. Pouqueville, who have 
been guilty between them of sadly clipping the sultan's Turkish. Dr. Ponqne- 
TtUe tells a long story of a Moslem who swallowed corrosive ■ubUmate in 



such qnantities that he acquired the name of " Suleyman Teyen," i. e., 
quoth the doctor, " SuU.yman, the eater of corrotive mbUmate." "Aha," 
thinks Mr. Thornton (angry with the doctor for the fiftieth time), "have ] 



922 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



However defective these may be, they are preferable to the I 
paradoxes of men who have read superficially of the ancients 
ajid seen nothing of the moderns, such as De Pauw; who, 
when he asserts that the British breed of horses is ruined by 
Newmarket, and that the Spartans were cowards in the field, 
betrays an equal knowledge of English horses and Spartan 
men. His "philosophical observations" have a much better 
claim to the title of "poetical." It could not be expected 
that he who so liberally condemns some of the most cele- 
brated institutions of the ancient, should have mercy on the 
modern Greeks ; and it fortunately happens, that the absurd- 
ity of his hypothesis on their forefathers refutes his sentence 
on themselves. 

Let us trust, then, that, in spite of the prophecies of De 
Pauw, and the doubts of Mr. Thornton, there is a reasonable 
hope of the redemption of a race of men, who, whatever may 
be the errors of their religion and policy, have been amply 
punished by three centuries and g, half of captivity. 

III. 

Athens, Franciscan Convent, March 17, 1811. 
" I must have some talk with this learned Theban." 
Some time after my return from Constantinople to this city 
I received the thirty-first number of the Edinburgh Review 
as a great favor, and certainly at this distance an acceptable 
one, from the captain of an English frigate off" Salamis. In 
that number, Art. 3, containing the review of a French 
translation of Strabo, there are introduced some remarks on 
the modern Greeks and their literature, with a short account 
of Coray, a co-translator in the French version. On those 
remarks I mean to ground a few observations ; and the spot 
where I now write will, I hope, be sufficient excuse for intro- 
ducing them in a work in some degree connected with the 
subject. Coray, the most celebrated of living Greeks, at least 
among the Franks, was born at Scio (in the Review Smyrna 
is stated, I have reason to think, incorrectly), and besides the 
translation of Beccaria and other works mentioned by the 
Reviewer, has published a lexicon in Romaic and French, if 
I may trust the assurance of some Danish travellers lately 
arrived from Paris; but the latest we have seen here in 
French and Greek is that of Gregory Zolikogloou.i Coray 
has recently been involved in an unpleasant controversy 
with M. Gail,2 a Parisian commentator and editor of some 
translations from the Greek poets, in consequence of the In- 
stitute having awarded him the prize for his version of Hip- 
pocrates' "Ilepl vBaTov," &c., to the disparagement, and conse- 
quently displeasure, of the said Gail. To his exertions, lite- 
rary and patriotic, great praise is undoubtedly due; but a 
part of that praise ought not to be withheld from the two 
brothers Zosimado (merchants settled in Leghorn), who sent 
him to Paris, and maintained him, for the express purpose of 
elucidating the ancient, and adding to the modern, researches 
of his countrymen. Coray, however, is not considered by 
his countrymen equal to some who lived in the two last cen- 
turies ; more particularly Dorotheus of Mitylene, whose Hel- 
lenic writings are so much esteemed by the Greeks, that 
Meletius terms him "Mera rof ©ovkuSiStjv koX Hei'oc^wi'Ta 
opio-TO? 'EAAiji/Mf." (P. 224 Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv.) 



caught you?" Then, in a note twice the thickness of the doctor's anecdote, 
he questions the doctor's proficiency in the Turkish tongue, and his veracity 
in his own. " For," observes Mr. Thornton (after inflicting on us the tough 
participle of a Turkish verb), "it means nothing more than Suleyman the 
eater," and quite cashiers the supplementary " lubUmate." Now both are 
right, and both are wrong. If Mr. Thornton, when he next resides " four- 
teen years in the factory," will consult his Turkish dictionary, or ask any 
of his Stamboline acquaintance, he will discover that " Suleyma'n yeyen," 
put together discreetly, mean the " Shallower of sublimate," without any 
"Suleyman" in the case; " SMieyma " signifying "corrosive sublimate," 
and not being a proper name on this occasion, although it be an orthodox 
name enough with the addition of n. After Mr. Thornton's frequent hints 
of profound Orientalism, he might have found this out before he sang such 
pseans over Dr. Pouqueville. 
After this I think " Travellers versus Factors" shall be our motto, though 



Panagiotes Kodrikas, the translator of Fontenelle, and 
Kamarases, who translated Ocellus Lucanus on the Universe 
into French, Christodoulus, and more particularly Psalida, 
whom I have conversed with in Joannina, are also in high 
repute among their literati. The last mentioned has pub- 
lished in Romaic and Latin a work on " True Happiness," 
dedicated to Catherine II. But Polyzois, who is stated by the 
Reviewer to be the only modern except Coray who has dis- 
tinguished himself by a knowledge of Hellenic, if he be the 
Polyzois Lampanitziotes of Yanina, who has published a 
number of editions in Romaic, was neither more nor less than 
an itinerant vender of books ; with the contents of which he 
had no concern beyond his name on the titlepage, placed there 
to secure his property in the publication ; and he was, more- 
over, a man utterly destitute of scholastic acquirements. As 
the name, however, is not uncommon, some other Polyzois 
may have edited the Epistles of Aristsenetus. 

It is to be regretted that the system of continental blockade 
has closed the few channels through which the Greeks re- 
ceived their publications, particularly Venice and Trieste. 
Even the common grammars for children are become too 
dear for the lower orders. Amongst their original works the 
Geography of Meletius, Archbishop of Athens, and a multi- 
tude of theological quartos and poetical pamphlets, are to be 
met with ; their grammars and lexicons oi two, three, and 
four languages are numerous and excellent. Their poetry is 
in rhyme. The most singular piece I have lately seen is a 
satire in a dialogue between a Russian, English, and French 
traveller, and the waywode of Wallachia (or blackbey, as 
they term him), an archbishop, a merchant, and cogia bashi 
(or primate), in succession ; to all of whom under the Turks 
the writer attributes their present degeneracy. Their songs 
are sometimes pretty and pathetic, but their tunes generally 
unpleasing to the ear of a Frank; the best is the famous 
"AevT6 TratSes twv 'EAA.iji'tov," by the unfortunate Riga. But 
from a catalogue of more than sixty authors, now before me, 
only fifteen can be found who have touched on any theme 
except theology. 

I am intrusted with a commission by a Greek of Athens 
named Marmarotouri to make arrangements, if possible, for 
printing in London atranslation of Barthelemi's Anacharsis in 
Romaic, as he has no other opportunity, unless he despatches 
the MS. to Vienna by the Black Sea and Danube. 

The Reviewer mentions a school established at Hecatonesi, 
and suppressed at the instigation of Sebastiana: he means 
Cidonies, or, in Turkish, Haivali ; a town on the continent, 
where that institution for a hundred students and three pro- 
fessors still exists. It is true that this establishment was 
disturbed by the Porte, under the ridiculous pretext that the 
Greeks were constructing a fortress instead of a college : but 
on investigation, and the payment of some purses to the 
Divan, it has been permitted to continue. The principal pro- 
fessor, named Veniamin (i. e. Benjamin), is stated to be a man 
of talent, but a freethinker. He was born in Lesbos, studied 
in Italy, and is master of Hellenic, Latin, and some Frank 
languages ; besides a smattering of the sciences. 

Though it is not my intention to enter further on this topic 
than may allude to the article in question, I cannot hut 



the above Mr. Thornton has condemned "hoc genus omne," for mistake 
and misrepresentation. " Ne Sutor ultra crepidam," " No merchant beyond 
his bales,"— N.B. For the benefit of Mr. Thornton : " Sutor " is not a proper 
name. 

1 I have in my possession an excellent lexicon " Tpiy\(a(r<rov," which I 

received in exchange from S. Q , Esq., for a small gem: my antiquarian 

friends have never forgotten it, nor forgiven me. 

2 In Gail's pamphlet against Coray, he talks of "throwing the insolent 
Hellenist out of the window." On this a French critic exclaims, "Ah, my 
God I throw an Hellenist out of the window 1 what sacrilege I" It certainly 
would be a serious business for those authors who dwell in the attics ; but 1 
have quoted the passage merely to prove the similarity of style among the 
controversialists of all polished countries; London or Edinburgh could 
hardly parallel this Parisian ebullition. 



APPENDIX. 



923 



observe that the Reviewer's lamentation over the fall of the 
Greeks appears singular, when he closes it with these words : 
" TJie change is to be attributed to their misfortunes rather than to 
any ^physical degradation.' " It may be true that the Greeks 
are not physieallj- degenerated, and that Constantinople con- 
tained on the day when it changed masters as many men of 
six feet and upwards as in the hour of prosperity ; but ancient 
history and modern politics instruct us that something more 
than physical perfection is necessary to preserve a state in 
vigor and independence ; and the Greeks, in particular, are a 
melancholy example of the near connection between moral 
degradation and national decay. 

The Reviewer mentions a plan " we believe " by Potemkin 
for the purification of the Romaic ; and I have endeavored in 
vain to procure any tidings or traces of its existence. There 
was an academy in St. Petersburg for the Greeks ; but it was 
suppressed by Paul, and has not been revived by his successor. 

There is a slip of the pen, and it can only be a slip of the 
pen, in p. 58, No. 31, of the Edinburgh Review, where these 
words occur: " "We are told that when the capital of the East 
yielded to Solyman." — It may be presumed that this last 
word will, in a future edition, be altered to Mahomet II.i 
The " ladies of Constantinople," it seems, at that period spoke 
a dialect "which would not have disgraced the lips of an 
Athenian." I do not know how that might be, but am sorry 
to say the ladies in general, and the Athenians in particular, 
are much altered ; being far from choice either in their 
dialect or expressions, as the whole Attic race are barbarous 
to a proverb : — 

" n A0T)va, irpoTTj X'^P^i 

Tt yaiSapovi Tpe(/)ets T(opa." 

In Gibbon, vol. x. p. 161, is the following sentence : — " The 
vulgar dialect of the city was gross and barbarous, though 
the compositions of the church and palace sometimes affected 
to copy the purity of the Attic models." Whatever may be 
asserted on the subject, it is difficult to conceive that the 
" ladies of Constantinople," in the reign of the last Caesar, 
spoke a purer dialect than Anna Comnena wrote three cen- 
turies before: and those royal pages are not esteemed the 
best models of composition, although the princess yXuirrav 
ei^ev AKPIBnS A.TriKi^ovaap. In the Fanal, and in Yanina, 
the best Greek is spoken : in the latter there is a flourishing 
school under the direction of Psalida. 

There is now in Athens a pupil of Psalida's, who is making 
a tour of observation through Greece ; he is intelligent, and 
better educated than a fellow-commoner of most colleges. I 
mention this as a proof that the spirit of inquiry is not dor- 
mant among the Greeks. 

The Reviewer mentions Mr. Wright, the author of the 
beautiful poem " Horse lonicae," as qualified to give details of 
these nominal Romans and degenerate Greeks, and also of 
their language ; but Mr. Wright, though a good poet and an 
able man, has made a mistake where he states the Albanian 
dialect ot the Romaic to approximate nearest to the Hel- 
lenic ; for the Albanians speak a Romaic as notoriously cor- 
rupt as the Scotch of Aberdeenshire, or the Italian of Naples. 
Yanina (where, next to the Fanal, the Greek is purest), 
although the capital of Ali Pacha's dominions, is not in 
Albania, but Epirus; and beyond Delvinachi in Albania 
proper up to Argyro Castro and Tepaleen (beyond which I 
did not advance) they speak worse Greek than even the 
Athenians. I was attended for a year and a half by two of 



1 In a former number of the Edinburgh Review, 1808, It Is observed : 
" Lord Byron passed lome of his early years In Scotland, where be might 
bSTe learQod that pibroch does not mean a bagpipe, any more than duet 
meuBf A JlddU." Query,— Was It in Scotland that the young gentlemen 
of the Edinburgh Review learned that Solyman means Mahomet II. any 
■ora than erUxcian^ means <n/al^t6iiay f — but thus it is, 

" Ceedimns inque vicem prxbemua crura sagittls." 

The mistake seemed so completely a lapse of the pen (ft-om the great »iw- 



these singular mountaineers, whose mother tongue is Illyric, 
and I never heard them or their countrymen (whom I have 
seen, not only at home, but to the amount of twenty thousand 
in the army of Vely Pacha) praised for their Greek, but often 
laughed at for their provincial barbarisms. 

I have in my possession about twenty-five letters, amongst 
which some from the Bey of Corinth, written to me by 
Notaras, the eogia bachi, and others by the dragoman of th(^ 
Caimacam of the Morea (which last governs in Voli Pacha's 
absence), are said to be favorable specimens of their epistolary 
style. I also received some at Constantinople from private 
persons, written in a most hyperbolical style, but in the true 
antique character. 

The Reviewer proceeds, after some remarks on the tongue 
in its past and present state, to a paradox (page 59) on the 
great mischief the knowledge of his own language has done 
to Coray, who, it seems, is less likely to understand the ancient 
Greek because he is perfect master of the modern ! This 
observation follows a paragraph recommending, in explicit 
terms, the study of the Romaic, as " a powerful auxiliary," 
not only to the traveller and foreign merchant, but also t^> 
the classical scholar ; in short, to everybody except the only 
person who can be thoroughly acquainted with its uses ; and 
by a parity of reasoning, our old language is conjectured to 
be probably more attainable by " foreigners " than by our- 
selves ! Now, I am inclined to think that a Dutch Tyro in 
our tongue (albeit himself of Saxon blood) would be sadly 
perplexed with " Sir Tristrem," or any other given " Auchin- 
leck MS.," with or without a grammar or glossary; and to 
most apprehensions it seems evident that none but a native 
can acquire a competent, far less complete, knowledge of our 
obsolete idioms. We may give the critic credit for his inge- 
nuity, but no more believe him than we do Smollett's Lis- 
mahago, who maintains that the purest English is spoken in 
Edinburgh. That Coray may err is very possible ; but if he 
does, the fault is in the man rather than in his mother 
tongue, which is, as it ought to be, of the greatest aid to the 
native student. — Here the Reviewer proceeds to business on , 
Strabo's translators, and here I close my remarks. 

Sir W. Drummond, Mr. Hamilton, Lord Aberdeen, Dr. 
Clarke, Captain Leake, Mr. Gell, Mr. Walpole, and many 
others now in England, have all the requisites to furnish 
details of this fallen people. The few observations I have 
offered, I should have left where I made them, had not the 
article in question, and above all the spot where I read it» 
induced me to advert to those pages, which the advantage of 
my present situation enabled me to clear, or at least to make 
the attempt. 

I have endeavored to waive the personal feelings which 
rise in despite of me, in touching upon any part of the 
Edinburgh Review ; not from a wish to conciliate the favor 
of its writers, or to cancel the remembrance of a syllable I 
have formerly published, but simply from a sense of the 
impropriety of mixing up private resentments with a dis- 
quisition of the present kind, and more particularly at this 
distance of time and place. 



Note E.— On the Present State of Turkey and the 
Turks. See p. 29. 

The difficulties of travelling in Turkey have been much 
exaggerated, or rather have considerably diminished, of late 



Cartty of the two words, and the total absence of error ftom the former pagea 
of the literary leviathan) that I should have passed 11 over as in the text, 
had I not perceived In the Edinburgh Review much facetious exultation on 
all such detections, particularly a recent one, where worda and syllables are 
subjects of disquisition and transposition ; and the above mentioned parallel 
passage in my own case irresistibly propelled me to hint how much easier it 
is to be critical than correct. The gentlemen, having enjoyed many a tri- 
umph on such victories, will h«rdly begrudge me a slight ovation for the 
present. 



924 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



years. The Mussulmans have been beaten into a kind of 
sullen civility, very comfortable to voyagers. 

It is hazardous to say much on the subject of Turks or 
Turkey; since it is possible to live amongst them twenty 
years without acquiring information, at least from them- 
selves. As far as my own slight experience carried me, I 
have no complaint to make ; but am indebted for many civil- 
ities (I might almost say for friendship), and much hospi- 
tality, to Ali Pacha, his son Veli Pacha of the Morea, and 
several others of high rank in the provinces. Suleyman Aga, 
late governor of Athens, and now of Thebes, was a bo7i 
vvvant, and as social a being as ever sat cross-legged at a tray 
or a table. During the carnival, when our English party 
were masquerading, both himself and his successor were 
more happy to " receive masks " than any dowager in Gros- 
venor Square. 

On one occasion of his supping at the convent, his friend 
and visitor, the Cadi of Thebes, was carried from table per- 
fectly qualified for any club in Christendom ; while the 
worthy waywode himself triumphed in his fall. 

In all money transactions with the Moslems, I ever found 
the strictest honor, the highest disinterestedness. In trans- 
acting business with them, there are none of those dirty 
peculations, under the name of interest, difference of ex- 
change, commission, &c. &c., uniformly found in applying to 
a Greek consul to cash bills, even on the first houses in Pera. 

With regard to presents, an established custom in the East, 
you will rarely find yourself a loser ; as one worth acceptance 
is generally returned by another of similar value— a horse, 
or a shawl. 

In the capital and at court the citizens and courtiers are 
formed in the same school with those of Christianity ; but 
there does not exist a more honorable, friendly, and high- 
spirited character than the true Turkish provincial aga, or 
Moslem country gentleman. It is not meant here to desig- 
nate the governors of towns, but those agas who, by a kind 
of feudal tenure, possess lands and houses, of more or less 
' extent, in Greece and Asia Minor. 

The lower orders are in as tolerable discipline as the rab- 
ble in countries with greater pretensions to civilization. A 
Moslem, in walking the streets of our country towns, would 
be more incommoded in England than a Frank in a similar 
situation in Turkey. Eegimentals are the best travelling 
dress. 

The best accounts of the religion and different sects of 
Islamism may be found in D'Ohsson's French ; of their man- 
ners, &c., perhaps in Thornton's English. The Ottomans, 
with all their defects, are not a people to be despised. Equal, 
at least, to the Spaniards, they are superior to the Portu- 
guese. If it be difficult to pronounce what they are, we can 
at least say what they are not: they are not treacherous, they 
are not cowardly, they do not burn heretics, they are not 
assassins, nor has an enemy advanced to their capital. They 
are faithful to their sultan till he becomes unfit to govern, 
and devout to their God without an inquisition. Were they 
driven from Saint Sophia to-morrow, and the French or Rus- 
sians enthroned in their stead, it would become a question 
whether Europe would gain by the exchange. England would 
certainly be the loser. 

With regard to that ignorance of which they are so gene- 
rally and sometimes justly acci;sed, it may be doubted, always 
excepting France and England, in what useful points of 
knowledge they are excelled by other nations. Is it in the 
common arts of life ? In their m.anufactures ? Is a Turkish 
sabre inferior to a Toledo? or is a Turk worse clothed or 
lodged, or fed and taught, than a Spaniard ? Are their pachas 
worse educated than a grandee ? or an effendi than a knight 
of Saint Jago ? I think not. 

I remember Mahmout, the grandson of Ali Pacha, asking 
whether my fellow traveller and myself were in the upper or 
lower House of Parliament. Now, this question from a boy 
of ten years old proved that his education had not been 



neglected. It may be doubted if an English boy at that age 
knows the difference of the divan from a college of dervises ; 
but I am very siire a Spaniard does not. How little Mahmout, 
surrounded, as he had been, entirely by his Turkish tutors, 
had learned that there was such a thing as a Parliament, it 
were useless to conjecture, unless we suppose that his in- 
structors did not confine his studies to the Koran. 

In all the mosques there are schools established, which are 
very regularly attended; and the poor are taught without 
the church of Turkey being put into peril. I believe the 
system is not yet printed (though there is such a thing as a 
Turkish press, and books printed on the late military insti- 
tution of the Nizam Gedidd) ; nor have I heard whether the 
Mufti and the Molias have subscribed, or the Caimacam and 
the Tefterdar taken the alarm, for fear the ingenuous youth 
of the turban should be taught not to " pray to God their 
way." The Greeks also — a kind of Eastern Iriyli papists- 
have a college of their own at Maynooth,— no, at Haivali; 
where the heterodox receive much the same kind of counte- 
nance from the Ottoman as the Catholic college from the 
English legislature. Who shall then affirm that the Turks 
are ignorant bigots, when they thus evince the exact propor- 
tion of Christian charity which is tolerated in the most 
prosperous and orthodox of all possible kingdoms? But 
though they allow all this, they will not suffer the Greeks 
to participate in their privileges: no, let them fight their 
battles, and pay their haratch (taxes), be drubbed in this 
world, and damned in the next. And shall we then eman- 
cipate our Irish Helots ? Mahomet forbid ! We should then 
be bad Mussulmans, and worse Christians: at present we 
unite the best of both— Jesuitical faith, and something not 
much inferior to Turkish toleration. 



CANTO THE THIRD. 



Note F. See p. 45. 



" Not vainly did the early Persian make 

His altar the high places and the peak 

Of eartlir-o'ergazing rmmntains,^'' &c. — Stanza xci. 

It is to be recollected, that the most beautiful and impresa-' 
ive doctrines of the divine Founder of Christianity were 
delivered, not in the Temple, but on the Mount. To waive the 
question of devotion, and turn to human eloquence,— the 
most effectual and splendid specimens were not pronounced 
within walls. Demosthenes addressed the public and popular 
assemblies. Cicero spoke in the forum. That this added to 
their effect on the mind of both orator and hearers, may be 
conceived from the difference between what we read of the 
emotions then and there produced, and those we ourselves 
experience in the perusal in the closet. It is one thing to 
read the Iliad at Sigaeum and on the tumuli, or by the 
springs with Mount Ida above, and the plain and rivers an^ 
Archipelago around you; and another to trim your taper 
over it in a snug library— ^Ais I know. Were the early and 
rapid progress of what is called Methodism to be attributed 
to any cause beyond the enthusiasm excited by its vehement 
faith and doctrines (the truth or error of which I presume 
neither to canvass nor to question), I should venture to 
ascribe it to the practice of preaching in the fields^ and the 
unstudied and extemporaneous effusions of its teachers. — 
The Mussulmans, whose erroneous devotion (at least in the 
lower orders) is most sincere, and therefore impressive, are 
accustomed to repeat their prescribed orisons and prayers, 
wherever they may be, at the stated hours— of course, fre- 
quently in the open air, kneeling upon a light mat (which 
they carry for the purpose of a bed or cushion as required) ; 
the ceremony lasts some minutes, during which they are 
totally absorbed, and only living in their supplication ; noth- 



APPENDIX. 



925 



ing can disturb them. On me the simple and entire sincerity 
of these men, and the spirit which appeared to be within 
and upon them, made a far greater impression tlian any 
general rite which was ever performed in places of worship, 
of which I have seen those of almost every persuasion under 
the sun ; including most of our own sectaries, and the Greek, 
the Catholic, the Armenian, the Lutheran, the Jewish, and 
the Mahometan. Many of the negroes, of whom there are 
numbers in the Turkish empire, are idolaters, and have free 
exercise of their belief and its rites : some of these I had a 
distant view of at Patras ; and, from what I could make out 
of them, they appeared to be of a truly Pagan description, 
and not very agreeable to a spectator. 



Note G. See p. 46. 

"Clarens ! by fieavenly feet thy paths are trod, — 
Undying Lovers, who here ascends a throne 
2b which the steps are mountains; where the god 
Is a pervading life and light," &c. — Stanza c. 

Rousseau's Hfeloise, Lettre 17, part 4, note. "Ces mon- 
tagnes sont si hautes qu'unedemi-heure aprSs Ic soleil couche, 
leurs sommets sont gclairCs de ses rayons; dont le rouge 
forme sur ces cimes blanches une belle couleur de rose, qu'on 
aperfoit de fort loin." — This applies more particularly to the 
heights over Mcillerie. — " J'allai S. Vevay loger S la Clef, et 
pendant deux jours que j'y restai sans voir personne, je pris 
pour cette ville un amour qui m'a suivi dans tons mes 
voyages, et qui m'y a fait gtablir enfin les heros de mon 
roman. Je dirais volontiers d ceux qui ont du golit et qui 
sont sensibles : Allez i, Vevay— visitez le pays, examinez les 
sites, promenez-Tous sur le lac, et dites si la Nature n'a pas 
fait ce beau pays pour une Julie, pour une Claire, et pour un 
St. Preux; mais ne les y cherchez pas."— i&s Confessions, 
livre iv. p. 306. Lyon, ed. 1796.— In July, 1816, I made a 
voyage round the Lake of Geneva ; and, as far as my own 
observations have led me in a not uninterested nor inatten- 
tive survey of all the scenes most celebrated by Eousseau in 
his " H61oise," I can safely say, that in this there is no ex- 
aggeration. It would be diflacult to see Clarens (with the 
scenes around it, Vevay, Chillon, Boveret, Saint Gingough, 
Meillerie, Evian, and the entrances of the Rhone) without 
being forcibly struck with its peculiar adaptation to the per- 
sons and events with which it has been peopled. But this is 
not all : the feeling with which all around Clarens, and the 
opposite rocks of Meillerie, is invested, is of a still higher 
and more comprehensive order than the mere sympathy with 
individual passion ; it is a sense of the existence of love in its 
most extended and sublime capacity, and of our own partici- 
pation of its good and of its glory : it is the great principle 
of the universe, which is there more condensed, but not less 
manifested; and of which, though knowing ourselves a part, 
we lose our individuality, and mingle in the beauty of the 
whole.— If Rousseau had never written, nor lived, the same 
as-sociations would not less have belonged to such scenes. He 
haa added to the interest of his works by their adoption ; he 
has shown his sense of their beauty by the selection; but 
they have done that for him which no human being could do 
for them.— I had the fortune (good or evil as it might be) to 
sail from Meillerie (where we landed for some time) to Saint 
Gingough during a lake storm, which added to the magnifi- 
cence of all around, although occasionally accompanied by 
danger to the boat, which was small and overloaded. It was 
over this very part of the lake that Rousseau has driven the 
boat of St. Preux and Madame Wolmar to Meillerie for 
shelter during a tempe.st. On gaining the shore at Saint Gin- 
gough, I found that the wind had been suflSciently strong to 
blow down some fine old chestnut trees on the lower part of 



the mountains. On the opposite height of Clarens is achateau. 
The hills are covered with vineyards, and interspersed with 
some small but beautiful woods ; one of these was named the 
" Bosquet de Julie ;" and it is remarkable that, though long 
ago cut down by the brutal selfishness of the monks of Saint 
Bernard (to whom the land appertained), that the ground 
might be enclosed into a vineyard for the miserable drones 
of an execrable superstition, the inhabitants of Clarens still 
point out the spot where its trees stood, calling it by the name 
which consecrated and survived them. Rousseau has not 
been particularly fortunate in the preservation of the " local 
habitations " he has given to " airy nothings." The prior of 
Great Saint Bernard has cut down some of his woods for the 
sake of a few casks of wine, and Buonaparte has levelled 
part of the rocks of Meillerie in improving the road to the 
Simplon. The road is an excellent one ; but I cannot quite 
agree with the remark which I heard made, that " La route 
vaut mieux que les souvenirs," 



CANTO THE FOURTH. 

HISTOEICAL NOTES. 

No. I. — State Dungeons of Venice, 

" I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs ; 

A palace and a prison on each hand." — Stanza i. 

The communication between the ducal palace and the pris- 
ons of Venice is by a gloomy bridge, or covered gallery, high 
above the water, and divided by a stone wall into a passage 
and a cell. The state dungeons, called pozzi, or wells, were 
sunk in the thick walls of the palace ; and the prisoner when 
taken out to die was conducted across the gallery to the 
other side, and being then led back into the other compart- 
ment, or cell, upon the bridge, was there strangled. The low 
portal through which the criminal was taken into this cell 
is now walled up ; but the passage is still open, and is still 
known by the name of the Bridge of Sighs. The pozzi are 
under the flooring of the chamber at the foot of the bridge. 
They were formerly twelve ; but on the first arrival of the 
French, the Venetians hastily blocked or broke up the deeper 
of these dungeons. You may still, however, descend by a 
trap-door, and crawl down through holes, half choked by 
rubbish, to the depth of two stories below the fir.st range. If 
you are in want of consolation for the extinction of patrician 
power, perhaps you may find it there; scarcely a ray of light 
glimmers into the narrow gallery which leads to the cells, 
and the places of confi^nement themselves are totally dark. 
A small hole in the wall admitted the damp air of the pass- 
ages, and served for the introduction of the prisoner's food. 
A wooden pallet, raised a foot from the ground, was the only 
furniture. The conductors tell you that a light was not 
allowed. The cells are about five paces in length, two and a 
half in width, and seven feet in height. They are directly 
beneath one another, and respiration is somewhat difficult 
in the lower holes. Only one prisoner was found when the 
republicans descended into these hideous recesses, and he is 
said to have been confined sixteen years. But the inmates 
of the dungeons beneath had left traces of their repentance, 
or of their despair, which are still visible, and may, perliaps, 
owe something to recent ingenuity. Some of the detained 
appeared to have offended against, and others to have be- 
longed to, the sacred body, not only from their signatures, 
but from the churches and belfries which they have scratched 
upon the walls. The reader may not object to see a specimen 
of the records prompted by so terrific a solitude. As nearly 
as thoy could be copied by more than one pencil, three of them 
are as follows ; — 



926 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



1. NON TI FIDAR AD ALCUNO PENSA 6 TACI 
SE FUGIR VUOI DE SPIONI INSIDIE e LACCI 
IL PENTIETI PENTIRTI NULLA GIOVA 

MA BEN DI VALOR TUO LA VERA PROVA 

1607. ADI 2. GENARO. FUI RE- 
TENTO P' LA BESTIEMMA P' AVER DATO 
DA MANZAR A UN MORTO 

lACOMO . GRITTI . SCRISSE. 

2. UN PARLAR POCHO et 
NEGARE PRONTO et 

UN PENSAR AL FINE PUO DARE LA VITA 
A NOI ALTBI MESCHINI 

1605. 
EGO lOHN BAPTISTA AD 
ECCLESIAM CORTELLARIUS. 

3. DE CHI MI FIDO GUARDAMI DIO 

DE CHI NON MI FIDO MI GUARDARO lO 
A TA H A NA 

V . LA S . C . K . R . 

The copyist has followed, not corrected, the solecisms ; some 
of which are, however, not quite so decided, since the letters 
were evidently scratched in the dark. It only need be ob- 
served, that bestemmia and mangiar naay be read in the first 
inscription, which was probably written by a prisoner con- 
fined for some act of impiety committed at a funeral ; that 
Cortellarius is the name of a parish on terra firms,, near the 
sea ; and that the last initials evidently are put for Viva la 
santa Chiesa Kattolica Romana. 



No. II.— Songs of the Gondoliers. 

" In Venice Tassel's echoes are no more." — Stanza iii. 

The well-known song of the gondoliers, of alternate stan- 
zas from Tasso's Jerusalem, has died with the independence 
of Venice. Editions of the poem, with the original in one 
column, and the Venetian variations on the other, as sung 
by the boatmen, were once common, and are still to be 
found. The following extract will serve to show the differ- 
ence between the Tuscan epic and the "Canta alia Bar- 
cariola." 

original. 
Canto V arme pietose, e '1 capitano 

Che '1 gran Sepolcro liberS di Cristo. 
Molto egli opr5 col senno, e con la mano 

Molto soflfri nel glorioso acquisto ; 
E in van 1' Inferno a lui s' oppose, e in vano 

S' armo d'Asia, e di Libia il popol misto, 
Che U Ciel gli di5 favore, e sotto a i Santi 
Segni ridusse i suoi compagni erranti. 

VENETIAN. 

L' arme pietose de cantar gho vogia, 

E de Goflfredo la immortal braura 
Che al fin 1' ha libera co strassia, e dogia 

Del nostro buon Gesli la Sepoltura 
De mezo mondo unito, e de quel Bogia 

Missier Pluton non 1' ha bu mat paura: 
Dio 1' ha agiuta, e i compagni sparpagnai 
Tutti '1 gh' i ha messi insieme 1 di del Dai. 

Some of the elder gondoliers will, however, take up and con- 
tinue a stanza of their once familiar bard. 

On the 7th of last January, the author of Childe Harold, 
and another Englishman, the writer of this notice, rowed to 
the Lido with two singers, one of whom was a carpenter, and 
the other a gondolier. The former placed himself at the 
prow, the latter at the stem of the boat. A little after leav- 
ing the quay of the Piazzetta, they began to sing, and con- 



tinued their exercise until we arrived at the island. They 
gave us, amongst other essays, the death of Clorinda, and the 
palace of Armida; and did not sing the Venetian, but the 
Tuscan verses. The carpenter, however, who was the cleverer 
of the two, and was frequently obliged to prompt his com- 
panion, told us that he could translate the original. He added, 
that he could sing almost three hundred stanzas, but had not 
spirits (morbin was the word he used) to learn any more, or 
to sing what he already knew : a man must have idle time 
on his hands to acquire, or to repeat, and, said the poor 
fellow, " look at my clothes and at me ; I am starving." This 
speech was more affecting than his performance, which habit 
alone can make attractive. The recitative was shrill, scream- 
ing, and monotonous ; and the gondolier behind assisted his 
voice by holding his hand to one side of his mouth. The 
carpenter used a quiet action, which he evidently endeavored 
to restrain; but was too much interested in his subject 
altogether to repress. From these men we learnt that sing- 
ing is not confined to the gondoliers, and that, although the 
chant is seldom, if ever, voluntary, there are still several 
amongst the lower classes who are acquainted with a few 



It does not appear that it is usual for the performers to 
row and sing at the same time. Although the verses of the 
Jerusalem are no longer casually heard, there is yet much 
music upon the Venetian canals ; and upon holidays, those 
strangers who are not near and informed enough to distin- 
guish the words, may fancy that many of the gondolas still 
resound with the strains of Tasso. The writer of some re- 
marks which appeared in the "Curiosities of Literature" 
must excuse his being twice quoted ; for, with the exception 
of some phrases a little too ambitious and extravagant, he has 
furnished a very exact, as well as agreeable, description : — 

"In Venice the gondoliers know by heart long passages 
from Ariosto and Tasso, and often chant them with a peculiar 
melody. But this talent seems at present on the decline : — 
at least, after taking some pains, I could find no more than 
two persons who delivered to me in this way a passage from 
Tasso. I must add, that the late Mr. Berry once chanted to 
me a passage in Tasso in the manner, as he assured me, of the 
gondoliers. 

" There are always two concerned, who alternately sing the 
strophes. We know the melody eventually by Eousseau, to 
whose songs it is printed ; it has properly no melodious move- 
ment, and is a sort of medium between the canto fermo and 
the canto figurato ; it approaches to the former by recitativi- 
cal declamation, and to the latter by passages and course, by 
which one syllable is detained and embellished. 

"I entered a gondola by moonlight; one singer placed 
himself forwards and the other aft, and thus proceeded to 
Saint Georgio. One began the song : when he had ended his 
strophe, the other took up the lay, and so continued the song 
alternately. Throughout the whole of it, the same notes 
invariably returned ; but, according to the subject matter of 
the strophe, they laid a greater or a smaller stress, sometimes 
on one, and sometimes on another note, and indeed changed 
the enunciation of the whole strophe as the object of the 
poem altered. 

" On the whole, however, the sounds were hoarse and 
screaming : they seemed, in the manner of all rude uncivil- 
ized men, to make the excellency of their singing in the force 
of their voice : one seemed desirous of conquering the other 
by the strength of his lungs; and so far from receiving 
delight from this scene (shut up as I was in the box of the 
gondola), I found myself in a very unpleasant situation. 

"My companion, to whom I communicated this circum- 
stance, being very desirous to keep up the credit of his 
countrymen, assured me that this singing was very delightful 
when heard at a distance. Accordingly we got out upon the 
shore, leaving one of the singers in the gondola, while the 
other went to the distance of some hundred paces. They now 
began to sing against one another, and I kept walking up 



APPENDIX. 



927 



and down between them both, so as always to leave him who 
was to begin his part. I frequently stood still and hearkened 
to the one and to the other. 

" Here the scene was properly introduced. The strong de- 
clamatory, and, as it were, shrieking sound, met the ear from 
far. and called forth the attention ; the quickly succeeding 
transitions, which necessarily required to be sung in a lower 
tone, seemed like plaintive strains succeeding the vocifer- 
ations of emotion or of pain. The other, who listened atten- 
tively, immediately began where the former left off, answering 
him in milder or more vehement notes, according as the 
purport of the strophe required. The sleepy canals, the lofty 
buildings, the splendor of the moon, the deep shadows of the 
few gondolas that moved like spirits hither and thither, in- 
creased the striking peculiarity of the scene ; and, amidst all 
these circumstances, it was easy to confess the character of 
this wonderful harmony. 

" It suits perfectly well with an idle solitary mariner, lying 
at length in his vessel at rest on one of these canals, waiting 
for his company, or for a fare, the tiresomeness of which 
situation is somewhat alleviated by the songs and poetical 
stories he has in memory. He often raises his voice as loud 
as he can, which extends itself to a vast distance over the 
tranquil mirror ; and as all is still around, he is, as it were, in 
a solitude in the midst of a large and populous town. Here 
is no rattling of carriages, no noise of foot passengers ; a silent 
gondola glides now and then by him, of which the splashings 
of the oars are scarcely to be heard. 

"At a distance he hears another, perhaps utterly unknown 
to him. Melody and verse immediately attach the two stran- 
gers ; he becomes the responsive echo to the former, and exerts 
himself to be heard as he had heard the other. By a tacit 
convention they alternate verse for verse ; though the song 
should last the whole night through, they entertain them- 
selves without fatigue; the hearers, who are passing between 
the two, take part in the amusement. 

" This vocal performance sounds best at a great distance, 
and is then inexpressibly charming, as it only fulfills its de- 
sign in the sentiment of remoteness. It is plaintive, but not 
dismal in its sound, and at times it is scarcely possible to re- 
frain from tears. My companion, who otherwise was not a 
very delicately organized person, said quite unexpectedly : — 
' E singolare come quel canto intenerisce, e moito piil quando 
lo cantano meglio.' 

" I was told that the women of Libo, the long row of islands 
that divides the Adriatic from the Lagoons,^ particularly the 
women of the extreme districts of Malamocco and Palestrina, 
sing in like manner the works of Tasso to these and similar 
tunes. 

" They have the custom, when their husbands are fishing 
out at sea, to sit along the shore in the evenings and vocifer- 
ate these songs, and continue to do so with great violence, till 
each of them can distinguish the responses of her own hus- 
band at a distance." * 

The love of music and of poetry distinguishes all classes of 
Venetians, even amongst the tuneful sons of Italy. The city 
itself can occasionally furnish respectable audiences for two 
and even three opera-houses at a time ; and there are few 
events in private life that do not call forth a printed and 
circulated sonnet. Docs a physician or a lawyer take his 
degree, or a clergyman preach his maiden sermon, has a sur- 
geon perfonned an operation, would a harlequin announce 
his departure or his benefit, are you to be congratulated on a 
marriage, or a birth, or a lawsuit, the Muses are invoked to 
fomisb the same number of syllables, and the individual 
triumphs blaze abroad in virgin white or parti-colored pla- 
cards on half the comers of the capitaL The last curtsey of 



1 The writer me&nt Udo, which In not a loDg row of islands, but a long 
ijland: littua, the shore. 

•1 Curiosities of Literature, vol. il. p. 156, edit. 1807 ; and Appendix xxix. 
to Black's Life of Tasso. 



a favorite "prima donna" brings down a shower of these 
poetical tributes from those upper regions, from which, in our 
theatres, nothing but cupids and snow-storms are accustomed 
to descend. There is a poetry in the very life of a Venetian, 
which, in its common course, is varied with those surprises 
and changes so recommcndable in fiction, but so different 
from the sober monotony of northern existence ; amusements 
are raised into duties, duties are softened into amusements, 
and every object being considered as equally making a part 
of the business of life, is announced and performed with the 
same earnest indifference and gay assiduity. The Venetian 
gazette constantly closes its columns with the following triple 
advertisement :— 

Charade. 



Exposition of the most Holy Sacrament in the church 



of 



Theatres. 

Saint Moses, opera. 

Saint Benedict, a comedy of characters. 

Saint Luke, repose. 
When it is recollected what the Catholics believe their con- 
secrated wafer to be, we may perhaps think it worthy of a 
more respectable niche than between poetry and the play- 
house. 



No. in. — The Lion and Horses op Saint Mark's. 

" Saint Mark yet sees his lion where he stood 
Stand." — Stanza xi. 

The Lion has lost nothing by his journey to the Invalides 
but the gospel which supported the paw ; that is now on a 
level with the other foot. The Horses also are returned to 
the ill-chosen spot whence they set out, and are, as before, 
half hidden under the porch window of Saint Mark's church. 
Their history, after a desperate struggle, has been satisfac- 
torily explored. The decisions and doubts of Erizzo and 
Zanetti, and lastly of the count Leopold Cicognara, would 
have given them a Roman extraction, and a pedigree not 
more ancient than the reign of Nero. But M. de Schlegel 
stepped in to teach the Venetians the value of their own 
treasures, and a Greek vindicated, at last and for ever, the 
pretension of his countrymen to this noble production.^ M. 
Mustoxidi has not been left without a reply ; but, as yet, he 
has received no answer. It should seem that the horses are 
irrevocably Chian, and were transferred to Constantinople 
by Theodosius. Lapidary writing is a favorite play of the 
Italians, and has conferred reputation on more than one of 
their literary characters. One of the best specimens of Bo- 
doni's typography is a respectable volume of inscriptions, all 
written by his friend Pacciaudi. Several were prepared for 
the recovered horses. It is to be hoped the best was not 
selected, when the following words were ranged in gold 
letters above the cathedral porch : — 

QUATUOR • EQUOKUM * SIGNA * A ' VENETIS " BYZANTIO * 
CAPTA • AD • TEMP ' D * MAR * A " R " S ' MCCIV " POSITA ' QU.^: ' 
IIOSTILIS • CUPIDITAS * A " MDCCIIIC ' ABSTULERAT " FRANC ' I • 
IMP • PACTS • ORBI ■ DATiE * TROPH^UM * A • MDCCCXV * VICTOR * 
REDUXIT. 

Nothing shall be .said of the Latin ; but it may be permitted 
to observe, that the injustice of the Venetians in transport- 
ing the horses from Constantinople was at least equal to that 
of the French in carrying them to Paris, and that it would 
have been more prudent to have avoided all allusions to 



3 Sui quattro cavalli della Basilica di S. Marco In Veneiia. Letters di 
Andrea Mastoxldi Corcirese. Padua, 1316. 



928 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



either robbery. An apostolic prince should, perhaps, have 
objected to affixing over the principal entrance of a metro- 
politan church an inscription having a reference to any 
other triumphs than those of religion. Nothing less than 
the pacification of the world can excuse such a solecism. 



No. IV. 



-Submission of Barbakossa to Pope Alex- 
ander III. 



" The Suabian sued, and noiv the Austrian reigns — 
An Emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt." 

Stanza xii. 

After many vain efforts on the part of the Italians entirely 
to throw off the yoke of Frederic Barbarossa, and as fruitless 
attempts of the emperor to make himself absolute master 
throughout the whole of his Cisalpine dom.inions, the bloody 
struggles of four-and-twenty years were happily brought to 
a close in the city of Venice. The articles of a treaty had 
been previously agreed upon between Pope Alexander III. 
and Barbarossa ; and the former, having received a safe-con- 
duct, had already arrived at Venice from Ferrara, in company 
with the ambassadors of the king of Sicily and the consuls of 
the Lombard league. There still remained, however, many 
points to adjust, and for several days the peace was believed 
to be impracticable. At this juncture it was suddenly re- 
ported that the emperor had arrived at Chioza, a town fifteen 
miles from the capital. The Venetians rose tumultuously, 
and insisted upon immediately conducting him to the city. 
The Lombards took the alarm, and departed towards Treviso. 
The pope himself was apprehensive of some disaster if Fred- 
eric should suddenly advance upon him, but was reassured 
by the prudence and address of Sebastian Ziani, the doge. 
Several embassies passed between Chioza and the capital, 
until, at last, the emperor, relaxing somewhat of his preten- 
sions, " laid aside his leonine ferocity, and put on the mild- 
ness of the lamb." i 

On Saturday the 23d of July, in the year 1177, six Venetian 
galleys transferred Frederic, in great pomp, from Chioza to 
the island of Lido, a mile from Venice. Early the next 
morning the pope, accompanied by the Sicilian ambassadors 
and by the envoys of Lombardy, whom he had recalled from 
the main land, together with a great concourse of people, 
repaired from the patriarchal palace to Saint Mark's church, 
and solemnly absolved the emperor and his partisans from 
the excommunication pronounced against him. The chan- 
cellor of the empire, on the part of his master, renounced 
the anti-popes and their schismatic adherents. Immediately 
the doge, with a great suite both of the clergy and the laity, 
got on board the galleys, and waiting on Frederic, rowed him 
in mighty state from the Lido to the capital. The emperor 
descended from the galley at the quay of the Piazzetta, The 
doge, the patriarch, his bishops and clergy, and the people of 
Venice with their crosses and their standards, marched in 
solemn procession before him to the church of Saint Mark, 
Alexander was seated before the vestibule of the basilica, 
attended by his bishops and cardinals, by the patriarch of 
Aquileja, by the archbishops and bishops of Lombardy, all 
of them in state, and clothed in their church robes. Frederic 



1 " Quibus audltis, imperator, operante eo, qui corda principum sicut 
vult et quando vult humiliter inclinat, leonina feritate deposita, ovinam 
mansuetudinem induit."— Eomualdi Salernitani Chronicon, apud Script. 
Eer. Ital. torn. vii. p. 229. 

2 Rer. Ital. torn. vii. p. 231. 

3 See the above-cited Romuald of Salerno. In a second sermon which 
Alexander preached, on the 1st day of August, before the emperor, he com- 
pared Frederic to the prodigal son, and himself to the forgiving father. 

4 Mr. Gibbon has omitted the important ce, and has written Romani 
instead of Romanise, Decline and Fall, chap. Ixi. note 9, But the title 



approached— " moved by the Holy Spirit, venerating the 
Almighty in the person of Alexander, laying aside his 
imperial dignity, and throwing off his mantle, he prostrated 
himself at full length at the feet of the pope. Alexander, 
with tears in his eyes, raised him benignantly from the 
ground, kissed him, blessed him ; and immediately the Ger- 
mans of the train sang, with a loud voice, ' We praise thee, 
O Lord.' The emperor then, taking the pope by the right 
hand, led him to the church, and having received his bene- 
diction, returned to the ducal palace." 2 The ceremony of 
humiliation was repeated the next day. The pope himself, 
at the request of Frederic, said mass at Saint Mark's. The 
emperor again laid aside his imperial mantle, and, taking a 
wand in his hand, officiated as verger, driving the laity from 
the choir, and preceding the pontiff to the altar. Alexander, 
after reciting the gospel, preached to the people. The em- 
peror put himself close to the pulpit in the attitude of lis- 
tening ; and the pontiff, touched by this mark of his attention 
(for he knew that Frederic did not understand a word he 
said), commanded the patriarch of Aquileja to translate the 
Latin discourse into the German tongue. The creed was 
then chanted. Frederic made his oblation, and kissed the 
pope's feet, and, mass being over, led him by the hand to his 
white horse. He held the stirrup, and would have led the 
horse's rein to the water side, had not the pope accepted of 
the inclination for the performance, and affectionately dis- 
missed him with his benediction. Such is the substance of 
the account left by the archbishop of Salerno, who was 
present at the ceremony, and whose story is confirmed by 
every subsequent narration. It would be not worth so mi- 
nute a record, were it not the triumph of liberty as well as 
of superstition. The states of Lombardy owed to it the 
confirmation of their privileges ; and Alexander had reason 
to thank the Almighty, who had enabled an infirm, unarmed 
old man to subdue a terrible and potent sovereign,^ 



No, v.— Henry Dandolo. 

" Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo ! 
TV octogenarian chief, Byzantium^ s conquering foe.^^ 

Stanza xii. 

The reader will recollect the exclamation of the High- 
lander, Oh for one hour of Dundee ! Henry Dandolo when 
elected doge, in 1192, was eighty-five years of age. When he 
commanded the Venetians at the taking of Constantinople 
he was consequently ninety-seven years old. At this age he 
annexed the fourth and a half of the whole empire of Roma- 
nia,* for so the Roman empire was then called, to the title 
and to the territories of the Venetian doge. The three 
eighths of this empire were preserved in the diplomas until 
the dukedom of Giovanni Dolfino, who made use of the 
above designation in the year 1357.5 

Dandolo led the attack on Constantinople in person : two 
ships, the Paradise and the Pilgrim, were tied together, and 
a drawbridge or ladder let down from their higher yards to 
the walls. The doge was one of the first to rush into the 
city. Then was completed, said the Venetians, the proph- 
ecy of the Erythraean sibyl : — " A gathering together of the 



acquired by Dandolo runs thus in the chronicle of his namesake, the doge 
Andrew Dandolo : — " Ducali titulo addidit, ' Quartse partis et dimidise totins 
imperii Romanise.' " — And. Dand. Chronicon, cap. iii. pars, xxxvii. ap. 
Script. Rer. Ital. tom. xii. p. 331. And the Romanise is observed in the sub- 
sequent acts of the doges ; indeed, the continental possessions of the Greek 
empire in Europe were then generally known by the name of Romania, and 
that appellation is still seen in the maps of Turkey, as applied to Thrace. 

5 See the continuation of Dandolo's Chronicle, ibid. p. 498. Mr. Gibbon 
appears not to include Dolflno, following Sanuto, who says, "il qual titolo 
si usd fin al Doge Giovanni Dolflno." See Vita de' Duchi di Venezia, ap. 
Script. Rer, Ital. tom. xxii. 530, 641. 



APPENDIX. 



929 



powerful shall be made amidst the waves of the Adriatic, under 
a blind leader ; they shall beset the goat— they shall profane 
Byzantium — they shall blacken her buildings — her spoils 
shall be dispersed ; a new goat shall bleat until they have 
measured out and run over fifty-four feet, nine inches, and 
a half." 1 Dandolo died on the 1st day of June, 1205, having 
reigned thirteen years, six months, and five days, and was 
buried in the church of Saint Sophia, at Constantinople. 
Strangely enough it must sound, that the name of the rebel 
apothecary who received the doge's sword, and annihilated 
the ancient government, in 1796-7, was Dandolo. 



No. VI.— The War op Chioza. 

" Bvi is not Dorians menace come to pass t 
Are they not bridled?" — Stanza xiii. 

After the loss of the battle of Pola, and the taking of 
Chioza on the 16th of August, 1379, by the united armament 
of the Genoese and Francesco da Carrara, Signer of Padua, 
the Venetians were reduced to the utmost despair. An em- 
bassy was sent to the conquerors with a blank sheet of paper, 
praying them to prescribe what terms they pleased, and leave 
to Venice only her independence. The Prince of Padua was 
inclined to listen to these proposals ; but the Genoese, who, 
after the victory at Pola, had shouted, " To Venice, to Venice, 
and long live Saint George !" determined to annihilate their 
rival ; and Peter Doria, their commander-in-chief, returned 
this answer to the suppliants: " On God's faith, gentlemen of 
Venice, ye shall have no peace from the Signor of Padua, 
nor from our commune of Genoa, until we have first put a 
rein upon those unbridled horses of yours, that are upon the 
porch of your evangelist Saint Mark. When we have bridled 
them, we shall keep you quiet. And this is the pleasure of 
us and of our commune. As for these my brothers of Genoa, 
that you have brought with you to give up to us, I will not 
have them : take them back ; for, in a few days hence, I shall 
come and let them out of prison myself, both these and all 
the others." In fact, the Genoese did advance as far as Mala- 
mocco, within five miles of the capital ; but their own danger 
and the pride of their enemies gave courage to the Venetians, 
who made prodigious efforts, and many individual sacrifices, 
all of them carefully recorded by their historians. Vettor 
Pisani was put at the head of thirty-four galleys. The Gen- 
oese broke up from Malamocco, and retired to Chioza in 
October ; but they again threatened Venice, which was re- 
duced to extremities. At this time, the 1st of Januaiy, 1.380, 
arrived Carlo Zeno, who had been cruising on the Genoese 
coast with fourteen galleys. The Venetians were now strong 
enough to besiege the Genoese. Doria was killed on the 22d 
of January, by a stone bullet 195 pounds weight, discharged 
from a bombard called the Trevisan. Chioza was then closely 
invested ; 5000 auxiliaries, amongst whom were some English I 
condottieri, commanded by one Captain Ceccho, joined the 
Venetians. The Genoese, in their turn, prayed for condi- 
tions, but none were granted, until, at last, they surrendered 
at discretion ; and, on the 24th of June, 1380, the doge Con- 
tarini made his triumphal entry into Chioza. Four thousand 
prisoners, nineteen galleys, many smaller vessels and barks, 
with all the ammunition and arms, and outfit of the expedi- 
tion, fell into the hands of the conquerors, who, had it not 
been for the inexorable answer of Doria, would have gladly 
reduced their dominion to the city of Venice. An account 
of these transactions is found in a work called the War of 
Chioza, written by Daniel Chinazzo, who was in Venice at 
the time. 



1 Gkraatora, ap< Script. Bcr. Ital. para xzzlr. 



No. VII.— Venice uitoer the Goveeitmknt op Austria. 



"2%in streets, and foreign aspects, such as must 
Too ojt remind h&r who and what inihralls:' 

Stanza xv. 

The population of Venice at the end of the seventeenth 
century amounted to nearly two hundred thousand souls. 
At the last census, taken two years ago, it was no more than 
about one hundred and three thousand : and it diminishes 
daily. The commerce and the oflicial employments, which 
were to be the unexhausted source of Venetian grandeur, 
have both expired. Most of the patrician mansions are de- 
serted, and would gradually disappear had not the govern- 
ment, alarmed by the demolition of seventy-two during the 
last two years, expressly forbidden this sad resource of 
poverty. Many remnants of the Venetian nobility are now 
scattered and confounded with the wealthier Jews upon the 
banks of the Brenta, whose Palladian palaces have sunk, or 
are sinking, in the general decay. Of the "gentUuomo Ve- 
neto," the name is still known, and that is all. He is but 
the shadow of his former self, but he is polite and kind. It 
surely may be pardoned to him if he is querulous. Whatever 
may have been the vices of the republic, and although the 
natural terra of its existence may be thought by foreigners 
to have arrived in the due course of mortality, only one 
sentiment can be expected from the Venetians themselves. 
At no time were the subjects of the republic so unanimous 
in their resolution to rally round the standard of Saint 
Mark, as when it was for the last time unfurled, and the 
cowardice and the treachery of the few patricians who rec- 
ommended the fatal neutrality were confined to the persons 
of the traitors themselves. The present race cannot be 
thought to regret the loss of their aristocratical forms, and 
too despotic government ; t'hey think only on their vanished 
independence. They pine away at the remembrance, and 
on this subject suspend for a moment their gay good humor. 
Venice may be said, in the words of the scripture, "to 
die daily ;" and so general and so apparent is the decline, as 
to become painful to a stranger, not reconciled to the sight 
of a whole nation expiring as it were before his eyes. So 
artificial a creation, having lost that principle which called 
it into life and supported its existence, must fall to pieces at 
once, and sink more rapidly than it rose. The abhorrence of 
slavery which drove the Venetians to the sea has, since their 
disaster, forced them to the land, where they may be at least 
overlooked amongst the crowd of dependents, and not pre- 
sent the humiliating spectacle of a whole nation loaded with 
recent chains. Their liveliness, their affability, and that 
happy indifference which constitution alone can give (for 
philosophy aspires to it in vain), have not, sunk under cir- 
cumstances; but many peculiarities of costume and manner 
have by degrees been lost, and the nobles, with a pride com- 
mon to all Italians who have been masters, have not been 
persuaded to parade their insignificance. That splendor 
which was a proof and a portion of their power, they would 
not degrade into the trappings of their subjection. They 
retired from the space which they had occupied in the eyes 
of their fellow citizens ; their continuance in which would 
have been a symptom of acquiescence, and an insult to those 
who suffered by the common misfortune. Those who re- 
mained in the degraded capital might be said rather to 
haunt the scenes of their departed power, than to live in 
them. The reflection, " who and what enthralls," will hardly 
bear a comment from one who is, nationally, the friend and 
the ally of the conqueror. It may, however, be allowed to 
say thus much, that to those who wish to recover their inde- 
pendence, any masters must be an object of detestation ; and 
it may be safely foretold that this unprofitable aversion will 
not have been corrected before Venice shall have sunk into 
the slime of her choked canals. 



930 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



No. VIII.— Laura. 

" Watering the tree which bears his lady^s name 
With his melodious tears, he gave himself to fame." 

Stanza xxx. 

Thanks to the critical acumen of a Scotchman, we now 
know as little of Laura as ever.i The discoveries of the abb§ 
de Sade, his triumphs, his sneers, can no longer instmct or 
amuse. We must not, however, think that these memoirs 
are as much a romance as Belisarius or the Incas, although 
we are told so by Dr. Beattie, a great name, but a little au- 
thority.2 His " labor " has not been in vain, notwithstanding 
his " love " has, like most other passions, made him ridiculous.3 
The hypothesis which overpowered the struggling Italians, 
and carried along less interested critics in its current, is run 
out. We have another proof that we can be never sure that 
the paradox, the most singular, and therefore having the 
most agreeable and authentic air, will not give place to the 
re-established ancient prejudice. 

It seems, then, first, that Laura was born, lived, died, and 
was buried, not in Avignon, but in the country. The fountains 
of the Sorga, the thickets of Cabrieres, may resume their 
pretensions, and the exploded de la Bastie again be heard 
with complacency. The hypothesis of the abbg had no 
stronger props than the parchment sonnet and medal found 
on the skeleton of the wife of Hugo de Sade, and the manu- 
script note to the Yirgil of Petrarch, now in the Ambrosian 
library. If these proofs were both incontestable, the poetry 
was written, the m.edal composed, cast, and deposited within 
the space of twelve hours ; and these deliberate duties were 
performed round the carcass of one who died of the plague, 
and was hurried to the grave on the day of her death. These 
documents, therefore, are too decisive: they prove not the 
fact, but the forgery. Either the sonnet or the Virgilian 
note must be a falsification. The abbe cites both as incon- 
testably true ; the consequent deduction is inevitable— they 
are both evidently false.* 

Secondly, Laura was never married, and was a haughty 
virgin rather than that tender and prudent wife who honored 
Avignon by making that town the theatre of an honest 
French passion, and played off for one-and-twenty years her 
little machinery of alternate favors and refusals ^ upon the 
first poet of the age. It was, indeed, rather too unfair that a 
female should be made responsible for eleven children upon 
the faith of a misinterpreted abbreviation, and the decision 
of a librarian.6 It is, however, satisfactory to think that the 
love of Petrarch was not Platonic. The happiness which he 
prayed to possess but once and for a moment was surely not 
of the mind,7 and something so very real as a marriage pro- 
ject, with one who has been idly called a shadowy nymph, 
may be, perhaps, detected in at least six places of his own 
sonnets. The love of Petrarch was neither Platonic nor 
poetical ; and if in one passage of his works he calls it " amore 
veementeissimo ma unico ed onesto," he confesses, in a letter 



1 See An Historical and Critical Essay on the Life and Character of 
Petrarch ; and a Dissertation on an Historical Hypothesis of the abb6 de 
Sade. 

2 Life of Beattie, by Sir "W. Forbes, vol. ii. p. 106- 

3 Mr. Gibbon called his Memoirs "a labor of love" (see Decline and 
Fall, chap. Ixx. note 1), and followed him with confidence and delight. The 
compiler of a very voluminous work must take much criticism upon trust. 
Mr. Gibbon has done so, though not as readily as some other authors. 

i The sonnet had before awakened the suspicions of Mr. Horace Walpole. 
See his letter to Warton in 1763. 

5 " Par ce petit mandge, cette alternative de favours et de rigueurs bien 
m6nag6e, une femme tendre et sage amuse, pendant vingt et un ans, le plus 
grand poete de son sidcle, sans faire la moindre brdche &. son honneur." 
M6m. pour la Vie de Petrarque, Preface aux Fran?ais. 

6 In a dialogue with Saint Augustine, Petrarch has described Laura as 
having a body exhausted with repeated ptubs. The old editors read and 
printed perturhntionibus ; but M. Oapperonier, librarian to the French king 
in 1762, who saw the MS. in the Paris library, made an attestation that " on 



to a friend, that it was guilty and perverse, that it absorbed 
him quite, and mastered his heart. 

In this case, however, he was perhaps alarmed for the cul- 
pability of his wishes; for the abbe de Sade himself, who 
certainly would not have been scrupulously delicate if he 
could have proved his descent from Petrarch as well as Laura, 
is forced into a stout defence of his virtuous grandmother. 
As far as relates to the poet, we have no security for the in- 
nocence, except perhaps in the constancy of his pursuit. He 
assures us in his epistle to posterity, that, when arrived at 
his fortieth year, he not only had in horror, but had lost all 
recollection and image of any " irregularity." But the birth 
of his natural daughter cannot be assigned earlier than his 
thirty-ninth year ; and either the memory or the morality 
of the poet must have failed him, when he forgot or was 
guilty of this slip.^ The weakest argument for the purity of 
this love has been drawn from the permanence of its effects, 
which survived the object of his passion. The reflection of 
M. de la Bastie, that virtue alone is capable of making im- 
pressions which death cannot efface, is one of those which 
every body applauds, and every body finds not to be true 
the moment he examines his own breast or the records of 
human feeling.9 Such apophthegms can do nothing for Pet- 
rarch or for the cause of morality, except with the very weak 
and the very young. He that has made even a little progress 
beyond ignorance and pupillage cannot be edified with any 
thing but truth. What is called vindicating the honor of an 
individual or a nation, is the most futile, tedious, and unin- 
structive of all writing ; although it will always meet with 
more applause than that sober criticism which is attributed 
to the malicious desire of reducing a great man to the com- 
mon standard of humanity. It is, after all, not unlikely that 
our historian was right in retaining his favorite hypothetic 
salvo, which secures the author, although it scarcely saves 
the honor of the still unknown mistress of Petrarch.^ 



No. IX.— Petrarch. 

" They keep his dust in Arqua, where he died." — Stanza xxxi. 

Petrarch retired to ArquS immediately on his return from 
the unsuccessful attempt to visit Urban V. at Rome, in the 
year 1370, and, with the exception of his celebrated visit to 
Venice in company with Francesco Novello da Carrara, he 
appears to have passed the four last years of his life between 
that charming solitude and Padua. For four months previous 
to his death he was in a state of continual languor, and in the 
morning of July the 19th, in the year 1374, was found dead in 
his library chair with his head resting upon a book. The 
chair is still shown amongst the precious relics of ArquS, 
which, from the uninterrupted veneration that has been 
attached to every thing relative to this great man from the 
moment of his death to the present hour, have, it may be 



lit et qu'on doit lire, partubus exhauatum." De Sade joined the names of 
Messrs. Boudot and Bejot with M. Capperonier, and, in the whole discussion 
on this ptubs, showed himself a downright literary rogue. See Biflessioni, 
&c., p. 267. Thomas Aquinas is called in to settle whether Petrarch's mis- 
tress was a chaste maid or a continent wife. 
V " Pigmalion, quanto lodar ti del 
Dell' imagine tua, se mille volte 
N' avesti quel ch' i' sol una vorrei." 

Sonetto 58, quando giunse a Simon I'alto concetto. Le Hitne, 
Ac., par. i. pag. 189, edit. Ven. 1756. 

8 " A questa confessione cosi sincera diede forse oocasione una nuova 
caduta ch' ei fece." Tiraboschi, Storia, &c., v. 492. 

9 M. de Bimard, Baron de la Bastie, in the M^moires de l'Acad6mie dee 
Inscriptions et Belles Lettres for 1740 and 1751. See also Riflessioni, &c., 
p. 295. 

10 " And if the virtue or prudence of Laura was inexorable, he enjoyed, 
and might boast of enjoying, the nymph of poetry." Decline and Fall, 
chap. Ixx. p. 327, vol. xii. 8vo. Perhaps the if is here meant for altholt^^. 



APPENDIX. 



931 



hoped, a better chance of authenticity than the Shakspearian 
memorials of Stratford-upon-Avon. 

Arqu5 (for the last syllable is accented in pronunciation, 
although the analogy of the English language has been ob- 
served in the verse) is twelve miles from Padua, and about 
three miles on the right of the high road to Rovigo, in the 
bosom of the Euganean hills. After a walk of twenty minutes 
across a flat well-wooded meadow, you come to a little blue 
lake, clear but fathomless, and to the foot of a succession of 
acclivities and hills, clothed with vineyards and orchards, 
rich with fir and pomegranate trees, and every sunny fruit 
shrub. From the banks of the lake the road winds into the 
hills, and the church of Arqud is soon seen between a cleft 
where two ridges slope towards each other, and nearly enclose 
the village. The houses are scattered at intervals on the 
steep sides of these summits ; and that of the poet is on the 
edge of a little knoll overlooking two descents, and command- 
ing a view, not only of the glowing gardens in the dales im- 
mediately beneath, but of the wide plains, above whose low 
woods of mulberry and willow, thickened into a dark mass 
by festoons of vines, tall, single cypresses, and the spires of 
towns, are seen in the distance, which stretches to the 
mouths of the Po and the shores of the Adriatic. The cli- 
mate of these volcanic hills is warmer, and the vintage begins 
a week sooner, than in the plains of Padua. Petrarch is laid, 
for he cannot be said to be buried, in a sarcophagus of red 
marble, raised on four pilasters on an elevated base, and pre- 
served from an association with meaner tombs. It stands 
conspicuously alone, but will be soon overshadowed by four 
lately planted laurels. Petrarch's fountain, for here every- 
thing is Petrarch's, springs and expands itself beneath an 
artificial arch, a little below the church, and abounds plenti- 
fully, in the driest season, with that soft water which was 
the ancient wealth of the Euganean hills. It would be more 
•attractive were it not, in some seasons, beset with hornets 
and wasps. No other coincidence could assimilate the tombs 
of Petrarch and Archilochus. Tlie revolutions of centuries 
have spared these sequestered valleys, and the only violence 
which has been offered to the ashes of Petrarch was prompted, 
not by hate, but veneration. An attempt was made to rob 
the sarcophagus of its treasure, and one of the arms was 
stolen by a Florentine through a rent which is still visible. 
The injury is not forgotten, but has served to identify the 
poet with the country where he was born, but where he would 
not live. A peasant boy of Arqua being asked who Petrarch 
was, replied, "that the people of the parsonage knew all 
about him, but that he only knew that he was a Florentine." 

Mr. Forsyth 1 was not quite correct in saying that Petrarch 
n«>ver returned to Tuscany after he had once quitted it when 
a boy. It appears he did pass through Florence on his way 
from Parma to Rome, and on his return in the year 13.50, 
and remained there long enough to form some acquaintance 
with its most distinguished inhabitants. A Florentine gen- 
tleman, ashamed of the aversion of the poet for his native 
country, was eager to point out this trivial error in our ac- 
complished traveller, whom he knew and respected for an 
extraordinary capacity, extensive erudition, and refined taste, 
joined to that engaging simplicity of manners which had been 
BO frequently recognized as the surest, though it is certainly 
not an indispensable, trait of superior genius. 

Every footstep of Laura's lover has been anxiously traced 

1 Remarks, Ac. on Italy, p. 95, note, 2d edit. 

2 La Vita dol Taaso, lib. ill. 

3 Histoire de I'Acad^mle Fran^alse depnis 1852 jusqu'i 1700, par I'Abb^ 
d'Olivet. " MaU. eniiuite, Tenant i, I'naage qu'il a fait dc Hca talcns, j'aurala 
montri que le bon sens n'est pas toojoars oe qui dominc chez Inl," p. 182. 
Bollcau said, he bad not changed his opinion. " J'en al si peu chang6, 
dlt-il, • Ac, p. IHl. 

4 La Mani^re de bien Penser. Phllanthes Is for Tafii«o, and sajs In the 
•atset, " De tons les beaux esprits que I'ltalle a port^s, le Tasse est peut-^tre 
«elai qui pense le plus noblcment." But Bobours seems to speak Id Rudoxus, 
who closes with the absurd comparison, " Faitcs valoir le Tasse tant qall 
»ous plaira je men tiens pour mol i Vlrgile," 4c. 



and recorded. The house in which he lodged is shown in 
Venice. The inhabitants of Arczzo, in order to decide the 
ancient controversy between their city and the neighboring 
Ancisa, where Petrarch was carried when seven months old, 
and remained until his seventh year, have designated by a 
long inscription the spot where their great fellow citizen was 
born. A tablet has been raised to him at Parma, in the chapel 
of Saint Agatha, at the cathedral, because he was archdeacon 
of that society, and was only snatched from his intended 
sepulture in their church hy a foreiffn death. Another tablet, 
with a bust, has been erected to him at Pavia, on account of 
his having passed the autumn of 1368 in that city, with his 
son-in-law Brossano. The political condition which has for 
ages precluded the Italians from the criticism of the living, 
has concentrated their attention to the illustration of the 
dead. 



No. X.— Tasso. 

" In face of all his foes, the Crtcscan quire, 

And Boileau, tvhose rash envy," &c. — Stanza xxxviii. 

Perhaps the couplet in which Boileau depreciates Tasso 
may serve as well as any other specimen to justify the opinion 
given of the harmony of French verse :— 

"A Malherbe, 5 Racan, prgf5re Theophile, 

Et le clinquant du Tasse d tout I'or de Virgile." — Sat. ix. 

The biographer Serassi,^ out of tenderness to the reputation 
either of the Italian or the French poet, is eager to observe 
that the satirist recanted or explained away this censure, 
and subsequently allowed the author of the Jerusalem to be 
! a "genius, sublime, . vast, and happily born for the higher 
I flights of poetry." To this we will add that the recantation 
is far fi-om satisfactory, when we examine the whole anecdote 
as reported by Olivet.^ The sentence pronounced against 
him by Bohours* is recorded only to the confusion of the 
', critic, whose palinodia the Italian makes no eflbrt to dis- 
j cover, and would not, perhaps, accept. As to the opposition 
which the Jerusalem encountered from the Cruscan academy, 
who degraded Tasso from all competition with Ariosto, below 
Boiardo and Pulci, the disgrace of such opposition must also 
in some measure be laid to the charge of Alfonso and the 
court of Ferrara. For Leonardo Salviati, the principal and 
nearly the sole origin of this attack, was, there can be no 
doubtjS influenced by a hope to acquire the favor of the 
House of Este: an object which he thought attainable by 
exalting the reputation of a native poet at the expense of a 
rival, then a prisoner of state. The hopes and efforts of Salviati 
must serve to show the contemporary opinion as to the nature 
of the poet's imprisonment ; and will fill up the measure of 
our indignation at the tyrant jailer.6 In fact, the antagonist 
of Tasso was not disappointed in the reception given to his 
criticism ; he was called to the court of Ferrara, where, hav- 
ing endeavored to heighten his claims to favor, by panegyrics 
on the family of his sovereign,^ he was in turn abandoned, 
and expired in neglected poverty. The opposition of the 
Cruscans was brought to a close in six years after the com- 
mencement of the controversy; and if the academy owed its 
first renown to having almost opened with such a paradox,* 

5 La Vita, Ac, lib. Hi. p. 90, tom. II. The Knglish reader may see an 
account of the opposition of the Crnsca to Tasso, in Dr. Block, Life, Ac, 
chap. xvil. vol. 11. 

6 For further and, It Is hoped, decisive proof that Tasso was neither 
more nor less than a prisoner of state, the reader Is referred to " Historical 
Illustrationg of the Fourth Canto of Chllde Harold," page 5 and following. 

7 Orazionl funebri . . . dclle lodi dl Don Lulgl, Cardinal d'Bste . . . delle 
odi dl donno Alfonso d'Este. See La Ylta, lib. ill. p. 117. 

8 It was founded In 1582, and the Cruscan answer to Pellegrino's Caraffa, 
or apica poeaia, was published in 1584. 



932 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



it is probable that, on the other hand, the care of his reputa- 
tion alleviated rather than aggravated the imprisonment of 
the injured poet. The defence of his father and of himself, 
for both were involved in the censure of Salviati, found em- 
ployment for many of his solitary hours, and the captive 
could have been but little embarrassed to reply to accusa- 
tions, where, amongst other delinquencies, he was charged 
with invidiously o^nitting, in his comparison between France 
and Italy, to make any mention of the cupola of Saint Maria 
del Fiore at Florence.i The late biographer of Ariosto seems 
as if willing to renew the controversy by doubting the inter- 
pretation of Tasso's self-estimation 2 related in Serassi's life 
of the poet. But Tiraboschi had before laid that rivalry at 
rests by showing that between Ariosto and Tasso it is not a 
question of comparison, but of preference. 



No. XI.— Ariosto. 

" The lightning rent from Ariosto' s bust 
The iron crown of laurel's mimicJc'd leaves." 

Stanza xli. 

Before the remains of Ariosto were removed from the 
Benedictine church to the library of Ferrara, his bust, which 
surmounted the tomb, was struck by lightning, and a crown 
of iron laurels melted away. The event has been recorded 
by a writer of the last century .■* The transfer of these 
sacred ashes, on the 6th of June, 1801, was one of the most 
brilliant spectacles of the short-lived Italian republic; and 
to consecrate the memory of the ceremony, the once famous 
fallen Intrepidi were revived and reformed into the Ariostean 
academy. The large public place through which the pro- 
cession paraded was then for the first time called Ariosto 
Square. The author of the Orlando is jealously claimed as 
the Homer, not of Italy, but Ferrara.^ The mother of 
Ariosto was of Eeggio, and the house in which he was born 
is carefully distinguished by a tablet with these words : " Qui 
nacque Ludovico Ariosto il giorno 8. di Settembre dell' anno 
1474." But the Ferrarese make light of the accident by which 
their poet was born abroad, and claim him exclusively for 
their own. They possess his bones, they show his arm-chair, 
and his inkstand, and his autographs. 

" Hie iUius arma, 

Hie currus fuit " 

The house where he lived, the room where he died, are desig- 
nated by his own replaced memorial,^ and by a recent in- 
scription. The Ferrarese are more jealous of their claims 
since the animosity of Denina, arising from a cause which 
their apologists mysteriously hint is not unknown to them, 
ventured to degrade their soil and climate to a Boeotian in- 
capacity for all spiritual productions. A quarto volume has 
been called forth by the detraction, and this supplement to 
Barotti's Memoirs of the illustrious Ferrarese has been con- 
sidered a triumphant reply to the "Quadro Storico Statis- 
tico deir Alta Italia." 



1 " Contanto potd sempre in lui il veleno della sua pessima volonta contro 
alia nazion Fiorentina." La Vita, lib. iii. pp. 96, 98, torn. ii. 

2 La Vita di M. L. Ariosto, scritta dall' Abate Girolamo Baruffaldi Giun- 
iore, &c., Ferrara, 1807, Ub. iii. p. 262. See "Historical Illustrations," 
&c., p. 26. 

3 Storia della Lett., &c., lib. iii. torn. vii. par. iii. p. 1220, sect. 4. 

4 Op. di Bianooni, vol. iii. p. 1V6, ed. Milano, 1802 ; lettera al Signer 
Guido Savini Arcifisiocritico, suH' indole di un fulmine caduto in Dresda 
I'anno 1759. 

5 " Appassionata ammiratore ed invitto apologista dell' Omera Ferra- 
rese," The title was first given by Tasso, and is quoted to the confusion 
of the TaatUH, lib. iii. pp. 262, 265. La Vita di M. L. Ariosto, &o. 



No. XII. — Ancient Superstitions RESPEcrfiTG Ligectning, 

" For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves 

Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves." — Stanza xli. 

The eagle, the sea calf, the laurel, and the white vine, were 
amongst the most approved preservatives against lightning : 
Jupiter chose the first, Augustus Caesar the second, and 
Tiberius never failed to wear a wreath of the third when the 
sky threatened a thunder-storm.^ These superstitions may 
be received without a sneer in a country where the magical 
properties of the hazel twig have not lost all their credit; 
and perhaps the reader may not be much surprised to find 
that a commentator on Suetonius has taken upon himself 
gravely to disprove the imputed virtues of the crown of 
Tiberius, by mentioning that a few years before he wrote a 
laurel was actually struck by lightning at Eome.8 



No. XIII. 



" Know, that the lightning sanctifies below." — Stanza xli. 

The Curtian lake and the Euminal fig-tree in the Forum, 
having been touched by lightning, were held sacred, and the 
memory of the accident was preserved by a puteal, or .altar 
resembling the mouth of a well, with a little chapel covering 
the cavity supposed to be made by the thunderbolt. Bodies 
scathed and persons struck dead were thought to be incor- 
ruptible ;S and a stroke not fatal conferred perpetual dignity 
upon the man so distinguished by Heaven.io 

Those killed by lightning were wrapped in a white garment, 
and buried where they fell. The superstition was not con- 
fined to the worshippers of Jupiter : the Lombards believed 
in the omens furnished by lightning ; and a Christian priest 
confesses that, by a diabolical skill in interpreting thunder, a 
seer foretold to Agilulf, Duke of Turin, an event which came 
to pass, and gave him a queen and a crown." There was, 
however, something equivocal in this sign, which the ancient 
inhabitants of Eome did not always consider propitious ; and, 
as the fears are likely to last longer than the consolations of 
superstition, it is not strange that the Eomans of the age of 
Leo X. should have been so much terrified at some misinter- 
preted storms as to require the exhortations of a scholar, 
who arrayed all the learning on thunder and lightning to 
prove the omen favorable ; beginning with the flash which 
struck the walls of Velitrse, and including that which played 
upon a gate at Florence, and foretold the pontificate of one 
of its citizens.i2 



No. XIV.— The Venus op Medicis. 

" There, too, the Goddess loves in 5<owe."— Stanza xlix. 

The view of the Venus of Medicis instantly suggests the 
lines in the Seasons, and the comparison of the object with 
the description proves, not only the correctness of the por- 
trait, but the peculiar turn of thought, and, if the term may 



6 " Parva sed apta mihi, sed nuUi obnoxia, sed non 
Sordida, parta meo sed tamen aere domus." 

7 Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. ii. cap. 55. Columella, Ub. x. Sueton. in Vit. 
August, cap. xc, et in Vit. Tiberii, cap. Ixix. 

8 Note 2, p. 409, edit. Lugd. Bat. 1667. 

9 Vid. J. C. BuUenger, de Terrse Motu et Pulminib. lib. v. cap. xi. 

10 OiiSets Kepavv(aOeL<; dri/xo? ea-ri, bOev Koi w? iJ^ebs Tt/Aarat. 
Plut. Sympos. vid. J. Bulleng. ut sup. 

11 Pauli Diaconi de Gestis Langobard. lib. iii. cap. xiv. 

12 I. P. Valeriani de fulminum significationibus declamatio, ap. Grsev. 
Antiq. Rom. torn. v. p. 593. The declamation is addressed to Julian of 
Medicis. 



APPENDIX. 



933 



be used, the sexual imagination of the descriptive poet. 
The sanlB conchision may be deduced from another hint in 
the same episode of Musidora; for Thomson's notion of the 
privileges of favored love must have been either very primi- 
tive, or rather deficient in delicacy, -whon he made his grate- 
ful nymph inform her discreet Damon that in some happier 
moment ho might perhaps be the companion of her bath: — 

" The time may come you need not fly." 

The reatler will recollect the anecdote told in the Life of Dr. 
Johnson. We will not leave the Florentine gallery without 
a word on the Whettur. It seems strange that the character 
of that disputed statue should not be entirely decided, at 
least in the mind of any one who has seen a sarcophagus in 
the vestibule of the basilica of Saint Paul without the walls, at 
Rome, where the whole group of the fable of Marsyas is seen 
in tolerable preservation; and the Scythian slave whetting 
the knife is represented exactly in the same position as this 
celebrated masterpiece. The slave is not naked; but it is 
easier to get rid of this difficulty than to suppose the knife 
in the hand of the Florentine statue an instrument for 
shaving, which it must be, if, as Lanzi sftpposes, the man is 
no other than the barber of Julius Caesar. Winkelmann, 
illustrating a bas-relief of the same subject, follows the 
opinion of Leonardo Agostini, and his authority might have 
been thought conclusive, even if the resemblance did not 
strike the most careless observer.^ Amongst the bronzes of 
the same princely collection is still to be seen the inscribed 
tablet copied and commented upon by Mr. Gibbon.2 Our 
historian found some difficulties, but did not desist from his 
illustration : he might be vexed to hear that his criticism has 
been thrown away on an inscription now generally recog- 
nized to be a forgery. 



I ■ great writers of all ages and nations are, as it were, associated 
; in a world of their own, and, from that superior sphere, shed 
their eternal influence for the control and consolation of 
I mankind. But the individual will gradually disa]pf)ear as the 
j author is more distinctly seen: some one, therefore, of all 
I those whom the charms of involuntary wit, and of easy hos- 
pitality, attracted within the friendly circles of Coppet, should 
rescue from oblivion those virtues which, although they are 
said to love the shade, are, in fact, more frequently chilled 
than excited by the domestic cares of private life. Some one 
should be found to portray the unaffected graces with which 
she adorned those dearer relationships, the performance of 
whose duties is rather discovered amongst the interior secrets, 
than seen in the outward management, of family intercourse ; 
and which, indeed, it requires the delicacy of genuine affec- 
tion to qualify for the eye of an indifferent spectator. Some 
one should be found, not to celebrate, but to describe, the 
amiable mistress of an open mansion, the centre of a society 
j ever varied, and always pleased, the creator of which, di- 
vested of the ambition and the arts of public rivalry, shone 
forth only to give fresh animation to those around her. The 
mother tenderly affectionate and tenderly beloved, the friend 
unboundedly generous, but still esteemed, the charitable 
patroness of all distress, cannot be forgotten by those whom 
she cherished, and protected, and fed. Her loss will be 
mourned the most where she was known the best; and to 
the sorrows of very many friends, and more dependents, may 
be offered the disinterested regret of a stranger, who, amidst 
the sublimer scenes of the Leman lake, received his chief 
satisfaction from contemplating the engaging qualities of the 
incomparable Corinne. 



No. XV.— Madame de Stael. 

" In Santa Croee's holy precincts lie." — Stanza liv. 

This name will recall the memory, not only of those whose 
tombs have raised the Santa Croce into the centre of pil- 
grimage, the Mecca of Italy, but of her whose eloquence was 
poured over the illustrious ashes, and whose voice is now as 
mute as those she sung. Corinne is no more ; and with her 
should expire the fear, the flattery, and the envy, which 
threw too dazzling or too dark a cloud round the march of 
genius, and forbade the steady gaze of disinterested criticism. 
We have her picture embellished or distorted, as friendship 
or detraction has held the pencil : the impartial portrait was 
hardly to be expected from a contemporary. The immediate 
voice of her survivors will, it is probable, be far from afford- 
ing a just estimate of her singular capacity. The gallantly, 
the love of wonder, and the hope of associated fame, which j 
blunted the edge of censure, must cease to exist. — The dead 
have no sex; they can surprise by no new miracles; they 
ran confer no privilege: Corinno has ceased to be a woman — 
bhe is only an author: and it may be foreseen that many 
will repay themselves for former complaisance, by a severity 
to which the extravagance of previous praises may perhaps 
give the color of truth. The latest posterity, for to the 
latest posterity they will assuredly descend, will have to pro- 
nounce upon her various productions; and the longer the 
vi.sta through which they are seen, the more accurately 
minute will be the object, the more certain the justice, of the 
decision. She will enter into that existence in which the 

1 See Vonlm. Ant. Ined. pw. J, cap. xvll. n. xUl. pag. 50 ; and Storia 
ieH' ArtI, 4c., lib. xl. cap. 1. torn. 11. pag. .314, not. B. 

2 Nomina genteaque Antiquae Italiae, p. 204, edit. oct. 

3 The froe expression of their honest sentlm'enta anrvived their liberties. 
TitiaR, the friend of Antony, presented them with games in the theatre of 
Potopcy. They did not aaffer the brilliancy of the spectacle to cfTaoc from 
their memory that the man who furnished them with the entertainment had 



No. XVI.— Alfieri. 

" here r&pose 

Angela's, Alfieri's bones." — Stanza liv. 

Alfieri is the great name of this age. The Italians, with- 
out waiting for the hundred years, consider him as " a poet 
good in law." His memory is the more dear to them because 
he is the bard of freedom ; and because, as such, his tragedies 
can receive no countenance from any of their sovereigns. 
They are but very seldom, and but very few of them, allowed 
to be acted. It was observed by Cicero, that nowhere were 
the true opinions and feelings of the Romans so clearly shown 
as at the theatre.3 In the autumn of 1816, a celebrated im- 
provisatore exhibited his talents at the opera-house of Milan. 
The reading of the theses handed in for the subjects of his 
poetry was received by a very numerous audience, for the 
most part, in silence, or with laughter; but when the assist- 
ant, unfolding one of the papers, exclaimed The apotheosis of 
Victor Alfieri, the whole theatre burst into a shout, and the 
applause was continued for some moments. The lot did not 
fall on Alfieri ; and the signer Sgricci had to pour forth his 
extemporary commonplaces on the bombardment of Algiers. 
The choice, indeed, is not left to accident quite so much as 
might be thought from a first view of the ceremony ; and the 
police not only takes care to look at the papers beforehand, 
but, in case of any prudential afterthought, steps in to correct 
the blindness of chance. The proposal for deifying Alfieri 
was received with immediate enthusiasm, the rather because 
it was conjectured there would be no opportunity of carrying 
it into effect. 

mnrdered the son of Pompcy : they drove him ft-om the theatre with curses. 
The moral sense of a populace, spontaneously expressed, is never wrong. 
Even the soldiers of the triumvirs joined In the execration of the citizens, 
by shouting round the chariots of Lcpidus and Plancus, who had proscribed 
their brothers, De Qermanit non de Gallit duo triumphant Consvlea; a say- 
in(? worth a record, were it nothing but a good pun. — ('. Veil. Patcrculi Uist. 
lib. ii. cap. Ixxix. pag. 78, edit. Elzevir. 1C39. Ibid. lib. ii. cap. U-kvO. 



934 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



No. XVII. — Machiavelli. 

" Here MachiavelWs earth reium'd to whence it rose." 

Stanza liv. 

The afFectation of simplicity in sepulchral inscriptions, 
which so often leaves us uncertain whether the structure 
before us is an actual depository, or a cenotaph, or a simple 
memorial, not of death, but life, has given to the tomb of 
Machiavelli no information as to the place or time of the 
birth or death, the age or parentage, of the historian. 

TANTO NOMINI NVLLVM PAR ELOGIVM 
NICCOLAVS MACHIAVELLI. 

There' seems at least no reason why the name should not 
have been put above the sentence which alludes to it. 

It will readily be imagined that the prejudices which have 
passed the name of Machiavelli into an epithet proverbial of 
iniquity exist no longer at Florence. His memory was per- 
secuted, as his life had been, for an attachment to liberty 
incompatible with the new system of despotism which suc- 
ceeded the fall of the free governments of Italy. He was put 
to the torture for being a " libertine," that is, for wishing to 
restore the republic of Florence ; and such are the undying 
efforts of those who are interested in the perversion, not 
only of the nature of actions, but the meaning of words, that 
what was once patriotism has by degrees come to signify 
debatich. We have ourselves outlived the old meaning of 
" liberality," which is now another word for treason in one 
country and for infatuation in all. It seems to have been a 
strange mistake to accuse the author of "The Prince," as 
being a pander to tyranny ; and to think that the Inquisition 
would condemn his work for such a delinquency. The fact 
is, that Machiavelli, as is usual with those against whom no 
crime can be proved, was suspected of and charged with 
atheism ; and the first and last most violent opposers of 
"The Prince" were both Jesuits, one of whom persuaded 
the Inquisition " benchfe fosse tardo " to prohibit the treatise, 
and the other qualified the secretary of the Florentine re- 
public as no better than a fool. The father Possevin was 
proved never to have read the book, and the father Lucche- 
sini not to have understood it. It is clear, however, that such 
critics must have objected not to the slavery of the doctrines, 
but to the supposed tendency of a lesson which shows how 
distinct are the interests of a monarch from the happiness of 
mankind. The Jesuits are re-established in Italy, and the 
last chapter of " The Prince " may again call forth a par- 
ticular refutation from those who are employed once more in 
moulding the minds of the rising generation, so as to receive 
the impressions of despotism. The chapter bears for title, 
" Esortazione a liberare la Italia dai Barbari," and concludes 
with a libertine excitement to the future redemption of Italy. 
" Non si deve adunque lasciar passare questa occasione, ac- 
ciocchfe la Italia vegga dopo tanto tempo apparire un suo 
redentore. N6 posso esprimere con qual amore ei fusse 
ricevuto in tutte quelle provincie, che hanno patito per 
queste illuvioni esterne, con qual sete di vendetta, con che 
ostinata fede, con che lacrime. Quali porte se li serrerebeno ? 
Quali popoli li negherebbono la obbedienza? Quale Italiano 
li negherebbe I'ossequio? ad ognxino puzza questo bar- 

BARO DOMINIO."! 



No. XVIII.— Dante. 

" Ungrateful Florence ! Dante sleeps a/or."— Stanza Ivii, 

Dante was born at Florence, in the year 1261. He fought 
in two battles, was fourteen times ambassador, and once 



1 H Principe di Niccol6 Machiavelli, &o., con la prefazione e le note isto- 
riche e politiche di M. Amelot de la Houssaye e 1' csame e confutazione 
deir opera . . . Cosmopoli, 1V69. 

2 Storia della Lett. Ital. torn. v. lib. iii. par. li. p. 448. Tiraboschi is 
incorrect: the dates of the three decrees against Dante are A. D. 1302, 1314, 
and 1316. 



prior of the republic. When the party of Charles of Anjou 
triumphed over the Bianchi, he was absent on an embassy to 
Pope Boniface VIII., and was condemned to two years' ban- 
ishment, and to a fine of 8000 lire ; on the non-payment of 
which he was further punished by the sequestration of all 
his property. The republic, however, was not content with 
this satisfaction, for in 1772 was discovered in the archives at 
Florence a sentence in which Dante is the eleventh of a list 
of fifteen condemned in 1302 to be burnt alive ; TaZis per- 
veniens igne comburatur sic quod moriatur. The pretext for 
this judgment was a proof of unfair barter, extortions, and 
illicit gains — Baracteriarum, iniquarum, exiorsionum, ei illiciio- 
rum lucrorum^— and with such an accusation it is not strange 
that Dante should have always protested his innocence, and 
the injustice of his fellow citizens. His appeal to Florence 
was accompanied by another to the emperor Henry; and 
the death of that sovereign in 1313 was the signal for a sen- 
tence of irrevocable banishment. He had before lingered 
near Tuscany with hopes of recall ; then travelled into the 
north of Italy, where Verona had to boast of his longest 
residence ; and he finally settled at Eavenna, which was his 
ordinary but not constant abode until his death. The refusal 
of the Venetians to grant him a public audience, on the part 
of Guido Novello da Polenta, his protector, is said to have 
been the principal cause of this event, which happened in 
1321. He was buried (" in sacra minorum sede ") at Eavenna, 
in a handsome tomb, which was erected by Guido, restored 
by Bernardo Bembo in 1483, prsetor for that republic which 
had refused to hear him, again restored by Cardinal Corsi, in 
1692, and replaced by a more magnificent sepulchre, con- 
structed in 1780 at the expense of the cardinal Luigi Valcnti 
Gonzaga. The offence or misfortane of Dante was an at- 
tachment to a defeated party, and, as his least favorable 
biographers allege against him, too great a freedom of speech 
and haughtiness of manner. But the next age naid honors 
almost divine to the exile. The Florentines, having in vain 
and frequently attempted to recover his body, crowned his 
image in a church,3 and his picture is still one of the idols of 
their cathedral. They struck medals, they raised statues to 
him. The cities of Italy, not being able to dispute about his 
own birth, contended for that of his great poem, and the 
Florentines thought it for their honor to prove that he had 
finished the seventh canto before they drove him from his 
native city. Fifty-one years after his death, they endowed 
a professorial chair for the expounding of his verses, and 
Boccaccio was appointed to this patriotic employment. The 
example was imitated by Bologna and Pisa ; and the com- 
mentators, if they performed but little service to literature, 
augmented the veneration which beheld a sacred or moral 
allegory in all the images of his mystic muse. His birth and 
his infancy were discovered to have been distinguished above 
those of ordinary men: the author of the Decameron, his 
earliest biographer, relates that his mother was warned in a 
dream of the importance of her pregnancy; and it was 
found, by others, that at ten years of age he had manifested 
his precocious passion for that wisdom of theology, which, 
under the name of Beatrice, had been mistaken for a substan- 
tial mistress. When the Divine Comedy had been recognized 
as a mere mortal production, and at the distance of two cen- 
turies, when criticism and competition had sobered the judg- 
ment of the Italians, Dante was seriously declared superior 
to Homer; 4 and though the preference appeared to some 
casuists " an heretical blasphemy worthy of the flames," the 
contest was vigorously maintained for nearly fifty years. In 
later times it was made a question which of the lords of 
Verona could boast of having patronized him,^ and the 



3 So relates Ficino, but some think his coronation only an allegory. Se« 
Storia, &c., ut sup. p. 453. 

4 By Varchi, in his Ercolano. The controversy continued from 1570 to 
1616. See Storia, &c., torn. vii. lib. iii. par. iii. p. 1280. 

5 Gio. Jacopo Dionisi Canonic o di Verona. Serie di Aneddoti, n. 2. See 
Storia, &c., torn. v. lib. i. par.Ji. p. 24. 



APPENDIX. 



935 



jealous skepticism of one writer would not allow Ravenna 
the undoubted possession of his bones. Even the critical 
Tiraboschi was inclined to believe that the poet had foreseen 
and foretold one of the discoveries of Galileo.— Like the 
great originals of other nations, his popularity has not always 
maintained the same level. The last age seemed inclined to 
undervalue him as a model and a study ; and Bettinelli one 
day rebuked his pupil Monti, for poring over the haish and 
obsolete extravagances of the Commedia. The present gene- 
ration, having recovered from the Gallic idolatries of Cesar- 
otti, has returned to the ancient worship, and the DaiUeggiare 
of the northern Italians is thought even indiscreet by the 
more moderate Tuscans. 

There is still much curious information relative to the life 
and writings of this great poet, which has not as yet been 
collected even by the Italians; but the celebrated Ugo Fos- 
colo meditates to supply this defect, and it is not to be re- 
gretted that this national work has been reserved for one so 
devoted to his country and the cause of truth. 



No. XIX.— Tomb of the Scipios. 

"Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore: 
Thy factions, in their worse than civil war, 
Proscribed," <fec.— Stanza Ivii. 

The elder Scipio Africanus had a tomb if he was not buried 
at Liternum, whither he had retired to voluntary banishment. 
This tomb was near the seashore, and the story of an in- 
scription upon it, Ingrata Palria, having given a name to a 
modern tower, is, if not true, an agreeable fiction. If he was 
not buried, he certainly lived there.* 

In cosi angusta e solitaria villa 

Era '1 grand' uomo che d' Africa s' appella 

Perch6 prima col ferro al vivo aprilla.2 

Ingratitude is generally supposed the vice peculiar to re- 
publics; and it seems to be forgotten that for one instance of 
popular inconstancy, we have a hundred examples of the fall 
of courtly favorites. Besides, a people have often repented — 
a monarch seldom or never. Leaving apart many familiar 
proofs of this fact, a short story may show the difference be- 
tween even an aristocracy and the multitude. 

Vettor Pisani, having been defeated in 1354, at Portolongo, 
and many years afterwards in the more decisive action of 
Pola, by the Genoese, was recalled by the Venetian govern- 
ment, and thrown into chains. The Avvogadori proposed to 
behead him, but the supreme tribunal was content with the 
sentence of imprisonment. Whilst Pisani was suffering this 
unmerited disgrace, Chioza, in the vicinity of the capital,^ 
was, by the a-ssistance of the Signor of Padua, delivered into 
the hands of Pietro Doria. At the intelligence of that dis- 
aster, the great bell of Saint Mark's tower tolled to arms, and 
the people and the soldiery of the galleys were summoned to 
the repulse of the approaching enemy ; but they protested 
they would not move a step, unles.s Pisani were liberated and 
placed at their head. The great council was instantly as- 
sembled; the prisoner was called before them, and the doge, 
Andrea Contarini, informed him of the demands of the 
people, and the necessities of the state, whose only hope of 



1 ViUm Literni eglt Bine desiderlo urbls. See T. Mv. Hint. Hb. xxxvlil. 
Livy rcporu that aome said he was buried at Liternum, others at Rome. 
Ibid. cap. Iv. 

1 Trionpho della CantitA. 

3 See No. VI. pace 92». 

4 The (iTf:e\p boaj<ud that he wa« (<rof d/xof • See the last chapter of the 
&rM book of DioDysiuit of iialicaruassiu. 



safety was reposed in his efforts, and who implored him to 
forget the indignities he had endured in her service. " I have 
submitted," replied the magnanimous republican, "I have 
submitted to your deliberations without complaint ; I have 
supported patiently the pains of imprisonment, for they were 
inflicted at your command ; this is no time to inquire whether 
I deserved them — the good of the republic may have seemed 
to require it, and that which the republic resolves is always 
resolved wisely. Behold me ready to lay down my life for 
the preservation of my country." Pisani was appointed gen- 
eralissimo, and by his exertions, in conjunction with those 
of Carlo Zeuo, the Venetians soon recovered the ascendency 
over their maritime rivals. 

The Italian communities were no less unjust to their citi- 
zens than the Greek republics. Liberty, both with the one 
and the other, seems to have been a national, not an in- 
dividual object: and, notwithstanding the boasted equality 
before the laws, which an ancient Greek writer* considered 
the great distinctive mark between his countrymen and the 
barbarians, the mutual rights of fellow citizens seem never 
to have been the principal scope of the old democracies. The 
world may have not yet seen an essay by the author of the 
Italian Republics, in which the distinction between the 
liberty of former states, and the signification attached to 
that word by the happier constitution of England, is inge- 
niously developed. The Italians, however, when they had 
ceased to be free, still looked back with a sigh upon those 
times of turbulence, when every citizen might rise to a share 
of sovereign power, and have never been taught fully to ap- 
preciate the repose of a monarchy. Sperone Speroni, when 
Francis Maria II. Duke of Rovere proposed the question, 
" which was preferable, the republic or the principality — the 
perfect and not durable, or the less perfect and not so liable 
to change," replied, " that our happiness is to be measured by 
its quality, not by its duration ; and that he preferred to live 
for one day like a man, than for a hundred years like a brute, 
a stock, or a stone." This was thought, and called, a magnifi- 
cent answer, down to the last days of Italian servitude.^ 



No. XX.— Petrakch's Crown. 



" and the crown 



Which Petrarch's laureate brow supremely wore. 
Upon afar and foreign soil had grown." — Stanza Ivii. 

The Florentines did not take the opportunity of Petrarch's 
short visit to their city in 1350 to revoke the decree which 
confiscated the property of his father, who had been ban- 
ished shortly after the exile of Dante. His crown did not 
dazzle them ; but when in the next year they were in want 
of his assistance in the formation of their university, they 
repented of their injustice, and Boccaccio was sent to Padua 
to entreat the laureate to conclude his wanderings in the 
bosom of his native country, where he might finish his im- 
mortal Africa, and enjoy, with his recovered possessions, the 
esteem of all cla.sses of his fellow citizens. They gave him 
the option of the book and the science he might condescend 
to expound : they called him the glory of his country^ who 
was dear, and who would be dearer to them ; and they added, 
that if there was any thing unpleasjng in their letter, he 
ought to return among.st them, were it only to correct their 
style.o Petrarch seemed at first to listen to the flattery and 



5 " K Intomo aUa magnlftca rUpotta," &o. Seraasi, Vita del Tasso, Hb. 
in. par;. 149, torn. II. edit. 3, Bergamo. 

6 " AccinRitl Innoltre, sc el d leclto anoor 1' csortarti, a compire V immor- 
tal tna Africa . . . Se ti avvlcnc d' Inoontrare nel nostro stile coRa che ti 
dlspiaccla. cl6 debb' esRcre un nltro motlvo nd esaudlre I dcslderj della tu& 
patria." Storia della Lett. Ital. torn. r. par. i. lib. 1. pag. 76. 



936 



BYEON'S WOKKS. 



to the entreaties of his friend, but he did not return to Flor- 
ence, and preferred a pilgrimage to the tomb of Laura and 
the shades of Vaucluse. 



No. XXI.— Boccaccio. 

'^Boccaccio to his parent earth bequeatNd 
His dust" — Stanza Iviii. 

Boccaccio was buried in the church of Saint Michael and 
Saint James, at Certaldo, a small town in the Valdelsa, which 
was by some supposed the place of his birth. There he passed 
the latter part of his life in a course of laborious study, 
which shortened his existence; and there might his ashes 
have been secure, if not of honor, at least of repose. But the 
" hyena bigots " of Certaldo tore up the tombstone of Boccac- 
cio, and ejected it from the holy precincts of Saint Michael 
and Saint James. The occasion, and, it may be hoped, the 
excuse, for this ejectment was the making of a new floor for 
the church; but the fact is, tjiat the tombstone was taken up 
and thrown aside at the bottom of the building. Ignorance 
may share the sin with bigotry. It would be painful to re- 
late such an exception to the devotion of the Italians for 
their great names, could it not ber accompanied by a trait 
more honorably conformable to the general character of the 
nation. The principal person of the district, the last branch 
of the house of Medicis, afforded that protection to the 
memory of the insulted dead which her best ancestors had 
dispensed upon all contemporary merit. The marchioness 
Lenzoni rescued the tombstone of Boccaccio trom the neglect 
in which it had some time lain, and found fbr it an honor- 
able elevation in her own mansion. She has done more : the 
house in which the poet lived has been as little respected as 
his tomb, and is falling to ruin over the head of one indiffer- 
ent to the name of its former tenant. It consists of two or 
three little chambers, and a low tower, on which Cosmo II. 
affixed an inscription. This house she has taken measures to 
purchase, and proposes to devote to it that care and consid- 
eration which are attached to the cradle and to the roof of 
genius. 

This is not the place to undertake the defence of Boccac- 
cio ; but the man who exhausted his little patrimony in the 
acquirement of learning ; who was amongst the first, if not 
the first, to allure the science and the poetry of Greece to 
the bosom of Italy ; who not only invented a new style, but 
founded, or certainly fixed, a new language ; who, besides the 
esteem of every polite court of Europe, was thought worthy 
of employment by the predominant republic of his own 
country, and, what is more, of the friendship of Petrarch ; 
who lived the life of a philosopher and a freeman, and who 
died in the pursuit of knowledge,— such a man might have 
found more consideration than he has met with from the 
priest of Certaldo, and from a late English traveller, who 
strikes off his portrait as an odious, contemptible, licentious 
writer, whose impure remains should be suffered to rot with- 
out a record.i That English traveller, unfortunately for 
those who have to deplore the loss of a very amiable person, 
is beyond all criticism ; but the mortality which did not pro- 
tect Boccaccio from Mr. Eustace, must not defend Mr. Eustace 
from the impartial judgment of his successors. Death may 



1 Classical Tour, chap. ix. vol. ii. p. 355, edit.. 3d. " Of Boccaccio, the 
modern Petronius, we say nothing ; the abuse of genius is more odious and 
more contem_ptible than its absence ; and it imports little where the impure 
remains of a licentious author are consigned to their kindred dust. For the 
same reason the traveller may pass unnoticed the tomb of the malignant 
Aretino." This dubious phrase is hardly enough to save the tourist from 
the suspicion of another blunder respecting the burial-place of Aretino, 
whose tomb was in the church of Saint Luke at Venice, and gave rise to the 
famous controversy of which some notice is taken in Baylc. Now the words 



canonize his virtues, not his errors ; and it may be modestly 
pronounced that he transgressed, not only as an author, but 
as a man, when he evoked the shade of Boccaccio in com- 
pany with that of Aretino, amidst the sepulchres of Santa 
Croce, merely to dismiss it with indignity. As far as respects 

" II flagello de' Principi, 
II divin Pietro Aretino," 

it is of little import what censure is passed upon a coxcomb 
who owes his present existence to the above burlesque char- 
acter given to him by the poet, whose amber has preserved 
many other grubs and worms : but to classify Boccaccio with 
such a person, and to excommunicate his very ashes, must of 
itself make us doubt of the qualification of the classical 
tourist for writing upon Italian, or, indeed, upon any other 
literature ; for ignorance on one point may incapacitate an 
author merely for that particular topic, but subjection to a 
professional prejudice must render him an unsafe director oh 
all occasions. Any perversion and injustice may be made 
what is vulgarly called " a case of conscience," and this poor 
excuse is all that can be offered for the priest of Certaldo, or 
the author of the Classical Tour. It would have answered 
the purpose to confine the censure to the novels of Boccaccio ; 
and gratitude to that source which supplied the muse of 
Dryden with her last and most harmonious numbers might, 
perhaps, have restricted that censure to the objectionable 
qualities of the hundred tales. At any rate, the repentance 
of Boccaccio might have arrested his exhumation, and it 
should have been recollected and told, that in his old age he 
wrote a letter entreating his friend to discourage the reading 
of the Decameron, for the sake of modesty, and for the sake 
of the author, who would not have an apologist always at 
hand to state in bis excuse that he wrote it when young, and 
at the command of his superiors.^ It is neither the licen- 
tiousness of the writer, nor the evil propensities of the 
reader, which have given to the Decameron alone, of all the 
works of Boccaccio, a perpetual popularity. The establish- 
ment of a new and delightful dialect conferred an immor- 
tality on the works in which it was first fixed. The sonnets 
of Petrarch were, for the same reason, fated to survive his 
self-admired Africa, the " favorite of kings." The invari- 
able traits of nature and feeling with which the novels, as 
well as the verses, abound, have doubtless been the chief 
source of the foreign celebrity of both authors ; but Boccac- 
cio, as a man, is no more to be estimated by that work, than 
Petrarch is to be regarded in no other light than as the lover 
of Laura. Even, however, had the father of the Tuscan 
prose been known only as the author of the Decameron, a 
considerate writer would have been cautious to pronounce a 
sentence irreconcilable with the unerring voice of many 
ages and nations. An Irrevocable value has never been 
stamped upon any work solely recommended by impurity. 

The true source of the outcry against Boccaccio, which be- 
gan at a very early period, was the choice of his scandalous 
personages in the cloisters as well as the courts; but the 
princes only laughed at the gallant adventures so unjustly 
charged upon Queen Theolinda, whilst the priesthood cried 
shame upon the debauches drawn from the convent and the - 
hermitage; and most probably for the opposite reason, 
namely, that the picture was faithful to the life. Two of 
the novels are allowed to be facts usefully turned into tales 
to deride the canonization of rogues and laymen. Ser Ciap- 
pelletto and Marcellinus are cited with applause even by the 



of Mr. Kustace would lead us to think the tomb was at Florence, or at teast 
was to be somewhere recognized. Whether the inscription so much disputed 
was ever written on the tomb cannot now be decided, for all memorial of this 
author has disappeared from the church of Saint Luke. 

2 "Non enim ubique est, qui in excusationem meam consurgens dicat, 
(uvenis scripsit, et majoris coactus imperio." The letter was addressed to 
Maghinard of Cavaleauti, marshal of the kingdom of Sicily. See Tirabos- 
chi, Storia, &c., torn. v. par. ii. lib. ill. 



APPENDIX. 



937 



decent Muratori.^ The great Arnaud, as he is quoted in 
Bayle, states, that a now edition of the novels was proposed, 
of which the expurgation consisted in omitting the words 
" monk " and " nun," and tacking the immoralities to other 
names. The literary history of Italy particularizes no such 
edition ; but it was not long before the whole of Europe had 
but one opinion of the Decameron ; and the absolution of 
the author seems to have been a point settled at least a 
hundred years ago: "On se feroit sLtiier si Ton pretendoit 
convaincre Boccace de n'avoir pas 6t6 honn6te homme, puis 
qu'il a fait le Decameron." So said one of the best men, and 
perhaps the best critic, that ever lived— the very martyr to 
impartiality.* But as this information, that in the begin- 
ning of the last century one would have been hooted at for 
pretending that Boccaccio was not a good man, may seem to 
come from one of those enemies who are to be suspected, 
even when they make us a present of truth, a more accept- 
able contrast with the proscription of the body, soul, and 
muse of Boccaccio may be found in a few words from the 
virtuous, the patriotic contemporary, who thought one of 
the tales of this impure writer worthy a Latin version from 
his own pen. "I have remarked elsewhere," says Petrarch, 
writing to Boccaccio, " that the book itself has been worried 
by certain dogs, but stoutly defended by your staff and voice. 
Nor was I astonished, for I have had proof of the vigor of 
your mind, and I know you have fallen on that unaccommo- 
dating incapable race of mortals, who, whatever they either 
like not, or know not, or cannot do, are sure to reprehend 
in others ; and on those occasions only put on a show of 
learning and eloquence, but otherwise are entirely dumb." 3 
It is satisfactory to find that all the priesthood do not re- 
semble those of Certaldo, and that one of them who did not 
possess the bones of Boccaccio would not lose the opportunity 
of raising a cenotaph to his memory. Bevius, canon of 
Padua, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, erected 
at Arqui, opposite to the tomb of the laureate, a tablet, in 
which he associated Boccaccio to the equal honors of Dante 
and of Petrarch. 



No. XXII.— The Medici. 

** W?iai is her pyramid of precioits stones f — Stanza Ix. 

Our veneration for the Medici begins with Cosmo and ex- 
pires with his grandson ; that stream is pure only at the 
source ; and it is in search of some memorial of the virtuous 
republicans of the family that we visit the church of Saint 
Lorenzo at Florence. The tawdry, glaring, unfinished chapel 
in that church, designed for the mausoleum of the dukes of 
Tuscany, set round with crowns and coffins, gives birth to 
no emotions but those of contempt for the lavish vanity of 
a race of despots, whilst the pavement slab, simply inscribed 
to the Father of his Country, reconciles us to the name of 
Medici.* It was very natural for Coriuna^ to suppose that 
the statue raised to the Duke of Urbino in the capella de' 
deposili was intended for his great namesake ; but the mag- 
nificent Lorenzo is only the sharer of a coffin half hidden 
in a niche of the sacristy. The decay of Tuscany dates 
from" the sovereignty of the Medici. Of the sepulchral peace 
which succeeded to the establishment of the reigning fami- 
lies in Italy, our own Sidney has given us a glowing but a 
faithful picture:— "Notwithstanding all the seditions of 
Florence, and other cities of Tuscany, the horrid factions 
of Guelphs and Ghibelins, Neri and Bianchi, nobles and 

1 IMsaertuloni loprm le AnticbiU Ttaiiane, Diis. Ivili. 
•i BelaireUtement, Ac. kc, p. 638, edit. Basle, 1741, in the Supplement 
te Rayle'g Dictionary. 

3 Opp. torn. i. p. 5<0, edit. Basil. 

4 Cosmas Medices, Decreto Publico, Pater Patrite. 



I commons, they continued populous, strong, and exceeding 
j rich; but, in the space of less than a hundred and fifty 
j years, the peaceable reign of the Medices is thought to have 
I destroyed nine parts in ten of the people of that province. 
I Amongst other things, it is remarkable, that when Philip II. 
of Spain gave Sienna to the Duke of Florence, his ambassa- 
dor then at Rome sent him word that he had given away 
more than 650,000 subjects ; and it is not believed there are 
now 20,000 souls inhabiting that city and territory. Pisa, 
Pistoia, Arezzo, Cortona, and other towns, that were then 
good and populous, are in the like proportion diminished, 
and Florence more than any. When that city had been 
long troubled with seditions, tumults, and wars, for the 
most part unprosperous, they still retained such strength, 
that when Charles VIII. of France, being admitted as a 
friend with his wliole anny, which soon after conquered the 
kingdom of Naples, thought to master them, the people, 
taking arms, struck such a terror into him, that he was 
glad to depart upon such conditions as they thought fit to 
impose. Machiavel reports, that in that time Florence 
alone, with the Val d'Arno, a small territory belonging to 
that city, could, in a few hours, by the sound of a bell, bring 
together 135,000 well-armed men ; whereas now that city, 
with all the others in that province, arc brought to such des- 
picable weakness, emptiness, poverty, and baseness, that 
they can neither resist the oppressions of their own prince, 
nor defend him or themselves if they were assaulted by a 
foreign enemy. The people are dispersed or destroyed, and 
the best families sent to seek habitations in Venice, Genoa, 
Rome, Naples, and Lucca. This is not the effect of war or 
pestilence: they enjoy a perfect peace, and suffer no other 
plague than the government they are under." ^ From the 
usurper Cosmo down to the imbecile Gaston, we look in vain 
for any of those unmixed qualities which should raise a 
patriot to the command of his fellow citizens. The grand 
dukes, and particularly the third Cosmo, had operated so 
entire a change in the Tuscan character, that the candid 
Florentines, in excuse for some imperfections in the philan- 
thropic system of Leopold, are obliged to confess that the 
sovereign was the only liberal man in his dominions. Yet 
that excellent prince himself had no other notion of a na- 
tional assembly, than, of a body to represent the wants and 
wishes, not the will, of the people. 



No. XXIII.— Battle of Thrasimene. 
" An earthquake reel'd unheededly away." — Stanza Ixiii. 

"And such was their mutual animosity, so intent were 
they upon the battle, that the earthquake, which overthrew 
in great part many of the cities of Italy, which turned the 
course of rapid streams, poured back the sea upon the rivers, 
and tore down the very mountains, was not felt by one of 
the combatants." 7 Such is the description of Livy. It may 
be doubted whether modern tactics would admit of such an 
abstraction. 

The site of the battle of Thrasimene is not to be mistaken. 
The traveller from the village under Cortona to Casa di 
Piano, the next stage on the way to Rome, has for the first 
two or three miles, around him, but more particularly to 
the right, that flat land which Hannibal laid waste in order 
to induce the consul Flaminius to move from Arezzo. On 
his left, and in front of him, is a ridge of hills bending 
down towards the lake of Thrasimene, called by Livy 

5 Corinne, llv. xviil. chap. ill. vol. ill. page 248. 

6 On Oovernment, chap. ii. sect. xxvi. pag. 208, edit. 1751. Sidney is. 
together with Locke and Uoadley, one of Mr. Hume's "despicable" writerK. 

7 Tit. Llv. lib. xxii. cap. xii. 



938 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



"montes Cortonenses," and now named the Gualandra. 
Tliese hills he approaches at Ossaja, a village which the itin- 
eraries pretend to have been so denominated from the bones 
found there ; but there have been no bones found there, and 
the battle was fought on the other side of the hill. From 
Ossaja the road begins to rise a little, but does not pass into 
the roots of the mountains until the sixty-seventh milestone 
from Florence. The ascent there is not steep but perpetual, 
and continues for twenty minutes. The lake is soon seen 
below on the right, with Borghetto, a round tower, close 
upon the water ; and the undulating hills partially covered 
with wood, amongst which the road winds, sink by degrees 
into the marshes near to this tower. Lower than the road, 
down to the right amidst these woody hillocks, Hannibal 
placed his horse,i in the jaws of, or rather above, the pass, 
which was between the lake and the present road, and most 
probably close to Borghetto, just under the lowest of the 
"tumuli." 2 On a summit to the left, above the road, is an 
old circular ruin, which the peasants call "the tower of 
Hannibal the Carthaginian." Arrived at the highest point 
of the road, the traveller has a partial view of the fatal 
plain, which opens fully upon him as he descends the Gual- 
andra. He soon finds himself in a vale enclosed to the left, 
and in front, and behind him by the Gualandra hills, bend- 
ing round in a segment larger than a semicircle, and running 
down at each end to the lake, which obliques to the right and 
forms the chord of this mountain arc. The position cannot 
be guessed at from the plains of Cortona, nor appears to be so 
completely enclosed unless to one who is fairly within the 
hills. It then, indeed, appears " a place made as it were on 
purpose for a snare," locus insidiis naius. " Borghetto is then 
found to stand in a narrow marshy pass close to the hill and 
to the lake, whilst there is no other outlet at the opposite 
turn of the mountains than through the little town of Pas- 
signano, which is pushed into the water by the foot of a 
high rocky acclivity." There is a woody eminence branch- 
ing down from the mountains into the upper end of the 
plain nearer to the side of Passignano, and on this stands a 
white village called Torre. Polybius seems to allude to this 
eminence as the one on which Hannibal encamped, and 
drew out his heavy-armed Africans and Spaniards in a con- 
spicuous position.3 From this spot he despatched his Bal- 
earic and light-armed troops round through the Gualandra 
heights to the right, so as to arrive unseen and form an 
ambush amongst the broken acclivities which the road now 
passes, and to be ready to act upon the left flank and above 
the enemy, whilst the horse shut up the pass behind. Fla- 
minius came to the lake near Borghetto at sunset ; and, with- 
out sending any spies before him, marched through the pass 
the next morning before the day had quite broken, so that 
he perceived nothing of the horse and light troops above 
and about him, and saw only the heavy-armed Carthaginians 
in front on the hill of Torre. The consul began to draw out 
his army in the flat, and in the mean time the horse in am- 
bush occupied the pass behind him, at Borghetto. Thus the 
Romans were completely enclosed, having the lake on the 
right, the main army on the hill of Torre in front, the Gual- 
andra hills filled with the light-armed on the left flank, and 
being prevented from receding by their cavalry, who, the 
farther they advanced, stopped up all the outlets in the rear, 
A fog rising from the lake now spread itself over the army 
of the consul, but the high lands were in the sunshine, and 
all the different corps in ambush looked toward the hill of 
Torre for the order of attack. Hannibal gave the signal, 
and moved down from his post on the height. At the same 
moment all his troops on the eminences behind and in the 



1 T. Liv. lib. xxii. cap. iv. 

2 Ibid. 

3 Hist. lib. iii. cap. 83. The account in Polybius is not so easily recon- 
cilable with present appearances as that in Livy. He talks of hills to the 



flank of Flaminius rushed forwards as it were with one 
accord into the plain. The Romans, who were forming their 
array in the midst, suddenly heard the shouts of the enemy 
amongst them, on every side, and before they could fall into 
their ranks, or draw their swords, or see by whom they were 
attacked, felt at once that they were surrounded and lost. 

There are two little rivulets which run from the Gualandra 
into the lake. The traveller crosses the first of these at about 
a mile after he comes into the plain, and this divides the 
Tuscan from the Papal territories. The second, about a 
quarter of a mile farther on, is called " the bloody rivulet ;" 
and the peasants point out an open spot to the left between 
the " Sanguinetto " and the hills, which, they say, was the 
principal scene of slaughter. The other part of the plain is 
covered with thick-set olive trees in corn grounds, and is 
nowhere quite level except near the edge of the lake. It is. 
indeed, most probable that the battle was fought near this 
end of the valley, for the six thousand Romans, who, at the 
beginning of the action, broke through the enemy, escaped 
to the summit of an eminence which must have been in this 
quarter, otherwise they would have had to traverse the whole 
plain, and to pierce through the main army of Hannibal. 

The Romans fought desperately for three hours ; but the 
death of Flaminius was the signal for a general dispersion. 
The Carthaginian horse then burst in upon the fugitives, 
and the lake, the marsh about Borghetto, but chiefly the plain 
of the Sanguinetto and the passes of the Gualandra, were 
strewed with dead. Near some old walls on a bleak ridge to 
the left above the rivulet, many human bones have been re- 
peatedly found, and this has confirmed the pretensions and 
the name of the " stream of blood." 

Every district of Italy has its hero. In the north some 
painter is the usual genius of the place, and the foreign Julio 
Romano more than divides Mantua with her native Virgil.* 
To the south we hear of Roman names. Near Thrasimene 
tradition is still faithful to the fame of an enemy, and Han- 
nibal the Carthaginian is the only ancient name remembered 
on the banks of the Perugian lake. Flaminius is unknown ; 
but the postilions on that road have been taught to show the 
very spot where II Console Romano was slain. Of all who 
fought and fell in the battle of Thrasimene, the historian 
himself has, besides the generals and Maharbal, preserved 
indeed only a single name. You overtake the Carthaginian 
again on the same road to Rome. The antiquary, that is, 
the hostler of the posthouse at Spoleto, tells you that his 
town repulsed the victorious enemy, and shows you the gate 
still called Porta di Annibale. It is hardly worth while to 
remark that a French travel writer, well known by the name 
of the President Dupaty, saw Thrasimene in the lake of 
Bolsena, which lay conveniently on his way from Sienna to 
Rome. 



No. XXIV.— Statue op Pompey. 

" And thou, dread statue ! yet existent in 
The austeresi form of naked majesty." 

Stanza Ixxxvii. 

The projected division of the Spada Pompey has already 
been recorded by the historian of the Decline and Fall of 
the Roman Empire. Mr. Gibbon found it in the memorials 
of Flaminius Vacca ; and it may be added to his mention of 
it, that Pope Julius III. gave the contending owners five 
hundred crowns for the statue, and presented it to Cardinal 



right and left of the pass and valley ; but when Flaminius entered, he had 
the lake at the right of both. 

4 About the middle of the twelfth century the coins of Mantua bore on one 
side the image and figure of Virgil. Zecca d'ltalia, pi. xvii. i. 6. Voyage 
dans le Milanais, <Scc., par A. Z. Millin, tom. ii. pag. 294. Paris, 1817. 



APPENDIX. 



939 



Capo di Ferro, who had prevented the judgment of Solomon 
from being executed upon the image. In a more civilized 
age this statue was exposed to an actual operation; for the 
French who acted the Brutus of Voltaire iu the Coliseum 
resolved that their Caesar should fall at the base of that 
Pompey which was supposed to have been sprinkled with 
the blood of the original dictator. The nine-foot hero was 
therefore removed to the arena of the amphitheatre, and, to 
facilitate its transport, suffered the temporary amputation of 
its right arm. The republican tragedians had to plead that 
the arm was a restoration ; but their accusers do not believe 
that the integrity of the statue would have protected it. 
The love of finding every coincidence has discovered the 
true Caesarian ichor in a stain near the right knee; but 
colder criticism has rejected not only the blood, but the por- 
trait, and assigned the globe of power rather to the first of 
the emperors than to the last of the republican masters ol 
Rome. Winkelmanni is loth to allow an heroic statue of a 
Roman citizen, but the Griraani Agrippa, a contemporary 
almost, is heroic ; and naked Roman figures were only very 
rare, not absolutely forbidden. The face accords much better 
with the "hominem integrum et castum et gravem,"2 than 
with any of the busts of Augustus, and is too stern for him 
who was beautiful, says Suetonius, at all periods of his life. 
The pretended likeness to Alexander the Great cannot be 
discerned, but the traits resemble the medal of Pompey .3 
The objectionable globe may not have been an ill applied 
flattery to him who found Asia Minor the boundary, and left 
it the centr.', of the Roman empire. It seems that Winkel- 
maun has mad > a mistake in thinking that no proof of the 
identity of this statue with that which received the bloody 
sacrifice can be derived from the spot where it was discovered.* 
Flaminius Vacca says sotto una caniina, and this cantina is 
known to have been in the Vicolo de' Leutari, near the Can- 
cellaria; a position corresponding exactly to that of the 
Janus before the basilica of Pompey's theatre, to which Au- 
gustus transferred the statue after the curia was either burnt 
or taken down.s Part of the Pompeian shade, the portico, 
existed in the beginning of the fifteenth century, and the 
atrium was still called Satrum. So says Blondus. At all 
events, so imposing is the stern majesty of the statue, and 
so memorable is the story, that the play of the imagination 
leaves no room for the exercise of the judgment, and the 
fiction, if a fiction it is, operates on the spectator with an 
effect not less powerful than truth. 



No. XXV.— The Bronze Wolf. 

" And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome .'" 

Stanza Ixxxviii. 

Ancient Rome, like modern Sienna, abounded most prob- 
ably with images of the foster-mother of her founder ; but 



1 Storia delle Arti, ftc, Hb. Ix. cap. 1, pag. .321, 322, torn. ii. 
> Cicer. Epiat. ad Atticum, xi. 6. 

3 Pabli.shcd by Causcus, in bis Maseum Romanum. 

4 atoria delle Arti, Ac, 1. ix. c. 1. 

5 SaetoD. in Vit. August, cap. 31, and in Vit. C. J. Csesar, cap. 88. Appian 
M71 it was barnt down. 

6 Antiq. Horn. lib. i. 

7 LiT. Hi«. lib. X. cap. Ixlx. 

8 " Turn Htatua Nattx, turn almalacra Deomm, Romulosque et Remns 
cam altrice betlua vi fulminii iotis conciderunt." D. Divinat. ii. 20. " Tac- 
toa eat ille etiaro qui banc nrbem condidit Romulus, quem inauratum in 
Capitolio parvum at<|ue lactantem, uberibus lupinis inhiantem fuisse mem- 
inisUa." In Catilin. iii. 8. 

" Hie Hilvestria erat Roman! nomtnla altrix 
Mania, qu<i> pan'ox Mavortis seraine natoa 
Uberibus ^ravidis vital! rore rigebat 
Que turn cum pncriH nammato fkilminii ictu 
Concidit, atqae avulsa pedum vestigia liquat." 

De Consulaiu, lib. ii. (lib. i. de Diriuat. cap. ii.). 



there were two she-wolves of whom history makes particular 
mention. One of these, of brass zn ancient work, was seen by 
Dionysius* at the temple of Romulus, under the Palatine, 
and is universally believed to be that mentioned by the Latin 
historian, as havirvg been made from the money collected by 
a fine on usurers, and as standing under the lluminal fig- 
tree.'' The other was that which Cicero 8 has celebrated 
both in prose and verse, and which the historian Dion also 
records as having suffered the same accident as is alluded to 
by the orator.9 The question agitated by the antiquaries is, 
whether the wolf now in the Conservator's Palace is that of 
Livy and Dionysius, or that of Cicero, or whether it is 
neither one nor the other. The earlier writers differ as 
much as the moderns: Lucius Faunus^o says that it is the 
one alluded to by both, which is impossible, and also by Virgil, 
which may be. Fulvius Ursinusi^ calls it the wolf of Dio- 
nysius, and Marlianusi2 talks of it as the one mentioned by 
Cicero. To him Rycquius tremblingly assents.13 Nardini is 
inclined to suppose it may be one of the many wolves pre- 
served in ancient Rome ; but of the two rather bends to the 
Ciceronian statue.i* Montfaucon^s mentions it as a point 
without doubt. Of the latter writers the decisive Winkel- 
manni6 proclaims it as having been found at the church of 
Saint Theodore, where, or near where, was the temple of 
Romulus, and consequently makes it the wolf of Dionysius. 
His authority is Lucius Faunus, who, however, only says 
that it was placed, not found, at the Ficus Ruminalis, by the 
Comitium, by which he does not seem to allude to the church 
of Saint Theodore. Rycquius was the first to make the mis- 
take, and Winkelmann followed Rycquius. 

Flaminius Vacca tells quite a different story, and says he 
had heard the wolf with the twins was found " near the arch 
of Septimus Severus. The commentator on Winkelmann is 
of the same opinion with that learned person, and is incensed 
at Nardini for not having remarked that Cicero, in speaking 
of the wolf struck with lightning in the Capitol, makes use 
of the past tense. But, with the Abate's leave, Nardini does 
not positively assert the statue to be that mentioned by 
Cicero, and, if he had, the assumption would not perhaps 
have been so exceedingly indiscreet. The Abate himself is 
obliged to own that there are marks very like the scathing 
of lightning in the hinder legs of the present wolf; and to 
get rid of this adds, that the wolf seen by Diony.sius might 
have been also struck by lightning or otherwise injured. 

Let us examine the subject by a reference to the words of 
Cicero. The orator in two places seems to particularize the 
Romulus and the Remus, especially the first, which his au- 
dience remembered to have been in the Capitol, as being 
struck with lightning. In his verses he records that the 
twins and wolf both fell, and that the latter left behind the 
marks of her feet. Cicero does not say that the wolf was 
consumed ; and Dion only mentions that it foil down, with- 
out alluding, as the Abate has made him, to the force of the 
blow, or the firmness with which it had been fixed. The 
whole strength, therefore, of the Abate's argument hangs 

9 Dion. Hist. lib. xxxvii. p. 37, edit. Rob. Steph. 1548. 

10 Luc. Fauni de Antiq. Urb. Rom., lib. ii. cap. vii. ap. Sallcngre, tom. i. 
p. 217. In his seventeenth chapter he repeats that the statues were there, 
but not that they were found there. 

11 Ap. Nardini, Roma Vetus, 1. v. c. Iv. 

12 Marlianl Urb. Rom. Topograph, lib. ii. cap. ix. He mentions another 
wolf and twins in the Vatican, lib. v. cap. xxi. 

13 Just. Rycquil.de Caplt. Roman. Comm. cap. xxiv. pag. 250, cdit.Lugd. 
Bat. 1696. 

14 Nardini, Roma Vetus, lib. v. cap. iv. 

1.5 "Lupa hodicque in capitolinis prostat scdibus, cum vestigio fnlminls 
quo ictam narrat Cicero." Diarium Italic, tom. i. p. 171. 

16 Storia delle Arti, Ac, lib. Hi. cap. iil. s. Ii. note 10. Winkelmann haa 
made a strange blunder in the note, by saying the Ciceronian wolf was not 
in the Capitol, and that Dion was wrong in saying so. 

17 Flam. Vacca, Mcmorie, num. iil. pag. i. ap. Montfancon, Diar. ItaU 
tom. i. 



940 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



upon the past tense; which, however, may be somewhat 
diminished by remarking that the phrase only shows that 
the statue was not then standing in its former position. Wink- 
elmann has observed that the present twins are modern ; and 
it is equally clear that there are marta of gilding on the 
wolf, which might therefore be supposed to make a part of 
the ancient group. It is known that the sacred images of 
the Capitol were not destroyed when injured by time or acci- 
dent, but were put into certain underground depositories, 
called favissce.^ It may be thought possible that the wolf had 
been so deposited, and had been replaced in some conspicuous 
situation when the Capitol was rebuilt by Vespasian. Eyc- 
quius, without mentioning his authority, tells that it was 
transferred from the Comitium to the Lateran, and thence 
brought to the Capitol. If it was found near the arch of 
Severus, it may have been one of the images which Orosius 2 
says was thrown down in the Forum by lightning when 
Alaric took the city. That it is of very high antiquity the 
workmanship is a decisive proof; and that circumstance in- 
duced Winkelmann to believe it the wolf of Dionysius. The 
Capitoline wolf, however, may have been of the same early 
date as that at the temple of Eomulus. Lactantius^ asserts 
that in his time the Romans worshipped a wolf; and it is 
known that the Lupercalia held out to a very late period * 
after every other observance of the ancient superstition had 
totally expired. This mary account for the preservation of 
the ancient image longer than the other early symbols of 
Paganism. 

It may be permitted, however, to remark, that the wolf 
was a Eoman symbol, but that the worship of that symbol is 
an inference drawn by the zeal of Lactantius. The early 
Christian writers are not to be trusted in the charges which 
they make against the Pagans. Eusebius accused the Romans 
to their faces of worshipping Simon Magus, and raising a 
statue to him in the island of the Tyber. The Romans had 
probably never heard of such a person before, who came, 
however, to play a considerable, though scandalous, part in 
the church history, and has left several tokens of his aerial 
combat with Saint Peter at Rome ; notwithstanding that an 
inscription found in this very island of the Tyber showed 
the Simon Magus of Eusebius to be a certain indigenal god 
called Semo Sangus or Fidius.^ 

Even when the worship of the founder of Rome had been 
abandoned, it was thought expedient to humor the habits of 
the good matrons of the city, by sending them with their 
sick infants to the church of Saint Theodore, as they had 
before carried them to the temple of Romulus.^ The prac- 
tice is continued to this day, and the site of the above 
church seems to be thereby identified with that of the tem- 
ple; so that if the wolf had been really found there, as 
Winkelmann says, there would be no doubt of the present 
statue being that seen by Dionysius. But Faunus, in saying 
that it was at the Ficus Ruminalis by the Comitium, is only 
talking of its ancient position as recorded by Pliny; and, 
even if he had been remarking where it was found, would 
not have alluded to the church of Saint Theodore, but to a 
very different place, near which it was then thought the 



1 Luo. Faua. Memorie, num. iii. pag. i. ap, Montfaucon, Diar. Ital. torn. i. 

2 See note to stanza Ixxx. in " Historical Illustrations." 

3 "Eomuli nutrix Lupa honoribus est affecta divinis, et ferrem, si ani- 
mal ipsum fuisset, cujus flguram gerit." Lactant. de Falsa Eeligione, lib. i. 
cap. XX. pag. 101, edit, varicr. 1660; that is to say, he would rather adore a 
■wolf than a prostitute. His commentator has observed that the opinion of 
Livy concerning Laurentia being figured in this wolf was not universal. 
Strabo thought so. Rycquius is wrong In saying that Lactantius mentions 
the wolf was in the Capitol. 

4 To A. D. 496. " Quis credere possit," says Baronius [Ann. Bccles. 
torn. viii. p. 602, in an. 496], " viguisse adhuo Romae ad Gelasii tempora, 
quae fuere ante exordia urbis allata in Italiam Lupercalia?" Gelasius 
wrote a letter, which occupies four folio pages, to Andromachus the senator, 
and others, to show that the rites should be given up. 

5 Eccles. Hist. lib. ii. cap. xiii. p. 40. Justin Martyr had told the story 



Ficus Ruminalis had been, and also the Comitium ; that is, 
the three columns by the church of Santa Maria Liberatrice, 
at the corner of the Palatine looking on the Forum. 

It is, in fact, a mere conjecture where the image was ac- 
tually dug up ; and, perhaps, on the whole, the marks of the 
gilding, and of the lightning, are a better argument in favor of 
its being the Ciceronian wolf than any that can be adduced 
for the contrary opinion. At any rate, it is reasonably se- 
lected in the text of the poem as one of the most interesting 
relics of the ancient city,'' and is certainly the figure, if not 
the very animal, to which Virgil alludes in his beautiful 
verses : — 

" Geminos huic ubera circum 
Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matrem 
Impavidos : illam tereti cervice reflexam 
Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere linguS,." « 



No. XXVI. — JuLixjs Cjesar. 



"for the Homan's mind 



Was modeWd in a less terrestrial mould." — Stanza xc. 

It is possible to be a very great man and to be still very in- 
ferior to Julius Csesar, the most complete character, so Lord 
Bacon thought, of all antiquity. Nature seems incapable of 
such extraordinary combinations as composed his versatile 
capacity, which was the wonder even of the Romans them- 
selves. The first general— the only triumphant politician — 
inferior to none in eloquence — comparable to any in the 
attainments of wisdom, in an age made up of the greatest 
commanders, statesmen, orators, and philosophers that ever 
appeared in the world — an author who composed a perfect 
specimen of military annals in his travelling carriage — at 
one time in a controversy with Cato, at another writing a 
treatise on punning, and collecting a set of good sayings- 
fighting and making love at the same moment, and willing 
to abandon both his empire and his mistress for a sight of 
the Fountains of the Nile. Such did Julius Csesar appear to 
his contemporaries and to those of the subsequent ages who 
were the most inclined to deplore and execrate his fatal 
genius. 

But we must not be so much dazzled with his surpassing 
glory, or with his magnanimous, his amiable qualities, as to 
forget the decision of his impartial countrymen : — 

HE WAS JUSTLY SLAIN.* 



No. XXVII.— Egeria. 

" Egeria ! sweet creation of some heart 
Which found no mortal resting-place so fair 
As thine ideal breast." — Stanza cxv. 

The respectable authority of Flaminius Vacca would in- 
cline us to believe in the claims of the Egerian grotto.io He 



before ; but Baronius himself was obliged to detect this fable. See Nardini, 
Roma Vet. lib. vii. cap. xii. 

6 Rione xii. Ripa, accurata e succincta Descrizione, &o., di Roma Mod- 
erna, dell' Ab. Eidolf. Venuti, 1766. 

7 Donatus, lib. xi. cap. 18, gives a model representing on one side the 
wolf in the same position as that in the Capitol ; and in the reverse the wolf 
with the head not reverted. It is of the time of Antoninus Pius 

8 ^n. viii. 631. See Dr. Middleton, in his Letter from Rome, who in- 
clines to the Ciceronian wolf, but without examining the subject. 

9 " Jure caesus existimetur," says Suetonius, after a fair estimate of his 
character, and making use of a phrase which was a formula in Livy's time. 
"Meliumjure csesum pronuntiavit, etiam si regni crimine insons fuerit" 
[lib. iv. cap. 48], and which was continued in the legal judgments pronounced 
in justifiable homicides, such as killing housebreakers. See Sueton. in Vit. 
C. J. Caesar, with the commentary of Pitisous, p. 184. 

10 Memorie, &c., ap. Nardini, pag. 13. He does not give the inscription. 



APPENDIX. 



941 



assures us that he saw an inscription in the pavement, stat- 
ing that the fountain was that of Egeria, dedicated to the 
nymphs. The inscription is not there at this day; but 
Montfaucon quotes two lines of Ovidi from a stone in the 
Villa Giustiniani, which he seems to think had been brought 
from the same grotto. 

This grotto and valley were formerly frequented in sum- 
mer, and particularly the first Sunday in May, by the modern 
Romans, who attached a salubrious quality to the fountain, 
which trickles from an orifice at the bottom of the vault, 
and, overflowing the little pools, creeps down the matted 
grass into the brook below. The brook is the Ovidian Almo, 
whose name and qualities are lost in the modern, Aquataccio. 
The valley itself is called Valle di Caffarelli, from the dukes 
of that name who made over their fountain to the Pallavicini, 
with sixty rtibbia of adjoining land. 

There can be little doubt that this long dell is the Egerian 
valley of Juvenal, and the pausing place of Umbritius, not- 
withstanding the generality of hi»commentators have sup- 
posed the descent of the satirist and his friend to have been 
into the Arician grove, where the nymph met Hippolitus, 
and where she was more peculiarly worshipped. 

The step from the Porta Capena to the Alban hill, fifteen 
miles distant, would be too considerable, unless we were to 
believe in the wild conjecture of Vossius, who makes that 
gate travel from its present station, where he pretends it was 
during the reign of the kings, as far as the Arician grove, 
and then makes it recede to its old site with the shrinking 
city.' The tufo, or pumice, which the poet prefers to marble, 
is the substance composing the bank in which the grotto is 
sunk. 

The modern topographers i» find in the grotto the statue 
of the nymph, and nine niches for the Muses ; and a late 
traveller-* has discovered that the cave is restored to that 
simplicity which the poet regretted had been exchanged foi 
injudicious ornament. But the headless statue ia palpably 
rather a male than a nymph, and has none of the attrihutes 
ascribed to it at present visible. The nine Muses could hardly 
have stood in six niches; and Juvenal certainly does not 
allude to any individual cave.5 Nothing can be collected 
from the satirist but that somewhere near the Porto Capena 
was a spot in which it was supposed Numa held nightly 
cou.-<ultation3 with his nymph, and where there was a grove 
and a sacred fountain, and fanes once consecrated to the 
Muses ; and that from this spot there was a descent into the 
valley of Egeria, where were several artificial caves. It is 
clear that the statues of the Muses made no part of the deco- 
ration which the satirist thought misplaced in these caves ; 
for he expressly a-ssigns other fanes (delubra) to these divin- 
ities above the valley, and moreover tells us that they had 
been ejected to make room for the Jews. In dct, the little 
temple, now called that of Bacchus, was formerly thought to 
belong to the Muses, and Nardini^ places them in a poplar 
grove, which was in his time above the valley. 

It is probable, from the inscription and position, that the 
cave now shown may be one of the " artificial caverns," of 
which, indeed, there is another a little way higher up the 
valley, under a tuft of alder bushes ; but a single grotto of 
Egeria is a mere modem invention, grafted upon the appli- 
cation of the epithet Egerian to these nymphea in general, 
and which might send us to look for the haunts of Numa 
upon the banks of the Thames. 



1 " la tUU JiuUniana extat ingens lapin quadratns solidns, In qno scnlpta 
hjee doo Oridil carmina sunt :— 

' Mgeria, est quae pra:hct aqaas dea grata Camoenla 
nia Namx coi^unx coDsiliumqne.' 
Qai laplB videtar eodem Egeria! fontc, ant ejaa vidnia isthnc compartatiu." 
Oiarlam Italic, p. 153. 

J De Magnit. Vet. Rom. ap. Orver. Ant. Rom. torn. iv. p. 1507. 

i Bchinard, Descrlilone dl Roma e dell' Agro Romano, corrctto dalV Abat« 
VenuU, in Roma, IT.'iO. They believe In the gwtto and nymph. '• Slmula- 
•ro di qoeato fonte, eftsendovi sculpite k- acquc a pic dl essto. ' 



Our English Juvenal was not seduced into mistran.slatioa 
by his acquaintance with Pope : he carefully preserves the 
correct plural — 

" Thence slowly winding down the vale we view 
The Egerian grof^ : oh, how unlike the true !" 

The valley abounds with springs,T and over these springs, 
which the Muses might haunt from their neighboring groves, 
Egeria presided: hence she was said to supply them with 
water ; and she was the nymph of the grottos through which 
the fountains were taught to flow. 

The whole of thojnonuments in the vicinity of the Egerian 
valley have received names at will, which have been changed 
at will. Venutis owns he can see no traces of the temples 
of Jove, Saturn, Juno, Venus, and Diana, which Nardiui 
found, or hoped to find. The mutatorium of Caracalla's 
circus, the temple of Honor and Virtue, the temple of Bac- 
chus, and, above all, the temple of the god Kediculu*, are 
the antiquaries' despair. 

The circus of Caracalla depends on a medal of that em- 
peror cited bj Fulvius Ursinus, of which the reverse shows 
a circus, supposed, however, by some to represent the Circus 
Maximus. It gives a very good idea of that place of exercise. 
The soil hiis been but little raised, if we may judge from the 
small cellular structure at the end of the Spina, which was 
probably the chapel of the god Census. This cell is half be- 
neath the soil, as it must have been in the circus itself; for 
Dionysius^ could not be persuaded to believe that this di- 
vinity was the Koman Neptune, because his altar was under 
ground. 



No. XXVIII.— The Koman Nemesis. 
" great Ivemesis .' 



Here, where the ancient paid ihee homage long." 

Stanza cxxxii. 

We read in Suetonius that Augustus, from a warning re- 
ceived in a dream,io counterfeited, once a year, the beggar 
sitting before the gate of his palace with his hand hollowed 
and stretched out for charity. A statue formerly in the villa 
Borghese, and which should be now" at Paris, represents the 
emperor in that posture of supplication. The object of this 
self-degradation was the appeasement of Nemesis, the per- 
petual attendant on good fortune, of whose power the Eoman 
conquerors were also reminded by certain symbols attached 
to their cars of triumph. The symbols were the whip and 
the crotalo, which were discovered in the Nemesis of the 
Vatican. The attitude of beggary made the above statue 
pass for that of Belisarius; and until the criticism of Wink- 
elmann" had rectified the mistake, one fiction was called in 
to support another. It was the same fear of the sudden ter- 
mination of prosperity that made Amasis king of Egypt 
warn his friend Polycrates of Samos, that the gods loved 
those whose lives were checkered witTi good and evil for- 
tunes. Nemesis was supposed to lie in wait particularly for 
the prudent ; that is, for those whose caution rendered them 
accessible only to mere accidents: and her first altar was 
raised on the banks of the Phrygian JEsepus by Adrastus, 
probably the prince of that name who killed the son of 
Croesus by mistake. Hence the goddess was called Adrastea.*' 



4 Claailcal Tonr, chap. vi. p. 217, vol. 11. 

5 Sat. HI. 

6 Lib. ill. cap. ill. 

7 " Dndlque e aolo acqn.T Rcatr.rlunt." Nardinl, lib. ill. cap. ill. 

8 Echlnard, 4c. Clo. cit. pp. 297. 298. 

9 Antiq. Rom. lib. U. cap. xjwi. 

10 Sucton. In Vlt. Aiii?uatl, cap. 91. 

11 Storiadclle Arti. kc, lib. xil. cap. ill. torn. li. p. 432. 

12 Diet, de Bayle, arllcle Adrastea. 



942 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



The Roman Nemesis was sacred and august: there was a 
temple to her in the Palatine under the name of Ehamnusia : 
80 great, indeed, was the propensity of the ancients to trust 
to the revolution of events, and to believe in the divinity of 
Fortune, that in the same Palatine there was a temple to the 
Fortune of the day.i This is the last superstition which re- 
tains its hold over the human heart ; and, from concentrat- 
ing in one object the credulity so natural to man, has always 
appeared strongest in those unembarrassed by other articles 
of belief. The antiquaries have supposed this goddess to be 
synonymous with Fortune and with Fate : but it was in her 
vindictive quality that she was worshipped under the name 
of Nemesis. 



No. XXIX.— Gladiatoes. 



' he, their sire, 



BiUcher'd to make a Eoman holiday." — Stanza cxli. 

Gladiators were of two kinds, compelled ani voluntary; 
and were supplied from several conditions ;— from slaves sold 
for that purpose; from culprits; from barbarian captives 
either taken in war, and, after being led in triumph, set apart 
for the games, or those seized and condemned as rebels ; also 
from free citizens, some fighting for hire (auctorati), others 
from a depraved ambition ; at last even knights and senators 
were exhibited,— a disgrace of which the first tyrant was 
naturally the tirst inventor .2 In the end, dwarfs, and even 
women, fought; an enormity prohibited by Severus. Of 
these the most to be pitied undoubtedly were the barbarian 
captives ; and to this species a Christian writer^ justly applies 
the epithet " innocent," to distinguish them from the profes- 
sional gladiators. Aurelian and Claudius supplied great 
numbers of these unfortunate victims; the one after his 
triumph, and the other on a pretext of a rebellion.* No war, 
says Lipsius,^ was ever so destructive to the human race as 
these sports. In spite of the laws of Constantino and Con- 
stans, gladiatorial shows survived the old established religion 
more than seventy years ; but they owed their final extinc- 
tion to the courage of a Christian. In the year 404, on the 
kalends of January, they were exhibiting the shows in the 
Flavian amphitheatre before the usual immense concourse 
of people. Almachius, or Telemachus, an eastern monk, who 
had travelled to Rome intent on his holy purpose, rushed 
into the midst of the area, and endeavored to separate the 
combatants. The prsetor Alypius, a person incredibly attached 
to these ganies,^ gave instant orders to the gladiators to slay 
him ; and Telemachus gained the crown of martyrdom, and 
the title of eaint, which surely has never either before or 
since been awarded for a more noble exploit. Honorius 
immediately abolished the shows, which Were never after- 
wards revived. The story is told by Theodoret ^ and Cassio- 
dorus,8 and seems worthy of credit, notwithstanding its 
place in the Roman martyrology.s Besides the torrents of 
blood which flowed at the funerals, in the amphitheatres, 
the circus, the forums, and other public places, gladiators 
were introduced at feasts, and tore each other to pieces 
amidst the supper tables, to the great delight and applause 
of the guests. Yet Lipsius permits himself to suppose the 

1 Fortnns taigusci diei. Cicero mentions her, de Legib. lib. ii. 

DBAK NEMESI 

SIVE FOKTUNAK 

PISTOKIVS 

RVGIANVS 

V. C. LE6AT. 

LEG. XIII. 6. 

CORD. 

See Qnestiones Romanae, &c., ap. Graev. Antiq. Roman, torn, v. p. 942. 
See also Muratori, Nov. Thesaur. Inscrip. Vet. tom. i. pp. 88, 89, where 
there are three Latin and one Greek inscription to Nemesis, and others 
t* Kate. 



loss of courage, and the evident degeneracy of mankind, to 
be nearly connected with the abolition of these bloody spec- 
tacles. 



No. XXX. 



"Here, wTiere the Roman million^ blame or praise 

W^as death or life, the playthings of a crowd." — Stanza cxlii. 

When one gladiator wounded another, he shouted, " he has 
it," "hoc habet," or "habet." The wounded combatant 
dropped his weapon, and, advancing to the edge of the arena, 
supplicated the spectators. If he had fought well, the people 
saved him ; if otherwise, or as they happened to be inclined, 
they turned down their thumbs, and he was slain. They 
were occasionally so savage that they were impatient if a 
combat lasted longer than ordinary without wounds or death. 
The emperor's presence generally saved the vanquished ; and 
it is recorded as an instance of Caracalla's ferocity, that he 
sent those who supplicated him for life, in a spectacle, at 
Nicomedia, to ask the people ; in other words, handed them 
over to be slain. A similar ceremony is observed at the 
Spanish bull-fights. The magistrate presides ; and after the 
horsemen and piccadores have fought the bull, the matadore 
steps forward and bows to him for permission to kill the ani- 
mal. If the bull has done his duty by killing two or three 
horses, or a man, which last is rare, the people interfere with 
shouts, the ladies wave their handkerchiefs, and the animal 
is saved. The wounds and death of the horses are accom- 
panied with the loudest acclamations, and many gestures of 
delight, especially from the female portion of the audience, 
including those of the gentlest blood. Every thing depends 
on habit. The author of Childe Harold, the writer of this 
note, and one or two other Englishmen, who have certainly 
in other days borne the sight of a pitched battle, were, during 
the summer of 1809, in the governor's box at the great amphi- 
theatre of Santa Maria, opposite to Cadiz. The death of one 
or two horses completely satisfied their curiosity. A gentle- 
man present, observing them shudder and look pale, noticed 
that unusual reception of so delightful a feport to some young 
ladies, who stared and smiled, and continued their applauses 
as another horse fell bleeding to the ground. One bull killed 
three horses off his oion horns. He was saved by acclamations, 
which were redoubled when it was known he belonged to a 
priest. 

An Englishman, who can be much pleased with seeing two 
men beat themselves to pieces, cannot bear to look at a horse 
galloping round an arena with his bowels trailing on the 
ground, and turns from the spectacle and the spectators with 
horror and disgust. 



No. XXXI.— The Alban Hill. 



" and afar 



The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves 

The Latian coast," &c. &c. Stanza clxxiv. 

The whole declivity of the Alban hill is of unrivalled 
beauty, and from the convent on the highest point, which 

2 Julius Caesar, who rose by the fall of the aristocracy, brought Furius 
Leptinus and A. Calenus upon the arena. 

3 TertuUian, " certe quidem et innocentes gladiatores in ludum veniunt, 
et voluptatis publicae hostise fiant." Just. Lips, Saturn. Sermon, lib. ji. 
cap. iii. 

4 Vopiscus, in Vit. Aurel. and in Vit. Claud, ibid. 

5 Just. Lips. ibid. lib. i. cap. xii. 

6 Augustinus (lib. vi. confess, cap. viii.), " Alypium stinm gladiatorii 
spectaculi Inhiatu incredibiliter abreptum," scribit. ib. lib. i. cap. xii. 

7 Hist. Eccles. cap. xxvl. lib. v. 

8 Cassiod. Tripartita, 1. x. c. xi. Saturn, ib. ib. 

9 Baronius, ad ann. et in notis ad Martyrol. Rom. I. Jan. See Maraagen 
delle memorie sacre e profane dell' Anflteatro Flavio, p. 25, edit. 1746. 



APPENDIX. 



943 



has succeeded to the temple of the Latian Jupiter, the pros- 
pect embraces all the objects alluded to in the cite<^l stanza ; 
the Mediterranean, the whole scene of the latter half of the 
iBneid, and the coast from beyond the mouth of the Tiber 
to the headland of Circseum and the Cape of Terracina. 

The site of Cicero's villa may be supposed either at 
the Grotta Ferrata, or at tlve Tusculum of Prince Lucien 
Buonaparte. 

The former was thought some years ago the actual site, as 
may be seen from Myddleton's Life of Cicero, At present 
it has lost something of its credit, except for the Domeni- 
chinos. Nine monks of the Greek order live there, and the 
adjoining villa is a cardinal's summer-house. The other 
villa, called Rufinella, is on the summit of the hill above 
Frascati, and many rich remains of Tusculum have been 
found there, besides seventy-two statues of different merit 
and preservation, and seven busts. 

From the same eminence are seen the Sabine hills, em- 
bosomed in which lies the long valley of Rustica. There 
are several circumstances which tend to establish the iden- 
tity of this valley with the "Ustica" of Horace; and it seems 
possible that the mosaic pavement which the peasants un- 
cover by throwing up the earth of a vineyard may belong to 
his villa. Rustica is pronounced short, not according to our 
stress upon — "Usticce cubantis." — It is more rational to think 
that we are wrong, than that the inhabitants of this secluded 
valley have changed their tone in this word. The addition 
of the consonant prefixed is nothing ; yet it is necessary to 
be aware that Rustica may be a modern name which the 
peasants may have caught from the antiquaries. 

The villa, or the mosaic, is in a vineyard on a knoll, cov- 
ered with chestnut trees. A stream runs down the valley ; 
and although it is not true, as said in the guide books, that 
this stream is called Lictnza, yet there is a village on a rock 
at the head of the valley which is so dcnomiuated, and which 
may have taken its name from the Digentia. Licenza con- 
tains seven hundred inhabitants. On a peak a little way 
beyond is Civitella, containing three hundred. On the 
banks of the Anio, a little before you turn up into Valle 
Rustica, 10 the left, about an hour from the villa, is a town 
called Vicovaro, another favorable coincidence with the 
Varia of the poet. At the end of the valley, towards the 
Anio, there is a bare hill, crowned with a little town called 
Bardela. At the foot of this hill the rivulet of Licenza 
flows, and is almost absorbed in a wide sandy bed before it 
reaches the Anio. Nothing can be more fortunate for the 
lines of the poet, whether in a metaphorical or direct sense : — 

" Me quotiens reficit gelidus Digentia rivus, 
Quern Mandela bibit rugosus frigore pagus." 

The stream is clear high up the valley, but before it reaches 
the hill of Bardela looks green and yellow, like a sulphur 
rivulet. 

Rocca Giovane, a ruined village in the hills, half an hour's 
walk from the vineyard where the pavement is shown, does 
seem to be the site of the fane of Vacuna, and an inscription 
found there tells that this temple of the Sabine Victory was 
repaired by Vespasian. With these helps, and a position 
corresponding exactly to everything which the poet has 
told us of his retreat, we may feel tolerably secure of our site. 

The hill which should be Lucretilis is called Campanile, 
and by following,' up the rivulet to the pretended Bandusia, 
you come to the roots of the higher mountain Gennaro. 
Singularly enough, the only spot of ploughed land in the 
whole valley is on the knoll where this Bandusia rises, 
" , . . , tu frigus amabile 
Fessis vomere tauris 
Prabes, et pecori vago." 



1 See HlRtoiical IlIu«trationR of the Pounh Canto, p. 43. 
I Bee Classical Tour, Ac, chap. vU. p. 250, vol. 11. 



The peasants show another spring near the mosaic pave- 
ment which they call " Oradina," and which flows down the 
hills into a tank, or mill-dam, and thence trickles over into 
the Digentia. 

But we must not hope 

" To trace the Muses upwards to their spring," 

by exploring the windings of the romantic valley in search 
of the Bandusian fountain. It seems strange that any one 
should have thought Bandusia a fountain of the Digentia. — 
Horace has not let drop a word of it; and this immortal 
spring has in fact been discovered in possession of the holders 
of many good things in Italy, the monks. It was attached 
to the church of Saint Gervais and Portals near Venusia, 
where it was most likely to be found.i We shall not be so 
lucky as a late traveller in finding the occassional pine still 
pendent on the poetic villa. There is not a pine in the whole 
valley, but there are two cypresses, which he evidently took, 
or mistook, for the tree in the ode.2 The truth is, that the 
pine is now, as it was in the days ©f Virgil, a garden tree, 
and it was not at all likely to be found in the craggy acclivi- 
ties of the valley of Rustica. Horace probably had one ol 
them in the orchard close above his farm, immediately over- 
shadowing his villa, not on the rocky heights at some dis- 
tance from his abode. The tourist may have easily supposed 
himself to have seen this pine figured in the above cypresses ; 
for the orange and lemon trees which throw such a bloom 
over his description of the royal gardens at Naples, unless 
they have been since displaced, were assuredly only acacias 
and other common garden shrubs.3 



No. XXXII.— Eustace's Classical Touk. 

The extreme disappointment experienced by choosing the 
Classical Tourist as a guide in Italy must be allowed to find 
vent in a few observations, which, it is asserted without fear 
of contradiction, will be confirmed by every one who has 
selected the same conductor through the same country. 
Tliis author is in fact one of the most inaccurate, unsatis- 
factory writers that have in our times attained a temporary 
reputation, and is very seldom to be trusted even when he 
speaks of objects which he must be presumed to have seen. 
His errors, from the simple exaggeration to the downright 
misstatement, are so frequent as to induce a suspicion that 
he had either never visited the spots described, or had trusted 
to the fidelity of former writers. Indeed, the Classical Tour 
has every characteristic of a mere compilation of former 
notices, strung together upon a very slender thread of per- 
sonal observation, and swelled out by those decorations 
which are so easily supplied by a systematic adoption of all 
the commonplaces of praise, applied to everything, and 
therefore signifying nothing. 

The style which one person thinks cloggy and cumbrous, 
and unsuitable, may be the taste of others, and such may 
experience some salutary excitement in ploughing through 
the periods of the Classical Tour. It must be said, however, 
that polish and weight are apt to beget an expectation of 
value. It is amongst the pains of the damned to toil up a 
climax with a huge round stone. 

The tourist had the choice of his words, but there was no 
such latitude allo^ved to that of his sentiments. The love of 
virtue and of liberty, which must have distinguished the 
character, certainly adorns the pages,»of Mr. Eustace; and 
the gentlemanly spirit, so recommendatory either in an 
author or his productions, is very conspicuous throughout 



8 Under our windows, and bordering; on the beach, la the royal garden, 
laid out in parterres, and walks shaded by rows of orange trees." Classical 
Tour, Ac, chap. xi. vol. li. oct. 365. 



944 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



the Classical Tour. But these generous qualities are the 
foliage of such a performance, and may be spread about it so 
prominently and profusely as to embarrass those who wish to 
see and find the fruit at hand. The unction of the divine, 
and the exhortations of the moralist, naay have made this 
work something more and better than a book of travels, but 
they have not made it a book of travels ; and this observa- 
tion applies more especially to that enticing method of in- 
struction conveyed by the perpetual introduction of the 
same Gallic Helot to reel and bluster before the rising gen- 
eration, and terrify it into decency by the display of all the 
excesses of the revolution. An animosity against atheists 
and regicides in general, and Frenchmen specifically, may 
be honorable, and may be useful as a record ; but that anti- 
dote should either be administered in any work rather than 
a tour, or at least should be served up apart, and not so 
mixed with the whole mass of information and reflection as 
to give a bitterness to every page ; for who would choose to 
have the antipathies of any man, however just, for his 
travelling companions ? A tourist, unless he aspires to the 
credit of prophecy, is not answerable for the changes which 
may take place in the country which he describes ; but his 
reader may very fairly esteem all his political portraits and 
deductions as so much waste paper the moment they cease 
to assist, and more particularly if they obstruct, his actual 
survey. 

Neither encomium nor accusation of any government, or 
governors, is meant to be here oflfered ; but it is stated as an 
incontrovertible fact, that the change operated, either by the 
address of the late imperial system, or by the disappointment 
of every expectation by those who have succeeded to the 
Italian thrones, has been so considerable, and is so apparent, 
as not only to put Mr. Eustace's antigallican philippics en- 
tirely out of date, but even to throw some suspicion upon 
the competency and candor of the author himself. A re- 
markable example may be found in the instance of Bologna, 
over whose papal attachments, and consequent desolation, 
the tourist pours forth such strains of condolence and re- 
venge, made louder by the borrowed trumpet of Mr. Burke. 
Now Bologna is at this moment, and has been for some years, 
notorious amongst the states of Italy for its attachment to 
revolutionary principles, and was almost the only city which 
made any demonstrations in favor of the unfortunate Murat. 
This change may, however, have been made since Mr. Eus- 
tace visited this country; but the traveller whom he has 
thrilled with horror at the projected stripping of the copper 
from the tupola of Saint Peter's must be much relieved to 
find that sacrilege out of the power of the French, or any 
other plunderers, the cupola being covered with lead^ 

If the conspiring voice of otherwise rival critics had not 
given considerable currency to the Classical Tour, it would 
have been unnecessary to warn the reader that, however it 
may adorn his library, it will be of little or no service to 
him in his carriage ; and if the judgment of those critics 
had hitherto been suspended, no attempt would have been 
made to anticipate their decision. As it is, those who stand 
in the relation of posterity to Mr. Eustace may be permitted 
to appeal from contemporary praises, and are perhaps more 
likely to be just in proportion as the causes of love and 
hatred are the farther removed. This appeal had, in some 
measure, been made before the above remarks were written : 



1 " What, then, will be the astonishment, or rather the horror, of my 

reader, when I inform him the French committee turned its attention 

to Saint Peter's, and employed a company of Jews to estimate and purchase 
the gold, silver, and bronze that adorn the inside of the edifice, as well as 
the copper that covers the vaults and the dome on the outside." Classical 
Tour, chap. iv. p. 130, vol. 11. The story about the Jews is positively de- 
nied at Rome. 

2 Mr. Francis Cohen, now Sir Francis Palgrave, K. H., the learned au- 
thor of the "Rise and Progress of the English Constitution," '■ History of 
the Anglo-Saxons," &c. &c. 



for one of the most respectable of the Florentine publishers, 
who had been persuaded by the repeated inquiries of those 
on their journey southwards to reprint a cheap edition of 
the Classical Tour, was, by the concurring advice of return- 
ing travellers, induced to abandon his design, although he 
had already arranged his types and paper, and had struck 
off one or two of the first sheets. 

The writer of these notes would wish to part (like Mr. 
Gibbon) on good terms with the pope and the cardinals, but 
he does not think it necessary to extend the same discreet 
silence to their humble partisans. 



Mwcim dFaliero. 



Note A. See p. 252. 

[I AM obliged for the following excellent translation of the 
old Chronicle to Mr. F. Cohen,2 to whom the reader will find 
himself indebted for a version that I could not myself— 
though after many years' intercourse with Italian— have 
given by any means so purely and so faithfully .3] 

STOEY OF MAKING FALIERO, DOGE XLIX. 
MCCCLIV. 

On the 11th day of September, in the year of our Lord 
1354, Marino Faliero was elected and chosen to be the duke 
of the Commonwealth of Venice. He was Count of Valde- 
marino, in the marches of Treviso, and a knight, and a 
wealthy man to boot. As soon as the election was completed, 
it was resolved in the Great Council, that a deputation of 
twelve should be despatched to Marino Faliero the duke, 
who was then on his way from Rome; for when he was 
chosen, he was ambassador at the court of the holy father, 
at Rome, — the holy father himself held his court at Avignon. 
When Messer Marino Faliero the duke was about to land in 
this city, on the 5th day of October, 1354, a thick haze came 
on, and darkened the air: and he was enforced to land on 
the place of Saint Mark, between the two columns, on the 
spot where evil-doers are put to death; and all thought that 
this was the worst of tokens.— Nor must I forget to write 
that which I have read in a chronicle. When Messer Marino 
Faliero was podesta and captain of Treviso, the bishop de- 
layed coming in with the holy sacrament, on a day when a 
procession was to take place. Now, the said Marino Faliero 
was so very proud and wrathful, that he buffeted the bishop, 
and almost struck him to the ground : and, therefore, Heaven 
allowed Marino Faliero to go out of his right senses, in order 
that he might bring himself to an evil death. 

When this duke had held the dukedom during nine months 
and six days, he, being wicked and ambitious, sought to make 
himself lord of Venice, in the manner which I have read in 
an ancient chronicle. When the Thursday arrived upon 
which they were wont to hunt the bull, the bull hunt took 
place as usual ; and, according to the usage of those times, 
after the bull hunt had ended, they all proceeded into the 
palace of the duke, and assembled together in one of his 
halls ; and they disported themselves with the women. And 



3 In a letter to Mr. Murray, dated Ravenna, July 30, 1821, Lord Byron 
says :— " Enclosed is the best account of the doge Faliero, which was only 
sent to me, from an old MS., the other day. Get it translated, and append 
it as a note to the next edition. You will, perhaps, be pleased to see that 
my conceptions of his character were correct ; though I regret not having 
met with the extract before. You will perceive that he himself said exactly 
what he is made to say about the Bishop of Treviso. You will see also that he 
spoke little, and those only words of rage and disdain, after his arrest; 
which is the case in the play, except when he breaks out at the close of a<:t 
fifth. But his speech to the conspirators is better in the NfS. than in the 
play. I wish I had met with it in time." 



APPENDIX. 



945 



until the first bell tolled they danced, and then a banquet 
was served up. My lord the duke paid the expenses thereof, 
provided he had a duchess, and alter the banquet they all 
returned to their homes. 

Now to this feast there came a certain Ser Michele Steno, 
a gentleman of poor estate, and very young, but crafty and 
daring, and who loved one of the damsels of the duchess. 
Ser Michele stood amongst the women upon the solajo ; and 
he behaved indiscreetly, so that my lord the duke ordered 
that he should be kicked off the solajo ; and the esquires of 
the duke flung him down from the solajo accordingly. Ser 
Michele thought that such an affront was beyond all bearing ; 
and when the feast was over, and all other persons had left 
the palace, he, continuing heated with anger, went to the 
hall of audience, and wrote certain unseemly words relating 
to the duke and the duchess upon the chair in which the 
duke was used to sit; for in those days the duke did not 
cover his chair with cloth of sendal, but he sat in a chair of 
wood. Ser Michele wrote thereon — "■Marin Falier, the hu.s- 
btmd of the fair wife; others kiss her, bxd he keeps her." In the 
morning the words were seen, and the matter was considered 
to be very scandalous ; the Senate commanded the Avogadori 
of the Commonwealth to proceed therein with the greatest 
diligence. A largess of great amount was immediately prof- 
fered by the Avogadori, in order to discover who had written 
these words. And at length it was known that Michele 
Steno had written them. It was resolved in the Council of 
Forty that he should be arrested ; and he then confessed that 
in the fit of vexation and spite, occasioned by his being 
thrust off the solajo in the presence of his mistress, he had 
written the words. Therefore the Council debated thereon. 
And the Council took his youth into consideration, and that 
he was a lover: and therefore they adjudged that he should 
be kept in close confinement during two months, and that 
afterwards he should be banished from Venice and the state 
during one year. In consequence of this merciful sentence 
t-he duke became. exceedingly wroth, it appearing to him that 
the Council had not acted in such a manner as was required 
by the respect due to his ducal dignity ; and he said that 
they ought to have condemned Ser Michele to be hanged by 
the neck, or at least to be banished for life. 

Now it was fated that my lord duke Marino was to have 
his head cut off. And as it is necessary when any effect is to 
be brought about that the cause of such effect must happen, 
it therefore came to pass that on the very day after sentence 
had been pronounced on Ser Michele Steno, being the first 
day of Lent, a gentleman of the house of Barbaro, a choleric 
gentleman, went to the arsenal, and required certain things 
of the masters of the galleys. This he did in the presence ot 
the admiral of the arsenal, and he, hearing the request, an- 
swered, — No, it cannot be done. High words arose between 
the gentleman and the admiral, and the gentleman struck 
him with his fist just above the eye; and as he happened to 
have a ring on his finger, the ring cut the admiral and drew 
blood. The admiral, all bruised and bloody, ran straight to 
the duke to complain, and with the intent of praying him to 
inflict some heavy punishment upon the gentleman of C^ 
Barbaro.— " What would.-it thou have me to do for thee?" 
answered the duke:— "think upon the shameful gibe which 
hath been written concerning me ! and think on the manner 
in which they have punLshcd that ribald Michele Steno, who 
wrote it; and see how the Council of Forty respect our per- 
S4)n."— Upon this the admiral answered,— " My lord duke, if 
you would wi.sh to make yourself a prince, and to cut all 
those cuckoldy gentlemen to pieces, I have the heart, if you 
do but help me, to make you prince of all this state ; and then 
you may punish them all."— Hearing this, the duke said,— 
" How can such a matter be brought about?"— and so they 
disr:oursed thereon. 

The duke called for his nephew, Ser Bertuccio Faliero, who 
lived with him in the palace, and they communed about this 
plot. And without leaving the place, they sent for Philip 



Calondaro, a seaman of great repute, and for Bertuccio Is- 
raello, who was exceedingly wily and cunning. Then taking 
counsel amongst themselves, they agreed to call in some 
others; and so, for several nights successively, they uu^t 
with the duke at home in his palace. And the following nun 
were called in singly, to wit: — Niccolo Fagiuolo, Giovanni 
da Corfu, Stefano Fagiono, Niccolo dalle Bende, Niccolo 
Biondo, and Stefano Trivisano. — It was concerted that six- 
teen or seventeen leaders should be stationed in various 
parts of the city, each being at the head of forty men, armed 
and prepared ; but the followers were not to know their des- 
tination. On the appointed day they were to make affrays 
amongst themselves here and there, in order that the duke 
might have a pretence for tolling the bells of San Marco; 
these bells are never rung but by the order of the duke. 
And at the sound of the bells, these sixteen or seventeen, 
with their followers, were to come to San Marco, through 
the streets which open upon the Piazza. And when the 
noble and leading citizens should come into the Piazza, to 
know the cause of the riot, then the conspirators were to 
cut them in pieces ; and this work being finished, my lord 
Marino Faliero the duke was to be proclaimed the lord of 
Venice. Things having been thus settled, they agreed to 
fulfill their intent on Wednesday, the 15th day of April, in 
the year 1355. So covertly did they plot, that no one ever 
dreamt of their machinations. 

But the Lord, who hath always helped this most glorious 
city, and who, loving its righteousness and holiness, hath 
never forsaken it, inspired one Bcltramo Bergamasco to be 
the cause of bringing the plot to light, in the following man- 
ner :— This jBeltramo, who belonged to Ser Niccolo Lioni of 
Santo Stefano, had heard a word or two of what was to take 
place ; and so, in the before-mentioned month of April, he 
went to the house of the afoi'esaid Ser Niccolo Lioni, and 
told him all the particulars of the plot. Ser Niccolo, when 
he heard all these things, was struck dead, as it were, with 
affright. He heard all the particulars ; and Beltramo prayed 
him to keep it all secret ; and if he told Ser Niccolo, it was 
in order that Ser Niccolo might stop at home on the 15th of 
April, and thus save his life. Beltramo was going, but Ser 
Niccolo ordered his servants to lay hands upon him, and lock 
him up. Ser Niccolo then went to the house of Messer Gio- 
vanni Gradenigo Nasoni, who afterwards became duke, and 
who also lived at Santo Stefano, and told him all. The matter 
seemed to him to be of the very greatest importance, as in- 
deed it was ; and they two went to the house of Ser Marco 
Cornaro, who lived at San Felice; and having spoken with 
him, they all three then determined to go back to the house 
of Ser Niccolo Lioni, to examine the said Beltramo; and 
having questioned him, and heard all that he had to say, they 
left him in confinement. And then they all three went into 
the sacristy of San Salvatore, and sent their men. to summon 
the councillors, the Avogadori, the Capi de' Died, and those 
of the Great Council. 

When all were assembled, the whole story was told to them. 
They were struck dead, as it were, with aff^-ight. They de- 
termined to send for Beltramo. He was brought in before 
them. They examined him, and ascertained that the matter 
was true ; and, although they were exceedingly troubled, yet 
they detennined upon their measures. And they sent for 
the Capi de' Quarante, the Signori di Notte, the Capi de' Ses- 
tieri, and the Cinque dclla Pace; and they were ordered to 
associate to th(Mr men other good men and true, who were to 
proceed to the houses of the ringleaders of the conspiracy, 
and secure them. And they secured the foreman of the 
arsenal, in order that the conspirators might not do mischief. 
Towards nightfall they assemblwl in the palace. When they 
were assembled in the palac<!, they caused the gates of the 
quadrangle of the palace to be shut. And thoy sent to the 
keeper of the bfll-tower, and forbade the tolling of the bells. 
All this was carried into effect. The before-mentioned con- 
spirators were secure<i, and they were brought to the palace ; 



946 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



and, as the Council of Ten saw that the duke was in the 
plot, they resolved that twenty of the leading men of the state 
should be associated to them, for the purpose of consultation 
and deliberation, but that they should not be allowed to ballot. 

The councillors were the following :—Ser Giovanni Mo- 
cenigo, of the Sestiero of San Marco ; Ser Almoro Veniero 
da Santa Marina, of the Sestiero of Castello; Ser Tomaso 
Viadro, of the Sestiero of Canaregio ; Ser Giovanni Sanudo, 
of the Sestiero of Santa Croce ; Ser Pietro Trivisano, of the 
Sestiero of San Paolo ; Ser Pantalione Barbo il Grando, of the 
Sestiero of Ossoduro. The Avogadori of the Commonwealth 
were Zufredo Morosini and Ser Orio Pasqualigo : and these 
did not ballot. Those of the Council of Ten were Ser Gio- 
vanni Marcello, Ser Tomaso Sanudo, and Ser Micheletto Dol- 
fino, the heads of the aforesaid Council of Ten. Ser Luca da 
Legge and Ser Pietro da Moste, inquisitors of the aforesaid 
Council. And Ser Marco Polani, Ser Marino Veniero, Ser 
Lando Lombardo, and Ser Nicoletto Trivisano, of Sant' Angelo. 

Late in the night, just before the dawning, they chose a 
junta of twenty noblemen of Venice from amongst the wisest, 
and the worthiest, and the oldest. They were to give counsel, 
but not to ballot. And they would not admit any one of CS, 
Faliero. And Niccolo Faliero, and another Niccolo Faliero, 
of San Tomaso, were expelled from the Council, because they 
belonged to the family of the doge. And this resolution of 
creating the junta of twenty was much praised throughout 
the state. The following were the members of the junta of 
twenty:— Ser Marco Giustiniani, procuratore, Ser Andrea 
Erizzo, procuratore, Ser Lionardo Giustiniani, procuratore, 
Ser Andrea Contarini, Ser Simone Dandolo, Ser Niccolo 
Volpe, Ser Giovanni Loredano, Ser Marco Diedo, Ser Gio- 
vanni Gradenigo, Ser Andrea Cornaro, cavaliere, Ser Marco 
Soranzo, Ser Einieri du Mosto, Ser Gazano Marcello, Ser 
Marino Morosini, Ser Stefano Belegno, Ser Niccolo Lioni, Ser 
Filippo Orio, Ser Marco Trivisano, Ser Jacopo Bragadino, Ser 
Giovanni Foscarini. 

These twenty were accordingly called in to the Council of 
Ten ; and they sent for my lord Marino Faliero the duke : 
and my lord Marino was then consorting in the palace with 
people of great estate, gentlemen, and other good men, none 
of whom knew yet how the fact stood. 

At the same time Bertucci Israello, who, as one of the ring- 
leaders, was to head the conspirators in Santa Croce, was ar- 
rested and bound, and brought before the Council, Zanello 
del Brin, Nicoletto di Rosa, Nicoletto Alberto, and the guar- 
diaga, were also taken, together with several seamen, and 
people of various ranks. These were examined, and the truth 
of the plot was ascertained. 

On the 16th of April judgment was given in the Council of 
Ten, that Pilippo Calendaro and Bertuccio Israello should be 
hanged upon the red pillars of the balcony of the palace, from 
which the duke is wont to look at the bull hunt : and they 
were hanged with gags in their mouths. 

The next day the following were condemned: — Niccolo 
Zuccuolo, Nicoletto Biondo, Nicoletto Doro, Marco Giuda, 
Jacomello Dagolino, Nicoletto Fidele, the son of Filippo 
Calendaro, Marco Torello, called Israello, Stefano Trivisano, 
the money changer of Santa Margherita, and Antonio dalle 
Bende. These were all taken at Chiozza, for they were en- 
deavoring to escape. Afterwards, by virtue of the sentence 
which was passed upon them in the Council of Ten, they 
were hanged on successive days ; some singly and some in 
couples, upon the columns of the palace, beginning from the 
red columns, and so going onwards towards the canal. And 
other prisoners were discharged, because, although they had 
been involved in the conspiracy, yet they had not assisted in 
it: for they were given to understand by some of the heads 
of the plot, that they were to come armed and prepared for 
the service of the state, and in order to secure certain crimi- 
nals; and they knew nothing else. Nicoletto Alberto, the 
guardiaga, and Bartolommeo Ciricolo and his son, and several 
others, who were not guilty, were discharged. 



On Friday, the 16th day of April, judgment was also given 
in the aforesaid Council of Ten, that my lord Marino Faliero, 
the duke, should have his head cut oflF; and that the execu- 
tion should be done on the landing-place of the stone staircase, 
where the dukes take their oath when th6y first enter the 
palace. On the following day, the 17th of April, the doors of 
the palace being shut, the duke had his head cut off, about 
the hour of noon. And the cap of estate was taken from the 
duke's head before he came down stairs. When the execution 
was over, it is said that one of the Council of Ten went to 
the columns of the palace over against the place of Saint Mark, 
and that he showed the bloody sword unto the people, crying 
out with a loud voice — " The terrible doom hath fallen upon 
the traitor !"— and the doors were opened, and the people all 
rushed in, to see the corpse of the duke, who had been beheaded. 

It must be known that Ser Giovanni Sanudo, the council- 
lor, was not present when the aforesaid sentence was pro- 
nounced ; because he was unwell, and remained at home. So 
that only fourteen balloted ; that is to say, five councillors, 
and nine of the Council of Ten. And it was adjudged, that 
all the lands and chattels of the duke, as well as of the other 
traitors, should be forfeited to the state. And, as a grace to 
the duke, it was resolved in the Council of Ten that he should 
be allowed to dispose of two thousand ducats out of his own 
property. And it was resolved, that all the councillors and 
all the Avogadori of the Commonwealth, those of the Council 
of Ten, and the members of the junta, who had assisted in 
passing sentence on the duke and the other traitors, should 
have the privilege of carrying arms both by day and by night 
in Venice, and from Grado to Cavazere. And they were also 
to be allowed two footmen carrying arms, the aforesaid foot- 
men living and boarding with them in their own houses. And 
he who did not keep two footmen might transfer the privilege 
to his sons or his brothers, but only to two. Permission of 
carrying arms was also granted to the four notaries of the 
chancery, that is to say, of the Supreme Court, who took the 
depositions: and they were, Amedio, Nicoletto di Lorino, 
Steffanello, and Pietro de Compostelli, the secretaries of the 
Signori di Notte. 

After the traitors had been hanged, and the duke had had 
his head cut off, the state remained in great tranquillity and 
peace. And, as I have read in a chronicle, the corpse of the 
duke was removed in a barge, with eight torches, to his tomb 
in the church of San Giovanni e Paolo, where it was buried. 
The tomb is now in that aisle in the middle of the little 
church of Santa Maria della Pace, which was built by Bishop 
Gabriel of Bergamo. It is a coffin of stone, with these words 
engraved thereon : "Heicjacet Dominus Marinus Faletro Dux." 
— And they did not paint his portrait in the hall of the Great 
Council ; but in the place where it ought to have been, you 
see these words : " Hie est locus Marini Faletro, decapitati pro 
criminibus." — And it is thought that his house was granted 
to the church of Sant' Apostolo ; it was that great one near 
the bridge. Yet this could not be the case, or else the family 
bought it back from the church ; for it still belongs to C4 
Faliero. I must not refrain from noting that some wished to 
write the following words in the place where his portrait ought 
to have been, as aforesaid :— " Marinus Faletro Dux, temerUas 
me cepit. Pmnas lui, decapitatus pro criminihus." — Others, also, 
indited a couplet, worthy of being inscribed upon his tomb. 
"Dux Venetumjacet heic, patriam quiprodere tentans, 
Sceptra, decus, censum perdidit, atque caput." 



Note B.— Petraech on the Conspiracy of Marino 
Faliero.i 

" Al giovane Doge Andrea Dandolo succedette un vecchio, 
il quale tardi si pose al timone della repubblica, ma sempre 

1 " Had a copy taken of an extract from Petrarch's Letters, with refer- 
ence to the conspiracy of the doge Marino Faliero, containing the poet* 
opinion of the matter."— Byron Diary, Feb. 11, 1821. 



APPENDIX. 



947 



prima di quel, che facea d' uopo a lui, ed alia patria: egli 6 
Marino Faliero, personaggio a me noto per antica dimesti- 
chezza. Falsa era 1' opinione intorno a lui, giacchfi egli si 
mostro fornito piO di corraggio, che di seuno. Non pago della 
prima dignitil, entro con sinistro piede nel pubblico Palazzo : 
imperciocche questo Doge de Veneti, magistrato sacro in tutti 
i secoli, che dagli antichi fa sempre venerato qual nume in 
quella cittit, 'altr' jcri fH decollate nel vestibolo dell' istesso 
Palazzo. Discorrerei fin dal principio le cause di un tale 
evvento, e cosi vario, ed ambiguo non ne fosse il grido. Ncs- 
suno perd lo scusa, tutti affennano, che egli abbia voluto 
cangiar qualche cosa nell' ordine della repubblica a lui tra- 
mandato dai maggiori. Che desiderava egli di pia ? lo son 
d' avTiso, che egli abbia ottenuto cio, che non si concedette a 
nessun altro: mentre adempiva gli ufficj di legato presso il 
Pontefice, e sulle rive del Rodano trattava la pace, che io 
prima di lui avevo indarno tentato di conchiuderc, gli fa 
conferito 1' onore del Ducato, che ne chiedeva, ne s' aspettava. 
Tomato in patria, penso a quello, cui nessuno non pose mente 
giammai, e soffri quello, che a niuno accadde raai di soflfrire : 
giacchS in quel luogo celeberrimo, e chiarissimo, e bellissimo 
infra tutti quelli, che io vidi, ove i suoi antenati avevano 
ricevuti grandissimi onori in mezzo alle pompe trionfali, ivi 
egli tin trascinato in modo servile, e spogliato delle insegne 
ducali, perdette la testa, e macchio col proprio sangue le soglie 
del tempio, 1' atrio del Palazzo, e le scale marraoree rendute 
spesse volte illustri o dalle solemni festivity, o dalle ostili 
spoglie. Ho notato il luogo, ora noto il tempo : 6 1' an nodul 
Natale di Cristo 1355, fa il giorno 18 d' Aprile. Si alto 6 il 
grido sparsOj^he se alcuno esaminerjt la disciplina, e le cos- 
tumanze di quella citta, e quanto mutamento di cose venga 
minacciato dalla morte di un sol uorao (quantunque molti 
altri, come narrano, essendo complici, o subirono 1' istesso 
supplicio, lo aspettano) si accorgerjt, che nulla di pia grande 
avvenne ai nostri tempi nella Italia. Tu forse qui attend il 
mio giudizio : assolvo il popolo, se credere alia fama, benchg 
abbia potuto e castigare pia mitemente, e con maggior dol- 
cezza vendicare il suo dolore : ma non cosi facilmente, si 
modera un' ira giusta insieme, e grande in un numeroso 
popolo principalmente, nel quale il precipitoso, ed instabile 
volgo aguzza gli stimoli dell' irracondia con rapidi, e scon- 
sigliati clamori. Compatisco, e nell' istesso tempo mi adiro 
con queir infelice uomo, il quale adomo di un' insolito onore, 
non so. che cosa ai volease negli estrerai anni della sua vita : 
la calamitd di lui diviene sempre pia grave, perchS dalla sen- 
tenza contra di esso promulgata aperira, che egli fa non solo 
misero, ma insano, e demcnte, e che con vane arti si usurpo 
per tanti anni una falsa fama di sapienza. Ammonisco i 
Dogi. i quali gli succederano, che questo e un' esempio posto 
inanzi ai loro occhj, quale specchio, nel quale veggano d' essere 
non Signori, ma Duci, anzi nemmeno Duci, ma onorati servi 
della Repubblica. Tu sta sano ; e giacchg fluttuano le pub- 
bliche case, sforsiamosi di governar modcstissimamente i 
privati nostri affari."— Levati : Viaggi di Petrarca, vol. iv. p. 
32.3. 

The above Italian translation from the Latin epistles of 
Petrarch proves— iHtly, That Marino Faliero was a personal 
friend of Petrarch's; "antica dimestichezza," old intimacy, 
Ls the phrase of the poet. 2dly, That Petrarch thought that 
he had more courage than conduct, "pia di corraggio che di 
senno." 3dly, That there was .some jealousy on the part of 
Petrarch ; for he says that Marino Faliero was treating of 
the peace which he himself had " vainly attempted to con- 
clude." 4thly, That the honor of the dukedom was conferred 
upon him, which he neither soiitrht nor expected, "che n6 
chiedeva n6 awp'^ttava," and which had never been granted 
to any other in like circumstances, " cifi che non si concedette j 
a nessun altro," a prw)f of the high esteem In which he must ! 
have been held. 5thly, That he hafl a reputation for wisdom 



only forfeited by the last enterprise of his life, " si usurpC per 
tanti anni una falsa fama di sapienza" — " he had usurped for 
80 many years a false fame of wisdom," rather a difficult task, 
I should think. People are generally found out before eighty 
years of age, at least in a republic— From these, and tl.e 
other historical notes which I have collected, it may be in- 
ferred that Marino Faliero possessed many of the qualities, 
but not the success, of a hero ; and that his passions were too 
violent. The paltry and ignorant account of Dr. Moore falls 
to the ground. Petrarch says, "that there had been no 
greater event in his times" {our times literally), "nostri 
tempi," in Italy. He also differs from the historian in saying 
that Faliero was " on the banks of the Rhone" instead of at 
Rome, when elected ; the other accounts say that the deputa- 
tion of the Venetian senate met him at Ravenna. How this 
may have been, it is not for me to decide, and is of no great 
importance. Had the man succeeded, he would have changed 
the face of Venice, and perhaps of Italy. As it is, what are 
they both ? 



1 Correapondenoe of M. Bchllok, French oh«rg6 d'aflUrea ; 

24th Aagurt, 1763. 



despatch of 



Note C— Venetian Society and Manners. 
See p. 274. 



" Vice without splendor, sin wiihoui relief 
Even from the gloss of love to smooth it o'er, 
But in its stead, coarse lusts of habitude," &c. 

" To these attacks so frequently pointed by the government 
against the clergy, — to the continual struggles between the 
different constituted bodies,— to these enterprises carried on 
by the mass of the nobles against the depositaries of power, 
— to all those projects of innovation, which always ended by 
a stroke of state policy ; we must add a cause not less fitted 
to spread contempt for ancient doctrines ; this was the excess 
of corruption. 

" That freedom of manners, which had been long boasted of 
as the principal charm of Venetian society, had degenerated 
into scandalous licentiousness : the tie of marriage was loss 
sacred in that Catholic country than among those nations 
where the laws and religion admit of its being dissolved. 
Because they could not break the contract, they feigned th; t 
it had not existed; and the ground of nullity, immodestly 
alleged by the married pair, was admitted with equal facility 
by priests and magistrates, alike corrupt. These divorces, 
veiled under another name, became so frequent, that the 
most important act of civil society was discovered to be 
amenable to a tribunal of exceptions ; and to restrain the 
open scandal of such proceedings became the office of th", 
police. In 1782, the Council of Ten decreed that every wo- 
man who should sue for a dissolution of her marriage should 
be compelled to await the decision of the judges in some con- 
vent, to be named by the court.i Soon afterwards the same 
Council summoned all causes of that nature before itself.2 
This infringement on ecclesiastical jurisdiction having occa- 
sioned some remonstrance from Rome, the Council retained 
only the right of rejecting the petition of the married per- 
sons, and consented to refer such causes to the holy office as 
it should not previously have rejected.^ 

" There was a moment in which, doubtless, the destruction 
of private fortunes, the ruin of youth, the domestic discoi-1 
occa.sioned by these abuses, determined the government to 
depart from its established maxims concerning the freedom 
of manners allowed the subject. All the courtesans were 
banished from Venice ; but their absence was not enough to 
reclaim and bring back good morals to a whole people brought 
up in the most scandalous licentiousness. Depravity reached 
the very bosoms of private families, and even into the cloister ; 



3 Correspondence of M. Schlick ; deHpatch of Slst August. 
3 Ibid. ; despatch of 8d September, 1785. 



948 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



and they found themselves obliged to recall, and even to in- 
demnify,! women who sometimes gained possession of import- 
ant secrets, and who might be usefully employed in the ruin 
of men whose fortunes might have rendered them dangerous. 
Since that time licentiousness has gone on increasing ; and 
we have seen mothers not only selling the innocence of their 
daughters, but selling it by a contract, authenticated by the 
signature of a public officer, and the performance of which 
was secured by the protection of the laws.2 

" The parlors of the convents of noble ladies, and the houses 
of the courtesans, though the police carefully kept up a num- 
ber of spies about them, were the only assemblies for society 
in Venice ; and in these two places, so different from each 
other, there was equal freedom. Music, collations, gallantry, 
were not more forbidden in the parlors than at the casinos. 
There were a number of casinos for the purpose of public 
assemblies, where gaming was the principal pursuit of the 
company. It was a strange sight to see persons of either sex 
masked, or grave in their magisterial robes, round a table, 
invoking chance, and giving way at one instant to the agonies 
of despair, at the next to the illusions of hope, and that 
without uttering a single word. 

" The rich had private casinos, but they lived incognito in 
them ; and the wives whom they abandoned found compensa- 
tion in the liberty they enjoyed. The corruption of morals 
had deprived them of their empire. We have just reviewed 
the whole history of Venice, and we have not once seen them 
exercise the slightest influence." — Daru: Hist, de la H&ptib. 
de Venise, vol. v. p. 95. 



Cf)e CtDO dToscarf^ 



Note A. See p. 329. 

ITie best English account of the incidents on which this play it 
founded is given in the second volume of the Reverend Mr. 
Smedley's "Sketches of Venetian History," and is as follows: 

"The reign of Francesco Foscari had now been prolonged 
to the unusual period of thirty-four years, and these years 
were marked by almost continual warfare; during which, 
however, the courage, the firmness, and the sagacity of the 
illustrious doge had won four rich provinces for his country, 
and increased her glory not less than her dominion. Ardent, 
enterprising, and ambitious of the glory of conquest, it was 
not without much opposition that Foscari had obtained the 
dogeship ; and he soon discovered that the throne which he 
had coveted with so great earnestness was far from being a 
seat of repose. Accordingly, at the peace of Ferrara, which 
in 1433 succeeded a calamitous war, foreseeing the approach 
of fresh and still greater troubles, and wearied by the factions 
which ascribed all disasters to the prince, he tendered his 
abdication to the senate, and was refused. A like offer was 
renewed by him when nine years' further experience of 
sovereignty had confirmed his former estimate of its cares; 
and the Council, on this second occasion, much more from 
adherence to existing institutions than from any attachment 
to the person of the doge, accompanied their negative with 
the exaction of an oath that he would retain his burdensome 
dignity for life. Too early, alas! was he to be taught that 
life, on such conditions, was the heaviest of curses. Three 
out of his four sons were already dead : to Giacopo, the sur- 
vivor, he looked for the continuation of his name and the 
support of his declining age ; and, from that youth's inter- 



1 The decree for their recall designates them as noatre henemerite mere- 
trici; a fund and some houses, called Case rampane, were assigned to 
them : hence the opprobrious appellation of Carampan*. 



marriage with the illustrious house of Contarini, and the 
popular joy with which his nuptials were celebrated, the 
doge drew favorable auspices for future happiness. Four 
years, however, had scarcely elapsed from the conclusion of 
that well-omened marriage, when a series of calamities be- 
gan, from which death alone was to relieve either the son or 
his yet more wretched father. In 1445, Giacopo Foscari was 
denounced to the Ten as having received presents from for- 
eign potentates, and especially from Filippo-Maria Visconti. 
The offence, according to the law, was one of the most heinous 
which a noble could commit. Even if Giacopo were guiltless 
of infringing that law, it was not easy to establish innocence 
before a Venetian tribunal. Under the eyes of his own 
father, compelled to preside at the unnatural examination, a 
confession was extorted from the prisoner, on the rack ; and, 
from the lips of that father, he received the sentence which 
banished him for life to Napoli di Romania. On his passage, 
severe illness delayed him at Trieste; and, at the especial 
prayer of the doge, a less remote district was assigned for his 
punishment: he was permitted to reside at Treviso, and his 
wife was allowed to participate his exile. 

" It was in the commencement of the winter of 1450, while 
Giacopo Foscari rested, in comparative tranquillity, within 
the bounds to which he was restricted, that an assassination 
occurred in the streets of Venice. Hermolao Donato, a chief 
of the Ten, was murdered on his return from a sitting of 
that Council, at his own door, by unknown hands. The mag- 
nitude of the offence and the violation of the high dignity of 
the Ten demanded a victim ; and the coadjutors of the slain 
magistrate caught with eager grasp at the Slightest clue 
which suspicion could afford. A domestic in the service of 
Giacopo Foscari had been seen in Venice on the evening of 
the murder ; and on the following morning, when met in a 
boat off" Mestre by a chief of the Ten, and asked, ' What 
news?' he had answered by reporting the assassination, 
several hours before it was generally known. It might seem 
that such frankness of itself disproved all participation in 
the crime ; for the author of it was not likely thus unseason- 
ably and prematurely to disclose its committal. But the Ten 
thought differently, and matters which to others bore convic- 
tion of innocence, to them savored strongly of guilt. The 
servant was arrested, examined, and barbarously tortured; 
but even the eightieth application of the strapado failed to 
elicit one syllable which might justify condemnation. That 
Giacopo Foscari had experienced the severity of the Council's 
judgment, and that its jealous watchfulness was daily impos- 
ing some new restraint upon his father's authority, power- 
fully operated to convince the Ten that they must themselves 
in return be objects of his deadly enmity. Who else, they 
said, could be more likely to arm the hand of an assassin 
against a chief of the Ten, than one whom the Ten have 
visited with punishment? On this unjust and unsupported 
surmise, the young Foscari was recalled from Treviso, placed 
on the rack which his servant had just vacated, tortured again 
in his father's presence, and not absolved even after he reso- 
lutely persisted in denial unto the end. 

"The wrongs, however, which Giacopo Foscari endured 
had by no means chilled the passionate love with which he 
continued to regard his ungrateful country. He was now 
excluded from all communication with his family, torn from 
the wife of his affections, debarred from the society of his 
children, hopeless of again embracing those parents who had 
already far outstripped the natural term of human existence; 
and to his imagination, for ever centering itself upon the 
single desire of return, life presented no other object deserv- 
ing pursuit; till, for the attainment of this wish, life itself at 
length appeared to be scarcely more than an adequate sacri- 
fice. Preyed upon by this fever of the heart, after six years' 



2 Mayer, Description of Venice, vol. 11. ; and M. ArchenhoU, Picture of 
Italy, vol. i. oh. 2. 



APPENDIX. 



949 



tmavailing suit for a remission of punishment, in the summer 
of 1456 he addressed a letter to the Duke of Milan, imploring 
his good offices witli the senate. That letter, purposely left 
open in a place obvious to the spies by whom, even in his 
exile, he was surrouudod, and afterwards intrusted to an 
equally treacherous hand for delivery to Sforza, was con- 
▼eyed, as the writer intended, to the Council of Ten ; and 
the result, which equally fulfilled his expectation, was a 
hasty summons to Venice to answer for the heavy crime of 
soliciting foreign intercession with his native government. 

" For a third time Francesco Foscari listened to the accusa- 
tion of his son ; for the first time he heard him openly avow 
the charge of his accusers, and calmly state that his olFcnce, 
such as it was, had been committed designedly and afore- 
thought, with the sole object of detection, in order that he 
might be brought back, even as a malefactor, to Venice. This 
prompt and voluntary declaration, however, was not sufficient 
to decide the nice hesitation of his judges. Guilt, they said, 
might be too easily admitted as well as too pertinaciously 
denied ; and the same process therefore by which, at other 
times, confession was wrested from the hardened criminal 
might now compel a too facile self-accuser to retract his ac- 
knowledgment. The father again looked on while his sou 
was raised on the accursed cord no less than thirty times, in 
order that, under his agony, he might be induced to utter a 
lying declaration of innocence. But this cruelty was ex- 
ercised in vain ; and, when nature gave way, the sufferer was 
carried to the apartments of the doge, torn, bleeding, sense- 
less, and dislocated, but firm in his original purpose. Nor 
bad his persecutors relaxed in theirs; they renewed his 
sentence of exile, and added that its first year should be 
passed in prison. Before he embarked, one interview was 
permitted with his family. The doge, as Sanuto, perhaps 
unconscious of the pathos of his simplicity, has narrated, 
was an aged and decrepit man, who walked with the support 
of a crutch ; and when he came into the chamber, he spake 
with great firmness, so that it might seem it was not his son 
whom he was addressing, but it was his son — his only son. 
' Go, Giacopo,' was his reply, when prayed for the last time 
to solicit mercy; 'Go, Giacopo, submit to the will of your 
country, and seek nothing further.' This effort of self-re- 
straint was beyond the powers, not of the old man's enduring 
spirit, but of his exhausted frame ; and when he retired, he 
swooned in the arms of his attendants. Giacopo reached his 
Candian prison, and was shortly afterwards released by death. 

"Francesco Foscari, far less happy in his survival, con- 
tinued to live on, but it was in .sorrow and feebleness, which 
prevented attention to the duties of liis high office: he re- 
mained secluded in his chamber, never went abroad, and 
absented himself even from the sittings of the Council. No 
practical inconvenience could result from this want of ac- 
tivity in the chief magistrate ; for the constitution sufficiently 
provided against any accidental suspension of his personal 
functions, and his place in Council, and on state occasions, 
was supplied by an authorized deputy. Some indulgence, 
moreover, might be thought due to the extreme age and 
domestic griefs of Foscari; since they appeared to promise 
that any favor which might be granted would be claimed 
but for a short period. But yet further trials were in store. 
Giacopo Loredano. who in 1467 was appointed one of the 
chiefs of the Ten, belonged to a family between which and 
that of Foscari an hereditary feud had long existed. Ills 
uncle Fietro, after gaining high distinction in active service, 
as a^lmirai of Venice, on hi.s return to the capital headed the 
political faction which opposed the warlike projects of the 
doge; divided applause with him by his eloquence in the 
councils; and so far extended his influence as frequently to 
obtain majorities in their divi.sions. In an evil moment of 
impatience, Foscari pnce publicly avowed in the senate, that 
so long as Pietro Loredano lived he should never feel him- 
self really to be doge. Not long afterward."?, the admiral, 
a« provveditore with one of the armies opposed to 



Filippo-Maria, died suddenly at a military banquet given 
during a short suspension of arms; and the evil-omened 
words of Foscari were connected with his decease. It was 
reuuirked, also, that his brother Marco Loredano, one of the 
Avvogadori, died, in a somewhat similar manner, while 
engaged in instituting a legal process against a son-in-law of 
the do.e, for peculation upon the state. The foul rumors 
partially excited by these untoward coincidences, for they 
appear in truth to have been no more, met with little ac- 
ceptation, and were rejected or forgotten except by a single 
bosom. Giacopo, the son of one, the nephew of the other, 
deceased Loredano, gave full credit to the accusation, inscribed 
on his father's tomb at Santa Elena that he died by poison, 
bound himself by a solemn vow to the most deadly and un- 
relenting pursuit of revenge, and fulfilled that vow to the 
uttermost. 

" During the lifetime of Pietro Loredano, Foscari, willing 
to terminate the feud by a domestic alliance, had tendered 
the hand of his daughter to one of his rival's sons. The 
youth saw his proffered bride, openly expressed dislike of her 
person, and rejected her with marked discourtesy ; so that, 
in the quarrel thus heightened, Foscari might now conceive 
himself to be the most injured party. Not such was the 
impression of Giacopo Loredano : year after year he grimly 
awaited the season most fitted for his unbending purpose; 
and it arrived at length when he found himself in authority 
among the Ten. Belying upon the ascendency belonging to 
that high station, he hazarded a proposal for the deposition 
of the aged doge, which was at first, however, received with 
coldness ; for those who had twice before refused a voluntary 
abdication shrank from the strange contradiction of now 
demanding one on compulsion. A. junta was required to 
assist in their deliberations, and among the assessors elected 
by the Great Council, in complete ignorance of the purpose 
for which they were needed, was INIarco Foscari, a procuratore 
of Saint Mark, and brother of the doge himself. The Ten 
perceived that to reject his assistance might excite suspicion, 
while to procure his apparent approbation would give a show 
of impartiality to their process: his nomination, therefore, 
was accepted ; but he was removed to a separate apartment, 
excluded from the debate, sworn to keep that exclusion 
secret, and yet compelled to assent to the final decree in the 
discussion of which he had not been allowed to participate. 
The Council sat during eight days, and nearly as many 
nights; and, at the close of their protracted meetings, a 
committee was deputed to request the abdication of the doge. 
The old man received them with surprise, but with compo- 
sure, and replied that he had sworn not to abdicate, and 
therefore must maintain his faith. It was not possible that 
he could resign; but if it appeared fit to their wisdom that 
he should cease to be doge, they had it in their power lo 
make a proposal to that effect to the Great Council. It was 
far, however, from the intention of the Ten to subject them- 
selves to the chances of debate in that larger body; and, 
assuming to their own magistracy a prerogative not attrib- 
uted to it by the constitution, they discharged Foscari from 
his oath, declared his office vacant, assigned to him a pension 
of two thousand ducats, and enjoined him to quit the palace 
within three days, on pain of confiscation of all his property. 
Loredano, to whom the right belonged, according to the 
weekly routine of office, enjoyed the barbarous satisfaction 
of presenting this decree with his own hand. ' Who are you, 
signer?' inquired the doge of another chief of the Ten who 
accompanied him, and whose person ho did not immediately 
recognize. ' I am a son of Marco Memmo.' ' Ah, your father,' 
replied Foscari, ' is my friend.' Then declaring that he yielded 
willing obedience to the most excellent Council of Ten, and 
laying aside the ducal bonnet and robes, he surrendered his 
ring of office, which was broken in his presence. On the 
morrow, when he prepared to leave the palace, it was sug- 
gested to him that he should retire by a private staircase, 
and thus avoid the concourse assembled in the court-yard 



950 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



below. "With calm dignity he refused the proposition; he 
would descend, he said, by no other than the self-same 
steps by which he had mounted thirty years before. Accord- 
ingly, supported by his brother, he slowly traversed the 
Giants' Stairs, and, at their foot, leaning on his staff and 
turning round to the palace, he accompanied his last look to 
it with these parting words: 'My services established me 
within your walls: it is the malice of my enemies which 
tears me from them !' 

" It was to the oligarchy alone that Foscari was obnoxious ; 
by the populace he had always been beloved, and strange 
indeed would it have been had he now failed to excite their 
sympathy. But even the regrets of the people of Venice 
were fettered by their tyrants ; and whatever pity they might 
secretly continue to cherish for their wronged and humiliated 
prince, all expression of it was silenced by a peremptory 
decree of the Council, forbidding any mention of his name, 
and annexing death as a penalty to disobedience. On the 
fifth day after Foscari's deposition, Pascale Malipieri was 
elected doge. The dethroned prince heard the announce- 
ment of his successor by the bell of the campanile, suppressed 
his agitation, but ruptured a blood-vessel in the exertion, and 
died in a few hours." . 



ON THE ROMAIC OB MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE, WITH 
SPECIMENS AND TRANSLATIONS. 

These " Hemarks" were written in the spring of 1811, while Lord 
Byron was residing in the Capuchin Convent at Athens. See 
p. 654. 

Amongst an enslaved people, obliged to have recourse to 
foreign presses even for their books of religion, it is less to 
be wondered at that we find so few publications on general 
subjects, than that we find any at all. The whole number of 
the Greeks, scattered up and down the Turkish empire and 
elsewhere, may amount, at most, to three millions ; and yet, 
for so scanty a number, it is impossible to discover any nation 
with so great a proportion of books and their authors, as the 
Greeks of the present century. " Ay, but," say the generous 
advocates of oppression, who, while they assert the ignorance 
of the Greeks, wish to prevent them from dispelling it, " ay, 
but these are mostly, if not all, ecclesiastical tracts, and con- 
sequently good for nothing." Well, and pray what else can 
they write about ? It is pleasant enough to hear a Frank, 
particularly an Englishman, who may abuse the government 
of his own country, or a Frenchman, who may abuse every 
government except his own, and who may range at will over 
every philosophical, religious, scientific, skeptical, or moral 
subject, sneering at the Greek legends. A Greek must not 
write on politics, and cannot touch on science for want of in- 
struction ; if he doubts, he is excommunicated and damned ; 
therefore his countrymen are not poisoned with modern phi- 
losophy ; and as to morals, thanks to the Turks ! there are 
no such things. What then is left him, if he has a turn for 
scribbling? Eeligion, and holy biography: and it is natural 
enough that those who have so little in this life should look 
to the next. It is no great wonder, then, that in a catalogue 
now before me of fifty-five Greek writers, many of whom 
were lately living, not above fifteen should have touched on 
anything but religion. The catalogue alluded to is contained 
in the twenty-sixth chapter of the fourth volume of Meletius's 
Ecclesiastical History. From this I subjoin an extract of 
those who have written on general subjects ; which will be 
followed by some sppcimens of the Bomaic. 



LIST OF ROMAIC AUTHORS.! 

Neophitus, diakonos (the deacon) of the Morea, has pub- 
lished an extensive grammar, and also some political regu- 
lations, which last were left unfinished at his death. 

Prokopius, of Moscopolis (a town in Epirus), has written 
and published a catalogue of the learned Greeks. 

Seraphin, of Periclea, is the author of many works in the 
Turkish language, but Greek character ; for the Christians of 
Caramania, who do not speak Romaic, but read the character. 

Eustathius Psalida, of Bucharest, a physician, made the 
tour of England for the purpose of study (xap"' it-aerttrem) ; 
but though his name is enumerated, it is not stated that he 
has written any thing. 

Kallinikus Torgeraus, patriarch of Constantinople : many 
poems of his are extant, and also prose tracts, and a catalogue 
of patriarchs since the last taking of Constantinople. 

Anastasius Macedon, of Naxos, member of the royal acad- 
emy of Warsaw. A church biographer. 

Demetrius Pamperes, a Moscopolite, has written many 
works, particularly "A Commentary on Hesiod's Shield of 
Hercules," and two hundred tales (of what is not specified), 
and has published his correspondence with the celebrated 
George of Trebizond, his contemporary. 

Meletius, a celebrated geographer ; and author of the book 
from whence these notices are taken. 

Dorotheus, of Mitylene, an Aristotelian philosopher: his 
Hellenic works are in great repute, and he is esteemed by 
the moderns (I quote the words of Meletius) tt-eTo. rhv ©ov- 
KvBiSrjv Koi Uevo<l)utvTa apiarro^ "Ekkriviav. I add further, on the 
authority of a well-informed Greek, that he was so famous 
amongst his countrymen that they were accustomed to say, 
if Thucydides and Xenophon were wanting, he was capable 
of repairing the loss. 

Marinus Count Tharboures, of Cephalonia, professor of 
chemistry in the academy of Padua, and member of that 
academy, and those of Stockholm and Upsal. He has pub- 
lished, at Venice, an account of some marine animal, and a 
treatise on the properties of iron. 

Marcus, brother to the former, famous in mechanics. He 
removed to St. Petersburg the immense rock on which the 
statue of Peter the Great was fixed in 1769. See the disser- 
tation which he published in Paris, 1777. 

George Constantino has published a four-tongued lexicon. 

George Ventote, a lexicon in French, Italian, and Romaic. 

There exist several other dictionaries in Latin and Romaic, 
French, &c. ; besides grammars, in every modern language 
except English. 

Amongst the living authors the following are most cele- 
brated: 2— 

Athanasius Parios has written a treatise on rhetoric in 
Hellenic. 

Christodoulos, an Arcarnanian, has published, in Vienna, 
some physical treatises in Hellenic. 

Panagiotes Kodrikas, an Athenian, the Romaic translator of 
Fontenelle's "Plurality of Worlds" (a favorite work amongst 
the Greeks), is stated to be a teacher of the Hellenic and 
Arabic languages in Paris ; in both of which he is an adept. 

Athanasius, the Parian, author of a treatise on rhetoric. 

Vicenzo Damodos, of Cephalonia, has written " ets to /u,€- 
o-o/3apj3apov," on logic and physics, 

John Kamarases, a Byzantine, has translated into French 
Ocellus on the Universe. He is said to be an excellent 
Hellenist and Latin scholar. 

Gregorio Demetrius published, in Vienna, a geographical 
work; he has also translated several Italian authors, and 
printed his versions at Venice. 

Of Coray and Psalida some account has been already given. 

1 It is to be observed that the names given are not in chronological order, 
but consist of some selected at a venture from amongst those who flourished 
from the taking of Constantinople to the time of Meletius. 

2 These names are not taken from any publication. 



APPENDIX. 



951 



GREEK WAR SONG.^ 

AEVTE, iraiSes rdv "E.Kkr\vttv 
6 Kaipo; T^s 66^179 fi\6ey, 

iroO /Lias Suxrav rr)v apx-qv 
As TraT^ao/Lier df^peiws 

Toc ^vybi/ TTJs Tvpavi/ifios. 
'ExSiK^o-u/xef jrarpiSos 

«ad' ofcifios alaxpov. 
Ta owAa as Aa)3u>/i6»' 

iraiSes 'EAATjcwf ayiafttv 
woTa.fi.Lhiiv exOpdv to al/xa 

as Tpe'^TJ UTTO TTofiwi/. 

*(W«y el<rde twi/ 'EAA7jv««»»' 

KOKKoAa acSpeio/xei/a, 
irvev/yiaTa i(rKopni<Tfj.eva, 

Tupa AajSere ttj'O^J'. 
'<rr' Tji' <^u»i/T);' TTJS (ToAirtyyos M-Ov; 

frvFaxfljjTC oAa d/aov. 
TTjc eTTTciAoc^oi' ^rjTeiTe, 

<cat dxare npb iravrov. 

Td OTrAa ds ka^otnev, &C. 

Sirdpra, SjrdpTa, ti KOLfi-atrBe 

virvov \ri9apyov ^aOvv ; 
^■unvr\(TOv KpoL^e 'AOrjvai, 

(rjp.p.axov travroTei.vriv. 
'Ev6vfjiei.07}Te XeovviSov 

j}p<i>os rov foxovcTTOU, 
Tou di'Spbs enaivefjievov 

^ofiepov KoX rpofjiepov. 

Td OTrAa ds AdjSw/iec, Ac. 

"Oirov €is rds ©ep/itOTrvAos 

voXepLoy avrbs Kporet. 
xai Tovs Ilfpo-as aOavi^et 

Kol avrCiv Kara Kparel- 
Me Tpiaxo<riovs avSpa^ 

eis TO tcivrpov npoxiapei, 
KOX b>S Ae'uii/ t^/xoi>/a6vos, 

ett TO al/xa rStv Povrel. 

Td oirAa ds Ad/3<>>/<,ev, ^. 



ROMAIC EXTRACTS. 

*P*Hrwos, *A7«tAos, teal FdAAos KafjivovTe<; ttji/ Trepujyrjo-ii/ tijs 
EAAdios, «at ^AeTroi^es ttji/ dSAtac ttji/ KaroLiTTaaiv, eipuTriaay 
KaTopxds eVa rpai(c6i/ (f>i.KeWr)i>a Sia vd /ndflovi' ttji/ omai/, ^ct' 
aOroc €va ^TjTpoTroAiTTjf, elra eVa fikaxpirreLv, eneira eva irpay- 
ji.arcvTTji', (Cat ei/a Trpoeo-riTa. 

Eiir«' fias, i (^nAeAArji/a, ttus (f)e'peis ttji/ cTKAa/Siai/ 
KOt TTJI' anapiyoprfTov rixiv TovpKutv rvpavviav ; 
irws Tois foAals »cal u^pi(7/xous koi o-i5ijpo5e<r/iiai/ 
waiiuiv, irapOifiov, yvvaiKutv av-qKOvcTTOv 4)0opelav. 
A«v tla9aL eVeis ajroyoi/oi eKecVajv rdu 'EAA^i/uji/ 
Tiav t\tv9tpu}v Ka't (TO^ijiv koX rdv (fyiXonarpCBiov 
<cai iris ettivoi aTT(9irr]<TK0v 6id ttjv eAevOepi'af , 
Koi riapa fVeis VTrouKeitrdai tis Te'rotac rvpavviav, 
Kai TToiov 7«Vos <«>s eaeis icrTa9r\ <f>uiTi(Tp.€vov 
eis TTjK <ro<^iaf, fiuva^Tji', «is «' oAa ^oxovo'/xeVoi'. 



1 A traiuUtloa from this long will be found unong the Oooaaioiul Piecea, 
Atp.aM. 



irws vvv «oTa<rT^(raT« ttjv <^wrivi)i/ EAAdSa 
/3a/3a ! <t>s ci'a <TKe\e9pov, (i>s o'KOTeivTji' Aa/uiird6ar. 
'0^tA«t, <f)ikTare TpaiKe, eiire /xas ttj** amaf : 
fii} Kfiv/ATits TiiTOTrji rjfjMiv, Ave ttji/ awopCav. 



'O *IAE' AAHN02. 

*Pa>«r«r-a7KAo-^dAAot, 'EAAds, koX ox* oAAo*, • 

flTov, <i»s AeVe, Toaoi/ ^le-ydAi), 

vvv Se aOXia, Koi. ava^ia 

a<j>' ^i) ap\i<Tiv ij a.p.a9ia. 

oaT* r)piwopov<rav va ttjj/ ^vnvTivJf 

tout' eis TO \elpov ttjc oSrjyovat, 

avTJj aTe»/d^et Ta rinva Kpd^et, 

o-TO I'd irpo/coiTTOui' oAa irpoo-Ta^et 

KoX TOTE eATTt^et oTt /cepfii^et. 

cupeii/, oiroi?' \€t »/vi/ ttjv (jikoyi^ei. 

Ma* o<rTis ToA/xjjoTjt vd ttji' fu7n/Tj<n> 

waYei o-TOi/ aSrjv X<«)pts Ttva Kpiaiv. 

The above is the commencement of a long dramatic satire 
on the Greek priesthood, princes, and gentry ; it is contempt- 
ible as a composition, but perhaps curious as a specimen of 
their rhyme. I have the whole in MS., but this extract will 
be found sufScient. The Romaic in this composition is so 
easy as to render a version an insult to a scholar ; but those 
who do not understand the original will excuse the following 
bad translation of what is in itself indifferent. 



TRANSLATION. 

A Russian, Englishman, and Frenchman, making the tour of 
Greece, and observing the miserable state of the country, 
interrogate, in turn, a Greek patriot, to learn the cause ; 
afterwards an archbishop, then a vlackbey,^ a merchant, 
and cogia bachi or primate. 

Thou friend of thy country ! to strangers record. 

Why bear ye the yoke of the Ottoman lord ? 

Why bear ye these fetters thus tamely display 'd, 

The wrongs of the matron, the stripling, and maid ? 

The descendants of Hellas's race are not ye ! 

The patriot sons of the sage and the free. 

Thus sprung from the blood of the noble and brave. 

To vilely exist as the Mussulman slave ! 

Not such were the fathers your annals can boast, 

Who conquer'd and died for the freedom you lost ! 

Not such was your land in her earlier hour. 

The daystar of nations in wisdom and power ! 

And still will you thus unresisting increase. 

Oh shameful dishonor ! the darkness of Greece ? 

Then tell us, beloved Achaean ! reveal 

The cause of the woes which you cannot conceal. 

The reply of the Philellenist I have not translated, as it is 
no better than the question of the travelling triumvirate; 
and the above will suflBciently show with what kind of com- 
position the Greeks are now satisfied. I trust I have not 
much injured the original in the few lines given as faithfully, 
and as near the " Oh, Miss Bailey ! unfortunate Miss Bailey !" 
measure of the Romaic, as I could make them. Almost all 
their pieces, above a song, which aspire to the name of poetry, 
contain exactly the quantity of feet of 

"A captain bold of Halifax, who lived in country quarters," 

which is In fact the present heroic couplet of the Romaic. 



3 Vlmokbey, prlnoe of WaUmIiU. 



952 



BYKON'S W0EK8. 



SCENE FROM 'O KA$ENE2. 

TRANSLATED FBOM THE ITALIAN OF GOLDONI, BY SPIRIDION 
VLANTI. 

2KHNH KV. 
IIAATZIAA eis ttjv iroprav tov x«""'Ow> tai oi avuiOev. 

nAA. 12 ©ee ! anb to irapa0vpL jU.ov e<fydvy] va amovaut Tr\v ^(avy\v 
TOW dvfipd? jtiov av avrbs elvai eSio, e<^0acra ae Katpov va tov ^ev- 
TpoTTidaoi. [Evyaivet eVas SovAos airb to ep-yacmjpi.] HaAt/capt, 
ire's fjiov ae Trapa/caAoi ttoios elvai e/cei ets e/ceiVous tous o^/TaSe? ; 

AOYA. Tpeis XPW'J"-"' avSpes. "Ei/as 6 Ki)p EiiyeVios, 6 aAAos 
6 /cvp Maprios Nea77oAiTai/o?, /cai o Tpiros 6 Kup Koj'Te Aeavfipos 
'ApfieVr/js. 

nAA. ('AvajLtetra ets avTOus Se;/ etj/at 6 $Aaju,ti/tos, ai' o/xtos Sev 
aWa^ev ovoixa.) 

AEA. No. ^77 17 /caArj tu^tj tov Kvp 'Evyeviov. [HiVtovTas.] 

OAOI. Na ^77, va ifj. 

nAA. (AvTos elvaL 6 avSpas ju.oi) x^pis aAAo.) KaAe dvOputire, 
Kaixe p-ov TTJV X'^P'^'' *'* M^ cuvTpoc^eucrrjs airavia ets aiiTOus Toiis 
a4>evTaSes, ottou i9^e'Aa) va Toiis ttclL^o p-iav. [Hpbs tov SouAov.] 

AOY. 'Opicrpos O'as' (o-tiVT)6to-;aevov o(f><j)LKt.ov twv fiouAeuTwv.) 
[Ttjv epird^ei dno to ep-yacTTijpt Toi) TraiyviSioi).] 

PIA. KapSid, KapSid, Ka/aeTe KaAijv KapSidv, Sh elvat tittotcs. 
[npbs TT)v BiTToptav.] 

BIT. 'Eyo) atffSdvo/iat ttws dneQaivdi. [Swep^eTat eis tov 
eavTOV Tijs.] 

['Atto to. napd6vpa Tuiv bvTaSiov (jyaivovTaL oAoi, ottou 
fffjKovoJVTaL dnb to Tpane^L crvyxi<Tp.evOL, Slol tov ^a<^- 
VLo-pov TOV AedvSpov jSAeVtovTas ttjv HAaT^tfia, /cal 
SiaTi avTOS Seixvei, irois i^e'Aet va ttjv <f>Ovev(TTg.] 

EYr. Oxi, o-Ta^TjTe. 

MAP. Mrjv Ka;aveT6. . . 

AEA. StKo), (f)vye an' eSu>. 

nAA. Boij^eia, ^OTj^eia. [^evyet ctTrb ttjv o-KaAav, b Ae'avSpos 
iJe'Aei vd ttjv aKo\ov6ri<Tr] pe to o-iraBl, Kal b Eu-y. Tbv jSaaTa.] 

TPA. [Me eVa tdro pe <^ayl eis p.iav ireT^eTa irrjSa anb to wap- 
aOvai, Kal (jyevyeL ets tov Kac^eve'.] 

nAA. [EuYtttvet aTrb to epyao-T^pt tow TratyvtStou rpextovTas, 
Kal (jievyei ets Tb X''^*''-] 

EYP. [Me app-ara ets to xe'pt irpbs Sta0e'vTeuo-iv T^s nAaT^i- 
ias, evavTtov toC AedvSpov, bnu) ttjv KaTaTpe'xet.] 

MAP. [Evyat'vet Kat auTOS o-tyct o-tyd avrb Tb epyacTTTjpt, (cat 
<|)euyet Ae'yojVTas.] Eumores fuge. ['Povjotbpes <j)evye.'^] 

Ot AouAot. ['Atto Tb epyao'T'^pt aTrepvoCv ets Tb x*^''') "''■^ ""Ae- 

tOUV TTJV TTOpTTXV.] 

BIT. [Me'vet ets Tbv Ka^eve /3oTj0Tj|U.evTj aTrb Tbv 'Pt66A(^ov.] 

AEA. A6o"eTe tottov ■&eX.u> vd ep-^ca vd ep.pui ets e/cetvo Tb x**''- 
[Me Tb <Tna6l ets Tb x^pi evavTtov tov Evyevtov.] 

EYP. "Oxt, |u,Tj yevotTO Trore- elaat eVas crkrjpoKapSog evavTiov 
T^S yvvat/cds o-ov, /cat eyw i^eAet ttjv 6ta(/)6vTeva-a) ws Tb ets vaTepov 
ai/u,a. 

AEA. Sou Kdp-Vbi op/cov ttws iS^e'Aet to /tAeTavotwarjs. [KivTjya 
Tbv Evye'vtov jote Tb crTradt.] 

EYP. Aev ae ^o^ovpai. [KaTaTpexet Tbv AeavSpov, /cat Tbv 
jStd^et vd (TupOrj onicroi Toaov, onov evptor/cwvTas dvot/CTbv Tb 
ffTTijTt Tijs xop^*''''Oi*S> eju.|3atVet ets avTO, /cat ativeTat.] 

TRANSLATION. 

Platzida, from i?ie Door of the Hotel, and the others. 

Pla. Oh, God ! from the window it seemed that I heard my 
husband's voice. If he is here, I have arrived in time to 

1 Adyos AaTivi/cbs, ottov i9^e'Aet vd et/CTj <j)evye Tats o"vyx«''es. 

2 StoveTttt, "finishes"— awkwardly enough, but it is the literal trans- 
lation of the Romaic. The original of this comedy of Goldoni's I never 
read, but it does not appear one of his best. " II Bugiardo " is one of the 
most lively ; but I do not think it has been translated into Romaic : it is 
much more amusing than our own "Liar," by Poote. The character of 
Lelio is better drawn than Young Wilding. Goldoni's comedies amount to 



make him ashamed. [A servant enters from the sh^.] Boy, 
tell me, pray, who are in those chambers. 

Serv. Three gentlemen: one, Signor Eugenio; the other, 
Signor Martio, the Neapolitan ; and the third, my lord, the 
count Leander Ardenti. 

Pla. Flaminio is not amongst these, unless he has changed 
his name. 

Leander [within drinking]. Long live the good fortune of 
Signor Eugenio ! 

[The whole company. Long live, &c.] (Literally, Nd ^y, vd ^jj, 
May he live.) 

Pla. Without doubt that is my husband. [To the serv.] My 
good man, do me the favor to accompany me above to those 
gentlemen : I have some business. 

Serv. At your commands. [Aside.] The old office of us wait- 
ers. [He goes out of the gaming-house.] 

Ridolpho [to Victoria on another part of the stage]. Courage, 
courage, be of good cheer, it is nothing. 

Victoria. I feel as if about to die. [Leaning on him as if 
fainting.] 

[F¥om the windows above all within are seen rising from table 
in confusion : Leander .starts at the sight of Platzida, and 
appears by his gestures to threaten her life.] 

Eugenio. No, stop 

Martio. Don't attempt 

Leander. Away, fly from hence ! 

Pla. Help ! help ! [Flies down the stairs, Leander attempting 
to follow with his sword; Eugenio hinders him.] 

[Trapolo, with a plate of meat, leaps over the balcony from the 
window, and runs into the coffee-house.] 

[Platzida runs out of the gaming-house, and takes shelter in 
the hotel.] 

[Martio steals softly out of ihe gaming-house, and goes off, exr- 
clai7ning "Rumores fuge." The servants from the gaming- 
house enter the hotel, and shut the door.] 

[Victoria remains in the coffee-house, assisted by Ridolpho.] 

[Leander, sword in hand, opposite Eugenio, exclaims, Give 
way— I will enter that hotel.] 

Eugenio. No, that shall never be. You are a scoundrel to 
your wife, and I will defend her to the last drop of my blood. 

Leander. I will give you cause to repent this. [Menacing 
with his sword.] 

Eugenio. I fear you not. [He attacks Leander, and makes 
him give back so much, that, finding the door of the dancing girl's 
house open, Leander escapes through, and so finishes,^] 



AIA'AOrOI OIKIAKOI. 

Aid vd ^TjTTj<r]7S eva npdypa. 
2ds Trapa/caAw, Sotrere p,e dv opi- 

^eT€. 
f^epeTe p,€. 
AavetVeTe juie. 
nrjyaiveTe vd ^rjTijaeTe. 
Twpa ev0vs. 
'O aKpL^e p.ov Kvpie, KapLere p.e 

aVTTJV TTJV X°^P'-^' 
'Eyoj o-ds napaKa\<o. 
'Eyoj ads e^opKt'^ti). 
'Eyw o'ds Tb ^TjTw Sid xdpiv. 
'Yn-oxpewo-eTe' pe ets Tocrov. 



FAMILIAR DIALOGUES. 

To ask for any thing. 
I pray you, give me if you 

please. 
Bring me. 
Lend me. 
Go to seek. 
Now directly. 
My dear sir, do me this 

favor. 
I entreat you. 
I conjure you. 
I ask it of you as a favor. 
Oblige me so much. 



fifty ; some perhaps the best in Europe, and others the worst. His life is 
also one of the best specimens of autobiography, and, as Gibbon has ob- 
served, "more dramatic than any of his plays." The above scene was 
selected as containing some of the most familiar Romaic idioms ; not for any 
wit which it displays, since there is more done than said, the greater part 
consisting of stage directions. The original is one of the few comedies by 
Goldoni which is without the buffoonery of the speaking harlequin. 



APPENDIX. 



953 



\6yia epwTixd, i} ayam)^. 
Zoiri ftov. 

'A»cpi|3^ fiov \l/v\r]. 
"AyaiTTjTe fiov, aAcpi/Se /uou. 
KapSiT^a /Liou. 
'Ayairij /nov. 

Aid va f\)\a.pt.<TTri<ni<;, va Kafirfs 
irepiTroi'ijcre;, Koi (^lAiKai; Se- 
ptal o-e;. 

'Eyci> o-a? evxapL<rro). 

2as yvwpi^u) xapii'. 

2as elMat v7rd;(peo? Kara iroAAd. 

'Ey<i> t>eAa> to >cdja€i /xerd x^pds^ 

Me oAjji' /uiov rljf KapSiav. 

Me KoA^i/ JU.OU (capSt'av. 

2as ei/aai WTTOxpeos. 

EZjuiai oAo? eSiJcos aas. 

Eifiai SovAo? era;. 

Tojreu'dTaTos SoOAo?. 

EloTC Acard TroAAd evyeviKos. 

noAAd Tretpd^eo-fle. 

To ex*^ ^'■* X^P**' MO'' •'* '''*5 
SoAevcrco. 

EloTe evyei/iKO? »cal evjrpoo-^yopos. 

AwTO elvat. rrpiirov. 

Ti jJeAere ; 

Tt opt'^CTe ,• 

2a( irapcucoAu) i/d /u.e /xeraxei- 
pi^eade e\ev9epa. 

XupU irepiJTOiiycres. 

Si? dyan-cii ef oAtjs MOv »capSias. 

Koi eyw 6/xoi'm?. 

Tifi^aere fte rats Trpoo-ayais cas. 

'ExfTe TiTroTCS vd /tie npotrra- 

f"e; 
npoardf ere tov fioCAoi' 0"a?. 
Ilpoo'/u.eVco rd? Trpoffayds cas. 
Me »cd/u,veTe /ix.eydAi7v Ti/a^v. 
^9dvovv i) irepiTTotTjaes (ras Trap- 

JlpoaKwrjO'eTe etc/oiepov? /aov toi' 

dpXOfTa, ri tov Kvpiov. 
Be^utxTfje Tbi/ ttoi? toj* ei/flv- 

fAoi)/i.ai. 
Be^aiaJaere rbv Tris toi' dyaTro). 
Aei/ t^e'Aw Aeti/zei vd toG to elnd. 
Tlpo<TKVir^ixaTa ei? TTjf dpxdvTto-- 

aoiv. 
TlriyauveTe e/jinpoaOa Koi eras 

dxoAov0a>. 
'H^evpcu KoAd TO XP*os /otov. 
'U^evpcd TO elrai fiov. 
Me xd/xi/CTe cd e;n'peira>/u.ai fxe 

Tat? TOirat? (^iAo4>pocrv't/ai? <ra?. 
Oc'Aere Kombv va Kafxta fniav ap- 

XetOTTjTtt ; 
'Ytrdyio iyLtrpoaBa 6id I'd <ra? 

VTTOXOVO'bl. 

Aid vd «(dp.ci> Tijv irpoarayiiv 

<rtt?. 
Aiv kyaitSi Tocrai? TrepiirfttTjtre?. 

Aev el^ai (rTeAeiio? TreptiroiiTTiKO?. 
Airrb e7i/ai to KaAiTepov. 
'T6<Tov TO KoXirtpov. 
Ex«Te Aoyoi', ex*'''* ^'taioi'. 

Aid va PtPaiJ)(Tri<;, va dpn^^?, 

vd (TvyKaravtvari^, Ka'i r(. 
Eivai dATjdivbv, elvat dArjdeaTa- 

TOV. 



Affectionate 
My life. 
My dear soul. 
My dear. 
My heart. 
My love. 

To thank, pay complimenis, 
and testify regards. 

I thank you. 

I return you thanks. 

I am much obliged to you. 

I will do it with pleasure. 

With all uy heart. 

Most cordially. 

I am obliged to you. 

I am wholly yours. 

I am your servant. 

Your most humble servant. 

You are too obliging. 

You take too much trouble. 

I have a pleasure in serving 
you. 

You are obliging and kind. 

That is right. 

What is your pleasure ? 

"W^hat are your commands? 

I beg you will treat me 
freely. 

Without ceremony. 

I love you with all my heart. 

And I the same. 

Honor me with your com- 
mands. 

Have you any commands 
for me ? 

Command your servant. 

I wait your commands. 

You do me great honor. 

Not so much ceremony, I 
beg. 

Present my respects to the 
gentleman, or his lordship. 

Assure him of my remem- 
brance. 

Assure him of my friendship. 

I will not fail to tell him of it. 

My compliments to her lady- 
ship. 

Go before, and I will follow 
you. 

I well know my duty. 

I know my situation. 

You confound me with so 
much civility. 

Would you have me then be 
guilty of an incivility? 

I go before to obey you. 

To comply with your com- 
mand. 

I do not like so much cer- 
emony. 

I am not at all ceremonious. 

This is better. 

So much the better. 

You are in the right. 

To affirm, deny, consent, dec. 
It is true, it is very true. 



Aid vd <rd? eijrw ttjv dA^deiav. 

'OvTws, «T^>} eZvai. 

IIqio? d/a</)i/3dAAei; 

Aev elvai ttoctw? d/L(,(/)i/3oAi'a. 

To jriCTTevu). 

Aev TO TTto-Teuoj. 

Ae'yu) TO vai. 

Acyo) TO oxi. 

BdAAw (ni)(rifjia oti cZvai. 

BdAAw arixTjiJia on 6kv eivai 

CT^IJ. 
Nat, p.d TTJV TTtO-TlV /xov. 

Et? TTJV (TvveiSy}<Tiv (lov. 

Md TT)v ^tuTjv fiov. 

Nat, ad? bjjivvui, 

2d? bfj-vvd) (liaav Te/otTj/oie'vo? dv- 

dpWJTO?. 

2d? 6|u.vu&> errdvw et? ttjv ti/uitjv 

MOW. 

IIio-Tevo-eTe jote. 

'H/iTropu) vd cd? to )3€/3atc6(rw. 

*H0€'Aa /SdAjj a-TixTJM^'i oTt iJe- 

AcTe 6id TouTO. 
Mr) Tvxn i^''-'- a.<TTei^€(T9e (^opa- 

TeueTe) ; 
'OjottAetTe fxe to. oAa o'a? ; 
'Eyo) o-d? o/AtAw ^e Td oAa /u.ov, 

/cat crd? Ae'yw ttjv dATjdeiav. 
'Eyi) (Ta(S to jSe/Satwvw. 
To eTrpo<|)TjTeucreTe. 
To eTTiTevxeTe. 
2d? irto-Tcuw. 
npeVet vd ad? TTio-Teuo-w. 
AiiTO 6ev etvai dSuvaTOV. 
To AoiTTov d? elvai /uie koAtjv ciipav. 
KaAd, KttAd. 
Aev etvai dArj^tvov. 
Etvat xpevSei;. 

Aev elvat TiVoTe? dwo avTO. 
Etvai eva \{/evSos fi-ia dTrdrrj. 

'Eyw a(neiC,o(j.ovv (exopdreva). 

'Eyoj TO etTra 6td vd yeAdato. 

Ttj dATjOeta. 

Me apecrec Katd TroAAd. 

2uyKaTavevw et? toCto. 

AiSto TTJv <|<Tj<|)ov /mow. 

Aev dvTt<rT€/co/u.at et? tovto. 

Etjixai o'vju,(|)a)vo?, e/c avfi<f>d.vov. 

'Eyw Sev i^e'Aw. 

'Eyw evavTiwvo/xai et? tovto. 

Aid vd OT;/u|3ouAeu0^?, vd aro- 
Xao-^Tj?, Tj vd dTro<|>ao-iarT)?. 

Tt npeneL vd »cd/iiwju.ev ; 

Tt T?d Kdfxuiixiv ; 

Tt fxe o-v/x/3ovAeweTe vd Ka/xw ; 

'Ottoiov rpSnov iJe'Aojuiev ii,eTa\ei- 

piaOri rjfj.eZ'; ; 
*A? Kd/[xw|U.ev eT^Tj. 

Etvat KaXirepov eyw vd 

'S.Ta9y)re oAt'yov. 

Aev ^deAev eivai KoAiTepov 

vd 

'Eyw dyaTTOUTa itaKirepa. 

©e'AcTe Kdfxei. Kakirepa dv 

*A<f>ri<Tere fxe. 

'Av Tj/xovv ei? tov tottov aa? 

eyw 

Etvat TO 1610V. 



To tell you the truth. 

Really, it is so. 

Wlio doubts it? 

There is no doubt. 

I believe it. 

I do not believe it. 

I say yes. 

I say no. 

I wager it is. 

I wager it is not bo. 

Yes, by my faith. 

In conscience. 

By my life. 

Yes, I swear it to you. 

I swear to you as an honest 

man. 
I swear to you on my honor. 

Believe me. 

I can assure you of it. 

I would lay what bet yoa 

please on this. 
You jest by chance? 

Do you speak seriously? 

I speak seriously to you, and 
tell you the truth. 

I assure you of it. 

You have guessed it. 

You have hit upon it. 

I believe you. 

I must believe you. 

This is not impossible. 

Then it is very well. 

Well, well. 

It is not true. 

It is false. 

There is nothing of this. 

It is a falsehood, an impost- 
ure. 

I was in joke. 

I said it to laugh. 

Indeed. 

It pleases me much. 

I agree with you. 

I give my assent. 

I do not oppose this, 

I agree, 

I will not. 

I object to this. 

To consult, consider, or re- 
solve. 

What ought we to do? 

What shall we do? 

What do you advise me to 

do? 
What part shall we take? 

Let us do this. 

It is better that I 

Wait a little. 

Would it not be better 

that 

I wish it were better. 

You will do better if 

Let me go. 

If I were in your place, 

I 

It is the same. 



954 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



The reader by the specimens below will be enabled to compare the 
modem with the ancieni. tongue. 

PARALLEL PASSAGES FROM SAINT JOHN'S GOSPEL. 



Neoi/. 
Kec^aA. a. 

1 'EI2 TTjv apxw TjTov 6 X6- 
■yos" Koi 6 A070S ^Tov fiera ©eoC' 
Koi @eog ^rov 6 \6yos. 

2 'EtoOtos rjTov ets tt^u apxiiv 
ft-sTo. ©eow. 

3 'OA.a [to. irpayixaTo] Sia /ote- 
<rov TOW [AoYou] eyivijKav, Koi 
Xopi? auTOi' Sev eyive Kaviva. 
6iTt eyive, 

4 Ets avTov rJTOv ^wrj- koX i) 
^WTj •^Tov TO <j)S)g raiv avdpdmav. 

5 Kal TO <f)(i)i eis ttjv o-kotc- 
t'ai' <f)eyyei, icai t) (TKoreia Sev to 
KaTciAajSe. 

6 'Eytvev ei'as oLvBpoiiTO^ airea- 
TaAjxeVos aTro tov ©eoj', to oi/oju.a 
Tov 'Iwai'i'ijs. 



hvBevriKov. 
Kec^aA. a. 

1 'EN apxu ^^ ^ Aoyo?, Kal 
6 Adyo? ^v irpbs tov ®eov, Koi 
©ebs ^v 6 Adyo?. 

2 Outo? ^v ei/ apxy Tpbs tov 
©edv. 

3 UdvTa Si avTOv eyeVeTO* 
Kal x'^P'-^ avrov eyeVcTO ovSe 
ev, o "ye'YOvev. 

4 'Ev avTw ^ojr/ tjv, Kal i^ ^wij 
rjv TO <|>a)S Twv av^pwTTWV. 

5 Kal TO <f>u>? €V rfj aritOTia 
<f>atveL, Kal ^ crKOTta ovto ow 
KaTcAa/Sev. 

6 'EYe'veTO avBpiano^ anea- 
TaAjixeVos jrapa ©eov, ovoixa 
auTu 'IwavvTjs. 



THE INSCRIPTIONS AT ORCHOMENUS FROM 
MELETIUS. 

OPXOMENO*2, KOivws SKpiTOv, ndAis ttotc TrAoveriwTaTrj Kal 
io"xupc«)TaTi7, nporepov KaAou/xevij BotwTiKal *A0^vai, ei? ttjv 
OTTOtav rJTOv 6 Nab? twv XapCroiv, ei? Tbv ottoioi' eirA^pwvov TeArj 
oi ©ij^atoi, oCtivo? to eSa^os aveaKa^Oe totc virb twv 'Ao-Tra- 
kdyKW. 'Ejravrjyupi^ov eis avTrjv Trjv IldAiv Ta XapiT^eria, tow 
bTToiou 'Aywvo? eSpov €inypa<j)d^ ev aTJjAais evSov tow ktictOcvtos 
Naow en ov6p.aTi. tijs ©eotokow, wtto tow ILpmToanaOapiov Ae'ov- 
Tos, enl Twv BacriAewv Ba<riAeiou, AeovTOSi koX KuvaTavrCvov, 
e;^ov<ras owtcds. 'Ev fj.ev ry fii^ KOivto?. 

" OlSe eviKiav Tbv aywva twv xapiTijcriwv. 

" SaATTiaT^S. 
" M^vis 'AttoAAwviow 'Avtioxcus a.Tro MaiavSpov. 

" K^puf . 
" Zcol'Aos ZwiAov na</)ios. 

" 'Pa(|/aj5ds. 
" Novju.^vtos NowfATjviov 'A^rjvatos. 

" IIoiTJTTJS eTTOiV. 

" 'A/w-rjvtas Avj/aoKAeows ©ij/Saios. 

" AwAijTrjs. 
•' 'AttoAAoSotos 'AttoAAoSotow Kpi;;. 

" AvAcoSds. 

" 'PoSlTTTTOS 'PoSlTTTTOW 'Ap^^OS. 

" Kt0apt(TTrj?. 
" $avias 'AjtoAAoSotow toO $aviov AloAevs airb Kvju,r)$. 

" Ki0apa)5ds. 
" Aijju.i)Tpi05 napjaevicTKOv KaAx^jSovios. 

" Tpa-ytdSoj. 

" 'iTTTTOKpaTTJ? 'ApiCTO/AeVoWS 'PoStOS. 

*' Kb>/x<<>Sd9. 
** KaAAicTTpaTOS 'E^aKecTou ©rjjSatos. 

" noiijTT)? SaTwpwv. 
" *Aju.T)vias Aij/AO/cAe'ous ©rjjSaios. 

" 'YTTOKptTJJS. 

" Aojpdfleos AmpoOeov TapavTivds. 

" IIoiTjTrjs TpayiaSiSiV, 
" Soc^okAij? 2o(|)OKAeows 'Adijvatos. 

" 'YTTOKptTTJS. 

" KajStpixo? ©eoSoipov ©ijjSaios. 

" IIoirjTrjs KwjiAwStwv. 
" AAe'f avSpos *Api<rTwvos 'Adrjvaioj. 

" 'YTTO/CpiTTJ?. 

"'AttoAos 'AttoAov 'A^Tjvatos. 



*' O'iSe iviKtav rov prjfiijrov ayafia tS>v o/moiSubfr. 

" Haidas avArjerTas. 
" AiokA^? KaAAiju^Sow ©rj/Baios. 

" naiSa; i^ye/xdvas. 
" STpoTivos EwvtKOV ©TjjSatos. 

" 'AvSpas AvAijTas. 
" AiokA^? KaAAtju.^5ow ©ij/Saios. 

" 'Avfipas rjyejjiopai. 
" 'PoSiTTTTOS 'PoSiJTTrow 'Apyeloi. 

" TpayuSos. 
" 'iTTTTOKpaTTjs 'Apio-TOjuevovs 'PdSios. 

" K(oju,(ofid$. 
" KaAAio-TpaTos 'E^aKccTTOv ©i^jSaios. 

'* Ta eTTiviKia. 

*' K(oju.(oSib>v notrjT^s. 
" 'AAe'^avSpos 'Apio-Ttwvos 'Adjjvaios." 

" 'Ev fie T^ CTep^ fiwpiKW?. 

" Mvaerivw ap^ovTOS aywvoOcTiovTOS tov 

" XapiTeiVtov, €vapi6<XTo> TravTwv 01 TviSe eviKwo'av t4 ' 

" XapiTeiTia. 

" SaATTtyKTas. 
" $tAivos ^lAt'vw 'AOavetos. 

" Kdpovf . 
" EipuSa? 2(»KpaTio; ©eij3eio$. 

" IIoeiTas. 
" M^aTwp M^cTTopos ^wKaiews. 

" 'Pai^euSas. 
" KpaTcov KAtwvos ©etjSeios. 

" AwAetTas. 
" nepiyevels 'HpaKAeiSao Kov^iKi}vd;. 

" AwAaewSds. 
" Aap.rjveTOS TAawKw 'Apyi05. 

" Ktdapio-Tas. 
" AttjuaTpos 'A/u,aAaJw AtoAews airb Movpivaf . 

" TpayaevSds. 
•' 'Ao-KAaTTidSwpos Ilovfleao TapavTtvds. 

" Kujmaevfid?. 
" NiKdcTpaTOs $tAo(rTpaTw ©ei/3eios. 

*' Ta cTTiviKeia Ktojixaevfids. 
" Euapxos 'HpofioTw Koptovevs." 

*Ev aAAw Aidta. 

"MupiKos IIoAvKpaTous 'lapwvu/otos fiioyiTcovos avSpe<r<ri X'^P"^ 
"yeio-avTes viKaaavTes Stovwtrov dve'0ijKav Tip.wi'OS dp^ovTO? 
" avAiovTOs kAc'os afiovTOS dAKto-flevtos." 

'Ev erep^a ACOw. 

" dvvapxoi dp^ovTOs, jxeivbs ^ei\ov9tto, apx'- ws Ew/ScuAi 

" apxeSdixta <f><aK€ia os aneStaKa airo Tas <TOvyypa<j>(a ireSa 

" Twv 7roAep,dpx<«>v, ktj twv KaTOTTTacov, dveAd/xevo? Tas aovyypa- 

" ^(bs Tas Kiju.€vas Jrdp ev(t>p6va, ktj <^i5tav k>) TracriKAeiv kt) 

" Tip,dp.eiSov <^wK€ias, kt) SajnoTeAeiv Avo-iSdp,w, ki) Siovuaov Ko^i- 
" o'oS(o(i> xrjpwveia kot Tb \l/a<}>i<rna tw Sdjuw. 



-V*>V/ET>[B 



"i?vvdpxft> dpxovTOS, jitetvos dAaAKo/xevito /" apvSiv iroAvKAeios 
" rafjiias dn-eStoKe ewjSwAv dpxefid/iw <|)WKeii dTrb Tas <TOvyypa<^S> 
"Tb KaTttAuTTOV KocT TO ^d(j)i(Tfx.a tw Sdfiia, dveAdjaevos Tas o-ovy- 
" ypa(|)(OS Tas Ki/itevas Trap <7W(^tAov, k») ev^pova </)a)Keas. Kr) wop 
" Siwvucriov Ka<f)i<ToS(opo} xVP*^^^"-} "'J Au<n'6a/xov Saju-OTcAios TreSa 
" TWV TToAe/ndpxwv, Kr; twv KaTOTTTawv. 

^i>E}E;EI»llIOM 

""ApxovTOS ev epxo/xevb i^^vdpxw, ^evos 'AAoAK0ju.€vtw, ev 5e ^ 
" eAaTirj MevoiVao 'Apx^Adw joietvbs irpdrio. 'O/moAoya Eu/3wAv 
" /" eAaTtrj, b ktj t^ ttoAi epxoju,evtwv. 'ETreiSrj KSKOfJiia-TYl Ew- 
"/3wAos wdp T^s TToAios Tb fidveiov dwav KaT Tas bi«.oAoyias rds 
" TeOiVas i^vdpxw dpxovTos, p.eivbs i^eiAowdtw, ktj ovt bt^eiAcTij 
" awTw cTi owflev irdp Tav jrdAiv, dAA* dirext TrdvTa Trepl Travrbs, 
" KTJ anoSeSoavOi. rfj ttoAi Tb ixovre^ tos oju-oAoyias, el /otev wotI 



APPENDIX. 



955 



" itSoftevov XP^*"^*' Eu^toAv errl vo/uiia? F eTi aTre'TTopa /Soveo'O'i 
" (Tovv iJTirus Sia (cartTj? /"t icaTt jrpo/SaTV? aovf f/yv^ \ei\iri^ 
" ap^i Ttii p^povo) Q ei/iavTos 6 fiera dvya.pxov ap\ovTa. ep\oiJifvivi 
" arroypa(l>e(j6ti 6e Ev/SioAof Kar' ei'tauTbc eVcaaTO^ Trap TOf rafxiav 
" KT| Toi' ^'6/^x(0^ av rare Kavf^-ara rwv TTpo^dToiv, ktj twj' tjyijjy, kij 
" T(l»' ^ov(Ol', «>} Twv iTTTTtov, <CTj KaTica aaafjiaiiov i?i»c>j rb trAei^os 
" nel awoypd4>iao iSe irAi'oi'a twv yfypaixfjiiviav ev tjj (T-owyx"" 

" peiVi 17 SexaTi? tj to evvofjuov EvjSojAof 6<^eiAci At? 

" Twv ipxoneviiov apyovpita TerrapaKOVTa Eu/3wAu >ca6 

" CKaoTOJ' eviavTov, ktj to(co>' <f>epeTOi Spaxfia^ Tas /Avas 

" «#caoTas Kara fiei^a TOf (CJ) CjUTrpcucTOS eOTW Toy epxo/u,e'- 

• " riOf icai TO. Tf^rji." 

'Ev aXXoii AiOoii. 

" 'A.yoS<iipa a-vv4>opov x«ttpe." N0KYE2. " KoiAAirriTov afx^a- 
pi^Of Acal dAAai." 'Ev ov5e/ato 'ETTiypa^jJ ISov tovoi', rj nv€Vfj.a, a 
Se ^M<^( vwoypa.4>Ofiev, ol TToAaiol vpoaeypa^ov. Kat Ta i^f^S." 



The following is the Prospectus of a translation of Ana- 
charsis into Romaic, by my Romaic master, Marmarotouri, 
who wished to publish it in England. 



EIAH'2I2 TYnorPA*IKH\ 



Upb? T0U9 ev 



^lAoyevei? (cai f^iAeAArjva?. 



'O2OI eis ^tjSAta TravToSaTroi evTpvftuxriv, r)^evpovv ttoctov elvai 
TO xP^O'i/'^o*' ^^5 'IffTopias, 61' avT^s ydp e^evpicrKeraL 17 n\eov 
tJ.efJiaKpvap.eyT) TroAaiOTTjs, Kai t^ewpoCvTat cos ev KaroiTTpo} fiOr], 
7rpa^ei5 xal SioK^aei? TroAAiv Koi SiaipopuiV EdfCtv koL Tevuiv wv 
■n\v fi.vr)p.r\v Sieauxraro Koi Stavuxrei 17 'laropiKt) ADjyijo-is eis 
aioiva Tbv an-avTa. 

Mc'a Terota 'ETrierr^/ATj elvai eiran-d/cTTjTOs, Kai ev ravrw <i>(^e- 
Ai/uLi), ij KpetTTOv etjretv avayKaia- Siarl AotTrbv ^^/aci? /jlovoi va 
TTjv varepovixeOa, p.Tj )7^evpovT€s ovTe Tas apxd? twv Ilpo-ydvwv 
fia?, noOev irore Kal irw? evpeOiqaav eis Tas IlaTpifias p-as, ovTe 
Ta i^Atj, Ta KaTOpflaj/xara Kat ttjv 6toi'/c7j(7"tv t<dv ; 'Av ep(OT~^o"wp,ev 
Tous 'AAAoyeveis, rj^eijpovv va. juas 5aj<Tovv oxt/idvov t(TToptKa)s 
TTJV apx^iv Kat TTJV irpdoSov Tolv TTpoydvwv /otas, aAAa Kat totto- 
ypdu^tKMS p.as 6ei'x»'Ow»' Tas i^eaets twv IlaTpiSwv p.as, Kat oiovei 
Xeipayuyol yivd^evot jite tous yewypa<^tK0us twv IltvaKas, p.as 
Aeyovv, e6u» elvai at 'Aflijvat, eSoi i] ^napTr), exet at 0^^at, Tdcra 
(rrdSia fj /xiAia aTrexet 19 p.i'a 'ETrapxtci aTrb ttjv aAArjv. Tovtos 
(<Mco5d/xTja'e ttjv fiiav wdAtv, eKetvos ttjv oEAAtjv Kat-T^. IXpoae'Tt 
av epuiTrj(To)p.ev aiiTows TOus M*? 'EAATjvas x^'pay^yovs M<^S) T'oOev 
i^apaKivijOrjcrav va e^epevvrjaovv apxds Tdffov TraAatas, avvrrotx- 
ToAws p-*5 aTTOKpi'vovTat p.e auTOus tous Adyous. " Ka^ois 6 eK 
" 2Kv0i'as 'Avoxapais, av 5ev €nepeip\eTO tol navev<})p6<Tvva ckc- 
" tva KAt'/xaTa t^s "EAAaSos, dv 6ev ejn^opetTo to. a^nofxaTa, to. 
" fjOri KoX Toi»s, Nd/iovs twv 'EAA^vtov, :^0eAe p-eivyj 2ku0tjs Kat 
" Tb ovofta Kal Tb npayp.a' ovtco Kai b rj/LteVepos 'laTpbs, dv 6ev 
" e/idvflave Ta toO 'iTrjroKpaTovs, fiev eSJvaTO vd 7rpoxwp^O"Tj ets 
"ttjv Te'xvTjv ToO. 'Av i ev ijp,tv Nop.o^::TTjs fiev tfeVa^e Ta tow 
" 2dAbivoSi AuKOupyou, Kal ITtTTaKoO, 6€V eSuvaTo vd pv9p.ricrjf 
" Kai vd KaAtep'yTj<r)7 Td fi9rf rujv 'Ojnoyevtiiv tov dv 6 'PTjT<op 6ev 
" djrijvfli^tTO Tas eiK^po^etas Kat tous X'^'P'f tk^MOV? tow ATj/u,o<r- 
"de'vous, fiev cvepyouo-ev eis Tds t/zuxds Twv aKpoaToiv tou. 'Av 
"b Ne'os 'Avdxapo"is, b Kuptos 'A^^ds Bap6oAop.atos fiev dveyt- 
" vuxTKe p.e /leydATjv <»rtp,ov7jv Kai o-Kc'i/ftv tous ttAcov eyKptTOV? 
" (Tuyypo^ets twv 'EAA^vcjv, e'fepeuvoiv aiiTous KaTd ^dflos en-t 
"Tpiaxovra iuu> eTij, 5ev ^deAev efu(/)dvj7 touttjv ttjv Trepi 'EAA^- 
" v«v 'laropiov tov, ^ti$ Ilepi^yTjats tow Neov 'Avaxapcrews 



" irap' auTow irpo<r<t>vonaaBri, Koi ei$ oAas Tas EwpwiraiKas Aia- 
" AcKTOWS ^eTeyAwTTio-dij." Kat ev evi Adyw, ot NetiTepot, dv 6ev 
enepvav Sia bSTjyous Toiis Ilpoydvovs P-as, ^^fleAav icrcus wepti^epwv- 
Tat /LtaTat'cos M^XP"- '''°" *'''•'• AuTd 6ev elvat Adyta evdouatas/ie- 
vou 6ta Tb (^tAoyeves FpaiKOu, etvai Si </)tAaA^0ous Fep/yiavoC, 
bo-Tts €/u,eTd</)pao-e tov Neov 'Avdxapo-iv an-b tow FoAAtKOw cts to 
Fep|u.aviKbv. 

'Av AotTrbv Kat ^/xei; t^e'A(i>p.ev vd /utede'^ujuev t^s yvciercws rwv 
AajLiTrpcov KaTopdcojutaTuv ottou eKap.av ot t?avp,ao-Tol eKctvot IIpo- 
iraTopes rip.iov, av ejrtdw/x<I)p.ev vd /u.dda>p,ev ttjv 7rpdo6ov Kat awfrj- 
o-tv Ttov ets Tds Te'xvas Kat *E7rtcrTTjp.as Kat eis Ka^e dAAo eI5os 
^a^Tjo-eoos, dv e\(t)nev Trepie'pyetav vd yvwptV<op,ev Trddev KaTa- 
yofieBa, Kat biroiows t^at/uiaa-Tous Kal /oieydAous dvSpas, et Koi 
Trpoydvovs rjp^iov, 0eu, i^p-ets Sev yv(opi^op,ev, eis Katpbv ottow oi 
'AAAoyeveis i?awp.d^ov<rtv aiiTous, Kal ws TraTe'pas iravTOtoo-owv 
(xaOriaem tre^ovrai, ds o-vvSpd/xw/aev dnravTes TrpoOu/ttos eis ttjv 
cKSoatv TOW ^avfxa<riov towtou <n;yypd/ui/xaTos tow Ne'ov 'Aya- 
Xdpo-ews. 

'H/xeis ouv ot vnoyeypafifievoi, i^eAop.ev cKTeAeVei Trpodvjuuos 
ttjv p.era^paarLV tow /3tj3Atov /ote ttjv KaTa to fiuvaTbv i^jiAtv koAtjv 
t^pdo'tv T^s vuv Ka0' Tj/otds bjuiiAtas, Kal eKfidvTes touto eis twttov, 
i^e'Aop.ev to KaAAoaTrt'tret p.e tous Fetoypai^iKOUs IltvaKas jae dwAds 
'PtD/iaiKds Ae'^eis eyKexapayjuevovs ets efitKa/ias ypa.p.p.aTa, Trpocr- 
Tifle'vTes OTi dAAo XP^O'iJuov Kal dpjudSiov ets ttjv 'lo-Topiav. 

OAov Tb cuyypa/i/Aa i^eAet yevet eis Tdjaous ficiScKa KaTd fii/UTj- 
o-tv TTjs 'iTaAtKTJs eKSdo-ews. 'H Ttp.ij oAou tou 2uyypdp.jaaTOS 
eivat <|>toptvta SeKae^-q ttjs Bte'vvTjs 5td ttjv rrpocrOriKTqv twv yew- 
ypa<f>tKwv TTtvaKtov. 'O <^tAoyevTjs ouv 2uv5pOjaTjTTjs irpenei va 
iT\r)p(i>ajj ets Kade Tdp,ov (^toptvi eva Kal KapavTavta eiKOtri t^s 
BtevvTjs, Kal TouTO xt^pts Kafi.ft.iav jrpdSoo-tv, dAA' ewdws ottow ^eAec 
TO) napaSoOfj 6 Tdp,os TVjrwjuie'vos Kal £e/JieVos. 

'Eppca^evoi Kal evSalJMMMs 5ia/3i(i>otTe 'EAA^vcov naifies. 
T^S wp,eTe'pas oydTTTjs ef jjpTrj/ae'vot. 

'Iwdvves MapjxapoTOupTjs. 
ATjp.TjTptos Bevte'pTjs. 
2Trupt5a)V IIpe/SeTOS. 

*EV TptCffTlO), T^ TrpWTJJ 'OKTOj/SptOU, 1799. 



THE LORD'S PRAYER IN ROMAIC. 

O IIATE'FAMA2 b ttou elcrat eis tous oupavous, ds aytaaOj} rh 
ovofLo. (TOV. *As eA0Tj ^ /S^criAeia cow. *As ye'v]7 to iJe'ATj^d o-ov, 
Kaflibs eis Tbv oupavbv, ct^tj Kal eis ttjv y^v. Tb <//a)/xtp,as t6 
Ka0Tjp.eptvbv, 6bs p.as to fTrjfxepov. Kat ervyxtiJpTjo-e' p,as Ta xpe- 
Tjp.as, KafloJs Kal ep.ets truyx'^poup.ev tous Kpeo(/)etAe'Tas p.*?- Kal 
p.Tjv /xds (|>e'pets Tretpaajitbv, aAAd ekev6ep<a<xe /xas drrb Tbv ttovtj- 
pdv. 'Ort e8tK^ cou etvat 17 /SocrtAeia 8e, ^ fiuvop.ts, Kal ^7 6dfa, 
eis rows aiuivas. 'Ajyt^v. 



IN GREEK. 

IIA'TEP TJp-wv b ev tois oupavois, dytatrdTjTw Tb ovojud orov. 
'EAfleToj i) /3a(TtAet'a crow yevTjfl^TO) Tb t^e'ATj/uid crou, tos ev oupav<3, 
Kal errl t% y^s. Tbv aprov rjfjiiov Tbv tTrtouo-tov 6bs iifj.lv a^p-e- 
pov. Kal d^es ^P-iv Td b(^etATjp.aTa rjfiCiv, tos Kat tjfxei^ a<f>iefjiev 
TOts ©(^etAeVats i]fi.oiV. Kal pTj eiereve'yKTJs i7Mds ets necpaafiov, 
dAAd puo-at i^pds aTrb tou jrovTjpou. 'Oti crou e<7Tlv i) PaatAeia, 
Kal 17 6vvafttS| Kal 17 (d^a ets tows aiwvas. 'Afii)v. 



956 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Bon guan. 



Note A. — Letter to the Editor of 
mother's Review." 1 



My Grand- 



[See " Testimonies of Authors," arUe, p. 696.] 

My Dear Roberts, 

As a believer in the church of England— to say nothing of 
the state — I have been an occasional reader and great ad- 
mirer of, though not a subscriber to, your Review, which is 
rather expensive. But I do not know that any part of its 
contents ever gave me much surprise till the eleventh article 
of your twenty-seventh number made its appearance. You 
have there most vigorously refuted a calumnious accusation 
of bribery and corruption, the credence of which in the public 
mind might not only have damaged your reputation as a 
clergyman 2 and an editor, but, what would have been still 
worse, have injured the circulation of your journal; which, I 
regret to hear, is not so extensive as the " purity " (as you 
well observe) " of its, &c. &c. &c.," and the present taste for 
propriety, would induce us to expect. The charge itself is of 
a solemn nature, and, although in verse, is couched in terms 
of such circumstantial gravity, as to induce a belief little 
short of that generally accorded to the thirty-nine articles, 
to which you so frankly subscribed on taking your degrees. 
It is a charge the most revolting to the heart of man from 
its frequent occurrence; to the mind of a statesman, from 
its occasional truth ; and to the soul of an editor, from its 
moral impossibility. You are charged then in the last line 
of one octave stanza, and the whole eight lines of the next, 
viz., 209th and 210th of the first canto of that "pestilent 
poem " Don Juan, with receiving, and still more foolishly ac- 
knowledging the receipt of, certain moneys, to eulogize the 
unknown author, who by this account must be known to 
you, if to nobody else. An impeachment of this nature so 
seriously made, there is but one way of refuting; and it is 
my firm persuasion, that whether you did or did not (and I 
believe that you did not) receive the said moneys, of which 
I wish he had specified the sum, you are quite right in 
denying all knowledge of the transaction. If charges of this 
nefarious description are to go forth, sanctioned by all the 
solemnity of circumstance, and guaranteed by the veracity 
of verse (as Counsellor Phillips ^ would say), what is to be- 
come of readers hitherto implicitly confident in the not less 
veracious prose of our critical journals? what is to become of 
the reviews ? And, if the reviews fail, what is to become of 
the editors ? It is common cause, and you have done well to 
sound the alarm. I myself, in my humble sphere, will be 
one of your echoes. In the words of the tragedian, Liston, 
"I love a row," and you seem justly determined to make 
one. 

It is barely possible, certainly improbable, that the writer 
might have been in jest ; but this only aggravates his crime. 
A joke, the proverb says, "breaks no bones;" but it may 
break a bookseller, or it may be the cause of bones being 
broken. The jest is but a bad one at the best for the author, 
and might have been a still worse one for you, if your copious 
contradiction did not certify to all whom it may concern 
your own indignant innocence, and the immaculate purity of 
the British Review. I do not doubt your word, my dear 
Roberts ; yet I cannot help wishing that, in a case of such vital 



1 " Bologna, Aug. 23, 1819.— I send you a letter to Roberts, signed ' Wort- 
ley Clutterbuck,' which you may publish in what form you please, in answer 
to his article. I have had many proofs of men's absurdity, but he beats 
all in folly. Why, the wolf in sheep's clothing has tumbled into the very 
trap \"~Lord Syron to Mr. Murray. 

2 Mr. Roberts is not, as Lord Byron seems to have supposed, a clergyman, 



importance, it had assumed the more substantial shape of an 
affidavit sworn before the lord mayor Atkins, who readily 
receives any deposition ; and doubtless would have brought 
it in some way as evidence of the designs of the Reformers 
to set fire to London, at the same time that he himself medi- 
tates the same good office towards the river Thames. 

I am sure, my dear Roberts, that you will take these ob- 
servations of mine in good part : they are written in a spirit 
of friendship not less pure than your own editorial integrity. 
I have always admired you; and, not knowing any shape 
which friendship and admiration can assume more agreeable 
and useful than that of good advice, I shall continue my lu- 
cubrations, mixed with here and there a monitory hint as to 
what I conceive to be the line you should pursue, in case you 
should ever again be assailed with bribes, or accused of taking 
them. By the way, you don't say much about the poem, ex- 
cept that it is " flagitious." This is a pity— you should have 
cut it up ; because, to say the truth, in not doing so, you 
somewhat assist any notions which the malignant might en- 
tertain on the score of the anonymous asseveration which has 
made you so angry. 

You say no bookseller " was willing to take upon himself 
the publication, though most of them disgrace themselves by 
selling it." Now, my dear friend, though we all know that 
those fellows will do any thing for money, methinks the dis- 
grace is more with the purchasers: and some such, doubtless, 
there are ; for there can be no very extensive selling (as you 
will perceive by that of the British Review) without buying. 
You then add, " What can the critic say?" I am sure I don't 
know ; at present he says very little, and that not much to 
the purpose. Then comes- " for praise, as far as regards the 
poetry, many passages might be exhibited : for condemnation, 
as far as regards the morality, all." Now, my dear good Mr. 
Roberts, I feel for you, and for your reputation ; my heart 
bleeds for both ; and I do ask you, whether or not such lan- 
guage does not come positively under the description of " the 
putF collusive," for which see Sheridan's farce of " The Critic" 
(by the way, a little more facetious than your own farce 
under the same title), towards the close of scene second, act 
the first. 

The poem is, it seems, sold as the work of Lord Byron ; but 
you feel yourself " at liberty to suppose it not Lord B.'s com- 
position." Why did you ever suppose that it was ? I approve 
of your indignation — I applaud it — I feel as angry as you 
can ; but perhaps your virtuous wrath carries you a little too 
far, when you say that " no misdemeanor, not even that of 
sending into the world obscene and blasphemous poetry, the 
product of studious lewdness and labored impiety, appears to 
you in so detestable a light as the acceptance of a present by 
the editor of a review, as the condition of praising an 
author." The devil it doesn't I— Think a little. This is being 
critical overmuch. In point of Gentile benevolence or Christ- 
ian charity, it were surely less criminal to praise for a bribe, 
than to abuse a fellow creature for nothing; and as to the 
assertion of the comparative innocence of blasphemy and 
obscenity, confronted with an editor's " acceptance of a pres- 
ent," I shall merely observe, that as an editor you say very 
well, but, as a Christian divine, I would not recommend you 
to transpose this sentence into a sermon. 

And yet you say, " the miserable man (for miserable he is, 
as having a soul of which he cannot get rid) "—But here I 
must pause again, and inquire what is the meaning of this 
parenthesis? We have heard of " little soul," or of " no soul 
at all," but never till now of " the misery of having a soul of 
which we cannot get rid;" a misery under which you are 



but a barrister at law. In 1792 he established a paper called " The LooSer- 
on," which has since been admitted into the collection of British Essayists ; 
and he is known, in his profession, for a treatise on the Law of Frauduleni 
Bankruptcy. In 1834 he also published the Memoirs of Hannah More. 

3 Charles Phillips, barrister, was in those days celebrated for lUtra-Irish 
eloquence. See the Edinburgh Review, No. Ivii. 



APPENDIX. 



957 



possibly no great sufiFerer, having got rid apparently of some 
of the intellectual part of your own when you penned this 
pretty piece of eloquence. 

But to continue. You call upon Lord Byron, always sup- 
posing him not the author, to disclaim " with all gentlemanly 
haste," Ac. Ac. I am told that Lord B. is in a foreign coun- 
try, some thousand miles off it may be ; so that it will be 
difficult for him to hurry to your wishes. In the mean time, 
perhaps you yourself have set an example of more haste 
than gentility ; but " the more haste the worse speed." 

Let us now look at the charge itself, my dear Roberts, 
which appears to me to be in some degree not quite explicitly 
worded: 

" I bribed my Grandmother's Review, the British." 

I recollect hearing, soon after the publication, this subject 
discussed at the tea-table of Mr. Sothcby the poet, who ex- 
pressed himself, I remember, a good deal surprised that you 
had never reviewed his epic poem of " Saul," nor any of his 
six tragedies ; of which, in one instance, the bad taste of the 
pit, and, in all the rest, the barbarous repugnance of the 
principal actors, prevented the performance, Mrs. and the 
Misses S. being in a corner of the room, perusing the proof 
sheets of Mr. S.'s poems in Italy, or on Italy, as he says (I 
wish, by the by, Mrs. S. would make the tea a little stronger), 
the male part of the conversazione were at liberty to make a 
few observations on the poem and passage in question ; and 
there was a diflfercnce of opinion. Some thought the allusion 
was to the '" British Critic ;" i others, that by the expression, 
'•My Grandmother's Review," it was intimated that "my 
grandmother" was not the reader of the review, but actually 
the writer ; thereby insinuating, my dear Roberts, that you 
were an old woman; because, as people often say, " JeflFrey's 
Review," "Gilford's Review," in lieu of Edinburgh and 
Quarterly: so "my Grandmother's Review" and Roberts's 
might be almost synonymous. Now, whatever color this in- 
sinuation might derive from the circumstance ol your wear- 
ing a gown, 83 well as from your time of life, your general 
style, and various passages of your writings,— I will take 
upon myself to exculpate you from all suspicion of the kind, 
and assert, without calling Mrs. Roberts in testimony, that if 
ever you should be chosen pope, you will pass through all 
the previous ceremonies with as much credit as any pontiff 
since the parturition of Joan. It is very unfair to judge of 
sex from writings, particularly from those of the British 
Review. "We are all liable to be deceived ; and it is an indis- 
putable fact, that many of the best articles in your journal, 
which were attributed to a veteran female, were actually 
written by you yourself; and yet to this day there are people 
who could never find out the difference. But let us return 
to the more immediate question. 

I agree with you, that it is impossible Lord Byron should 
be the author, not only because, as a British peer and a 
British poet, it would be impracticable for him to have re- 
course to such facetious fiction, but for some other reasons 
which you have omitted to state. In the first place, his 
lordship has no grandmother. Now, the author— and we 
may believe "him in this — doth expressly state that the 
" British" is his " Grandmother's Review ;" and if, as I think 
I have distinctly proved, this was not a mere figurative allu- 
sion to your*upposed intellectual age and sex, my dear friend, 
it follows, whether you be she or no, that there is such an 
elderly lady still extant. And I can the more readily credit 
this, having a sexagenary aunt of my own, who perused you 
constantly, till unfortunately falling asleep over the leading 
article of your last number, her spectacles fell off and were 
broken against the fender, after a faithful service of fifteen 
years, ancl she has never been able to fit her eyes since ; so 



1 " Whether It b« the British Critic, or the BritUh Bevleir, a^ralnat 
which the noble lord prcferi lo grave a charge, or rather so facetloua aa 
•ocu.iatioD, we are at a losa t« dct«rmiDC. The latt«r haa thought It worth 



that I have been forced to read you aloud to her; and this is 
in fact the way in which I became acquainted with the sub- 
ject of my present letter, and thus determined to become 
your public correspondent. 

In the next place, Lord B.'s destiny seems in some sort like 
that of Hercules of old, who became the author of all unap- 
propriated prodigies. Lord B. has been supposed the author 
of the "Vampire," of a "Pilgrimage to Jerusalem," "To the 
Dead Sea," of " Death upon the Pale Horse," of odes to " La 
Vallette," to "Saint Helena," to the " Land of the Gaul," and 
to a sucking child. Now, he turned out to have written none 
of these things. Besides, you say, he knows in what a spirit 
of, &c., you criticise :— Are you sure he knows all this? that 
he has read you like my poor dear aunt? They tell me he is 
a queer sort of a man ; and I would not be too sure, if I were 
you, either of what he has read or of what he has written. 
I thought his style had been the serious and terrible. As to 
his sending you money, this is the first time that ever I 
heard of his paying his reviewers in that coin; I thought it 
was rather in their own, to judge from some of his earlier 
productions. Besides, though he may not be profuse in his 
expenditure, I should conjecture that his reviewer's bUl is 
not so long as his tailor's. 

Shall I give you what I think a prudent opinion ? I don't 
mean to insinuate, God forbid ! but if, by any accident, there 
should have been such a correspondence between you and 
the unknown author, whoever he may bo, send him back his 
money : I dare say he will be veiy glad to have it again ; it 
can't be much, considering the value of the article and the 
circulation of the journal ; and you are too modest to rate 
your praise beyond its real worth. — Don't be angry, — I know 
you won't, — at this appraisement of your powers of eulogy ; 
for on the other hand, my dear friend, depend upon it your 
abuse is worth, not its own weight, — that's a feather,— but 
your weight in gold. So don't spare it : if he has bargained 
for that, give it handsomely, and depend upon your doing 
him a friendly office. 

But I only speak in case of possibility ; for, as I said before, 
I cannot believe, in the first instance, that you would receive 
a bribe to praise any person whatever ; and still less can I 
believe that your praise could ever produce such an offer. 
You are a good creature, my dear Roberts, and a clever fel- 
low ; else I could almost suspect that you had fallen into the 
very trap set for you in verse by this anonymous wag, who 
will certainly be but too happy to see you saving him the 
trouble of making you ridiculous. The fact is, that the so- 
lemnity of your eleventh article does make you look a little 
more absurd than you ever yet looked, in all probability, 
and at the same time does no good ; for if any body believed 
before in the octave stanzas, they will believe still, and you 
will find it not loss difficult to prove your negative, than the 
learned Partridge found it to demonstrate his not being 
dead, to the satisfaction of the readers of almanacs. 

What the motives of this writer may have been for (as 
you magnificently translate his quizzing you) "stating, with 
the particularity which belongs to fact, the forgery of a 
groundless fiction " (do pray, my dear R., talk a little less " in 
King Cambyses' vein"), I cannot pretend to say; perhaps to 
laugh at you, but that is no reason for your benevolently 
making all the world laugh also. I approve of your being 
angry; I tell you I am angry too; but you should not have 
shown it so outrageously. Your solemn " if somebody per- 
sonating the editor of the, &.c. Ac, has received from Lord 
B., or from any other person," reminds m(! of Charley Incle- 
don's usual exordium when people came into the tavern to 
hear him sing without paying their share of the reckoning — 
" if a maun, or ony maun, or any other maun," Ac. Ac. ; yoa 
have both the same redundant eloquence. But why should 



Ita while, In a publlo paper, to make a serions reply. Aa we are not so 
acriouslj inclined, we shall leave our share of this accusation to ita fate."— 
BritUh OrUic. 



953 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



you think any body would personate you ? Nobody would 
dream of such a prank who ever read your compositions, 
and perhaps not many who have heard your conversation. 
But I have been inoculated with a little of your prolixity. 
The fact is, my dear Roberts, that somebody has tried to 
make a fool of you, and what he did not succeed in doing, 
you have done for him and for yourself. 

With regard to the poem itself, or the author, whom I can- 
not find out (can you ?), I have nothing to say ; my business 
is with you. I am sure that you will, upon second thoughts, 
be really obliged to me for the intention of this letter, how- 
ever far short my expressions may have fallen of the sincere 
good will, admiration, and thorough esteem, with which I am 
ever, my dear Roberts, 

Most truly yours, 

WORTLEY CLUTTERBUCK. 

Sept. ith, 1819. 
IMle Pidlington. 

P. S. My letter is too long to revise, and the post is going. 
I forget whether or not I asked you the meaning of your 
last words, " the forgery of a groundless fiction." Now, as 
all forgery is fiction, and all fiction a kind of forgery, is not 
this tautological? The sentence would have ended more 
strongly with "forgery;" only, it hath an awful Bank of 
England sound, and would have ended like an indictment, 
besides sparing you several words, and conferring some 
meaning upon the remainder. But this is mere verbal criti- 
cism. Good-bye — once more, yours truly, W. C. 

P. S. 2d.— Is it true that the Saints make up the loss of the 
Review ? — It is very handsome in them to be at so great an 
expense. Twice more, yours, W. C. 



Note B.— Some Observations upon an Article in Black- 
wood's Magazine, No. XXIX., August, 1819. 

"Why, how now, Hecate? you look angrily." — Macbeth. 

[See "Testimonies of Authors," No. XVII. ante, p. 696.] 



TO 

J. DISRAELI, ESQ., 

THE AMIABLE AND INGENIOUS AUTHOR OF 

' THE CALAMITIES " AND " QUARRELS OF AUTHORS f 

THIS ADDITIONAL QUARREL AND CALAMITY 

IS INSCRIBi^D BY 

ONE OF THE NUMBER. 



Ravenna, March 15, 1820. 

" The life of a writer" has been said, by Pope, I believe, to 
be " a warfare upon earthP As far as my own experience has 
gone, I have nothing to say against the proposition; and, 
like the rest, having once plunged into this state of hostility, 
must, however reluctantly, carry it on. An article has ap- 
peared in a periodical work, entitled "Remarks on Don 
Juan," which has been so full of this spirit, on the part of 
the writer, as to require some observations on mine. 

In the first place, I am not aware by what right the writer 
assumes this work, which is anonymous, to be my produc- 



1 In Sheridan's comedy of " The Rivals." 

2 See Blackwood, vol. iii. p. 329. Lord B., as it appears from one of his 
letters, ascribed (though unjustly) this paper to the Rev. Dr. Chalmers I 

3 " As the passage was curtailed in the press, I take this opportunity of 
lestoring it. In the Quarterly Review (vol. xxi. p. 366), speaking incident- 



tion. He will answer, that there is internal evidence ; that 
is to say, that there are passages which appear to be written 
in my name, or in my manner. But might not this have 
been done on purpose by another? He will say, why not 
then deny it ? To this I could answer, that of all the things 
attributed to me within the last five years, — Pilgrimages to 
Jerusalem, Deaths upon Pale Horses, Odes to the Land of 
the Gaul, Adieus to England, Songs to Madame La Vallette, 
Odes to St. Helena, Vampires, and what not, — of which, God 
knows, I never composed nor read a syllable beyond their 
titles in advertisements,— I never thought it worth while to 
disavow any, except one which came linked with an account 
of my " residence in the Isle of Mitylene," where I never 
resided, and appeared to be carrying the amusement of those 
persons, who think my name can be of any use to them, a 
little too far. 

I should hardly, therefore, if I did not take the trouble to 
disavow these things published in my name, and yet not 
mine, go out of my way to deny an anonymous work ; which 
might appear an act of supererogation. With regard to Don 
Juan, I neither deny nor admit it to be mine— everybody 
may form their own opinion ; but, if there be any who now, 
or in the progress of that poem, if it is to be continued, feel, 
or should feel themselves so aggrieved as to require a more 
explicit answer, privately and personally, they shall have it. 

I have never shrunk from the responsibility of what I 
have written, and have more than once incurred obloquy by 
neglecting to disavow what was attributed to my pen without 
foundation. 

The greater part, however, of the " Remarks on Don Juan " 
contain but little on the work itself, which receives an ex- 
traordinary portion of praise as a composition. With the 
exception of some quotations, and a few incidental remarks, 
the rest of the article is neither more nor less than a per- 
sonal attack upon the imputed author. It is not the first in 
the same publication : for I recollect to have read, some time 
ago, similar remarks upon " Beppo " (said to have been writ- 
ten by a celebrated northern preacher) ; in which the conclu- 
sion drawn was, that " Childe Harold, Byron, and the count 
in Beppo, were one and the same person ;" thereby making 
me turn out to be, as Mrs. Malaprop^ says, '■'■like Cerberus, 
three gentlemen at once." That article was signed " Presbyter 
Anglicanus;" which, I presume, being interpreted, means 
Scotch Presbyterian .2 I must here observe,— and it is at 
once ludicrous and vexatious to be compelled so frequently 
to repeat the same thing, — that my case, as an author, is 
peculiarly hard, in being everlastingly taken, or mistaken, 
for my own protagonist. It is unjust and particular. I 
never heard that my friend Moore was set down for a fire- 
worshipper on account of his Guebre ; that Scott was identi- 
fied with Roderick Dhu, or with Balfour of Burley ; or that, 
notwithstanding all the magicians in Thalaba, anybody has 
ever taken Mr. Southey for a conjurer ; whereas I have had 
some difficulty in extricating me even from Manfred, who, 
as Mr. Southey slyly observes in one of his articles in the 
Quarterly, "met the devil on the Jungfrau, and bullied 
him :" 8 and I answer Mr. Southey, who has apparently, in 
his poetical life, not been so successful against the great 
enemy, that, in this, Manfred exactly followed the sacred 
precept, — "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." — I 
shall have more to say on the subject of this person— not the 
devil, but his most humble servant Mr. Southey— before I 
conclude ; but, for the present, I must return to the article 
in the Edinburgh Magazine. 

In the course of this article, amidst some extraordinary 
observations, there occur the following words :— " It appears. 



ally of the Jungfrau, I said, ' It was the scene where Lord Byron's Manfred 
met the devil, and bullied him— though the devil must have won his cause 
before any tribunal in this world, or the next, if he had not pleaded more 
feebly for himself than his advocate, in a cause of canonization, ever pleaded 
for him.' "—Southey. 



APPENDIX. 



In short, as if this miserable man, having exhausted every 
tpedes of seusual gratification,— haviug drained the cup of 
sin even to its bitterest dregs, were resolved to show us that 
he is no longer a human being even in his frailties,— but a 
cool, unconcerned fiend, laughing with a detestable glee over 
the whole of the better and worse elements of which human 
life is composed." In another place there appears, "the 
lurking-place of his selfish and polluted exile."— "By my 
troth, these be bitter words !"— With regard to the first sen- 
tence, I shall content myself with observing, that it appears 
to have been composed for Sardanapalus, Tiberius, the 
Regent Duke of Orleans, or Louis XV. ; and that I have 
copied it with as much indifference as I would a passage 
from Suetonius, or from any of the private memoirs of the 
r^ency, conceiving it to be amply refuted by the terms in 
which it is expressed, and to be utterly inapplicable to any 
private individual. On the words " lurking-place," and " self- 
ish and polluted exile," I have something more to say.— 
How far the capital city of a government, which survived 
the vicissitudes of thirteen hundred years, and might still 
have existed but for the treachery of Buonaparte, and the 
iniquity of his imitators,— a city, which was the emporium 
of Europe when London and Edinburgh were dens of bar- 
barians, — may be termed a " lurking-place," I leave to those 
who have seen or heard of Venice to decide. How far my 
exile may have been "polluted," it is not for me to say, 
because the word is a wide one, and, with some of its 
branches, may chance to overshadow the actions of most 
men; but that it has been " selfish" I deny. If, to the extent 
of my means and my power, and my information of their 
calamities, to have assisted many miserable beings, reduced 
by the decay of the place of their birth, and their consequent 
loss of substance — if to have never rejected an application 
which appeared founded on truth— if to have expended in 
this manner sums far out of proportion to my fortune, there 
and elsewhere, be selfish, then have I been selfish. To have 
done such things I do not deem much ; but it is hard in- 
deed to be compelled to recapitulate them in my own defence, 
by such accusations as that before me, like a panel before a 
jury calling testimonies to his character, or a soldier record- 
ing his services to obtain his discharge. If the person 
who has made the charge of "selfishness" wishes to inform 
hunself further on the subject, he may acquire, not what he 
would wish to find, but what will sUence and shame him, by 
applying to the consul-general of our nation, resident in the 
place, who will be in the case either to confirm or deny what 
I have asserted.! 

I neither make, nor have ever made, pretensions to sanctity 
of demeanor, nor regularity of conduct; but my means have 
been expended principally on my own gratification, neither 
now nor heretofore, neither in England nor out of it ; and it 
wants but a word from me, if I thought that word decent or 
necessary, to call forth the most willing witnesses, and at 
once witnesses and proofs, in England itself, to show that 
there are those who have derived not the mere temporary 
relief of a wretched boon, but the means which led them to 
immediate happiness and ultimate independence, by my want 
of that very " selfishness," as grossly as falsely now imputed 
to my conduct. 

Had I been a selfish man— had I been a grasping man- 
had I been, in the worldly sense of the word, even a jrrndent 
™»o.— I should not be where I now am ; I should not have 
Uken the step which was the first that led to the events 
which have sunk and swnln a gulf between me and mine; 
but in this respect the truth will one day be made known : 
in the mean time, as Duranrlarte says, in the Cave of Mon- 
tesinos, " Patience, and shuffle the cards." 

I bitterly feel the ostentation of this statement, the first of 



1 " Lord Byron waa erer ready to M%\%i the dlntresned, and he wan moat 
ano«t«nUUouii In his charitief ; for, bcHldes coniilderahle .lurnii which he 
gave away to applicants at his own house, he contributed largely, by weekly 



the kind I have ever made : I feel the degradation of being 
compelled to make it ; but I also feel its truth, and I trust to 
feel it on my death-bed, should it be my lot to die there. I 
am not less sensible of the egotism of all this ; but, alas ! who 
have made me thus egotistical in my own defence, if not 
they, who, by perversely persisting in referring fiction to 
truth, and tracing poetry to life, and regarding characters of 
imagination as creatures of existence, have made me person- 
ally responsible for almost every poetical delineation which 
fancy, and a particular bias of thought, may have tended to 
produce ? 

The writer continues: — "Those who are acquainted, as 
who is not ? with the main incidents of the private life of Lord 
B.," &c. Assuredly, whoever may be acquainted with these 
" main incidents," the writer of the " Remarks on Don Juan " 
is not, or he would use a very different language. That 
which I believe he alludes to as a " main incident," happened 
to be a very subordinate one, and the natural and almost 
inevitable consequence of events and circumstances long 
prior to the period at which it occurred. It is the last drop 
which makes the cup run over, and mine was already full. — 
But, to return to this man's charge : he accuses Lord B. of 
"an elaborate satire on the character and manners of hie 
wife." From what parts of Don Juan the writer has inferred 
this he himself best knows. As far as I recollect of the female 
characters in that production, there is but one who is depicted 
in ridiculous colors, or that could be interpreted as a satire 
upon any body. But here my poetical sins are again revisited 
upon me, supposing that the poem be mine. If I depict a 
corsair, a misanthrope, a libertine, a chief of insurgents, or 
an infidel, he is set down to the author ; and if, in a poem by 
no means ascertained to be my production, there appears a 
disagreeable, casuistical, and by no means respectable female 
pedant, it is set down for my wife. Is there any resemblance? 
If there be, it is in those who make it : I can see none. In 
my writings I have rarely described any character under a 
fictitious name : those of whom I have spoken have had their 
own— in many cases a stronger satire in itself than any which 
could be appended to it. But of real circumstances I have 
availed myself plentifully, both in the serious and the ludi- 
crous—they are to poetry what landscapes are to the painter ; 
but mj figures are not portraits. It may even have happened, 
that I have seized on some events that have occurred under 
my own observation, or in my own family, as I would paint 
a view from my grounds, did it harmonize with my picture ; 
but I never would introduce the likeness of its living mem- 
bers, unless their features could be made as favorable to 
themselves as to the effect; which, in the above instance, 
would be extremely difficult. 

My learned brother proceeds to observe, that " it is in vain 
for Lord B. to attempt in any way to justify his own beha- 
vior in that affair; and now that he has so openly and 
audaciously invited inquiry and reproach, we do not see any 
good reason why he should not be plainly told so by the 
voice of his countrymen." How far the "openness" of an 
anonymous poem, and the "audacity" of an imaginary char- 
acter, which the writer supposes to be meant for Lady B., 
may be deemed to merit this formidable denunciation from 
their "most sweet voices," I qeither know nor care; but 
when he tells me that I cannot " in any way jwitify my own 
behavior in that affair," I acquiesce, because no man can 
"justify" himself until he knows of what he is accused ; and 
I have never had— and, God knows, my whole desire has 
ever been to obtain it— any specific charge, in a tangible 
shape, submitted to me by the adversary, nor by others, 
unless the atrocities of public rumor and the mysterious 
silence of the lady's legal advisers may be deemed such. But 
is not the writer content with what has been already said 



and monthly allowances, to persons whom he had never seen, and who, aa 
the money reached them by other hands, did not even know who was their 
benefactor."— Hon" ji«R. 



960 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



and done? Has not " the general voice of his countrymen" 
long ago pronounced upon the subject— sentence without 
trial, and condemnation without a charge ? Have I not been 
exiled by ostracism, except that the shells which proscribed 
me were anonymous ? Is the writer ignorant of the public 
opinion and the public conduct upon that occasion ? If he 
is, I am not : the public will forget both, long before I shall 
cease to remember either. 

The man who is exiled by a faction has the consolation of 
thinking that he is a martyr ; he is upheld by hope and the 
dignity of his cause, real or imaginary ; he who withdraws 
from the pressure of debt may indulge in the thought that 
time and prudence will retrieve his circumstances; he who 
is condemned by the law has a term to his banishment, or a 
dream of its abbreviation ; or, it may be, the knowledge or 
the belief of some injustice of the law, or of its adminis- 
tration in his own particular ; but he who is outlawed 
by general opinion, without the intervention of hostile 
politics, illegal judgment, or embarrassed circumstances, 
whether he be innocent or guilty, must undergo all the 
bitterness of exile, without hope, without pride, without 
alleviation. This case was mine. Upon what grounds the 
public founded their opinion, I am not aware ; but it was 
general, and it was decisive. Of me or of mine they knew 
little, except that I had written what is called poetry, was a 
nobleman, had married, became a father, and was involved 
in differences with my wife and her relatives, no one knew 
why, because the persons complaining refused to state their 
grievances. The fashionable world was divided into parties, 
mine consisting of a very small minority: the reasonable 
world was naturally on the stronger side, which happened to 
be the lady's, as was most proper and polite. The press was 
active and scurrilous ; and such was the rage of the day 
that the unfortunate publication of two copies of verses, 
rather complimentary than otherwise to the subjects of both, 
was tortured into a species of crime, or constructive petty 
treason. I was accused of every monstrous vice by public 
rumor, and private rancor: my name, which had been a 
knightly or a noble one since my fathers helped to conquer 
the kingdom for William the Korman, was tainted. I felt 
that, if what was whispered, and muttered, and murmured 
was true, I was unfit for England; if false, England was 
unfit for me. I withdrew: but this was not enough. In 
other countries, in Switzerland, in the shadow of the Alps, 
and by the blue depth of the lakes, I was pursued and 
breathed upon by the same blight. I crossed the mountains, 
but it was the same ; so I went a little further, and settled 
myself by the waves of the Adriatic, like the stag at bay, 
who betakes him to the waters. 

If I may judge by the statements of the few friends who 
gathered round me, the outcry of the period to which I allude 
was beyond all precedent, all parallel, even in those cases 
where political motives have sharpened slander and doubled 
enmity. I was advised not to go to the theatres, lest I should 
be hissed, nor to my duty in parliament, lest I should be 
insulted by the way ; even on the day of my departure, my 
most intimate friend told me afterwards, that he was under 
apprehensions of violence from the people who might be 
assembled at the door of the carriage. However, I was not 
deterred by these counsels from seeing Kean in his best char- 
acters, nor from voting according to my principles ; and with 
regard to the third and last apprehensions of my friends, I 
could not share in them, not being made acquainted with 
their extent till some time after I had crossed the Channel. 
Even if I had been so, I am not of a nature to be much 
affected by men's anger, though I may feel hurt by their 
aversion. Against all individual outrage, I could protect or 
redress myself; and against that of a crowd, I should prob- 
ably have been enabled to defend myself, with the assistance 
of others, as has been done on similar occasions. 

I retired from the country, perceiving that I was the object 
of general obloquy; I did not indeed imagine, like Jean 



Jacques Rousseau, that all mankind was in a conspiracy 
against me, though I had perhaps as good grounds for such 
a chimera as ever he had ; but I perceived that I had to a 
great extent become personally obnoxious in England, per- 
haps through my own fault, but the fact was indisputable : 
the public in general would hardly have been so much 
excited against a more popular character, without at least 
an accusation or a charge of some kind actually expressed or 
substantiated, for I can hardly conceive that the common 
and every-day occurrence of a separation between man and 
wife could in itself produce so great a ferment. I shall say 
nothing of the usual complaints of "being prejudged," 
"condemned unheard," "unfairness," "partiality," and so 
forth, the usual changes rung by parties who have had, or 
are to have, a trial; but I was a little surprised to find 
myself condemned without being favored with the act of 
accusation, and to perceive in the absence of this portentous 
charge or charges, whatever it or they were to be, that every 
possible or impossible crime was rumored to supply its place, 
and taken for granted. This could only occur in the ease of 
a person very much disliked ; and I knew no remedy, having 
already used to their extent whatever little powers I might 
possess of pleasing in society. I had no party in fashion, 
though I was afterwards told that there was one— but it was 
not of my formation, nor did I then know of its existence — 
none in literature; and in politics I had voted with the 
Whigs, with precisely that importance which a Whig vote 
possesses in these Tory days, and with such personal ac- 
quaintance with the leaders in both houses as the society in 
which I lived sanctioned, but without claim or expectation 
of any thing like friendship from any one, except a few 
young men of my own age and standing, and a few others 
more advanced in life, which last it had been my fortune to 
serve in circumstances of difficulty. This was, in fact, to 
stand alone : and I recollect, some time after, when Madame 
de Stael said to me in Switzerland, " You should not have 
warred with the world — it will not do — it is too strong always 
for any individual ; I myself once tried it in early life, but 
it will not do." I perfectly acquiesce in the truth of this 
remark ; but the world had done me the honor to begin the 
war ; and assuredly, if peace is only to be obtained by court- 
ing and paying tribute to it, I am not qualified to obtain its 
countenance. I thought, in the words of Campbell, 

" Then wed thee to an exiled lot, 
And if the world hath loved thee not, 
Its absence may be borne." 

I recollect, however, that having been much hurt by Rom- 
illy's conduct (he, having a general retainer for me, had acted 
as adviser to the adversary, alleging, on being reminded of 
his retainer, that he had forgotten it, as his clerk had so 
many), I observed that some of those who were now eagerly 
laying the axe to my roof-tree, might see their own shaken, 
and feel a portion of what they had inflicted.— His fell, and 
crushed him, 

I have heard of, and believe, that there are human beings 
so constituted as to be insensible to injuries ; but I believe 
that the best mode to avoid taking vengeance is to get out of 
the way of temptation. I hope that I may never have the 
opportunity, for I am not quite sure that I could resist it, 
having derived from my mother something of the "jper/er- 
vidum ingenium Scotorum:^ I have not sought, and shall not 
seek it, and perhaps it may never come in my path. I do 
not in this allude to the party, who might be right or wrong : 
but to many who made her cause the pretext of their own 
bitterness. She, indeed, must have long avenged me in her 
own feelings ; for whatever her reasons may have been (and 
she never adduced them to me at least), she probably neither 
contemplated nor conceived to what she became the means 
of conducting the father of her child, and the husband of 
her choice. \ 



APPENDIX. 



961 



So much for " the general voice of his countrymen :■ ' I 
will now speak of some in particular. 

In the beginning of the year 1817, an article appeared in 
the Quarterly Review, written, I believe, by Walter Scott.i 
doing great honor to him, and no disgrace to me, though 
both poetically and personally more than sufficiently favor- 
able to the work and the author of whom it treated. It was 
written at a time when a selfish man would not, and a timid 
one dared not, have said a word in favor of either; it was 
written by one to whom temporary public opinion had 
elevated me to the rank of a rival — a proud distinction, and 
unmerited ; but which has not prevented me from feeling as 
a friend, nor him from more than corresponding to that 
sentiment. The article in question was written upon the 
third canto of Childe Harold ; and after many observations, 
which it would as ill become me to repeat as to forget, con- 
cluded with "a hope that I might yet return to England." 
How this expression was received in England itself I am not 
acquainted, but it gave great offence at Rome to the respect- 
able ten or twenty thousand English travellers then and 
there assembled. I did not visit Rome till some time after, 
so that I had no opportunity of knowing the fact : but I was 
informed, long afterwards, that the greatest indignation had 
been manifested in the enlightened Anglo-circle of that year, 
which happened to comprise within it— amidst a considerable 
leaven of Welbeck Street and Devonshire Place, broken 
loose upon their travels — several really well-born and well- 
bred families, who did not the less participate in the feeling 
of the hour. " Why should he return to England?" was the 
general exclamation— I answer jvkyf It is a question I have 
occasionally asked myself, and I never yet could give it a 
satisfactory reply. I had then no thoughts of returning, and 
if I have any now, they are of business, and not of pleasure. 
Amidst the ties that have been dashed to pieces, there are 
links yet entire, though the chain itself be broken. There 
are duties, and connections, which may one day require ray 
presence— and I am a father. I have still some friends whom 
I wish to meet again, and, it may be, an enemy. These things, 
and those minuter details of business, which time accumu- 
lates during absence, in every man's affairs and property, may, 
and probably will, recall me to England ; but I shall return 
with the same feelings with which I left it, in respect to itself, 
though altered with regard to individuals, as I have been 
more or less informed of their conduct since my departure ; 
for it was only a considerable time after it that I was made 
acquainted with the real facts and full extent of some of their 
proceedings and language. My friends, like other friends, 
from conciliatory motives, withheld from me much that they 
could, and some things which they should have unfolded; 
however, that which is deferred is not lost — but it has been 
no fault of mine that it has been deferred at all. 

I have alluded to what is said to have passed at Rome 
merely to show that the sentiment which I have described 
was not confined to the English in England, and as forming 
part of ray answer to the reproach cast upon what has been 
called ray "selfish exile," and my "voluntary exile." "Vol- 
untary " it has been ; for who would dwell among a people 
entertaining strong hostility against him? How far it has 
been "selfish " has been already explained. 

I have now arrived at a passage describing me as having 
▼ented my "spleen against the lofty-minded and virtuous 
men," men "whose virtues few indeed can equal ;" meaning, 
I humbly presume, the notorious triumvirate known by the 
name of " Lake Poets " in their aggregate capacity, and by 
Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge, when taken singly. I 
wish to say a wonl or two upon the virtues of one of those 
persons, public and private, for reasons which will soon 
appear. 

When I left England in April, 1816, ill in mind, in body. 



and in circumstances, I took up my residence at Coligny, by 
the lake of Geneva. The sole companion of my journey was 
a young physician,^ who had to make his way in the world, 
and having seen very little of it, was naturally and laudably 
desirous of seeing more society than suited my present habits 
or my past experience. I therefore presented him to those 
gentlemen of Geneva for whom I had letters of introduc- 
tion ; and having thus seen him in a situation to make his 
own way, retired for my own part entirely from society, with 
the exception of one English family, living at about a quar- 
ter of a mile's distance from Diodati, and with the further 
exception of some occasional intercourse with Coppet at the 
wish of Madame de Stael. The English family to which I 
allude consisted of two ladies, a gentleman and his son, a boy 
of a year old.3 

One of " these lofty-minded and virtuous men," in the words 
of the Edinburgh Magazine, made, I understand, about this 
time, or soon after, a tour in Switzerland. On his return to 
England, he circulated— and, for anything I know, invented 
— a report, that the gentleman to wliom I have alluded and 
myself were living in promiscuous intercourse with two sis- 
ters, " having formed a league of incest " (I quote the words 
as they were stated to me), and indulged himself on the 
natural comments upon such a conjunction, which are said 
to have been repeated publicly, with great complacency, by 
another of that poetical fraternity, of whom I shall say only, 
that even had the story been true, he should not have repeated 
it, as far as it regarded myself, except in sorrow. The tale 
itself requires but a word in answer— the ladies were not 
sisters, nor in any degree connected, except by the second 
marriage of their respective parents, a widower with a widow, 
both being the offspring of former marriages; neither of 
them were, in 1816, nineteen years old. "Promiscuous inter- 
course" could hardly have disgusted the great patron of pan- 
tisocracy (does Mr. Southey remember such a scheme ?), but 
there was none. 

How far this man, who, as author of Wat Tyler, has been • 
proclaimed by the lord chancellor guilty of a treasonable and 
blasphemous libel, and denounced in the House of Commons, 
by the upright and able member for Norwich, as a " rancor- 
ous renegade," be fit for sitting as a judge upon others, let 
others judge. Tie has said that for this expression "he 
brands William Smith on the forehead as a calumniator," and 
that " the mark will outlast his epitaph." How long William 
Smith's epitaph will last, and in what words it will be writ- - 
ten, I know not, but William Smith's words form the epitaph 
itself of Robert Southey. He has written Wat Tyler, and 
taken the office of poet laureate — he has, in the Life of Henry 
Kirke White, denominated reviewing " the ungentle craft," 
and has become a reviewer — he was one of the projectors of 
a scheme, called " pantisocracy," for having all things, in- 
cluding women, in common {query, covamon wora«n?), andhe 
sets up as a moralist— he denounced the battle of Blenheim, 
and he praised the battle of Waterloo— he loved Mary Woll- 
stoncraft, and he tried to blast the character of h-er daughter 
(one of the young females mentioned) — he wrote treason, 
and serves the king— he was the butt of the Anti-jacobin, and 
he is the prop of the Quarterly Review; licking the hands 
that smote him, eating the bread of his enemies, and inter- 
nally writhing beneath his own contempt, — he would fain con- 
ceal, under anonymous bluster, and a vain endeavor to obtain 
the esteem of others, after having for ever lost his own, his 
leprous sense of his own degradation. What is there in .such 
a man to "envy"? Who ever envied the envious? Is it his 
I birth, his name, his fame, or his virtues, that I am to " envy " ? 
I was born of the aristocracy, which ho abhorred; and am 
sprung, by my mother, from the kincrs who preceded those 
whom he has hired himself to sing. It cannot, then, be his 
birth. As a poet, I have, for the past eight years, had noth- 



I Bee Qnarterljr Review, vol. ktI. p. ITS. 



61 



2 Dr. Polfdori, author of " The Vampire." 

3 Mr. and Mnt. Shelley, Misi Clermont, and Matter Bheller. 



962 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



ing to apprehend from a competition; and for the future, 
" that life to come in every poet's creed," it is open to all. I 
will only remind Mr. Southey, in the words of a critic, who, 
if still living, would have annihilated Southey's literary ex- 
istence now and hereafter, as the sworn foe of charlatans and 
impostors, from Macpherson downwards, that "those dreams 
were Settle's once and. Ogilby's;" and, for my own part, I 
assure him, that whenever he and his sect are remembered, 
I shall be proud to be " forgot." That he is not content with 
his success as a poet may reasonably be believed— he has been 
the nine-pin of reviews ; the Edinburgh knocked him down, 
and. the Quarterly set him up; the government found him 
useful in the periodical line, and made a point of recommend- 
ing his works to purchasers, so that he is occasionally bought 
(I mean his books, as well as the author), and may be found 
on the same shelf, if not upon the table, of most of the gen- 
tlemen employed in the different offices. With regard to his 
private virtues, I know nothing — of his principles, I have 
heard enough. As far as having been, to the best of my 
power, benevolent to others, I do not fear the comparison ; 
and for the errors of the passions, was Mr. Southey always so 
tranquil and stainless? Did he never covet his neighbor's 
wife ? Did he never calumniate his neighbor's wife's daugh- 
ter, the offspring of her he coveted ? So much for the apostle 
of pantisocracy. 

Of the " lofty-minded, virtuous " "Wordsworth, one anecdote 
will suffice to speak his sincerity. In a conversation with 

Mr. upon poetry, he concluded with, " After all, I would 

not give five shillings for all that Southey has ever written." 
Perhaps this calculation might rather show his esteem for 
five shillings than his low estimate of Dr. Southey ; but con- 
sidering that when he was in his need, and Southey had a 
shilling, Wordsworth is said to have had generally sixpence 
out of it, it has an awkward sound in the way of valuation. 
This anecdote was told me by persons who, if quoted by 
name, would prove that its genealogy is poetical as well as 
true. I can give my authority for this ; and am ready to ad- 
duce it also for Mr. Southey's circulation of the falsehood 
before mentioned. 

Of Coleridge, I shall say nothing — why, he may divine.i 

I have said more of these people than I intended in this 
place, being somewhat stirred by the remarks which induced 
me to commence upon the topic. I see nothing in these men, 
as poets, or as individuals— little in their talents, and less in 
their characters, to prevent honest men from expressing for 
them considerable contempt, in prose or rhyme, as it may 
happen. Mr. Southey has the Quarterly for his field of re- 
joinder, and Mr. Wordsworth his postscripts to "Lyrical 
Ballads," where the two great instances of the sublime are 
taken from himself and Milton. " Over her own sweet voice 
the stockdove broods ;" that is to say, she has the pleasure of 
listening to herself, in common with Mr. Wordsworth upon 
most of his public appearances. " What divinity doth hedge " 
these persons, that we should respect them? Is it Apollo? 
Are they not of those who called Dryden's Ode " a drunken 
song"? who have discovered that Gray's Elegy is full of 
faults (see Coleridge's Life, vol. i. note, for Wordsworth's 
kindness in pointing this out to him), and have published 
what is allowed to be the very worst prose that ever was 
written to prove that Pope was no poet, and that William 
Wordsworth is ? 

In other points, are they respectable, or respected ? Is it 
on the open avowal of apostasy, on the patronage of govern- 



1 See Notices of Lord Byron's Life. 

2 " Tassoni was almost the only Italian poet of the era In which he flour- 
ished who withstood the general corruption of taste introduced by Marino 
and his followers, and by the ' imitated imitators ' of Lope de Vega ; and he 
opened a new path, in which a crowd of pretenders have vainly endeavored 
to follow him." — Foscolo. 

3 " The Loves of the Triangles," the joint production of Messrs. Canning 
and Frere. 



ment, that their claim is founded ? Who is there who esteems 
those parricides of their own principles ? They are, in fact, 
well aware that the reward of their change has been any 
thing but honor. The times have preserved a respect for 
political consistency, and, even though changeable, honor the 
unchanged. Look at Moore: it will be long ere Southey 
meets with such a triumph in London as Moore met with in 
Dublin, even if the .government subscribe for it, and set the 
money down to secret service. It was not less to the man 
than to the poet, to the tempted but unshaken patriot, to the 
not opulent, but incorruptible fellow citizen, that the warm- 
hearted Irish paid the proudest of tributes. Mr. Southey 
may applaud himself to the world, but he has his own heart- 
iest contempt ; and the fury with which he foams against all 
who stand in the phalanx which he forsook, is, as William 
Smith described it, "the rancor of the renegado," the bad 
language of the prostitute who stands at the corner of the 
street, and showers her slang upon all, except those who may 
have bestowed upon her her " little shilling." 

Hence his quarterly overflowings, political and literary, in 
what he has himself termed "the ungentle craft," and his 
especial wrath against Mr. Leigh Hunt, notwithstanding that 
Hunt has done more for Wordsworth's reputation, as a poet 
(such as it is), than all the Lakers could in their interchange 
of self-praises for the last twenty-five years. 

And here I wish to say a few words on the present state of 
English poetry. That this is the age of the decline of English 
poetry will be doubted by few who have calmly considered the 
subject. That there are men of genius among the present 
poets makes little against the fact, because it has been well 
said, that " next to him who forms the taste of his country, 
the greatest genius is he who corrupts it." No one has ever 
denied genius to Marino,2 who corrupted not merely the 
taste of Italy, but that of all Europe for nearly a century. 
The great cause of the present deplorable state of English 
poetry is to be attributed to that absurd and systematic de- 
preciation of Pope, in which, for the last few years, there 
has been a kind of epidemical concurrence. Men of the most 
opposite opinions have united upon this topic. Warton and 
Churchill began it, having borrowed the hint probably from 
the heroes of the Dunciad, and their own internal conviction 
that their proper reputation can be as nothing till the most 
perfect and harmonious of poets— he who, having no fault, 
has had reason made his reproach — was reduced to what 
they conceived to be his level ; but even tJiey dared not de- 
grade him below Dryden. Goldsmith, and Rogers, and Camp- 
bell, his most successful disciples ; and Hayley, who, however 
feeble, has left one poem " that will not be willingly let die" 
(the Triumphs of Temper), kept up the reputation of that 
pure and perfect style ; and Crabbe, the first of living poets, 
has almost equalled the master. Then came Darwin, who 
was put down by a single poem in the Anti-jacobin ;3 and the 
Cruscans, from Merry to Jerningham, who were annihilated 
(if Nothing can be said to be annihilated) by Gifford, the last 
of the wholesome satirists. 

At the same time Mr. Southey was favoring the public with 
Wat Tyler and Joan of Arc, to the great glory of the Drama 
and Epos. I beg pardon, Wat Tyler, with Peter Bell, was 
still in MS. ; and it was not till after Mr. Southey had re- 
ceived his Malmsey butt, and Mr. Wordsworth 4 became 
qualified to gauge it, that the great revolutionary tragedy 
came before the public and the Court of Chancery. Words- 
worth was peddling his lyrical ballads, and brooding a 



4 Goldsmith has anticipated the definition of the Lake poetry, as far as 
such things can be defined. " Gentlemen, the present piece is not of your 
common epic poems, which come from the press like paper kites in summer ; 
there are none of your Turnuses or Didos in it; it is an historical descrip- 
tion of nature. I only beg you'll endeavor to make your souls in unison 
with mine, and hear with the same enthusiasm with which I have written." 
Would not this have made, a proper proem to the Excursion, and the poet 
and his peddler? It would have answered perfectly tor that purpose, had 
\ it not unfortunately been written in good English. 



APPENDIX. 



963 



preface, to be succeeded in due course by a postscript; both 
couched in such prose as must give peculiar delight to those 
who have read the prefaces of Pope and Dryden ; scarcely 
less celebrated for the beauty of their prose, than for the 
charms of their verse. Wordsworth is the reverse of Mo- 
liftre's gentleman who had been " talking prose all his life, 
without knowing it ;" for he thinks that he has been all his 
life writing both prose and verse, and neither of what he 
conceives to be such can be properly said to be either one or 
the other. Mr. Coleridge, the future vat&s, poet and seer of 
the Morning Post (an honor also claimed by Mr. Fitzgerald, 
of the "Rejected Addresses"!), who ultimately prophesied • 
the downfall of Buonaparte, to which he himself mainly i 
contributed, by giving him the nickname of "the Oorsican," 
was then employed in predicating the damnation of Mr. 
Pitt, and the desolation of England, in the two very best 
copies of verses he ever wrote: to wit, the infernal eclogue 
of "Fire, Famine, and Slaughter," and the 'Ode to the do- 
parting Year." 

These three personages, Southey, Wordsworth, and Cole- 
ridge, had all of them a very natural antipathy to Pope ; and 
I respect them for it, as the only original feeling or principle 
which they have contrived to preserve. But they have been 
joined in it by those who have joined them in nothing else: 
by the Edinburgh Reviewers, by the whole heterogeneous 
mas-s of living English poets, excepting Crabbe, Rogers, Gif- 
ford, and Campbell, who, both by precept and practice, have 
proved their adherence; and by me, who have shamefully 
deviated in practice, but have ever loved and honored Pope's 
poetry with my whole soul, and hope to do so till my dying 
day. I would rather see all I have ever written lining the 
same trunk in which I actually read the eleventh book of a 
modern epic poem 2 at Malta, in 1811 (I opened it to take out 
a change after the paroxysm of a tertian, in the absence of 
my servant, and found it lined with the name of the maker. 
Eyre, Cockspur Street, and with the epic poetry alluded to), 
than sacrifice what I firmly believe in as the Christianity of 
English poetry, the poetry of Pope. 

But the Edinburgh Reviewers, and the Lakers, and Hunt 
and his school, and every body else with their school, and 
even Moore without a school, and dilettanti lecturers at in- 
stitutions, and elderly gentlemen who translate and imitate, 
and young ladies who Listen and repeat, baronets who draw 
indifferent frontispieces for bad poets, and noblemen who 
let them dine with them in the country, the small body of 
the wit« and the great body of the blues, have latterly united 
in a depreciation, of which their fathers would have been as 
much a-shamed as their children will be. In the mean time, 
what have we got instead? The Lake school, which began 
with an epic i)oem, " written in six weeks" (so Joan of Arc 
proclaijned herself), and finished with a ballad composed in 
twenty years, as " Peter Bell's" creator takes care to inform 
the few who will inquire. What have we got instead? A I 
deluge of flimsy and unintelligible romances, imitated from | 
Scott and myself, who have both made the best of our bad 
materiah and erroneous system. What have we got inst(;ad ? 
Madoc, which is neither an epic nor any thing else, Tlia- 
laba, Kehama, Gebir, and such gibberish, written in all 
metres and in no language. Hunt, who had powers to have 
made "the Story of Rimini" as perfect as a fable of Dryden, 
ha-H thought fit to sacrifice his genius and his taste to some 
uninU'lligible notions of Wordsworth, which I defy him to 

explain. Moore has But why continue?— All, with the 

exception of Crabbe, Rogers, and Campbell, who may be con- 
sidered as having taken their station, will, by the bl-ssing 
of (iod, survive their own reputation, without attaining any 
very extraordinary period of longevity. Of course there 
must be a still further exception in favor of those who, 



I Se« anU, p. 498. 
Sir Jamea Blaod BnrgMi'a " Richard I.- See ante, p. 533. 



having never obtained any reputation at all, unless it be 
among provincial literati, and their own families, have noH>' 
to lose ; and of Moore, who, as the Burns of Ireland, possesses 
a fame which cannot be lost. 

The greater part of the poet* mentioned, however, have 
been able to gather together a lew followers. A paper of the 
Connoisseur says, that " it is observed by the French, that 
a cat, a priest, and an old woman, are sufficient to constitute 
a religious sect in England." The same number of animals, 
with some ditt'erencc in kind, will suifice for a poetical one. 
If we take Sir George Beaumont instead of the priest, and 
Mr. Wordsworth for the old woman, we shall nearly complete 
the quota required ; but I fear that Mr. Southey will but in- 
dilFerently represent the cat, having shown himself but too 
distinctly to be of a species to which that noble creature is 
peculiarly hostile. 

Nevertheless, I will not go so far as Wordsworth in his 
postscript, who pretends that no great poet ever had imme- 
diate fame; which being interpreted, means that William 
Wordsworth is not quite so much read by his contemporaries 
as might be desirable. This assertion is as false as it is 
foolish. Homer's glory dei)ends upon his present popularity : 
he recited,— and without the strongest impression of th<> 
moment, who would have gotten the Iliad by heart, and 
given it to tradition? Ennius, Terence, Plautus, Lucretius, 
Horace, Virgil, ^schylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Sappho, An- 
acreon, Theocritus, all the great poets of antiquity, were the 
delight of their contemporaries. The very existence of a 
poet, previous to the invention of printing, depended upon 
his present popularity; and how often has it impaired hLs 
future fame? Hardly ever. History informs us, that the 
best have come down to us. The reasop is evident : the most 
popular found the greatest number of transcribers for their 
MSS. ; and that the taste of their contemporaries was corrupt 
can hardly be avouched by the moderns, the mightiest of 
whom have but barely approached them. Dante, Petrarch, 
Ariosto, and Tasso, were all the darlings of the contemporary 
reader. Dante's poem was celebrated long before his death ; 
and, not long after it, states negotiated for his ashes, and 
disputed for the sites of the composition of the Divina 
Commedia. Petrarch was crowned in the Capitol. Ariosto 
was permitted to pass free by the public robber who had read 
the Orlando Furioso. I would not recommend Mr. Words- 
worth to try the same experiment with his Smugglers. 
Tasso, notwithstanding the criticisms of the Cruscanti, would 
have been crowned in the Capitol but for his death. 

It is easy to prove the immediate popularity of the chief 
poets of the only modern nation in Europe that has a poeti- 
cal language, the Italian. In our own Shakspeare, Spenser, 
Jonson, Waller, Dryden, Congreve, Pope, Young, Shcnstone, 
Thomson, Johnson, Goldsmith, Gray, were all as popular in 
their lives as since. Gray's Elegy pleased instantly, and 
eternally. His Odes did not, nor yet do they, please like his 
Elegy. Milton's politics kept him down. But the Epigram 
of Dryden,3 and the very sale of his work, in proportion to 
the less reading time of its publication, prove him to have 
been honored by his contemporaries. I will venture to assert, 
that the sale of the Paradise Lost was greater in the first 
four years after its puljlication, than that of "The Excur- 
sion" in the same number, with the difference of nearly a 
century and a half between them of time, and of thousands 
in point of general readers. Notwithstanding Mr. Wordy;- 
worth's having pressed Milton into his service as one of those 
not presently popular, to favor his own purpose of proving 
that our grandchildren will read him (the said William 
Wordsworth), I would recommend him to begin first with 
our grandmothers. But he need not be alarme<l ; he may 
yet live to see all the envies pass away, as Darwin and 



8 The well-known HncK nnder Milton's picture. 
" Three poct«, in three dlitant ages born," A«. 



964 



BYKON'S WOKKS. 



Seward and Hoole, and Hole,i and Hoyle,2 have passed away ; 
but their declension will not be his ascension ; he is essen- 
tially a bad writer, and all the failures of others can never 
strengthen him. He may have a sect, but he will never 
have a public; and his ^'audience" will always be "/ew," 
without being "_;?/,"— except for Bedlam. 

It may be asked, why, having this opinion of the present 
state of poetry in England, and having had it long, as my 
friends and others well knew— possessing, or having pos- 
sessed too, as a writer, the ear of the public for the time 
being — I have not adopted a dlflferent plan in my own com- 
positions, and endeavored to correct rather than encourage 
the taste of the day. To this I would answer, that it is 
easier to perceive the wrong than to pursue the right, and 
that I have never contemplated the prospect "of filling 
(with Peter Bell,^ see its preface) permanently a station in 
the literature of the country." Those who know me best 
know this, and that I have been considerably astonished at 
the temporary success of my works, having flattered no 
person and no party, and expressed opinions which are not 
those of the general reader. Could I have anticipated the 
degree of attention which has been accorded to me, assuredly 
I would have studied more to deserve it. But I have lived 
in far countries abroad, or in the agitating world at home, 
which was not favorable to study or reflection; so that 
almost all that I have written has been mere passion, — 
passion, it is true, of different kinds, but always passion ; for 
in me (if it be not an Irishism to say so) my indifference was 
a kind of passion, the result of experience, and not the phi- 
losophy of nature. Writing grows a habit, like a woman's 
gallantry ; there are women who have had no intrigue, but 
few who have had but one only; so there are millions of 
men who have never written a book, but few who have writ- 
ten only one. And thus, having written once, I wrote on ; 
encouraged no doubt by the success of the moment, yet by 
no means anticipating its duration, and, I will venture to say, 
scarcely even wishing it. But then I did other things besides 
write, which by no means contributed either to improve my 
writings or my prosperity. 

I have thus expressed publicly upon the poetry of the day 
the opinion I have long entertained and expressed of it to all 
who have asked it, and to some who would rather not have 
heard it: as I told Moore not very long ago, "we are all 
wrong except Rogers, Crabbe, and Campbell."* "Without 
being old in years, I am old in days, and do not feel the 
adequate spirit within me to attempt a work which should 
show what I think right in poetry, and must content myself 



1 The Eev. Richard Hole. He published in early life a versification of 
Fingal, and in 1789, " Arthur, a Poetical Romance." He died in 1803. 

2 Charles Hoyle, of Trinity College, Cambridge, author of " Exodus," an 
epic in thirteen books. 

3 "Peter Bell first saw the light in 1798. During this long interval, 
pains have been taken at different times to make the production less un- 
worthy of a favorable reception ; or rather, to fit it for filling permanently 
a station, however humble, in the literature of my country." — Words- 
worth, 1819. 

4 " I certainly ventured to differ from the judgment of my noble friend, 
no less in his attempts to depreciate that peculiar walk of the art in which 
he himself so grandly trod, than in the inconsistency of which I thought him 
guilty, in condemning all those who stood up for particular ' schools ' of 
poetry, and yet, at the same time, maintaining so exclusive a theory of the 
art himself. How little, however, he attended to either the grounds or 
degrees of my dissent from him will appear by the following wholesale 
report of my opinion in ' Detached Thoughts :'— ' One of my notions differ- 
ent from those of my contemporaries is, that the present is not a high age 
of English poetry. There are more poets (soi-disant) than ever there were, 
and proportionally less poetry. This thesis I have maintained for some 
years, but, strange to say, it meeteth not with favor from my brethren of 
the shell. Even Moore shakes his head, and firmly believes that it is the 
grand age of British poesy.' "—Moore. 

5 In 1812 Mr. Moore published "The Two-penny Post-bag ; by Thomas 
Brown the Younger;" and in 1818, " The Pudge Family in Paris." 

" Let Sporus tremble.— A. What! that thing of silk, 
Sporus, that mere white cnrd of ass's milk ? 



with having denounced what is wrong. There are, I trust, 
younger spirits rising up in England, who, escaping the con- 
tagion which has swept away poetry from our literature, will 
recall it to their country, such as it once was and may still be. 

In the mean time, the best sign of amendment will be 
repentance, and new and frequent editions of Pope and 
Dryden. 

There will be found as comfortable metaphysics, and ten 
times more poetry, in the "Essay on Man," than in the 
"Excursion." If you search for passion, where is it to be 
found stronger than in the epistle from Eloisa to Abelard, or 
in Palamon and Arcite ? Do you wish for invention, imag- 
ination, sublimity, cliaracter? seek them in the Rape of the 
Lock, the Fables of Dryden, the Ode of Saint Cecilia's Day, 
and Absalom and Achitophel : you will discover in these two 
poets only, all for which you must ransack innumerable 
metres, and God only knows how many ivriiers of the day, 
without finding a tittle of the same qualities,— with the 
addition, too, of wit, of which the latter have none. I have 
not, however, forgotten Thomas Brown the Younger, nor 
the Fudge Family ,& nor Whistlecraft ; but that is not wit — 
it is humor. I will say nothing of the harmony of Pope and 
Dryden in comparison, for there is not a living poet (except 
Rogers, Giffbrd, Campbell, and Crabbe) who can write an he- 
roic couplet. The fact is, that the exquisite beauty of their 
versification has withdrawn the public attention from their 
other excellences, as the vulgar eye will rest more upon the 
splendor of the uniform than the quality of the troops. It 
is this very harmony, particularly in Pope, which has raised 
the vulgar and atrocious cant against him:— because his 
versification is perfect, it is assumed that it is his only per- 
fection ; because his truths are so clear, it is asserted that he 
has no invention ; and because he is always intelligible, it 
is taken for granted that he has no genius. "We are sneer- 
ingly told that he is the " Poet of Reason," as if this was a 
reason for his being no poet. Taking passage for passage, I 
will undertake to cite more lines teeming with imagination 
from Pope than from any two living poets, be they who they 
may. To take an instance at random from a species of com- 
position not very favorable to imagination — Satire : set down 
the character of Sporus,^ with all the wonderful play of 
fancy which is scattered over it, and place by its side an 
equal number of verses, from any two existing poets, of the 
same power and the same variety — where will you find them? 

I merely mention one instance of many, in reply to 
the injustice done to the memory of him who harmonized 
our poetic language. The attorneys' clerks, and other self- 



Satire or sense, alas 1 can Sporus feel? 

Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel? 

P. Tet let me flap this bug with gilded wings. 

This painted child of dirt, that stinks and sings ; 

Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys, 

Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys ; 

So well-bred spaniels civilly delight 

In mumbling of the game they dare not bite. 

Eternal smiles his emptiness betray, 

As shallow streams run dimpling all the way. 

Whether in florid impotence he speaks, 

And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks; 

Or at the ear of Eve, familiar toad, 

Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad, 

In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies. 

Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies, 

His wit all see-saw, between that and this, 

Now high, now low, now master up, how miss, 

And he himself one vile antithesis. 

Amphibious thing ! that acting either part, 

The trifling head, or the corrupted heart. 

Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the board. 

Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord. 

Eve's tempter thus the TRabbins have express'd, 

A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest. 

Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust, 

Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust." 

Prol. to Sat. 



APPENDIX. 



965 



educated genii, found it easier to distort themselves to the new 
models than to toil alter the symmetry of him who had en- 
chanted their fathers. They were besides smitten by being 
told that the new school were to revive the language of 
Queen Elizabeth, the true English; as everybody in the 
reign of Queen Anne wrote no better than French, by a 
species of literary treason. 

Blank verse, which, unless in the drama, no one except 
Milton ever wrote who could rhyme, became the order of the 
day, — or else such rhyme as looked still blanker than the 
verse without it. I am aware that Johnson has said, after 
some hesitation, that he could not " prevail upon himself to 
wish that Milton had been a rhymer." The opinions of that 
truly great man, whom it is also the present fashion to decry, 
will ever be received by me with that deference which time 
will restore to him from all ; but with all humility, I am not 
persuaded that the Paradise Lost would not have been more 
nobly conveyed to posterity, not perhaps in heroic couplets, 
although even they could sustain the subject if well balanced, 
but in the stanza of Spenser or of Tasso, or in the terza rima 
of Dante, which the powers of Milton could easily have 
grafted on our language. The Seasons of Thomson would 
have been better in rhyme, although still inferior to his 
Castle of Indolence; and Mr. Southey's Joan of Arc no 
worse, although it might have taken up six months instead 
of weeks in the composition. I recommend also to the lovers 
of lyrics the perusal of the present laureate's Odes by the 
side of Dryden's on Saint Cecilia, but let him be sure to read 
first those of Mr. Southey, 

To the heaven-born genii and inspired young scriveners of 
the day much of this will appear paradox : it will appear so 
even to the higher order of our critics ; but it was a truism 
twenty years ago, and it will be a reacknowledged truth in 
ten more. In the mean time, I will conclude with two quo- 
tations, both intended for some of my old classical friends 
who have still enough of Cambridge about them to think 
themselves honored by having had John Dryden as a pre- 
decessor in their college, and to recollect that their earliest 



1 Written by Lord Byron's early friend, the Rev. Francis Hodgson. 

3 In a manu.script note on this passage of the pamphlet, dated Nov. 12, 
1821, Lord Byron says :— '• Mr. Keats died at Rome about a year after this 
was written, of a decline produced by his having burst a blood-vessel on 
reading the article on his ' Endymion ' in the Quarterly Review. I have 
read the article before and since ; and although it is bitter, I do not think 
that a man should permit himself to be killed by it. But a young man little 
dreams what he must inevitably encounter in the course of a life ambitious 
of poblic notice. My indignation at Mr. Keats's depreciation of Pope has 
hardly permitted me to do justice to his own genius, which, malgr^ all the 
fantastic fopperies of his style, was undoubtedly of great promise. His 
fragment of ' Hyperion ' seems actually inspired by the Titans, and is as 
tublime as jEschrlus. He is a loss to our literature ; and the more so, as 
he himself, before his death, is said to have been persuaded that he had not 
taken the right line, and was re-forming bis style upon the more classical 
models of the language." 

8 It was at least a grammar " school." 

4 So spelt by the author. 

5 Aa a balance to these lines, and to the sense and sentiment of the new 
Vhool. I will put down a passage or two from Pope's earliett poems, taken 
at random :— 

" Envy her own snakes shall feel, 
And Persecution mourn her broken wheel, 
There Paction roar. Rebellion bite her chain, 
And gapping Furies thirst for blood in vain." 

" Ah I what avails his glosHy varying dyet, 

His purple crest, and scarlet-circled eyes; 

The vivid green his shining plumes nnfold, 

Hii painted wings, and breast that flames with goldt 

" Round broken columns clasping Ivy twined, 
O'er heaps of ruin stalk'd the stately hind ; 
The fox obscene to gaping tombs retires, 
And savage howlings All the sacred quires." 

" Hall, bards triumphant ! bom in happier days; 
ImmorUl heirs of universal praise I 



English poetical pleasures were drawn from the "little 
nightingale" of Twickenham. The first is from the notes 
of the poem of the " Friends." i 

"It is only within the last twenty or thirty years that 
those notable discoveries in criticism have been made which 
have taught our recent versifiers to undervalue this ener- 
getic, melodious, and moral poet. The consequences of this 
want of due esteem for a writer whom the good sense of 
our predecessors had raised to his proper station have been 
NUMEROUS AND DEGRADING ENOUGU. This is not the place 
to enter into the subject, even as far as it affects our poetical 
numbers alone, and there is matter of more importance than 
requires present reflection." 

The second is from the volume of a young person learning 
to write poetry, and beginning by teaching the art. Hear 
him:2 

" But ye were dead 
To things ye knew not of— were closely wed 
To musty laws lined out with wretched rule 
And compass vile ; so that ye taught a school 8 
Of dolts to smooth, inlay, and chip, and fit., 
Till, like the certain wands of Jacob's wit, 
Their verses tallied. Easy was the task : 
A thousand handicraftsmen wore the mask 
Of poesy. Ill-fated, impious race. 
That blasphemed the bright lyrist to his face, 
And did not know it ; no, they went about 
Holding a poor decrepit standard out 
Mark'd with most flimsy mottos, and in large 
The name of one Boileau !" 

A little before, the manner of Pope is termed 

" A seism,* 
Nurtured hyfoppei-y and barbarism. 
Made great Apollo blush for this his land." 6 

I thought '^foppery" was a consequence of refinement! but 
nHmporte. 

.Whose honors with increase of ages grow, 

As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow; 

Nations unborn your mighty names shall sound, 

And worlds applaud that must not yet be found I 

Oh may some spark of your celestial Are, 

The last, the meanest of your sons inspire 

(That on weak wings, from far pursues your flights; 

Glows while he reads, but trembles as he writes), 

To teach vain wits a science little known, 

T' admire superior sense, and doubt their own t" 

" Amphion there the loud creating lyre 
Strikes, and behold a sudden Thebes aspire; 
Cithaeron's echoes answer to his call, 
And half the mountain rolls into a wall." 

" So Zembla's rocks, the beauteous work of fivst, 
Rise white in air, and glitter o'er the coast ; 
Pale suns, unfelt, at distance roll away. 
And on th' impassive ice the lightnings play; 
Eternal snows the growing mass supply, 
Till the bright mountains prop the incumbent sky, 
As Atlas fix'd, each hoary pile appears, 
The gather'd winter of a thousand years. 

" Thus, when we view some well-proportion'd dome, 

The world's Just wonder, and even thine, O Rome I 

No single parts unequally surprise. 

All comes united to the admiring eyes : 

No monstrous height, or breadth, or length appear; 

The whole at once is bold and regular. " 

A thousand similar passages crowd upon me. all composed by Pope before 
his twoandtwentieth year ; and yet It Is contended that he Is no poet, and 
we arc told so In such lines as I beg the reader to compare with these 
youthful verses of the "no poet." Must we repeat the question of John- 
son, " If Pope U not a poet, where is poetry to he found t" Even In dexerfp- 
tive fioctry, the lowest department uf the art, he will be found, on a fair 
sxamination, to surpass any living writer. 



966 



BYRON'S WOEKS. 



The above will suffice to show the notions entertained by 
the new performers on the English lyre of him who made it 
most tunable, and the great improvements of their own 
" variazioni." 

The writer of this is a tadpole of the Lakes, a young 
disciple of the six or seven new schools, in which he has 
learnt to write such lines and such sentiments as the above. 
He says " easy was the task " of imitating Pope, or it may be 
of equalling him, I presume. I recommend him to try before 
he is so positive on the subject, and then compare what he 
will have then written and what he has now written with the 
humblest and earliest compositions of Pope, produced in years 
still more youthful than those of Mr. Keats when he invented 
his new " Essay on Criticism," entitled "Sleep and Poetry" 
(an ominous title), from whence the above canons are taken. 
Pope's was written at nineteen, and published at twenty-two. 

Such are the triumphs of the new schools, and such their 
scholars. The disciples of Pope were Johnson, Goldsmith, 
Rogers, Campbell, Crabbe, Gifford, Matthias,^ Hayley, and 
the author of the Paradise of Coquettes ; 2 to whom may be 
added Richards, Heber, Wrangham, Bland, Hodgson, Meri- 
vale, and others who have not had their full fame, because 
" the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the 
strong," and because there is a fortune in fame as in all other 
things. Now, of all the new schools — I say all, for, "like 
Legion, they are many" — has there appeared a single scholar 
who has not made his master ashamed of him? unless it be 
Sotheby, who has imitated everybody, and occasionally sur- 
passed his models. Scott found peculiar favor and imitation 
among the fair sex : there was Miss Holford,^ and Miss Mit- 
ford,* and Miss Francis ; ^ but, with the greatest respect be it 
spoken, none of his imitators did much honor to the.original, 
except Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, until the appearance of 
"The Bridal of Triermain" and "Harold the Dauntless," 
which in the opinion of some equalled if not surpassed him ; 
and lo ! after three or four years they turned out to be the 
Master's own compositions. Have Southey, or Coleridge, or 
t'other fellow, made a follower of renown? Wilson never 
did well till he set up for himself in the "City of the 
Plague." Has Moore, or any other living writer of reputa- 
tion, had a tolerable imitator, or rather disciple? Now, it 
is remarkable, that almost all the followers of Pope, whom I 
have named, have produced beautiful and standard works ; 
and it was not the number of his imitators who finally hurt 
his fame, but the despair of imitation, and the ease of not 
imitating him sufficiently. This, and the same reason which 
induced the Athenian burgher to vote for the banishment 
of Aristides, "because he was tired of always hearing him 
called the Just," have produced the temporary exile of Pope 
from the State of Literature. But the term of his ostracism 
will expire, and the sooner the better, not for him, but for 
those who banished him, and for the coming generation, who 

" Will blush to find their fathers were his foes." 



1 Thomas James Matthias, Esq., the -well-known author of the Pursuits 
of Literature, Imperial Epistle to Kien Long, &c. In 1814, Mr. M. edited 
an edition of Gray's Works, which the University of Cambridge published 
at its own expense. Lord Byron did not admire this venerable poet the 
less for such criticism as the following :—" After we have paid onx primal 
homage to the bards of Greece and of ancient Latium, we are invited to 
contemplate the literary and poetical dignity of modern Italy. If the influ- 
ence of their persuasion and of their example should prevail, a strong and 
steady light may be relumined and diffused amongst us, a light which may 
once again conduct the powers of our rising poets from wild whirling words, 
from crude, rapid, and uncorrected productions, from an overweening pre- 
sumption, and from the delusive conceit of a pre-established reputation, to 
the labor of thought, to patient and repeated revision of what they write, 
to a reverence for themselves and for an enlightened public, and to the fixed 
unbending principles of legitimate composition." — Preface to Gray. 

2 Dr. Thomas Brown, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of 
r.dinburgh, who died in 1820. 

^ Author of " Wallace, or the Fight of Falkirk," " Margaret of Anjou," 
anil other poems. 



I will not return to the writer of the article which has 
drawn forth these remarks, whom I honestly take to be 
John Wilson, a man of great poAvers and acquirements, well 
known to the public as the author of the "City of the 
Plague," " Isle of Palms," and other productions. I take the 
liberty of naming him, by the same species of courtesy 
which has induced him to designate me as the author of 
Don Juan. Upon the score of the Lake Poets, he may 
perhaps recall to mind that I merely express an opinion 
long ago entertained and specified in a letter to Mr. James 
Hogg,6 which he the said James Hogg, somewhat contrary 
to the law of pens, showed to Mr. John Wilson, in the year 
1814, as he himself informed me in his answer, telling me 
by way of apology that "he'd be d — d if he could help 
it;" and I am not conscious of anything like -'envy" or 
" exacerbation " at this moment which induces me to think 
better or worse of Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge as 
poets than I do now, although I do know one or two things 
more which have added to my contempt for them as indi- 
viduals. 

And in return for Mr. Wilson's invective,^ I shall content 
myself with asking one question : Did he never compose, 
recite, or sing any parody or parodies upon the Psalms (of 
what nature this deponent saith not), in certain jovial meet- 
ings of the youth of Edinburgh ?3 It is not that I think 
any great harm if he did ; because it seems to me that all 
depends upon the intention of such a parody. If it be 
meant to throw ridicule on the sacred original, it is a sin ; 
if it be intended to burlesque the profane subject, or to 
inculcate a moral truth, it is none. If it were, the Unbelievers' 
Creed, the many political parodies of various parts of the 
Scriptures and liturgy, particularly a celebrated one of the 
Lord's Prayer, and the beautiful moral parable in favor of 
toleration by Franklin, which has often been taken for a 
real extract from Genesis, would all be sins of a damning, 
nature. But I wish to know if Mr. Wilson ever has done 
this, and if he has, why he should be so very angry with 
similar portions of Don Juan ? — Did no " parody profane " 
appear in any of the earlier numbers of Blackwood's Mag- 
azine ? 

I will now conclude this long answer to a short article, 
repenting of haviiig said so much in my own defence, and so 
little on the " crying, left-hand fallings off and national de- 
fections " of the poetry of the present day. Having said this, 
I can hardly be expected to defend Don Juan, or any other 
^^ living" poetry, and shall not make the attempt. And 
although I do not think that Mr. John Wilson has in this 
instance treated me with candor or consideration, I trust 
that the tone I have used in speaking of him personally will 
prove that I bear him as little malice as I really believe at 
the bottom of his heart he bears towards me ; but the duties 
of an editor, like those of a tax-gatherer, are paramount and 
peremptoiy. I have done. 

BYRON. 



4 Miss Mary Russell Mitford, author of " Christina, or the Maid of the 
South Seas," "■Wallington Hall," " Our Village," &c. &c. 

5 Miss Eliza Francis published, in 1815, " Sir "Willibert de Waverley, or 
the Bridal Eve." 

6 "Oh I I have had the most amusing letter from Hogg, the Ettrick min- 
strel and shepherd. He wants me to recommend him to Murray; and, 
speaking of his present bookseller, whose ' bills ' are never ' lifted,' be adds, 
totidem verlis, ' God d — n him and them both.' I laughed, and so would 
you too, at the way in which this execration is introduced. The said Hogg 
is a strange being, but of great, though uncouth, powers. I think very highly 
of him as a poet ; but he, and half of these Scotch and Lake troubadours, 
are spoilt by living in little circles and petty societies." — Byron Letters. 

1 "This is one of the many mistakes into which his distance from the 
scene of literary operations led him. The gentleman to whom the hostile 
article in the Magazine is here attributed has never, either then or since, 
written upon the subject of the noble poet's character or genius without 
giving vent to a feeling of admiration as enthusiastic as it is always eloquently 
and powerfully expressed." — Moore. 

8 The allusion here is to some now forgotten calumnies which had been 



APPENDIX. 



967 



Note C— Loku Bacon's Apophthegms. See p. 799.i 

BACON'S APOPHTHEGMS. OBSEKVATIONS. 

91. 

Michael Angelo, the famous This was not the por- 
paintor, painting in the pope's trait of a cardinal, but 
chapel the portraiture of hell and of the pope's master of 
damned souls, made one of the the ceremonies, 
damned souls so like a cardinal 
that was his enemy, as everybody 
at first sight knew it : whereupon 
the cardinal complaineil to Pope 
Clement, humbly praying it might 
be defaced. The pope said to him, 
Why, you know very well I have 
power to deliver a soul out of pur- 
gatory, but not out of hell. 



155. 
Alciander, after the battle of 
Granicum, had very great offers 
made him by Darius. Consulting 
with his captains concerning them, 
Parmenio said, Sure, I would accept 
of these offers, if I were as Alex- 
ander. Alexander answered, So 
would I, if I were as Parmenio. 

158. 
Antigonus, when it was told him 
that the enemy had such volleys of 
arrows that thi^y did hide the sun, 
said, That falls out well, for it is 
hot weather, and so we shall fight 
Id the shade. 

162. 
There was a philosopher that dis- 
puted with Adrian the emperor, 
and did it but weakly. One of his 
friends that stood by afterwards 
said unto him, Methiiiks you were 
not like yourself last day, in argu- 
ment with the emperor; I could 
have answered better myself. Why, 
said the philosopher, would you 
have me contend with him that 
commands thirty legions ? 

164. 
There was one that lound a great 
mass of money digging under- 
ground in his grandfather's house, 
and being somewhat doubtful of 
the case, signified it to the emperor 
that he ha<l found such treasure. 
The emperor made a rescript thus: 
Use it. He writ back again, that 
the sum was greater than his state 
or condition could use. The em- 
peror writ a new rescript thus: 
Abuse it 



It was after the battle 
of Issus and during the 
siege of Tyre, and not 
immediately after the 
passage of the Granicus, 
that this is said to have 
occurred. 



Tliis was not said by 
Antigonus, but by a 
Spartan, previously to 
the battle of Thermo- 
pylae. 



This happened under 
Augustus Caesar, and 
not during the reign of 
Adrian. 



This happened to the 
father of Herodes Atti- 
cus, and the answer was 
made by the emperor 
Nerva, who deserved 
that his name should 
have been stated by the 
"greatest, wisest, mean- 
est of mankind." 2 



elrcalAt«d by the radical pre»», at a time when Mr. Wilson was a candidate 
for the chair of Moral Philosophy In the University of Edinburgh. 

1 " Ordered Fletcher, (at four o'clock this afternoon) to copy out seven or 
eight apophthegms of Bacon in which I have detected such blunders as a 
Khoolboy might 4et«ct rather than commit. Such are the sages ! What 
most they be, when such as 1 can stumble upon their mistakes or misstate- 
menu? I will go to bed, for 1 And that 1 grow cynical."— J9yron Diary, 
Jan. 5. 1821. 

3 " If parts allare thee, think how Bacon shined, 
The wisest, brightest, meaneat of mankind. "—Popk. 

3 Dissertation I. 



178. 
One of the seven was wont to say, This was said by An- 
thatlaws were like cobwebs: where acharsis the Scythian, 
the small flies were caught, and the and not by a Greek, 
great break through. 



An orator of Athens said to De- 
mosthenes, The Athenians will kill 
you if they wax mad. Demosthenes 
replied. And they will kill you if 
they be in good sense. 

221. 

There was a philosopher about 

Tiberius that, looking into the 

nature of Caius, said of him, That 

he was'mire mingled with blood. 



This was not said by 
Demosthenes, but to 
Demosthenes by Flio- 
cion. 



This was not said of 
Caius (Caligula, I pre- 
sume, is intended by 
Caius), but of Tiberius 
himself. 



This reply was not 
made by a king of Hun- 
gary, but sent by Eich- 
ard the First, Coeur de 
Lion, of England, to the 
pope, with the breast- 
plate of the bishop of 
Beauvais. 



This did not happea 
to Demetrius, but to 
Phili}) king of Macedon. 



There was a king of Hungary 
took a bishop in battle, and kept 
him prisoner : whereupon the pope 
writ a monitory to him, for that he 
had broken the privilege of holy 
church and taken his son : the king 
sent an embassage to him, and sent 
withal the armor wherein the 
bishop was taken, and this only in 
writing — Vide num hcec sit vestis 
filii tui f Know now whether this 
be thy son's coat ? 

267. 
Demetrius, king of Macedon, had 
a petition offered him divers times 
by an old woman, and answered he 
had no leisure ; whereupon the 
woman said aloud. Why then give 
over tb be king. 

VOLTAIRE. 

Having stated that Bacon was frequently incorrect in his 
citations from history, I have thought it necessary, in what 
regards so great a name (however trifling), to support the 
assertion by such facts as more immediately occur to me. 
They are but trifles, and yet for such trifles a schoolboy 
would be whipped (if still in the fourth form) ; and Voltaire 
for half a dozen similar errors has been treated as a super- 
ficial writer, notwithstanding the testimony of the learned 
Warton : — " Voltaire, a writer of much deeper research than is 
imagined, and the first who has displayed the literature and 
customs of the dark ages with any degree of penetration and 
comprehension." 3 For another distinguished testimony to 
Voltaire's merits in literary research, see also Lord Holland's 
excellent Account of the Life and Writings of Lope de Vega, 
vol. i. p. 215, edition of 1817.* 

Voltaire has even been termed " a shallow fellow," by some 
of the same school who called Dryden's Ode "a drunken 
song ;" — a school (as it is called, I presume, from their educa- 



4 "Till Voltaire appeared, there was no nation more Ignorant of Its 
neighbors' literature than the French. He first exposed, and then cor- 
rected, this neglect in his countrymen. There is no writer to whom the 
authors of other nations, especially of lOugland, are so indebted for the 
extension of their fame in France, and, through France, in ICurope. There 
is no critic who has employed more time, wit, ingenuity, and diligence in 
promoting the literary intercourse between country and country, and in 
celebrating in one language the triumphs of another. Yet, by a strange 
fatality, he is constantly represented as the enemy of all literature but his 
own; and Spaniards, Englishmen, and Italians vie with each other in in- 
veighing against hla occasional exaggeration of faulty passages : the auUiors 



968 



BYEON'S WORKS. 



tion being still incomplete) the whole of whose filthy trash 
of Epics, Excursions, &c. &c. &c., is not worth the two words 
in Zaire, "■ Vous pleurez" '^ or a single speech of Tancred: — a 
school the apostate lives of whose renegadoes, with their tea- 
drinking neutrality of morals, and their convenient treachery 
in politics — in the record of their accumulated pretences to 
virtue can produce no actions (were all their good deeds drawn 
up in array) to equal or approach the sole defence of the 
family of Galas, by that great and unequalled genius— the 
universal Voltaire. 

I have ventured to remark on these little inaccuracies of 
"the greatest genius that England, or perhaps any other 
country, ever produced," 2 merely to show our national injus- 
tice in condemning generally the greatest genius of France 
for such inadvertencies as these, of which the highest of 
England has been no less guilty. Query, was Bacon a greater 
intellect than Newton ? 

CAMPBELLS 

Being in the humor of criticism, I shall proceed, after 
having ventured upon the slips of Bacon, to touch upon one 
or two as trifling in their edition of the British Poets, by the 
justly celebrated Campbell. But I do this in good will, and 
trust it will be so taken. If anything could add to my 
opinion of the talents and true feeling of that gentleman, it 
would be his classical, honest, and triumphant defence of 
Pope against the vulgar cant of the day, and its existing 
Grub street. 

The inadvertencies to which I allude are, — 

Firstly, in speaking of Anstey, whom he accuses of having 
taken "his leading characters from Smollett." Anstey's Bath 
Guide was published in 1766, Smollett's Humphry Clinker 
(the only work of Smollett's from which Tabitha, &c. &c., 
could have been taken) was written during Smollett's last resi- 
dence at Leghorn in 1770 — "argal," if there has been any 
borrowing, Anstey must be the creditor, and not the debtor. 
I refer Mr. Campbell to his own data in his lives of Smollett 
and Anstey. 

Secondly, Mr. Campbell says in the life of Cowper (note to 
page 358, vol. vii.) that he knows not to whom Cowper alludes 
in these lines : — 

" Nor he who, for the bane of thousands born, 
Built God a church, and laugh'd his word to scorn." 

The Calvinist meant Voltaire, and the church of Ferney, 
with its inscription " Deo erexit Voltaire." 

Thirdly, in the life of Burns, Mr. Campbell quotes Shak- 
speare thus : — 

" To gild refined gold, to paint the rose, 
Or add fresh perfume to the violet." 

This version by no means improves the original, which is as 
follows :— 

" To gild refined gold, to paint the lily. 

To throw a perfume on the violet," &c. — King John. 

A great poet quoting another should be correct ; he should 
also be accurate, when he accuses a Parnassian brother of 
that dangerous charge "borrowing:" a poet had better 
borrow anything (excepting money) than the thoughts of 
another — they are always sure to be reclaimed; but it is 



of which, till he pointed out their beauties, were hardly known beyond the 

country in which their language was spoken. Those who feel such indig- 
nation at his misrepresentations and oversight would find it difficult to pro- 
duce a critic in any modern language who, in speaking of foreign literature, 
is better informed or more candid than Voltaire ; and they certainly never 
would be able to discover one who to those qualities unites so much sagacity 
and liveliness. His enemies would fain persuade us that such exuberance 
of wit implies a want of information ; but they only succeed in showing that 
a want of wit by no means implies an exuberance of information." — Loed 
Holland. 



very hard, having been the lender, to be denounced as the 
debtor, as is the case of Aotsey versus Smollett. 

As there is " honor amongst thieves," let there be some 
amongst poets, and give each his due, — none can aftbrd to 
give it more than Mr. Campbell himself, who, with a high 
reputation for originality, and a fame which cannot be 
shaken, is the only poet of the times (except Eogers) who 
can be reproached (and in him it is indeed a reproach) with 
having written too little. 

Ravenna, Jan. 5, 1821. 



Conversations of Lokd Byeon as kelated by Thomas 
Medwin, Esq., compared with a Portion of his Lord- 
ship's Correspondence. 

The volume of "Lord Byron's Conversations" with Mr. 
Medwin contains several statements relative to Mr. Murray, 
his lordship's publisher, against which, however exception- 
able they might be, he was willin-g to trust his defence to 
the private testimony of persons acquainted with the real 
particulars, and to his general character, rather than resort 
to any kind of public appeal, to which he has ever been 
exceedingly averse. But friends, to whose judgment Mr. 
Murray is bound to defer, having decided that such an 
appeal upon the occasion is become a positive duty on his 
part, he hopes that he shall not be thought too obtrusive in 
opposing to those personal allegations extracts from Lord 
Byron's own letters, with the addition of a few brief notes 
of necessary explanation. 

Capt. Medwin, p. 167. 

"Murray ofibred me, of his own accord, one thousand 
pounds a canto for Don Juan, and afterwards reduced it to 
five hundred pounds on the plea of piracy, and complained 
of my dividing one canto into two, because I happened to 
say something at the end of the third canto of having done 



Lord Byron's Letter. 

" Eavenna, Fehi-uary 7, 1820. 
" Dear Murray : — 

" I have copied and cut tJie third canto of Don Juan into two, 
because it was too long, and I tell you this beforehand, because, in 
case of any reckoning between you and me, these two are only to 
go for one, as this was the original form, and in fact the two 
iogeiher are not longer than one of the first; so remember, that I 
have not made this division to double upon you, but merely to 
suppress some tediousness in the aspect of the thing. I should 
have served you a pretty trick if I had sent you, for example, 
cantos of fifty stanzas each." 



Capt. Medwin, p. 169. 

" I don't wish to quarrel with Murray, but it seems inev- 
itable. I had no reason to be pleased with him the other 
day. Galignani wrote to me, offering to purchase the copy- 



1 " 11 est trop vrai que I'honneur me I'ordonne, 

Que je vous adorai, que je vous abandonne, 
Que je renonce eI vous, que vous le d^sirez, 
Que sous une autre loi . . . . Zaire, vous plbpkez ?" 

Zaire, acte iv. so. ii. 

2 Pope, in Spence's Anecdotes, p. 158 ; Malone's edition. 

3 "Read Campbell's Poets. Corrected Tom's slips of the pen. A good 
work, though— style affected— but his defence of Pope is glorious. To be 
sure, it is his ovm cause too,— but no matter, it is very good, and does him 
great credit,"— Byron Diary, Jan. 10, 1821. 



APPENDIX. 



969 



Ticrht of my works, in order to obtain an exclusive privilege 
of printing them in France. I might have made my own 
terms, and put the money in my own pocket; instead of 
which, I enclosed Galignani's letter to Murray, in order that 
he might conclude the matter as he pleased. He did so, very 
advantageously for his own interest; but never had the com- 
plaisance, the common politeness, to thank me, or acknowledge 
my letter." 

Lord Byron's Letter. 

" Ravenna, 9»>i« 4, 1820. 
"I have received from Mr. Gaiignani the enclosed letters, dupli- 
cates, and receipts, which will explain themselves. As the poems 
are your property by purchase, right, and justice, all matters 

OP PUBLICATION, dtc. d'C, ARE FOR YOU TO DECIDE UPON. 1 

know not how far my compliance with Mr. G.^s request mig/U be 
legal, and I doubt thai it would not be honest. In case you choose 
to arrange with him, I enclose the permUs to you, and in so doing 
IvDOsh my hands of the business altogether. I sign them merely 
to enable you to exert the poicer you justly possess more properly. 
I will have nothing to do with it further, except in my answer to 
Mr. Galignani, to state that the letters, &c. &c., are sent to you, 
and the causes thereof. If you can check these foreign pirates, do ; 
if not, put the permissive papers in the fire. lean have no view 
nor object whatever but to secure to you your property." 

Note.— Mr. Murray derived no advantage from the pro- 
posed agreement, which was by no means of the importance 
here ascribed to it, and therefore was never attempted to be 
carried into eflFect: the documents alluded to are still in his 



Capt. Medwin, pp. 169-171. 

" Murray has long prevented the ' Quarterly ' from abusing 
me. Some of their bullies have had their fingers itching to 
be at me ; but they would get the worst of it in a set-to. 

"Murray and I have dissolved all connection: he had the 
choice of giving up me or the Navy List. There was no hesi- 
tation which way he should decide: the Admiralty carried 
the day. Now for the Quarterly: their batteries will be 
opened ; but 1 can fire broadsides too. They have been let- 
ting oflf lots of squibs and crackers against me, but they only 
make a noise and * * *." 

"'Werner' was the last book Murray published for me, 
and three months after came out the Quarterly's article on 
my plays, when 'Marino Faliero' was noticed for the first 
lime." 

Lord Byron's Letter. 

"Genoa, lOb" 25, 1822. 
" 1 had sent you back the Quarterly without perusal, having 
resolved to read no more reviews, good, bad, or indifferent; but 
who can control his fatef * Galignani,^ to whom my English 
studies are confined, has forwarded a copy of at least one-half of 
it in his indefatigable weekly compilation, and as, ' like honor, it 
came unlooked for,' I have looked through it. I must say thai 
upon the whox.k— that is, the whole of the half which I have 
read (for the other half is to be the segm,ent of Gal.'s next week's 
circular)— ii is certainly handsome, and anything but unkind or 
unfair." 

Note.— The paiwage about the Admiralty is unfounded in 
fact, and no otherwise deserving of notice than to mark its 
absurdity; and with regard to the "Quarterly Review," his 
lordship well knew that it was established, and constantly con- 
ducted, on principles which absolutely excluded Mr. Murray 
from all such interference and influence as is implied in the 
"Conversations." 



Capt. Medwin, p. 168. 

" Because I gave Mr. Murray one of ray poems, he wanted 
to make me believe that I had made him a present of two 
others, and hinted at some lines in ' English Bards' that were 
certainly to the point. But I have altered my mind con- 
siderably upon that subject: as I once hinted to him, I see 
no reason why a man should not profit by the sweat of his 
brain as well as that of his brow, &c. ; besides, I was poor at 
that time, and have no idea of aggrandizing booksellers." 

Lord Byron's Letter. 

"January 2, 1816. 
" Bear Sir : — 

" Your offer is liberal in the extreme, and much more than the 
two poems can possibly be worth — but I cannot accept it, nor will 
not. You are most welcome to them, as additions to the collected 
volumes, wUhout any demand or expectation on my part whatever. 

''BYRON. 

" P. S.— I have enclosed your draft TORN, for fear of accidents 
by the way. — I wish you would not throw temptation in mine; it 
is not from a disdain of the universal idol — nor from a present 
superfluity of his treasures — I can assure you, that I refuse to 
worship him — but what is rigid is right, and must not yield to cir- 
cumstances. 

" To J. Murray, Esq." 

Note.— The above letter relates to a draft for one thousand 
guineas, offered by Mr. Murray for two poems, the Siege of 
Corinth and Parisina, which his lordship had previously, at 
a short interval, presented to Mr. Murray as donations. — 
Lord Byron was afterwards induced by Mr. Murray's earnest 
persuasion, to accept the thousand guineas, and Mr. Murray 
has his lordship's assignment of the copyright of the two 
pieces accordingly. 



Capt. Medwin, p. 166. 

" Murray pretends to have lost money by my writings, and 
pleads poverty ; but if he is poor, which is somewhat prob- 
lematical to me, pray who is to blame ? 

" Mr. Murray is tender of my fame. How kind in him ! 
He is afraid of my writing too fast. Why ? because he has a 
tender regard for his own pocket, and does not like the look 
of any new acquaintance in the shape of a book of mine, till 
he has seen his old friends in a variety of new faces ; id est, 
disposed of a vast many editions of the former works. I 
don't know what would become of me without Douglas Kin- 
naird, who has always been my best and kindest friend. It 
is not easy to deal with Mr. Murray." 

Note.— In the numerous letters received by Mr. Murray 
yearly from Lord Byron (who, in writing them, was not ac- 
customed to restrain the expression of his feelings), not one 
has any tendency towards the imputations here thrown out: 
the incongruity of which will be evident from the fact ol 
Mr. Murray having paid at various times, for the copyright 
of his lordship's poems, sAms amounting to upwards of fifteen 
thousand pounds, viz. : 

Childe Harold, I., II., £600 

ChUde Harold, III, \,r,in 

Childe Harold, IV., 2,100 

Giaour, --^----- 525 

Bride of Abydos, - 525 

Corsair, -------- 526 

Lara, 700 



970 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Siege of Corinth, £525 

Parisina, -------- 525 

Lament of Tasso, ------ 315 

Manfred, -------- 315 

Beppo, -----__- 525 

Don Juan, L, II., ------ 1^525 

D<m Juan, HI, IV., V., - - - - - 1,525 

Doge of Venice, - - - . - - - - 1,050 

Sardanapalv^, Cain, and Foscari, - - - 1,100 

Mazeppa, -------- -525 

Chillon, - - 525 

, 450 

£15,455 



Capt. Medwin, p. 170. 

" My differences with Murray are not over. When he pur- 
chased 'Cain,' 'The Two Foscari,' and 'Sardanapalus,' he 
sent me a deed, which you may remember witnessing. Well; 
after its return to England it was discovered that 



But I shall take no notice of it." 

Note. — Mr. Murray of course cannot answer a statement 
which he does not see ; but pledges himself to disprove any 
inculpation the suppressed passage may contain, whenever 
disclosed. He has written twice to Captain Medwin's pub- 
lisher, desiring, as an act of justice, to have the passage 
printed entire in any new edition of the hook, and in the 
mean time to be favored with a copy of it. As this has not 
yet been obtained, and as the context seems to imply that it 
accuses him of endeavoring to take some pecuniary advantage 
of Lord Byron, he thinks he shall be forgiven for stating the 
following circumstances. 

Mr. Murray having accidentally heard that Lord Byron 
was in pecuniary difficulties, immediately forwarded fifteen. 
hundred pounds to him, with an assurance that another such 
sum should be at his service in a few months ; and that, if 
such assistance should not be sufficient, Mr. Murray would 
be ready to sell the copyright of all his lordship's works for 
his use. 

The following is Lord Byron's acknowledgment of this 
offer :— 

" November 14, 1815. 
" Dea/r Sir :— 

" I return you your bills not accepted, but certainly not UN- 
HONORED. Your present offer is a favor which I would accept 
from you if I accepted such from any man. Had such been my 
intention, lean assure you I would have asked you fairly and as 
freely as you would give : and I cannot say more of my confidence 
or your conduct. The circumstances which induce me to part 
vjith my books, though sufficiently are not immediately press- 
ing. I have made up my mind to them, and there is an end. Had 
I been disposed to trespass on your kindness in this way, it would 
hwue been before now ; but I am not sorry to have an opportunity 
of declining it, as it sets my opinion of you, and indeed of human 
nature, in a different light from that in which I have been accus- 
tomed to consider it. 

"Believe me, very truly, 

" Your obliged and faithful servant, 
''BYRON. 

" To John Murray, Esq." 

Note.— That nothing had occurred to subvert these friendly 
sentiments will appear from the three letters subjoined, the 
second of them written by Lord Byron a few weeks before 
his death, and the last addressed by his lordship's valet to 
Mr. Murray as one of his deceased master's most confidential 
friends. 



Lord Byeon's Letters. 

"May 8, 1819. 
" I have a great rcipectfor your good and gentlemanly qualities, 

and return your personal friendship towards me You 

deserve and possess the esteem of those whose esteem is worth hamng, 
and of none more {however useless it may be) than 

" Yours, very truly, 

"BYBON." 

' " MISSOLONGHI, Feb. 25, 1824. 

"I have heard from Mr. Douglas Kinnaird that you state a re- 
port of a satire on Mr. Gifford having arrived from Italy, said to 
be written by me, but that you do not believe it; I dare say you do 
not, nor anybody else, I should think. Whoever asserts that lam 
the author or abettor of anything of the kind on Gifford, lies in his 
throat: I always regarded him as my literary father, and myself 
as his prodigal son. If any such composition exists, it is none of 
mine. You kjiow, as well as anybody, upon whom / have or have 
not written, and you also know whether they do or did not deserve 
the same — and so much for such matters. 

" You will, perhaps, be anzio^is to hear some news from this part 
of Greece {which is most liable to invasion), but you will hear 
enough through public and private channels, on that head. I will, 
however, give you the events of a week, mingling my own private 
peculiar with the public, for we are here jumbled a little together at 
present. 

" On Sunday {the 15ih, I believe), I had a strong and sudden 
convulsive attack which left me speechless, though not motionless, 
for some strong men could not hold me ; but whether it was epilepsy, 
catalepsy, cachexy, apoplexy, or what other exy or epsy, the doctors 
have not decided, or whether it was spasmodic or nervous, &c. ; hut 
it was very unpleasant, and nearly carried me off, and all that. 
On Monday they put leeches to my temples, no difficult matter, but. 
the blood could not be stopped till eleven at night {they had gone too 
near the temporal artery for my temporal safety), and neither styptic 
nor caustic would cauterize the orifice till after a hundred attempts. 

" On Tuesday, a Turkish brig of war ran on shore. On Wed- 
nesday, great preparations being made to attack her, though pro- 
tected by her consorts, the Turks burned her, and retired to Patras. 
On Thursday, a quarrel ensued between the Suliotes and the Frank 
guard at the arsenal ; a Swedish officer was killed, and a Suliote 
severely wounded, and a general fight expected, and with some dif- 
ficulty prevented. On Friday, the officer buried, and Captain 
Parry'' s English artificers mutinied, under pretence that their lives 
were in danger, and are for quitting the country — they may. On 
Saturday, we had the smartest shock of an earthquake which I re- 
member {and I have felt thirty, slight or smart, at different periods ; 
they are common in the Mediterranean), and the whole army dis- 
charged their arms, upon the same principle that savages beat 
drums or howl, during an eclipse of the moon : it was a rare scene 
altogether. If you had but seen the English Johnnies, who had 
never been out of a Cockney workshop before, nor will again if they 
can help it ! And on Sunday we heard that the vizier is come 
down to Larissa with one hundred and odd thousand men. 

''In coming here I had two escapes, from the Turks {one of my 
vessels was taken, but afterwards released ), and the other from 
shipioreck ; we drove twice on the rocks near the Scrophes {islands 
near the coast). 

"I have obtained from the Greeks the release of eight and twenty 
Ttirkish prisoners, men, women, and children, and sent them to 
Patras and Prevesa at my own charges. One little girl of nine 
years old, who proposes remaining with me, I shall {if Hive) send 
with her mother, probably, to Italy, or to England, and adopt her. 
Her name is Hato Hatagee; she is a very pretty lively child. All 
her brothers were killed by the Greeks, and she herself and her 
mother were spared by special favor, and owing to her extreme 
youth, she being then but five or six years old. 

" My health is rather better, and I can ride about again. My 
office here is no sinecure — so many parties and difficidties of every 
kind ; but I will do what I can. Prince Mavrocordati is an ex- 
cellent person, and does all in his power ; but his situation is per- 
plexing in the extreme : still we have great hopes of the success qf 



APPENDIX. 



971 



tlie contest. You will hear, hmcever, more of public news from 
plenty of quarters, for I have little time to write. Believe me 

" Yours, &c. <&€., 
"N.£. 
" lb John Murray, Esq." 



Letter of Lokd Byron's Valbt. 

" MisSOIiONGHl, April 21, 1824. 
"Sir.— 

" Fbrgive me for this intrusion which I now am under the pain- 
ful necessity of uviting to you, to inform you of the melancholy 
news of my Lord Byron, who is no more. He departed this mijser- 
able life on the 19th of April, after an illness of only ten days. His 
lordship began by a nervous fever, and terminated with an inflam- 
mation on the brain, for want of being bled in time, which his 
lordship refused till it was too late. I have sent the Hon. 3Irs. 
Leigh's letter inclosed in yours, which I think would be better for 
you to open and explain to Mrs. Leigh, for I fear the contents of 
the letter will be too much for her. And you will please to inform 
Lady Byron and the Honorable Miss Byron, whom I am wished 
to see when I return with my lord's effects, and his dear and noble 
remains: sir, you will please manage in the mildest way possible, 
or I am mu^h afraid of the consequences. Sir, you unll please 
give my duty to Lady Byron; hoping she will allow me to see her, 
Ity my lord's particular tcish, and Miss Byron likewise. Please to 
excuse all defects, for I scarcely know what I either say or do, for 
after twenty years' service with my lord, he was more to me than a 
father, and lam too much distressed to now give a correct account 
of every particular, which I hope to do at my arrival in England. 
— Sir, you will likewise Jmve the goodness to foii^ard the letter to 
the Honorable Captain George Byron, who, as the representative of 
the family and title, I thought it my duty to send him a line. But 
you, sir, will please to explain to him all particulars, as I have not 
time, as the express is now ready to make his voyage day and night 
till he arrives in London. — / must, sir, praying forgiveness, and 
hoping at the same time that you will so far oblige me as to execute 
all my wishes, whieh lam well convinced you unll not refuse. 
" / remain, sir, 
" Your most obedient and very humble servant, 

"W. FLETCHER, 
" Valet t-o the late L. B.for twenty years. 



" P. S. — I mention my name and capacity that you may remem^ 
ber and forgive this, when you remember the quantity of times 1 
have been at your house in Albemarle street. 

" To John Murray, Esq." 



Note. — Other letters from Lord Byron, of the same tenor 
and force with these now produced, might have been added. 
But it Is presumed that these are sufficient to demonstrate in 
the present case, what has been demonstrated in many others, 
that desultory, ex-parte conversations, even if accurately re- 
ported, will often convey imperfect and erroneous notions of 
the speaker's real sentiments. 

JOHN MURRAY. 



Albemarle Steeet, mh Oct., 1824. 



Capt. Medwin, p. 170. 

" My differences with Murray are not over. When he pur- 
chased 'Cain,' 'The Two Foscari,' and ' Sardanapalus,' he 
sent me a deed, which you may remember witnessing. Well ; 
after its return to England, it was discovered that it contained 
a clause which had been introduced without my knowledge, a 
clause by which I bound myself to offer Mr. Murray all my future 
compositions. But I shall take no notice of it." 

Note. — The Mords in italic are those which were sup- 
pressed in the two first editions of Captain Medwin's book, 
and which Mr. Murray has received from the publisher after 
the foregoing statement was printed. He has only to observe 
upon the subject, that on referring to the deed in question, 
no such clause is to be found ; that this instrument was signed 
in London by the Hon. Douglas Kinnaird, as Lord Byron's 
procurator, and witnessed by Richard Williams, E.<?q., one of 
the partners in Mr. Kinnaird's banking-house ; and that the 
signature of Captain Medwin is not affixed. 

J. M. 

2dNoo. 



INDEX. 



Abelabd, 206. 

Abenoerrage, 633, 678. 

Aberdf ou, town of, 848. 

Aben^een (George Hamilton Gordon), 
fourth earl of, 21, 507, 516. 

Al)ernethy, John, surgeon, 850. 

Abruzzi, 578. 

Abttalom and Achitophel, 520, 767, 964. 

Absence, results of, 758. 

Ahsont friend, pleasure of defending, 
tfl3. 

Ahydos, Bride of, 91, 782. 

Acarnania, 28. 

Achelous, river, 28. 

Acheron, lake, 26. 

Acberusia, lake, 25. 

Achilles, his person, 360. Tomb of, 778, 
781. 

Achitophel, 964. 

Achmet III., 144. 

Acroceraunian mountains, 59. 

Acropolis of Athens, 19, 856, 918. 

Actium, 24, 25. Sea-fight of, 25, 803. 

Ada. See Byron, Augusta- Ada. 

Adams. John, a carrier, who died of 
drunkenness, epitaph on, 64;3. 

Addison, 857. His account of a remark- 
able dream, 772. His " faint praise," 
9i:{. 

" Address, spoken at the opening of 
Drury Lane Theatre," 662. 

" Address intended to be recited at the 
Caledonian Meeting," 669. 

" Adieu, the ; written under the impres- 
sion that the author would soon die," 
639. 

" Adieu, adieu ! my native shore," 4. 

Admiration, 755, 794. 

" Adrian's Address to his Soul when 
dying," translation of, 448. 

Adriatic, the, 51. 

Adveisity, 869, 889. 

Advice, 727, 896. 

iEgean sea, 119, 538. 

iEgina, 55, 119, 537. 

.iRichylus, his " Prometheus," 229. His 
" Seven before Thebes," 229. Transla- 
tion from his " Prometheus Vinctus," 
4-50. His "Persians" quoted, 765. 

iEsiett-s, tomb of, 97. 

JEAop, 633. 

iEtna, 66, 87. 

MtoUa, 28. 

Africa and Africans, described, 775. 

Ai»:imemnon, 709. 

A.;.'. 33, 2.58. 

" Age of Bronze ; or. Carmen Seculare et 
Annus baud ^iiraDili3," 629. 

.\ge of Gold, 80H. 

Ages, changes produced by the lapse of, 
770. 

Ag- silaus, 201. 

Agi.^ king of Sparta, 27.3. 

Agilulf, I>uke of Turin, 932. 

Agliutti, Dr., 49, 273. 

Agostini, Leonardo, 933. 

Agrarian law, 848. 

Ajiix, 20. Sepulchre of, 778. 

Aljmanni, 274. 

Alaric, 21, .5.38. 

AU>an Hill, description of the, 71, 943. 

Albania, 24. 918. 

Albanian dialect of the Illyric, speci- 
mens of, 919. 



Albanians, their character and manners, 
27, 28, 918. Their resemblance to the 
Highlanders of Scotland, 918. 

Albano, 70. 

Albano, Francesco, 880. 

Albion, sensations at the first sight of 
her chalky belt, 852. 

Albrizzi, Countess, 273, 681. 

Albrizzi, Giuseppe, 273. 

Albuera, battle of, 10, 18. 

Alcibiades, beauty of his person, 359. 
General charm of his name, 359. His 
character, 895. 

Alexander the Great, his visit to the 
tomb of Ajax, 97, 778. His sarcopha- 
gus, 630. His chastity, 751, 787. His 
reply to Parmenio after the battle of 
Issus, 967. 

Alexander, emperor of Russia, 633, 811, 
892. 

Alexander III., submission of Barbaros- 
sa to, 928. 

Alfieri, Vittorio, his life quoted, 49. His 
tomb in the church of Santa Croce, 57. 
His memory dear to the Italians, 933. 

Alfonso III., 54, 127, 569, 571. His wife 
Isabella, 127. 

Algiers, 724. 

Alhama, 677. 

Ali Pacha of Yanina, portrait of 25, 27. 
His letter in Latin to Lord Byron, 27. 
His assassination, 27. His murder of 
I Giafiir, pacha of Argyro Castro, 100. 
I The original of Lambro, 774. 
1 " ^\a:.L is vanity, saitb the Preacher," 552. 
I Alia Hu ! 83, 823. 

I AUegra (Lord Byron's natural daughter), 
i 494. 

I Alliance, the Holy, 633, 802. 
I Alphaeus, river, 26. 

I Alpinula, Julia, her death, 42. Her af- 
fecting epitaph, 42, n. 

Alps, the, 41, 59. 

Alterkirchen, 40. 

Alypius, 942. 

Amber, susceptible of a perfume, 97. 

Ambition, 38, 39, 61, 243, 361, 843, 865. 

Anibracian Gulf, Stanzas written in 
passing the, 652. Reflections on the 
past and present state of, 25. 

Ambrosian library at Milan, 930. 

America, 62, 573, 896. 

" .\miti6 est 1' Am our sans Ailes," 487. 

Amulets, the beUef in, universal in the 
East, 97. 

Anacreon, his "0eA(o \eyelv ArpeiSas" 
translated. 449. His MecroruKxtais Trod' 
u>pai<; translated, 449. His morals 
worse than those of Ovid, 714. 

Anastasius Macedon, 9.50. 

Ana.sta.sius, Hope's, 519. 

Ancestry, .Sll. 

" And wilt thou weep when I am low?" 
647. 

" And thou art dead, as young and fair," 
659. 

" And thou wert sad," .560. 

Andalusian nobleman, adventures of, 
713. 

Andernach, 40. 

Andrews, Bishop, a punster, .521. 

Andrews, Miles Peter, Eiiq., his pro- 
logues, 510. Some account of, 510, n. 

Andromache, 637. 



Anent, 859. 

Angelo, Michael, his tomb in the church 

of Santa Croce, 56. His Statue of 
Moses, 599. His Last Judgment, 599. 
His copv of Dante, 599. Treatment of, 
by Julius II., 600. Neglect of, by Leo 
X., 600. Anecdote of, 967. 

Angelo, Saint, Castle of, 68, 371. 

Angiolini, dancer, 509. 

Anger, 77, 115,728. 

Angling, " the cruelest and stupidest of 
sports," 884. 

Anne, Lines to, 640. 

Annesley, hill near, 564. 

Annuitants, alleged longevity of, 740. 

Anstey's Bath Guide, 908, 968. 

Anteros, 217. 

Anthony, Saint, his recipe for hot blood, 
717. 

Antigonus, 967. 

Anti-jacobin, 614. 

Antilochus, tomb of, 97, 778. 

Antinous, his heroic death, 20. 

Antoninus Pius, 940. 

Antony, 25. His person described, 359. 
The slave of love, 754, 803. 

Apelles, 599. 

Apennines, 59, 595. 

Apicius, 620. 

Apollo, 770. 

Apollo Belvidere, 69. 

Appearances, "the joint on which good 
society hinges," 881. 

Appetite, 789. 

Ajiplause, popular, 764. 

Arabs, life of the, 101. 

Ararat, Mount, 276. 

Arcadia, 920. 

Archidamus, 201. 

Archimedes, 892. 

Archipelago, 42, 204. 

Ardennes, forest of, 36. 

Aretine, Pietro, 936. 

Aretino, Leonardo, 595. 

Argos, 142. 

Argus, Ulysses' dog, 758. 

Argyle Institution, 509. 

Argyro Castro, 100. 

Ariosto, his portrait by Titian, 173. His 
bust, 54, 932. Contrasted with Tasso, 
598. His person respected by the 
public robber, 963. 

Aristidcs, 966. 

ArLstippus, 754. 

Aristophanes, 751. 

Aristotle, 722, 897. 

Arithmetic, poets of, 913. 

" Armageddon," Townsend's, 522. 

Army, 823. 

Army tailor, 842. 

Arnaouts, or Albano;se, 918. Their re- 
semblance to the Highlanders of Scot- 
land, 918. 

Arno, river, 55, 846. 

ArquS, 53, 930. 

" Art of Happiness," Horace's, 877. 

" A spirit pass'd before me," 555. 

" As o'er trie cold sepulchral stone,^' 650. 
I A.sdrubal, 197. 

A.skalon, 447. 
j Asphaltes, lake, 37. 

Asturias, 9. 

" Atalantis," account of Mrs. Manley's, 
I 864. 

1 ( 973 ; 



974 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Athanasian creed, 805. 

" Atheista Fulminato," the old religious 

play of, 708, 709. 
Athenaeus, 751. 

Athenians, character of the, 920. 
Athens, apostrophe to, 19. Reflections 

on the past and present condition of, 

19. Its situation and climate, 19, 920. 

On the plunder of the works of art 

at, 20. 
Athens, Maid of, 653. 
Athos, Mount, 22, 66. Project for hew- 
ing it into a statue of Alexander, 873. 
Atlas, 59. 
" Attic Bee," 907. 
Atticus, 536. 
Attila, 273. His harangue to his army 

previous to the battle of Chalons, 546. 
Augury, 771. 
"Augusta, Stanzas to," 558. "Epistle 

to," 559. 
Augustin, Saint, his confessions, 715, 903. 
Augustus Caesar, 543, 941. 
Auld lang syne, 507, 849. 
Aurora Borealis, 618. "Don Juan" a 

versified, 814. 
Austerlitz, battle of, 543. 
Authors, 179, 499, 789. 
Autocrat, 840. 

Autumn, an English, described, 881. 
Avarice, "a good old-gentlemanly vice," 

731. Panegyric on, 865. 
Ave Maria! 767. 
Avenches, 41. 
Aventicum, 41. 
Avignon, 773. 

" Away, away, ye notes of woe," 658. 
" Away, ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of 

roses!" 473. 
" A year ago you swore," &c., 676. 



Babel, tower of, 790. 

Babylon, ruins of, 790. 

Bacchus, 751, 911. Temple of, 941. 

Backwoodsmen, Kentuckian, 829. 

Bacon, Friar, his brazen head, 732. The 
discoverer of gunpowder, 826. 

Bacon, Lord, 766, 895. Essay on Empire, 
799. Inaccuracies in his Apophthegms, 
967. Saying of, 885. 

Baillie, Joanna, 234. Her "Family Le- 
gend," 234. 

Baillie, Dr. Matthew, 850. His visit to 
Lord Byron, 712. Remarkable for 
plainness of speech, 850. 

Balgounie, brig of, 848. 

Baltic, 539. 

Bandusian Fountain, 943. 

Banks, Sir Joseph, 2. 

Bankes, William, Esq., 753. 

Banshie, superstition of the, 907. 

Jiarbarossa, Frederic, his submission to 
Pope Alexander the Third, 51, 928. 

Barings, the, 865. 

Barnave, Pierre-Joseph, 709. 

}5arometcr, marine, its great value, 782. 

Barossa, battle of, 540. 

Barrataria, account of the buccaneer 
establishment at, 126. 

Barrey, Lodowick, 543. 

Barrow, Dr. Isaac, his sermons, 750. 

Barrow, Sir John, his " Life of Peter the 
Great." 183, 191. His "Eventful His- 
tory of the Mutiny of the Bounty," 
192. Ilis testimony to the accuracy of 
Lord Byron's description of a ship- 
wreck, 739. His account of the cyan- 
ometer, 782. And of the marine ba- 
rometer, 782. 

Barthelemi, M., 922. 

Basilius, Lord Byron's Athenian ser- 
vant, 918. 

Ba.shfulness, 94. 

Bath Guide, Anstcy's, 908, 968. 

Bathurst, Captain, 052. 

Battle, 36, 116, 150, 151, 822, 823. 

Baviad and Mseviad, extinguishment of 
the Delia Cruscans hy the, 512. 

Baxter, Richard, 527. His Shove, 527. 

Bay of Biscay, 6. 

Bayard, Chevalier, 2, 3G9. 



Bayes, his expedient, 529. 

Beatrice of Dante, 593, 594, 757. 

Beattie, Dr., his reflections on dreams, 
772. 

Beauharnais, Eugene, his testimony to 
the correctness of Lord Byron's deline- 
ation of Napoleon Buonaparte, 708. 

Beaumont, Sir George, 609, 963. 

Beauty, 2, 12, 79, 80, 93, 94, 716, 763, 794, 806, 
875, .S;)8. 

Becher, Rev. John, "Answer to his com- 
plaint that one of Lord Byron's 
descriptions was rather too warmly 
drawn," 475. "Lines addressed to, on 
his advising Lord Byron to mix more 
with society," 485. 

Becket, Thomas S, his tomb, in Canter- 
bury Cathedral, 853. 

Beckford, William, Esq., his residence at 
Cintra described, 7. Chai'acter of his 
" Vathek," 7. Some account of, 90, 150. 

Bed of Ware, 804. 

Bedlam, 858, 892. 

Beggars' Opera, Gay's, 526, 563. 

Behmen, Jacob, his reveries, 803. 

Belisarius, 941. " A hero, conqueror, and 
cuokold," 754. 

Belshazzar, vision of, 553, 762. Lines to, 
670. 

Benbow, William, 875. 

Bender, obstinacy of Charles XII. at, 
833. 

Bentley, Dr. Richard, 469. 

Benzoni, Countess, 273. 

Benzoui, Vittor, 273. 

" Beppo, a Venetian Story," 169. 

Beranger, M., 837. 

Bergami, Princess of V/ales's courier 
and chamberlain, 790. 

Berkeley, Bishop, his skepticism con- 
cerning the existence of matter, 855. 

Berlin, 631, 852. 

Bernard, Saint, monks of, 925. 

Bernese Alps, 42. 

Berni, the father of the Beppo style of 
writing, 169, 574. 

Bernis, Abbe de, 233. 

Bertram, Maturin's tragedy of, 234. 

Betty, William Henry West (the young 
Roscius), 508. 

Bigamy, 833. 

Bigotry, 6, 207. 

Bile, energetic, described, 798. 

Biscay, Bay of, 6. 

Birds, belief 'that the souls of the dead 
inhabit the forms of, 104. 

Biren, John Ernest, Duke of Courland, 
852. 

Black Friar of Newstead Abbey, 906, 
907. 

Blackbourne, Archbishop, 126. 

Blackett, Joseph, the poetical cobbler, 
511, 534, 655. 

Blackmore, Sir Richard, 502. 

Blackwood's Magazine, its Remarks on 
Don Juan, 69G, 697. "Some Observa- 
tions upon its Remarks on Don Juan," 
958. Critical notes from, passim. 

Blair, Dr., his Sermons, 750. 

Blake, fashionable tonsor, 528. 

Bland, Rev. Robert, his "Collections 
from the Greek Anthology," 513, 906. 

Blank-verso, excellence of rhyme over, 
in English poetry, 520, 730, 965. 

Blasphemy, and blasphemers, 802. 

Blatant beast, 8. 

Blessington, Countess of. Impromptu on 
her taking a villa called " II Paradiso," 
691. Lines written at the request of, 
691. 

Bligh, Captain, his Narrative of the 
Mutiny of the Bounty, 192. 

Blood, " only serves to wash ambition's 
hands," 843. 

Bloomficld, Nathaniel, 512, 5.34. 

Bloomfield, Robert, 511, 534. 

Blucher, Marshal, 828. 

Blue devils, 894. 

Blue, instrunipnt for measuring the in- 
tensity of, 782. 

Blue-stocking, 177, 605. 

" Blue-Stocking Club," origin of, 005. 

Blues, 177, 179, 605, 782, 859. 



" Blues, The ; a Literary Eclogue," 605. 

Boabdil, 716. 

"Boatswain," Lord Byron's favorite dog, 
646. " Inscription on his monumen t," 
646. 

Boccaccio, treatment of his ashes, 57. 
Defence of, 936. 

Boehm, Mrs., 177. 

Boeotia, 14, 920. 

Boileau, his depreciation of Tasso, 54, 
931. 

Bolero, 888. 

Boleyn, Anne, her remark on the scaf- 
fold, 118. 

Bolingbroke, Lord, hires Mallet to tra- 
duce Pope, 505. 

Bolivar, Simon, 632. 

Bonn, 852. 

Bonne fortune, 890. 

Bonnivard, Frangois de, account of, 16.?. 

Booby, Lady, 797. 

Boone, Daniel, the Kentuckian back- 
woodsman, 829. 

Bores, 883. 

"Born in the garret, in the kitchen 
bred," 557. 

Borysthenes, the, 184. 

Boscan, Almogava, 719. 

Bosphorus, the, 784. 

Bosquet de Julie, 44. 

Boswell, James, Esq., 536. 

Botany Bay, 766. 

Bourbon, Duke of, Constable of Franee, 
365, 369, 370, 596. 

Bouts-rimes, 908. 

Bowles, Rev. William Lisle, " The maud- 
lin prince of mournful sonneteers," 
504. His "Spirit of Discovery," 504. 
" Lines on his edition of Pope," 504. 

Boxing, 532. 

Braemar, 474. 

Braham, John, singer, 549. 

" Brandy for heroes !" 193. 

Brasidas, 20. 

Brass, Corinthian, 808. 

Brave, picture of the truly, 833. 

Bread fruit, 195. 

Brennus, 596. 

Brenta, 53, 273. 

Brewster, Sir David, his "Natural 
Magic," 358. His " Life of Newton," 
814, 846. His description of Bishop 
Berkeley's theory, 855. 

Briareus, 805. 

"Bride of Abydos," 91, 782. 

Bridge of Sighs, 50, 925. 

"Brig of Balgounie," 848. 

" Bright be the place of thy soul !" 643. 

Brighton, pavilion at, 892. 

Brissot de Warville, 709. 

Bristol, 505. 

" British Critic," 695, 957. 

British Review, the " Old Girl's Review," 
607. "My Grandmother's Review," 
695, 731. " Lord Byron's Letter to the 
Editor of," 956. 

Brocken, superstition of the, 358. 

Bronze wolf of Rome, 61, 939. 

Brougham, Henry, Esq. (now Lord 
Brougham and Vaux), 495, 507. 

Broughton, the regicide, his monument 
at Vevay, 44. 

Brown, Dr. Thomas, his Paradise of 
Coquettes, 966. 

Browne, Sir Thomas, his " Religio Medi- 
ci," 93. His encomium on sleep, 772. 

Bruce, Abyssinian, his description of a 
simoom, 77. 

Brummell, William, 178, 863. 

Brunck, Professor, 469. 

Brunswick, Duke of, his death at Quatre- 
Bras, 36. 

Brussels, 36. 

Brutus, 57, 898. 

Bryant, Jacob, on the existence of Troy, 
778. 

Brydges, Sir Egerton, his " Letters on 
the Character and Poetical Genius of 
Byron," 703. Critical notes by, po^^'w. 

Bucentaur, 51, 240, 272. 

Budgell, Eustace, his "leap into the 
Thames," 536. 

Bull fight, description of a, 15, 16, 942. 



^^ 



INDEX. 



975 



Ruonapart«, Jacopo, his "Saoco di Ro- 
ma," oTl, 5%. 
Buonaparte, Lucien, his " Charlemagne," 

Buouaparte, Napoleon, 545, 629. 672, 839, 
S92. •' The Triptoleiuus of the British 
farmer," 6;>6. His exclamation on the 
lo83 of his old guard, 852. His char- 
acter, 33, 708. " Ode to," 545. " Lines 
on his escape from Elba," 672. 

Kurdett, Sir Francis, his style of elo- 
quence, 635. 

Burgage tenures and tithes, "discord's 
torches," 901). 

Hurgess, Sir James Bland, his epic of 
•* Uichai-d the First" sold to line trunks, 
.533, 9G3. 

Burgoync, General, 708. 

Burke, Edmund, 2, 193. 

Burlesque, 770. 

Bumey, Dr., his character of Jewish 
music, 549. 

Burns, Robert. "What would he have 
boon if a patrician ?" 512. His youth- 
ful pranks, 766. 

Buruii, Ralph de, 4-17. 

Busby, Thomas, Mus. Doct., his mono- 
logue on the opening of Drury Lane 
Theatre, 542. Parody on his mono- 
logue, 663. 

Bute, Lord, 622. 

Butler, Dr. (head master at Harrow), 
453, 479, 481, 515. " Lines on his being 
appointed head master at Harrow," 
453. 

" By the rivers of Babylon," 554. 

Byng, Admiral, his court-martial, 8. 

Bykon, Sir John, the Little, with the 
great beard, 447. 

Bybon, two of the family of, at the siege 
of Calais, and battle of Cressy, 4^17. 

Byron, Sir John, created (1643) Baron 
Byron of Rochdale ; some account of, 
448, 

Byron, Sir Nicholas, his character by 
Ix)rd Clarendon, 447. 

Byron, Sir Richard, tribute to his valor 
and fidelity, 448. 

Byron, Admiral John (grandfather of 
the poet), his proverbial ill luck at 
sea, 559. His shipwreck and suffer- 
ings, 741. "My granddad's Narra- 
tive," 748. 

Byron, William, fifth lord (granduncle 
of thepoot), 477. 

Byron, Captain John (father of the 
poet), 481. 

ByroK, Mrs. (mother of the poet), 357. 

Byron, Honorable Augusta (.sister of the 
poet). See Leigh, Honorablo Augusta. 

Byron, Lady, 503, 5.36, 560, 686, 710, 757, 
9.59. " Lines on hearing that she was 
ill," 560. "Lines on reading i^n the 
newspapers that she had been patroness 
of a charity ball," 686. 

Byron, Honorable Augusta Ada (daugh- 
ter of the poct>, 33, 48, 556. 

Byzantium, 51. 



Cabot, Sebastian. 597. 

Cladiz, 13, 17, 710, 73:5. 

<"adiz, "the iihl of," 16. 

Caaar, Augustus, hi.s character, 518. 

<"8B8ar, Julius, 61, .*iG4. His character, 

S2.5, 940. His laurel wreath, 67, 364. 

•' The suitor of love," 198, 7.54. 
" Cain, a Mystery," .374. 
Cairngorm, 842. 
^aldtron, 710. 
' ('alcdonian Meeting, Address intended 

to be recited at," 669. 
Calenture, ?A2, 908. 
f'aliu'ula, 144. His wish, 8a5. 
Calm at Sea, 130, 7.V2. 
"(;alm.\r and Oela, Death of," 486. 
Calpe, 22, 515. 
Calvin, .527. 
Calypso, isles of, 23. 
Cambridge I'niverslty, 469, 515, 519. 
Cambvses, 631. 
Camilla, 888. 



Camofns, 501. " Stanzas to a lady, with 
the poems of," 452. 

Campbell, Thomas, Esq., 512. His " Plea- 
sures of Hope," 512. Inadvertencies 
in his " Lives of tlie Poets," 968. His 
"Gertrude of Wyoming," 531. Criti- 
cal notes by, paasiin. 

Can Grande, 634. 
j Candia, 51, 744. 
I Cannae, battle of, 41. 
I Canning, Right Hon. George, his opin- 
I ion of the "Bride of ..Vbydos," 102. 
I His inscription for Mrs. Brownrigg, 
the " 'Prentice-cide," 614. His defence 
of public schools and universities, 715. 
His character, 636, 802. 

Canova, o6, 273. " Lines on his bust of 
Helen," 681. 

Cant, "the crying sin of the times," 
802. 

Cantemir, Demetrius, his History of the 
Ottoman Empire, 799, 805. 

Canterbury cathedral, 853. 

Capitol, the, 940. 

Capitoline Hill, 55. 

Capo d'lstria, 231. 

Capo d'Istrias, Count, 637. 

Capo di Bove, 62. 

Caracalla, 941. 

Caractacus, 879, 921. 

Caravaggio, 760, 880. 

Carbonari, 635. 

Care, 850. 

Carlile, Richard, 802. 

Carlisle (Frederick Howard), fifth earl 
of, 510, 511, 514. Charaeter of his poems, 
445. Dedication of " Hours of Idle- 
ness" to, 444. 

Carlisle (Isabella Byron), Countess of, 
444. 

Carlo Dolce, 289, 880. 

Carnage, 824, 831. 

Carnival, 172, 681. 

"Caroline, Lines to," 451, 452. 

Caroline, queen of England, 687, 790, 805, 
863. 

Carr, Sir .John, 17, 461, 516. 

Carrer, improvvisatore, 273. 

Carthage, 829. 

Cary, Rev. Henry Francis, his transla- 
tion of Dante, 593, 595, 602, 604. 

Carysfort (John Joshua Proby), first 
earl of, his "Poems and Tragedies," 
535. 

Cash, potency of, 865. 

Casimir, John, king Of Poland, 183. 

Castalian dews, 3, 920. 

Castelnau, his " Histoire de la Nouvelle 
Russie," 801. 

Castlereagh, Viscount (Robert Stewart, 
Marquess of Londonderry), 635, 706, 
801, 802, 842, 852. " Epigrams on," 687. 
" Epitaph on," 687. 

Castri, village of, 3. 

Catalan i, Madame, 509. 

Cathay, 865. 

Catherine I. of Russia, 634. 

Catherine II. of Russia, 811, 842, 843, 844, 
845, 850. 

Catiline, 813. 

Cato, lends his wife to Hortensius, 803. 

Catullus, the scholar of "Love," 754. 
His "Ad Lesbiam" translated, 448. 
His "Lugete, Veneres, (jupidinesque," 
translated, 449. Imitation from, 449. 

Caucasus, Mount, 515. 

Cavalier serventc, 175, 176, 842. 

Cecilia JNIetella, tomb of, 62. 

Ceerops, 538. 

Cellini, Benvenuto, 370. 

Ccntlivre, Mrs., charaeter of her come- 
dies, 232. Drove Congreve from the 
stage, 232. 

Ccphalonia, 24. 

Cephisus, river of, 119, 5,37. 

Ceres, ^65. 

Certosa cemetery, '147. 

Cervantes, 814. Character of his "Don 
Quixote," 874. 

Clia;ron(>a, 37. 

Chalons, battle of, 671. 

Chamouni, 42. 

Chandler, Dr., 19, 920. 



Change, 862, 863. 

Chaulrey, Francis, R. A., 732. 

"Charity Ball, Lines on reading that 

Lady Byron was patroness of a," 686. 
Charlemagne, 637. 
Charlemont, Mrs., 557. 
Charles I., 274, 879. 
Charles V. of Spain, 546. 
Charles XII. of Sweden, his obstinacy 

at Bender, 833. 
Charlotte, Princess of Wales, Lines to, ♦ 

661. Reflections on her death, 863. 

" Stanzas on her death," 70. 
Charlotte, Queon, 616. 
Chase, the English, 881. 
Chateaubriand, at Verona, 637. 
Chatham, first earl of, 872. 
Chattertou, Thomas, 873. 
Chaucer, 527. 
Chaworth, Mary Anne (afterwards Mrs. 

Musters), 454. "Fragment written 

shortly after her marriage," 464. 

"Stanzas to, Oh! had my fate," 490. 

" Farewell to," 643. " Stanzas to, on 

the author's leaving England," 648. 
Cheltenham, 198. 
Cheops, King, his pyramid, 732. 
Chesterfield, Earl of, his speech on the 

play-house bill, 526. His remark on 

hunting, 164. 
"CiiiLDE Harold's Pilgrimage," 1. 
Childe Buron, 3. 
" Childish Recollections," 478. 
Children, 394, 395, 761. 
"Chill and mirk is the nightly blast," 

651. 
" Chillon, Prisoner of," 163. 
Chillon, Sonnet on, 163. 
Chimari, 59. 

Chimariot Mountains, 26. 
Chioza, war of, 929. 
Chivalry, 2, 770, 874. 
Christ, " pure creed of, made sanction of 

all ill," 895. 
Christabel, 148, 556, 730. 
Christianity, 895. 
Chrysostom, Saint, 715. 
Churches, 790. 

" Churchill's Grate," 675. 
Cicero, a punster, 521. 
Cicisbeo, 175. 
Cid, 631, 633. 
Cigar, 200. 

Cincinnatus, 548, 636. 
Cintra, 6. Convention of, 8. 
Circassians, 800. 

Circus at Rome, 66. Maximus, 941. 
Cithffiron, Mount, 920. 
Cities, overthrow of great, 829. 
Civilization, 829. 
Clare (John Fitzgibbon), Earl of, 480. 

" Lines on," 480. " Stanzas to," 488. 
Clarens, 46. 
Clarke, Dr. Edward Daniel, 21, 33, 778, 

781. 
Clarke, HewFon, 515, 517. 
Classics, too early study of, 59. 
Claudian, his " O'ld Man of Verona," 634. 
Cleonicc and Pausanias, story of, 218. 
Cleopatra, 900. 
Clergy, 885. 

Clitumnus, the river, .58. Temple of, 58. 
Clootz, Anaeharsis, 709. 
Clytemnestra, 845. 
Cobbett, William, 8, 802. "Epigram on 

his digging up Tom Paine's bones," 

686. 
Coblentz, 40. 
Cocker, 913. 

Cognac, apostrophized, 775. 
Cohen, Mr. Francis (now Sir Francis 

Palgrave), 944. 
Colchis, 761. 
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, Esq., 502, 705, 

709, 719, 730, 766, 962. 
Coligny, 44. 
Coliseum, 65, 67, 226. 
College education, advantages of a, 715. 
"Collecre examination. Thoughts sug- 
gested by a," 468. 
Collini, Sit,mora, 509. 
Colman, (ieorge, jun., 508. 
Cologne, 852. 



976 



BYEON'S WOEKS. 



Colonna, Cape, 31, 86, 540, 917. 

Colton, Rev. Caleb, 699. 

Columbia, 62. 

Columbus, 597, 896, 903. 

Comboloio, or Turkish rosary, 98, 121. 

Comedy, the day of, gone by, 883. 

"Common Lot," answer to a beautiful 
poem entitled the, 484. 

Commonwealth, 52, 254, 573, 

Condorcet, Marquis de, 709. 

Congreve, 232, 883. 

Congreve rockets, 723. 

"Conquest, the," a fragment, 688. 

Conscience, 79, 94, 213, 223, 719, 725, 
754. 

Constantinople, 30. Slave market at, 
described, 783. 

Conversationists, 883. 

Cookery, science of, 899, 900. 

Copyright, sums paid by Mr. Murray to 
Lord Byron for, 501. 

Coquette, 871. 

Coray, 222. 

" Corinne," quoted, 729. 

Corinth, 55. 

" Corinth, Siege of," 142, 

Corinthian brass, 808. 

" Cornelian," the, 470. 

Cornelian heart which was broken, Lines 
on, 661. 

Cornwall, Barry (Bryan Walter Proc- 
ter), 861. 

Coron, bay of, 113. 

" CoKSAiR, The," a Tale, 106. 

" Cortejo," 175, 724. 

Cottle, Joseph, his "Alfred" and "Fall 
of Columbia," 505. His "Expostula- 
tory Epistle to Lord Byron," 697. 

" Could I remount the river of my years," 
677. 

" Could love for ever," 685. 

Coumourgi, Ali, 144. 

Country and town, discrepancies be- 
tween, 911. 

Courage, 57, 272. 

Cowley, his imitation of Claudian's " Old 
Man of Verona," 634. 

Cowper, 512. 

Coxcomb, 634, 722, 889, 895, 901. 

Coxe, Archdeacon, his "Life of Marl- 
borough," 766, 786. His "Life of Sir 
Robert Walpole," 786. 

Crabbe, Rev. George, " though Nature's 
sternest painter, yet the best," 513; 
" the first in point of power and ge- 
nius," 513 ; " the first of living poets," 
962. 

Craning, 887. 

Crashaw, Richard, 764. Cowley's lines 
on, 764. 

Creation, 386. 

Cribb, Tom, pugilist, 539. 

Critic, Sheridan's, too good for a farce, 
563. 

Croker, Crofton, his "Fairy Legends," 
907. 

Croker, Right Hon. John "Wilson, his 
query concerning the " Bride of Aby- 
dos," 91. 

Croly, Rev. Dr. George, 861. His " Letter 
of Cato to Lord Byron," 701. 

Cromwell, Oliver, "the sagest of usurp- 
ers," 60. 

Crowe, Rev. William, his strictures on 
"English Bards and Scotch Review- 
ers," 506. 

Cruscan school of poetry, annihilated by 
Gilford, 962. 

Culloden, battle of, 474. 

Cumberland, Duke of, hero of Culloden, 
708. 

Cumberland, Richard, 508. 

Curran, Right Hon. John Philpot, 862, 
882. 

Currie, Dr., his Life of Burns, 766. 

" Curse of Minerva," 537. 

Curtis, Sir William, 638, 855. 

Ouvier, Baron, 377, 841. 

Cyanometer, described, 782. 

<'yclades, 747, 777. 

c;ypress tree, 77. 

Cyprus, 274, 744. 

Cyrus, 903. 



Dallaway, Rev. James, his "Constanti- 
nople " quoted, 75. 

Dalrymple, Sir Hew, his Convention, 8. 

" Darasetas," a character, 459. 

Damas, Count de, 817. 

" Damme," the British, 859. 

Dance of Death, Holbein's, 897. Hol- 
lar's, 897. 

Dance, Pyrrhic, 758, 765. 

Dancing, 36, 779, 897. 

Dandies, dynasty of the, 178. 

Dandolo, Henry, the octogenarian chief, 
51, 928. 

Dandy, described, 177. 

Dante, 53, 56, 57, 593, 601, 934, 963. His 
Beatrice, 593, 757, 934. His wife, 595, 
757. Imitation of, 768. His "half-way 
house" of Life, 768. "Prophecy op," 
592. 

Danton, 709. 

Dardanelles, 780. 

" Darkness," 674. 

Daru, M., his picture of Venetian society 
and manners, 947. 

Darwin, Erasmus, his " pompous chime," 
514. His "Botanic Garden," 514. Put 
down by a poeln in the Anti-jacobin, 
962. 

Dates, " a sort of post-house, where the 
Fates change horses," 720. 

David, King, 726. His harp, 549. His 
hymns characterized, 549. 

Davy, Sir Humphry, 610, 723. 

Dead, features of the, 74, 75. Belief that 
the souls of, inhabit the forms of birds, 
104. 

" Dear Doctor, I have read your play," 
682. 

" Dear object of defeated care," 654. 

Death, 32, 45, 65, 86, 388, 572, 677, 768, 770, 
777, 781, 788, 839, 847. Shuns the 
wretched, 729. Advantages of an 
early, 770, 842. " The sovereign's sove- 
reign," 848. A reformer, 848. " Dun- 
nest of all duns," 894. " A gaunt gour- 
mand," 894. 

Death and the Lady, 757. 

" Death of Calmar and Orla," 486. 

Dee, the, 492. 

De Foix, Gaston, his tomb at Ravenna, 
781. 

" Deformed Transformed ; a Drama," 
356. 

Deformity an incentive to distinction, 
360. 

D'Herbelot, 83, 817. 

Dekker, Thomas, his "Wonder of a 
Kingdom," 645. 

Delawarr (George-John West), fifth earl, 
446. " Verses to," 446. " Lines on," 
493. 

Delphi, fountain of, 3. 

Deluge, 280, 287, 288. 

Democracy, 548. 

Demetrius Poliorcetes described, 360. 

Demosthenes, 633, 635. 

Denham, his Cowper's Hill, 854. 

Denman (Lord Chief Justice), his trans- 
lation of the Greek songon Harmodius 
and Aristogiton, 35. 

Dennis, John, critic, 524. His tract 
against operas, 524. 

De Pauw, his writings characterized, 922. 

De Quincey, Mr., his Confessions of an 
Opium Eater, 771. 

De Retz, Cardinal, his account of a ship- 
wreck in the Gulf of Lyons, 738. 

Dervish Tahiri, Lord Byron's Arnaout 
Guide, 86, 143 918. 

Desaix, General, 709. 

Despair, 35, 89, 121, 741, 742, 828. 

Despotism, 795. 

Destiny, 60. 

Destruction of Sennacherib, 554. 

De Tott, Baron, his "History of the 
Turks," 799, 805. 

" Devil's Drive ; an unfinished Rhap- 
sody," 667. 

Devotion, 377, 767, 806. 

Dibdin, Thomas, success of his " Mother 
Goose," 509. 

" Dictionnaire de Trevoux," its definition 
of an epic, 729. 



"Difficile est proprie," <tc., of Horace, 

disputes on the meaning of, 522. 

Dinner, a man's happiness dependen-t 
on, 787. 

Dinner-bell, "the tocsin of the soul," 
789. 

Diogenes, 900, 907. 

Dirce, fountain of, 920. 

Discontents, progress of popular, 828. 

Disdar Aga, 920. 

Disraeli, J., Esq., " Dedication to him of 
Observations upon an Article in Black- 
wood's Magazine, 958. 

" Dives, Lines to," 656. 

Dolce, Carlo, 289, 880. 

Don, brig of, 848. 

" Don Juan," 692. Preface, 692. Testi- 
monies of Authors, 693. Letter to the 
Editor of "My Grandmother's Re- 
view," 956. "Observations upon an 
Article in Blackwood's Magazine," 958. 
Dedication of " Don Juan " to Robert 
Southey, Esq., 705. Preface to cantos 
vi., vii., viii., 801. 

Don Quixote, " a too true tale," 874. De- 
light of reading, in the original, 893. 

Doomsday-book, 849. 

Dorotheus of Mitylene, 950. 

Dorset (Charles Sackville), Earl of, his 
character, 454. 

Dorset (George-John-Frederick), fourth 
duke of, 453, 454. " Lines occasioned 
by the death of," 671. 

Dorset (Thomas Sackville), Earl of, 
" called the drama forth," 454. 

Doubt, 839, 855. 

Dover, " dear," 853. 

Drachenfels, 40, 852. 

Drapery Misses, 860. 

Drawcansir, 521. 

"Dream, The," 564. Account of a re- 
markable one, 772. 

Dreams, 315, 809. 

Dresden, 852. 

Drummond, Sir William, 234. His "Aca- 
demical Questions " quoted, 65. 

Drury, Rev. Dr. Joseph, 59. " Lines on 
his retiring from the head-mastership 
of Harrow," 453. 

Drury Lane Theatre, " Address, spoken 
at the opening of," 662. 

Dryden, his "Ode," 962. His epigram 
under Milton's picture, 963. His 
" Palamon and Arcite," 964. His " Ab- 
salom and Achitophel," 767. His 
" Theodore and Honoria," 768. 

Dubois, Edward, Esq., his satire entitled 
"My Pocket Book," 516. 

Dubost, M., painter, his " Beauty and the 
Beast," 518. 

Duelling, 774. 

" Duet between Campbell and Bowles," 
687. 

DufF, Miss Mary (afterwards Mrs. Rob- 
ert Cockburn), Lord Byron's boyish 
attachment for, 492. 

Dumourier, 708. 

Duppa, Richard, Esq., his "Life of Mi- 
chael Angelo," 599, 600. 

Dwarfs, 793. 

" Dying Gladiator," 66, 67. 



Lines to, 446. 
Early death, 770, 847. 
Early hours, 858. 
Early rising, 748. 
Eating, 787. 

Eblis, Oriental Prince of Dai-kness, 83. 
Eclectic, 762. 
Eclectic Review, 531. Its character of 

"Don Juan," 695. 
Economy, 849. 
Eddlestone (Cambridge chorister), 470. 

" Lines on a cornelian given to Lord 

Byron by," 470. 
Edgeworth, Maria, 711. 
Edinburgh Review, 495. Its Critique on 

" Hours of Idleness," 495. Strictures 

on its remarks on the literature of 

modern Greece, 922. 



INDEX. 



977 



Edward the Black Prince, his toni\>, 8o3. 

Es;eria, 64, tMO. Fountain of, 64. Grotto 
of, 64, <I40. 

Epripo (the Nc£iropont\ 95. 

Ehronbreitstiiu, 41. 

i:ki'nhcad, Mr., 6o2, 74o. 

Elba, Isle of, 548, 631. 

Eldon, Earl of. his judgment in the case 
of "Cain," 375. His impartiality, 902. 

" Elegy on Newstcad Abbov," 475. 

Elffin, Lord, 21, 516, 537, 53S,'53i), 917. 

El^iu marbles, 537, 539. 

" Eliza, Lines to," 473. 

Elizabeth, Queen, hor avarice, S-t5. 

" Ellen, Lines to," imitated from Catul- 
lus, 449. 

Ellis, George, Esq., 77. 

Eloisa. 206. 

*' Eloisa and Abelard," Pope's, 964. 

Eloquence, power of, 895. 

" EuMA, Lines to," 4."50. 

Endor, witch of, 218, 552. 

" Endorsement to Deed of Separation," 
676. 

" E>r(;LisH Bards and Scotch Review- 
EK-s" 497. 

English look, 785. 

English women, 872. 

Ennui, "the best of friends and opiate 
draughts," 767. " A growth of English 
root," 883. 

Enthusiasm, a moral inebriety, 877. 

Envy, 807. 

Epaminondas, his disinterestedness, 838. 

Epic poem, definition of an, 729. 

Epigram on Moore's Operatic Farce, or 
Farcical Opera, 656. From the French 
of Rulhi&res, 661, 685. On my Wedding 
Day, 686. On C'obbett's digging up Tom 
Paint's Bonos, 6S6. "The world is a 
bundle of hay," 686. On my Wedding, 
687. On the Brazier's Company having 
r solved to present an Address to 
Queen Caroline, 687. On Lord Castle- 
reagh, 687. 

Epistle, a female, described, 884. 

Epistle to a friend^ ja answer to some 
Lines exhorting the author to banish 
care, 657. 

" Epistle to Augusta," 559. 

Epitaph on a friend, 446. On Virgil 
and Tibullus, by Domitius Marsus, 
translated, 448. On John Adams, of 
Southwell, a carrier, who died of 
drunkenness, 643. Substitute for an, 
653. My own, 6.')4. For Joseph Black- 
ett, ]at« poet and shoemaker, 655. For 
William Pitt, 686. For Lord Castle- 
rea^'h, 687. 

Erasmus, his Naufragium, 737. 

f>atostratus, 539. 

Erf»d and Anteros, 217. 

Erse language, 825. 

Erskine, Lord, 882. 

Etiquette, 795, 800. 

Etna, 66, 744. 

Eugene of Savoy, 597. 

Euphues (Barry Cornwall), 861. 

Euripide.s, translation from his Medea, 
" 'EpojTe? i"r<p," 468. 

Eustace's "Classical Tour in Italy," 
.•strictures on, 943. 

" Euthanasia. When Time, or soon or 
late," 6.59. 

Eutropius, the eunuch, and minister of 
Areadius, character of, 7o7. 

Eu;.ine or Black Sea, description of, 784. 

Evening deseril)ed, 53, 156, 7G7. 

Evil, 393. Origin of, 393. 

Exile, 4, .33, 343, 7:',4. 

Expectation, 128, 722. 

Experience, 869. The chief philosopher, 

Eyes, 716, 901, 904, 907, 915. 



Faint ness, sensation of, 745. The last 

mortal birth of pain, 572. 
Fairy, 216. 

Faliero, Marino, Doge of Venice, 230. 
Falioro family, 233, 944. 
Falkland f Lucius Cary),Vi8€0unt, 476,510. 



Fall of Terni, .58. 

Fame, 18, 32, 34, 36, 38, 41, 47, 147, 690, 
732, 782, 817, 824, 872, 966. 

Family, a fine, 761. 

Fancy, 769. 

"Fare thee well, and if for ever," 
656. 

" Farewell to the Muse," 641. 

" Farewell ! if ever fondest prayer," 643. 

" Farewell to Malta,V 656. 

Farmers, 841. 

Fashionable world, 750, 860, 886. 

Fate, 38, 785, 861. 

"Father of Light! great God of Hea- 
ven," 488. 

Fauvel, M., French consul at Athens, 
917, 920. 

Faux pas, in England, 890. 

Fazzioli, the Venetian, 733. 

Fear, 116, 905, 914. 

Features, 793. 

Feelings, innate, 779. 

Feinagle, Professor, his Mnemonics, 710. 

Felicaja, his "O Italia, Italia," trans- 
lated, 54. 

Female fickleness, 894. 

Female friendship, 893. 

Ffinelou, 814. 

Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, 708. 

Ferney, 47. 

Ferrara, Loi-d Byron's visit to, 53. 

" Few years have pass'd since thou and 
I," 644. 

Fickleness of woman, 894. 

Fiction less striking than truth, 893. 

Fielding, 780. The prose Homer of 
human nature, 732. 

" Fill the goblet again," 648. 

" First Kiss of Love," 452. 

First love, 722, 753. 

Fitzgerald, Lord Edward, "Sonnet on 
the repeal of his forfeiture," 685. 

Fitzgerald, William Thomas, poetaster, 
498, 535. 

Fletcher, William (Lord Byron's faithful 
valet), 5, 650, 971. 

Florence, 56, 57, 593, 594. 

"Florence" (Mrs. Spencer Smith), 23. 
Stanzas to, 650. 

Foppery, 9G5. 

Forsyth, Joseph, Esq., his " Italy," 67. 

Fortitude, 38, 52, 116, 118, 892. 

Fortune, 38, 61, 110, 178, 268, 779, 785, 966. 

Forty-parson power, 849. 

" Foscari, the Two ; an Historical Tra- 
gedy," 329. 

Foscari family, 948. 

Foscolo, Ugo, 569. His account of Pulci's 
" Morgante," 574. 

Fox, Right Hon. Charles James, 562, 563, 
6.35. " Lines on the death of," 471, 629. 
Saying of, 471, 629. His grave, 629. 

Fox hunt, an English, 887. 

" Fragment," 447. 

"Fragment, written shortly after the 
marriage of Miss Chaworth," 454. 

France, 62, 632. 

" Francesca of Rimini ;" from the In- 
ferno of Dante, 602. 

Francis, Sir Philip, the probable author 
of "Junius," 623. 

Franciscan convent at Athens, 518, 537, 
654. 

Frankfort, .543. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 624, 632, 633, 748. 

Frascati, 60, 943. 

Frasor, Mrs., 656. 

Frederic the Srcond, 207, 484, 631. His 
flight from Molwitz, 825. 

"Free to conf. .^s," tlie phrase, 910. 

Freedom, 29, 31, 62, 75, 114, 573, 853. 

Free will, 393. 

Frere, Right Hon. John Hookham, 512. 
His "Whistlceraft," 169, 702. Writes 
half the "Needv Knife-grinder," 17. 

Frij^ds, 847, 8SK, 893. 

Friendship, 893. 

Friuli, 5.3. 

Frizzi's History of Ferrara, 155. 

Fry, Mrs., 854. 

" Fudge Familv," the humor of, not wit, 
96 1. 

Funds, the public, 863. 



Fuseli, 776. 
Future state, 377. 



Gail, M., 922. 

Galileo, 935. His tomb in Santa Croce, 
56. 

Galiongge, 98. 

Gait, John, Esq., his character of Don 
Juan, 702. 

Gamba, Count Pietro, 767. 

Game of Goose, 870. 

Gamesters, 885, 889. 

Gaming, 865, 885. 

Gandia, Duke of, interesting particulars 
of his death, 140. 

Gareilasso de la Vega, 719. 

Garrick, 508, 662. 

Gay, his Beggars' Opera, 526. 

Gayton, dancer, 509. 

Gazelle, the, 3, 79. 

Gell, Sir William, 516. 

Gemma, the wife of Dante, 595. 

Geneva, Lake of, 42, 43, 165, 925. 

Ger.evru, Sonnets to, 667. 

Gculis, Madame de, 544. 

Gentlemen farmers, 841. 

George the Third, 542, 616, 633, 863. 

George the Fourth, 668, 670, 688, 689, 706, 
835, 841, 863, 873. " Sonnet to, on the 
repeal of Lord Edward Fitzgerald's 
forfeiture," 865. 

Georgia, 806. 

Georgians, beauty of the, 806. 

Geramb, Baron, 612. 

"Gertrude of Wyoming," Campbell's, 
531. 

Gesner, his "Death of Abel," 376. 

Ghibelines, 593, 595, 937. 

Ghost, the Newstead, 906. 

Ghosts, 808, 902, 903, 905, 914. 

Giafiar, pacha of Argyro Castro, his 
fate, 100. 

Giant's Grave, visit to, 784. 

"Giaour, The; a Fragment of a Turk- 
ish Tale," 73. 

Gibbon, Edward, Esq., his character, 47. 
Ilis opinion on the advantages of a 
public education, 715. 

Gibraltar, straits of, 22. 

Giffard, Lees, Esq., LL.D., 693. 

Gifford, William, Esq., 500, 512, 535, 545, 
962. 

Gin, 852. 

Giugough, Saint, 925. 

Giorgione, 173. 

"Girl of Cadiz," 16. 

Glaciers, 59. 

Gladiator, the dying, stanzas on, 66, 776. 

Gladiators, 942. 

Glenbervie (Sylvester Douglas), first 
lord, 598. 

Glory, 19, 51, 67, 766, 815, 823, 836. 

Godoy, Don Manuel, 11. 

Goethe, his "Kcnnstdu das Land," <tc., 
imitated, 91. His " Faust," 228. His 
remarks on "Manfred," 228. Dedica- 
tion of " Marino Faliero " to, 235. His 
"Werther," 235. Lord Byron's letter 
to, 235. His tribute to the memory of 
Byron, 290. Dedication of "Sarda^ 
napalus" to, 290. His character of 
"Don Juan," 704. His "Mephisto- 
phcles," 874. 

Gold, 865. 

Golden Fleece, 761. 

Goldoni's comedies, 952. 

Goldsmith, his anticipated definition of 
the Lake school of poetry, 962. 

Gondola describ(;d, 171. 

Gondoliers, songs of the Venetian, 50, 
722, 926. 

Good Night, the, 4. Lord Maxwell's, 1. 

(ioose, royal game of, 870. 

Gordon, Lord George, 542. 

Gordons of Gight, 474. 

Goza, 23. 

Gracchus, Tiberius, 848. 

firafton, Duke of, 622. 

(Jrabam, Edward, lOsq., 778. 

Graliame, James, his "Sabbath Walks" 
and " Biblical Pictures," 504. 



978 



BYKON'S WORKS. 



Cranby, Marquess of, 708. 

" Gkanta ; a Medley," 455. 

Granville, Dr., his recipe to escape sea- 
sickness, 734. 

Grattan, Right Hon. Henry, 635, 689, 
690, 802, 862. 

Gray, 768, 963. 

" Greatest living poets," 860. 

Greece, past and present condition of, 
13, 21, 30, 31, 75, 147, 529, 632, 765. 

Greek war song, " Aevre nalSeg," transla- 
tion of, 654. 

( I reeks, some account of the literature 
of the modern, 922. 

Grenvilles, the, 863. 

Greville, Colonel, 509. ^ 

Grey, Charles (afterwards Earl Grey), 
635, 872. 

Grief, 842, 847. 

Grillparzer, his tragedy of Sappho, 290. 

Grindelwald, the, 42. 

Gritti, Count, his sketch of a Venetian 
noble, 273. 

Gropius, the Sieur, 918. 

Grosvenor, Earl (now Marquess of West- 
minster), 525. 

Guadalquivir, 745. 

Guadiaua, 9. 

Guariglia, Signor, 779. 

Guelfs, 593, 595, 937. 

Guesclin, du, constable of France, 630. 

Guiccioli (Teresa Gamba), Countess, 191, 
290, 592, 684, 690, 723, 783, 784, 801. 
Dedication of the Prophecy of Dante 
to, 592. 

Guido, his Aurora, 888. 

Gunpowder, 201, 826. 

Gurney, Hudson, Esq., his "Cupid and 
Psyche," 763. 

Gurney, William Brodie, short-hand 
writer, 728. 

Gustavus Adolphus, his death at Lutzeu, 
631. 

Gyuocracy, 871, 908. 



Habesci, Louis, 763. 

Hades, 390. 

Hafiz, 27. 

Hall, Captain Basil, his interview with 
Napoleon, 630. 

Hallam, Henry, Esq., 516, 594. His re- 
view of Payne Knight's " Taste," 507. 
His " Middle Ages," 868. 

Hamburg, 542. 

Hands, small, a distinction of birth, 27, 
774, 795. 

Hannibal, 197, 543. 

Happiness, "was born a twin," 751. 
Horace's art of, 794. "An art on 
which the artists greatly vary," 877. 

Hardinge, George, Esq., 882. 

Harley, Jjady Charlotte (the " lanthe " 
to whom the first and second cantos of 
" Childe Harold" are dedicated), 2. 

Harmodius, 35. 

Harmodius and Aristogiton, song on, 35, 
632. 

Harmony, German colony in America 
so called, 897. 

Harpe, La, 634. 

Harrow, " Lines on a change of masters 
at," 453. " On a distant view of the 
village and school of," 456. " Written 
bimeath an elm in the churchyard of," 
494. " On revisiting," 642. 

Hater, an honest, 874. 

Hatred, 874. 

Havard, story of his tragedy, 530. 

Hawke, Admiral Lord, 708. 

Hawke (Edward-Harvey), third Lord, 
455. 

Hayley, William, Esq., advice to, 503, 
908, 966. 

Hazlitt, William, his charge of incon- 
sistency against Lord Byron, 708. His 
character of " Don Juan," 700. 

Health, 751, 829. 
Hearer, a good one, 888. 
Hearing, second, superstition of, 86. 
"Heaven and Earth; a Mystery," 
276. 



Hebe, 908. 

Heber, Reginald (bishop of Calcutta), 
critical notes by, passim. 

" Hebkew Melodies," 549. 

Hecla, 631, 902. 

Hector, 837. 

Helen, "the Greek Eve," 891. "Lines 
on Canova's bust of," 681. 

Helena, Saint, 629, 637. 

Hell, " paved with good intentions," 619, 
825. 

Hellespont, 97, 652, 745, 778. 

Hells, Saint James's, 524, 858. 

Henry, Patrick, "the forest-born De- 
mosthenes," 633. 

Herbert, Rev. William, 507. 

Hercules, 539. 

Hero and Leander, 97, 652. 

" Herod's Lament for Mariamne," 554. 

Herodias, 543. 

Hesperus, 768. 

Heterodoxy, 802. 

Highgate, burlesque oath administered 
at, 14. 

Highland welcome, 804. 

Hill, Thomas, Esq., the patron of Kirke 
White and Bloomfield, 511, 694. 

" Hills of Annesley, bleak and barren," 
454. 

" Hints from Horace," 518. 

History, 39, 823. 

Historians, 766, 859. 

Hoare, Rev. Charles James, 515. 

Hobbes, Thomas, 200. His fear of 
ghosts, 902. 

Hobhouse, Right Hon. Sir John Cam, 
Bart., 19, 24, 27, 518, 525, 537, 538, 568, 
569, 645, 651, 653, 654, 799. His " Epistle 
to a young nobleman in love," 647. 
Dedication to him of the fourth canto 
of " Childe Harold," 48. His " Histor- 
ical Notes to the Fourth Canto of 
Childe Harold," 925. 

Hoche, General, 40, 709. 

" Hock and soda water," 708, 752. 

Hodgson, Rev. Francis, 515, 966. " Lines 
to, written on board the Lisbon 
packet," 649. " Epistle to, in answer 
to some lines exhorting Lord Byron 
to 'banish care,' " 657. 

Hogg, James, the Ettrick Shepherd, 966. 

Holbein, his "Dance of Death," 897. 

Hole, Rev. Richard, 964. 

Holford, Miss, 966. 

Holland, Lord, 508, 563. Dedication of 
the Bride of Abydos to, 91. His char- 
acter of Voltaire, 967. 

Holland, Lady, 508, 516. 

Holland, Dr., 27. 

Hollar, his " Dance of Death," 897. 

Home, 34, 125, 722. Sight of, after ab- 
sence, 758. " Without hearts there is 
no," 761. 

Homer, geography of, 778, 781, 822. 
Iliad, 963. Odyssey, 758. His cata- 
logue of ships, 881. 

Honorius, 7. 

Hook, Theodore, Esq., 508. 

Hope, Thomas, Esq., 21, 518. 

Hoppner, John William Rizzo, "Lines 
on the birth of," 683. 

Horace, Lord Byron's early dislike to, 
59. His"Justum et tenacem" trans- 
lated, 449. "The scholar of love," 754. 
His " Nil adniirari," 794, 877. Quoted, 
791,881,886,891. 

Horton, Right Ho.n. Robert Wilmot 
(now Sir Robert), 713. 

Horton, Mrs. (now Lady) Wilmot, 549. 

Hotspur, 826. 

Houris, 12, 80, 834. 

" Hours of Idleness," 444. Critique of 
the Edinburgh Review upon, 495. 

Houson, Miss, "Lines addressed to," 
458. 

Howard, Hon. Frederick, 37, 511. 

Howe, Admiral Lord, 708. 

Hoyle, games of, 515, 768. 

Hoyle, Rev. Charles, 515, 964. 

Hudibras, 527. 

Humane Society, 723. 

Humboldt, 782. 

Hunger, 740, 749. 



Hunt, Leigh, 627, 700. Mr. Moore's 
verses on his "Byron and his Con- 
temporaries," 628. 

Hunting, 887. 

Hydra, Isle of, 537, 823. 

Hymen, 543, 758. 

Hymettus, 31, 537, 540, 900. 

Hypocrisy, 849, 863. 



lanthe (Lady Charlotte Harley), dedica- 
tion of " Childe Harold" to, 2. 

Ibrahim Pacha, 918. 

Ida, Mount, 59, 778, 920. 

" I enter thy garden of roses," 655. 

" If sometimes in the haunts of men," 660. 

"If that high world," 549. 

Ilion, 778, 860. 

Illyria, 25. 

Imagination, 65, 769. 

Immortality of the soul, 377. 

Imprisonment, solitary, its effects, 342. 

Improvvisatore, 933. 

Incantation, 212. 

Incledon, Charles, singer, 957. 

Inconstancy, 755. 

Indifference, 877, 901. 

Indigestion, 839, 855. 

" Inez," Stanzas to, 16. 

Infidelity, female, 756, 872. 

"In law an infant, and in years a boy," 
459. 

Innocence, 396, 663, 724, 808, 890. 

Innovation, progress of, 910. 

"Inscription on the monument of a 
Newfoundland dog," 646. 

Intoxication, 736, 752. 

Ionia, 327. 

Iris, the, 53, 59, 216. 

" Irish Avatar," 688. 

Irish language, 825. 

" Iron Mask," 623. 

" I saw thee weep," 551. 

"Island, The; or. Christian and his 
Comrades," 192. 

" Islands of the blest," 764. 

Ismail, siege of, 801, 815, 836. 

" I speak not, I trace not," 669. 

Italian language, 576. 

Italian sky, 53. 

Italy, 52, 181, 182, 595. Present degraded 
condition of, 707. 

Ithaca, 24. 

" I would I were a careless child," 491. 



Jackal, 146, 154, 631, 840. 

Jackson, John, professor of pugilism, 
532, 588, 857. 

Jamblicus, story of his raising Eros and 
Anteros, 217. 

Jealousy, 717, 720. 

Jeffrey, Francis, Esq., 499, 506, 507, 531, 
698, 847, 866. Critical notes by, passim. 

Jena, battle of, 631. 

Jenner, Dr., 723. 

" Jephthah's Daughter," 550. 

Jordan, William, Esq., 693. 

Jerningham, Mr., 517. 

Jerome, Saint, 715. 

Jerreed, 94. 

Jersey, Countess of, 670. "Consolatory 
Address to, on the Prince Regent re- 
turning her picture," 670. 

Jerusalem, 594. "On the day of the 
destruction of, by Titus," 554. 

Jesus Christ, 895, 924. 

Jews, 637, 740, 790. 

Joannina, 25, 26, 89, 793, 918. 

Job, 555, 828, 889. 

John Bull, his " Letter to Lord Byfon," 
702, 730. 

Johnson, Dr., his "Vanity of Human 
Wishes," 769. His opinion of blank 
verse, 520. His " Irene," 524. His re- 
mark on good intentions, 619. A good 
hater, 874. His " Life of Milton," 766. 
His belief in ghosts, 904. 

Jonson, Ben, anecdote of, 706. 

Joubert, General, 709. 

"Journal de Trevoux," 607. 



INDEX. 



979 



Julian the Apostate, 707. 

Julian, Count, 9. 

Juliet's tomb, 6M. 

Julius Civsar, his character, 61, 826, 940. 

His laurel wreath, 364. The suitor of 

love, 198, 754. 
Jungfrau, the, 42, 59, 214, 216. 
Junius's Letters, 623. 
Junot, tieneral, 8. 

Jupiter Olympius, temple of, 20, 538. 
Jura mountains, 44, 4."). 
Juvenal, his alleged independence, 714. 

His pure and sublime morality, 714. 



Kaff, 515. 

Kalamas, 26. 

Kiileidoseope, 743. 

Ka'kbrenner, his remark on Jewish 
Miusic, 549. 

Kam«!chatka, 543. 

Kant, Professor, 852. 

Kean, Edmund, tragedian, 234, 508. 

Keats, John, 861, 966. Account of, 965. ; 
Elegy on, 687. 

Kemble, John Philip, Esq., 234, 508. 

Kenney, James, dramatist, 508. 

Keppef, Admiral, 708. 

Kibitka, 840. 

Kings, 828, 840. 

Kinnaii-d. Lord, 838. 

Kinnaird, Hon. Douglas, 235, 549, 613, 
688. 

" Kiss of Love, First," 432. 

Kitchener, Dr., his remedy for sea-sick- 
ness, 7.34. 

Knight-errantry, 874. 

Knight, Payne, 507. 

Knowledge, 390, 860. 

Knulles, Richard, 799. His "History of 
the Turks," 73. 

Koran, 80, 99. 

Kosciusko, General, 543, 631, 852. 

Kotzebue, 543. 

Koutousow, Greneral (afterwards Prince 
of Smolensko), 830. 



Labedoy&re, 672. 

Lacedemou, 31. 

" Lachin y Gair," 198, 473. 

Ladies, learned, 711, 860. 

La Fayette, 709. 

La Fitte, pirate, 126. 

Lafitte, 865. 

La Harpe, 634. , 

Lake Leman, 42, 44, 165, 677, 879, 892. I 

Lake School of Poetry, 705, 961. Gold- i 
smith's anticipated definition of, 962. ' 

" Lakers," the, 528, 730, 962. 

Lamb, Lady Caroline, 7.54. 

Laml)e, Charles, Rsq., 514. 

Lambe, Hon. (jcorge, 499, 507. 

Lamberti, Venetian poet, 27.3. 

Lambro Canzari, Greek patriot, 101. 

"Lamknt of Tasso," r,67. 

Lancelot of the Lakf», 604. 

" Landed Interest," 6:56. 

Landor, Walter Savage, Esq., 199, 611, 
614,861. His"(Jfbir,"615. 

Langeron, C^'unt de, 817. 

Lannes, Duk.> of Montebello, 709. 

Lansdowne Hlenry Fitzmaurice Petty', 
fourth Marquess of, 455, 469, 508. 

Lanskoi, the grande passion of Cathe- 
rine IL, 842. 

Laocoon, the, 69, 776. 

L&on, the river, 26. 

'• Lara; a Tale," 128. 

La.scy, Major General, 826. 

Laugier, Abb6, his character of Marino 
Faliero, 2.'«. 

Laura, 7.56, 930. 

l>au.sanne, 47. 

Lawsuits, 909. 

Lawyers 725, 847, 909. 

Lay of the Last Minstrel, .500. 

Leamler and Hero, 97, 6.52. 

Learned ladies, 711, 860. 

Jjearned languages, re.sults of the tf)0 
early study of, 59. 

Lee, Harriet, her "German's Tale," 404. 



"Legion of Honor, Lines on the Star 
of,^' 673. 

Legitimacy, 797, 838. 

Leigh, Hon. Augusta (Lord Byron's 
sister), 40, 42. "Stanzas to," 558. 
" Epistle to," 559. 

Lely, Sir Peter, drapery of his beauties, 
880. 

Leipsic, 543, 631. 

Leman, Lake, 42, 44, 165, 879, 892. " SoN- 
NKT to," 677. 

L'Enclos, Ninon de, 794. 

Lenzoni, Marchioness, her rescue of the 
bones of Boccaccio, 936. 

Leo X., 600. 

Leoben, 41. 

Leone, Port, 76. 

Leon id as, 359, 655, 823. 

Leonora, Tasso's, 569. 

Leopold, Prince of Saxe Coburg (after- 
wards King of the Belgians), 70. 

Lepanto, Gulf of, 24, 51. 

" Lesbia, Lines to," 458. 

Lethe, 769. 

"Letter to the Editor of 'My 
Grandmother's Review,' " 956. 

Leucadia, 24, 754. 

Leuctra, 37, 359. 

Levant, 26, 125. 

Lewis, Matthew Gregory, Esq., 234, 503, 
524. 

Liakura, Movint, 31. 

Liberty, 163, 193, 822. 

Licensing act, 526. 

Lies, 859. 

Life, 38, 54, 65, 66, 100, 218, 315, 338, 733, 
753, 770, 803, 839, 865, 903. 

Life of a young noble, 861. 

Lightning, 45, 46. Superstitions respect- 
ing, 54, 932. 

Ligne, Prince de, 817, 824, 851. 

" Lines on the Death of a Young Lady," 
445. To E., 446. To D., 446. On leav- 
ing Newstcad Abbey, 447. Written 
in Rousseau's "Letters to an Italian 
Nun," 448. On a change of Masters 
at a great School, 453. On a distant 
view of the Village and School of 
Harrow, 456. To M., 457. ToM. S.G., 

457. To Woman, 457. To Mary, on re- 
ceiving her Picture, 457. To Lesbia, 

458. Addressed to a Young Lady, 458. 
To Marion, 460. To a Lady who pre- 
sented to the Author a lock of hair, 
&c., 460. To a beautiful Quaker, 470. 
On the Death of Mr. Fox, 471. To the 
sighing Strephon, 473. To Eliza, 473. 
To Romance, 474. To a Lady who 
presented the Author with the velvet 
band which bound her tresses, 485. To 
the Rev. J. T. Becher, on his advising 
the Author to mix more with Society, 
485. To Edward Noel Long, Esq., 489. 
To a Lady — "Oh! had my fate," &c., 
490. To George, Earl Delawarr, 493. 
To the Earl of (lure, 493. Written 
beneath an Elm in the Churchyard of 
Harrow, 494. To a vain Lady, 640. 
To Anne, 640, 641. To the Author of 
a Sonnet beginning "Sad is my verse," 
&c., 641. On finding a Fan, 641. To 
an Oak at N^wstead, 642. On revisit- 
ing Harrow, 642. To my Son, 64:5. To 
a youthful Friend, 644. Inscribed 
upon a Cup formed from a Skull, 645. 
To a Lady on Ix'ing asked my reason 
for quitting England, 646. To Mr. 
Hodgson, written on board the Lisbon 
Packet, 649. Written in an Album at 
Malta, 650. Written after Swimming 
from Sestos to Abydos, 652. Written 
beneath a picture, 654. In the Trav- 
ellers' Book at Orchornenua, 653. On 
Parting, 655. To Dives, 6.56. On 
Moore's Operatic Farce, 656. To 
Thyrza, 657. On a Cornelian Heart 
which was broken, 661. To a Lady 
weeping, 661. Written on a blank leaf 
of the " Pleasures of Memory," 661. 
To Timf, r,64. On I^rd Thurlow's 
poems, 666. To Lord Thurlow 666. 
To Thoma.s Moore, on visiting Leigh 
Hunt in Pri.son, 666. On hearing that 



Lady Byron was ill, 560. To Belshaz- 
zar, 67o! On Napoleon's Escape from 
Elba, 672. To Thomas Moore, 680. 
On the Bust of Helen by Catiova, 681. 
To Thomas Moore, 681. To Mr. Mur- 
ray, 682. From Mr. Murray to Dr. 
Polidori, 682. To Mr. Murray, 68:^. 
On the birthday of J. W. K. lloppner, 
683. On reading that Lady Byron had 
been patroness of a charity ball, 686. 
On my thirty-third birthday, 687. To 
Mr. Murray, 688. To Lady Blessing- 
ton, 691. Inscribed, "On this day I 
complete my thirty-sixth year," 691. 

Lisbon, 6. 

Lisbon Packet, Lines written on board 
the, 649. 

Liston, John, comedian, 956. 

Literary men, marriage of, 595. 

Little's Poems, 493, 503. 

Livadia, 920. 

Liver, 755. 

Livy, 890. 

Lloyd, Charles, Esq., 514, 706. 

Loan contractors, 865. 

Locke, his treatise on education, 529, 895. 

Lockhart, J. G., Esq. His " Ancient 
Spanish Ballads," 15. His preface to 
" Don Quixote," 874. Critical notes 
by, passim, 

Lodi, 359. 

Loffi, Capel, Esq., 511, 534. 

Logotheti, Signer, 919. 

London, a Sunday in, 14. The devil's 
drawing-room, 854. The approaches 
to, 857. Never understood by for- 
eigners, 867. " One superb menagerie," 
867. 

Londonderry (Robert Stewart), second 
Marquess of, 801, 815, 842. See also 
Castlereagh. 

London Review, 522. 

Loneliness, 42, 224, 898. 

Long, Edward Noel, Esq., 489. " Lines 
to," 489. 

Longinus, 714, 730, 896. 

Longmans, Messrs., 530, 605. 

" Longueurs," 707. 

Lope de Vega, 710, 967. 

Loredano, family of, 329. 

Lorenzo de' Medici, 937. 

Lorraine, Claude." 6:)4, 880. 

Love, best tokens of, 804. First, 722, 
752. " His own avenger," 777. Lan- 
guage of, 771. Man's, 728, 755. Pla- 
tonic, 718, 721, 845. Woman's, 728, 754, 
756. See also 570, 751, 771, 772, 797, 814, 
844, 865, 892. 

Love, first kiss of, 452. 

Love of gain, 833, 883. 

Love of glory, 781. 

Love of oflspring, 797, 834. 

" Love's last adieu," 459. 

Lovers, 751, 753, 771, 893. 

Lover's Leap, 24, 723. 

Loves of the Triangles, 962. 

Lowe, Sir Htidson, 630, 861. 

Luc, .lean Andre de, 164. 

Lucca, 900. 

Lucretia, 233. 

Lucretius, 714. 

Lucullus, dishes S. la, 900. Cherries 
transplanted into Europe by, 900. 

" Luddites, Song for the," 681. 

Ludlow, General, the regicide, his monu- 
ment, 44. 

Lugo, 779. 

Lu.shington, Dr., 712. 

Lusieri, Signor, his devastations at 
Athens, 917. 

Luther, Martin, 814. 

Lutzen, 631. 

Lying, 727. 

Lykaiithropy, 840. 

Lyon.s. Gulf of, 737. 

Lyttelton, George Lord, 104. 



M , Lines to, 457. 

M.S. (i.. Lines to, 457. 

Macassar oil, 711. 

" Mac Flecknoe," origin of Dryden's, 520. 



980 



BYKON'S WOEKS. ♦ 



Machiavelli, 814, 854, 934. His tomb in 
Santa Crocc, 56. 

Mackintosh, Sir James, 623. 

Macneil, Huctor, Esq., his poems, 512. 

Macpherson's Ossian, 487. 

Madness, 59, 777. 

Madrid, 631, 849. 

Mafra, 9. 

Maginn, Dr., his parody on "Yarrow 
Unvisited," 704. 

Magnesia, 94. 

Mahomet, 754, 795, 815. 

Maid of Athens, 653. 

" Maid op Athens, ere we part," 653. 

Maid of Saragoza, 12. 

Majorian, his visit to Carthage, 114. 

Malice, 717. 

Mallet, David, 505. 

Malta, 23, 709. 

" Malta, Farewell to," 656. 

Malthus, Rev. T., his anti-nuptial sys- 
tem, 866. "Does the thin^ 'gainst 
which he writes," 867. His book the 
eleventh commandment, 897. 

Malvern Hills, 198. 

Man, 723, 724, 768, 844. 

Mandeville, 502. 

"Manfred; a Dramatic Poem," 209. 
Goethe's remarks on, 228. 

Manfrini palace, 173. 

Manicheism, 376. 

Manley, Mrs., her Atalantis, 864. 

Mann, the engineer, his pumps, 736. 

Mansel, Dr., bishop of Bristol, 469. 

Mansion House, the, 858. 

Mantinea, 37, 359. 

Marat 709. 

Marathon,' 31, 37, 41, 359, 764. Plain of, 
offered to Lord Byron for sale, 32. 

Maroeau, General, 40, 709. 

Marchetti, Count, 592. 

Marengo, 359. 

Maria Louisa, Empress, 547, 637. 

Marie Antoinette, 2. Effect of grief on, 
164, 214. 

Marine barometer, 214, 782. 

Mariner, his account of the Tonga Isl- 
ands, 192, 204. 

Marinfet, 838. 

Marino, a corrupter of the taste of Eu- 
rope, 962. 

" Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice ; 
an Historical Tragedy," 230. Dedica- 
tion to Goethe, 235. Story of, 944. 

" Marion, Lines to," 460. 

Mariscalchi gallery, Bologna, 173. 

Marius at Carthage, 594, 872. 

Markland, J. H., Esq., his character of 
" Hours of Idleness," 896. 

Markow, General, 824. 

Marlborough, 232. Coxe's Life of, 766. 

Marlow, his " Faustus," 229. 

'■ Marmion," 160, 501. 

Marriage, 756, 866. 

Marriage of literary men, 595. 

Marriage state, "the best or worst of 
anv," 893. "The best for morals," I 
896'. 

Mars, 820. 

Martial, his epigrams, 714. Lib. i. ep. 1, 
Imitated, 687. 

Martin, tlie regicide, 614. 

Marvell, Andrew, his lines on the exe- 
cution of Charles I., 274. 

" Mary," 454, 645, 784. " Lines to, on re- 
ceiving her picture," 457. 

Mary, Queen of Scots, 214. Her person 
described, 794, 844. 

Massinger, 509. 

Matapan, Cape, 757. 

Match-making, 896. 

Matrimony, 866. 

Matter, 914. Bishop Berkeley's denial 
of the existence of, 855. 

Matthias, Thomas James, Esq., .33. His 
"Pursuits of Literature," 966. His 
edition of Gray's works, 966. 

Matthews, Charles Skinner, Esq., 15. 

Matthews, Henry, Esq., 18. His " Diary 
of an Invalid," 226. 

Maturin, Rev. Charles, 234. 

Maurice, Rev. Thomas, his " Richmond 
Hill," 505. 



Mauritania, 22. 

" Mazeppa," 183. 

Mecca, 30, 83, 101. 

Medici, family of the, 937. Mausoleum 
of the, 53, 937. 

Medina, 30. 

Meditation, 22. 

Mediterranean, 71. A noble subject for 
a poem, 71. 

Medwin, Mr., 700. 

Megara, 55, 151. 

Mcgaspelion, monastery of, 920. 

Meknop, General, 831. 

Meillcrie, 925. 

Melancthon, 840. 

Melbourne house, 516. 

Melody, Suwarrow's polar, 836. 

Melton Mowbray, head quarters of the 
English chase,"881. 

Memnon, statue of, 879. 

IMemory, 20. 

Mendel'i, Mount, 31. 

Mephistophcles, 552, 874. 

Merci, Count, his epitaph, 32. 

Merivale, J. IL, Esq., 513. His " Ronces- 
valles," 575. 

Metaphysics, 871. 

Metella, Cecilia, tomb of, 62. 

Methodism, cause of the progress of, 924. 

Metternich, Prince, 637. 

Michelli, Signora, translator of Shak- 
speare, 273. 

Midas, 636. 

" Middle age" of man, described, 864. 

Milan, state of society at, 755. 

Milbanke, Lady, 712. 

Milbanke, Miss (afterwards Lady Byron), 
511. 

Milbanke, Sir Ralph, 712. 

Miller, William, bookseller, 500. 

Milman, Rev. Henry Hart, his " History 
of the Jews," 549, 550, 652, 554. His 
"Fall of Jerusalem," 234. His char- 
acter of "Heaven and Earth," 289. 
Critical notes by, passim. 

Milo, 546. 

Miltiades, 32. 

Milton, 106, 520, 627, 757, 766. 

Minerva, 31, 538. 

" Minerva, Curse of," 537. 

Minotaur, fable of the, 749. 

Minturnse, 594. 

Mirabeau, 709. 

Miser, 722. Happy life of the, 865. 

Missolonghi, 73, 86, 691. 

Mitford, Miss, 966. 

Mitford, William, Esq., his abuse of Plu- 
tarch's Lives, 866. Great merit of his 
History of Greece, 866. 

Mitylene, isle of, 958. 

Mob, 828. 

" Mobility," 912. Defined, 912. 

Mocha's berry, 762. 

Modesty, 895. 

Moli6re, 883. 

Momus, 820. 

Money, power of, 865. Pleasure of hoard- 
ing, 865, 866. 

Money^ love of, " the only pleasure that 
requites," 865. 

" Monk," Lewis's novel of the, 503. 

Monkir and Nekir, 83. 

Monks, 892. 

Monmouth, Geoffry of, his Chronicle, 
903. 

Monsoon, 827. 

Mont Blanc, 42, 59, 211. 

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 759, 778, 
784, 794. 

Montaigne, his motto, 839. 

Montecuccoli, 597. 

Montgomery, James, Answer to his 
poem entitled "The Common Lot," 
484. His " Wanderer of Switzerland," 
505. 

Monthly Review, its critique on " Hours 
of Idleness," 496. 

Montmartre, 631. 

Mont Saint Jean, 37, 861. 

Montmorenci Laval, Duke de, 637. 

Moon, 22, 721, 755, 915. "Of amatory 
egotism the Tuism," 904. 

Moonlight, 226, 259, 721. 



Moore, Dr., his " Zeluco," 2. His account 
of Marino Faliero false and flippant, 
232. 

Moore, Thomas, Esq., 494, 499, 506, 720, 
730, 861, 962. " Lines on his last Oper 
atic Farce, or Farcical Opera," 656. 
"Lines to, on visiting Leigh Hunt 
in prison," 666. "Fragment of an 
epistle to," 669. " Lines to," 680, 681. 
His Verses on Leigh Hunt's "Lord 
Byron and his Contemporaries," 628. 
His " Fudge Family," 964. His " Two- 
penny Post-bag," 964. Critical notes 
by, passim. 

Morat, field of, 41. 

More, Hannah, 128, 605. Her " Ccelebs iu 
search of a Wife," 711. 

Morea, 73. 

Moreau, General, 709. 

Morelli, Abbate, 273. 

Morena, 11. 

Morgan, Lady, 342. 

" Morgante Maggiore of Pulci," trans- 
lation of canto the first, 574. 

Morning Post, 534, 543, 693, 766, 863, 878. 

Morocco, 775. 

Morosini, Venetian poet, 273. 

Mosaic chronology, 377, 389. 

Moscow, climate of, 849. Conflagration 
of, 542, 631. 

Moses, 840. Michael Angelo's statue of, 
599. Sonnet on, 599. 

Moskwa, 359. 

Mossop, actor, 456. 

Motraye, M., his description of the Grand 
Seignior's palace, 811. 

Mountains, 43, 44, 45, 198. 

Mozart, 908. 

Muezzin, 27, 83, 837. 

Munda, 359. 

Murat, Joachim, 944. Death of, 672. His 
"snow-white plume," 672. 

Murray, John, Esq., sums paid by him 
to Lord Byron for copyright, 501. 
"My dear Mr. Murray, you're in a 
damn'd hurry," 683. " Strahan, Ton- 
son, Lintot of the times," 683. "To 
hook the reader, you, John Murray," 
682. " Epistle from, to Dr. Polidori," 
682. "LiNL_ to," 688. His notes on 
Medwin's Conversations, 968. 

Murray, John, jun., Esq., 235. 

Music, 36, 45, 93, 894, 908. 

Mussulwomen, 179. 

" Must thou go, my glorious chief," 673. 

Musters, Mrs. See Chaworth. 

Mutiny, 193. 

" My boat is on the shore," 680. 

" My dear Mr. Murray," 683. 

" My Grandmother's Review," the Brit- 
ish, 695, 731. " Letter to the Editor 
of," 956. 

" My sister ! my sweet sister !" 559. 

" My soul is dark," 551. 

Mysteries and Moralities, 525. 



Nadir Shah, 841. 

Naldi, singer, 509. 

Napier, Colonel, his detection of an 

error in " Childe Harold," 8. 
Napoleon. See Buonaparte. 
Napoleon's " Farewell," 674. 
Napoleon, Frangois Charles Joseph, 

Duke of Reichstadt, 637, 909, 
" Napoleon the First," 909. 
Napoli di Romania, 142, 948. 
National debt, 841. 

Native land, sensation on leaving, 734. 
Nature, 22, 36, 45, 752, 754, 796, 894, 898. 
Nature, " Prayer of," 488. 
" Nay, smile not at my sullen brow," 16. 
"Needy Knife-grinder," 17. 
Nebuchadonosor, 790.. 
Negropont, 95. 
Neipperg, Count, 547, 637. 
Nekir, 83. 
NelsoUj Lord, 709. 
Nemesis, Roman, 66, 941. 
Nemi, 70. 
Neptune, 200, 751. 
N.-ro, 768. 



INDEX. 



981 



Nero, consul, 197. 
Nero, tmperor, 768. 
Nussus, robe of, 861, 904. 
Nowfoundlund dog, "INSCRIPTION on 

the monument of a," 646. 
N'.wstead Abbey, "Lines written on 

leaving," 447. " Elegy on," 475. 
Newton, Sir Isaac, 814. Memorable sen- 
timent of, 814. Anecdote of the fall- 

int? apple, 8-16. 
Neyr Marshal, 838. 
Nicopolis, ruins of, 25. 
Nisbt, L'S, 4o, 2.59, 728. 
Nightingale, ita attachment to the rose, 

74, 95. Its love of solitude, 772. 
" Nil admirari," happiness of the, 794, 

377. . 
Ni'e, 631. 

Ni urod. 39, 297, 300, 327, 790, 881. 
N.obe, 60. 
"Nisus -iND Ei^RYALUS," a paraphra.se 

from the ^Eneid, 464. 
Soble, life of a young, described, 861. 
Northwest passage, 877. 
Norton, Hon. Mrs., 508. 
Novels, 771. 
Novelties, please less than they impress, 

871. 
Numa Pompilius, 713. 



Oak, " Lines to an, at Newstead," 642. 

Oath, British, 859. 

Oath, Continental, 859. 

" Observations upon an article in 

Blackwood's Magazine," 958. 
Obstinacy, 892. 
Ocean, 71, 72, 6-31. 
" Ocean stream," 784. 
Ocellus Lucanus, 922. 
O'Connell, 6S9. 
Odalisques, 805. 
"Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte," 

545. 
" Ode on Venice," 572. 
Odessa, 801. 
Offspring, care of, 797. 
"On, Anne! your offences," 640. 
"Oh, say not, sweet Anne," 641. 
" Oh : baftish care," 657. 
"On! had my fate been joined with 

thine!" 490. 
" Oh, Lady ! when I left the shore," 650. 
" Oh ! my lonely, lonely, lonely pillow," 

690. I 

"Oh, never talk to me again," 16. I 

"Oh! snatch'd away in beauty's bloom," 

.551. i 

" Oh, talk not to me of a name great in 

story," 690. | 

" Oil : weep for those," 550. i 

Old age, 7G1. I 

Olympus, 59. 
O'Mt.ara, Barry, 630. Causes of his dis- 

mi*<al from the navy, 630. I 

Omens, 771. 

" On Jordan's banks," 550. 
"One struggle more, and I zr^ free," 658. 
O'Ncil, Miss, actress, 234. 
Opera, 509. 
Orator, 635. 
Orchomcnus, 6"^.',. Lines written in the 

travellers' '^ wk at, 653. 
O'Bcilly, General Count, 724. 
"Origin nf Love," Lines on being asked 

what ivas the, 665. 
Orpheus, 533, 766. 
Orlho<l'.xy, 802. 

"Oscar of Alva; a Tale," 461. 
OsHJaii, Murjthcrson's, 487. 
Otho, his last moments, 223. His mirror, 

310. 
Otway, 230, 509. 
ouehy, 163. 
'■ O'lr goodman came hame at e'en," 

S:otti.Hh ballad, quoted, 727. 
Ovid, 5:i:{, 714^ 751. 
Owonson, Miss, her "Ida of Athens," 

920. See Morgan, Lady. 
Oxenstiern, Chancellor, his remark to 

hi.ison, 890. 
OysVr«, 751, 892. 



Pain, 332. 

Painting, 55, 68. "Of all arts the most 
superlicial and unnatural," 56. 

Palafox, (jienoral, his heroic conduct at 
Saragossa, 17. 

Palamon and Arcite, 964. 

Palatine, Mount, 63,596. 

Palgrave, Sir Francis, 944. 

Palmerston, Viscount, 455. 

Pan, 751. 

Pantheon, at Rome, 67. 

Pantisocracy, 766, 961. 

Paper, 766. 

Paper money, 865. 

Paradise Lost, 963, 965. 

Parcffi, 784. 

" Parenthetical Address by Dr. 
Plagiary," 663. 

Paris, 631. 

" ParisinAj" 155. 

" Parker, Sir Peter, Elegiac Stanzas on 
the death of," 670. 

" Parker, Margaret, Lines on her death," 
445. 

Parks of London, 861. 

Parma, 637. 

Parnassus, 12, 25, 59, 530. 

Parr, Dr., 208. His opinion of " Sardana- 
palus," 328. 

Parthenon, 19, 20, 538, 539, 540. 

Parting, 733, 734, 822. 

" Parting, Lines on," 655. 

Pasiphae, 749. 

Pasqualigo, Signor, 273. 

Passion, 23, 442, 717, 775, 964. 

Passions, 27, 774, 782, 947. Effect of vio- 
lent and conflicting, 776. 

Paswan Oglou, 99. 

Paternoster row, the " bazaar of book- 
sellers," 605. 

Patience, 215. 

Patroclus, tomb of, 778. 

Pausanias and Cleouice, story of, 218. 

Peacock, " the royal bird, whose tail's a 
diadem," 821. 

Pelagius, 9. 

Pelayo, 633. 

Pentelicus (now Mount Mendeli), 31. 

Pericles, 538. 

Peri, 3. 

Persians, 903. Their doctrine of the two 
principles, 877. 

Pertinacity, 892. 

"PcsCcLTQ. (597 

Peter Bell, Wordsworth's, 609, 767, 964. 

Peter the Third, of Eussia, 845. 

Peter the Great, 634. 

Peter Pindar, G25. 

Petersburg, Sll, 837, 842, 852. 

Petion, 703. 

Petrarch, 20, 53. His laureate crown, 
50, 57, 597, 930, 935. On the conspiracy 
of Marino Faliero, 946. Crowned in 
the Capitol, 96.3. "The Platonic pimp 
of all posterity," 784. 

Petticoat, "garment of a mystical sub- 
limity," 887. 

Petticoat government, 908. 

Petticoat influence, 886. 

Petty, Lord Henry (now Marquess of 
Lausdowne), 455, 469, 508. 

PbiEdra and Ilippolitus, 797. 

Pharsalia, 359. 

Phidias, 599. 

Philanthropy, 28. 

Phillips, AT.ibrose, his pastorals, 527. 

Phillips, ( harlrs, Esq., barrister, 9.5G. 

Philo-progcnitivcness, 867. 

Philosophy, 732, 755. * 

Phyle, Fort, 29, 5.38. 

Physicians, 850. 

Pibroch, -liil. 

Pickersgill, Joshua, his Three Brothers, 
356. 

Picture, a, " is the past," 905. 

Pictures, 909. 

Pigot, MLs.s, " Lines to," 473. 

Pigot, Dr., "IlEiM-Y to some Verses of, 
on the cruelty of his mistrees," 473. 

Pillans, James, .'307. 

Pindar, 14, 704. 

Pind< nionte, Ippolito, 634. 

Pindus, Mount, 2;. 



Pirsens, 55. 

Pirates, 107. 

Pisse Vache, 58. 

Pistol, 774. 

Pitt, Right Hon. William, his addition* 
to our parliamentary tongue, 520. His 
grave next that of Fox, 629. His dis- 
interestedness, 838. "Epitaph for," 
686. 

Pitti Palace, 55. 

Pizarro, 18, 632. 

Plagiarism, 158, 312, 735. 

Plato, his lines on the tomb of Themis- 
tocles, 73. His system of love, 721. 
His dialogues, 902. His reply to Di- 
ogenes, 907. 

Platonic love, 718, 721, 845., 

Playhouse bill, origin of, 525. Propriety 
of repealing it, 525. 

Pleasure, 722, 723, 732. A stern moral- 
ist, 762. 

Pleasures of Hope, 512. 

Pleasures of Memory, 55, 104, 512. " LINES 
written on blank leaf of," 661. 

Plymley, Peter (Rev. Sydney Smith), hi» 
"Letters," 911. 

Plutarch's " Lives," 825. Mitford's abuse 
of, 866. 

" Po, Stanzas to the," 684. 

Poetry, present state of English, 962. 
Nothing in, so difficult as a beginning, 
768. " Is a passion," 782. 

Poets, 598, 780. Amatory, 783. Duti* - 
of, 831. The greatest living, 860. 

Poggio, his exclamation on looking dow> 
on Rome, 55. 

Poland, 631, 634, 852. 

Polenta, Guido da, 602. 

Polenta, Francesca da, 602. 

Polidori, Dr., 961. 'VEnistle from Mr. 
Murray to," 682. 

Polycrates, 765. 

Polygamy, 800, 804, 833. 

Pompey, a hero, con(iueror, and cuckold, 
754. Hio statue, 61, 938. 

Pope, 500. His Pastorals, 528. His Rapo 
of the Lock, 964. Harmony of his 
versification, 964. His imagination, 964. 
His character of Sporus, 964. List of 
his disciples, 966. Systematic depreci- 
ation of, 963- 

Popular applause, 764. 

Popular discontents, progress of, 828. 

Popularity, 873. 

Porphyry, 17. 

Porson, Professor, 469, 667. 

Portland (William Henry Cavendish), 
third duke of, 515. 

Portugal, 1, 11. 

Portuguese, the, characterized, 9. 

Possession, 771. 

Posterity, 710, 866. 

Potemkin, Prince, 818. His character, 
818. His instructions to Suwarrow 
before the siege of Ismail, 818. 

Potiphar's wife, 797. 

Pouqucville, M. do, 25, 786. Character 
of his writings, 25. 

Poussin, his picture of the deluge, 287. 

Pratt, Samuel, 504. His "Sympathy," 
504. 

Prayer, 377, 378. 

"pR.\YER OF Nature," 488. 

Prgsle, dancer, 509. 

Pretension, absence of, 895. 

Previsa, 29. 

Priam, 360. 

Pride, 769, 875. 

Prince Regent, "A finished gentleman 
from top to toe," 873. "Son.nkt to, 
on the repeal of Lord Edward Fitzger- 
rl'l's Forfeiture," 685. "Lines to, on 
I his standing between the cofllins of 
Henry VIII. and Charles I., 668. 

Principles, the two, 393. 
I "Prisoner of Chillon," 163. 

"Prologue delivered nrcviou.sly to the 
performance of the Wheel of Fortune, 
at a i)rivate theatre," 471. 

"Prometheus," 676. 

Prometheus of ./'Eschylus, 722. 

"Prophecy op Danti;," 592. Dedication 
to Countess Guiccioii, 592. 



982 



BYKON'S WOEKS. 



Prophets, 889. 

Protesilaus, 778. 

Pruth, the river, 634. 

Psyche, 842. 

Public schools, 715, 733. Advantages of, 
715. Best adapted to the genius and 
constitution of the English, 715. 

Pulci, his "Morgante Maggiore," 574. 
Sire of the half-serious rhyme, 770. 

Pultowa, battle of, 183, 191. 

Puns, 521. 

Pye, Henry James, Esq., 499, 625. 

Pygmalion, statue of, 807, 842. 

Pyramus and Thisbe, 790. 

Pyrrhic dance, 758, 765. 

Pyrrho, the doubting philosopher, 839. 

Pyrrhus, 637. 



" Quaker, Lines to a beautiful," 470. 
Quakers, tenets of the, 19. 
Quarrels of Authors, Disraeli's, 958. 
Quarterly Review, 731. Critical notes 

from, passim. 
Queens, generally prosperous in their 

reigns, 850. 
Quirini, Alvise, 273. 
" Quite refreshing," 832. 



Rage, woman's, 797. 

Rainbow, 722. Description of a, 743. 

" Ram Alley," Barrey's comedy of, 543. 

Ramazan, feast of, 27, 76, 79. 

Ranz des Vaches, 214, 342. 

Rape of the Lock, 964. 

Raphael, his death, 176. His Transfigu- 
ration, 895. 

Rapp, American harmonist, 897. 

Ravenna, 57. Its pine forest, 767. Battle 
of, 781. Dante's tomb at, 781. 

Ravenstone, 223, 420. 

Ready money, " is Aladdin's lamp," 865. 

Reason, 394. " Ne'er was hand-and-glove 
with rhyme," 845. 

Red Sea, 748. 

Reformadoes, 847. 

Refreshing, origin of the phrase, 605. 

Reichstadt (Napoleon Franjois Charles 
Joseph), Duke of, 637, 909. 

Reinagle, R. R., his chained eagle, 35. 

"Rejected Addresses," its happy imi- 
tation of Fitzgerald, the small-beer 
poet, 498. 

Religious opinions, folly of prosecutions 
for, 802. 

" Remarks on the Romaic or modern 
Greek language, with specimens and 
translations," 950. 

Rembrandt, 880. 

" Remember him whom passion's pow- 
er," 665. 

" Remembrance," 485. 

" Remind me not, remind me not," 646. 

Remorse, 79, 432. 

Renown, 817. 

Rents, 636. 

Repletion, 787. 

Revenge, 594, 713. 

Revolution, 828. 

Reynolds, Frederick, dramatist, 508. 

Rr'ynolds, Sir Joshua, his sensations on 
visiting the Vatican, 68. His charac- 
ter of Michael Angelo, 599. 

Rhine, 39, 40, 41, 852. 

Rhodes, 744. 

Rhone, 45; "the arrowy," 42. Its color, 
42, 167, 892. 

Rhyme, its excellence over blank verse, 
520, 965. 

Rialto, 174. 

Ribas, Russian admiral, 817. 

Ribaupierre, General, 830. 

Rich, Claudius, Esq., his Memoirs on the 
Ruins of Babylon, 790. 

Richards, Rev. Dr., his "Aboriginal 
Britons," 515. 

Richardson, " the vainest and luckiest of 
authors," 732. 

Richelieu, Duke of, his humanity at the 
siege of Ismail, 801, 824, 832. 

Richmond Hill, 14. 

Ridotto, description of, 178. 



Rienzi, 64. 

Riga, the Greek patriot, 101, 655. His 
Greek war song, "Aevre TraiSes," 951. 
Translation of, 654. 

Ring, the matrimonial, 844. 

"River, that roUest by the ancient 
walls," 684. 

Roberts, Mr. (editor of the British Re- 
view), 696, 731, 956. 

Rochefoucauld, 47, 814. 

Rogers, Samuel, Esq., his " Pleasures of 
Memory," 55, 104, 512. His "Colum- 
bus," 73. Dedication of the "Giaour" 
to, 73. His " Italy," 332, 334, 347, 351, 
353. His translation of Zappi's son- 
net on the statue of Moses, 599. 

"Romaic or modern Greek language, 
remarks on, with specimens and trans- 
lations," 950. 

Romaic war song, 654. 

Romaic love song, 655. 

"Romance muy doloroso del Sitio y 
Toma de Alhama," translated, 677. 

"Romance," Lines to, 474. 

Roman daughter, story of the, 68. 

Romanell, physician, 654, 918. 

Rome described, 55. "The city of the 
soul," 59. The "Niobe of Nations," 
60. Sackage of, 596. 

Romilly, Sir Samuel, 711, 863, 960. 

Romulus, temple of, 940. 

Roncesvalles, 578, 855. 

Rooms, large ones comfortless, 790. 

Rosa Matilda, 511. 

Roscoe's " Leo the Tenth," 140. 

Rose, William Stewart, Esq., his "Son- 
net to Constantinople," 30. His "Es- 
say on Whistlecraft," 171. His charac- 
ter of Pindemonte, 634. 

Rossini, 908. 

Rothschild, Baron, 637, 865. 

Rousseau, Jean Jacques, his "Hgloise," 
43, 46, 814, 891. His " Confessions," 43. 

Rubicon, 631. 

Rumor, " a live gazette," 894. 

Rushton, Robert (the "little page" in 
Childe Harold), 5. 

Russia, 637. 



Sabbath in London, 14. 

Sabellicus, his description of Venice, 50. 

Sadness, 32. 

Safety lamp. Sir Humphry Davy's, 723. 

Saint Angelo, castle of, 68, 371. 

Saint Bartholomew, flayed alive, 788. 

Saint Francis, his recipe for chastity, 804. 

Saint Helena, 629, 631. 

Saint Peter's at Rome, 68, 599. 

Saint Sophia at Constantinople, not to be 
compared with Saint Paul's Cathedral, 
784. 

Sainte-Palaye, M. de, 2. 

Salamis, 75, 119, 632, 765. 

Sallust, 813. 

Salvator Rosa, 880. 

Santa Croce, 56. 

Santa Maura, 24. 

Sappho, 24, 714, 754, 764. 

Saragoza, sieges of, 12. 

Saragoza, Maid of, 12, 633. 

" Sardanapalus, a Tragedy," 290. 

Satanic school, 611, 612, 613. 

"Saul, Song of, before his last Battle," 
552. 

Scaligers, tomb of the, 634. 

Schaffhausen, fall of, 58. 

Scamander, 778. 

Scandal, 693, 717, 728, 869. 

Schiller's Wallenstein, 710. 

Schroepfer, 914. 

Scimitars, Turkish, characters on, 99. 

Scipio Africanus, 368. 

Scipios, tomb of the, 60, 935. 

Scorpion, 79. 

Scotland, 848. 

Scott, Sir Walter, 374, 376, 501, 514, 527, 
629, 847, 866, 961, 966. His " Lay of the 
Last Minstrel," 500, 514, 865, 899. His 
"Marmion," 160. His opinion of "Don 
Juan," 703. His "Demonology," 887. 
Critical notes by, passim. 



Scriptures, 883. 

Sea-attorney, 757. 

Sea-coal fires, 881. 

Sea-sickness, remedies for, 734. 

Scale, Dr. John, his "Greek Metres," 
455. 

Sea-walls between the Adriatic and Ven- 
ice, inscription on, 909. 

Seasons, Thomson's, would have been 
better in rhyme, 965. Inferior to his 
" Castle of Indolence," 965. 

Sggur, Count, his character of Prince 
Potemkin, 818. 

Self-love, 804, 844. 

Semiramis, 292, 294, 295, 300, 790. 

"Sennacherib, Destruction of," 554. 

Senses, duty of not trusting the, 884. 

Seraglio, interior of, 811. 

Serassi, his " Life of Tasso," 568. 

Sesostris, 629. 

Sestos, "Lines after swimming from," 
652. 

Seven Towers, prison of the, 799. 

Seville, 11, 13, 710. 

Sforza, Francesco, 334. 

Sforza, Ludovico, 164. 

Sgricci, Count, 933. 

Shadwell, Sir Lancelot, 375. 

Shadwell, Thomas, 520. 

Shakspeare, his obligations to North's 
Plutarch, 735. His infelicitous mar- 
riage, 757. 

Shaving, miseries of, 886. 

"She walks in Beauty," 549. 

She-epistle described, 884. 

Shee, Sir Martin (president of the Royal 
Academy), his " Rhymes on Art," 513. 

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, Esq., 356, 612, 687, 
961. 

Shelley, Mrs., 356, 961. 

Sheridan, Right Hon. Richard Brinsley, 
562, 563, 862. His " Critic," 956. " Mon- 
ody on the Death of," 562. His Lines 
on Waltzing, 544. 

Sheridan, Thomas, Esq., 508. 

Sheridan, Mrs. Thomas, her " Carwell," 
508. 

Shipwreck, description of a, 735-744. 

Shooter's Hill, 854. 

Shreckhorn, 42. 

Siddons, Mrs., 234, 508, 662. 

" Siege of Corinth," 142. 

Sierra Morena, 11. 

Sigseum, Cape, 778. 

Silenus, 359. 

Simeon, Rev. Charles, 527. 

Simond, M., 622. 

Simoom, 77, 775. 

Simplon, the, 844. 

Sinecures, 910. 

Singing, merit of simplicity in, 779, 907. 

Sinking fund, 913. 

Sisyphus, 892. 

Skeffington, Sir Lumley, 509. 

"Sketch, A," 557. 

"Skull, Lines inscribed upon a cup 
formed from a," 645. 

Slaughter, 39. 

Slave market at Constantinople, 783, 784. 

Slavery of the great. 786. 

Sleep, 747, 748, 772, 905. Sir T. Brown's 
encomium on, 772. 

Smedley, Rev. Mr., his " History of the 
Two Foscari," 948. 

Smith, Rev. Sydney, the reputed author 
of " Peter Plymley's Letters," 507. His 
" twelve-parson power," 849. See " Feter 
Pith," 911. 

Smith, Mrs. Spencer, 650. See " Flor- 
ence." 

Smoking, 200. 

" So we'll go no more a roving," 681. 

Society, 786, 870, 872, 881, 885, 893,-902. 

Socrates, 359, 537, 800, 814, 902. 

Soignies, wood of (remnant of the forest 
of Ardennes), 36. 

Solano, governor of Calais, his treachery, 
17. 

Solitary confinement, efffects.of, 168, 342. 

Solitude, 22, 45, 53, 71, 341, 570, 719, 790, 
829. 

Solitudes, social, 772. 

Solomon, 814, 876. 



INDEX. 



983 



Solyman, Sultan, 799. 

"Song for the Luddites," 681. 

"Song of Saul before his last battle," 
5,52. 

Songs of the Venetian gondoliers, 50, 
722, 926. 

"Sons of the Greeks, arise!" 654. 

Sonnet to Gonevra, 667. On Chillon, 
163. To Lake Loman, 677. From 
Vittorolli, 6S0. To George the Fourth, 
on the repeal of Lord Edward Fitz- 
gerald's forfeiture, 6S5. 

Sonnets, " tlie most pulinp, petrifying, 
stupidly platouic compositions," 667. 

Soracte, Vj. 

Sorrow, 16. .32, 37, 349, 354, 667. 

.•vUheby, William, Esq., 512, 607, 609, 957. 

Soul, 93, 377, 891. 

South, Dr., his sermons, 7oO. 

Southcote, Johanna, 618, 706. 

Southey, Robert, Esq., LL.D., his person 
and manners, 502. His prose and 
poetrv, 502. His " Roderick," 502. His 
'' Thalaba," 502. His " Old Woman of 
Berkley," 502. His "Curse of Ke- 
hama," 532. His " Joan of Arc," 533. 
His "Inscription for Henry Martin 
the rcijicide," 614. His "Pantisoc- 
racy," t66. Dedication of Don Juan 
to, "705. 

Spagnoletto, 8S0. 

Spartan's epitaph, 51. 

Spencer, William, Esq., 607. 

Spenser, his measure, 1, 106. 

Spinola, 5i>7. 

Sporus, Pope's character of, 964. 

Stael, Madame do, 93. 764, 960. Tribute 
to her memory, 9.)3. Her "Corinne" 
quoted, 729. 

Stamboul (Constantinople), 30, 92, 918. 

"Stanzas to a lady on leaving Eng- 
land." 646. To a lady with the poems 
of Camoeas, 4-"2. To Florence, 650. 
Composed during a thunder-storm, 651. 
Written on passing the Ambracian 
Gulf, 652. To Inez, 16. "Tambourgi ! 
Tambourgi! thy 'larum afar," 29. 
"Away, away, ye notes of woe," 658. 
"One struggle more, and I am free," 
658. "And thou art dead," &c., 659. "If 
sometimes in the haunts of men," 659. 
"Thou art not false, but thou art 
fickle," 665. On being asked what was 
the origin of love, 605. "Remember 
him," *c., 665. "To Augusta," 558. 
"Elegiac, on the death of Sir Peter 
Parker," 670. "When a man hath no 
freedom," 686. To the Po, 684. Writ- 
ten on the road between Florence and 
Pisa, 690. " Could love for ever," 685. 
On completing my thirty-sixth year, 
691. To a Hindoo air, 690. 

" Star of the Legion of Honor, On the," 
673. 

Statesmen, 911. 

St \im-enpinc3, 846. 

Stoddart, Sir John, 693. 

Stoics, 786. 

Stonchenge, H-'A. 

Stott (Uafiz of the "Moming^l>ost"), 
500. 

" Strahan, Tonson, LLntot of the times," 
683. 

Strangford, Lord, his "Camogns," 452, 



Rev. Dr., his sermon against Lord 

11,701. 



Suelunius, 768. 

Suicide, 802, 88.5. 

Suli, 24, 28, 76.".. 

Suliotes, their hospitality, 28. 

Sulpi(-iu.s, Serviiis, his l<f t r to Cicero on 

the death of his daughter, 55. 
"SfN of the SIcrple.HS," 553. 
Sunday in Ix.ndon, 14. 
Sunday school, 733. 
.Suniiim, 76.5, 900, 917. 
Sunrise, 748. 
Sunset. 752, 771. 
Superstition, 24, 54, 903. 
Suspense, 120. 
buspiciun, 44, 121. 




Suwarrow, field Marshal, 814, 818, 819, 
820, 821, 822. His "polar melody" on 
the capture of Ismail, 830. His char- 
acter, 836. Brevity of his style, 843. 

Swift, Dr. Jonathan, 527, 729, 730, 814. 

Swoon, 745. 

Sylla, 60, 178, 546, 829. 

Sympathy, 750, 806. 

Symplegades, 71, 654, 784. 

Syracuse, 51. 



Tact, 727. 

Tagus, 7. 

Tahiri, Dervish, 86, 143, 918. 

Talavera, 10. 

Talleyrand, Prince de, 637. 

" Tambourgi ! Tambourgi !" 29. 

Tarpeian rock, 64. 

Tasso, 54, 568, 509, 570, 571, 598, 926, 931, 

963. " Lament of," 567. 
Tassoni, 962. 

Tattersall, Rev. John Cecil, 481. 
Tavel, Rev. G. F. (Lord Byron's college 

tutor), 523. 
Tea, prophetic powers of, 775. 
" Teak, The." 472. 
Tears, 726, 777, 790, 846. 
Tempe, 25. 
Teniers, 881. 
Tepaleen, 26, 27, 923. 
Terni, Falls of, 58. 
Terrot, Rev. Mr., his " Common Sense " 

quoted, 697. 
Thames, 14, 536, 662, 857, 860. 
"The castled crag of Drachenfels,",40. 
"The chain I gave was fair to vieW," 

CGI. 
"The harp- the monarch minstrel 

swept," 549. 
"The Isles of Greece, the Isles of 

Greece," 764. 
" The world is a bundle of hay," 686. 
"The spell is broke, the charm is 

flown," Gr)2. 
" The Wild Gazelle," 550. ■ 
Themistoclcs, Tomb of, 73. Lines by 

Plato upon, 73. / 

" There be none of Beautyji daughters," 

" There was a time, I need not name," 

647. 
"There's not a joy the world can give," 

671. / 

Thermopylise, 75, 59<{, 655, 765. 
Theseus, temple of, 537. 
"They say thAt Hope is happiness," 

680. / 

" This DAYy of all our days," 687. 
Thomson^'nis "'Seasons' would have 

been better in rhyme," 965. 
Thornton, Tliom;}^^ Esq., character of his 
"late of tl*«rt3tt9man Empire," 921. 
:ou gjptr^ot falsci but thou art fickle," 




OUGH the day (jffmy destiny's over," 
/ 
"Thoughts sugg^ested by a college ex- 
amination," 40.^. 
Thra-simene, lak/fe of, 57, a59, 937. Battle 

of, 57, 937. / 
"Through c/budless skies, in silvery 

sheen," 6o2c 
"TiiROUGH/life's dull road, so dim and 

dirty," Ggl. 
"THROUtfii thy battlements, Newstead," 

447. / 
ThuncJfcr-storm on the lake of Geneva 

deafcribcd, 45. 
Thunder-storm near Zitza, Stanzas 
^omposed during, 651. 
yThurlf.w (Thomas Hovcll Thurlow), 
'' second lord, Lines on his "Poem.s," 

666. Verses to, 666. 
"Thy days are done," .551. 
Thyrza, '\Stanza3 to," 657, 658. 
Tiberius, 808. 
Tibullus, his "Sulpicia ad- Cerinthum" 

tran.slated, 449. 
Tillot.Hon, Archbishop. 7.50, 814. 
Timbuctoo, women of, 871. 
Time, 7, 31, 34, 52, 65, 66, 766, 769, 770, 889, 

903. " Lines to," 664. 



Timoleon, 143. 

Timon, 2. 

Timour, 361, 836. 

Tiresias, 891. 

" 'Tis DONE : and shivering in the gale," 
648, 

"'Tis TIME this heart should be un- 
moved," 691. 

Titans, 841. 

Tithes, 871, 909. 

Titian, 880, 909. 

Tittle-tattle, 809. 

Titus, 754. " The master of love," 754. 

" Titus, on the day of the Destruction of 
Jerusalem by," 554. 

Tobacco, 200. 

Tomb, 898. 

Tombs, folly of erecting large ones, 790. 

Tomerit, Mount, 26. 

Tom Jones, "an accomplished black- 
guard," 884. 

Tonson, Jacob, bookseller, 898. 

Tooke, John Home, 623, 905. 

Torture, 121, 796. 

Tournefort, 783, 789. 

Tower of Babel, 790. 

Town and country, 911. 

Town life, 862. 

Townsend, Rev. George, 522. His "Ar- 
mageddon," 522. 

Trafalgar, 24, 71. 

Trajan, 63. His column, 63. 

Translation from Catullus, "ad Les- 
biam," 448. Of the Epitaph on Virgil 
and Tibullus, by Domitius Marsus, 448. 
Of Tibullus, " Sulpicia ad Cerinthum," 
449. From Catullus, " Lug< te, Veneres, 
Cupidincsque," 449. Of Horace's 
"Ju.stum et tenacem," 4 19. Of Anac- 
rcon's MeerovvKTiai? tto9' <Jupai<;. 449. Of 
Anacreon's ©e'Aw Xeyflv ArpetSa?, 450. 
From the Prometheus Viuctus of 
^schylus, 450. From the Medea of 
Euripides, Epcore? vnep, 408. Of the 
Greek war song, Aevre TraiSes, 654. Of 
the Romaic song, " Mttci/w /mes," 655. 
Of a Romaic love song, 6(54. From 
the Portuguese, "Tu mi chamas," 607. 
Of the " Romance muy doloroso d- I 
Sitio y Toma de Alham'a," 077. From 
Vittorelli, "Di duo vaghc donzelle," 
680. 

Trebia, 359. 

Trccentisti, the, 764. 

Tree of knowledge, 722. 

Tree of life, 380. 

Trenck, Baron, 341. 

Trimmer, Mrs., 711. 

Tripoli, 757. 

Triptolcmus, 636. 

Troad, the, 778. 

Troy, 778, 781, 822, 835. 

Truth, stranger than fiction, 893, 902. 

Tully's "Tripoli," 702. 

"Tu mi chamas," translated, 667. 

Turkey, state of manners in, 924. 

Turkey, women of, 800. Their life in 
the harems, 179. 

Turnpike road, 854. 

Turpin, 903. 

Tweddell, John, his account of Suwar- 
row, 830. 

Twilight, 767. 

Twiss, Horace, Esq., 178. 

Tyranny, 51, 163, 573. 

Tyre, 51, 829. 

Tyrian purple, 904. 



TJgolino, 596, 742. 

IJlissipont, 6. 

ITlvsses' dog Argus, 758, 

Ulysses' wliistle, 884. 

Uncertainty, 822. 

Unities, 231,290, 291, 722. 

University education, advantages of, 715. 

Usurers, 740. 

Utraikey, 28. 



Vacancy, .50. 
Vaccination, 723. 



984 



BYRON'S WORKS. 



Valentia, Lord (now Earl of Mount- 
norris), 516. 

" Vampire ; a Fragment," 83. 

" Vanity of Human Wishes," Johnson's, 
769. 

" Vathek," 7, 90, 150. 

Vatican, 69. 

Vauban, 815. 

Velino, 58. 

Venality, 871. 

Venetian dialect, 176. 

Venetian fazzioli, 733. 

Venetian society and manners, 273, 947. 

Venetian noble, sketched by Gritti, 273. 

Venice, 50, 925. Saint Mark's. 51, 927. 
Carnival, 172, 177. Rialto, 174. Man- 
frini palace, 173. Bridge of Sighs, 50, 
925. State dungeons of, 242, 925. Ri- 
dotto, 177, 178. Prophecy respecting, 
274. 

" Venick, Ode on," 572. 

Venus, 55, 751, 776, 783, 912. 

Venus of Medicis, 55, 173, 776, 932. 

Vernet, 880. 

Vernon, Admiral, 708. 

Verona, amphitheatre of, 634. Juliet's 
tomb at, 634. Tombs of the Scaligers, 
634. CJaudian's Old Man of, 634. Con- 
gress at, 633, 863. 

Versatility, 912. 

" Versicles," 681. 

Vespucci, Americo, 597. 

Vesuvius, 631. 

Vicar of Wakefield, 908. 

Vice, 783, 873. 

Victory, 35, 833. 

Vineyards, the best, 881. 

Vintage, 722. 

Virgil, 72, 714, 939. 

Virgin Mary, portraits of, 749, 767. 

Virtues, the, 783. 

Vision of Belshazzar, " The King was 
on his Throne," 553. 

"Vision of Judgment," 611. 

Vittorelli, Sonetto di, 680. 

Voice, fascination of a sweet, 749, 895. 

Voltaire, his character by Lord Byron, 
47. By Dr. Warton, 967. And by Lord 
Holland, 967. His "Vous pleurez," 
968. His defence of the Calas family. 



Wagram, 359. 

Walpole, Sir Robert, his political axiom, 
786. 

Walsh, Rev. Dr. R., his account of Ali 
Pacha's assassination, 27. 

Walton, Izaak, " a quaint old cruel cox- 
comb," 884. Defence of, 884. 

" Waltz, The ; an Apostrophic Hymn," 
541. 

Waltzing, Sheridan's lines on, 544. 

War, 818, 823, 835, 838. 

Warriors, 781. 

Warton, Dr. Thomas, his character of 
Voltaire, 967. 



I Washington, George, 62, 624, 6^2, 823, 838. 

Wat Tyler, Southey's, 611, 962. 

Watch-dog, 722. 

Waterloo, battle of, 6, 38, 41, 631, 635, 827, 
838. 

Watson, Bishop, his reply to the mode- 
rator in the schools of Cambridge, 376. 

Watts, Alaric A., Esq., 694. 

Way, William, Esq., 509. 

Weber (German hack writer), 520. 

"Weep, daughter of a royal line," 661. 

"Well! thou art happy, and I feel," 
645. 

Wellesley, Marquis, 542. 

Wellesley, Sir Arthur, 8. See Welling- 
ton. 

Wellesley, Hon. William Long Pole, 863. 

Wellington, Duke of, 9, 36, 542, 827, 835, 
837, 863, 867. 

Wengern Alp, 42. 

"Were my bosom as false as thou 
deem'st it to be," 553. 

"Werner; or. The Inheritance; a 
Tragedy," 404. 

Werther, Goethe's, 235. 

Wesley, Rev. John, 814. 

West, Mr., American artist, his conver- 
sations with Lord Byron, 701. 

West, Benjamin, Esq., " Europe's worst 
dauber," 539. 

Westminster Abbey, 857, 880. ■> 

" What matter the pangs of a husband 
and father," 686. 

" When a man hath no freedom to fight 
for at home," 686. 

"When all around grew drear and 
dark," 558. 

"When coldness wraps this suffering 
clay," 553. 

"When from the heart where sorrow 
sits," 667. 

"When I roved a young Highlander," 
492. 

"When man, expell'd from Eden's 
bowers," 646. 

" When some proud son of man returns 
to earth," 646. 

"When Time, or soon or late, shall 
bring," 659. 

" When to their airy hall," 447. 

" When Thurlow this damn'd nonsense 
sent," 666. 

" When we two parted," 644. 

Whigs, 863. 

Whist, 766. 

" Whistlecraft," 169, 170, 171, 575, 702, 964. 

Whitbread, Samuel, Esq., 863. "The 
Demosthenes of bad taste," 635. 

White, Henry Kirke, 513. 

White, Lydia, 610. 

White, Rev. Blanco, 15. 

"Who kill'd John Keats?" 687. 

"Why, how now, saucy Tom?" 687. 

Widdin, 99, 785, 820. 

Wilberforce, William, 783. " The Wash- 
ington of Africa," 892. 

Wilkes, John, Esq., 622, 623. 

William the Conqueror, 849. 



Williams, H. W., Esq., his "Travels in 

Greece," 13, 57, 539, 653. 

Willis, Dr., 9. Anecdote of, 526. 

Will o' the wisp, 819. 

Wilson, Professor, 234, 706, 966. Crit- 
ical notes by, passim. 

" Windsor Poetics," 668. 

Wine, 751, 771. 

Wingfield, Hon. John, 18, 481. 

Wisdom, 39, 808. 

Witch of Endor, 218, 552. 

" Without a stone to mark the spot," 667. 

Wives, 758. 

Wolfe, General, 708. 

Wollstoncraft, Mary, 961. 

Woman, 23, 567, 754, 772, 798, 843. 

Woman's love, 728, 754, 772, 797. 

Women, their unnatural situation, 754. 
English, described, 871. Their love of 
match-making, 896. 

Wooden spoons, 768. 

Words, 766. 

Wordsworth, William, Esq., 608, 782, 962, 
963. His "Excursion," 199, 321, 705, 

766, 963. His early poems, 502. His 
"Lyrical Ballads," 962. His "Yarrow 
Unvisited," 704. His "Peter Bell," 
609, 767, 963, 964. His "Wagoners," 

767. His sneer at Dryden, 767. His 
"Laodamia," 772. His description of 
carnage, 824. 

World, the, 178, 862, 886. Its vicissitudes, 
775. Relics of a former, 841. "A 
glorious blunder," 855. The fashion- 
able, 862, 885. " The great," described, 
860, 862, 870, 885. 

Wright, Ichabod, Esq., his translation 
of Dante, 742. 

Wright, Walter Rodwell, Esq., his " Ho- 
rse lonicse," 513, 923. 

Wrinkles, 848. 

Writer, life of a, 958. 

Writing, 965. 



Xantippe, 595. 

Xeres, 634. 

Xerxes, 19, 596, 721, 752, 765. 



Yanina, 26, 89, 793, 918, 9? 
" Yarrow unvisited," 704. 
Young, Dr. E., 862. 
Youth. 258, 732, 770. 



Zanga, 456, 483. 

Zappi, Giovanni Battista, 599. 

Zara, 231, 233, 254. 

Zegri, 633. 

Zeluco, 2. 

Zinghis Khan, 836. 

Ziska, John, 418, 631. 

Zitza, 25, 651. 

Zoroaster, 877. 



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